The Whispers

by Perks, Heidi

  ‘She’s currently with a foster family in Hampshire,’ I go on. ‘I don’t know, the whole process is taking so much longer than I thought it would.’

  ‘You look worried,’ Sally points out.

  ‘I am. I worry something’s going to happen to stop us getting her. I couldn’t bear it—’ I break off and look away. Ben tells me I’m a sentimental fool. He says nothing is going to go wrong just because I talk about it.

  ‘You’ve suffered a loss, Anna; it’s understandable you think that way.’

  I smile thinly.

  ‘Talk to me about when your friend, Grace, moved away to Australia. It must have been hard losing your best friend at that age, particularly when you spent so much time together.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’ I remember the way we stood at Heathrow airport. Tears streamed down my face as I watched Grace retreating through the glass doors towards departures. ‘They asked me to go with them,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ It clearly surprises her.

  It had surprised my friends, too, when I told them last week. Rachel had said, ‘Why the hell would they ask you to go with them? Isn’t that a bit weird?’

  Nancy was screwing her eyes up as she’d turned to glance at Grace, who was on the other side of the playground, talking to the headmaster. I wondered what they were making of her, the things that were going unsaid. None of us had ever wanted to rock our tight friendship by bringing other people into the fold; it was kind of an unspoken agreement. And yet here was Grace, and I had the sense she was a threat. I can tell that Nancy doesn’t like her by the way she questions me. She is suspicious of Grace, and I feel the need to keep my friends apart.

  Now I can see Sally pressing forward in her seat and I answer her question. ‘I know it sounds extreme,’ I say, ‘but it wasn’t. Not if you knew me and Grace back then.’

  Catherine had treated me like another daughter. She and Grace’s dad took me on holidays with them. All through primary school, Grace and I were inseparable. If anything, it was extreme to split us up.

  ‘But anyway, of course my dad said no to going to Australia with them. I can remember the look on his face when Catherine asked him and later when we were on our own and he asked me if I actually wanted to go. I told him I didn’t, because I couldn’t bear to see the sadness in his eyes.’

  ‘Did you want to, though?’ Sally asks.

  I shrug. ‘I thought I did at the time. I blamed Dad when Grace left, which was unfair, I’m glad I didn’t go, though. I would never have met Ben. I would never have had Ethan.

  ‘But Grace is back,’ I tell her. ‘Just after I got back from clearing out my dad’s house she called me out of the blue and said, “Come to your front door,” and there she was, standing on the driveway.’ My eyes suddenly fill with tears at the memory and I try to laugh them off. ‘God, what’s wrong with me?’ I exclaim.

  Sally smiles, plucking a tissue out of a box and passing it to me.

  ‘It was just this moment where I suddenly felt all these emotions coming out of me,’ I go on. ‘And to see her there … I finally had someone to talk to who knew my dad. No one knew as much about him and my life as Grace did. Sorry, I don’t know why I keep crying.’

  ‘You’ve no need to apologise.’ Sally smiles.

  ‘When we were young I felt that Grace and her family looked after me. They were always picking up the pieces that Dad dropped. Like every Christmas Eve, Grace’s mum Catherine had this tradition of making us both this special package with pyjamas and hot chocolate and marshmallows. And then on Easter Sunday I’d go to their house in the morning and hunt for eggs. We’d still be looking by teatime, they were always so well hidden. You know, it’s odd, but I never questioned why there weren’t any in my own garden.

  ‘But anyway,’ I say, ‘I’m a different person now. I don’t need looking after any more. I’m an adult, for God’s sake.’ I try to laugh but it comes out as a snort. ‘People change, don’t they?’ I ask. And Sally agrees that yes, people can change.

  At the end of the session she says, ‘I’d just like you to have a think before our next meeting. If there are reasons other than your father’s death that have brought you here.’

  She looks at me carefully. I think she already knows that there are.

