by Jane Shemilt
At supper, I walked round the table, delivering naan bread to each plate. Naomi was sitting at one end, close to Nikita, heads touching. Bright blonde and shining dark. I paused for a moment, pleased to see them together.
‘When?’
It was the awed note in Nikita’s voice that caught my attention.
‘Thursday. Hey, what do you want?’ Naomi swung round and looked at me accusingly. ‘You’re not allowed to listen in.’
‘Here’s your naan, darling.’ I’d let it go. I had to, tonight. ‘Here is yours, Nik. I just caught something about Thursday.’
Naomi’s face became smooth. ‘We’re all going out after the play on Thursday, to celebrate.’
‘Thursday? But Friday is the last night.’
‘Exactly. There’s a party then, but some of us wanted to hang out and talk, so we thought we’d go for a meal on the second to last night.’ She looked at me questioningly.
‘Sounds good to me, sweetheart. Just don’t overdo it.’
She was busy with performances after that and hardly at home. In the end I didn’t have time to talk to her, as I had promised myself I would. Three days later she came into the kitchen with her plastic bag and her different smile. Then she vanished.
11
DORSET 2010
ONE YEAR LATER
Mary’s hand, a little twisted claw, holds the edge of the rug as I tuck it round her on the sofa. There is a pause. Her cheeks flush, she seems embarrassed.
I blurt out quickly, ‘Don’t worry. I used to work as a GP so I’m used to people fainting. I saw the pills for blood pressure. Perhaps … you should have a check-up?’
‘Those wretched pills. More trouble than they’re worth. You’ve been very kind, my dear.’
There is another little pause. I sense the questions about me collecting, unasked.
‘You’re welcome.’ Bertie follows me to the door. I turn back for a moment. ‘Sorry he ate all the cat food.’
‘That kitten is getting too fat.’ Her pale blue eyes sparkle. ‘Come back soon. I’ll make the tea next time.’
I say goodbye and shut her door carefully. Without meaning to, I have made a friend. And I realize that during the last hour the fear that has been shadowing me for a year moved back a little.
BRISTOL 2009
THE NIGHT OF THE DISAPPEARANCE
After the police left, we heard their car move away, the sound of the tyres on the wet tarmac becoming fainter. Outside, pale grey light was edging the dark air out of the garden, and as I pushed the window open my elbow knocked over a little stack of books on the sill. I picked up a red exercise book and read ‘Naomi Malcolm. Chemistry’, written in careful italics. Red hearts had been drawn all over it in biro; several had been too heavily inked and were slightly smudged. I let my hand rest on the soft paper for a moment.
Ted went upstairs to sleep for an hour.
I stood in the kitchen alone and it came at me. Raw fear, fierce and sudden. I bent my head to catch my breath, as if I was battling against a wind. My hands felt as if they would burst with terror, my face hurt, my scalp crawled painfully. Tight pulses of dread travelled from the back of my mouth to my sternum; when I put my hand over that hard dagger of bone, it seemed to be throbbing. My thighs were weak. It was difficult to walk.
As the bile rose up my throat and through my nose, it came to me suddenly that this could be the moment she was dying and that was why I felt like dying.
I retched again and again, and it took all my strength to wipe the tears and vomit off my chin with toilet paper. Afterwards, I closed the lavatory seat and, kneeling beside it, laid my head on my arm across the lid. In the corner, where the lino met the wall, I saw a triangular stain of old urine and a fragment of yellow paper from a tampon cover.
I went into the kitchen. It was getting light. Half past seven. The boys would be up soon for school. That yellow paper could have been there for weeks, but my thoughts spiralled downwards: what happens to normal cycles if the body dies? Blood would continue to leak for a while, cooling as the body temperature dropped. I checked the clock again. Eight hours had passed since she should have been home. She wasn’t dead. No. She was in a motorway café, her mouth round the rim of a cup of hot chocolate, or on the wide wet sand of an early morning beach, playing Frisbee. A cold slice of bare skin would be visible where her trousers slid down each time she stretched her arms. She had decided not to phone, but I wasn’t angry. I’d never be angry again. I would understand everything. I promised. I promised God I would go to church every bloody day for the rest of my life if she could be safe.
