‘What do you mean?’ asks Lauren, but Diane walks ahead, silently. As Lauren walks, she thinks of the hermit, the sword.
Some time later, they are standing in front of Vairi’s front door. ‘Why?’ Lauren asks.
‘I don’t know, Lauren.’ Diane’s voice is hushed by the wind. After two hours walking in the heavy snow, they have found their way back to the village. It’s now after ten o’clock and she is ravenous and exhausted. Lauren can’t imagine what her teacher might think, or Kirsty for that matter. She feels a pang of shame.
Diane is speaking quickly and conspiratorially. ‘I don’t know what’s going on right now. That guy’s still alive back there. What’s he done with Ann-Marie? I’m telling the police. Show them that secret door. I’m going on Twitter with this. Everyone has to know. Vairi’s a better person for you to stay with. I mean, Kirsty’s off her head. Like I say. Angela’s gonna be absolutely ragin’.’ She touches Lauren’s shoulder. ‘I’ll tell them all you’re safe though.’ She goes to the doorstep to ring the bell and stops. ‘One more thing.’
Lauren’s aching head feels light. ‘Huh?’
‘D’you remember, you know – Ann-Marie says she was talking to you about … your mum? Do you remember that? Your mum? How it happened? Anything?’ Diane looks panicked.
Lauren searches for the answer Diane wants to hear, but nothing comes and she shakes her head. Diane sighs and rings the doorbell. Vairi appears, looking flustered behind the glass. Her dogs bustle at her feet.
‘You found her!’ Vairi chirps as the dogs burst out on to the crazy paving and start growling at Lola. ‘Get inside, girl,’ Vairi says to Lauren. ‘You’ve had us worried sick.’ She turns to Diane. ‘Kirsty’s having kittens. She feels terrible. I have to say I gave her a good talking to.’ Lauren feels enveloped by guilt. ‘So,’ Vairi continues, ‘how’d you find her?’
‘I was looking for Ann-Marie. In the woods at the back of mine.’
‘Is that right? She might have gone back to Edinburgh, do you think?’
‘No, she couldna’ve. Listen, I’ve got to get away and talk to the police.’ Diane has half her body turned to the gate. Now the day is getting lighter, Lauren can see how pale she looks.
‘How – how’s she not in Edinburgh?’
Diane sighs impatiently. ‘I’d know. She said she’d meet me.’
‘Well. Girls will be girls. She’s maybe got some fella down there.’
Diane takes a few steps to the gate. ‘No. Well, maybe, but no. I do know.’ She pushes back her clammy hair and looks at Vairi straight on. ‘I do know. I mean – she couldna’ve. Also, we’ve been friends since we were six years old. It doesn’t make sense. Now, if you don’t mind …’
‘OK, look, keep your hair on. I know we’re all worried here. Are you not coming inside?’
Diane tips her head back and gives the lead a tug. ‘No, I’ve got to tell the police and other people and I’ve got Lola.’ The dog looks tired.
‘Right, yes. OK. And you’ve got school and all. Well, I can take care of this one. Thank you, my dear. Get yourself warm. You’ve done a good thing. If you need to come back, come back.’
‘OK.’ Diane begins to walk away, but before she reaches the garden gate, Lauren runs to give her a hug. She knows Diane won’t be leaving for school.
‘C’mon, now. They’ll find him.’ Vairi leads Lauren up the musty staircase to a spare bedroom with flowery brown wallpaper.
‘Who?’
‘Your dad. Who else?’
Lauren sits down on a flouncy bed and dips her fingers in a pink bowl of dried petals on the bedside cabinet. The smell of the basement comes swirling back to her.
‘Where is he?’ she asks.
Vairi shakes her head. ‘I’m telling you, I’m about to try and find out, if you’re patient. Leave that. You’re freezing,’ she says. ‘Take off your socks and give your feet a rub, so you don’t get chilblains, eh? Get under the covers too.’ She finds Lauren a towel and runs her a hot bath in the kelp-green bathroom. ‘Look there,’ Vairi jokes, trying to raise a smile. ‘You’re using all my hot water!’