  Chapter Three

  Grace

  It is a fifteen-minute drive to the Old Vic from school, not helped by a one-way system and a build-up of traffic on the road out of Clearwater. It is enough time for Grace to have called Anna’s phone, leaving a message when it diverts straight to voicemail, and then for her head to be filled with possible scenarios that explain Anna’s disappearance.

  She is relieved to have got away from the goggling eyes of the other mothers, whose stares she’d felt on her back as she retreated down the road. Clearly none of them wanted to go home or to work, not until they’d engaged in a bit more gossip as they hung outside the coffee van at the edge of the park opposite the school. And Grace is certain that she was as much the subject of their whispers as Anna.

  There have been many mornings during the last three months when she has stood in the playground and wondered if they’ve also noticed the way the little group of women keep to themselves. She’d been so proud to tell the mothers, on Matilda’s first day at St Christopher’s, that she’d known Anna since they were five and that they’d grown up together, and yet it quickly became embarrassing, the way Grace always ended up lingering on her own while Anna carried on with her clique.

  ‘Surprise!’ Grace had said when she’d seen Anna in the playground on that first day in September. Over Anna’s shoulder she had seen the three women her friend had been talking to watching her with interest.

  Grace’s presence lost its novelty as the weeks wore on, Anna slowly peeling herself away to spend more time with Nancy, Rachel and Caitlyn. That’s why it was such a surprise when Anna had finally asked her out for the pre-Christmas drinks last night.

  She turns left now at a mini roundabout, driving alongside the coast on her right and towards the Old Vic, which sits at the end of the road. Its car park is empty save for a beaten-up Escort that is parked across the gate to the backyard. She glances out of her window at the pub, which is eerily quiet for what could be a crime scene. The thought makes her pulse jump erratically. It is the sight of such emptiness that gets her the most, Grace realises, as she climbs out of the car. Like no one else is worried enough about Anna’s absence to want to look into what might have happened to her.

  It is 8:59, hours since Anna was last seen, and yet no one is here asking questions of the landlord, combing for evidence or searching for DNA. Is it too early for the police to be involved? Is she worrying over nothing?

  But then they say every minute counts in situations like this. It’s hard to believe she shouldn’t be concerned.

  Now she is here, the conversation she’d had earlier with Anna’s friends plays out in her head. It is hard to know what they think has happened to Anna. Are they dissecting the night into tiny pieces as she has started to do? No doubt they are together right now, reliving what happened at the end of the evening. But what she can’t stop wondering is whether they know more than they are telling her.

  Whatever has happened to her friend, Grace knows that if she herself wasn’t at home by 8:59 the morning after a night out, she would hope to God that someone would have reported her missing. By now surely something has gone very wrong.

  Beyond the car park and behind a wall, the sea laps rhythmically against the stony beach. Grace locks the car and wanders over.

  To her right lie the cliffs. The whiteness of their face looks majestic against the dull grey sky today. From their peak it is the best spot to look down on Clearwater, to the maze of pathways that weave through the rows of terraces. She imagines how different it must look now, with the new housing estate a dusty red spot on the far side and the waterfront apartments a gleaming pinnacle on the outer edge.

  Grace hasn’t been to the cliffs since she returne
d; she shudders now as she tears her gaze away from them and looks down the stretch of beach. In the distance, a lone dog walker is throwing a stick on the otherwise empty shingle. There is nothing more to see from this point but the vastness of the water. In the summer it was always lit up with bright flashes of windsurfs and sailing boats, but today there is nothing. The sea is a steely blue, merging into the greyness of the sky on the horizon. A cold wind is blowing.

  Grace sighs as she turns and leans her back against the stone wall and looks at the Old Vic. There is nothing pretty about the waterfront area: a pub at the end of the road with a view of the sea sucked up by the wall barrier. And a café painted bright pink. There is so much that could be done here, she thinks, but no one has either the money or the inclination. It has often felt like Clearwater has been forgotten, the road its only link to Weymouth, predominantly carrying its residents to and from work.

