Have You Seen Her

by Lisa Hall

  ‘And what about Fran? How was she that night?’

  ‘She was fine . . . until Laurel disappeared, that is. Then she was frantic, obviously, we all were.’

  ‘Even Dominic?’ DC Bishop asks, her pen scratching over the paper in front of her, making notes that I can’t decipher.

  ‘Well, yes.’ I pause, not sure even now what I should be saying. ‘Once he knew she was missing.’

  DC Bishop inhales, as if about to ask another question before she closes her mouth and scratches the side of her head. I wait, my heart thundering in my chest, the silence in the room feeling tangibly thick.

  ‘Is there anything you want to tell us, Anna?’ Her eyes meet mine, and I think for a moment that my heart will stop dead in my chest.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I slide my gaze away, focusing on the damp patch on a ceiling tile above her head, the brown stain in the shape of a boat, stark against the white of the other tiles.

  ‘I mean, is there anything we should know? Anything at all?’ She leans forward on the desk, steepling her hands under her chin as she stares at me.

  ‘No,’ I whisper, shaking my head slightly.

  ‘Really? How about we start with the fact that we know you’re not Anna Cox.’

  I go hot, then cold, sweat drenching my body then leaving me chilled to the bone. The floor feels as if it is liquid under my feet, and I shuffle my toes under the table in order to ground myself, to feel as though I am still really here, that this isn’t one long nightmare.

  ‘We spoke to your previous employers – or should I say Anna’s previous employers? I think you’ve probably realised now that things didn’t quite stack up for us.’

  ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with Laurel, that’s the only reason I didn’t say anything, I swear.’

  ‘We know who you are, Anna, or can I call you Charlie?’

  ‘I can explain everything.’

  ‘Yeah, I think you probably should.’ DC Bishop leans back in her chair and flicks her fingers towards me. ‘Fire away. I think you’ve got quite a bit of explaining to do, don’t you?’

  I scrub my hands over my face, buying a few seconds to calm myself before I begin to speak. I haven’t talked about what happened before, not since I left Scotland, and I’ve spent even more time lately trying to block it from my thoughts entirely, but I suppose there had to come a point when I had to be honest. But I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.

  ‘It was the summer of 2012. I had been in Scotland for a few weeks after finishing my training, staying with a boyfriend who lived there. To be honest, things didn’t work out with him pretty quickly, but by then I’d already got the job with the Mackenzies. I was faced with a decision – either move back home to try and find a job in Brighton or try and make a go of things in Killin on my own. The Mackenzies offered to let me live in once they heard I’d broken up with my boyfriend, so I jumped at the chance to stay with them and carry on looking after Archie.’

  I break for a moment, taking a sip of the lukewarm water. Just thinking about Archie, his huge dark eyes, those plump little baby thighs, brings stinging hot tears to my eyes.

  ‘So, what went wrong?’ DC Bishop asks. ‘Presumably something happened there that meant you wanted to change your name, become someone else?’

  ‘They were quite a prominent, well-known family in Killin, the Mackenzies. He did something in local politics, she was . . . I don’t know; she’d done some modelling before they were married, she was Greek, and they’d met while he was out there on holiday. They had no problems with being out every night, leaving me to look after the baby. I didn’t get a day off, rarely anyway. I was exhausted a lot of the time.’ And I was – any new mother will tell you how exhausting it is to take care of a child all day and all night. ‘I’m not making excuses about what happened, you know?’

  DC Bishop nods, and I wonder if she has children, if there is someone at home, employed by her, putting her children to bed while she is searching for another lost child.

  ‘That night, the Mackenzies had gone to a dinner. I’d been up since five o’clock in the morning with Archie . . . I’d put him to bed and he’d kept getting up, wanting to see Gabby, his mother, before she left. He was almost two, and he could reach the door handle to the bedroom to let himself out – she refused to put a child gate up, said they looked untidy. She was angry with him, shouting at me to get him out so she could get ready. She had a temper.’ I pause for a moment, seeing Gabby in my mind’s eye, all dark hair and heaving bosom. She was never maternal, not cut out to be a mother. ‘They left, and finally Archie fell asleep. I was so tired, too tired to even eat dinner, so instead I poured myself a glass of wine, and went out into the garden to have a cigarette. I forgot to pick up the baby monitor.’

