Have You Seen Her

by Lisa Hall

  ‘It’s Pamela. I need to speak to you – please call me, or even text if you’d rather, so we can arrange to meet. I wouldn’t ask, only it’s important.’

  Sighing, I hesitate only for a second, before I punch out my reply.

  ‘When?’

  CHAPTER 25

  It is several weeks later before I manage to meet up with Pamela. Christmas was spent with my family, my mother over the moon to have me back at home again. Although things were a little awkward and stilted when I first arrived back, I kept a low profile from the neighbours, and by the time Christmas Day was over it was as if I’d never left for Scotland in the first place.

  On Christmas morning I go to church, walking slowly through the rain to arrive towards the end of the service. I slide unnoticed into a pew at the back and wait for all the other parishioners to leave before I approach the altar, lighting a candle and saying a whispered prayer for Laurel. I wonder if Fran is doing the same thing, Polly beside her, or if she is curled up in bed, not wanting to face Christmas Day at all. I wonder if Dominic is thinking of Laurel today, too, alone in his cell.

  Pamela texts me several times over the Christmas period, but it is the last week in January before I manage to arrange a time and place to meet with her. Part of me is nervous at hearing what she has to say but desperate to know what news she has, and the other half doesn’t want to see her at all – she lied to me, tricked me, and I trusted her. I try to ignore the fact that Fran must feel the same way about me deep down.

  We meet at a pizza restaurant in the centre of South Oxbury and I feel as though I have to watch over my shoulder in case Fran appears, even though she’s told me that she’s decided to stay on with Polly at her rented cottage in Norfolk for a little while. I enter the restaurant ten minutes later than we agreed, not wanting to be the first one there. Glancing around, I see Pamela sitting in a corner booth, tucked out of the way of the rest of the diners, a large glass of red wine in front of her even though it’s barely midday. Weaving my way through the room, I tug off my scarf and reach the table before she’s even realised I’ve arrived.

  ‘Pamela.’

  She looks up from where she is shredding a paper napkin across the table, her fingers worrying at the paper and leaving confetti-like shreds all over her skirt. ‘Oh, Anna. I didn’t think you would come. You didn’t seem too keen to get together.’ Her tone isn’t bitchy, or snarky, she just sounds incredibly tired.

  I slide into the seat opposite and look at her more closely. Her skin is pale and blotchy, spots breaking out in a little rash between her eyebrows. Dark circles ring her eyes, a faded bluish-purple, and her hair, usually styled and bouncy, hangs limply around her face, her fringe ever so slightly greasy. In short, she doesn’t look too dissimilar to the way Fran looked when Laurel disappeared.

  ‘Sorry. It . . . feels a bit strange, you know. How are you?’ I feel I have to ask the question, even though it’s clear from what I see in front of me that she isn’t coping too well.

  ‘Oh, you know. It’s difficult, but I have to be there for Dominic, especially now Fran has abandoned him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say abandoned as such, he took Laurel and is refusing to tell the police where she is. Fran has accepted that Laurel won’t be coming home alive now, but the decent thing would be for Dominic to confess to everything and at least let Fran bury her daughter. He owes her that much.’

  ‘Owes her?’ Pamela screws her face up as she screeches the words out, before looking around the restaurant and lowering her voice. ‘He doesn’t owe that bitch anything. He didn’t do anything to Laurel, Anna.’ Her cheeks flush, and she fumbles for the wine glass in front of her, taking a healthy swig and leaving her lips stained with purple.

  ‘Oh, Pamela, come on. I know you still love him, but even you have to admit that things simply don’t stack up when it comes to Dominic. He doesn’t have an alibi . . .’

  ‘No, he doesn’t, but those roads aren’t covered by any CCTV. He didn’t stop anywhere, he was merely driving around trying to pluck up the courage to tell Fran that he didn’t want to be with her anymore. He was going to tell her that he wanted to be with me.’ Pamela sips at the wine again, more sedately this time, as the waiter approaches our table.

  ‘Just coffee for me, please.’ I wave him away and turn back to Pamela. ‘Pamela, think about things rationally. The person who saw Laurel getting into a car picked Dominic’s out of a range of photos. And there’s the sock – you know about the sock, right?’

