by K. L. Slater
She passed the building where her first lecture would take place and felt the warm glow of being prepared. She already had the set texts she’d need for the first year of the course, and half a dozen large lined notepads and a set of coloured pens to boot.
She couldn’t wait for the course to start, so she could fill her day with purpose. Up ahead, the library loomed. She had seen it on the initial tour but hadn’t spent any time in there yet. It was another place she could go to while away the hours at the end of the day, if necessary.
The noise level from the girls in front ramped up suddenly and they made a right turn, on to a short path that lead to a building signposted as a café.
Impulsively, Lucie found herself following.
Her stomach was growling. She hadn’t had breakfast this morning as someone had used the last few slices of her bread and she’d drunk the last of her orange juice.
Inside was a bright, modern space, but she realised with a start that there were no small tables free where she could tuck herself away as she’d hoped. Most people seemed to be sitting together in larger groups. Chatting, laughing, generally behaving like the sociable students she’d anticipated – and half dreaded – being amongst.
She felt sure people were turning to stare at her, this nervy-looking girl, still obviously alone with no new friends at the start of her course.
She looked longingly back at the door, but another large group of students were already approaching, blocking the exit. She shuffled in closer behind the girls she’d followed into the café, in the hope that it might look as though she was with them. Before she knew it, she was in the queue for food.
A few minutes later, she carried a tray over to a large table to the right of the emergency exit doors. A group of around seven students, male and female, sat at one end of it. She placed the tray down at the other end, far enough away from them for it not to be rude not to ask if the seat was free.
She removed her plate with the jacket potato and tuna and the small bottle of fresh orange juice, and then propped the tray against her chair. She cursed herself for not bringing a book with her, but she’d only intended going to the shop, hadn’t she? Coming here was never part of the plan.
If she kept her eyes on her plate, she wouldn’t see people gawping at her: the pathetic lone student in a whole room of groups. The imposter.
‘Lucie!’
A clear voice cut through her thoughts. It came from the other end of the table.
Lucie’s head jerked up to see who had called out, her potato-loaded fork hovering in mid-air.
It was the mousy-haired girl who lived on her landing. Lucie wished she’d paid more attention to what her name was, as the girl obviously had to hers.
‘Don’t sit there on your own; come and join us!’
‘It’s fine.’ Lucie smiled shyly. ‘Thanks, though.’
She ate the forkful of food and looked back down at her plate. Even the little mouse had found herself a group of friends! But Lucie wouldn’t have people feeling sorry for her. If she had to get through the next four years with no one to hang around with, then so be it, she resolved.
She didn’t need other people. She just needed her qualification, and then she’d go back to Nottingham, back to her dad and everything in her life that was familiar.
How ironic that the very things she’d initially set out to escape from now felt like a sanctuary she’d happily return to in a heartbeat.
‘Lucie, isn’t it? I’m Stefan.’
She jumped slightly and her fork clattered down on to her plate. A tall, muscular guy who looked to be in his late twenties stood over her. She felt her skin heat as he smiled, showing even white teeth and a strong, square jawline.
‘Sorry, didn’t want to startle you. Come and join us; we won’t bite, you know.’
Lucie found herself smiling mutely, then picking up her tray and loading her plate and drink back on to it to move to the other end of the table.
She would never forget the decision she made to join the other students that day, because it was the first time she ever laid eyes on Stefan O’Hara.
Twenty-Nine
I’m the invisible person around here, the person nobody is interested in.
There’s only one thing worse than being ignored, and that is being overlooked.
But I’m not stupid, I’ve learned you can make people notice you. With the right planning and the right research, most people have things in their past they’d rather stay hidden away.
Yet some things need to be revealed. People who have been silenced should be given a voice and not forgotten.
And that’s where I come in.
Thirty
Lucie
Sunday evening
When we get back to our own garden from Bev and Mike’s house, I can hear the faint buzz of the press talking from the front of the house.
