by A J McDine
As I approached the door to their room, I heard what sounded like a quarrel and I stopped in my tracks. Melanie berating Bill about some perceived misdemeanour, no doubt. She could be a terrible nag. Then I remembered Bill was down by the pool. Curious, I bent my head to listen.
‘… it’s obvious to me, Niamh, that you’ve developed an… infatuation… with Stuart.’ Her voice dripped with contempt. ‘But you need to wake up and smell the coffee, honey. You’re a child. He would never be interested in you.’
My eyebrows shot up. Melanie wasn’t my greatest fan. I was surprised she was watching my back.
‘Honestly, I haven’t…’ Niamh squeaked.
But Melanie cut across her. ‘You have no idea how much damage you could cause by throwing yourself at him. No idea. So, if you want to do him and yourself a favour, back right off, understood?’
‘Of course,’ Niamh gabbled. ‘The last thing I want to do is cause trouble.’
‘Good, I’m glad I’ve made myself understood. And you won’t be breathing a word of our little chat to either Stuart or Cleo?’
‘I won’t,’ Niamh said. ‘I promise.’
‘Then we’ll pretend this conversation never took place. Please close the door behind you.’
Niamh’s flip flops clacked across the wooden floor and I backed down the hallway, slipping through our bedroom door and closing it softly, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping. The flip-flops click-clacked past, accompanied by a stifled sob, and further down the landing a door slammed shut. I waited for a few minutes before letting myself out of our room, almost colliding with Melanie.
‘Cleo! I thought you were by the pool.’
I was about to thank her for intervening, but something stopped me. Instead, I massaged my temples. ‘I have a thumping headache. I don’t suppose you have any painkillers?’
‘Of course,’ she said with a brief smile. ‘Follow me.’
Chapter Sixteen
TUESDAY 15 JUNE
We’d only been home for half an hour when Stuart’s phone buzzed.
‘It’s Bill. He’s asking if he and Mel can pop round.’
‘Of course,’ I said, even though the last thing I felt like was putting on a brave face for our friends. The press conference had sapped my energy, and I was running on empty. A scalding shower and a change of clothes had failed to rinse away my lethargy. But I knew Bill and Melanie were as worried about Immy as we were. It wasn’t fair to shut them out.
They were on the doorstep ten minutes later. Melanie hugged me and Bill patted my shoulder and showed me the contents of the bag he was carrying.
‘I asked Sheila to print up some posters. I hope you don’t mind. We thought we’d go door to door handing them out.’
I stared at the top poster, at the colour photo of Immy and the call to action in capital letters to hammer the point home: PLEASE PHONE THE POLICE IF YOU KNOW WHERE SHE IS, as if your average paedophile would do that. Underneath, a plea to search outbuildings and sheds for our daughter. It looked uncannily like a poster for a missing cat, and I was about to point this out when I stopped myself just in time. They meant well.
‘Cleo?’ Bill gave a helpless shrug when I said nothing. ‘We wanted to do something.’
‘I know and thank you.’ I touched his hand. ‘I’m sure it will help. Coffee?’ I flicked the kettle on, took four dirty mugs from the dishwasher and rinsed them half-heartedly under the cold tap.
‘Let me do that,’ Melanie said, bustling over. ‘You take the weight off your feet. How did the press conference go?’
‘How d’you know about that?’
‘Stuart told us,’ Melanie said. She ran hot water into the sink, squeezed in some washing up liquid and snapped on my rubber gloves.
‘It wasn’t as bad as I expected,’ Stuart said. ‘And Cleo was right. The more people who know about Immy the better.’
‘It was worse than I expected,’ I admitted, dropping my head in my hands. ‘I felt as though they were all judging us.’
‘I’m sure they weren’t,’ Melanie soothed.
But she was wrong. ‘Remember when David Cameron left one of his kids in the pub that time? I thought that was bad enough,’ I said. ‘And we lost our daughter from our own back garden. What must people think?’
