The Whispers

by Perks, Heidi

  Caitlyn smiled. She looked as if she wanted to add something else, though she never did.

  ‘So have you spoken to her?’ They weren’t keen to drop the subject just yet, not when they had no idea what had actually happened to Anna Robinson, and especially not now they knew she was safe and it sounded likely that she must have gone off of her own accord. Now that they could be thankful she wasn’t hurt, they wanted the gossip.

  ‘No. I haven’t,’ Caitlyn said, shaking her head. ‘She’s been in touch with Ben.’

  ‘He must be relieved, anyway,’ one of them pressed.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘How did he sound?’ someone asked her.

  ‘I haven’t actually spoken to him,’ she replied. ‘Nancy did. She agreed to pick Ethan up for him, so he, you know …’ Her words fizzled out.

  ‘Right, yes, of course,’ they murmured, but they didn’t know, and they certainly didn’t understand. In fact, now everything seemed a lot more confusing and they were even keener to get to the bottom of it, but at the same time they weren’t sure Caitlyn had any more answers than they did.

  ‘Well, at least she’s safe,’ someone murmured.

  ‘Yes,’ Caitlyn said. ‘Exactly.’ And she gave another small smile, and when she turned away the others looked at each other and raised their eyebrows and silently agreed that something wasn’t adding up.

  Chapter Ten

  Grace

  Matilda is still going on at Grace from the back seat, rhythmically kicking into the small of her back. Grace is trying to block out her demands, but eventually the white noise coming from her daughter gets to be too much.

  ‘Matilda, will you stop!’ she shouts, turning round, grabbing her daughter’s shoe again and holding it in her hand this time. ‘I am trying to think. And I can’t while you keep going on at me.’

  Matilda pauses, her eyes gradually narrowing in defiance as she says, ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Well, we’re not going home,’ Grace snaps, turning back and starting the engine.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To Ethan’s.’

  ‘For a playdate? Why are we going there? Are we going to stay for tea?’

  ‘Enough with the questions,’ she says. ‘We’re going there, that’s all you need to know.’

  This silences Matilda, who stops kicking and seems content in the knowledge she’s going to get her playdate after all. Not that Grace has any idea if Ethan will be there – as far as she knows he is at Nancy’s – but even that would be preferable to having Nancy at Anna’s house too. She wants to speak to Ben, and it will be much better if he is there on his own.

  Grace is relieved there’s no sign of Nancy’s Land Rover when she pulls up outside the Robinsons’ house. She waits for Matilda to climb out the back then they go to the door and ring the bell and eventually Ben opens it.

  ‘Hi,’ he says awkwardly, his gaze travelling from her to Matilda and then back to her again as his fingers tap nervously on the doorframe.

  ‘Hi, I was just checking that everything is all right. I thought I was collecting Ethan but then the school told me he’d already gone so …’ She glances over his shoulder at the hallway behind him. She doesn’t want to let on what Nancy has told her, she wants to hear it from Ben.

  ‘Can I play with Ethan?’ Matilda asks in her most serious of polite voices, and Grace is grateful for her daughter getting to the point and inviting themselves into the house.

  ‘Er, no, sorry he’s not here right now,’ Ben answers, furrowing his brow, as if he’s finding the whole interchange completely confusing.

  ‘Why not?’ Matilda asks. ‘Where is he?’

  There are plenty of times when Grace admonishes her child for her abruptness, especially when it verges on rudeness, but today isn’t one of them because she wants the answer, too.

  ‘He’s at Nancy’s,’ he says, before turning back to Grace. ‘I’m sorry.’ He shakes his head, his eyes wide with something that resembles less confusion than anxiety. He seems more on edge. ‘With everything going on … and then Nancy offered …’

  ‘Oh okay, well, not to worry,’ Grace says as calmly as she can, though inside she is boiling at the thought that he didn’t even think to call her. She waits to see if he is going to tell her that he has heard from his wife. When he doesn’t she asks, ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘Er, yes.’ He rubs his chin. ‘Yeah, she got in touch with me this afternoon, actually.’

  ‘Oh?’ Grace feigns surprise. ‘You’ve spoken to her?’