We’ve barely taken our shoes and coat off and moved into the sitting room when there’s a commotion out in the hallway. A blast of crowd noise and then the door closing. Muffled, concerned voices.
Blake peers around the door, then turns back to me.
‘My parents are here,’ he says.
A shiver of nervous energy zips up my spine. Nadine always makes me feel so inadequate, sometimes without even saying a great deal. God only knows what she’ll have to say about Grace.
I wish Oscar was down here, nuzzled close to me. And I could do with Dad’s support, too. I glance out of the window and see Jeffery from next door standing near the gaggle of press and staring straight at the house. I shiver and push the thoughts that present themselves out of my head.
I’m about to ask Blake to call Dad and Oscar downstairs when the living room door opens and there she is in all her coiffured glory. Nadine.
‘Darling.’ She sweeps past me and embraces Blake. ‘I have no words. We have no words, do we, Colm?’
‘Dear Lucie.’ Colm follows his wife in and walks straight over to me, sitting down and grasping my hands in both of his warm, dry ones. ‘I’m so, so sorry you’re having to go through this.’
Nadine leaves Blake and walks over to me, lays a cool hand on my shoulder.
‘Where’s the baby, dear?’ she asks.
‘He’s asleep. My dad is upstairs with him.’
‘Why don’t you let me take Oscar, just for a few days, until this is all resolved?’
‘It’s an idea, Luce,’ Blake says gently. ‘It will let you get some much-needed rest.’
Nadine’s compassionate smile dissolves instantly when I shake my head.
‘I want him to stay here with me.’
‘But he isn’t here with you, is he? You clearly can’t cope if your father is having to lend a hand and with his own health so questionable… I—’
Colm touches her arm. ‘Leave it, Nadine. Lucie’s made her feelings clear.’
She snatches her hand from my shoulder. Ever since Oscar was born she’s been desperate to get her hands on him. I was barely out of hospital when she tried to discuss which exclusive independent pre-school they’d like to fund for him.
It infuriated me that no such interest was shown for Grace. Both Nadine and Colm had such old-fashioned, outdated ideas about the first boy in the family. Even darling Liberty, Blake’s brother’s daughter, couldn’t live up to that.
Then they’d bought the cottage in rural Nottinghamshire precisely so they could see more of Oscar but I’d shot down Nadine’s plans on keeping him for the entire weekend right away.
‘He’s our son, not hers.’ I’d instantly made my feelings crystal clear to Blake when he tried to argue his mother’s corner. But judging by her increased frostiness these past few months, I think she’s finally got the message.
It hasn’t stopped her trying to capitalise on our tragedy, though.
‘Never in my worst nightmares did I think we’d have a situation like this in the family. Our personal business plastered all over the Internet.’
I can’t recall in se
eing or hearing her name mentioned at all yet, but still…
Nadine shakes her head, looking at the floor before turning back to Blake. ‘Tell me what happened. From the beginning.’
As Blake reminds her about Grace’s insistent request at the party to walk home from Olivia’s house, Nadine slips off her dusty-pink cashmere coat, laying it across the arm of the chair.
‘And so you just caved in and decided that she could?’ She looks at me aghast, as something clicks. ‘Come to think of it, I heard you say she could. At the party.’
I nod, mute in my misery. I remember how I impulsively said yes, just to get up Nadine’s nose.
‘I told you, didn’t I? I said that in my opinion, she was still far too young. I know Aisha wouldn’t dream of letting—’
‘Mum, please,’ Blake pleads with her.
‘Liberty tried to push the boundaries too. Heaven knows, they all do! But Aisha wouldn’t hear of it, told her she’d have to wait until she got to senior school. Eleven, she’d have been, is that right? A full two years older than Grace.’
‘But Aisha isn’t Grace’s mother, Nadine. I am.’
The air is thick with blame, with suppressed tension.