  Pamela blinks. ‘It was a nosebleed. Dominic told me Laurel had a nosebleed and I believe him. He didn’t do this, Anna. Are you really going to let him go to prison for something he had no part in?’

  I grit my teeth, trying not to give in to the frustration that courses through my body. The woman is delusional, she has to be. And to think that when I first met her I thought she was so calm, so together, so . . . everything that I wanted to be. ‘She didn’t have a nosebleed, Pamela. And even if she did, it wouldn’t have been Dominic who dealt with it in the first place, it would have been me. Dominic was never there.’

  ‘Please, Anna, please try and see things from my point of view. Why would Dominic hurt Laurel? She was his daughter, he loved her. He’s not a violent man, he couldn’t do something like this. You forget, I know him.’

  I cast my mind back to the events of the days following Laurel’s disappearance and I have to beg to differ. I remember the way Dominic grabbed Fran’s arms, forcing her back against the kitchen worktops. The way Fran whispered to her mother on the phone about his unpredictable behaviour, the way he threw his glass, smashing it to smithereens, and I can’t agree with Pamela that he isn’t violent.

  ‘You used to know him. You weren’t there, Pamela. You didn’t see the way things could be in that house.’ I reach down to pick up my bag, ready to leave even though my coffee hasn’t arrived.

  ‘Fran hated Dominic,’ Pamela says, clutching me by my forearm, dragging me back to a seated position. ‘She knew he was unhappy, she knew he was going to leave her and come back to me. That woman is poison, Anna, and she knows that Dominic could never, ever do something as awful as what they’re saying he did. He’s not perfect, but he’s not a killer. I understand that she’s devastated by Laurel’s disappearance, but will you really support her in letting Dominic go to prison? Whoever really took Laurel is still out there, Anna, you know that.’

  ‘No, Pamela.’ I shake her off and get to my feet, ready to make eye contact with the waiter if I have to. ‘I don’t need to listen to this. Fran isn’t perfect, far from it, but she wouldn’t let Dominic go to prison if she didn’t believe that he did it. Despite the fact that things weren’t perfect between them, she loved him. And the police would never have charged him if they didn’t have the evidence to back up the claim that he was responsible.’

  ‘He’ll die in there, Anna.’ Pamela’s voice breaks and tears begin to stream down her cheeks, as she wipes her nose on her sleeve. ‘You should hear the things the other prisoners say to him, what they threaten to do to him. He’s innocent, Anna, I swear.’

  ‘What is that you want me to do, Pamela? Why have you asked me to meet you here?’

  ‘I want you to help me prove that Dominic is innocent. We need to get him out of there, Anna, I know he didn’t do it, but I need something to give to the police to prove that it wasn’t him who took Laurel.’

  ‘Pamela, I have to go.’ I step past her and make my way through the tables back towards the front of the restaurant, desperate to get outside and breathe some fresh, clean air.

  ‘She’s not so innocent.’ Pamela grabs my arm as I reach the front door, hissing in my face, ‘Do you really think she had nothing to do with any of this? This is as much her fault as it is anyone else’s.’

  I tug my arm free, tearing the sleeve of my jacket and hurry away, almost running in my haste to get away from Pamela and her toxic ideas.

  Before I realise it, I find myself at the junction at the top of the
road to the Jessops’ house, my indicator flashing left to turn in. The road is quiet, empty, all the residents at work or at school and I find a parking space only a couple of doors down. Standing by the front gate, I slide my fingers into my pocket to feel the sharp, cold edges of my door key. I might tell myself that I didn’t plan on coming back to the house, but deep down I must have known I would – why else would I have snatched up my door key from where it has laid on the small table next to my bed in my old childhood bedroom?

  Curtains twitch at the house next door, and I turn away, towards the end of the road so the nosy old woman next door can’t see my face, although I’m probably too late. I’ll have to let Fran know I’m here. Fumbling in my bag I pull out my phone and dial Fran’s number.

  ‘Anna? What is it?’ Fran’s voice is sharp, almost unfriendly, and I think that perhaps she thinks I am phoning with bad news.

  ‘Hi, Fran, it’s nothing. Are you still with Polly, or are you home? It’s just . . .’

