Hiding in Plain Sight

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Oh no. Is there anything I can do? Maybe she went to the library. Isn’t it her day? It’s just around the corner, shall I pop and see if she’s there?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Andee replied, handing some money to Fliss. ‘I’ll head over to the shop and meet you there.’

  By the time Andee got through the bustle of the Inner Courtyard to Graeme’s shop, Jenny had already rung to let her know that Maureen was at the library.

  ‘Did she seem all right?’ Andee asked, relief flooding her.

  ‘Better than earlier,’ Jenny replied, ‘but to be honest I don’t think she remembered seeing me, because when I asked if she was feeling better now she seemed surprised, as though she wasn’t sure what I was talking about.’

  Andee’s insides turned over as she once again considered the turmoil her mother was in, far worse than Andee’s own.

  ‘What is it?’ Jenny asked, as Andee sank into a Queen Anne walnut wing chair on the visitor’s side of Graeme’s desk. ‘Something’s going on. Is there anything I can do?’

  Andee gazed around the shop, seeing but hardly registering the myriad treasures that had found their way down the years to pause here before setting off on the next stage of their journeys. She wished with all her heart that Graeme would walk through the door now. She was very fond of Jenny, and she longed to confide in her, but she knew, because of what Jenny and Blake had been through, that it would be an incredibly selfish thing to do. The Leonards’ daughter, Jessica, had disappeared without trace for over two years, so they knew very well what it was like to experience that kind of fear and heartache. It was only after they’d called on Andee to help find her that the truth had emerged, but not in time to save the girl. She’d died the very day she’d gone missing, not murdered by a monster, but as the victim of a tragic accident that hadn’t been reported.

  Terrible though it was, the Leonards had had their closure, and were now doing their best to move on. Hearing about Penny was unlikely to help them with that, no matter how genuine or willing they might be in their offers of support.

  ‘Andee?’ Jenny gently urged. ‘You’re looking a bit like your mother did this morning. I don’t want to pry, but if something’s wrong …’

  ‘No, it isn’t, really,’ Andee assured her. ‘It’s just that I saw this woman in France …’ What was she saying? Why were these words coming out when she hadn’t intended them to? ‘My mother received a call, and a text. It turns out my sister, Penny …’

  Jenny frowned in confusion. ‘What about her?’ she prompted.

  ‘She’s alive,’ Andee stated, unable to stop herself.

  Jenny’s kindly blue eyes dilated with shock.

  ‘It was her,’ Andee continued, ‘the woman I saw. I was in no doubt of it.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  Andee explained about the car that had pulled up to block her way. ‘Then later the same day my mother rang to say she’d heard from someone who sounded just like me. We know how sisters sound alike.’

  Jenny dropped into Graeme’s leather-padded chair, clearly lost for words. ‘So this is why you came back early?’ she finally managed.

  Andee nodded. ‘Please don’t mention it to anyone, apart from Blake, of course. I guess everyone will know soon enough, but for the moment my mother and I feel it’s best to see her without the complications of police or media pressure.’

  ‘Of course. Do you have any idea where she’s been all this time? Or when you’re likely to see her next?’

  ‘No to the former. She’s coming to the house tomorrow at three.’

  Though apparently still thrown, Jenny regarded her carefully. ‘How do you feel about it?’ she asked, clearly sensing that Andee was far more disturbed by the way things were unfolding than relieved or joyful.

  Andee shook her head as she sighed. ‘Not how I’d expected to if it ever happened,’ she confided, ‘and nor does my mother. It’s thrown us completely, mostly because of the way Penny’s going about it. It’s like … I don’t know what it’s like: it just doesn’t feel good.’

  ‘Does that mean it has to be bad?’

  Andee shrugged. ‘I guess not, but I keep seeing the car driving off as soon as she was sure I’d recognised her. She didn’t want to engage any further, that much was clear. It was like she’d put down a marker, or played some sort of tease. And yesterday, she sent my mother a text asking if she remembered a kitten she’d had when she was small that disappeared and was never found. Much like she disappeared when she was fourteen – and was never found.’ Her bemused and troubled eyes went to Jenny’s. ‘I’m asking myself, why bring that up about the kitten? Of all the things that happened when we were young … Why pick on that?’

