by Parks, Adele
‘Time. Teenagers in general – specifically, twelve to seventeen year olds – constitute the largest group of missing people. Most children return home very quickly, within twenty-four hours, and nearly all of them come back within three days.’
I am envious of the way Inspector Davis answers Jeff’s questions. She looks him in the eye and is straight. She keeps her tone steady and serious. When she answers my questions she betrays a little more concern. She thinks I can’t handle this. She’s right. Three days. Seventy-two hours. It’s too long. It’s unbearably long. How would she manage alone for that length of time? It’s freezing cold and wet outside. A miserable December wind is throwing leaves and litter along the street. Why would she want to be out in that? Where would she go?
‘Then what? If—’ Jeff stumbles. ‘Does it always take seventy-two hours before it’s a high-risk case?’
‘No. Sometimes new leads come to light, in which case we’d escalate sooner.’
‘And then?’
‘High-risk cases require the immediate deployment of more police officers, the appointment of an investigating officer, a press strategy, family support, and notifications would be sent to the Missing Persons Bureau and, in this case, Children’s Services, as Katherine is under eighteen.’
My head almost cracks with the thought of so many institutions, so many professionals poking around in our lives. I know that these bodies would be working to find my baby girl and bring her back to me but I can’t help but think of Peter being pulled from my arms. I let out a small gasp. There’s not enough oxygen in the air. Miriam Davis looks at me with sympathy. ‘We’re not there yet. I really don’t want you to panic. Try to stay calm.’ I’ve always thought this was a useless expression – as if there is a choice in the matter. I glance over to an officer who has now hacked into Katherine’s social-media accounts; the password is Josh1992. The fog in my mind partially clears. I’m left with something horrible.
‘A paedophile?’ The words unintentionally erupt out of my mouth, like spittle. ‘You are not looking for a boyfriend – it might be a groomer.’
‘We do have to consider all possibilities.’
35
No one has seen her for fourteen hours. No one has received so much as a text. Missing. Everyone continues to talk as though she’ll walk through the door any minute. I wonder if I’m the only one who fears it might not be the case. Do the others – Jeff, his family, the police, our neighbours – all believe in happy-ever-afters? I never have. I was taught at eight years old that the world is cruel and unpredictable, that people go or are taken, when my mother chose to leave with my three brothers. The lesson was reinforced when, at sixteen, I was made to give up Peter. My years with Jeff and Katherine had lulled me into a false sense of security. I was a bloody fool to have let my guard down. To have expected it might all be OK.
Tom calls. ‘No word?’ Even he, with his significantly more casual attitude to parenting, seems perturbed. I can hear a breathless nervousness in his voice.
‘No. None.’
‘What are the police saying?’
‘There’s an alert. Her picture has been circulated within the police force. They are making inquiries.’
‘But what do they think has happened to her?’
‘They are keeping their minds open to a number of possibilities. She might have planned to meet someone and got lost or hurt. She might have planned to run away but got lost or hurt. Or—’ There’re so many worse possibilities. I sigh deeply. ‘They are also considering the chance that whoever she met up with has taken her.’ I have built a wall. It’s huge and made of brick. It’s ridiculously high and dense. The height of a skyscraper, the width of several cars. Behind it are thoughts of what might be. What she might be suffering at this exact moment. Dirty mattresses, a basement, chains, her fear. Shards of these thoughts and images still successfully breach the wall, somehow slither over, but when they ambush me I layer on another pile of bricks, I slather on more cement. I. Block. It. Out. I won’t let that horror seep into my consciousness. I can still try to keep her safe in my mind. ‘Where are you?’ I can hear fast traffic roaring by in the background and I simply ask to detonate the trail of thought that is leading me to such a bleak place.
‘I went to that café you mentioned.’
‘Which café?’
‘The Costa on Bridge Lane. And I’ve also been to the ice rink where Katherine watched Callum play ice hockey. This afternoon, I did that walk we did one Sunday – do you remember?’
‘Yes.’ Tears are in my throat and eyes. I rest my forehead on the hall wall; it feels solid and steady. It might help me stay upright for another minute or so, and every minute counts. I’m glad he’s out there looking for her. I’m glad she has more than Jeff and me.
