by Emma Healey
This put a dampener on the result, and they stopped scrolling.
‘Possum?’ Meg suggested.
‘Oh, they’re creepy, even when they’re little.’ Digital-native Lana was always the first to get the images loaded. ‘They have weird ghost-faces.’
‘Yeah, you’re right.’
The game had run out of steam. In a moment, each of them would switch to Facebook or Instagram, a news site or a game app, and then they really would be separated by their screens. Jen tried desperately to think of one more animal beginning with p, but she could think only of pug or Pomeranian, and breeds of dog weren’t allowed under Lana’s rules. Someone reached for and crunched on a crisp. A cushion was adjusted. Feet were swung over the arm of a chair.
‘Pangolin,’ Hugh announced into the silence, making each syllable especially clear.
The crunching stopped, the cushion was discarded, the feet dropped back on to the floor.
‘Oh, Dad. Best one yet.’
‘Look at it hanging on to its mum’s tail.’
‘Look at its funny little ears.’
‘Look at it snuggled under a blanket.’
They smiled at each other. The pangolin had made the game feel like a success. Even Hugh was pleased, now he’d ‘won’. Jen, with a sudden lucidity, a kind of premonition, realized she would look back on this moment and know she’d been happy.
Passion
Nowadays, Jen had her own displacement activities, instead of happiness. She’d built a repertoire over the last year or so, taking comfort in small tasks performed perfectly: making a pot of coffee, wiping the leaves of a houseplant, flossing her teeth. In fact, the worse Lana’s depression had seemed, the more careful and thorough Jen’s dental care had become.
Sometimes, action, rather than distraction, was needed, though. After finding Lana with her bag of painkillers, real precautions had been necessary: all the knives and scissors in the house were supposed to be kept in a locked cashbox (bought for the purpose), and Jen had contacted pharmacists to ask them not to sell Lana any non-prescription medication.
The four days of agony in the Peak District had prompted other actions, too. Since Lana’s replacement mobile phone had arrived, Jen had been checking the bill, asking about any numbers she didn’t recognize, asking Lana to explain who particular contacts were and where she had met them. And since she’d gone back to school, a week and a half ago, Jen had been getting to work late in order to chaperone her daughter to the gates. Lana was less than thrilled.
‘I can walk to school by myself. I’m fifteen, not five.’
‘I know, but you have to understand, my mind runs riot as soon as you’re out of sight.’
‘And I suppose that’s my fault.’
‘Well,’ Jen said, knowing she should say, No, it’s no one’s fault, it’s just the situation we find ourselves in and we have to help each other through it, but really wanting to say, You’re the one who’s been threatening suicide for over a year, who ran off somewhere (you won’t say where) and did something (you won’t say what) – who else is to blame?
She tried to come up with excuses to walk with Lana, offering to carry her PE bag or art project, but even the most gullible child would have been unconvinced, and three times in the last week they had had rows on the street: twice, loud, embarrassing, screaming rows; and once, a fierce under-breath bickering exchange, which had seemed somehow more undignified. And so Jen had stopped insisting on escorting Lana and had begun to follow her instead.
That was how, on a Monday morning in July, Jen found herself waiting for Lana to leave the house before following her at a distance, shadowing her own daughter, like some grubby detective in a hardboiled crime novel.
But she wasn’t going to give up like no weak sister, she thought, hearing Lana’s footsteps in the distance; she’d just ankle to the main street then turn back for a cup of Joe. If only she could get the girl to spill (Jen was warming to the noirish slang), but everything she said was hinky. Maybe she needed to put the screws on, though she’d have to make sure the girl didn’t pull a Dutch act.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Lana was standing against a wall, her outline blurred by the monster growth of a passionflower vine that had climbed over someone’s porch and was stretching up towards their first-floor windows.
‘Are you following me?’
‘Yes,’ Jen said. ‘Sorry.’
‘So, what now?’ Lana asked. ‘Are you going to keep following me? Should I carry on, pretend you’re not there?’
Jen shrugged, still a little dazed after being pulled out of her Chandleresque daydream. ‘I guess I’ll take it on the heel and toe,’ she said, though her enthusiasm for the lingo had left her. There were dozens of flower heads open on the vine and something about them reminded her of Lana. It seemed fitting that she had hidden among them.
‘You’ll do what?’ Lana asked, adjusting the bandana she wore to hide the tufty growth of hair and the scar on the top of her head.
‘I’ll go,’ Jen clarified. The flowers looked so much like eyes, she thought, with their purple-tipped lashes; uncanny eyes.
‘Okay.’ Lana had her arms crossed. ‘Go on, then.’
‘What will you do?’
‘What I was going to do originally.’
‘Walk to school?’
‘What else?’
That was too huge a question, and Jen decided not to answer it. There was a faint smell coming from the passionflowers and she moved closer to dip her nose against the yellow anthers. It was the scent, she realized, that reminded her of Lana: sweet, slightly mentholy.
‘TCP,’ she said aloud. ‘This flower smells like TCP.’
She felt irritated. It should be a scent associated with childhood scrapes, bashed elbows and scabby knees; it should be a wholesome smell, a competent smell, not a reminder of carefully sliced forearms and parental despair.
