by Harriet Tyce
“I’d never want to piss her off,” she says. “She scares me. I’m nearly forty years old, and Julia Brumfitt still scares the shit out of me.”
I’m chilled to my bones. I start to back away, desperate to escape.
“Isn’t Robin with you?” Jessica calls.
I don’t reply. I turn and keep walking, icy with terror.
47
I will the bus to speed up as it trundles home. But when I climb off, my steps are suddenly reluctant.
I’m torn.
I’m almost scared to rush to see if Robin has arrived. My fear is that the house will be closed and empty as I left it, the lights off, no life there to be found.
But right now, Robin might be standing on the doorstep, knocking at the door. She might be shifting from foot to foot, upset that I’m not in. I speed up. I’m not even sure that Robin took a coat with her, I wasn’t paying enough attention to what she packed. She’ll be cold and tired and upset. I’m nearly running now.
Another thought intrudes. What if she’s not there… What if there’s no one waiting, no little figure eager for my return. My steps slow, speed up, slow, until I’m around the corner at last, nearly at the house, and there’s someone at the door, a figure moving around, a figure that I know really is too tall to be Robin, but still it could be her, it could be her… I break into a full run.
I burst through the front gate, calling out Robin’s name at the top of my voice. And a voice replies. But it’s not Robin.
“Sadie,” Zora says.
At the sight of her, I burst into tears.
“I don’t know where she is,” I say. “I don’t know where she is.”
Zora stays quiet, waiting for me to continue, and with the worst said, the rest of the words come out.
Once I’ve filled Zora in on it all, I spring into action. I call Nicole and ask her again to repeat the sequence of events earlier in the day. I also take a note of the address in Aldeburgh and get her to tell me exactly what Robin was wearing when she left. Nicole seems surprised by how angry I am but answers my questions without demur. I call Julia again, too. Where the fuck are you? Where the fuck is my daughter? Call me now. After that, we sit at the kitchen table, tense with concentration.
“Is there anyone else you can call?” she says.
“No. Robin left her phone here. There’s no way of getting hold of her.”
“Right,” Zora says. “It’s time to involve the police. I don’t care what that woman says about waiting, about it all sorting itself out. Julia should have brought Robin back here hours ago. We can’t wait any longer.”
I’m paralyzed for a moment. It’s all too real. Then I overcome it. I nod, once, and I call 999, dealing with the operator with force and efficiency, far more effectively than earlier. She says that officers will come to the house shortly, to interview me, and the call ends.
That job done, the fear comes back. It’s too much for me, all too much. I go upstairs to Robin’s room, lie down on her bed, close to her pillow, the teddy bear she left behind. The smell is a comfort, at least for a moment, and I wrap the duvet close around me, enveloping myself in the traces that Robin has left behind. Zora is clattering crockery downstairs, clearing up, and I put my head under the duvet, wrapping it close around my head. I shut my eyes, willing it all away, and Robin back by my side.
I wake with Zora’s hand on my shoulder, a gentle shake. The room’s dark. I sit up with a start.
“I thought I’d better wake you,” she says. “Though I really wanted to let you sleep.”
“I should never have gone to sleep in the first place,” I say. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“It’s the shock, I expect,” she says. “You were curled up in here like you were hiding.”
I push her words away, and the duvet, getting to my feet. I’ve regained strength from this moment of retreat.
“What news?” I say. “Is there any news?”
“Nothing,” she says.
“The police?”
“Not here yet. I suppose they’re not sure that she’s missing yet.”
“Or that she’s been taken,” I say.
“Or that she’s been taken.” Zora sounds heavy, her voice flat. As exhausted as I was an hour ago.
I look at her.
“We mustn’t assume the worst,” she says, though her expression belies her words.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“For coming and helping. Staying with me. I couldn’t do this on my own.”
“You shouldn’t be on your own,” Zora says. “Andrew should be here.”
“Andrew,” I say. I haven’t even thought about him. “I can’t get hold of him. I read that story you sent me, but I’ve no idea what’s going on.”
“Jesus. As if there isn’t enough… I guess it might explain his behavior, if he was involved in a fraud…”
We’re both silent for a moment. I know it’s a dark cloud looming huge on the horizon, but right now I’m turning away from it. Andrew cut himself off months ago—I’m all cried out on him, all thought out, too. Robin’s the only person on my mind.
We sit together in Robin’s room, and we wait while evening falls and night grows dark.
48
I wake up with a start. I’m confused, fear grabbing at me. I’ve been dreaming that I’ve lost something very important, and I jerk up with a jag of panic. It takes me a moment to orient myself—still in Robin’s room, the streetlamp outside the window glowing orange. There are glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and I can see one in the corner, its pale green phosphorescence glimmering quiet against the light from the street.
My neck hurts from the angle at which I’ve fallen asleep. I stretch it one way, then the other, before full consciousness hits and I jump up, looking for my phone. I was holding it when I fell asleep at 2 a.m., exhaustion and stress too much for me. Even though four hours have passed since I last checked, there’s nothing.
No sign of Robin, either.
