by Helen Cooper
What she hadn’t realized, though, was that Zeb had made a discovery of his own. As he’d grown up and started college, branching outside their bubble, he’d begun to wonder about his father. Thinking back now, Emma realized he’d tried to ask her about him, but she’d shut down every discussion. So he’d resorted to snooping for clues, eventually learning Robin’s identity by eavesdropping on a conversation between Emma and her mum.
At the same time as Emma had been deleting Robin’s emails, feeling nauseous even at the sight of his name on her screen, Zeb had been googling that name, posting it on Facebook, trying to find the man Emma was so keen to erase.
Except she hadn’t even erased him well enough. She’d left one of his emails in her inbox, her laptop open in the living room, and she’d heard Zeb’s shout as she’d been putting away washing in her room. What the fuck, Mum? She still remembered freezing while hanging up her favorite 1970s blouse, letting it slide off the hanger as she’d realized her mistake.
How could you have denied me a dad? Zeb had said during the awful argument that had followed, or maybe even a subsequent one—they all merged now. How could you not tell me he’s been emailing you about me, while I’ve been scouring the fucking internet to find him?
It’s about the worst thing you could’ve done.
After that, things had slipped out of her control. Zeb had Robin’s email address and was determined to make contact. When he’d come to her at work, already packed, and announced he was moving in with his dad to help renovate an old remote house, Emma had lost her cool. She’d clutched at straws to explain why she wouldn’t let him go, her voice getting higher and louder in the street outside her shop. The house didn’t sound safe, the dust would aggravate his asthma . . .
After he’d gone, Emma had cried on her mum’s shoulder and Julie had tentatively suggested that maybe Robin was a different person now. But Emma wouldn’t be fooled again. He’d taken her son and he was sending her messages: that she was in need of a parenting book; that she could be unraveled by some heavy breathing down a phone, or a raw egg that was surely supposed to remind her of the ectoplasm. Just as easily unraveled as when she was fifteen.
She put down the school photo, blinking back tears. Her eyes were tugged again to the address Steph had given her, and guilt crashed over her for sitting on it, not doing anything.
After I’ve spoken to Zeb, she promised, her stomach a ball of nerves.
The sound of a vehicle pulling up outside diverted her. She returned to the window, where dawn was rolling back the night and George was climbing out of a police car. Emma frowned as she noticed his face, drawn and somber. Maybe he was just exhausted, maybe he’d been up all night, too, but something about his demeanor made hairs rise on her arms.
She watched him straighten his posture and step up to the house. Heard the buzzer trill in the flat above, the beep of the exterior door being released, George’s heavy tread on the stairs. Moments later, a terrible sound came from overhead. It pierced down through the ceiling, tearing across the memory of everything she’d ever heard from upstairs before.
It felt like more than just a cry: It seemed to have its own color, even a texture, dark and raw.
It was Steph, howling as if her heart was broken.
All the air left Emma’s lungs and her arms lifted toward the ceiling, as though to catch her neighbor if she fell.
PART THREE
39.
KATE
Twenty-five years earlier
I slide the receiver back into its cradle. The hall floorboards feel icy under my bare toes. The dawn light picks out a furring of dust on the mirror, and the ticking clock sounds like someone clucking their tongue, a steady beat of disapproval.
There’s a pad of footsteps and Becca appears, rubbing her eyes. “What time is it? Was that the phone?” At the sight of my face, her hands drop. “Has something happened?”
“That was Mum.”
She jerks her head.
“Nick’s in hospital.” My words and mouth feel disconnected. “He’s in a coma.”
Becca stares. Her lips purse like she’s going to say What? or perhaps Why? But nothing comes out.
I stumble on anyway. “They got to the Hotel okay but he was ill in the night. Drowsy and dizzy, then sick, and he got a rash on his skin . . . I think that’s what Mum said . . .” The phone call already seems hours ago. “And then he started having trouble with his breathing. Mum called a taxi to hospital. He fell unconscious on the way.”
Something is casting a dappled shadow across Becca’s face. The clock seems to get louder, nipping at the silence.
“What . . . caused it?” Becca asks at last.
“They’re running tests.”
Neither of us wants to say it. I don’t even want to think it.
“It couldn’t be,” Becca murmurs: the closest we can bring ourselves to facing the possibility. “It was only—”
“Exactly,” I cut her off, turning slightly away. “There’s no chance.” I stare into the kitchen, picturing myself at the counter tipping crushed tablets into a bottle. “Anyway, he’ll probably be okay. Surely he’ll be fine.” My legs buckle and I sink onto the floor, head between my knees.