I climbed the stairs slowly. It would feel like this to be old. Every movement slow and difficult. Ted was lying asleep on the top of the bed. He had kicked his shoes off and his jacket was over a chair. His mouth was open and he was snoring quietly. The soft rattle that often kept me awake was comforting now. It seemed so innocent. I lay down next to him. Not touching but close enough to let his warmth seep into me. Mad fragments of words hit against the lining of my skull. The inside of my eyelids were red.
Outside, birds began to sing.
12
DORSET 2010
ONE YEAR LATER
The wind has got up while I’ve been with Mary; a storm is brewing. Between the thatched roofs, the cliffs in the distance bloom emerald against a sky that has darkened to a glowing grey. I am caught, wondering how to match that intensity in paint. Even as I watch, the light drains and the sky becomes ashy, then a flash of lightning cuts the grey. As I reach my door there is a crack of thunder. Bertie whines. The rain starts, soaking us in a moment as I struggle with the lock, my wet hands slippery. I notice that the rain has made the skin look tanned and unfamiliar. Inside there is a dull thudding sound; upstairs a window has blown open and is banging against the outside wall. The crashing of the waves on shingle comes through the window. As I reach for the window handle the wind whips my hair and blows icy rain into my face, so it’s hard to breathe. The raw power of the storm is terrifying but exhilarating; a different kind of fear from the cold dread that has waited for me each morning for a year.
BRISTOL 2009
ONE DAY AFTER
I woke, immediate terror wrapping tightly round me. Next to our room I could hear Theo stumbling out of bed, walking to his shower, turning it on, singing. I knew his eyes would be almost closed. The sound of the water woke Ed in the next room, and I could hear the noisy yawns that dwindled to quiet mutterings and sighs. I looked at my watch: 8.30 a.m. I wished I could stretch out this time of their not knowing.
Downstairs the lights were still on. The smell of coffee made me nauseous again.
I put cereal and bowls on the table. Milk, juice, spoons. The boys came down. I waited, searching for the right tone.
‘Naomi’s not here.’
I thought my voice sounded normal but the boys halted in their tracks. Theo, leaning against the table and drinking orange juice from the carton, jerked it away from his mouth. Ed, pouring cereal, scooped the box up, catching the stream of oats. They waited.
‘She … didn’t come home last night. She wasn’t doing what she’d said she would be …’
‘So?’ They both said it together.
Ed shrugged. ‘What’s the fuss about?’
I caught at that gratefully; was that what it seemed to be, then? A fuss? A chink of hope opened.
‘She had told us she was going out for a meal with the cast but we think she met someone else instead – we don’t know who yet.’
‘So?’ said Ed, again.
Theo looked blank. ‘How do you know?’
‘We asked Nikita.’
‘You made Nikita tell you Naomi’s secrets?’ Ed sounded incredulous.
‘Ed, we waited till half past two in the morning …’
‘Christ, so you spoke to Nikita in the middle of the night?’ Ed’s tone was furious. He pulled out the cutlery drawer so fiercely knives and forks clattered onto the floor. ‘Fuck.’ He bent to pick them up
, dumping them down loudly on the table.
‘The police may come to your school today to ask questions,’ I told them both. ‘They may even talk to you.’
‘The police as well? She’s probably sleeping it off with a friend.’ He looked at me angrily. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe you.’
‘Did she mention anything to either of you?’
Ed shook his head briefly and walked out then, not waiting for Theo. I was shaken by his anger. I didn’t understand where it came from, but it had offered me something. We were just making a fuss.
