After the Eclipse

by Fran Dorricott

  I pulled into the Circle, twice having to slam on my brakes to avoid collisions. The driver behind honked, but he was on his phone so I simply flipped my finger in response. Children were everywhere – just out of the corner of my eye, outside my field of vision. I heard them, saw blurred shapes moving like ghosts. They were all too young to be Bella, to be Olive. They were three, four years old, some still in pushchairs. A troupe of nursery children in bright yellow vests were herded across a zebra crossing by three harried-looking teachers.

  I called Henry and left a message asking for an update on Darren Walker. I couldn’t stop thinking about his arrest. I hated not knowing what was happening. Walker was creepy, but could he have taken Bella? And what about Olive? I wondered where he had been on the day my sister disappeared.

  This was one question I didn’t think Fox or Marion would ask Walker while he was in custody. Not when Bella was still out there; she was their priority, and rightly so.

  Bishop’s Green was still crawling with press. There were news station vans parked up, reporters and journalists gathered in packs around the cafes and the fountain. I saw the same journalist I thought I’d recognised before but this time her familiar face made me feel out of place. This was Big News, now. Police incompetence, another girl missing, just a way to spin a story.

  Looking at it from this side, I once again felt like I had as a teenager: here were animals, preying on the weak. To them, this wasn’t about Bella. They would probably prefer it if she never came home – ratings and hits galore, there. To them it was about making the biggest splash, writing the article that got the most views, no matter the consequences.

  I couldn’t believe I’d ever been part of that. Not when there was so much to lose. Even if I had fooled myself with the belief that I was making a difference, a voice for the victims in a sea of hungry mouths. Now I realised how futile it all was.

  I stopped by Ady’s just as he was dragging himself into the shop. It was almost 10 a.m., which was later than usual. He looked tired, his face showing a day’s worth of stubble. He slid up to the counter just as I walked in, and I made straight for the coffee machine, digging around in my pockets for spare change.

  “You’re a bit late today, aren’t you?” I joked, desperate to pretend everything was normal. Ady shrugged, grabbing a box of newspapers and dumping it on a shelf in front of the counter without taking them out. I was glad that he wasn’t going to do this right in front of me because I didn’t think I could handle seeing Bella’s face plastered all across the front.

  “Yeah,” Ady grunted. “I was out late.”

  “Oh yeah. How’s it going running the shop by yourself while what’shername is on holiday?” I’d forgotten that while I was going crazy thinking about Bella Kaluza the rest of the world was still revolving.

  “It’s shit. But I was out looking for that missing kid last night,” he said. My stomach sank. So much for the rest of the world. “I’m gonna organise some sort of vigil for Thursday with one of the teachers from the school – if Bella’s not already home by then. Although, knock on wood, she will be.”

  Ady superstitiously rapped his knuckles against the wooden counter.

  “Is the school being supportive?” I asked, mostly so I didn’t feel guilty about not offering to help organise things.

  “Oh yeah. Whole town is. Especially the one teacher. Jake’s really great. He’s rallied the kids and they’re making posters and flyers and it’s really helping keep their spirits up.”

  “Jake Howden?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Ady shrugged. “You know him?”

  “Sort of,” I said, biting back a comment about knowing his type. “Not really. He’s a bit of an odd one, isn’t he? Seems like he should be teaching somewhere a bit more cosmopolitan.”

  “Nah, he’s all right. His enthusiasm is impressive. I’ve known him years.”

  I handed over the right change for a small cup of coffee and pressed the button on the machine. “Don’t worry,” I said then as Ady’s expression shifted back to something more melancholy, “the police will find her.”

  While I waited for the cup to fill, I headed towards what my mum had always called the ‘junk aisle’ – the one at the back of the shop, filled with things to keep kids entertained.

