by Karen Cole
When we reach the top, the sun is already setting, bleeding red into the sea. From up here I can see a long way, the bay flanked by the Dhekelia power station at one end and the cranes in Larnaca harbour at the other. Up here the sea looks like it’s been painted with thick oil paint and the I can see the Troodos Mountains, blue-grey in the distance. There’s a clear view of all of Oroklini and Larnaca. And it kills me to think that maybe Grace is down there somewhere amongst that maze of streets and buildings; that if only I had better vision, maybe I could zoom in on her.
‘Where are you, Grace?’ I say out loud. ‘Please come back. Please forgive me.’
Thursday, 21st September 2017
Chapter 20
I’m underwater. I can’t see much in front of me. Just rays of dirty green sunlight . . . The surface is a long way away and I’m trying to find something I’ve lost but I don’t know what it is, so I just swim forwards, pushing through the thick, murky water. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see something – a dark shape drifting towards me. As the shape gets closer, I realise it’s a woman. No, not a woman, a girl, a teenage girl. Closer still and I can see her face, eyes wide open, staring, her dark hair floating upwards like weeds sprouting from her head.
‘Grace!’ I scream. But the sound doesn’t come out. I’ve lost my voice.
I grasp her by the hand and try to pull her up to the surface, but everything is in slow motion, apart from the weeds which grow up quickly and twine their way around her legs like octopus tentacles. They slither their way around her body and drag her downwards. I try to hold on but I’m being dragged with her. Deeper and deeper . . .
I’m woken abruptly by the sound of the phone ringing right next to my bed. I fumble for it and hold it to my ear.
‘Hello?’ I say croakily.
It’s my mother.
‘Joanna?’ she says at the other end. ‘Oh my God, how are you, my poor baby?’
‘Hello, Mum.’ I rub my eyes, still blurry from sleep, still shaken from that awful dream. ‘I’m not too good actually. I don’t know whether you know . . .’
‘I heard,’ she says. ‘It’s all over the news. I can’t believe it. Why didn’t you tell me? It was a terrible way to find out. Our little Grace. Have you had any news?’ There’s a sort of choking sound and then a silence and I realise that she’s sobbing.
Great. This is precisely why I didn’t tell her about Grace being missing in the first place. I knew that she would react in the way she always does to any problem – by falling apart.
‘Nothing yet. But the police have some good leads,’ I say cheerily, slipping into the role I always take with Mum: the strong, optimistic one.
‘I can’t bear to think of anything happening to that sweet little girl,’ she says and there’s more snuffling. ‘Can you ask Dave to call me? He hasn’t been in contact and I’m all on my own here.’
Dave is hardly likely to help, I think. In my experience, there isn’t any problem he can’t make worse. Out loud I say, ‘What do you mean, ask Dave to call you? Isn’t he with you?’
Mum stops crying for a moment. ‘No, haven’t you seen him? He flew out to Cyprus last week. There were some cheap flights and one of his friends had a spare ticket. I wanted to come too but you know how I am with aeroplanes.’
I do. Amongst my mother’s many neuroses is a fear of flying, and travelling in general, which means that even when she’s been well, she’s never been further than Scotland in her life.
‘He said he was going to visit you,’ she adds. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I didn’t even know he was in the country. But I’ll get him to call you when I see him, I promise.’
‘Thank you, baby. Because I don’t think I can deal with this on my own. Grace going missing has just knocked me for six.’
‘I’ll let you know if we hear anything,’ I say curtly as I hang up. I can’t believe Mum is making this about herself.
I look at the clock on my phone. It’s nine o’clock. I’ve been asleep for ten hours and Grace has been missing for three days, one hour and thirty minutes. My stomach curls with guilt. How could I have slept so long when every minute could be crucial. It’s weird, I reflect, climbing out of bed, that Dave hasn’t been in contact, but then I guess he’s probably drunk or in a heroin-induced coma somewhere. Well, I certainly am in no rush to see him but why did he come here in the first place?