‘She didn’t say anything to me either.’ Theo’s fair eyebrows were drawn together in a tight V, the tender skin in narrow parallel ridges above them. ‘But she hasn’t been talking to me as much as she used to.’ His words came slowly, as though he was realizing this for the first time. ‘I s’pose she hasn’t been here as much, the play …’ His voice trailed off uncertainly. Then he looked at me, his voice thin with worry. ‘Where’s Dad? Does he know?’
‘What do you think, Theo? Course he knows.’ I put my arm round him. ‘We were up most of the night. He’s still asleep.’
‘What’s going to happen?’ He sounded lost.
‘Sweetheart, we’re going to find her. The police are helping.’ I tried to sound as if I believed what I was saying, as if my head wasn’t filled with screaming questions.
‘The police. God. Okay.’ He hovered. ‘I’ll ask people. I expect she’ll just, you know, phone or text.’
‘Yes. Thanks, darling.’
He leant over, the soft stubble of his cheek briefly grazing my face before he left.
I don’t know how long I sat at the table. The room began to swim, the hot rims of my eyelids slowly touched together. My head must have been dipping towards the table because, when the phone rang, the noise wrenched me upright.
‘Detective Constable John Harrison.’
‘Yes?’
‘From the Criminal Investigation Department. So, Mrs Malcolm – sorry, Dr Malcolm.’
‘Yes?’
‘No news at the moment. We’ve checked all the hospitals. Naomi hasn’t been admitted, which of course is a good thing. We phoned the school and I’m going there soon to interview some of the teachers and the girls.’ His voice was serious. The chink of hope closed again. He knew we weren’t making a fuss.
‘I’d better let them know.’
‘No need. We’ve done that. One of the team will come and see you again around midday. They will need to interview your other children as soon as possible.’
‘Theo and Ed?’
So they were suspects? Why the hell weren’t the police scouring the countryside for a man and a frightened girl in a car? A bloke, that’s what she had told Nikita. That told us nothing. He could be tall and striking with powerful shoulders strong enough to overwhelm her. He could be the opposite, younger, smaller, ordinary-looking, maybe a kind face, so she was tricked into liking him. Could she really have gone with him on purpose, having arranged it in secret? There was hope in that thought but I knew it was false; she wouldn’t have left home without telling us. Not after a lifetime of warnings about strangers and cars.
‘Well, Dr … Mrs …’ Perhaps I wasn’t a fellow professional after all, perhaps I was just a mother with a missing child; he was confused.
‘Jenny.’
‘Okay. Jenny. Just routine procedure. Pays dividends in the end.’
‘Routine procedure for a routine disappearance?’
Somewhere she might be whispering my name.
‘I didn’t mean that, Jenny. You would be surprised how many young people disappear for a while, then turn up, right as rain. In the meantime, we leave no stone unturned. Play it by the book, as it were.’
There must be lists of clichés in his notebook; I wondered if they were alphabetically ordered. Perhaps he had separate entries for each occasion … disappearance, abduction, rape, murder.
‘The thing is, Constable …’ I stopped and breathed in slowly, like they teach you in antenatal classes, for when the contractions come. Breathe in and count. Let it out slowly. ‘The thing is, I don’t know how to do this waiting.’
His voice changed and became more real.
‘You hang on, Jenny, you hang on tight.’
My eyes stung.
I went back upstairs. Ted was in exactly the same position; the creases across his shirt hadn’t altered. I ran a hot bath and lay in it for a few moments, then, towel round me, phone in my hand, still wet, I crawled in under the duvet. Blackness came instantly, as though I had been hit.
When the doorbell rang I fell out of bed, pulled on jeans and Ted’s jersey, and I was downstairs by the time it sounded again.
The man on the doorstep was completely still. There was an unsmiling moment of appraisal. He was stocky, grey hair against a weather-beaten face, tight lines fanning from the grey eyes. Sad mouth. At some time his nose must have been broken. His face wasn’t quite symmetrical; perhaps the left eye was bigger than the right or else a slightly different shape. He looked carefully at my unmade-up face, tangled hair, large jersey, old jeans, bare feet, and saw, I supposed, another victim.