  ‘Maybe it was an attempt to establish that she really is your sister?’ Jenny suggested. ‘A shared memory, something no one else is likely to know about.’

  ‘That would make more sense if she thought I was in any doubt about who she was. She knows I recognised her …’

  They both looked up as someone came in to enquire about a Stölzle green glass bowl in the window.

  As Jenny admired it with the woman and gave her some history on it, Andee checked her phone for messages, and finding one from Graeme she sent a quick text back saying she’d ring later.

  ‘What’s really bothering me,’ she said to Jenny when they were alone again, ‘is how she knew where to find me. If she’d turned up here, in Kesterly, that would be one thing, but in France …’

  A few minutes ticked by as they sat with the mystery of that. In the end, Jenny said, ‘Are you saying you think she’s having you watched?’

  Andee sat back, a hand to her head. ‘I’ve no idea what she’s doing,’ she declared, ‘but she apparently knew where to call my mother – we moved from Chiswick over twenty years ago – and she even has my mother’s mobile number. How did she get hold of that?’

  Having no answer, Jenny simply looked at her.

  ‘I guess,’ Andee said evenly, ‘I’ll just have to ask her – if she turns up, that is. If she doesn’t …’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘The truth? I’ve absolutely no idea.’

  Chapter Four

  The following afternoon Andee and Maureen, appearing calmer than Andee suspected she felt, were staring at each other across the kitchen table, where a homemade coconut cake – Penny’s favourite when she was young – and the best china were neatly set out as a welcome. It was only ten minutes to three, but they’d been ready for over half an hour, and now they’d finally run out of words that hadn’t already been spoken dozens of times that day.

  First thing this morning Maureen had said, ‘I texted her the address. She’ll probably remember it was Granny and Grandpa’s place when she sees it.’

  Feeling certain Penny already knew where they were, Andee said, ‘Did she ask for it?’

  ‘No, but I thought I should send it anyway, just in case she thinks we’re still in Chiswick.’

  Deciding not to point out that the first call had come to this house in Kesterly-on-Sea, which didn’t have a London number, Andee said, ‘Did you get a reply to the text?’

  Maureen shook her head.

  Andee stayed silent, not trusting herself to say anything impartial. Her mother was already stressed enough, she didn’t need her elder daughter’s anger adding to it. But Andee couldn’t understand why Penny seemed to be toying with them.

  At ten o’clock they’d driven into Kesterly so Maureen could get the ingredients for the cake as well as pick up some things for dinner in case Penny decided to stay for the evening – maybe even the night.

  ‘Do you think I should get a room ready for her?’ Maureen had asked during the drive home.

  Finding it hard to imagine the woman she’d seen in France settling into their chintzy little guest room, Andee said, ‘Do you want to?’

  Maureen didn’t answer. She was distracted, anxious, and Andee understood that, so she let the matter drop and continued to gaz
e out at the bay where a score of small sailboats were bobbing about the waves like sprightly ballerinas.

  Now Maureen said, ‘Maybe I should find some old photographs of her and put them on the mantelpiece with the rest of the family. She might find it hurtful to see she’s not there. Do you think it was terrible of us to take them down? It was just so painful seeing her never getting any older …’

  Andee looked at the framed shots of herself and the children, her mother and father, her grandparents and Maureen’s nieces and nephews. There always used to be one of Penny, aged about ten, grinning widely and looking adorably mischievous. It was, Andee realised, how she’d come to remember her sister, since it was the only way she’d seen her for the fifteen or so years that it had been on display. It was as though she’d frozen in time, not as the fourteen-year-old who’d featured in the shots the police had circulated during the search for her, but as a younger, cuter version of the moody teenager with mussed dark hair and shocked, staring eyes.

  ‘Do you still have any photos of her?’ Andee asked.

  ‘Of course. They’ll be in the attic with the family albums.’

  ‘So shall we get them down?’