  For a moment, I am back there, in Killin, standing in the garden of the Mackenzies’ huge stone house. The UK had been in the grip of a short heatwave, the day had been hot, and the evening was still stiflingly warm, rare for this far north. My feet dusty in my worn New Look sandals, the thin cotton of my summer dress brushing against my knees in the warm evening breeze, heavy with the scent of the roses that grow all along the path. I clamp the cigarette between my teeth, the rasp of the lighter and then that first trickle of smoke pouring into my lungs soothing away the stress and exhaustion of the day.

  ‘I don’t know how long I stood out there for. Long enough to finish my wine and smoke two cigarettes and watch the stars. When I came back in, Archie was at the bottom of the stairs. He’d let himself out of his bedroom and come looking for me. The staircase was polished oak . . . he must have lost his footing and fallen. He was unconscious.’ I feel that familiar, sick, panicky feeling, and I am frightened that if I open my mouth I will vomit all over the table. The crimson stain spreading out across the flagstone floor, the weight of his head as I cradled his tiny skull in my hands, his blood seeping into the skin around my fingernails. I clamp my teeth together, breathing in and out through my nose until I feel under control again.

  ‘And then what happened?’ DC Bishop’s voice is soft now, her eyebrows creasing together slightly as she listens.

  ‘I called the ambulance, the Mackenzies . . . I can’t really remember, it was all such a blur. Archie was taken to hospital and put in a medically induced coma. He’d hit his head pretty badly. And then . . . they said I did it.’ I remember the fear, the shock that rattled my bones as I was arrested and questioned for hours on end. ‘He’d hit his head so badly that his skull was fractured, and he’d suffered such extensive damage that the doctors had no choice but to turn off his life support machine – and the police thought I was responsible. So did his parents.

  ‘There were other bruises on him, all over his body, that they said couldn’t have been caused by the fall. I was the one in the frame. I knew I hadn’t hurt him – I loved that little boy so much – but I had seen Gabby grab him roughly when he wouldn’t do as he was told. I tried to tell them that, but why would they believe me? The English nanny who would rather sit outside, drinking and smoking, leaving a tiny boy all alone inside?’ I let out a huff of bitter laughter. ‘The police couldn’t make it stick – they could say that I had been negligent, but they couldn’t definitively say that I had pushed Archie on purpose. It was the media, and the people who lived there who crucified me. I had no other option but to come back to England.’

  ‘And that’s when you changed your name?’

  ‘I didn’t feel I had a choice – who would employ me? Who would give me the time of day if they knew I was Charlie Seddon? I haven’t even told my mum I’m home. She still thinks I’m in Scotland working in a bar, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t want her to know I was here, looking after a child again . . . I just wanted to protect her – I thought if she doesn’t know I’m here, then she doesn’t have to see me, she doesn’t have to explain anything to anyone. She got terrible abuse when people found out I was her daughter.’ I drain the last of the water, pushing the glass away from me, a sing
le tear dropping onto the formica table in front of me. ‘I thought the best thing to do was become someone else, so I bleached and cut my hair, dropped some weight and changed my name. Anna Cox was on my nannying course years ago. I knew via Facebook that she’d given it all up to get married, so why not use her name for some references? I never meant any harm, not to anyone.’

  ‘That’s quite a story,’ DC Bishop says, her face devoid of any expression. I have no idea whether she believes me, or what she’s thinking about it all.

  ‘Am I in trouble? I mean, I only wanted to protect myself, to try and start over, you know?’ I ignore the irony here – that in starting over I have inadvertently found myself in much the same position as I was in before. Caring for a child, something bad happening to said child, and me in the firing line, all lined up and ready to be accused of something I didn’t do.

  DC Bishop skips over my question, asking one of her own instead. ‘So, Anna – I’m going to keep calling you Anna, no point in adding to the confusion – let’s go back to Laurel’s disappearance.’

  I feel a rush of what can only be relief, as I realise that, for now, we are done talking about what happened in Killin on that awful, terrible night.

