by Perks, Heidi
I want to tell Sally that the night didn’t end well. How I had gone home afterwards, tears streaking my face, desperate for Grace to still be at my house and not to have gone back to her own. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had, but how I had needed her right then, more than I ever had.
‘Anna, are you okay?’ Sally is asking me, pressing forward, handing me a tissue.
The relief of seeing my best friend asleep on the mattress in her Forever Friends top, a thin sheet draped over the lower half of her body, had been immense. I’d sobbed as I sank on to the bed with her, wishing I had listened to her and had never gone to the cliffs that night.
Just reliving the memory gives me palpitations. I grab my bag and coat and stand up. ‘I need to go,’ I say hurriedly.
‘Anna?’ Sally asks, but I don’t reply as I leave the room and her house, grateful for the freshness of the cold air outside.
That night I had waited for ‘I told you so’, but Grace wrapped her arms around me instead and promised me she was there for me.
Neither of us could have known how awfully the night would end, and yet Grace did something for me I could never have expected. She gave me an alibi. She said I was lying in the bed next to her all evening. That I never left the house.
Chapter Eleven
Friday 13 December
Grace
Two hours later and Grace has dropped Matilda at school and is now back at the police station, pulling into a space on the road opposite. In her mind she runs through the conversation she had yesterday afternoon with Ben about Anna’s supposed message, dwelling on how detached he was and how keen to get rid of her. His refusal to show her the text. Whether there is something he is covering up.
Every so often a voice reminds her that of course everything could be exactly as he says. Anna is fine and Ben is just embarrassed. But then she remembers how he looked so awkward, his desire to shut the door and stop her from asking questions, and she thinks that none of these are the actions of an innocent man.
Whatever, she is right to come here now. This time there is a woman behind the desk in reception, with tight curls on the top of her head and a pair of glasses that hang on a string around her neck. She has a slash of bright blue eyeshadow smeared across each eyelid and is nodding at an old man who is talking to her across the counter, reporting a stolen wallet, which he apparently left on a park bench. The woman patiently speaks with him but the wait feels interminable.
When he eventually shuffles out of the station Grace steps forward. ‘I was here yesterday and spoke with Peter Samson about a missing person,’ she tells the woman.
The woman fingers the beads of her glasses before putting them on to the edge of her nose and peering through them.
‘Is he here? I need to talk to him again.’
‘Can I take your name?’ the woman asks. ‘And the person who is missing?’
Grace gives her both and waits for her to pick up the phone and ask if he is around.
‘He’s not in today but take a seat over there and someone will come out to see you.’
‘Great, thanks,’ Grace says and retreats to the seat, where she waits for another five minutes before another woman appears in the doorway and calls her name.
Grace nods as she gets up, following her to the interview room she was in the day before.
‘I’m DCI Bethany Barker,’ the detective tells her. ‘I followed up on your report about your friend yesterday.’
This is great. At least she is seeing a detective now, Grace thinks. ‘It was you who went to see Ben Robinson?’ she asks.
Bethany nods, and Grace is relieved to be sitting in front of the right person.
‘How can I help you?’
‘Anna is still missing,’ Grace says. ‘I know that she’s apparently texted her husband, but I still think something is wrong.’
‘Wrong in what way?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Grace replies. ‘But her husband was particularly cagey with me, and he wouldn’t show me the message.’
‘I saw it myself, Mrs Goodwin,’ Bethany says. ‘And as far as I’m concerned, your friend just needed some time out.’
Grace gives a small shake of her head. ‘But how do you know it is her?’
The DCI leans back in her seat and crosses her legs, smoothing her hands across a black pencil skirt. ‘People take time out for all kinds of reasons,’ she explains. ‘You’d be surprised how many adults go missing from their usual routines and lives every day. It isn’t a crime.’