  Maureen regarded her warily. ‘I can tell you don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  Andee didn’t, but wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she didn’t want to be too eagerly welcoming with Penny, after all this time.

  ‘Are you looking forward to seeing her?’ Maureen asked after another pause. Without waiting for an answer, she said, ‘I wonder how she’s feeling right now. Do you think she has far to come?’

  Since Andee had no idea, she got up from her seat at the table and pulled her mother into a tender embrace.

  ‘I wish Daddy was here,’ Maureen said, for what must have been the hundredth time. ‘Or do I? I wouldn’t want him getting cross with her the way he used to. Except he wouldn’t. He’d be nothing but relieved to know she was safe, and it won’t be her fault that she hasn’t been in touch for all these years.’

  Though ready to accept that there might well have been a period when Penny hadn’t been in charge of her own destiny, Andee simply couldn’t feel convinced that it had continued for the entire time she’d been gone. Certainly the woman in the Mercedes hadn’t shown any signs of being controlled by anyone but herself.

  ‘What if she doesn’t come?’ Maureen said now, gazing at the cake.

  ‘We’ll call Blake and Jenny and have a party,’ Andee quipped.

  Maureen’s eyes shot to hers, and at last she managed a smile.

  Smiling too, Andee said, ‘If she does come, I’m wondering how we should greet her. With a nice big hug for the long-lost daughter/sister? A polite handshake for a stranger? How about a salute?’

  ‘Stop it,’ Maureen chided.

  ‘Do we say hello Penny or hello Michelle?’

  ‘I think I shall call her darling, or nothing at all, until we can work that one out. I wonder if she’ll call me Mum? She did when she rang.’

  Andee tensed as the clock in the hall chimed the hour.

  Maureen glanced at her watch. ‘It’s a couple of minutes fast,’ she reminded Andee.

  Andee picked up her mobile as a text arrived.

  Sorry, running about ten behind. Be there soon. M aka P Xxx PS: I took something of yours when I left, I wonder if you know what it was ☺

  Andee’s first thought was, ‘So she has my mobile number too.’ Her second thought, ‘Does she think this is a game?’ She passed the phone to her mother and went to fill the kettle.

  ‘Do you know what she took?’ Maureen asked.

  Andee shook her head. She was feeling angry again; the sense of being controlled, or played, was seriously getting to her. Why on earth wasn’t this gearing up to be the joyous family reunion she’d always imagined if her sister came home, the way her mother deserved it to be?

  ‘She’s upset you,’ Maureen declared.

  Throwing out her hands, Andee said, ‘I just wish I knew what was going on with her. First that bizarre episode in France, then the text about the kitten, now this … Why is she running ten minutes late? Is it deliberate, to show some sort of power over us?’

  ‘Maybe she came by train and has to wait for a taxi. She should have rung, we could have picked her up.’

  Andee looked at her mother and felt a sudden urge to tell her they were going out, that they wouldn’t be here when, if, Penny decided to show, because they had other things to do. Of course Maureen would refuse if she tried, so she didn’t even attempt it. ‘What did you mean yesterday,’ she challenged, ‘when you said that I didn’t know Penny?’

  Maureen gave a jerky sort of shrug as she gazed at the cake. ‘I just meant that you two were very different,’ she mumbled.

  Reluctant to press her mother, but doing it anyway, Andee said, ‘I think you meant more than that, so is there something you’re not telling me?’

  Maureen’s eyes came up to hers, showing how helpless and anxious she felt. ‘Please don’t be angry,’ she implored. ‘We don’t want to be in bad moods when she gets here.’

  ‘I’m not angry,’ Andee lied, although frustrated might have been a better word.

  ‘The trouble is you’re used to being in charge,’ Maureen pointed out, ‘but sometimes, and this is one of them, you have to ease up and just go with the flow.’

  Amused by the way they were taking turns to bolster one another, Andee returned to the table and looked at her phone again. ‘I should be feeling excited,’ she said frustratedly, ‘I want to believe that everything’s going to be just wonderful, but it’s not happening.’

  ‘You’re like Daddy. You never automatically trust anyone or anything. It’s a part of having been a police officer.’