I have a shower and get dressed, still thinking about Dave, and then I head downstairs, checking Grace’s room on the way, just in case by some miracle she’s back home.
Chris is in the living room on his phone, scrolling through Facebook.
‘Did you know Dave was in Cyprus?’ I ask, and he looks up at me distracted. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Though come to think of it, I might have had a couple of missed calls. What’s he doing here?’
Good question, I think. The more I think about it, the more I get a bad feeling. Wherever Dave is, trouble follows, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had something to do with Grace’s disappearance in some way. Would he hurt Grace? I don’t think so. What would his motive be? Though I’m pretty sure Dave is capable of anything if there was some advantage for him.
I’m about to try to call him to find out what the hell he’s up to, but Chris grabs my arm.
‘Read this, Jo! It’s just fucking unbelievable.’
‘What is it?’
‘Just read it.’ He passes me his phone and I look at his Facebook feed. Someone has posted a newspaper article from the Cyprus Daily – the local English paper. There’s a large photo of Grace we gave to the police. Underneath is the headline:
LARNACA TEENAGER MISSING
I force myself to read the article.
Concerns are growing over the safety of a young English girl who went missing in Larnaca earlier this week.
Grace Appleton, a sixteen-year-old pupil at the Mediterranean Academy, was last seen at seven thirty on Monday morning when her mother dropped her off at school.
I break off and look at Chris. ‘I don’t see the problem. It’s good, isn’t it? It’s got to help. The more people who know, the more chance we have of finding her.’ For once Grace’s beauty is turning into an advantage because I doubt the newspapers would have made this into such a big story; I doubt it would be a news story in England at all if it wasn’t for the fact that Grace is such a photogenic young girl. The press love stuff like that, don’t they? Pretty British girl goes missing abroad.
‘Read on,’ says Chris grimly.
Teachers and pupils say she did not turn up to lessons and concern is growing that something may have happened to Grace. Classmates describe Grace as popular, bright and a generally happy pupil, but stated that lately she’s been having problems in her home life. She lives with her brother, mother and stepfather.
If anyone has any information regarding Grace’s whereabouts, please contact the police on this number. All phone calls will be dealt with confidentially.
I look up from the screen. ‘I still don’t see the problem.’
‘Read the comments.’
So, I scroll down through the remarks people have posted. There are hundreds of them, mostly expressing concern and sympathy.
This is soo sad, says Dora Charalambous. Her profile picture is a Yorkshire terrier and she’s added three crying-face emojis.
We’re praying for her safe return, says someone called Michelle Martin.
Our thoughts are with the family. And so on.
Someone says they’ve seen someone resembling Grace riding a bike on the seafront road, someone else has seen her in Ayia Napa and one person even says they’ve seen her in New York.
‘Read this one.’ Chris taps a comment about halfway down.
It’s from George R and his profile picture is an image of forked lightning.
I wouldn’t be surprised if
the stepfather has killed her, he’s written. I’ve heard he had a criminal record.
I heard she was scared of him. Just look at this photo of him. Now that’s a thug if ever I saw one, someone else has added. Why haven’t the police arrested him?
‘Oh,’ I say.
‘You see what I mean?’ says Chris.
I snap the laptop shut. ‘Ignore it,’ I say decisively. ‘It’s just stupid people gossiping because they’ve got nothing better to do. They’re morons. They don’t know what they’re talking about.’
Chris stands up and paces the room. Agitation emanates from him. ‘How do they know about my criminal record, though?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shake my head. I’m as puzzled as he is.
‘And what’s this shit about Grace being afraid of me?’ he says. ‘She’s not afraid of me, is she, Jo?’
‘Of course not.’ The idea is crazy. Chris loves Grace and Grace loves him. Grace is his little princess. Always has been. Chris has been spared most of Grace’s teenaged vitriol. She knows she can wrap him around her little finger and so long as she gets her way, she’s as sweet as pie. No, it’s always been me that’s borne the brunt of Grace’s moods because it’s always been me that’s been the one trying to impose rules and guidelines.