  ‘So, Dominic didn’t turn up that night?’

  ‘No,’ I say firmly, ‘he was supposed to meet us, but he never showed.’

  ‘And did he explain to you where he was? Give you a reason as to why he didn’t meet his daughter as planned?’

  ‘No,’ I say, cautiously. I am aware that whatever I say now could change the whole course of the investigation, but I owe it to Laurel to tell DC Bishop the truth – it doesn’t matter anymore if I don’t have anything to back it up, they’ll be questioning him now anyway. ‘He wasn’t at the hospital, even though he told Fran that’s where he was. He asked me not to say anything to Fran, and I . . . assumed that he was meeting someone. But then I spoke to his ex-girlfriend, Pamela, and she was waiting to meet him that night too. He never showed up for her either.’

  ‘So, where do you think he was?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Driving Laurel away in the back of his car.

  ‘And do you think that Pamela knows where he was?’

  I think for a moment. If she had asked before I knew who Pamela was, I would have known how to answer, but now I’m not so sure. ‘I don’t know. She says not, but Fran has been receiving abusive messages on the “FIND LAUREL” Facebook page, about how she doesn’t deserve to have children. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pamela had something to do with that.’

  ‘And what about Dominic’s car? Does everyone use the car, or just him?’

  I frown. ‘Just him, I guess. They might go out in it as a family, but that’s very rare. Fran uses a car service when she can, and usually I use my car or walk with Laurel. There is one other thing . . . I maybe should have mentioned it earlier, but I didn’t know . . .’ I stop, not sure how to explain why I didn’t tell Kelly or DS Wright about it in the first place. I reach into the pocket of my jeans and pull out the tissue-wrapped hair. ‘I found this hair on Dominic’s jacket right after Laurel went missing. It might be nothing, but . . .’

  DC Bishop scribbles another unintelligible scrawl in her notebook, and carefully drops the tissue and hair into a clear plastic evidence bag. ‘Leave this with me. Thanks, Anna, you’ve been very helpful. Interview terminated at 14.26.’ She leans over, shirt straining at the seams again, and switches off the tape recorder, before showing me towards the door, telling me it’s OK for me to go home, but not to discuss anything we’ve talked about with Fran or Dominic.

  I walk home, my whole body aching with exhaustion as my mind runs over the questions that DC Bishop fired at me. It was exhausting reliving what happened to Archie in Scotland, but I am somewhat relieved that I finally got it off my chest – I finally told the truth. Now all that remains to be seen is whether I have spent the last three years sharing a house with a man who could abduct his own daughter.

  CHAPTER 21

  As I walk back towards the Jessops’ house (I am losing the ability to refer to it as home, it no longer feels like home, not without Laurel there), I try not to notice the icy, cold air, the frost glittering on the pavement, more Christmas lights twinkling in the front windows of the houses I pass; a stark reminder that in a few weeks Christmas will be upon us and there is every chance that we will be waking up on Christmas morning without Laurel. Although I initially felt relieved to talk about what happened with Archie, to get the burden of the lie off my chest, now all I can think about is Laurel, where she is, if she is safe, if she is warm enough, and the burden returns, heavier than ever.

  Shoulders hunched, exhaustion pulling at my core, I push the front door open, a deafening silence telling me that Fran and Dominic aren’t back yet. Tugging my boots off, I pause as a noise from overhead filters downstairs. The sound of a floorboard creaking. I freeze, wondering if I imagined it, before it comes again, the soft creak of someone walking around upstairs. Slowly I lower the boot to the floor and step quietly onto the stairs, creeping my way up. Maybe Fran is home? But no, Fran wouldn’t be creeping around, you can always hear Fran coming a mile off. At the top of the stairs I stop, holding my breath, listening hard, and see that Laurel’s bedroom is partially open. Pushing it open, I see Ruth standing in front of Laurel’s chest of drawers, a tiny T-shirt in her hands.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ I demand, a tiny thrill shooting through me at seeing her jump, a scarlet flush creeping up her neck. ‘Does Fran know you’re here?’

  ‘Anna . . .’ Ruth turns, laying the T-shirt back in the drawer. ‘I didn’t hear you come home.’