  I had memories of Grandad letting us run riot in here at the beginnings of our summers. We were allowed five minutes to browse the shop while Grandad waited outside having a smoke. We usually chose two or three things each; Olive went for crayons and a puzzle book, and then spent the rest of the time browsing the few paperbacks Ady kept next to the till. I’d usually gone for the magazines straight off, skulking where I couldn’t be seen with Olive.

  The junk aisle in the shop now was eerily similar to how it had been back then. But where there had once been rows and rows of colouring books, now there were interspersed boxes of small, overly expensive toys. Water-snakes, mini slinkies, and – I cringed – selfie sticks. What a time it was to be a child.

  And, there, just like in Earl’s café, the bingo hall, the doctor’s surgery, and just about everywhere else in town: mood rings. £1.50. They haunted me. I peered into the box, taking great care to look at each of the designs in it. There were six: a star, a crescent moon, a four-leaf clover, a heart, a plain circle, and a shell. No mermaids.

  I made a note of the manufacturer.

  I felt a shiver snake down my spine as the realisation hit me. In a town like Bishop’s Green, built on equal parts superstition and hokum, anybody could have been responsible for giving Olive – and Bella – that ring. Anybody. It could have been somebody my grandparents knew, somebody my parents knew, somebody I had seen once washing their car in the street or somebody we had trusted.

  The coffee machine beeped and I had to stop my hands from shaking as I wandered back and grabbed the scalding cup.

  “Mood rings,” I said to Ady, rudely interrupting him again. “Do you ever sell them to adults?”

  Ady looked up from the calculator he was holding, a bemused look on his face.

  “Not really. Now and then, I guess. Tourists, usually.”

  “Do you – did you ever sell one to Olive? A mermaid one?”

  “Your sister?” His expression turned to a frown. “I’m sorry, Cass. I don’t know. I don’t remember everything I’ve ever sold.” He shrugged, but he looked like he wanted to say more. Dread kissed my spine again, another cold shiver making me grip my cup tighter. Something about his reluctance made me suddenly wary.

  “Why not?”

  Ady looked like I’d slapped him and I felt shame burn my cheeks.

  This is ridiculous, I told myself. Pull yourself together. It was just like yesterday with Doctor White. Or my conversation with Jake Howden. Like my whole body was just waiting for the spark to ignite.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I just… My sister had one. When she was taken.”

  Ady smiled gently and his eyes warmed as pity made them shine.

  “I gave Tilly one for her birthday last year. The four-leaf clover. You know, for good luck. I practically had to force her to wear it, though. Were you looking for a specific one? The designs we have now are different than they used to be. I think everybody sells the same ones these days.”

  I let this information sink in, sipping my coffee and relishing the scalding heat as it brought me back down to earth. I let out a long sigh.

  “How’s your gran doing, anyway?” Ady asked. “Is she home yet?”

  “Yeah. She’s… She’s okay. A bit frightened. Doctor White stopped round yesterday and he seems to think she got off easy.”

  “That’s not really what I’d say to somebody who got hit by a car.” Ady frowned. “But as long as she’s got you to look after her I’m sure she’ll be okay. You should make some time for her, stop this running around and focus on that for a while.” He smiled.

  I thought of Bella and Grace and all the coincidences with Olive and the guilt hit me again. I should be a
t home with Gran right now. But I couldn’t do both.

  “That’s what Doctor White said.” I sighed. “It’s just hard to balance everything. I’m used to working – and that being the priority. You know? It’s a different pace here. You’ve heard me complain about being bored often enough. And I can’t be unemployed for ever.”

  Ady nodded. “Well, it is lucky that your gran wasn’t seriously injured and that you’re around to look after her. I hope they catch the guy. In the meantime, give me a yell if you fancy helping out with the vigil or anything like that. Jake and I could use all the help we can get.”

