by Perks, Heidi
And yet, she realises, that is exactly how she has been feeling. The nerves have come from a place of worry that she has some part in what has happened. She has been feeling this way since Nancy’s parting comment, her overt suggestion that there was more to Grace’s conversation with Anna late into the night than Grace had walked away believing.
She has been turning their conversation over and over in her mind. What more was said after she accused Nancy of controlling Anna? But they hadn’t argued, not like Rachel had. And yet what version of the story had Anna relayed to Nancy later that evening? Or is Nancy just twisting it?
Grace had left Rachel’s house, trying to piece together the women’s actions. She’s been so focused on Nancy that she had almost dismissed the other two’s presence last night, and yet it was Rachel who’d surprisingly given her the most information. Rachel, who she still doesn’t know anything about, who was fun and lively last night but has crashed this morning. And Caitlyn, who Grace had been certain knows nothing more, except that her jumpiness made Grace feel even more nervous.
She’s been wondering what Rachel’s argument with Anna had been about, and whether it had anything to do with something that had happened at Ben’s party, as she’d overheard earlier in the evening. Is that why Nancy had been so keen to cut Grace’s questions short earlier? Is there something about that night they don’t want anyone finding out?
‘Her date of birth is a great place to start,’ the man is saying, ‘but maybe you could give me some broader details – her relationship to you, when you last saw her. When Anna was last seen by anyone.’
‘She’s my oldest friend and it was last night that she disappeared,’ Grace tells him. ‘We had a night out at the Old Vic on the coast road.’ She points in its direction, just around the corner. ‘Anna hasn’t come home.’
‘Do you live with her?’
‘No. I mean, she didn’t go home. She lives with her husband and her son, Ethan. He’s eight years old. I know she wouldn’t have done this on purpose,’ she adds. ‘She wouldn’t leave her son.’
The man nods. ‘And you were out with your friend, Anna, last night?’
‘I was,’ Grace says. ‘But I left early – or earlier than Anna. She was still there with three friends of hers. This should have been reported already. Her husband, Ben, told me he was going to, but I just … I didn’t get the impression …’
‘That he has? Okay, well, I’ll have to check that for you, but as far as I know nothing’s come into the station yet.’
Just as she feared. Ben still hasn’t made the call. ‘It’s not the kind of thing Anna would do,’ she goes on. ‘Not going home. I’m aware adults can’t be reported missing for twenty-four hours, but it’s not right. I know something’s happened to her,’ she says. She is already worrying that he might not be taking her seriously.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Not to worry. What I’m going to do is get a station officer to come out and take some more details from you. Is that okay with you?’
Grace nods. ‘Of course.’
He nods in return. ‘Good. Could you give me your name?’
‘Grace Goodwin,’ she says.
‘Grace Goodwin?’ The policeman cocks his head as his eyes roam her face intently, an action that unsettles her. Eventually she has to look away, dipping her own gaze down to his ruddy cheeks with their last flush of a summer tan.
She feels a fizz tingle through her body at the way he is looking at her. No one has looked at her like this for a long time. Not even her husband. Especially not her husband. ‘Yes,’ she replies finally. But when she returns his gaze she sees something else in it, and in that moment she is trapped in a bubble of embarrassment. Because she isn’t so sure he is looking at her with desire. It is as if he is trying to place her, like he knows her name.
There is every chance he might, too. Grace never took Graham’s surname, always wanting to keep her own as the last and only Goodwin in their branch of the family tree. She has been so glad of her choice ever since her father died, pleased she argued it out with Graham, who’d wanted her to become a Parson.
‘Have you always lived in town?’ the officer asks her.
‘I moved back to Clearwater in August,’ she says. ‘I lived here when I was a child. My parents moved to Australia when I was seventeen.’
He is definitely at least in his mid-forties, which means they can’t have been at school together, and yet there is something familiar about him also, now that she thinks about it.
Eventually he shakes his head. ‘I thought I recognised you but I don’t think I do,’ he says. ‘So you moved back here from Australia?’ His face breaks into a smile. ‘I don’t know why you’d want to come back to this old town from there.’ He laughs, then gestures for her to wait on the corner seat.
Grace goes to say my husband but something stops her, and now her mind has drifted to her dad. He used to say the same of Clearwater. ‘There’s a lot more to the world than this old town, Grace,’ he’d said to her when he’d stood in her bedroom doorway, watching her pack a suitcase for Australia, tears rolling down her cheeks after a conversation with Anna, both of them heartbroken at her imminent departure. ‘That’s why we’re leaving.’
She had always known her dad was destined for bigger things. In later years she’s wondered why it took him so long to get out. She was never surprised that when they came back to England, he decided they’d live near to his sister.
‘There certainly is,’ her mum had echoed, her voice eerily quiet. Catherine, in contrast, was just happy to follow Henry wherever he wanted to go. She was much better suited to a small town like Clearwater but at the same time always believed there was something about it, like she knew something bad would one day happen here. She’d always been able to feel it in her bones. It used to give Grace chills to hear her mum talk that way, watching her fiddle with the wooden necklace that hung around her neck like worry beads.
