It was their favourite place for a year, maybe two, when they were into that hideous pink phase. Pink duvets. Pink Barbies. Pink tent bought from some catalogue and filled with all manner of girly paraphernalia. He had always refused to go near the thing. Now he wanted more than anything in the world to forget the milking and the hay, the VAT forms and the bank, and to float out there and make a little fire to cook sausages for their breakfast. Proper camping, like he promised to do so many times, but never did.
Now an almighty crash from the kitchen brings him back inside. She is picking up tins from the floor – a collection of bun and baking cases in all manner of sizes and shapes.
‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘Plum slices.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Barbara.’
Anna’s favourite. A sort of flapjack with spiced stewed plums through the middle. He can smell the cinnamon: the spice jar is tipped over on the kitchen surface, the pungent spill a neat tiny hill.
Oh, Barbara.
He watches her picking up all the tins, her hands trembling, and simply cannot bear it.
And so, instead of helping and trying to be in any way kind or even decent, he goes into his study and sits by the phone so that five, maybe ten minutes later, he is the first to see the police car pull up again on the drive outside.
Something terrible wrenches in his stomach then, and he actually thinks for a moment of barricading the door – a ridiculous image of all the hallway furniture piled up high so that they cannot come in. There are two of them this time. A man and a woman. The man in a suit and the woman in uniform.
By the time he is in the hall, his wife is standing in the kitchen doorway in her apron, wiping her hands dry over and over and over. He turns to look at her for just a moment, and her eyes plead with him and with God and with justice.
He opens the door – Anna and Jenny rushing in with their school bags and tennis rackets, chucking them all onto the floor. Relief. Relief. Relief.
Then for real.
Their faces say it.
‘Have you found her?’
The man in his creased high-street suit just shakes his head.
‘This is the family liaison officer. PC Cathy Bright. We talked about her on the phone?’
He can say nothing. Mute.
‘Is it all right if we come in, Mr Ballard?’
A nod. All he can muster.
In the study they all sit and there is a strange shushing noise, flesh on flesh, as his wife rubs her palms together, and so he reaches out to take her hand. To stop the noise.
‘As we said before, the police in London – the Metropolitan team – they are doing everything they can. They’ve fast-tracked the case, given Anna’s age. The circumstances. They are in contact with us constantly.’
‘I want to go to London. To help—’
‘Mr Ballard. We discussed this. Your wife needs you here and there are things we need help with here, too. It is better for now, please, if we can concentrate on gathering all the information that we need. If there is any news – anything at all – I promise you that you will be told and we will arrange transport immediately.’
‘So has Sarah remembered anything? Said anything more? We would like to speak to her. If we could just speak to her.’
‘Sarah is still in shock. It’s understandable. There is a specialist team on hand and her parents are with her now. We are all trying to get what information we can. Officers in London are going over all the CCTV footage. From the club.’
‘I still don’t get it. Club? What were they doing in a club? There was nothing in the plan about any club. They had tickets for Les Misérables. We expressly said that—’
‘And there is a new development which may throw some light on that, Mr Ballard.’
The sound his throat makes as he tries to clear it seems too loud. Gutteral. Gross.
‘A witness has come forward. Someone who was on the train.’
Phlegm. In his throat.
‘Witness. What do you mean, witness? Witness to what? I’m not understanding.’
The two police officers exchange a look, and the woman moves to the chair next to Barbara.
The detective does the talking. ‘A woman who was sitting near Anna and Sarah on the journey has phoned in after the police appeal. She says she overheard the two girls striking up an acquaintance with two men on the train.’
‘What do you mean, acquaintance? What men? I’m not following you.’ His wife is now gripping his hand more tightly.
‘From what she heard, Mr and Mrs Ballard, it appears that Anna and Sarah may have become friendly with two men. Who are known to us.’
‘Men? What men?’
‘Men who had just got out of prison, Mr Ballard.’
‘No. No. She must be mistaken . . . There’s no way. Absolutely no way.’
‘The police in London are going to try to speak to Sarah some more about this. Urgently. And to this witness. As I say, we just need to piece together as much detail as we can about what happened before Anna went missing.’
‘It’s been hours and hours.’
‘Yes.’
‘They’re sensible girls, officer. You understand that? Good, sensible girls. Brought up right. We would never – never – have let them go on the trip if we didn’t—’
‘Yes. Yes. Of course. And you must try very hard to stay positive. Like I say. We are doing everything we possibly can to find Anna, and we will keep you informed every step of the way. Cathy can stay with you. Answer any questions you may have. I’d just like to have another look at Anna’s room, if I may. We are hoping there may be a diary. Have a look at her computer. That sort of thing. Could you show me, Mr Ballard? While Cathy perhaps makes a cup of tea for your wife. Yes?’
He isn’t listening now. He is thinking that she didn’t want them to go. His wife. She said they were too young. It was too far. Too soon. He was the one who spoke up for the trip. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Barbara. You can’t baby them forever. The truth? He felt Anna needed to step away from the apron strings.
Away from the plum slices.