‘How do they know about my criminal record?’ Chris repeats, staring at me wildly. ‘They must have got that from the police.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Yes, I do. Who else could it be? They’re the only people who could know.’ He picks up a cushion and punches it. ‘I’m going to kill that fucking detective.’
‘Calm down,’ I say, standing behind him and wrapping my arms around him. ‘Why would it be Dino who told them? It could have been anybody on the police force.’
‘I don’t know,’ Chris says darkly. ‘But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him. There’s something I don’t like about the guy.’
I shrug. Dino seems all right to me. A little smug at times maybe. And perhaps not the best detective in the world. Eleni, now she would be a better person to lead the case. She really gives the impression she knows what she’s doing.
‘Speak of the devil,’ I add a couple of seconds later as my phone rings on the coffee table and Dino’s name flashes up.
I snatch it up before Chris has a chance to get to it.
‘Hello?’ I say as calmly as possible.
Chris tries to grab the phone. ‘Give it to me. I want to have a word with that piece of shit.’
I dodge away out of his reach. The last thing we need is Chris flying off the handle at the police. ‘Let me deal with this,’ I hiss.
‘Ah, Mrs Joanna. How are you?’ Dino sounds ridiculously buoyant and happy on the other end of the line.
Stupid question. My daughter’s missing. How am I supposed to be? Out loud I say, ‘As well as can be expected.’
‘Well, Mrs Joanna, we’ve found something I think you need to see.’
‘What is it?’ I ask, holding my breath.
‘I think you’d better come to the station and take a look for yourself.’
‘Just do me a favour, will you?’ I say to Chris, as we’re driving into town. ‘Don’t mention the newspaper article. We don’t know it was Dino who told them. We don’t want to piss him off. We need his help.’
‘Yeah, ’cos he’s been doing such a great job so far,’ Chris snorts sarcastically.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘We have to focus on Grace.’
His shoulders slump over the wheel. ‘Okay, but I really want to punch him in his smug face.’
I sigh. ‘I know. Me too. But that’s not going to do anybody any good, is it?’
There’s been an accident on the Dhekelia road, a motorbike overturned at the roundabout, and while Chris crawls through the traffic, I take my phone out of my pocket and try to ring Dave’s number, but there’s no answer. So, I try to ring Mum again to find out the name of the hotel he’s staying in, but she’s not answering her phone either. So much for being worried about Grace, I think bitterly. If she was truly as worried as she made out, she would answer my calls immediately.
The police station is in an old colonial building near the seafront. It’s made of sandstone with blue painted shutters, dwarfed by the high-rises that have sprouted up around it. The police officer on duty is watching TV. He heaves himself up reluctantly and opens the door when we ring the bell.
We ask for Detective Markides and are shown across a dusty courtyard to a small dingy office in a low building at the back where Dino’s sitting at his desk on the phone, talking loudly in Greek. There’s a half-drunk frappe and a framed photo of his family on his desk. Three happy, rowdy-looking girls and a plump, pretty wife all squashed together on a sofa. They look like a happy family, I think wistfully.
He smiles expansively when he sees us and covers the mouthpiece. ‘Mr Chris, Mrs Joanna. Please take a seat. I’ll be with you in just one minute.’
Some more shouting and arm waving. I don’t know what he’s saying but I catch the Greek word for money and hospital.
‘My wife,’ he says when he’s finished, as if that explains the shouting. ‘She has some problems with my mother-in-law. That woman drives me crazy.’ He rolls his eyes and grins at us. ‘Would you like a drink?’
Chris shakes his head, his mouth in a tight line, a vein bulging in his neck. He’s still fuming about the newspaper article. But at least he’s controlling himself for now.
I clasp his hand and squeeze it to show that I appreciate his reticence. ‘Just water, please,’ I say to Dino.