  33

  31 May 2001

  OLIVE WOKE WITH A grumbling pain in her stomach. Her lower back ached too, and she lay for a moment trying to locate the source of the pain. She reached down tentatively, her fingers probing the tender skin of her abdomen. Her eyes were crusty with sleep but she could see from the grey light that it was just after dawn, a time she had grown to love over the last year. It was a peaceful time. It wasn’t the quietness, although she did remember that from before the room, how the day would start still and quiet and get livelier as the birds began to sing.

  Now it didn’t matter about noise, because she couldn’t hear much of anything outside anyway. Not even with the new sensitivity in her ears. It was more that the light itself was calming, its greyness washing the pain out of the world.

  But this morning she felt only pain. She rolled onto her side, bringing her knees into her chest. That helped a little bit, but the pain was so intense that she had to screw her eyes shut.

  What was causing it? She tried to scroll back through what she’d eaten. Perhaps Sandman was right when he harped on at her to keep her dishes clean. And herself. She’d been lazy recently, let the dirt build up under her nails between Sandman’s health checks. She knew better than to test him, but she’d reasoned that she didn’t need to bother the rest of the time. It wasn’t like she was going to catch a cold.

  She thought, with some mirth, back to the early days. With Mickey. She’d been cleaner, then. Course, she couldn’t tell Sandman that. When Mickey was sharing the room she was very careful to keep her hands clean, to keep herself scrubbed in the tin bath. She could laugh.

  She did laugh, forced it out. It made her stomach feel tense and unhappy. She unrolled herself from the bed, thinking maybe a bath would help. The griping, stomach-clenching pain was unlike any she had felt before. She dragged herself from the bed, doubled over and breathing hard.

  As she turned back to turn the sheet up, she saw the red. A smear of it, across the mattress. She glanced down, seeing it had also stained the insides of her thighs, just below her T-shirt. It was drying brown, streaks running across her skin.

  Panic started to bubble inside her, a hot overwhelming feeling that she hadn’t felt in a long time. But she moved methodically over to the tap and started to run the hot water, ready to fill the bath.

  As she watched the water swirl into a jug she focused her thoughts. Tried to make her heart slow down.

  It wasn’t fear because she didn’t know what was happening. She wasn’t stupid. She remembered when it had happened to Cassie, how her big sister had freaked out until Mum could calm her down. Mum had explained it then. And Cassie had re-explained it to Olive later.

  She knew what it meant. She was thirteen years old, just like Cassie had been. Olive had been waiting for it for a while. But it was a thought she’d kept in the back of her mind, along with thoughts about her family. She didn’t take these thoughts out for inspection very often any more because they made her upset, or scared, and she had learnt early on that it didn’t help. She had to focus on the here and now, what book she was reading, the newspaper Sandman had brought her most recently…

  But now she couldn’t ignore it. The blood was staring at her, and she felt more at the tops of her thighs as she slowly filled the bath.

  Her first period.

  She was a woman now. Those were his words, not hers. She’d clocked fairly early that the health checks were all part of it – whether he realised it or not. Sandman was inspecting her, like you might pick up an orange in a supermarket to check its ripeness.

  We’ll be a proper family one day.

  Sandman’s words echoed inside her head along with the steady thrumming of the water as she poured it into the bath. When it was full, she started to strip automatically, creating a neat pile with her soiled T-shirt and pants. She climbed into the water slowly, examining her stomach. It still looked the same. Not like a baby would one day fit in there. The aching had eased some, but she still felt vulnerable. Bruised somehow.

  Nobody had told her it would be like this.

  Normal people didn’t get scared. Or if they did, they got less scared when they understood. But Olive understood, and that only made things worse. She was a woman now.

  There was nothing to stop him.

  Could she hide it? She eyed the bloodied clothes and bed sheets, panic giving way to despair. She couldn’t hide anything from him. She’d need new sheets, new clothes, sanitary towels. Her whole body felt scooped out.

  She remembered the day the TV had broken. Wished she could have saved one of the pieces of glass. Maybe she could convince him to let her go if she stabbed him with one. But there was nothing in here remotely dangerous. The despair grew and grew in her stomach like a lump of black tar, making her shudder with emptiness.