‘That’s as may be, but Anna isn’t many adults,’ Grace says, feeling her pulse quickening at the thought that she’s about to be passed off again. ‘I know she would never walk out on her son. I told your officer, or whoever he is, this yesterday. She wouldn’t do that. I know she wouldn’t, because it’s what her mum did to her, and there’s no way Anna would do the same.’
Grace spots the slight inclination of Bethany’s head, acknowledging what she has just told her, and she knows, too late, that she has said the wrong thing. She might know, beyond doubt, that Anna wouldn’t leave Ethan, but to the detective and anyone else who doesn’t know Anna like she does, the fact that her mother left her when she was a child is enough reason to believe she is likely to do the same.
DC Barker tells her she is certain there is nothing to worry about, and they aren’t investigating Anna’s disappearance any further. And as much as Grace protests, she is aware she is fighting a losing battle.
Outside the station, tears prick her eyes. They are tears of frustration that make her want to open her mouth and scream. She slams her hand too hard against a brick wall, feeling the sting shoot through her skin.
‘Hello again,’ a male voice says.
She snaps her head to the side and finds the man from yesterday, who was sat behind the station desk with his bouncy hair and tattooed arms. He smiles at her, his whole face lighting up, and she sees again just how handsome he is. ‘Hello,’ she says.
‘Everything all right?’
Grace shrugs then shakes her head. ‘No. None of your colleagues believe me.’
‘Oh?’
She turns and looks down the street, eyes narrowing as she wonders how much to say. ‘My friend is still missing and yet apparently you’ve closed the case. Your detective in there seems content that Anna is absolutely fine and just having a little time out for herself.’
‘Which you don’t believe?’ he asks.
She turns back to him. ‘No.’
He holds her gaze for a long moment. She wants to look away but can’t quite bring herself to do so. ‘I remembered last night when I got home,’ he starts, ‘where I know your name from.’
At this she notices his smile falter, the light in his eyes darkening. ‘It was my first case. Twenty-two years ago. Clearly you’ve changed a lot since then as you were only a child. I wasn’t much of an adult myself, I suppose, which is why the case is branded into my head.’ He taps himself on the side of his hair. ‘Your school friend. Heather Kerr.’
Grace opens her mouth, her eyes trawling his face again for recognition. He was the policeman with the friendly face who had come to her parents’ house and stood on their doorstep, telling them that Heather was missing. Anna had been sent home shortly after he arrived, back to her dad, Catherine insisting he needed to be present if Anna was to speak to the police.
Eventually Grace nods. ‘I remember,’ she says quietly. She remembers, though she doesn’t want to.
Back in the car she slams her hands against the steering wheel, pulling out her phone and calling Anna’s number, but the call diverts straight to voicemail again. ‘Anna, I’m worried about you,’ she says. ‘Please call me. If you’re okay just let me know. I want to hear it from you.’ She hangs up and tosses the phone on to the seat beside her, drumming her fingers now, not knowing where to go next.
The police officer is called Marcus Hargreaves. She still remembers his name. She remembers that she sat on a beanbag in the living room while h
e sat next to her, asking her about school. Did she like it? What was her favourite subject? Does she know what she wants to do when she leaves? He told her back then there was nothing to be worried about either. They would find Heather, he said. It is why she knows she cannot trust them when they tell her not to worry now, because he might have kept to his word – they did find her in the end, but it was too late.
As soon as he told her who he was, Grace made an excuse to go, and left him standing on the corner of the road outside the station. She could feel his eyes on her back as she crossed over to her car, but Heather Kerr is not someone she wants to talk about, and especially not with the officer who was on the case.
She tries to push Marcus Hargreaves to the edge of her mind and focus on the here and now: Anna has supposedly messaged to say she is fine; the police aren’t looking into her disappearance. There is still a gap in Wednesday night between when she left the pub and when the others did, and maybe if Grace knew what had happened she could work out what to do next.
Caitlyn is her best option. If Grace can get her on her own then she has a chance of breaking her down and getting her to say what she knows. She will turn up unannounced. It’ll be better that way. She’ll drive to Caitlyn’s house and just hope the woman is alone.