Dino pours a plastic cup of water from the water cooler and sits at the desk, elbows resting on the table. I wipe the sweat from my hands. It’s hot and stuffy in this room. The ceiling fan stirs the air but doesn’t really cool it and I’m feeling faint. The relentless anxiety of the past few days is catching up with me.
‘You said you had something to show us?’ Chris says impatiently.
Dino beams. ‘Ah, yes. We found something that could be very important.’ He rummages in a filing cabinet, pulls out a clear plastic bag and hands it to me with a triumphant flourish.
‘We found this in Tom Mitchinson’s apartment. We believe it’s a letter from Grace.’
‘From Grace?’ I exclaim, holding the bag like it might suddenly explode. A mix of emotions flare up inside me – hope, fear, confusion. ‘When did she send it?’ I ask, starting to open it.
‘Please, don’t touch it. We haven’t checked it for fingerprints yet. But I’ve made you a copy. Look.’ Dino slides a piece of paper towards us across the desk.
‘Was there a postmark on the envelope? When was it posted?’ I ask eagerly. This could be a real breakthrough. If we know where she posted it, it’ll help us find where she is.
Dino holds up his hands. ‘Slow down, Mrs Joanna. I’m afraid it doesn’t have a postmark. It was in Mr Mitchinson’s mailbox. Hand delivered. And I’m afraid we don’t know exactly how long it’s been there.’ He taps the paper. ‘But I think you will be interested in what she has to say.’
My hand trembles as I take the paper. I’m scared of what I’m about to read. Scared and hopeful at the same time.
‘First of all, can you confirm that it’s your daughter’s handwriting?’ Dino asks.
‘Yes, it’s definitely from Grace.’ The writing is messy, messier than usual, as if she’s written it in a hurry or without anything to rest on. But it’s Grace’s. There’s no doubt about that. The funny way the y’s loop, the way her d’s curl over is unmistakeable. But the contents are a different matter. What she’s written doesn’t sound like Grace at all.
Dear Tom,
I’m sorry but I can’t see you anymore. I’m not the person you think I am. There are some things . . .
Here there’s something illegible, crossed out.
This has noth
ing to do with you. You’re a great person and I know you’ll find someone else, someone who’ll give you the love you deserve. I’m going away soon. Please don’t try to contact me.
Grace
Where she’s signed her name, she’s pressed so hard she’s almost gouged through the paper.
I read the letter through again to make sure I haven’t misunderstood. ‘Wow,’ I say at last, shocked. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t this.
‘Let me see,’ Chris says. I pass him the letter and he reads it silently.
‘I don’t understand,’ he frowns, turning to me when he’s finished. ‘Did you know anything about this, Jo? Did you know she broke it off with Tom?’
I shake my head helplessly. ‘I had no idea.’ As far as I know, Grace is still madly in love with Tom. We had a big argument about her seeing him only last Saturday. How could her emotions have changed so quickly?
‘This letter is a good thing,’ Dino is saying. He picks it up again and reads aloud, ‘I’m going away soon. Along with the missing sleeping bag and clothes she took, it strongly suggests that she planned her disappearance. She wasn’t abducted. It means there’s a good chance she’s alive and well.’
He’s right, of course. We should be relieved, and I am relieved. But there are so many questions swirling around in the back of my mind that any relief I feel is tempered by a nagging anxiety.
‘Why not tell Tom face to face?’ I ask. ‘It doesn’t seem like Grace somehow. She’s not a coward.’
Chris agrees. ‘Yeah, it’s weird. And even if she wasn’t going to tell him face to face, why not just message him? I don’t think Grace has ever written a letter before in her life. Do kids these days even know what a letter is?’
Dino chuckles gently. ‘Good point,’ he says. ‘My guess is that she’s got rid of her phone or she’s not using it because she doesn’t want to be traced. If she was still using her phone, we would have been able to find her by now.’