  She washed her face before the water could get dirty, and then let her tears fall unhindered. She wished Cassie was here now. She’d probably know what to do. And if she didn’t, at least Olive wouldn’t be on her own. Olive could be brave if she wasn’t alone.

  She was just so tired. Tired of being tired. And out of ideas.

  34

  “EVERYBODY IN TOWN SELLS the same six designs, Marion,” I said that afternoon. I’d been to every shop in the Circle and a few in the streets around it, determined to prove what I already knew. “Bella could have got it from Darren Walker, I guess, since he sells all that vintage stuff, but you said you only found the newer designs in his van, right?”

  “Cassie, that’s – that’s really interesting,” Marion said. She sounded breathless. “But this is important.”

  “I was just trying to prove—”

  “Cassie,” Marion cut me off. “It’s Walker. We’re going to have to let him go.”

  “What?” I felt a wave of dizziness. “What do you mean? I thought you said that he was – that Fox wanted to… I thought you had fingerprints in his van. And her blazer. And what about Olive?”

  “Bella was a regular customer. At this shop in his van. We’ve got witnesses, video.”

  “What about the blazer? Was it hers?” I demanded.

  “He said she left it in his van. The woman he works with confirmed it. He’s – talking to him is a bloody nightmare… It’s like trying to get blood out of a stone.” Marion huffed in annoyance but I could tell that it was a front. “Anyway, his mum told Fox that Walker always got on better with younger kids except for one or two older friends. He had a little brother who moved away to Australia or somewhere. And that’s when he started to do the boot sale.”

  “She could just be saying that…” I said weakly. “He could still be hiding something.”

  “We’ve had forensics going over the whole inside of that van, and aside from the fingerprints on the door they’ve got nothing. No DNA, hairs, trace. Just those prints right in the door where he hangs the clothes he’s got to sell. Which anybody could have touched.”

  “Did you ask Bella’s mum about the boot sale again?” I pushed.

  “Yes, Miss Ace Reporter, of course I bloody did.” Marion paused. I heard footsteps and then the same swuffing door as before. She was outside now. “Sorry. I’m being a bitch. I’m just knackered. And I shouldn’t even be telling you any of this stuff. We’re not telling the papers—”

  “Marion, I haven’t written a word in days. I wanted this to work – wanted it to be a job. But I can’t
do it. It’s not about that any more.” I glanced at my laptop, the text document still open, the cursor still blinking.

  “I know,” Marion said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Mrs Kaluza still won’t answer my calls.” I rubbed my hands over my face. I had so many questions and I was sick of feeling like I wasn’t doing anything useful.

  “She doesn’t want to talk to anybody outside of the police,” Marion said. “Especially not the press. I think she’s feeling a lot of pressure, and a few people have written some – uh – less than supportive things about the family not being ‘English’. I don’t think it’s just you she’s avoiding.”

  I didn’t have to try hard to imagine how it felt to be hounded by the press. I had spent years going to press conferences and interviewing families, feeling more exhausted every time, remembering my own mother’s stress when the phone calls wouldn’t stop, the gaunt way she looked after only a couple of weeks of the relentless harassment in the name of the “news”. The closed curtains, the whole house coiling in on itself, dusty and quiet and the constant feeling of being watched.

  And then, one day, I walked outside and they were gone. I remembered the silence of the street; I could hear the birds, a distant lawnmower, could smell the early autumn breeze – and not a reporter in sight.

  I ran inside, adrenaline buzzing in my veins.

  “Mum! They’re gone! Do you think they found something…?”

  But Mum knew what it meant. She shook her head and just said, “No, Cassie. It means they’ve stopped waiting for her.”

  I shook myself back to Marion and our conversation, the old sadness rising inside me, along with the deep-rooted determination to be different. I never wanted to be one of those journalists – I wasn’t just going to give up. Not without answers, not without the truth.