‘No use in revisiting all that now, Nadine,’ Colm offers. ‘What’s done is done. The point is—’
‘The point is that Grace should never have been out there on her own,’ Nadine asserts frostily.
I’m biting the inside of my cheek. I can feel my teeth shearing off tiny threads of wet flesh.
‘Whatever possessed you? Both of you?’ She looks at Blake and then at me. But her eyes stay fixed on me, and I can feel the scorching blame radiating from her, solely in my direction.
‘Grace went on and on, Mum.’ Blake’s eyes flicker nervously towards me. ‘She mithered both of us to death about it.’
‘Who’s the child and who’s the parent here?’ Nadine snorted. ‘That’s what I’d like to know.’
‘She just walked up Violet Road, the same road we live on, for goodness’ sake,’ Blake snaps. ‘It’s a five-minute walk. We agreed that Mike would watch her up to the bend and that I’d watch her home from there.’
‘But you slipped, didn’t you, Blake?’ There’s no emotion in my voice. ‘He slipped on the wet moss while he was looking at a message on his phone.’
Blake lowers his eyes.
‘And where were you, Lucie, whilst Grace was walking home alone at dusk?’
I stare at her, not dignifying her spite with a reply.
‘It was just after four thirty in the afternoon, Mum. Hardly dusk.’
‘That’s not what people are saying online,’ Nadine snaps.
Colm coughs. ‘Nadine, that’s—’
‘I don’t care what people are saying online.’ Blake’s cheeks are ruddy. ‘All I care about is getting Grace back home safe.’
Nadine ignores him and asks me again, ‘So where were you when Grace was walking home?’
‘I’d just woken up from a nap.’
‘I see. You were sleeping.’ Her words are loaded with unspoken disapproval.
‘Look, it’s no good sniping at each other like this,’ Colm remarks. ‘The important thing, and what we came to find out, is what exactly are they doing to find Grace?’
Blake runs through what we know so far.
‘I know the chief constable of the South Yorkshire police,’ Colm declares. ‘I could give him a call.’
‘We’re fifty miles away from his jurisdiction, Dad. I hardly think that’ll help.’
‘It will if there’s something they’re not telling you,’ Nadine says. ‘He’ll be able to find out if they know something awful…’ Her voice peters out.
I study her for a moment. She hasn’t shed a tear since she arrived. She’s not pale, her dyed curled hair is as immaculate as ever and her lips are a harsh red slash on heavily rouged skin.
‘Something awful like what? What might they not be telling us?’ I challenge her. ‘Do you think they’ve found Grace lying in a ditch somewhere? Is that what you mean?’
‘Lucie, for God’s sake!’ Blake shakes his head at me, warning me to pipe down.
‘Really!’ Nadine reaches for her coat. ‘I haven’t come here to be spoken to like this.’
‘Sit down, Nadine.’ Colm’s stern voice cuts through our bickering. ‘This has got to stop. We came here to support, not antagonise.’
Nadine’s eyes well up now as if someone has flicked a switch inside her bony chest.
‘This was supposed to be a wonderful day. Your father just heard—’
‘Not now,’ Colm says wearily.
‘What is it?’ Blake asks.
‘Your father just found out that he’s to become a magistrate,’ Nadine says, her face lighting up with pride. ‘It’s been months of the bar scrutinising his suitability, and now, he’s finally been approved. It’s such an honour.’
Blake told me about the rigorous process his father had been subjected to. They’d even asked for family members’ dates of birth and any previous names.
‘To make sure none of us have criminal records,’ he explained, which made my heart hammer.
‘That’s… great news, Dad,’ he says flatly now. ‘Congratulations.’
The praise sounds hollow, because this is all a load of crap. Nadine and her driving ambition for social advancement make me sick to my stomach. I don’t want her here. I feel desperate for the two of them to leave.
‘All we need now is for Grace to walk through that door,’ Colm says brightly. ‘She’ll be back before long, I just know it.’