  She draws a deep breath and the coldness of the air actually brings pain to her lungs. Nancy’s parting comment to her still stings: I’m not being funny, but you haven’t actually got any idea what Anna would or wouldn’t do any more.

  Nancy is jealous of her. Even last night she had laughed as she’d said, ‘I suppose we’d better watch out, or you may try to zip Anna off to the other side of the world again.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth her face had straightened, to make sure Grace knew she wasn’t joking.

  Grace doesn’t like Nancy either. She finds her overly assertive and controlling, not happy unless she’s running the show. She reminds Grace of someone else they once knew, someone who Anna also got sucked into a friendship like this with, and that is what Grace had tried pointing out last night. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, but it does worry her, seeing it happening again, because this is what Grace thinks has been happening. Maybe she should have tried to reach out further to Anna, to grab hold of her and pull her back. What if she has left it too late?

  Grace makes her way back across the car park. She can hear noises from the backyard, bottles clanging together, and so she winds around the Escort and tries the catch on the side gate. It is locked and so she hammers a fist against the rotting wood and calls out, ‘Hello? Is someone there?’

  ‘Hello?’ The voice is deep and gruff as the clanging stops.

  ‘Can I have a quick word with you?’ she shouts.

  There’s no response but eventually footsteps approach the gate, a heavy bolt clanks aside, and the gate is opened. On the other side stands the barman she recognises from the night before, wearing a T-shirt and shorts despite the cold. ‘Yeah?’ he says, cocking his head, one hand holding the top of a black bin bag that looks as if it is about to rip under the pressure of its contents. ‘You left something behind?’

  ‘Sorry?’ she says, confused.

  ‘You were here last night,’ he says. ‘I thought you must have left something.’

  ‘Oh. No.’ She shakes her head. ‘I just wondered if I could talk to you. About one of the women I was with.’

  He raises his eyebrows and lets out a chuckle. The man must be in his late twenties. He has a full beard and hair that is currently sticking up on top of his head. Last night she remembers finding him attractive but this morning she can smell dry sweat and a tang of bad breath, and mixed with the rubbish from his bag, Grace has to stop herself from taking a step back. ‘What am I supposed to have done now?’ he jokes.

  ‘Nothing. I hope,’ she adds. ‘Because she’s missing.’

  ‘Oh.’ His smile vanishes as he straightens himself up. ‘What do you mean, missing? Who are you talking about?’ She can tell he is defensive by the rigidity of his body. His biceps harden as his grip tightens on the bin bag.

  ‘My friend who was here last night with me. She hasn’t come home and I’m worried about her. I wondered if you saw her leave or anything …’ Grace drifts off, suddenly aware that maybe she shouldn’t be speaking to him. If something serious has happened, something that isn’t an accident, then she should be leaving it to the police to question potential witnesses.

  ‘You were here with a few friends,’ he says. ‘Which one are you talking about?’

  ‘Anna. She has blonde hair, small, slim. She was ordering rounds of tequilas.’

  The barman nods but shrugs at the same time. ‘I don’t know what you want me to tell you.’

  ‘I left earlier than any of them,’ Grace says. ‘And so I just wondered if you saw what happened to her at the end of the night. If you saw her get into a cab, or if she left before the others. I don’t know,’ she says hopelessly, ‘anything.’

  ‘Well, they were here till late. Half one, something like that, I reckon. Maybe even later. There was some kind of row breaking out between two of them but I honestly can’t tell you who. I’m pretty sure they all left at the same time, though. One of them called a taxi, and I know it turned up because I saw it out of the window. I was upstairs by then,’ he says, nodding above him. ‘That’s where I live. So I’ve got no idea what happened when they went outside.’

  ‘But you’re sure they were all still here?’ Grace presses. ‘All four of them were here when the taxi arrived?’