Years before they left, Catherine would often say, ‘There’s something not right about the town, Henry. I know it. I know it deep inside me.’ To which Grace was sure her father would have rolled his eyes.
Of course, that was when the community of Clearwater was in the midst of the search for a missing teenager, and surely any one of its residents might have been saying the same thing, but it wasn’t what Grace wanted to hear. As she and Anna had hovered at the top of the stairs, crouching on the carpet, fingers curling around the banister, they’d listened to Grace’s parents talking, their eyes wide with fear.
‘I knew it. I always said it before it had happened,’ Catherine had admitted to her husband in hushed tones that Grace and Anna had had to strain to hear, though they’d still managed to catch every word. ‘Before Heather—’ But Grace’s mother had broken off because she didn’t like to utter Heather Kerr’s name in the house, in case it brought them bad luck. It was one of her many superstitions. As if talking about Heather might mean she would one day find herself in the same situation as poor Heather’s foster mother.
Luckily her dad would never listen to such nonsense. He didn’t have time for superstitions and worry beads, he was much more practical.
Grace could imagine her mum’s response if she told her that Anna is missing now. Her mum would say this is exactly what she’s always feared. Another missing girl. Never mind that Anna is almost thirty-seven.
She would probably get behind the wheel of the Fiesta she hasn’t driven for over a year, and drive down in a panic. It would be the first time she’d have visited Grace in the three months she’s been back, her excuses meaning Grace and Matilda have driven the four-and-a-half-hour journey to Leicester to see her on two occasions instead. Yes, her mum is seventy-nine now, and Grace doesn’t expect it of her, but there was a time when her mother did anything for her and so sometimes she finds it hard to accept – that her mum is getting older, that she is more set in her ways.
But she would come for this, Grace is certain. She would risk her safety on a motorway if
need be, and so there is no way Grace will consider telling her yet.
Catherine’s voice is now playing out in her head. ‘I’ve always told you about Clearwater and those damned cliffs … I never wanted you moving back. You know I didn’t, Gracie.’
She would have called her dad if he were still alive, though. Told him about Anna and got sensible, straight-talking advice in return. He would have been there for her. If she needed him, he would have listened.
Grace misses her dad. The day he was taken away from the world, a piece of her went with him. Her mum was always telling her how similar they were. And she loved hearing it. She wanted to be just like him. All her life she wanted to show Henry how alike they were because she certainly didn’t want to become her mum, worrying over every little thing, unable to cope. Her dad would be proud of her, the way she has moved back to England without her husband, how she copes with the fact that Graham isn’t there for her. Not like her mum, who constantly frets that the two of them live in different countries, that it isn’t right for Matilda. Grace just wishes she’d found a husband more like her dad.
The police officer’s voice brings Grace back to the present as he tells her that a station officer, Peter Samson, will take some more information from her. He is still staring at her like he knows her, and the more she looks back at him, she is thinking the same and yet she cannot place him. It is beginning to unnerve Grace now that his smile has faded, as he gestures her through to a room in the back.
October – Six weeks earlier
Anna
Sally’s spotted notebook is open on her lap. Her gold pen has a bright pink gem that dangles from the end of it as she clutches it in her hand. Every week I need to resist the urge to lean forward and peer on to its pages to see what is written, but Sally carefully presses her palms against a fresh page, smoothing it flat before she begins again, and so I never get the chance.
In the corner stands a metal filing cabinet, and today one of the drawers is half open. I can see the folders inside stuffed with documents. I wonder if Sally spends her evenings writing out her notes in full, drawing conclusions on her patients that are then filed away – and for what? What happens to all the people whose notes she’s compiled in her cabinet when their sessions come to an end? Do they all have happy outcomes?
‘How have you been?’ Sally starts, as she always does.
‘It was Ben’s birthday dinner party on Saturday,’ I tell her. I release my lip, which I’ve caught between my teeth. There’s a slight tang of blood, and when I reach up my finger to touch it I pull it away to find a bright red spot on the end.
‘Of course,’ Sally says. ‘How did it go?’ She presumably knows it didn’t go well by the way she is looking at me quizzically.
‘My pavlova was a disaster.’ I give a short laugh, trying to make a joke of the night, but in reality it had been anything but funny.
The dinner was over, the food eaten, though we were still sat at the table, nursing glasses of wine. Caitlyn had helped me clear most of the dishes into the kitchen but the table still looked a mess, with all of our glasses, a clutch of empty wine bottles, and a dull red stain that had bled through the white linen tablecloth.
Not that either Ben or I were the type to fuss over that kind of thing, and it was currently covered in salt and plumped up with a tea towel, which produced an unattractive bump in the table. We were all too full of food and wine to care, and by then Rachel’s husband, Mark, had turned up the volume of the music.
Mark had been fiddling with his iPhone for the last fifteen minutes, trying out playlists on the group, asking them to name the tunes, which only Nancy and Ben had shown any interest in doing, the three of them huddled at one end of the table. Mark would have been in his element if I’d suggested a game of Risk. Everything revolves around games and winning with him, a contrast to Rachel, who’d prefer to be on her feet, dancing.