  ‘I’m still with Polly,’ Fran sighs, ‘I can’t face going home yet, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to go back.’

  ‘The thing is,’ I pause for a moment, not sure how she’ll react when I tell her I’m standing in front of the house and I want to go in, ‘I’m here, actually. At the house. I wondered if I could pop inside and get the last of my things, before you . . . if you decide to put it on the market, I’ll need to get my things back.’

  ‘Oh,’ Fran says, ‘well, if you must. I mean, of course you must get your things back.’ She sounds distracted, as though she’s not really paying attention to what I’m saying. ‘Of course. Do whatever you need to. Listen, Anna, I must go. Pop the key back through the letterbox, won’t you, when you’re done?’ And my phone beeps three times in my ear and goes dead. She’s hung up.

  OK. I turn towards the house, the curtains in the window next door hurriedly falling back into place as the nosy neighbour hides from me, and I give her a broad grin as I walk up the path and slide my key into the lock.

  It slips in easily and I pause for a moment, my pulse starting to flutter as I realise I am nervous about walking back into the house after so many weeks away. I take a deep breath and push the door open, a huge pile of mail behind it catching on the mat, meaning I have to use my shoulder to force a gap wide enough to get in. The air smells stale where the house has been closed up for almost two months, and dust motes dance in the air as the sunlight streams into the living room through the window. I stoop down to collect up the post, a thick sheaf of pizza delivery leaflets, political canvassing, some bills, and three thin sheets of writing paper, neatly folded in half. I throw the other pieces onto the tiny telephone table and with a guilty lurch, open the first sheet of paper.

  It’s an apology from Ruth, saying sorry for the way she behaved, and could Fran find it in her heart to forgive her? I fold it in half and lay it on top of the post pile, before opening the next. It’s more of the same – Ruth tells Fran in slightly more detail this time how sorry she is, and how all she ever wanted was to help. I open the third, expecting to see more apologies, but this one simply reads, ‘You never deserved her anyway,’ although whether she’s referring to herself, or to Laurel I have no idea. The woman is delusional. I screw it up, and then after a moment’s pause, reach for the other two and screw them up too, stuffing them deep into my pockets. Fran doesn’t need to see these, just like she doesn’t need to know what Pamela has been saying.

  As I comb through the rest of the mail, selecting out only the things Fran will need to deal with and discarding all the rest, I notice the light on the old-fashioned answer machine is flashing. I hover over the machine, unsure whether I still have the right to press the play button and take the message for Fran. I wouldn’t have hesitated before, it was just part of my job, but I don’t fit in anymore, and I don’t belong here in this house, not without Laurel. As I hover, finger poised, the phone shrieks into life, the ringtone making me jump and I snatch up the receiver in an instinctive gesture.

  ‘Francesca?’ The voice on the other end of the phone is plummy, and the line hisses slightly, as if they are calling long-distance. ‘Is that you? Why haven’t you been answering the telephone?’

  This must be who has left the messages for Fran. The light still blinks at me out the corner of my eye. ‘I’m sorry. Fran isn’t here at the moment. This is Anna, can I take a message?’

  ‘Where is she? I’ve been trying to get hold of her for weeks.’

  ‘Err . . . she’s staying with her sister, I believe. I can give her a message, Mrs . . .?’ I pause, waiting for her to tell me who she is.

  ‘This is her mother. And did you say she’s staying with Polly? That’s impossible, Fran and Polly don’t speak.’

  ‘Well, after everything that’s happened with Laurel, they seem to have patched things up. Fran said Polly invited her for Christmas to get away from the press, and she’s decided to stay there for a little while. She’s finding it a bit difficult to come back to the house.’

  ‘What do you mean, what’s happened with Laurel? And what about the press? I’m sorry, miss, but I really have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You don’t . . .?’ I stutter, not sure whether I heard Fran’s mother correctly. ‘You don’t know what happened with Laurel?’

  ‘No, I just said that.’ She is sharp, impatient, and she sounds, for a moment, exactly like Fran. ‘I haven’t spoken to Francesca since the beginning of the summer. She called me to say she would be away for the summer, and then I took a cruise along the Nile and have only been back for three weeks. I’ve been calling her constantly since then, and she’s been ignoring my calls.’