‘And I’ve stopped by at the Italian restaurant. And Elizabeth Park, where we watched the fireworks, and the rec, where we take Mozart. I thought, perhaps, because they were all happy places, she might have gone to one of them. I’m basically just tramping around anywhere we’ve been together.’
Like Jeff. ‘Thank you.’
‘They were happy places, weren’t they, Alison?’ he insists. He sounds panicked, distressed. I realise he’s near tears, too. I’d pity him, but I have no room. His fear can’t squeeze into my consciousness because my own fear is abundant, all-encompassing.
‘Yes, yes, of course. Look, I need to get off the line, in case she’s trying to get through. I’ll call you the moment there is news.’
‘I understand.’ Then, just as I’m about to hang up, he asks, ‘Alison, are you under any suspicion?’
‘Me?’
‘Well, you and Jeff.’
‘God, Tom.’
‘Sorry, forgive me, but the parents often are. In cases like this. I’m not suggesting. Sorry, I didn’t want to give you something new to worry about.’
‘You couldn’t if you tried. Goodbye, Tom.’
I haven’t eaten dinner, even though Miriam suggested I should, even though someone – a neighbour, I think – heated up a lasagne and set it down in front of me. I’m told that the police are searching CCTV cameras; so far, no one has spotted her. They’ve checked her bank records: no withdrawals or purchases. What is she eating and drinking? We’re being told it is early days, but they also told us the first few hours are vital and that she’d probably be home by bedtime. It’s hard to believe anything that’s said.
Jeff comes home at quarter to eleven. I can smell the cold night air clinging to him. He doesn’t have to say a word: I can see his search was fruitless. When I slipped out of the warm sheets this morning – crumpled with our lovemaking – he was so peaceful and content. That man has disappeared. He is home under duress; the police called him and suggested he needed to get some rest. He said he’d stay up all night, that he couldn’t rest. They told him I needed his support so he was eventually persuaded to come home. I am glad to see him but, really, I agree with him, I would have felt better knowing he was still out there looking for her. I don’t want to think we’ve given up on her for something as prosaic as sleep. Jeff paces the room, desperate to walk the streets again, but we can’t think of where else to look. He suggests going back to all the places he’s already tried, but something stops him from insisting. Maybe he does think I need him here; maybe he can’t stand the idea of not discovering her, all over again. Fear is leaking in, a drop at a time. Drip, drip. We change into our pyjamas and clean our teeth. We do so because it’s automatic and familiar, but doing so seems like a betrayal. I know Katherine has her overnight bag with her, but where is she making her bed? I can’t stand the idea of night, and sleep, and another day. I want to stop time. I want her home now, but time keeps insisting that now is later and later, further and further away from when I last saw her.
Tick, tock. That was then. Completely other. Now, we are here in this unholy horror.
I look into her bedroom. It’s crazy but as I push open the door I half believe she’s going to be curle
d up in bed, under her pale-blue duvet, waiting for me to talk about her day, kiss her forehead and say goodnight. There’s the usual teenage debris – discarded clothes, magazines, books – scattered about; nothing more. The emptiness of the room almost floors me. I can smell her shower gels and perfumes lingering in the air. Ghostly.
Jeff and I lie on our bed side by side, staring at the ceiling, not touching. I suppose I feel I’m not entitled to any comfort his body might give me. His hand clasping mine seems like an indulgence; something Katherine doesn’t have right now and, as such, something I ought to deny myself. ‘Don’t forget that the police are continuing their search,’ mumbles Jeff. I nod, imagining them looking in doorways and on park benches, in sheds and under bridges.
‘How did we let this happen, Jeff?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I thought I was being so careful.’
But I know how it happened. It’s all my fault. I have too much. I’m being punished. I can’t hold on to it all. I can’t hold on to anything.
After a while I curl on my side, facing away from Jeff, in the foetal position. I breathe in the smell of my own sweat and fear. The smell of human frailty.
