3
Zappa’s unscathed, but I’m not pretty. My face is scratched, and I’ve the beginnings of a black eye when Angus comes home that evening. He’s suitably horrified.
“Christ, Kate. What happened to you?”
“The storm spooked Zappa in the woods. I had a fall.”
I decide not to tell him about blacking out. Even after twenty years of marriage, Angus still thinks horses are dangerous.
I don’t tell him about the fear, either, about my strange certainty that something terrible had happened there to Rosie.
I’d struggled to my feet to find myself in a small clearing at the top of a chalky slope, at the center of a ring of ancient beech trees.
A snorting sound had startled me, and I’d looked up to see Zappa standing there, reins hanging over his head, looking sheepish. One foot at a time, he ventured toward me, nostrils flared, clearly still on alert.
“Hey, boy.” I reached for his reins. “It’s okay.” I patted his neck, reassuring him, before we slowly made our way back.
“You look a mess,” says Angus.
“Thanks. You’re full of compliments,” I tell him.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Kate.” He comes over and gently touches my bruised cheek, which alone is enough to make me wince. Taking his hand away, he frowns. “Are you quite sure you’re not concussed?”
“I’m fine, Angus. It looks much worse than it is.”
“Maybe you should get yourself checked out.”
I shake my head. I’ve been through enough for one day. Anyway, there’s nothing more certain to make you feel terrible than spending hours hanging around an emergency room.
“Really. I’m okay.” I manage a smile for all of about a second, as it comes back to me what was in my head out there. And then I realize.
“Oh my God. You don’t know.”
“Grace is probably right,” he says when I’ve finished telling him. “Teenagers do the daftest things—even the best-behaved ones. And Rosie would have known her mother wouldn’t like her going to Poppy’s.”
“I know.” I sigh.
I want to believe him. And any other time, I’d just agree, pushing it to the back of my mind, while I waited for Jo’s call to tell me Rosie had come home. But after what happened earlier today, illogical though it is, I have this unshakable feeling something’s happened to her.
We eat inside. The air still feels charged, with the muted gossip spreading through the village, with more thunderstorms rumbling in the distance. It’s just me and Angus. Grace went out before I came back. She’s with friends, who are tightening ranks, holding their own vigil as they wait for news about Rosie.
“You’re miles away,” Angus remarks. “Stop worrying, Kate. She’ll be fine.”
“I know.” I put down my knife and fork. “But what if she isn’t? I’m sorry, but I’m really worried. Okay, so if it was Sophie, you could imagine it, couldn’t you?” Sophie’s a close friend of Grace’s, with a mind of her own and an independent, rebellious streak that my daughter finds at once enviable and infuriating. Mostly the former, though. They’re thick as thieves. “But not Rosie. It’s just not the kind of thing she’d do.”
I stare at my plate, the poached salmon and salad leaves, my appetite gone, wishing I knew where she was.
As another day begins, a day in which so far there is no news, it seems unbelievable that we must wait. I know the majority of missing teenagers return home. I know, also, out of those who want to, most come back unscathed.
But what about those who don’t? If each passing second removes them further, blunting memories, hiding tracks, until no one can tell where they’ve gone?
Terrible possibilities crowd my mind, kidnapping, rape, trafficking, and worse, until unable to endure my own company, I drive over to Rachael’s.
She’s outside when I get there, unloading shopping from the pickup she uses for the school run—Alan’s, for use on their farm.
“Animals, small boys . . . there’s not much in it,” she’s told me many times. Rachael and Alan have a thousand or so sheep and four sons.
“Here. I brought you these.” I hand her a homegrown lettuce and a bag of potatoes, still covered in earth.
“Oh God, I wish you hadn’t. Alan will start banging on about the garden again, and I really don’t have time.”
I’ve known Rachael too long to take offense at her bluntness. She was the first friend I made when Angus and I moved here twenty years ago. She’s also completely turned the traditional role of the farmer’s wife on its head, firstly by not marrying Alan, then refusing to give up her city job, even though these days, some of the time at least, she works from home.