  ‘I did,’ he says, shuffling his feet as he seems to hop from one foot to the other.

  ‘What did she say?’ she persists, trying to read Ben’s expression. His eyebrows arch into a point and he is still rubbing at his stubble, and the fact he’s in no rush to answer makes her wonder if he doesn’t actually know what to say. She resists the urge to reach out and grab his hand so he’ll stop that bloody rubbing and tell him just to spit it out and tell her what Anna said to him.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, Grace, this isn’t a good time right now. Anna’s fine, that’s all you need to know. I’m sure she’ll be in touch with you at some point.’

  ‘Wait,’ she says as he begins pushing the door closed. ‘That’s it? I’ve been going out of my mind worrying about her all day. I need to know more than just that she’s fine. Where is she? What happened last night?’

  ‘Grace.’ He says her name with an elongated sigh. ‘I don’t need to go through all this right now.’

  She hesitates, scanning his face, looking for a clue. Have they had an argument? Is this just about Anna and Ben? If so, then of course she should back off and give him some privacy, but she’s certain that’s not it.

  Her mind is working overtime, because still nothing makes sense. Ben doesn’t look comfortable one bit and she is sure he is hiding something from her.

  Grace bites the corner of her lip, not knowing how far to push it. ‘Has she messaged you?’ she asks.

  ‘What? Yes,’ he says, ‘I’ve had a text.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ she says.

  ‘What?’ he laughs, incredulous.

  ‘The message. Can I read it?’ What she really wants is to see his phone, see it for herself.

  ‘No. No, you’re not—’ Ben shakes his head, and while Grace knows that maybe she shouldn’t push him, she can’t ignore the nagging voice inside her head that reminds her Anna is missing and she would never forgive herself if she didn’t ask questions of the people who clearly don’t want to answer them.

  Beside her Matilda steps closer and she can feel her daughter’s body pressing into her side. ‘Have the police been to see you?’ she asks him. ‘I went to the station this morning. I told them about Anna.’

  ‘Yes, they’ve been here,’ he says. Does he seem tired of the conversation now?

  ‘What did they say?’ she persists. She can see from the way he is breathing, from the whites of his knuckles as his hands curl tightly around the doorframe, that she is pushing his patience, but she mustn’t allow herself to care. When she knows for sure that Anna is safe, then she can explain herself and surely her friend will thank her for not giving up.

  Ben gives a semi shake of his head, one sharp movement to the right. ‘They’re happy that Anna is fine. There’s no case, Grace.’

  ‘What do you mean there’s no case? They’ve closed it?’

  ‘Of course they have. They’ve seen the text, they’re happy she’s okay. Now please—’ he closes his eyes briefly. ‘This has got nothing to do with you. So if you don’t mind, I need to collect my son now.’

  Grace opens her mouth and clamps it shut again. She is sick of everyone telling her that it has nothing to do with her. But she has tackled it wrong, got Ben defensive. She would start again if she could. For now all she can say, her tone softer, pleading, is, ‘Ben, aren’t you worried?’

  He looks at her then, his eyes narrowing again, and in that moment she believes he is about to admit th
at yes, of course he is worried, because he’s had a text from his wife that sounds nothing but out of the ordinary and either there is something seriously wrong with her or, worse, the text is actually from someone else.

  But in the end he shakes his head slightly, and only says, ‘Like I said, everything’s fine.’

  That night Grace can’t concentrate on Matilda or the spelling homework her daughter has to do, which needs to be in the next day as it will be the end of the week.

  Matilda has been firing questions at her since they got back from seeing Ben, a constant barrage about Ethan’s mummy. Where is she? Why hasn’t she come home? Has she had an accident?

  As much as Grace can’t truly answer the questions, she tells her daughter there is nothing to worry about, Anna is fine. She lies to her later in the evening that Ben has messaged her and assured her Anna is all right, although Matilda seems more inquisitive than distressed.

  It’s a relief to finally get her daughter into bed, but Grace can’t settle and finds herself searching out photo albums from the past, pulling out snapshots of her and Anna, poring over them as she lays them out on the living-room carpet.