  ‘And you didn’t answer me. Why are you in Laurel’s room? And where is Fran?’ I thought she was a bit odd before, the way she’s forced herself into our lives, offering her help even though we’ve told her we don’t need it, but this is simply too weird.

  ‘I was just . . . I came to help Fran.’ Ruth steps past me into the hallway, leaving me no choice but to follow her downstairs.

  ‘So, Fran knows you’re here?’ Now I am convinced something isn’t quite right, Fran would never leave someone she barely knows alone in the house, no matter how many pre-cooked dinners they brought over.

  Ruth walks into the kitchen and lifting an apron from the hook that hangs behind the door, she ties it round her waist and opens the oven. ‘No, not exactly, but Fran needs me. I heard what happened today with you all having to go to the police station and I came straight over. I thought you’d be hungry.’ There is the smell of garlic in the air and my stomach turns. So now she’s taken to cooking in the house instead of just bringing food over, it seems.

  ‘So . . .’ I frown, the ease in which she moves around the kitchen as if it is her own making me feel quite uncomfortable. ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Oh, I borrowed the spare key,’ she says breezily, and I feel a chill snake down my spine. She’s still wearing those horrible, grubby, paint-stained jeans, and as she reaches towards the tap for boiling water, I glance at her fingernails, shuddering at the black marks beneath the nails. I can only hope that it’s paint. ‘Will you have tea?’

  ‘No,’ I say shortly, ‘Ruth, I don’t mean to be rude, but we’ve all had kind of a stressful day, and coming home to find you in Laurel’s room . . . well, it’s a bit weird. I know all you want to do is help, but Fran isn’t home now, and I think she’ll probably be tired when she does get in. It might be best if you leave now, maybe come and see her tomorrow?’ I cross my fingers behind my back, hoping against all hope that she’ll take the hint and go.

  ‘I’m sure Fran will be tired.’ A dark look crosses Ruth’s face, and she turns the tap off a little too forcefully. The air between us changes, and I’m not sure what is going on, my pulse picking up a little bit of speed as Ruth tugs at the strings of the apron around her waist, yanking it up over her head, muttering to herself as she does so.

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude . . .’ I step to one side as sh
e snatches up her bag from where it sits in a bulky, beige hessian puddle by the table.

  ‘You people never do,’ she snaps, freezing at the sound of the front door opening and then slamming shut reaches our ears. Slowly she places her bag back down on the floor, with a slightly triumphant glance towards me.

  ‘Anna? Are you here?’ Fran’s voice calls out, and I can picture her in the hallway, throwing her boots under the radiator, shaking cold, frosty droplets from her sleek, dark hair, so different to Laurel’s blonde ponytail.

  ‘In the kitchen.’ I call out, sliding into a chair at the table, hoping my voice doesn’t wobble. My hands are cold, and I tuck them under my thighs to warm them, avoiding Ruth’s gaze. Fran bursts in, closely followed by Kelly.

  ‘Anna, you poor thing. How was it?’ Fran crouches next to me, tugging my hand out and clutching it between both of hers. ‘Was it dreadful? Did they ask you awful things?’ Her face is pale, two spots of deep red dancing high up on her cheekbones. Her dark eyes glitter, and she looks hectic, almost manic. I dread to think how her interview went.

  ‘It wasn’t as bad as I first thought,’ I say, ‘but I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about it.’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ Fran straightens, pressing her hands to her cheeks. ‘I’m just so relieved it’s over. Kelly, can you make us some tea?’

  ‘I can do it.’ Ruth jumps to attention, dishing out a quick smirk in my direction. ‘Hello, Fran.’

  Fran turns to her, a mild look of surprise on her face. ‘Oh, it’s you. I didn’t realise you were here.’ She frowns for a moment. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘She was in Laurel’s room when I came home,’ I burst out, ‘she said she had the spare key.’

  Fran stares at Ruth, confusion clouding her features. ‘You let yourself into my house? Into my daughter’s bedroom?’

  ‘Fran, I only wanted to . . .’ Ruth says, her hands raised in surrender. She looks at me, furious. ‘You don’t understand.’