  Fran was never away – busy, yes, but not away – and now her mother is telling me that she hasn’t spoken to Fran since early summer. I lean back against the wall, a slightly sick feeling rising in my stomach as it flips over.

  ‘I’m so sorry, we seem to have our wires crossed somewhere. Like I said, Fran isn’t here at the moment, and I think it’s best she explains things to you. I can give you her mobile number.’ I read out Fran’s number from my phone, stumbling over the numbers and having to repeat them several times before Fran’s mother has the correct number. Finally, she hangs up and I slide down the wall, twisting to end up sat on the bottom stair.

  Fran’s mother hasn’t spoken to her since the summer. Yet, several times over the first few weeks of Laurel’s disappearance, I would find Fran whispering into her phone, and she would always tell me it was her mother she was speaking to. I think hard, Fran’s voice coming to me as I hovered outside her room, ‘. . . it will be OK. I promise. I can deal with this.’ If she wasn’t talking to her mother, then who was she talking to? Is Pamela right after all – has Fran been lying to everyone all along?

  CHAPTER 26

  The light is fading in the hallway, the sun lowering in the sky to leave the usually airy space dark and gloomy as I sit on the bottom stair, stiff from holding the same position for goodness knows how long. The idea that Fran has been lying has my brain fizzing, my thoughts jumping all over the place. I force myself up to standing, my knees twinging, stiff and sore as I do, and I head into the kitchen where I run the cold tap, holding my wrists beneath the icy water for a moment before leaning over and splashing my face, droplets rising up and landing in my hair. Has Fran really been lying all this time? Does she know something about Laurel’s disappearance?

  I scrub my face dry with a clean tea towel, the rough fibres scratching at my skin and leaving my cheeks red and hot, and my brain still just as confused as it was before. Heading upstairs, I enter my old bedroom, everything is exactly as I left it, even down to the used coffee mug on the bedside table that I had forgotten to bring down before I left. I move it to the windowsill, turning my nose up at the thick layer of mould that floats atop the dregs of coffee. Turning my attention to the wardrobe, I drag out the small suitcase that I left in the bottom and start to throw in the few items of clothing I left behind – a h
oody, some thick socks, several thin summer dresses – all the time telling myself that I’m wrong. That Pamela is wrong. That Fran’s mother simply got her dates confused – maybe she’s losing track of things, now that she’s elderly.

  At that thought I stop, lowering myself on to the bed, a thin summer cardigan in my hands. Come on, Anna. Even if she is elderly she’s not likely to forget that her granddaughter has gone missing. It’s no good. I can’t ignore this, something about Fran isn’t right, and I need to find out what it is – especially if it means that Dominic didn’t do this after all. Shoving the cardigan into the suitcase, I yank the zip closed and drag it to the top of the stairs. Once I’m finished I won’t ever return to this house, not even if they do find Laurel. For all the expensive décor, the luxury candles dotted around, the ridiculously expensive gadgets, this house isn’t a home – it’s toxic, a bed of lies, and now I can’t wait to get away.

  I lug the suitcase down the stairs, bouncing it off every step, and place it by the front door, before heading towards the kitchen. I don’t know what I’m looking for – but I know there must be something here, something that will tell me whether my new instinct is right about Fran. Rifling through the kitchen drawers I find nothing, so I turn my attention to the cupboards, pulling out half empty boxes of cereal, shoving my hands inside to make sure nothing is hidden there. I find nothing – apart from a heap of takeaway leaflets shoved in the bottom drawer.

  The kitchen bin sports a brand-new bin bag, and I know the outside bins will have been taken away weeks ago. Disheartened, but not ready to give up yet, I head down the hallway to Dominic’s office, hoping against all hope that the door won’t be locked. It’s not – the handle turns easily in my hand – and I enter, the air thick with dust, as though the room hasn’t been used for years. As I lay my hand on the door handle I have a flashback to a few nights after Laurel disappeared, Fran’s voice coming from the other side of the door. Why was she using Dominic’s office? At the time I thought perhaps she merely wanted a bit of privacy, to talk to (someone) her mother in peace without me or Kelly overhearing. Now, I can’t help but wonder if she was up to something a little more sinister.