“I know you don’t—that’s why I brought them. I’ll wash them. He’ll never know.” I pick up some of her shopping bags.
“You’re an angel. Put the kettle on, will you? I’m desperate for coffee.”
I follow her inside through the riot of wirehaired terriers that rush to greet us, through to her kitchen. “Have you heard? About Rosie Anderson?”
“What about her?” Rachael’s voice echoes through the cool vastness of her cavernous farmhouse.
“She’s missing.”
“Probably a boy, or else she’s partying,” Rachael calls back. “I remember doing that once. I was gone for three days. I think I shacked up with this boy I fancied.... God, I can’t believe I did that. My poor mother—she never said a word, or perhaps she thought she’d got rid of me!”
“Jo’s out of her mind. Rosie’s not your typical teenager.”
“The quiet ones are often the worst! Seriously, though, I’ll watch out for her. Jo must be desperate.” Rachael comes into the kitchen, and I hand her a mug. “I’ve got this phone meeting at half past. . . .” She glances at the time—just twenty past. “Where has this morning gone? How’s your lovely Grace? Enjoying her summer? You’ve no idea how lucky you are, having a daughter. This entire house practically oozes testosterone. . . .”
It’s how Rachael talks, in a series of questions to which answers are not mandatory. But before I can get a word in, her phone rings.
“Bollocks. He’s early. I have to get this, Kate. Sorry. But let me know if you hear anything.”
I let myself out while Rachael takes the call, her strident voice following me outside, as I’m thinking, Is it just me?
Apart from Jo, isn’t anyone else worried about Rosie?
When I get home, Grace is in the kitchen, Sophie at her side, grazing, the way teenagers do, stripping the fridge, the larder, before moving on to the fruit bowl. Her current fad isn’t so much low carb as no carb, destined to end as it always does in a feast of nothing but carbs.
“Hi, girls. Have you heard anything?”
Taking another bite of her apple, Grace shakes her head. “No one has. It’s really weird.”
“Could you speak to Poppy?” I know they’re not friends, but doesn’t something like this unite people? “She might know something. Gracie, I was thinking.... Do you know if Rosie has a boyfriend?”
Even after Jo’s told me she hasn’t, I’m still wondering, because all teenagers have their secrets.
Grace hunts around in the fridge. “She might, but Poppy won’t say. Not to me. And I don’t understand why the police aren’t looking for her. I mean, what if something’s happened?”
“I’m sure they must be by now.” Words intended to reassure—myself, as well as Grace—my unease heightened as I get that she, too, is thinking the unthinkable.
I leave it as late as is reasonable before calling Jo.
“Hello?” Her voice is breathless, as though she’s just run up a flight of stairs; her tone desperate, which tells me nothing’s changed.
“Sorry, Jo. It’s only me. Kate,” I add. “I won’t keep you. I just wondered if you’d heard anything.”
“Kate . . . no . . . Every time the phone rings, I think . . .” Her thoughts are scattered; her speech disjointed. “I’m so worried. I can’t talk
. The police have just arrived.”
“Of course.” My stomach lurches. “You go. We’ll speak soon.”
And though I know that the police need to be there, that questions should be asked, no stone left unturned, suddenly I’m cold.
“Mum, we’re going out.” Grace appears in tiny shorts and a Beatles T-shirt, followed by Sophie, who, by virtue of her long legs and lanky frame, manages somehow to be wearing even less.
“Where are you off to, girls?”
“Josh’s,” they answer in unison.
Josh is a friend from school who has parents with a breathtaking tolerance for teenage gatherings and a summerhouse—Josh’s den—across the garden.
“Gracie? Be careful, sweetie. And ask everyone about Rosie, won’t you?”
Silencing the part of me aching to keep her here, at home, watching her every step, keeping her safe, until we know.