  He rubs his free hand across his face, his thumb and forefinger pressing into each cheek. ‘Yeah,’ he says eventually. ‘Yeah, they were all still here.’

  Grace takes a breath, holding it for a moment too long until she can feel the pressure. ‘Would anyone else have seen them?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know; Mike might have,’ he says. ‘He was still clearing up when I went up.’

  ‘Who’s Mike?’

  ‘Young lad. Working the bar too. Shaved head,’ he says.

  ‘Okay.’ Grace nods. ‘Do you know how I might be able to talk to Mike?’

  ‘He’ll be back here later, some time after three.’ The man pauses. ‘Shouldn’t the police be doing this?’ he says. ‘If your mate is missing.’

  ‘Yes. They probably should. Only I was here and I just wanted to ask around for myself. Thank you for your time.’

  ‘No problem.’ He turns back to his bin bag, which he hauls across the small backyard as Grace retreats to the other side of the gate. ‘Hope she turns up.’

  ‘So do I,’ Grace says as he comes back and closes the gate behind her.

  She stands there for a moment, replaying their conversation. If the four of them were still here when the taxi was called, then Anna hadn’t already left like Nancy had told her. There’s no way they wouldn’t have noticed that she wasn’t in the taxi with them. And they’d omitted to tell her that there’d been an argument. Which makes her wonder why they are lying.

  Her hands shake as she stuffs them into her pockets and returns to her car. She knows she should call the police, and yet the thought of handing the case over and sitting back fills her with impatience. Grace has always felt the need to confront a problem head-on, and so she already knows that she’ll be questioning the women herself.

  But for now, with the cliffs imposing against the skyline on her left, she cannot leave until she walks over and sees for herself that Anna isn’t there.

  Grace knows this area like the back of her hand. Even though she hadn’t been anywhere near the cliffs until the previous night, she is standing at the foot of them as if she had never left.

  There is a path that rises, at points meandering frighteningly close to the edge where the cliff face lends itself to a steep drop. Halfway up it merges into trees, and what little light there is on a winter’s day gets sucked away as soon as you reach them.

  Crayne’s Cliff is actually a beautiful spot, with its little sunken footpaths. And yet at the same time there is something sinister about its sheer drops that hide at night.

  As a young child Grace walked the paths here many times, at first with her parents, clutching on to their hands just in case, always being pulled back if her mum thought they were even remotely close to the edge. Her dad would always say, ‘It’s safe as long as you’re careful.’

  She and Anna we
re barely thirteen when they’d been first dared to go there by themselves late at night. Both of them had shaken their heads vigorously. They weren’t stupid, they knew the risks. Hadn’t anyone heard of the boy whose bike had veered over the edge years ago?

  It was a story they’d all been told, or so Grace thought, but then she’d looked it up once, much later, and had never been able to find any reference to the boy.

  From then on Grace wondered if maybe it wasn’t true, just something her mum had told her and Anna to deter them from taking risks. By then, she was fifteen, and she no longer needed fairy tales to demonstrate how dangerous the cliffs could be.

  She had her own story.

  It’s one that Anna knows, too. Which is why the thought that Anna could have stumbled along this treacherous path hours earlier, her body soaked with alcohol, with no light except for the moon, felt both ridiculous and very real at the same time. In her right mind, Anna wouldn’t have dared come up here, Grace knows. But had she been in her right mind last night?

  Grace carries on along the path, another memory from the evening digging sharply into her head. Anna had paused at the bar at one point and turned to Grace. ‘Why?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Why what?’ Grace had replied.

  ‘Why are you so desperate to speak to me alone?’ Anna had beckoned the barman over and ordered another bottle of wine.

  ‘I just want to check you’re okay,’ Grace had said. She had wanted to do that. Because for some reason she knew something wasn’t right. So she’d wanted to check and maybe, more than that, she had just wanted to have Anna to herself for a moment. Without the other three around, answering for her, overtaking their conversation, reminding Grace that they supposedly knew Anna better than she did.