Caitlyn doesn’t live in the new-build estate like her three friends do. Hers is a terraced townhouse on the eastern edge of Clearwater, where the property prices are cheaper. It’s also a stone’s throw from Anna’s childhood house, which Grace has driven past a few times since she’s been back, each time memories flooding back as if they were only yesterday.
In contrast, she has only driven past her own childhood home on a couple of occasions. Her parents’ old house sits further out of town still, and the years haven’t been kind to it. The road, which was once deemed up-and-coming, has been abandoned at the thrill of the arrival of a housing estate. Her dad’s once-pristine driveway and immaculate garage have been overtaken by weeds and peeling paint. It’s hard to imagine him out the front proudly polishing his new Mazda in front of the neighbours when looking at the house in its current state, so she is better off remembering it in her head.
When Matilda started at St Christopher’s, the mums had asked Grace, ‘What’s it like to be back again after so much time?’
She told them it was like coming home. What she didn’t add was if that was a good thing or not. Grace had always considered her childhood a happy one, she certainly hadn’t wanted for anything, but as soon as she’d set foot in Clearwater again the thought had hit her that she couldn’t remember if she’d been actually happy.
She is coming up to Anna’s old house now as these thoughts fill her head, and she finds herself slowing to a crawl as she approaches it, peering out of the passenger window. Was she happy? It’s an unnerving thought that she may not have been, and one she has never wanted to address. She should have been. She had more than Anna ever did: two parents who were there for her all the time, at least, not an emotionally absent father like Anna’s.
Grace slams a foot on the accelerator, speeding up too fast, eyes back on the road ahead and away from the house. Her mum was certainly there for her, anyway, too much most of the time – a helicopter parent, she would be called now. But Grace knows the same couldn’t really be said of her dad. Only she has never been able to admit it before, not even to herself. Not even, she thinks now, as much as Anna’s father had been there for her.
It’s a thought she quickly dismisses as she turns into Caitlyn’s road and pulls up outside her house. It is the only one on the road with brand-new Velux windows peeking out of its roof, and whereas all the other front gardens are paved with ornate rockeries, this one has an unsightly climbing frame in the middle.
Caitlyn’s car is parked on the road out front, and with none of the others’ cars in sight, Grace feels some relief as she raps on the knocker and waits for someone to come to the door. When Caitlyn appears she is wrapped in a thick cardigan that reaches her mid-calves and her hair is pulled back into a scruffy knot. Her face has panic written all over it when she sees Grace on her doorstep.
‘Do you mind if I come in?’ Grace asks.
Caitlyn nods and stands aside, looking down the road as if she expects someone to be watching them.
‘The police have said they’ve closed the case,’ Grace says as she follows Caitlyn through the short hallway and into her front room. The table is covered in craft. She can’t even see the top of it for pots of glitter and tubes of glue. Pieces of coloured card are strewn everywhere, intermingled with tiny felt Christmas trees, and there is a pile of paperchains dumped on the carpet.
When Caitlyn sees Grace eying it she says, ‘Sorry. It’s a mess.’ She begins to push some of it together but doesn’t make much effort. When she stops she adds, ‘I make cards to sell in my sister’s shop.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ Grace picks one up. ‘They’re good.’
‘Thank you. It’s just a hobby, really, but for some reason she’s already sold all the Christmas ones I made.’ Caitlyn smiles sheepishly. ‘You can sit down,’ she adds, gesturing to an armchair in the window.
Grace nods and sits as Caitlyn pulls a wicker chair out from beneath the table for herself, looking at her expectantly.
‘I didn’t even know your sister has a shop.’ Grace smiles.
‘It’s a florist on the main road, but she sells other bits, too. I don’t do it for the money,’ Caitlyn tells her, ‘which is good as they don’t sell for much.’