“Mum . . . of course I’ll be careful. We’re only going about two miles.” She catches Sophie’s eye, and I see the familiar code flicker between them.
Sophie gives me a hug. “Don’t worry, Kate. We’ll be fine—and we’ll make sure everyone’s looking for her.”
I watch them walk out to Grace’s car, shiny haired and long limbed. Laughing at something Sophie says, filled with that unshakable belief that teenagers have.
That nothing bad will ever happen to them.
“It’s routine,” my pragmatic husband says when I tell him the police have arrived at the Andersons’. “It’s what they’re paid for, Kate. You’d expect them to be there.”
“I know. But it means Rosie’s still missing, doesn’t it?”
“Well, perhaps now they’ll get on with finding her. I’m starving. What’s for supper?”
“Salad.” Food’s the last thing on my mind.
“Again?” Angus wrinkles up his nose. “I didn’t have lunch, Kate.” He sounds disappointed.
“Maybe chicken. I’ll look in the fridge. I was going to go shopping, but I forgot.” I hesitate. “You know Grace has gone out again.... It worries me, Angus, while Rosie’s missing.... I mean, we don’t know what’s happened, do we?”
Angus comes over, puts his arms around me, reading between the blurred lines that have crept in and are suddenly everywhere I look.
“I’d like to see you stop her,” he says softly. “Grace will be fine—as I’m sure Rosie will be, too. Stop worrying. More than likely, she’ll turn up.”
ROSIE
Where light falls on my childhood, I know happiness, fleetingly. Enough to know when it’s gone.
I remember a day in London. Mummy’s eyes bright as she does up my shoes and brushes my hair. Telling me we’ll have the best day. “Ever,” she says, crouching down, taking my hands in hers, her eyes sparkling, their brightness catching mine.
Like all the best days, it’s just us.
I love the train, with its big seats and movie-screen windows. The being on the inside looking out. The split-second watching of other people’s lives, full screen in front of me, then slipping past, then gone.
When we get there, Mummy takes my hand.
“I’ll show you something special,” she tells me in that voice that makes my heart burst with excitement. “It’s new, Rosanna. You’re so lucky to do this.”
I hear people talking about it as we join the back of a long queue. London Eye. Not knowing what it is until I see it, reaching all the way to the sky.
To start with, I’m scared, but as we’re slowly lifted higher, as the city gets smaller, the view gets bigger, I feel myself slip into another world. I wonder if all cities are like this. Full of other worlds. I glance at Mummy, her hair so pretty, her eyes so far away, knowing that she’s found one, too.
I have ice cream, and Mummy drinks coffee. We go shopping, but then Mummy says we have to go somewhere. Meet someone. A good friend.
I don’t want to meet Mummy’s friend. I want to keep this day just for us, but she says we have to.
“Now, Rosanna. I can’t be late.” And I remember thinking it can’t be a good friend, because good friends don’t mind if you’re a tiny bit late.
Mummy’s friend lives in a grand white house, up wide steps, with a shiny bell and brass plate on the door. When she rings the bell, a lady in a white coat and red lipstick lets us in.
“Come in, Mrs. Anderson. Mr. Pinard won’t be long.”
We wait in a room, on a velvet sofa opposite a tank full of tiny fish that ripple it with color, looking at the pictures on the walls, of beautiful women who don’t smile. Who are perfect. Until the man comes in.
I hide behind her. I don’t like how he sounds. “He’s not from England,” Mummy whispers. And he’s her friend. I can tell from how he kisses her cheek. Smiles into her eyes. Tells her how beautiful she looks. How she calls him Jean. He calls her Joanna. Tells her the scars have healed so well, are so small, he can’t see them. How he leans down, shakes my hand. Says how pleased he is to meet me.
Only, when his eyes wander over my face, down my body, I curl up inside. Stare up into cold blue eyes. I don’t know why we’re here. Then Mummy goes with him into another room, telling me to wait, on my own, with the fish—“They’re so pretty, Rosanna”—closing the door.