‘That you’re as human as the rest of us. How’s Nate doing?’
‘A couple of the kids at school have been giving him grief. And he misses his sister.’ My voice cracked, and I rubbed my face. ‘Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘Your daughter’s missing,’ Melanie said, handing me a mug of coffee. ‘You’re allowed to be upset.’
‘I know.’ I took a sip, scalding my tongue. ‘Did Stuart tell you about Niamh, too?’
‘Niamh?’ Bill said sharply. ‘What about her?’
‘The DI who’s taken over the investigation found out Niamh is Immy’s birth mother and he’s been trying to track her down. Turns out she’s a prostitute and a heroin addict. I think he thinks Niamh might have taken Immy.’ Melanie and Bill were staring at me with disbelief and I turned to Stuart and said, ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell them this.’
‘Because it’s a crock of shit.’
Anger rose inside me, hot and raw. ‘How can you know that?’
‘There’s no way Niamh would have taken Immy. No way.’
‘Nothing changes, does it?’ I spat.
‘That’s enough,’ he said.
But the vitriol spewed out of me like pus from an abscess.
‘Perfect, apple-pie Niamh would never take Immy, would she? Because she can do no wrong. She always had you eating out of her hand. Oh yes, you can look at me like that, Stuart, but I saw it with my own eyes, and so did Melanie, didn’t you?’ Melanie gaped at me, open-mouthed, as if I’d been spliced in two and an alien had burst forth from my guts. I pointed at Bill. ‘You, too. Admit it. Your tongue was hanging out the whole time we were in Corfu. You both lusted after her like dirty old men -’
‘That’s enough,’ Stuart said, holding up a hand.
I ignored him. ‘Why can’t you even contemplate the possibility that she’s come back for her daughter?’
‘Because she gave us her word.’
‘And her word counts, does it? The word of an addict and a whore?’
The second before Stuart swung his hand back, I saw the undisguised contempt in his eyes and knew our marriage was over. When his palm connected with my cheek I screamed, not with pain but with fury, and I rushed at him with the ferocity of a wildcat, pummelling his chest with my fists.
‘I hate you! IhateyouIhateyouIhateyou!’ As Stuart grabbed my wrists and held them vice-tight above my head, my cries became sobs. Great, heaving, ugly, snotty sobs that wracked my entire body. The fight left me as suddenly as it had come, and I collapsed against his chest and howled for my lost child.
‘It’s all right,’ he whispered, his breath hot in my hair. ‘It’s OK to cry.’ He rubbed my back as I clung to him. ‘I’ve got you.’
‘She’s gone,’ I wept. ‘Our beautiful baby girl has gone, and I don’t think I can bear it. I should never have let her out of my sight.’ I raised reddened eyes to Stuart’s, ashamed at my outburst. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that about Niamh. It’s not her fault. It’s mine. I’m the one who fucked up.’
‘We all fucked up, Cleo. We should all have been looking after Immy.’ He thumbed away a tear and glanced at Bill and Melanie, who were watching the exchange warily. ‘And don’t give up hope. She could still be alive.’
I slumped against him again, my head tucked under his chin. ‘You really think so?’
His shoulders rose, then fell. ‘I can’t lie to you. I don’t know. But it’s not even been two days. The police must think there’s a chance she’s still alive, otherwise they wouldn’t have asked us to do the press conference, would they?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘So there’s still hope, isn’t there?’
‘I guess.�
� I pulled away from him and wiped my nose on the back of my hand. ‘Sorry,’ I said again.
‘So am I,’ he said, looking at his hand as if it didn’t belong to him.
‘Friends?’ I ventured.
‘Friends,’ he agreed.
I turned to Bill and Melanie. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘It’s fine,’ Melanie said. ‘I can’t imagine the pressure you’re both under.’
I nodded and pulled a length of kitchen towel from the roll. As I rubbed my face as hard as I could, trying to erase the last few minutes, to pretend they’d never happened, I knew it was pointless.
We didn’t have a marriage. Hope was the only thing left.