But it wasn’t only that. Dear God.
What if they found out that it wasn’t only that?
CHAPTER 3
THE FRIEND
In a stuffy twin room of the inappropriately named Paradise Hotel in London, Sarah can hear her mother’s voice whispering her name and so keeps her eyes resolutely shut.
It is a different room now. Identical but on a different floor. The one in which she unpacked with Anna remains off limits, though Sarah cannot understand why. Anna did not go back there. Did they not believe her? She did not come back here. OK?
In this room there is still a horrid, ill-defined smell. Something that reminds her of the back of a cupboard. Hide-and-seek as a child. With her eyes closed, Sarah wishes she could play the game right now. Ignore the smell and the temperature, her mother and the police, and play hide-and-seek. Yes. The time-slip version in which Anna is drying her hair around now – the tongs already hot for straightening afterwards – blabbing on above the drone of the motor about what they should do today. Which shop should they visit first? And was Sarah serious about trying on the Stella McCartney range because the assistant would be able to tell from their clothes that they weren’t actually going to buy anything.
Anna. Sweet, infuriating Anna. Too skinny. Too beautiful. Too—
‘Are you awake, love? Can you hear me, darling?’
Sarah, facing away from her mother still, opens her eyes and winces at the light fighting through the chink in the curtains to shape a triangle on the wall. She had lain on the bed fully clothed, refusing to get under the covers, so sure there would be news by now. Any minute. They would find her any minute.
‘I’m glad you managed to drop off, love. Even just an hour. I’ve made us some tea.’
‘I don’t want anything.’
‘Just a sip. Two sugars. You need to get something inside you. Some sugar—�
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‘I said I can’t face it. All right?’
Her mother is in the same trousers as yesterday but a fresh blouse now, and Sarah is thinking it is both typical and somehow inappropriate that she thought to bring a clean blouse.
‘Your father’s arrived. He’s downstairs. He’s been with the police mostly. They want to speak to you again. When you feel—’
‘I’ve told them everything I can remember already. Hours of it. And I don’t want to see my father. You shouldn’t have called him.’
Sarah and her mother lock eyes.
‘Look, I know it’s difficult, darling. You and your dad. But the thing is, he does care. And they’ve had some call, the police, that they want to talk to you about. After the coverage on the telly.’
‘Call?’
‘Yes. From some woman on the train.’
‘Woman? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What woman?’
Sarah can feel the same gaping hole in her stomach that she felt in those first terrible hours, while she waited with the police for her mother. While she was still woozy from the booze. Disorientated. Where are you, Anna? Where the hell are you?
Trying to give the officers just enough detail to make them take it all seriously but not enough to—
She gets up quickly now, feeling the crumple of her linen shirt against her waist as she moves, fussing with the hairbrushes, make-up bags and other junk on the dressing table.
‘Have you got the remote? I need to see the news. What they’re saying. What are they saying?’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sarah. Drink your tea. I’ll tell your dad you’re awake. That they can come up now.’
‘I’m not speaking to them again. Not yet.’
‘Look, darling. I realise this is awful. For you. For all of us.’ Her mother is moving across the room now. ‘But they’ll find her, love. I’m sure they will. She probably went off to some party and is afraid she’s in trouble.’ She puts her arm around Sarah’s shoulders – the mugs of tea now positioned amid the chaos of the dressing table – but Sarah shrugs her off.
‘Are Anna’s parents here?’
‘Not yet. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s been decided about that. The police wanted to check some things with them in Cornwall.’
‘What things?’
‘Computers or something. I don’t know. I don’t exactly remember, Sarah. It’s all been a blur. They just want to get all the information they can to help with this. With the search.’
‘And you think I don’t? You think I don’t feel bad enough?’
‘No one’s blaming you, love.’
‘Blaming me? So why say blaming me if no one’s blaming me?’
‘Sarah . . . love. Don’t be like this. They’re going to find her. I know they are. I’ll ring downstairs.’
‘No. I need you to leave me alone. All of you. I need you to just leave me alone now.’
Sarah’s mother takes her mobile from her pocket and is just feeling around for her glasses when there is a tap at the door.
‘That’ll probably be them now.’
It is the same detective as before, but with a different woman police officer this time and Sarah’s father alongside.
‘So, is there any news?’ Sarah’s mother begins to raise her body from the chair but slumps back down as their heads shake a ‘no’ in stereo.
‘Did you manage to rest, Sarah? Feel OK to talk some more now?’ It is the woman police officer.
‘I wasn’t drunk. When we spoke before. I wasn’t drunk.’
‘No.’
The adults all look from one to the other.
‘We’ve had a look at the CCTV, Sarah. From the club.’ It is the detective’s voice now – firmer. ‘Some of the cameras weren’t working, unfortunately. But there are some things we’re not quite understanding, Sarah. Also, we’ve had a call from a witness.’
‘A witness?’
‘Yes. A woman on the train.’
She feels it instantly. The frisson. The giveaway. The cooling as the blood shifts.
Draining from her face.