I’d noticed some oddities in our group when I deliberated over a seating plan. We all get on well and yet there are many differences among us. ‘Don’t sit me next to Alan,’ Ben had said, referring to Caitlyn’s husband. He’d grinned to show he didn’t really mind, but as lovely as Alan is we all silently migrate from him on a night out. The others are much more fun.
Like Nancy’s Eric, with his plethora of stories that I’m not sure are strictly factual but that often have us laughing until tears roll down our faces. And yet when Nancy and Eric are both drinking the night doesn’t always end well between them. Many’s the time they have left not speaking to each other.
I put Nancy and Eric at opposite sides of the table, placing him between Rachel and me. Rachel always made us laugh with her outwardly base comments about how gorgeous he was, but Mark never batted an eye. Deep down he likely knows as well as Ben that neither of us would want to be married to Eric, who is more interested in himself than Nancy.
When Mark’s iPhone screamed out a Beyoncé track I glanced up at the ceiling where Ethan was above, fast asleep in his bed. I’d already been up to check on him twice since the others arrived and both times marvelled at how he lay splayed on his bed, the duvet tangled around his limbs, so peacefully oblivious to the noise below. But with the music level rising, and Rachel’s intermittent shrieks of laughter, I couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t wake.
Given the cooking of four courses, scurrying back and forth between the fridge and the table and preparing a cheese board for which everyone protested they had no room, I found I hadn’t been drinking as much as the others.
It was only ten thirty and I knew it would be at least another three hours until any of them left, so the only way I could stop myself from falling asleep at the table was to pour myself a large glass of the expensive Chablis Nancy and Eric had produced.
An hour later, the music and voices had risen again. Rachel had dragged Ben through to the living room by now. And Caitlyn, Nancy and I followed, laughing at Ben’s horrified glances. Then the men came too, until all eight of us were dancing, laughing and singing at the tops of our tuneless voices.
We dipped in and out between what was now a dance floor in the living room and the kitchen, topping up glasses, carrying on drinking. We had to speak into each other’s ears to be heard. Nancy had her mouth pressed against my ear as she whispered that she loved me and I was the best friend in the world.
I lost track of time when I thought I heard a cry from upstairs. Stumbling up to the floor above, I crept in to check on Ethan. Leaning over my son I breathed in his sleepy smell, straightened the duvet and resisted the urge to kiss him in case he woke, but he was fast asleep.
I was making my way out of his room when a noise rang out again. It wasn’t loud, and I didn’t think anyone else would have heard it. I couldn’t quite make out where it was coming from.
The bathroom door was slightly ajar at the other end of the landing, a shard of light streaming out from a thin gap in a long line across the carpet.
There was a yelp now, a hiss of ‘stop it’. It sounded wrong. Wrong enough that I froze outside Ethan’s room.
My mind scurried through the people downstairs. The moment I’d walked out to check on Ethan, who was still in there? Caitlyn? Rachel? Ben? I didn’t actually remember who I last saw. All I knew was that I was talking to Alan in the corner of the room, pointing out our neighbours opposite and telling him how the woman had run over her husband’s foot with her new Alfa Romeo before hitting the gate posts on her way out. When I’d heard the cry I immediately told Alan I’d be back to finish the story and scarpered out of the room.
Now I stood frozen as the bathroom door flew open and a woman’s voice cried, ‘Will you just stop it.’
‘Isn’t it too late to decide you don’t want it?’ a man’s voice replied.
I didn’t have time to pull myself back into Ethan’s room, out of sight, when my friend came out of the bathroom, mascara smudged under eyes that were filled with fear, adjusting her skirt as she turned and caught me staring.
I know that
everything is different now. Even though not everyone realises it yet; two of us do, and that is enough to send splinters between us, secrets, lies.
Sometimes all it takes is one occasion, one night, and friendships change for ever. I know this only too well because I’ve been through it before under very different circumstances, many years ago.
As she always did, Grace had taken care of it for me then. She had looked after me, trusted me, done things a friend should never have to do, but when she’s your best friend she does that for you. That’s what she kept telling me. ‘I’m your best friend, for God’s sake, Anna. Of course I’m going to lie for you.’
‘Can you tell me what happened?’ Sally is asking.
‘I can’t.’ I shake my head. I’m not sure if I am talking about the night of Ben’s party any more or what happened all those years ago. They are shuffling for space in my head and I don’t want to think of either.
Sally’s head is tilted to one side and she edges forward on her seat. ‘Anna,’ she says, ‘what is it you’re afraid of?’
‘Afraid?’ I reply. What makes you think I’m afraid? I want to say. Of course I’m not! But the truth is I am. I have been – increasingly so lately. Afraid that it is only a matter of time before my world comes crashing down around me.
‘You look like you are, Anna,’ she says gently.
I am so close to telling Sally everything. Then she will know why I am really here. That I fear losing everything in my life that’s important to me: Ben, Ethan, little Zadie, who I haven’t even been given the chance to love yet. My fingers itch to get at the photo again – just to see her face, to remind myself she is real. But I know even when I see her it won’t stop the dread from rising. I have a secret. I imagine myself finally telling Sally. One I fear will change everything.