Zora is asleep too, lying across the bottom of Robin’s bed, her feet still on the floor.
A motorbike revs loudly as it drives past the street and she wakes up, jolting upright in the same way that I did. She looks around, her face slack with sleep and shock.
We gaze at each other through the orange glow.
“Anything?” Zora says, and I shake my head.
“Nothing. It’s nearly six. We need to call the police again.”
“Yes,” Zora says. “They have to take this seriously now. Robin’s been gone for nearly twenty-four hours.”
We’re both silent then, trying not to consider that the first twenty-four hours when a child goes missing are the most important.
Zora sits next to me while I call the police again, very insistent that Robin’s disappearance now has to be treated as a matter of urgency. I hang up, turn to Zora.
“I think they’ve got the point,” I say. “They promise they’re going to send someone out very soon to take descriptions from me, get the story. They’re getting on to it.”
“Good,” Zora says. “That’s good.” She pauses for a moment. “Any word from Andrew?”
“Nothing.” I’m silent for a while, running through the other issues I’ve ignored, problems too big to put off any more. “We’re due in court this morning at ten, Zora. Or at least…” my voice trails off. “I’ll try Andrew again. But his phone has been dead since Saturday.”
I move back into my own room to call him, unable to cope with an audience, even Zora. I stand just inside the door, hesitating for a moment before making the call. This time it rings, though there’s no reply. I think for a split second, leave a message.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on. And I don’t care. Robin is missing. You need to come here now, wherever you are. Your little girl is missing and I don’t know what to do.”
I lower the phone and stand looking into the room for a moment. My mother’s old room. Full of my mot
her’s possessions, the kitsch of years, which I’ve tuned out for all the time we’ve been there, focused only on making the rest of the house a home for Robin. Returning to my childhood home should have been to a refuge, a place of safety, but it’s proved anything but. Every day has been a struggle against Lydia’s rejection, the rejection of me by the mothers at the school gates. And now the only person who matters to me is gone.
If I get Robin back—no, when I get Robin back—I’m starting again. I’m going to break the trust, take possession of what’s mine, what’s Robin’s. Ripping it all out, slashing it all down. Robin and I, we’ll sit down, work it out, where we want to be, what we want to do. And nothing will stop us.
“There’s no way I can go to court,” I say to Zora. We’re downstairs in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Jeremy’s confession is ringing loud in my ears and I can’t tune it out any more. I’ve put Zora’s role as my instructing solicitor out of my mind all weekend, so desperate have I been for her support, but I can’t ignore it now.
“Might it help to do something else?”
I look at her scathingly. “Are you being serious? I can’t possibly. I have to talk to the police. What if she comes back? She’ll need me.”
“The police are going to be here really soon,” Zora says. “You’ll have more than enough time to talk to them before you need to leave.”
“I’m not sure…”
“I think that being normal, sticking to a bit of a routine, might not be such a bad idea. We can both go down. It won’t take you long to come back up if anything happens. You’ll have your phone—they will be in touch immediately if there’s any news. I’m worried about you. The stress of this. It might be good to take your mind off it for a little bit.”
I’m falling off the side of a cliff, straight down into a dark hole. There’s a rushing in my ears, my heart beats a rapid syncopation, each beat a syllable of Robin’s name, RO-BIN, RO-BIN. Then I catch myself. Getting into a state isn’t going to help the situation at all.
“Maybe I should,” I say.
“I’ll be there if it gets too much. And you can always turn round and come home.”
For the first time since I realized Robin was missing, I feel something other than terror for her whereabouts. I feel guilt. Shame that I haven’t been open with Zora about finding the book. I didn’t say anything to begin with because I wasn’t sure how to handle it, and then it got swept away by everything else until it was too late. I’m worried about what to do, how best to handle the situation. It’s been pushed out of my mind by Robin, and now it’s too late. I should have told her immediately. But if I’m honest, I was scared to. Scared that she might also be involved. That she might have been lying to me too. I should have trusted her, though, told her immediately.
Now I don’t know how to tell her at all.
I shower, dress in a suit. While I’m getting ready I make a decision. I’m going to tell Zora, regardless of the complications it causes to the situation. As soon as I’m ready I go downstairs.
“Zora, there’s something I need to tell you,” I say as I walk into the kitchen. She looks up at me.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, it’s something I should have told you before. It’s about Jeremy.”
“I’m not sure I…” she starts to say, when there’s a knock at the door. Despite knowing the police are due, I can’t help but feel a leap of hope, dashed as soon as Zora opens the door and I hear the sound of adult voices.
The two women take their seats at the kitchen table, introducing themselves. Both detective sergeants, one called Hughes, one Labinjoh. They’re sympathetic, gentle, but there’s steel in their eyes, and they take down notes with an air of purpose that I find reassuring. There couldn’t be a greater contrast with the way that my call was received the day before.
I explain what I know, that Nicole told me Julia was driving Robin home, that they left the previous morning, and that I’ve been unable to make contact with Julia ever since. They nod, write down some more.