‘Are you going, or what?’ Lana asked.
‘I’m going,’ Jen said, ‘but I’m going that way.’ She pointed towards the main road, towards the station.
‘Fine.’
Lana stood back to let her past, pushing herself further into the passionflower so that the leaves and tendrils formed a kind of crown. Jen moved, her feet heavy on the paving stones, but at the last minute she reached out and plucked a flower from the hedge – the owner wouldn’t notice; there were so many – and tucked it above her ear. It was still there, still giving out its sweet, antiseptic smell, when she got to work. Rupert raised his eyebrows as she passed his desk.
The farmer’s in his den
‘Darling, you’re distracted. Shall I call you back another time?’
Jen moved the phone from the crook of her neck. ‘No, sorry. Sorry, Mum. I do want to talk to you. I was looking something up.’
The office was unusually empty. Rupert had gone to meet a new printer, and Jen had taken advantage of the quiet to call her mother but, beyond their initial greeting, she couldn’t remember what they’d said to each other so far.
‘Good to know I have your full attention,’ Lily said. ‘What were you looking up?’
‘That farmer who found Lana. I just wanted to see if there was anything about him online.’
‘Why? I thought he was the Good Samaritan.’
‘He was. He is. On the face of it, anyway. But, I don’t know, at the back of my mind, I suppose I’m also a bit suspicious. After all, how was it that he managed to find Lana when no one else could?’
‘And? What have you discovered?’
‘There’s a Google result that says, Farmer, Richard Crossley, charged with –’
‘Charged with what?’
‘Well, that’s just it. When I click the link, I get an error message,’ Jen said.
Any advance
So Jen couldn’t get any further than that, and she was looking forward to the police visiting, hoping she could get some answers from them. The officer who came to their house on Tuesday evening re
minded Jen of Rupert. He looked small, bundled up as he was among the bulky accoutrements of his uniform. Hugh seemed more solid by comparison, despite the fact that he’d already changed into pyjamas and smelled of her expensive rose-and-magnolia anti-ageing cream.
‘I’d forgotten someone was coming round,’ he said, grimacing as he came into the sitting room.
There was a moving of cold coffee cups and a gathering of magazines and a general shuffling about, a kind of welcome dance for a man who wasn’t entirely welcome. And when that was done they sat perched on the edge of the sofa (Jen and Hugh) and the armchair (Lana), as if to sit back comfortably would be to admit to something.
The police officer had a lot of notes clutched tightly in his hand. He refused tea and chose to sit on a hard dining-room chair, which meant he was raised slightly above them. This arrangement made their sitting room feel more like a court, Jen thought: with a judge up on a bench, she and Hugh in the public gallery and Lana in the dock.
‘Just to explain, I’m from the Metropolitan Police. The Derbyshire Constabulary has asked me to come round to go over a few questions with yourself,’ he said, looking at Lana. ‘Just some follow-up questions. Is that okay?’
‘It’s okay.’
‘Great. Erm.’ He checked his notes. ‘So, Lana, can you tell me again what happened the night you went missing?’
Lana stared at one of the paintings that Jen had pulled out of her sketchbook to take to the framer’s: a ruined section of medieval church with two peacock butterflies resting in an unglazed window. Jen was pleased with it, though the scene was perhaps a little too chocolate-boxy, and she could imagine the way her colleagues would dismiss the effort, the recent art-school graduates with their vagina paintings and sculptures made out of chicken skin.
‘I got up to go to the shower block,’ Lana said, ‘and took a wrong turning on my way back. And that’s it, really.’
‘Which way did you turn?’ the officer asked.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘You came out of the shower block. Did you turn left or right?’
‘Left, I think.’
‘Great, that’s great.’ And he really did seem to think it was great: his face lit up, and he beamed at them all. ‘Because when you were asked before, you said you couldn’t remember which way you’d turned, so that’s progress. Can you tell me any more? What could you see? Hear? Smell?’
‘I might have turned right,’ Lana said.
‘Okay.’ His smile dimmed. ‘Were you with anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Did you meet anyone while you were lost? Anyone at all?’
‘No.’
‘In four days, you didn’t see a single person? It was a busy season in the Peak District, I’m told. Lots of walkers, holidaymakers.’
‘I didn’t see anyone,’ she said, her eyes on the picture of the church. There were no people in it, and Jen felt responsible, as if she’d made those walkers and holidaymakers disappear, when Lana needed them. But adding figures to a landscape was awkward; hardly anyone on the course had put in the red- and blue- and yellow-jacketed swarms of middle-class tourists. They weren’t picturesque.
‘What were you wearing when you got lost?’ the policeman said.
‘Leggings, a fleece, a jacket, boots.’ Finally, Lana looked away from the picture and met the officer’s gaze. ‘I gave a list before.’
‘I know, but I have to ask, it’s just how this process works. So. What did you have with you? Can you tell me that?’
‘Phone, tissues, just stuff in my pockets.’
‘Nothing to eat?’
‘I might have had a chocolate bar. A KitKat.’
‘No torch?’