19
When Niall wakes up he can barely open his eyes. His head is rusty with pain. It takes him a moment to realize he is still strapped into the frozen pickup. Someone is battering his window. He stays where he is. There is a muffled, female voice on the other side of the glass. ‘Niall. Niall.’ Groggily, he opens the truck door and staggers out into the sharp morning sun.
Kirsty is bundled in her bumblebee ski jacket. Her eyes are watery and pale and her breath comes out in clouds as she speaks. ‘Niall. The hell. Lauren had to come to ours last night. And she got lost. It’s been terrible. Now she’s at Vairi’s. Come inside, come on.’ She guides him into his house and piles a heavy tartan blanket over his shoulders. Niall coughs violently, doubling over on the sofa by the dinner table when he thinks he might be sick. He gets up and begins to stoke the boiler.
Kirsty keeps talking breathlessly through the kitchen hatch. ‘Lauren didn’t know what was going on and she went looking for you. Something awful’s happened.’
‘What?’ Niall coughs again. ‘Fuck. Is Lauren OK? I’m a piece of shit.’
‘Look. She’s at Vairi’s. I went to check on her, but Vairi says she’s sleeping. Sit down and I’ll get some food ready. Diane found her in the goddamn woods up there. She’s fine. I’m sure she’s fine. Have you got any Lemsip?’
‘No.’ He feels relief knowing Lauren is safe and wishes he weren’t in such a state. Guilt crashes down around him.
‘Tea, then. Paracetamol.’ She calls through and he hears her open the cupboard. ‘Porridge. Whatever.’ There is the sound of running water, a pan clanking.
When it’s ready, she scoops the steaming porridge into two bowls and joins Niall at the dinner table in the living room. After a couple of mouthfuls, she looks him straight in the eyes and says, ‘The thing is, we can’t find Ann-Marie.’
‘How d’you mean?’ His mouth feels dry.
‘I mean, we can’t find her. She’s done a runner. She’s not at home.’
‘Fuck me.’ He pushes the bowl aside and sinks his head into the crook of his elbow. ‘Fuck me.’
‘What?’
‘Have you tried calling her?’ Niall replies. This doesn’t feel real.
‘Not me personally. Has anyone tried calling you?’
He takes out his phone. ‘Missed calls from Lauren. Fuck.’
‘Never mind, she’s fine now. Safe in her bed. The state of you, Niall. What the hell happened?’
He pushes the remaining porridge into a clump. ‘I fell asleep in the car.’
‘How’d that happen?’ He can’t tell if she looks worried or suspicious.
‘Tired. Drank too much, if I’m honest.’ He tries to change the subject, but flounders. ‘So Lauren’s with Vairi then. What the hell happened?’ He feels as though Kirsty isn’t telling him something.
‘It’s a long story,’ Kirsty says and looks over at Jameson whining. ‘If he’s not been fed, then I’ll feed him.’ She doesn’t wait for a reply and gets up to find the dog food, looking around the darkened room as she goes back to the kitchen.
Any normal parent would go and take care of their child. He feels powerless, seeing the room as it must look to her, the layer of dust on the rose quartz, the crystals by the window and the empty bottles by the fireplace. The squashed daddy long-legs on the glass doors that he has never washed off.
‘Jeez,’ he says. ‘I canna take all this in. How did you let Lauren go looking for me? How could you?’
‘I was out till all hours looking for Ann-Marie, you know, Niall.’ There’s a sharper tone to her voice; he can tell she’s been hiding it. ‘I’m not a full-time childminder. We need to talk. When all this is over. The search, I mean. Because you’re not well.’
Niall shakes his head. Kirsty sounds like someone from Christine’s family. He eats a little more of the hot porridge, which tastes smoother than he mak
es it. His stomach roils. He wants to go to bed, pull the covers over his head and start again. Jameson barks at something outside. The day is bright and dry. The clouds are moving fast.
He hears her set the dog food on the kitchen floor and Jameson scampers over.
‘She’ll be with Diane or those lot.’ He speaks loudly with his mouth full, trying to find the best way to reassure her, ignoring the dread in his bones. ‘Thank you for this, by the way.’ His hand is shaking, holding the spoon.
‘No, she’s not, Niall. She’s not with Diane.’
‘She’ll be fine.’ Who are you trying to kid, he thinks to himself. He can’t deal with this before he has had some more sleep. Then he’ll pick up Lauren. His shoulder aches where he has been hunched asleep in the cold pickup.