“One of our Suffolk colleagues has been to speak to Nicole, in Aldeburgh, so we have a good sense of the timeline. We’ve an alert out on the car in question—we’re doing everything we can to locate your daughter.”
“It’s a shame you didn’t take it more seriously yesterday,” I say, the words blurting out before I can stop them. I don’t want to antagonize them, angry as I feel.
“We have a transcript of your call to the emergency services yesterday morning,” Hughes says, looking at me. “I take your point, but there was insufficient to go on at that stage.”
I remember about my incoherence as I spoke to the operator. The detective isn’t wrong. “There was my second call, though. You should have paid attention then.”
The detectives glance at each other. Labinjoh clears her throat. “There was an incident in Wood Green. A double stabbing.” She doesn’t explain further. She doesn’t have to. I’m well aware of the budget pressures on the Metropolitan Police, the stress the force is under, the cuts to numbers of officers.
I nod. “You can appreciate that I’m under a great deal of strain.”
“Of course. I’m sure we’ll have more news very shortly.”
They leave. It’s nearly nine o’clock. If I’m going to go to court, I have to leave now. Zora can sense my hesitation.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go.”
I stand at the door for a moment more, undecided, before taking a deep breath. We set off down the road toward the tube, scanning each car in turn as it passes in the vain hope that I’ll see Robin safely on her way home.
49
As we travel down to Elephant and Castle, worry about Robin roils in my mind. Zora looks troubled too, her face drawn. She doesn’t refer to my earlier comment about Jeremy, and it doesn’t come back to the front of my mind until we’re nearly at court.
Now it’s roaring up. I don’t care about Jeremy at all now, regardless of my role on his defense team. I do care about Freya, though. It could so easily have been me. And I care about Zora. I don’t want her career to be affected by this, either.
The more I think about it, the more my rage mounts, all the pent-up stress from Robin’s disappearance feeding into it. Forget talking to Zora—it’s Barbara I want to see. Leaving Zora in my wake, I stride into the court building, through to the empty robing room. I pull my wig and gown out of the bag before stuffing them back in and pacing round until Barbara arrives a few minutes later. She nods good morning.
“We need to talk about the meeting on Saturday,” she says. “I’ve just been told.”
I look at Barbara in a way I’ve never done before, scorn writ large across my features.
“What about it?” I say.
“His father has had to spend the whole weekend persuading him that he shouldn’t plead guilty. I can’t believe what a mess you made of it.”
“What a mess I’ve made of it? Surely you must see how wrong this is? He should be pleading guilty. We certainly can’t represent him.”
Barbara shrugs, no trace of apology in her face. “Do grow up,” she says. “You know that’s not how it works. The prosecution needs to prove the case against him, remember? I know you’re being all dewy-eyed and idealistic, but seriously, think about it. He’s got his whole future ahead of him. Not to mention his father’s own reputation as a judge. Pretty poor show to have a son done for a sex crime. It’s up to the prosecution and so far they’ve done a dismal job, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Because you’re misleading the court,” I say. My voice is loud enough that a couple of barristers who have just opened the door into the robing room take one look at the situation and retreat, shutting the door fast behind them. “I can’t believe you’d be so blatant about such a huge ethical breach.”
“Get a grip,” Barbara says. “You have to look at it as a whole. Freya is as much to blame as he. She made the first pass.”
“She’s a child, Barbara.”
“A
re you telling me you weren’t sexually active as a teenager? I’m over twenty years older than you and I most certainly was. I’d have been grateful to have someone mature like him around, rather than those horrific fumbles from boys my own age. Don’t be so wet about it.”
“This is unbelievable,” I say, hissing the words at Barbara in fury. “I’m off the case.”
Barbara laughs. “It’s not like you’ve had to do much, let’s face it. You spent a bit of time going through the evidence, but that’s it. Your job is done.”
“Go ahead and defend him—you’re doing it without me. Let’s see what the Bar Council has to say about it. I’m going to make sure that Zora knows all about it, too.”
Barbara’s eyes narrow. She glares at me, an expression on her face that has probably never failed before in its exertion of power. I stand for a moment, brain pulsing with rage, before I pick up my bag and storm out of the room.
It’s only when the door has slammed shut behind me that I realize I haven’t thought about Robin for the last few minutes. And with that, my rage disappears, pushed out by cold fear again. I shouldn’t be here, propping up a rotten defense for a toxic defendant. I should be looking for my daughter.
I put my head down and walk straight back out of the court building. I see Zora and Jeremy, an older man beside them, but I keep on walking, even when Zora calls my name. I’m at the end of the car park when I feel someone pull at my shoulder, hard enough to shake my stride. It’s Zora, with Jeremy and the other man behind her. I glance at the older man, look a little closer. It’s a face I haven’t seen in years, the family resemblance clear between father and son. Men who would be good-looking if their eyes weren’t so close together. Suddenly I’m back in the alleyway twenty years ago, his hands hard on my breasts, his breath sour in my face. My kick hard to his groin. I look at them both with horror.
“Where are you going?” Jeremy says.
“I’m off the case. I can’t continue to defend you.”