‘Michael Kopje. Family liaison officer.’
His South African accent was immediately familiar, taking me back in a flash to my gap year in a mission centre in South Africa and to the tough farmers in battered pick-ups, coping with drought and cattle disease. Capable in a crisis.
His handshake was brief and firm.
‘Like the hill?’ Did I say that? In spite of everything?
The lines round his eyes deepened, and for an instant his lips smiled, but then they went back to being downturned. He didn’t ask me how I knew and I was glad. I didn’t want the exchange about Africa, if he knew my Africa or if I knew his.
‘I’m Jenny. Come in.’
I took him to the kitchen, switched on the kettle and went upstairs to wake Ted. He got up instantly and came down with me. I followed his eyes to the clock. Midday.
‘It’s been over twelve hours since our daughter should have returned. The only support we need is information,’ Ted said. He sat down opposite Michael Kopje, staring at him across the table.
‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘So, what can you tell us?’
‘I had the chance to speak to the drama teacher earlier, a Mrs Mears, and to the whole cast of the play. A girl called’ – he quickly pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket – ‘Nikita gave us some information about Naomi.’
I didn’t like the way he said her name, calmly, as if he knew her. I sat next to Ted and took his hand. I felt a sudden flash of anger. We would never have met this Michael Kopje if Naomi was here, but by malevolent fate he, a stranger, was assuming possession of her name. I glared into his grey eyes and he looked down; in that second I saw he recognized how I felt and some of the clenching fury began to fade. He left a little pause and then began talking again, quietly.
‘The girls were left to change after the end of the play, but they weren’t alone in the building. Mrs Mears said an older boy was waiting in the lobby so she left them, also knowing the caretaker would be along later to lock up.’
‘What boy?’
He hesitated a moment. ‘Edward. Your son.’
‘Ed?’
‘He told Mrs Mears he was going to walk Naomi home.’
I sat there stunned. So Ed had been there and he hadn’t told us. Nor had Nikita.
‘Please carry on, Mr Kopje.’ Ted was sitting stiffly, his mouth set.
‘Call me Michael. Nikita told us that Naomi was due to meet a man. She wanted to wait with her but Naomi told her not to bother; Ed was there, you see. When Nikita’s mother picked her daughter up the theatre was apparently empty. What time did Ed come home last night?’
‘I don’t know. I fell asleep.’
Michael’s eyes seemed to widen at this. Did I seem like a careless mother, whose children were allowed to wander in at any time of night, unchecked? I hadn’t m
eant to fall asleep. I was sometimes so tired that sleep overtook me as soon as I sat down. It was pointless to explain any of this, how could it matter now?
‘It seems as though Ed left almost immediately after Nikita,’ Michael said.
‘He should have bloody well stayed,’ Ted whispered.
I punched Ed’s number on my phone but it went straight through to voicemail.
Michael continued, as if he hadn’t heard Ted. ‘Nikita told me she knows almost nothing about this man. Naomi first mentioned him about two weeks ago. Nikita thought he might have been there in the back of the theatre on one occasion, but she never saw him close up.’
‘Someone would have seen a stranger, surely?’ I shifted in my seat, leaning forward. ‘If you ask the teachers …’
‘I was coming to that. Mrs Mears told us she once saw a man in a seat at the back of the theatre during a rehearsal. She thinks she saw Naomi getting up from the seat next to him. Apparently she told Naomi that friends and parents weren’t allowed to come to rehearsals. Naomi told her that she hadn’t invited him, he’d just turned up anyway.’
As Michael paused, I wondered if the man had been at the performance we saw. I searched in my mind for a stranger hovering at the edge of the room somewhere during the interval. Had there been someone by a pillar, a tall figure half hidden or a turned head at the bar, someone looking sideways towards our group? Perhaps. But I could just as easily be imagining it.