Chapter Seventeen
When Bill suggested we watch the local lunchtime news to see if they were reporting the press conference, I agreed, glad of the distraction. We trooped into the front room just in time to catch the opening credits. Immy’s disappearance was the top item, the presenter’s face appropriately grave as he summarised the facts before handing over to the woman in the plum-coloured dress. Pamela George was standing in front of a flint and brick wall. A wall that looked very familiar.
‘What the fuck? She’s outside the house!’ Stuart exploded, jumping to his feet.
Melanie caught up with him before he reached the window and tugged his arm. ‘Stu, don’t do anything silly. They’re trying to help, remember.’
She pulled him back as the reporter began speaking. ‘Three-year-old Immy Cooper disappeared from the family home here in King Street, Fordwich, shortly before five o’clock on Sunday…’
Images of Immy flashed on the screen before they cut to the press conference. Despite spending ages on my makeup, I looked almost as white as my shirt. Stuart was once again twisting his wedding band round his finger. It made him look evasive. Shifty, even. DI Jones appeared slightly flustered. Only Sam Bennett looked at ease.
I turned my head as the camera panned to me. My voice, high and reedy, reverberated around the room. I couldn’t bear to hear my entreaties again, so I stood on shaky legs. ‘I need some fresh air. I’ll be in the garden.’
Ten minutes later Bill came to find me.
‘Mel and Stu have gone out to stick up some posters. I said I’d keep you company. I didn’t think you should be on your own.’
‘I don’t need nannying. I’m fine.’
‘You are not fine.’ He sat on the bench beside me. ‘For a start, you haven’t even asked about the meeting with the accountant. That’s not the Cleo I know and love.’
He was right. Normally, I’d have given him the fourth degree by now. I didn’t much care how the meeting had gone, but I asked anyway.
‘It was fine. The accounts are looking very healthy. We should be able to increase our dividends this year and have enough to invest in that new cold storage system you’ve been going on about.’
‘That’s good,’ I said. Then I remembered the payments to two sets of suppliers. ‘When did we switch from RP Produce to Blackberry Organics?’
He scratched his nose. ‘At the end of April. I told you at the time.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes,’ he said patiently. ‘I set up a meeting with the owner, only it clashed with Nate’s Easter bonnet parade and you went to that instead.’
‘So why have two sets of payments been coming out?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The accountant must have spotted the discrepancy. According to the cash flow statement, we’ve been paying both RP and this new producer for the last three months.’
‘Oh, that.’ Bill leaned back in the seat and laced his hands behind his head. ‘I wanted to be sure about Blackberry Organics before we went all in with them, so I kept RP on the books until I was happy Blackberry were reliable. But I told you all this, remember?’
I ran my hands through my hair. ‘Christ, what’s happening to me? I can’t seem to remember anything at the moment.’
‘Which is totally understandable.’ He unlaced his hands and studied my face. ‘You’ll get through this, Cleo. Whatever happens. You’re the strongest person I know.’
‘Stop being nice, or I’ll blub again.’
‘I mean every word. And I don’t want you fretting about work, all right? You concentrate on the family and finding Immy. I’ll look after FoodWrapped.’
‘Thanks, Bill. That means a lot. I don’t think I have the bandwidth to do both.’
‘And nor should you have to.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t you worry. I have everything under control.’
Back in the kitchen I noticed a spare pile of posters, some Sellotape and a box of drawing pins on the worktop by the toaster. I stared at Immy’s picture. She was on one end of a seesaw, her feet on the ground and her chubby hands clutching the handle. I hadn’t seen the photo before, but I remembered the day it had been taken. We’d had Sunday lunch at a country pub with Bill and Melanie at Easter. When Nate spotted a children’s play area across the road from the pub, Stuart and Melanie, the designated drivers, offered to take the kids over so they could let off steam while Bill and I finished our coffees and settled the tab.