‘Your husband works at the boatyard, doesn’t he?’ Grace goes on, sensing Caitlyn is beginning to feel a bit more comfortable in her presence.
‘Yes. Alan’s been there for as long as I’ve known him. As was his father and his grandfather, too.’ There is a hint of pride in her voice. ‘But it’s Alan who’s grown it into the business it is today,’ she says. ‘Eric will tell you that, it’s turning more money now than it has in decades.’
‘Eric?’ Grace asks. ‘Nancy’s husband, Eric?’
Caitlyn nods. ‘He works for Alan now. He does the books.’
Grace’s eyes widen in surprise. ‘Oh?’ she says, and immediately Caitlyn realises she has said something she likely shouldn’t have said, for her cheeks flush red. ‘I mean, you know he used to have a very big job in London but …’
Grace brushes her off. ‘Of course.’ She smiles, but the information is interesting and she files it away to think about later, because it is just another little thing about Nancy that makes her not the person she makes out to be.
‘Anyway,’ Caitlyn starts, clearly about to change the subject, ‘you know Anna texted yesterday, don’t you?’
‘I know she supposedly did,’ Grace replies.
Caitlyn opens her mouth as if to protest but in the end she doesn’t say anything, clamping it shut again, as if she doesn’t disagree.
‘Do you think she definitely has?’ Grace asks her.
‘Why would they lie?’ Caitlyn replies.
Grace shrugs but doesn’t take her eyes off Caitlyn. Finally, she says, ‘Please tell me what happened on Wednesday evening after I left.’ She leans forward in the uncomfortable chair. ‘What actually happened when you left the pub?’
Caitlyn reaches for one of the pots of glitter and draws it towards her, fiddling with its plastic lid, pushing it up with her thumb and then pressing it shut again. Grace tries to ignore the irritating popping sound it makes each time it opens, and wishes Caitlyn would just answer the question. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ she says eventually.
‘I just want the truth.’
‘Nancy told me Anna had already gone,’ Caitlyn says. ‘I assumed she must have done, but I honestly don’t know if she had or not. I didn’t see her for at least fifteen minutes before we called the cab so she could have done, and by then it was almost two a.m. and I just wanted to get home. I’d told Alan I’d be home by one so I had this panic he’d worry.’
‘Why would Nancy tell you Anna ha
d left if Rachel says she was still there?’ she asks. Grace has no interest whatsoever in Alan. She just wants Caitlyn to answer her questions.
‘I don’t know.’ Caitlyn shrugs. ‘I don’t, Grace. Whatever you think you’re going to get from me I don’t have the answers you want. Why aren’t you speaking to Nancy or Rachel?’
‘Because I don’t think they’ll tell me the truth,’ Grace admits.
Caitlyn peels her gaze away and studies the pot in her hand.
‘And I want to know why not.’ When Caitlyn doesn’t speak she goes on: ‘What happened before that point?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she shakes her head but carries on, ‘Anna was gone for ages with Rachel. They were outside smoking, I suppose. That must have been when they had the argument because when they came back in I don’t remember them talking to each other again. In fact, as soon as Anna had come back, Nancy got up and dragged her to the bar and they were there for a really long time, because Rachel kept asking me what they were doing. But like I say, I have no idea, because none of them told me anything.’
‘Okay,’ Grace says, sensing some irritation at this. ‘And then what?’
‘Anna was upset. I wondered if it was because of the argument with Rachel but …’ She shrugs.
‘The one Nancy professed she knew nothing about?’
‘Yes,’ she admits. ‘But actually I really don’t think she did know about that because when you left Rachel’s yesterday Nancy was demanding answers from her. I don’t think she had a clue that they’d been arguing. So whatever her discussion was with Anna it must have been unrelated.’
‘And what did Rachel say?’
‘She wouldn’t tell her. At least, not while I was there.’
‘You feel it too, don’t you, Caitlyn?’ Grace presses. ‘Like you’re being kept out of something.’