Lana stared at him a moment. She seemed to be waiting for him to continue. ‘I had a tiny wind-up torch on a key ring. But I used my phone for light, until I lost it.’
‘And have you remembered where you lost your phone?’
She shook her head.
‘So you had a light source at night.’
‘At night.’ Lana said, but it sounded like a question.
‘Did you have anything to sleep on?’
‘No.’
‘No sleeping bag, or blanket?’
‘No.’ Lana had begun to raise a hand slightly with each answer, and Jen realized this was less like a courtroom and more like an auction room, Lana somehow increasing her bid with each denial.
‘How did you keep warm?’
‘I was wearing warm clothes. The weather wasn’t that cold.’
‘But you did get wet?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know how. I must have walked into a lake or a river or something. I don’t remember.’
‘What about…erm.’ He read his notes carefully, as if they were the details of an important lot: a Ming dynasty vase, a Raphael sketch. ‘What about condoms? Did you have any condoms with you?’
‘No,’ Lana said. ‘No way.’
‘Did you use condoms at any time, or were you aware of the use of condoms?’
‘No.’
‘Did you tear any of your clothing at any point?’
‘I can’t remember doing that.’
‘You hurt your head.’ He looked at the bandana she was wearing over her hair. ‘Did it bleed a lot?’
‘I guess so. They said so at the hospital.’
‘Did you try and stop the bleeding?’
‘Probably.’
‘What did you use?’
She shrugged. ‘Tissues?’
‘You’d have needed a lot of tissues. You didn’t use something else? A blanket, say?’
‘No, I didn’t have a blanket, so I couldn’t have.’
‘Okay. Have you kept in touch with anyone from the holiday? I think you made friends with the centre manager’s son. Matthew’s his name.’
‘I follow him on Instagram,’ Lana said. ‘He posts pictures of birds, mostly.’ She smiled, as though that was pitiable.
‘No one else?’
‘No.’
‘And you haven’t arranged to meet up with anyone you met in the Peak District?’
‘No.’ That hand gesture again, a half-wave, a kind of demand to be noticed, despite the fact that they were all already intently focused on her.
‘Right. I’m going to show you some photos that were taken of your legs when you arrived at the hospital. Do you remember the photos being taken?’
‘I think so.’
He fished them out from his bundle of papers and passed them to Lana. Her pale ankles looked mottled in the picture, but the thin bruise lines on the skin were unmistakable. ‘Can you tell me how you got those marks?’
‘From my socks. I told the police that before.’
‘You didn’t tie anything around your legs?’
‘Again, no.’
‘Did someone else tie anything around your legs?’
‘No.’
‘You’re not protecting anyone?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re telling us the truth?’ He said us, as though he represented the whole of the British police force.
‘Yes,’ Lana said. ‘The whole truth, etcetera, etcetera.’
‘We’re not trying to get you into trouble,’ he said, starting to lean forward but finding his stab-proof vest got in the way. ‘We just want to make sure you’ve told us everything you can, for your own sake. Our job is to keep you safe.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do. Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’
There was a moment of quiet while Lana smirked. The policeman looked at Hugh and Jen, scanning the room for any advance on the price: going once, going twice, sold.
‘Okay, well, that’s everything, then,’ he said. ‘Here is a number to call if you do remember anything new. I’ll leave you to your evening.’
Jen showed him to the door, her legs stiff from her perched position on the sofa. ‘So it was condoms, then,’ she said. ‘They found condoms. That’s what made them
send you?’
The officer fiddled with the set of accessories on his belt.
‘She’s supposed to be in my custody,’ Jen said. ‘How can I do my duty without all the facts? I need to protect her, don’t I? And if there’s someone else involved…’ She dropped her voice. ‘I was told that the farmer who found my daughter has a conviction for something.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Why does that matter? Do you know what he was convicted of?’
‘Look,’ he said. ‘All I know is what’s written here. Apparently, a blanket, with some blood on it, and two used condoms were found on a Mr Crossley’s land. That’s the farmer, right? But, as you heard, your daughter says they’re nothing to do with her.’
‘You’re just going to take her word? Can’t you test the blanket for DNA?’
He half smiled. ‘Not unless we suspect it’s linked with a serious crime. And there’s no crime, insofar as we can ascertain. Forensic testing is expensive. We don’t have the resources. We can’t waste time and money. The condoms might be from some other member of the public and the blood might only be from an animal.’
‘Might.’
‘Unless your daughter says otherwise, we have to assume they’re nothing to do with her case. And, like I said, there’s no crime here that we know of. Her friends, classmates and teachers were questioned, and her emails and social media were checked when she was missing. She hadn’t been in contact with anyone of interest. Nothing, in fact, gave us any cause for alarm. Your daughter says there’s no crime. Do you have reason to believe she’s lying?’
‘Just tell me. Is Richard Crossley a suspect?’
‘A suspect? What would he be suspected of? I keep telling you, as far as we’re concerned, there’s no crime. If you can’t give us a reason to investigate further, we have to leave it there.’
He put his hat on, in a kind of universal gesture of farewell, and wished her goodnight. She closed the door and put her forehead against it, feeling the cool of the painted wood and trying not to feel anything else.