36
The early blue morning light pushes its way into the kitchen. Cold and no comfort. The room is almost unrecognisable. The bespoke cream country-kitchen cabinets and black marble tops look austere, harsh, rather than reassuringly expensive; besides, there are countless tea and coffee cups pocking every surface, half full of abandoned slick, grey drinks that couldn’t cheer or console. The pendant lights cast gloomy shadows and the fruit in the bowl looks past its best. I move the word magnets around the fridge, decimating Jeff’s haiku. And write Where are you? Jeff’s laptop is droning quietly; I’m trying to look for a more recent photo of Katherine for the police to release. The task is difficult, awful. I reject some photos because they don’t look exactly like her: she looks too young, or too grown up, too thin or as though she’s carrying baby fat. I want the photo to be accurate; it will help the most if she’s obviously, unequivocally recognisable. Other photos I reject because, while I love them, I know she does not; I remember her grimacing and commenting that her smile looks ‘weird’ in one and her eyes are ‘wrong’ in another. This photo is going everywhere: on the news, in the local paper, it will be pinned to local community noticeboards and tied to lamp posts, along with the flyers advertising rug sales. I don’t want to upset her. I’ve developed a new fantasy. Instead of imagining the moment she tells me she has a clutch of GCSE A and A-star grades, she belligerently berates me for using the wrong photo in her search and now it’s ubiquitous. And I laugh at her outrage and I don’t care. Because she’s home.
I am still nursing a cup of coffee that Jeff made at 4 a.m., when we admitted to ourselves and each other that we were awake and never going to find sleep. The police officers and the Family Liaison Officer will be back at nine o’clock, ten at the latest. But right now we’re alone. Never more so. The house is other. Without Katherine, it is not home, it’s nowhere in particular.
Jeff showers and dresses. After being asked twice, I haul myself up off the kitchen stool, my body a lead weight. I don’t shower, I pull on the clothes I was wearing yesterday. I haven’t the energy or imagination to think what else to wear.
When there is a knock at the door I almost push Jeff over in an effort to get to it first. I am light-headed with relief. I’m not angry with her now, the fury and worry have been swallowed hours ago. All I feel is hope. Glorious hope and relief. My arms ache with the desire to hold her.
It’s not Katherine.
It’s not Jeff’s sister or his dad, although I know they are now on their way – we weren’t able to fob them off any longer – it’s not Inspector Davis and her team. It’s a woman in her late thirties, she’s about six months pregnant and I’ve no idea who she is or why she’s standing on our doorstep at seven in the morning. She has a broad mouth which I don’t doubt is usually cracked open into a wide, joyful grin, but today it is set, determined. Resentment that she’s not Katherine causes me to sound more curt than necessary. I fold my arms across my chest.
‘Alison?’
‘Yes. Who are you? Do you have any information about my daughter?’
‘I’m Annabel Truby. Can I come in?’
The world tips. Again. I feel it lurch and slide. ‘Annabel Truby?’
‘Yes.’
A woman. Pale. Freckled. Alive.
Stuttering, I protest, ‘I don’t understand – are you a relative of Tom’s? You have the same name as his wife.’
‘I am his wife. Or, rather, his ex-wife.’ I know at once she is. That this isn’t a hoax or a peculiar joke. I now recognise her from the odd photo I’ve seen of her at Tom’s. Her hair is shorter, and obviously the pregnancy has changed her shape, but she is Annabel. Annie, Anna, Bel, Bella. I am crumpled. Dazed. She looks awkward, glances back down the drive towards her car, which she’s parked on the road. I see Olivia sitting in the car. Deathly white. Almost opaque. I don’t reply, can’t think of anything to say, but open the front door wider. Annabel steps inside, signalling for Olivia to come, too. She scrambles out of the car, almost missing her footing. I cannot stop staring at Annabel. She’s back from the dead.
Jeff offers to make tea, tells her we have fruit teas and decaf. He can’t stop staring at her either. She smiles swiftly, glad of his thoughtfulness, but asks for a glass of water.