Kirsty comes out of the kitchen and picks up her jacket.
‘But I’ll give you a hand trying to find her if you want,’ Niall continues. ‘Once my head clears. Fuck.’
She looks at him for a second too long and says goodbye.
20
At noon, Lauren wakes up from a dead sleep. Vairi is sitting neatly on the edge of the bed, picking a stray thread from her tartan skirt. Lauren can smell talcum powder mixed with the old lavender smell of the sheets.
‘Kirsty’s found your dad,’ Vairi says. ‘But he’s not in the best state.’
Relief pours through Lauren like the opening of a canal lock. ‘Where was he?’
‘They found him in his car.’
She feels exhausted all over again.
‘Man needs to look after himself. What a carry-on. Never, ever, go out like that again. Kirsty is going to give you some talking-to, let me tell you.
‘I’m thinking, if you’re up to it, Craig’ll give you a lift to school. They’ll be wondering where you are.’
Lauren is bleary, but scared too. She murmurs, ‘When we were in the woods, we found a house. And there was a manny inside. Hidden. Diane’s telling the police. ’
Vairi stops what she is about to say and her face crinkles with shrewd curiosity. ‘What did he look like?’
‘It was too dark.’ Lauren shakes her head at the images that fly in. When she talks, she tries to describe a photograph of the place. Still and far away from her. ‘It was old. Run-down. There was no glass in the windows. Everything was broken.’
‘A manny, eh? A manny. Those woods. Ten miles wide they are. Used to ride my bike round the Loop all the time as a girl. That must cover less than a quarter of that whole area, you know. Lived in the house next to Diane’s. That was where my parents were. I know that track like the back of my hand, but I can’t say I know about a house, no.’
‘It was a different bit. Further up. Much further.’
‘You should have stayed away from the likes of that.’
She remembers the sound Diane made when the man grabbed her. She focuses on a picture on the wall: a basket of puppies with a blue bow. She wants something familiar, not this strange room, with this strange woman. Eyes like the High Priestess. The classroom, with her teacher, suddenly feels safe. She remembers when they left the basement. Diane was close behind. They ran in the direction they had come from until Diane stopped and heaved up sick.
‘And what’s that on your thumb there?’
‘Nothing,’ Lauren says, covering the ring with her other hand. It’s private. ‘Just something I found in the woods. Jameson dug it up. It’s mine.’
‘Let me see that now!’ Vairi’s frail hand grabs Lauren’s wrist with surprising strength.
‘Let go!’ She needs to get out of here.
‘Give that. Give that here.’ She yanks Lauren’s arm again.
Lauren squeals as the muscles pull tight and she is in the basement again, the man’s hand around Diane’s leg. She twists away and the little dogs start to yap on the landing.
‘Stop that. Come on now.’ Vairi picks up the ring in her dainty hand and holds it close to one eye.
‘I didn’t find this at the house,’ Lauren says. ‘It was yesterday. In the snow, in the woods. A ring. Lady’s ring.’ She wishes the lady were here now. The way she had sat on the edge of her bed.
‘Mmm. Mmm-hmm.’ Vairi is silent for a while. ‘You got this from the woods, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve never seen it before?’
Lauren stays silent. It belongs to the young woman who visited.
Vairi says briskly, ‘You can wait downstairs in the lounge, before Craig comes to pick you up. I’ve put the fire on.’
Lauren does as she is told. She sits with a heavy cardigan wrapped around her in the living room, warmed by imitation flames. She wants to go to school. Vairi is in the kitchen, clattering through the drawers and cupboards. ‘I’ve been up all night, you know,’ she says in too loud a voice. Then she says something else that Lauren can’t quite hear. It sounds as though she says, ‘I was talking to the wind.’ In the living room Lauren picks up the binoculars on the windowsill and looks out to the forest. She can see the figures of a few people in the field. Two are laying a thin white tape across the trees. Others are getting out of a white van.
At the doily-covered dining table, Lauren eats a fried tattie scone that Vairi has laid out for her. She realizes how hungry she is, and thirsty, taking a sip of orange squash in a glass printed with the Pepsi logo. Scuttling, the rustling of the basement, comes back to her, and Diane hitting the man on the floor, the noise he made. It was as though he was already in pain; he couldn’t stand up. She takes another sip. Vairi’s mug also sits on the table, a miniature painting of a hedgehog and a dandelion printed on its side. Lauren touches a lily leaf in the middle of the table and realizes it is made of fabric.