ONE YEAR ON
JULY 2016
CHAPTER 4
THE WITNESS
I never deluded myself.
I always knew what this week would be like. One part of me longing for it: the slim hope the anniversary coverage might kick-start things again for the investigation. But the other part: pure dread. People giving me that look again. That woman. Do you remember? The woman who didn’t say anything. On the train. Do you remember? When that girl disappeared? Christ – is it a year ago already?
But I do still want it – the reconstruction on Crimecatchers, for the family. That poor mother. I just don’t want to be a part of it.
You can understand that, can’t you? I mean, I didn’t mind them asking. Although Tony went ballistic when the police phoned up – surprised they had the gall.
You leak her name. You let everyone judge her and you think she wants to be on your television programme . . .
He still insists it was a deliberate leak – the press getting my name. We have no proof and I have got to the point, to be frank, where I am not sure I care one way or the other; all I know is that I cannot bear the thought of everyone turning up all over again. Raking it up all over again. Judging me. Hating me.
Even loyal customers in the shop giving me that slightly odd look. Deliberately not mentioning it.
The official version from the police press office is that there was no leak; they merely mentioned to a few reporters that the witness on the train was ‘attending a conference’. But they must have said what kind of conference, otherwise how did the press know I was a florist? Whatever. Some of the press pack checked out the various floristry events, worked through the lists of delegates from Devon and Cornwall, and eventually landed at our door.
I still go cold, thinking about it.
Of course, if I’d been smarter they would have had no way of confirming it. If I had thought to say, I don’t know what you’re talking about, they would have had to leave it at that. But I didn’t.
I know this is going to sound completely stupid but what I said in my complete disorientation on the doorstep was, Who gave you my name?
Why the hell did you say that? was the first thing Tony asked. Jesus, Ella. You gave it to them on a plate.
But I didn’t; not really. I didn’t let any of the reporters in. I didn’t give them any quotes, I swear, but they still took my picture, and they phoned and phoned and phoned until we had to change the number.
‘Harassment’, Tony called it. Hasn’t she been through enough? Bless him. My sweet, sweet man.
And then things turned really nasty. Horrid stuff on social media. Until in the end we had to close down the shop for a bit.
But here’s the thing. As horrid as it all was, I still don’t think I have been through enough. She’s still gone – that beautiful girl. Most probably dead – almost certainly dead – although from what I hear, her poor mother still clings to the hope that she’s alive.
And can you blame her? I probably would, too.
The police liaison officer for Crimecatchers told me that Mrs Ballard has given a really harrowing interview. I’m not even sure I can watch. Anna’s mother has spent the last year collecting all this information on missing girls who have eventually turned up years later. You know – held captive by some loon, brainwashed and then finally escaped. They had to cut all that out of the interview, apparently, as it’s not the police’s focus at all. They obviously think Anna is most probably dead. This is about finding a killer, not finding a loon with a girl in his basement.
Out of sensitivity, they have kept all of Mrs Ballard’s stories about Anna as a little girl. All her hopes and her dreams. That’s apparently just the sort of thing that makes people phone in with new information. But it’s all about finding the two men. Finding the body, I suppose. Makes me go cold to think of that . . .
And this is
where Tony gets really angry. His take is if the police hadn’t been so slow in putting out the appeal to trace Karl and Antony after I tipped them off, then maybe they would have stopped them doing a bunk. Most probably abroad.
As far as I can tell, the delay was something to do with Sarah. The police are diplomatic but, putting two and two together, it seems at first she denied ever meeting them. The men on the train. Said I was a fantasist. It was only when they went over all the CCTV footage and finally found a couple of shots of them getting off the train together, and also outside the station, that the police even put their pictures out. Too late.
But that, of course, is where it all goes wrong and it all comes back to me.
If I had phoned in a warning in the first place. If I had stepped up. Stepped in.
You are not to think like that. You can’t take the world on your shoulders. You did nothing wrong. Nothing, Ella. It was those men. Not you. You can’t go on blaming yourself.
Can’t I, Tony?
And I’m not the only one now.
The first postcard came a few days ago.
At first I was so shaken when I read it, I had to go straight to the bathroom. Vomited.
I can’t explain why I felt so very scared. Shock, I suppose, because initially it seemed so threatening, so darned nasty. And then when I finally calmed down and thought it all through, I suddenly realised who’d sent it. And with that came a mixture of relief and crippling guilt. To be perfectly honest with you, I probably deserve it.
It was just anger. Not a real threat; just lashing out.
That first postcard was inside an envelope. A black card with letters cut out of a magazine. WHY DIDN’T YOU HELP HER? It was just like you see on a television drama, and not even very well done. Still sticky to the touch.
I was stupid; I ripped it up and put it in the bin because I didn’t want Tony to see. I knew he would phone the police and I didn’t want that. Them round here. The press round here. All that craziness all over again.
It took me a while to process it properly. To start with, I thought it was just another random nutter, but then I thought, Hang on a minute, the anniversary appeal hasn’t even been on the telly yet.
I Am Watching You Page 2