‘Olivia?’ She shakes her head. Her gaze is fixed on her Adidas trainers. Too embarrassed to meet our eyes. Too angry? Too disappointed? I don’t know. Gently, he tries to persuade her; ‘We have mango smoothie.’ She glances at him and her mouth moves a little. That thing teenagers do, a reluctant half-smile, something that hints at a thawing. ‘Your favourite.’
I had noticed that Jeff has recently taken to buying mango smoothies. I thought perhaps he was on some sort of health kick, an unsuccessful one at that, because as often as not the smoothie went undrunk and I threw it out, congealed and well past its ‘best by’ date. He’s been buying the drink especially for Olivia, in the hope that one day she’d visit. It’s touching. If there wasn’t so much to think about, I’d feel impressed and also a little cowed by his thoughtfulness and knowledge. He pours her a glass and fetches water for Annabel.
‘So Annabel, you are—’
‘Pregnant,’ she interrupts. ‘Yes. I am. Not Olivia.’ I can hear a fierceness in her tone. Olivia has clearly told her that we thought she was pregnant; she’s affronted and defensive, as any mother would be if her fifteen-year-old daughter had been wrongly confronted with such a charge. I hardly think that’s the issue. It seems a million years ago since I was concerned that Olivia might be pregnant and talked to her so spectacularly unsuccessfully in the café. I open my arms in a helpless gesture.
‘I was going to say alive.’ Annabel looks confused. ‘Although, I’m happy for you, Olivia. You’re too young to be a mother.’ The comment is throwaway because Annabel is alive. ‘We thought you were dead.’
‘What?’ Annabel glances from me, to Jeff and back again. I can’t think of any way to temper the blow.
‘Tom told us you had died of cancer.’ She blanches. Olivia stumbles. Jeff quickly pulls out a kitchen stool and Olivia climbs on to it, obedient, like the child she is. ‘You can’t be serious,’ she mumbles. Jeff nods sadly.
‘But that’s sick.’
Annabel opts for the cosier armchair; she sinks into it. There is something about her that’s confident and graceful, even though she’s heavily pregnant. I always knew that would be the case. Even in this dire situation she seems controlled.
I, on the other hand, am rendered speechless and useless with shock and fear. Tom lied to us. A monumental, huge, ugly lie. Why?
Jeff picks up the mantle. He keeps his hand on Olivia’s shoulder but directs his conversation at Annabel. ‘Tom told us that you died from ovarian cancer. He said you also had breast cancer and lung cancer. That you were riddled with
it. Those were his words.’ He turns to me for confirmation. I nod. My chest is aching. I don’t know how I’m going to take in my next breath. Assaulted by shock after shock, I don’t understand what’s real.
‘He seemed broken,’ I stutter. ‘Grief-stricken. He told me about tending you through two years of illness. We’ve talked about him bringing the kids up alone.’ I think of Tom’s grief, how he often seemed sad and lonely.
‘He said the cancer was caused by a hereditary mutated gene. He told us Katherine might have the gene.’ Jeff sounds angrier. I realise that my head is as thick and useless as wet cotton wool. He seems to be leaping faster than I can. He looks distraught: he’s joined dots that are only just coming into focus for me.
‘I did have cancer. That’s true,’ says Annabel carefully. ‘Tom did help me through that awful time. He was a rock. It was breast cancer, not ovarian, obviously.’ Her eyes flick down to her enormous, blooming body. ‘But it was not a hereditary cancer.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ I splutter. ‘You had breast cancer?’
‘Yes. Five years ago. It’s not, as far as anyone knows, hereditary.’
‘You don’t have a mutated gene?’
‘No.’
‘Did your mother die of breast cancer?’
‘No. She’s alive and kicking.’ Then, as though she’s talking to a child, Annabel says gently, ‘Katherine will not get cancer. Well, she might, the way anyone might, but she hasn’t inherited it from me. I didn’t inherit it from my mother.’
‘Oh my God.’ Hearing this news is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Relief pours through my body. Katherine is not going to inherit a mutated gene. Katherine is no more likely to be blighted with cancer than the next girl. The relief, the delight, is chased by cold, bleak terror. Where is she? ‘But Tom said Katherine might die. That she needed counselling. A test.’