  She wakes on the sofa when it is still dark outside. The clock on the wall above the modern, faux fireplace tells her it is twenty past five in the morning. Photographs litter the carpet, strewn as if they are pieces of some crime scene, a puzzle for her to work out, and yet Grace knows they were never going to give her answers. She’d just wondered whether the clue was in there somewhere, hidden in the past.

  She has spent the night dreaming of Anna and of Crayne’s Cliff. The words of Samantha, the mother whose husband had seen Anna there at two o’clock yesterday morning, taunt her.

  When Matilda walks into the living room an hour later Grace is sitting on the edge of the sofa. Her daughter eyes the mess on the floor suspiciously, asks her if she can have Shreddies for breakfast, then proceeds to sit next to her and switch on the television.

  All this time Grace doesn’t move. She just wants to drop Matilda at school and get back to the police station, because she will not rest until she knows for sure that Anna is safe.

  November – Four weeks earlier

  Anna

  Sally doesn’t have her notebook on her lap today. It is closed and placed on the side table next to her. She is leaning forward, a serious expression on her face, her hands steepled in front of her. ‘We’ve been talking for six weeks now,’ she says softly, ‘and still sometimes I think we’re only scratching the surface.’

  I pretend I have no idea what she is getting at, and yet my heart beats with a heavy thud.

  ‘And so I guess I’m wondering why,’ Sally goes on. ‘Because I think you could be holding something back, and yet at the same time it might be the very reason you came to me in the first place.’

  One of my hands is fiddling with the seam of my jeans, which is beginning to come apart. If I poke at it too much I will make a hole, but I carry on regardless. Sally is waiting for a response and I stop picking and shuffle forward in the chair, then back again. I can’t get comfortable. Today it had been a thin line for me deciding whether or not to actually keep my appointment.

  When I start digging my fingers back into the hole again Sally asks, ‘How’s it been with your friends lately?’

  I think to myself that it hasn’t been the same since Ben’s party. There are new undercurrents within the group.

  I tell Sally that Nancy and I had an argument at the school gates five days ago.

  ‘You’re not being a good friend to me, Anna,’ she had said as she prodded a finger against my chest. ‘You’re putting her before me.’

  ‘Can you tell me what it was about?’ Sally asks.

  I give a slight shake of my head. I don’t want to go into it.

  ‘Is it sorted?’ she asks instead.

  ‘I—’ I break off. ‘Kind of,’ I finish.

  Actually, it is far from sorted. But while both Nancy and I know this to be the case, we’ve found an unspoken way of making believe it is. Of pretending – for now, at least.

  ‘Your friends are incredibly important to you,’ Sally says. ‘I’ve picked up on this a lot during our sessions.’

  I nod.

  ‘What else is it, Anna?’ she persists. ‘Something is worrying you, making you nervous.’ Her gaze drifts back to my fingers, which are stretching the fabric of my jeans apart, pressing into the hole that I’d been consciously trying not to make.

  ‘Last time I was telling you about my friend, Heather Kerr?’ I say, a question, making sure she remembers.

  Sally nods at me to go on.

  At the start of the summer in 1997 the days were hot. A short heatwave had exploded and the evenings were humid and drawn out.

  Grace was coming for a sleepover. She hadn’t been to our house in a long time and I hadn’t been to hers. Our friendship was waning, and yet neither of us had discussed it, though I knew Grace must have noticed. I’d wondered if she were too afraid to mention it, for fear I’d tell her I didn’t want her as a friend any longer. Would I have done that? I don’t think I would, but then I was so wrapped up in Heather that I’d begun to begrudge Grace hanging around.

  I also felt sorry for her, though, because I knew she had no one else to hang out with. And so when she’d been going on at me, saying she’d love to stay over, that she knew Heather had been and why wasn’t I inviting her, I told her to come.

  Heather was someone I was on a par with. That was how I justified my growing distance from Grace. Heather had had an unusual upbringing too, being in foster care from the age of six, and I never felt that I was always looking up to her, or that I was missing out on a family like I did when I was with Grace.