  ‘Are you saying that you trust what’s happening here?’ Andee demanded. ‘That you believe it’s going to be wonderful?’

  ‘I’m trying to,’ Maureen insisted. ‘And it is wonderful that she’s alive. You have to admit that.’

  Knowing she wouldn’t be ready to explore how she felt until after she’d seen her sister, Andee sat down and regarded her mother keenly as they continued to wait. The fact that Maureen had avoided her question about knowing more than she was letting on hadn’t escaped Andee, but now wasn’t the time to push it any further. However, if Maureen thought they wouldn’t return to it she was gravely mistaken, particularly when Andee had always believed she knew everything there was to know about her sister’s disappearance. She’d seen the police files, had even carried out an investigation herself some ten years after the initial, exhaustive search, so what else could there be to know? But her mother’s comment yesterday had made Andee feel that there was something else. If so, it hardly made any sense for her mother to be holding it back, especially from Andee, but Maureen was nervous about something, that much was clear.

  It was just after three fifteen when they heard a car pulling up outside.

  Maureen’s eyes shot to Andee’s. Her face had paled.

  With her insides knotting, Andee said, ‘Do you want me to go?’

  ‘We both should,’ Maureen replied, and got to her feet.

  Feeling strangely disconnected from what was about to happen, as though she was watching rather than participating, Andee led the way along the hall, past her father’s paintings that decorated the cream-coloured walls, to the rarely used front door. He’d painted the landscapes during the worst of his grief, a form of therapy designed to distract him, and in a small way it had seemed to help.

  Though Andee had no deep-rooted belief in the afterlife, she couldn’t help wondering if he was watching them now, and if he was, what he was thinking. Did he feel, as she did, that it would be better if their meeting weren’t happening like this, or was he quietly rejoicing that his girls were finally about to be reunited?

  No one had rung the bell or knocked on the door, but someone was outside, Andee could see their shape through the frosted glass. She turned to her mother. Maureen’s eyes were bright with emotion.
Her hands were bunched at her throat. She looked older all of a sudden, and smaller. She gave Andee a weak smile of encouragement, and feeling as though she was going through the motions of a long-rehearsed scene from some dystopian play, Andee swung the door wide and found herself face to face with the woman she’d last seen in the back of a Mercedes.

  She wasn’t as tall as Andee had expected – though Penny had never been tall – or quite as composed as she’d seemed that day in France, but the blonde hair was as immaculate as the make-up, and the outfit as expensive as the leather bag over her arm. Her smile seemed hesitant, even slightly shy, while the curiosity and eagerness in her aqua eyes sent Andee spinning back through the years.

  Different and unexpected as she was, any lingering doubt that this was her sister vanished along with whatever Andee had intended to say.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ Penny said, and Andee, disoriented by her own emotions, turned round as her mother sobbed.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Maureen gulped, holding out her arms. ‘Oh my goodness, my goodness,’ and as she folded her younger daughter into the agonised tenderness of her embrace, Andee watched from inside a profound sense of unreality. She glanced outside and saw a silver Mercedes at the gate with a suited man in the driver’s seat. Presumably the same car, the same driver that had been in France.

  ‘Andee,’ Penny murmured holding out an arm.

  Realising she was being invited to join the hug, Andee stepped obediently into it.

  ‘Mummy, my very own mummy,’ Penny smiled through her tears as she clasped Maureen’s hands to her chest. ‘I can’t tell you how good this feels, how I’ve dreamt about this moment … Is it really happening?’

  ‘You look so … So … grown up,’ Maureen spluttered with a laugh. ‘In my mind I kept seeing you as a teenager, and now here you are …’ She looked at Andee, and Andee remembered to smile.

  ‘My beautiful big sister,’ Penny enthused, gazing directly into Andee’s eyes. There was something behind the tenderness in Penny’s, a kind of wariness, or amusement, or an emotion too well masked for Andee to read. ‘You’ve hardly changed,’ Penny ran on, ‘apart from to get even more beautiful. I always knew you would. And you’re tall, just like Daddy.’