Vairi fetches a large, leather-bound photo album. ‘Here we go,’ she says. ‘Craig’ll be here in a few minutes. He’ll call when he’s outside. He’s come out of work. Let’s take a look through this while we’re waiting.’ She goes carefully, page by page, the stiff, cellophane leaves unpeeling from each other. ‘There.’ She opens the album wide.
There is a picture of Lauren’s father, much younger, and the woman, the woman from Ann-Marie’s bathroom, her mother, glowing healthier and smiling in a white dress, cutting a tiered cake. Lauren’s face feels hot. She starts to cry. Her mother’s absence is always a quiet hum of sadness, but now it is so loud.
Vairi looks concerned. ‘Now, now, you’re a brave girl. Look on her finger, Lauren.’ There it is, the blurred silver band of a ring. Lauren can make out a shape that looks like a heart.
‘That’s …’ Lauren begins. ‘That’s my mum.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Have you not seen a picture of your parents’ wedding? Doesn’t she look like you?’ Vairi’s voice is dreamy. ‘Anyway, anyway.’ She taps her hands lightly together and pats her neatly curled hair, as if checking it’s still there. ‘She was always wearing that ring.’
‘She’s been visiting me. My mum’s visiting me.’
‘What did I tell you then? What did I tell you?’ There is a twinkle in Vairi’s eye. ‘She wanted to protect you. She could tell something bad was on its way.’
The dogs bark from behind the bathroom door.
‘Right, that’ll be Craig, get your things ready. I’ve got to make a phone call.’
As Lauren pulls on her coat, Vairi picks up the phone, gesturing goodbye. Lauren watches Billy’s father’s car pull up in the driveway as she listens in to the phone call. ‘Oh, hello, Vairi Grant here. Well, I’m calling because I have found a small ring. Ah, no. No. Now listen, I’m not calling about lost property. I think this could be a useful piece of evidence. No, I know about all that. But I’m talking about the disappearance of Christine Mackay.’
In the first days of baby Lauren’s arrival, Niall was a blissful fool. People from the village dropped by. Their newborn was a wrinkled thing. He didn’t always like to remember that sleepless time. It was too happy. In fact, he only really remembers when he drinks. It frees him and it traps him. If Lauren is aro
und he will hug her tightly and kiss the top of her head.
The doorbell rings and he staggers up. Two policemen are standing on his doorstep, saying they would like to ask him a few questions. He invites them in. They do not want any tea.
‘We’re here to ask you about Ann-Marie,’ one man says. He is large and nearly bald, with an uncertain expression.
‘Ann-Marie?’ He makes himself sound surprised, then realizes it’s a bad idea.
‘She’s been reported missing.’
‘Yeah. I heard. I’m very sorry to hear that.’ Niall pulls his mouth tight in sympathy. ‘And thank you for finding my kid.’ He is mumbling.
‘We didn’t, sir. She was found by a Diane Armstrong and then brought to Vairi Grant, I believe.’
Of course he knows that. Craig phoned him to say he had taken her to school. He wishes he had had a better sleep and was a better parent.
‘Regarding Ann-Marie, we understand that last night you gave her a lift. Is that right?’
So they know. ‘I did.’
‘Had this been planned in advance?’
‘No … not at all … I bumped into her in the shop.’
‘Which one?’
‘Spar.’ He feels sick.
‘Feeling a bit forgetful this morning?’ the other policeman says, raising a faint eyebrow. He is small and red-haired with freckly skin. Niall wonders if he is the son of someone he has worked for.
‘No,’ says Niall. ‘Yes, I had forgotten actually. When I first woke up, not long ago. But then it came back to me. My memory isn’t what it was, these days. Like a sieve.’ He doesn’t bother to attempt a smile.
‘Uh-huh,’ the smaller policeman says and writes diligently on a notepad. Niall does not remember their names, but he knows that they do not believe him. He doesn’t want to feel like a small animal in a trap.
‘Aye,’ the bald one continues. ‘And?’
Pine Page 18