And I’m frightened. I don’t like it here.
I don’t like him.
Suddenly, the day is spoilt.
I want to go home.
And I can’t see the fish through my tears.
4
In just two days, gossip and speculation morph into something much darker. Even as I feel my way in this new landscape, I’m not prepared when the police come here. The young, fresh-faced policeman, barely older than Grace and whose lack of any sense of gravity makes him somehow inappropriate, with the older police woman, who introduces herself.
“Sergeant Beauman, Sussex Police.”
From her manner, the way she speaks, I know instantly, she has done this too many times before.
They talk to Grace first, alone, after I’ve butted in, insisting I want to sit in with her, while Grace assures me that I don’t need to and it’s fine. But it’s not fine. I know she’s not guilty of anything, but irrational fear seizes me, that she’ll accidentally say the wrong thing and somehow incriminate herself.
“We’d prefer it,” Sergeant Beauman says to me as Grace disappears into my study. “Sometimes teenagers say more without their parents present.”
“I don’t think she knows any more than she’s said already,” I tell her. “She doesn’t keep secrets from me.”
Sergeant Beauman gives me the knowing kind of nod that goes with having a teenage daughter of her own, then follows Grace in and closes the door.
I sit for what feels like ages, uncomfortable, the palms of my hands clammy, before it’s my turn, and as I take Grace’s place, even though it’s my chair in my house, under their scrutiny I’m reminded of being back in school.
Sergeant Beauman asks the questions, the young policeman listening intently, occasionally chipping in. They ask me how I know Rosie, writing it down, as though everything I say has hidden meaning.
“She comes to see my horses. Helps out a bit. She’s sweet—and she’s really good with them. I don’t think her parents know. At least, I haven’t told them. She’s never said as much, but I’ve always felt she didn’t want me to.” I gabble the words incoherently, inadequately. “I mean, she’s eighteen.... Parents don’t have to know everything, do they?”
Aware of my own duplicity, because if it were Grace riding someone else’s horse, keeping secrets from me, wouldn’t I want to know?
Sergeant Beauman chooses not to comment. “So, recently, has there been anything different about her?”
“I’ve asked myself exactly that. I can’t think of anything,” I tell them, watching them scribble. “Only the necklace. She wore it all the time—only I expect you know about that. It’s probably not even relevant.”
Sergeant Beauman looks up. “Can you describe it?”
A thoughtful look crosses her face. “How well do you know the family, Mrs. McKay?”
“I know Jo through school.... Grace and Rosie were in the same sixth form. That’s how we met. A few of us mothers get together for lunch sometimes. They’re a really nice family.” I shrug, trying to think of what there is to say. “I’ve met Neal a few times—in passing. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Is there a Mr. McKay?”
“Angus works in London. He’s a finance manager. He doesn’t know Rosie. He isn’t into horses.”
The Sergeant Beauman’s pen hovers over her pad, then scribbles again. “Thank you. That’s all—for now.” She gets up. “If we need to talk to you again, can we call you at this number?”
She reads back the number I’ve given her, and I nod. Then she hands me a card.
“If you think of anything else, or hear anything, could you call me?”
Strangely quiet, Grace and I watch them drive away.
“It’s weird,” says Grace. “Only, I was thinking . . . You know when Rosie comes to see the horses? She never comes when I’m around, does she? It’s as if it’s not just the horses she wants. It’s you.”
Over the days that follow, painstakingly, methodically, the police work their way through the village, asking questions, making us see each other through a stranger’s eyes. Infecting us with a bacterial kind of fear.
“Do you think they know, Mum?” For once, Grace is actually home longer than just to wash her hair or collapse into sleep. Needing the safe familiarity of home ground.
“Know what, sweetie?”
She’s hesitant. “There were these guys hanging out in the woods.”
I spin round. “Did you tell the police when they were here?”
The Bones of You Page 2