‘And how do you think that’s going to happen?’ I say quietly.
‘She might’ve got lost, or simply been delayed talking to someone,’ Nadine says.
‘For over five hours?’
They’re adding nothing to our dire situation, just inflaming it. I feel worse, if that were possible, since they arrived.
‘Anything is possible,’ Nadine bristles. ‘When young children are left to their own devices, anything is possible.’
The living room door opens and DI Pearlman steps into the room.
‘There’s been a sighting,’ he says, his voice urgent. ‘Someone who lives locally claims they saw Grace as she walked home this afternoon.’
Thirty-One
Everyone crowds around the detectives. Blake, Nadine, Colm. Even our FLO, Fiona.
But I find I can’t move from my seat. And I can’t say a word.
Is this it? Is this the moment when we find out what happened to Grace?
If Grace isn’t home safe, then she’s missing. But while she’s missing, there’s a chance she’s safe. Does it even make sense that I’m thinking that? What if it’s bad news? I don’t think I can bear to know…
I swallow down the bitter taste that floods my mouth.
Where, who, when?
I sit there, staring up at my husband and his parents. They spit out their one-word questions and the detectives stand silently with their hands in the air, waiting for them to quieten down.
Finally they fall away and give DI Pearlman some space.
‘A lady called in at the police station in response to the local poster campaign, to say she’d seen Grace walking alone. Apparently she watched her turn into Abbey Road which leads off Violet Road. The witness was a passenger in the car her husband was driving.’
‘Mike said he’d watched her across Abbey Road,’ I blurt out. ‘He didn’t watch her right to the bend because Bev called him inside the house.’
After referring back to pages in his notebook, it was DS Paige who spoke next.
‘Mike Parker did confirm that to us. The witness didn’t see anyone else; she said Grace didn’t stop walking. Unfortunately, their car then passed by and Grace fell out of her sight.’
‘How did she know it was definitely Grace?’ Blake asks. ‘Was it by her clothes?’
‘The poster gives a good description, but the witness is likely to prove reliable because she confirmed she
actually knows Grace, knows your family. It was exactly the right time of day for it to be your daughter, too.’
‘Lots of people know us around here because of my job.’ Blake nods. ‘Who is it?’
DS Paige consults his notebook. ‘It’s… a Mrs Barbara Charterhouse.’
‘Jesus.’ Blake sits down heavily and covers his face with his hands.
‘What is it, sir?’ DI Pearlman is immediately on alert.
‘Do you know of this woman?’ Nadine says fearfully.
‘You could say that,’ Blake groans.
I look down into my lap, remember the soggy, sour smell of the tomato juice soaking through my clothes. The way it reminded me of what happened when I was younger.
Blake quickly recounts this morning’s altercation. It sounds less dramatic than it actually was.
‘She’s an unpleasant woman, out to cause trouble in whatever way she can,’ he explains. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her to fabricate seeing Grace just to scupper the investigation.’
‘Lying to the police is a serious offence, sir,’ DS Paige remarks.
‘So is assaulting someone in a café, which is what she effectively did when she threw tomato juice over my wife.’ Blake shakes his head and sighs in frustration. ‘Everyone around here knows that Barbara Charterhouse is unstable. She’d have no problem saying she saw Grace and then claiming she must’ve been mistaken.’
‘Lucie had some kind of skirmish in a café?’ Nadine says incredulously.
DI Pearlman frowns. ‘Blake, can I ask why you didn’t mention your altercation with this woman in our earlier conversation?’
‘Didn’t seem relevant.’ Blake shrugs. ‘Grace wasn’t even with us when it happened.’
‘She mentioned Grace and Oscar in her ranting, though,’ I say quietly, and they all turn to look at me.
‘I think,’ DI Pearlman says, sitting down, ‘we need to revisit our question about what you did once Grace left for the theme park. Let’s start again from the beginning. And this time, leave nothing out. Nothing at all.’