I watched them from the window while the waitress cleared the table. They looked like a regular family enjoying a Sunday afternoon at the swings. Had I felt a pang of envy, a twinge of guilt that I should have been out there with them? That it should have been me snapping away on my phone as Immy shrieked with glee on the seesaw? That I should have been the one helping Nate across the monkey bars, not Melanie?
It hadn’t even occurred to me, because Melanie slotted into my place so flawlessly. She always had.
I regretted it now, as I studied the photo, examining every inch of Immy’s face. Her auburn hair, the colour of autumn leaves. Her sea-green eyes alight with fun. The dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. And that wide, wide smile as she said ‘cheese’ for Melanie, her fourth favourite person in the world after me, Stuart and Nate.
‘Does she have any distinguishing features?’ the police had asked time and again, and I’d run through the list: red hair, green eyes, freckles, etc, etc. But Immy was so much more than a list of features or a two-dimensional picture on a poster. She was vibrant, funny, and kind. And no photo, no stark police-issued description, could ever convey her soul, the very essence of her.
I pushed the poster to one side and filled a glass with water. I’d rather have poured myself a large glass of wine and carried on pouring until I’d drunk enough to send me into a dreamless sleep, but I knew alcohol would make me melancholic, and it certainly wouldn’t help find my daughter.
I checked my watch. I still had an hour before Nate needed picking up from school. Gathering the posters and the drawing pins, I slipped my phone into my pocket and let myself out of the house.
Chapter Eighteen
I checked up and down the street before I let myself out of the front gate, in case any reporters were loitering outside the house. Satisfied the coast was clear, I stepped out and turned left, making my way towards the town hall, St Mary’s Church and the Fordwich Arms, the second of the two pubs in our tiny town.
Immy’s face on a telegraph pole as I neared the church told me Stuart and Melanie had come the same way, so I took a right into Yew Tree Gardens, pinning a poster to a lamppost before heading into School Lane. I’d just passed the row of quaint terraced cottages when I heard a front door open and a woman’s querulous voice behind me. ‘Cleo, dear, is that you?’
I turned, my heart sinking when I saw Phyllis Collins, the local gossip, standing on the doorstep.
‘Is there any news? I couldn’t believe it when the police knocked on the door Sunday dinnertime and said poor little Immy was missing.’
I clutched the posters to my chest. ‘No. There’s no news.’
She crept closer and peered at my face. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? The kettle’s just boiled. You look as though you could use a shoulder to cry on, and I’m a good listener.’
And the minute I le
ft, you’d be sharing my secrets with half the village.
‘I’d love to, Phyllis -’ her puckered old face lit up, ‘but I can’t today. I need to put these posters up.’ I turned them over to show her. Her face fell, and she nodded.
‘You do what you’ve got to do to find your little girl. Does the surrogate know?’
‘The what?’
‘The Irish girl who had Immy for you. Does she know she’s gone?’
‘You’re mistaken, Phyllis. Niamh wasn’t a surrogate mother.’
‘Then what was she? I often saw her walking around the marshes when she was expecting. Our chats were quite enlightening.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘She unbuttoned herself to me on several occasions. Said I reminded her of her granny back in Cork.’
Why, was she an interfering old bitch, too? I wanted to say. But I kept my mouth shut. I wouldn’t gain anything by poking the bear.
‘Niamh’s granny was called Imogen, too. Did you know that?’
I didn’t, but I wasn’t about to admit as much to Phyllis fucking Collins. ‘Of course,’ I lied.
She gave me a sceptical look. ‘Niamh told me she was giving the baby to you, and you were going to give her some money for her troubles. I’d say that was surrogacy, wouldn’t you?’ She frowned, her pencil-thin eyebrows disappearing into a deep furrow on her brow. ‘Only I thought you could only give surrogate mums their expenses. I saw a programme on it once.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘Niamh accidentally fell pregnant, and we offered to keep the baby. The police know all this, so I don’t see why it’s any of your business.’
Her expression hardened. ‘What if any reporters turn up on my doorstep asking questions?’