  Maybe that was one of the reasons I’d accepted her dare that day, even though I knew Grace was coming over to spend the night. It was possibly our riskiest move yet and I knew Grace would be tagging along too, but I liked the idea of showing her I was different now.

  Heather had caught up with me earlier in the day and said, ‘I dare us.’ That was the way we always started.

  ‘What?’ I’d giggled, with a fizz of excitement.

  ‘Tonight, when it’s dark, we creep out and meet at the cliffs.’

  ‘Crayne’s Cliff?’ Now my excitement was beginning to melt into trepidation. ‘But it’s taped off. After the accident. The ground slipped away, someone nearly died,’ I protested. ‘No one can go anywhere near the cliffs at the moment.’

  Not least, my dad would kill me if he found out I’d gone there. Somewhere so dangerous.

  ‘So?’ she said. ‘It’s tape, not a six-foot wall. And anyway, I dare us.’

  I wanted to say no. The cliffs had started to slide a week ago and had taken a walker with them, though thankfully the coastguard had managed to save him. And what would Grace have to say about it? She was currently walking across the field towards us, an overnight bag flung over her shoulder.

  So, yes, it was risky and we shouldn’t be doing it, but that was also the whole point of our dares. ‘Okay,’ I said, a nervous smile beginning to creep on to my lips. ‘What time?’

  ‘Ten thirty,’ she said and left before Grace reached us.

  ‘We’re going to sneak out and go to the cliffs tonight,’ I squealed to Grace as soon as she arrived at my side. ‘Oh my God, can you believe it?’ I knew she was about to dampen my excitement but I wanted her to know it was a done deal. I was going with Heather with or without her.

  Grace just stared at me, and I waited for her to say no way was she going to the cliffs, but she didn’t say a word. I was wrong-footed as we walked home and went about our evening. I asked my dad if we could put up the tent in the garden. It would make it so much easier to sneak out if we were sleeping outside. I watched him shake out the canvas on to the grass, muttering that two of the poles were missing, and that it meant a trip to the hardware store the next day, and reluctantly I pulled out the spare mattress from beneath my bed instead, opening the window wid
er to let what little breeze there was into the room.

  I doubted we’d get much sleep in the heat, but then sleep was the last thing on my mind as we ate sandwiches and crisps, played netball in the garden and watched a movie. Still Grace didn’t utter another word about going to the cliffs until 10 p.m., when she eventually said, ‘We can’t go, you know that, don’t you? It’s madness. She’s mad.’

  I knew it was coming and yet I still said, ‘Are you serious?’

  Grace nodded. ‘I don’t want you going, Anna, it’s dangerous.’

  I wanted to yell at her but at the same time I needed to keep my voice down. Dad was dozing in the living room but he was only below us. ‘You are not my mum, Grace.’

  I could see she was taken aback but I didn’t care. I’d spent years being cared for by Grace and her family; all I wanted was to make my own choices and take my own risks, and Grace wasn’t going to stop me. Heather understood what it was like to have a dysfunctional childhood. Grace didn’t.

  The hurt on her face was almost palpable, but right then I was desperate to break free and make my own mistakes. ‘Fine. You can stay here, then,’ I told her.

  I pulled on a purple hoodie and a pair of joggers, aware that Grace was watching me out of the corner of her eye. Eventually, she got up from the mattress and said, ‘I’ll come. I don’t want you going on your own.’

  Heather was waiting at the end of the road, and we were nearly with her when Grace had another change of heart. She grabbed my arm and said, ‘We can’t do this. It’s stupid. What would your dad say if he caught you?’

  For a moment I allowed my best friend to clutch tightly on to my arm because now that we were outside in the humid night air, I was losing some of my bravado.

  In that moment I was torn. Between right and wrong. Between Grace and Heather. The pull went on for ever as I deliberated which way it was greater.

  Finally I pulled my arm away from Grace’s clutch and said, ‘Go home then. I’ll see you later.’

  Grace’s face fell. She looked gutted to the core, but as much as I felt guilty I couldn’t ignore that there was a slither of satisfaction from being able to show my friend I didn’t need to be looked out for any more.