“Even if he is, what if the tests show . . . ?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what kind of tests they’ll do.”
“Shit.” Becca kicks the baseboard with her bare foot. “Oh, shit, shit, shit.”
“A coincidence,” I say, like a chant. “It’s just a coincidence.”
“I told you this was a bad idea.” She’s pacing now. I can see her feet going back and forth along the hall, chipped purple varnish on her toenails. “You had to talk me into it . . . crying, making me feel awful . . .”
I leap up. “I wasn’t faking that, Bec! Remember why we did it in the first place!”
She comes to a halt. Her shoulders droop and she presses a hand against her mouth.
“We did it for Mum,” I say in a tiny voice. “We only meant to shake him up.”
She nods, her head hanging. My eyes sting, my stomach feels scooped out.
“It might help them treat him,” Becca says.
“What?”
“If we tell them.”
Fear surges through me. I know she’s right. But the thought of confessing makes me want to run away and crawl under my bed.
“We could ring the hospital,” she says. “Do 1471 on the phone.”
I grab her arm. “What would we say?”
“I don’t know. That we think he might accidentally have taken some of”—she stalls as she looks into our bedroom, past her rumpled sleeping bag, toward the tub still sitting brazenly on the bedside table—“my pills?”
We both stare, breathing heavy and hard. I tell myself again that it can’t have been them, not a reaction so strong. Imagine if we confessed and it was nothing to do with us. Imagine what Mum would think of me, Auntie Rach, my teachers . . . Would I ever be allowed back to school? Would we go to prison?
“They won’t believe us.”
“We could tell them we’ve just noticed some missing. They won’t know it was us.”
“They will.” My fingers tighten on her arm. She doesn’t blink as she peers at me, a lattice of pink lines on her eyeballs.
Then she slides her arm free and smooths her pajama sleeve. She smooths mine, too, unnecessarily, the gesture a minuscule comfort to us both. There’s a long pause as I watch her weighing things up. My own thought processes are gagged by fear.
“I’m going to make us some tea,” she says hoarsely.
She walks into the kitchen, her footsteps soft, as though she’s tiptoeing. The tap hisses and a cupboard door swings. I lean against the rutted wallpaper, shivering in the draft.
* * *
—
We sit dumbly at the kitchen table
, sneaking glances at one another as if afraid of what we might talk ourselves into, or out of. My tea’s too hot, then too cold, but I sip it anyway, at intervals, when I remember it’s there. It’s daytime now but the sun is more like moonlight, white and cold. Next door’s kids wake up and start yelling; traffic noise rises from the streets below.
The phone rings again at half past seven. I scramble to my feet, Becca following me into the hall, her breath in my left ear as I press the phone to my right.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” Mum says.
Footsteps of dread patter up my spine. “How’s Nick?” I manage.
“He’s . . .” Mum falters. “He’s gone.”
Something in my brain blocks the full meaning of her words. “Gone?”
“He didn’t make it.”
There’s a suspended moment, almost an anticlimax, until the reality of what she’s just said smacks me on the back of the neck.
“Oh, my God, Mum.”
“He seemed to be improving, almost stable, but then . . . Then he stopped breathing. It was all so surreal . . . doctors rushing in. Like on TV, Kate.” She sounds spaced out. “Except they didn’t save him. They usually do, in the programs, don’t they? Everything went so still. I could see through the door. I saw the moment they all gave up.”
“Why did it happen?”
“They don’t know. There’ll be a postmortem.”
Becca’s doing an agitated dance beside me. I hold my hand up because I want her to stop, I can’t get any words together.
“Do you want us to come down there, Mum?”
“I . . . no. I’ll come home as soon as I can. I have to go now. There’re things to sort out . . . God, such a lot to sort out. I can’t believe it. It doesn’t feel real.”
Her breathing comes soft and slow down the line, an echoey hospital bustle in the background, before the dial tone hums.
I drop the phone with a clatter. Becca’s eyes widen and I slowly nod. She releases a string of swear words, then stuffs her knuckles into her mouth. I start to cry and sway on the spot. Someone who was alive only a few hours ago is now dead. And there’s a strong possibility it’s because of us. Me.
Becca doesn’t comfort me, like she has all the other times I’ve sobbed in front of her. She pats at the blotches that have broken out on her neck. “Fuck,” she says. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.”
I cover my face, squeezing my fingers together so no light can sneak through the cracks. I remember coming home last night, staring at Mum and Nick’s luggage in the hall, all those desperate plans reeling through my head. If only I’d chosen one of them instead.
Perhaps he deserved it. Maybe he would’ve killed Mum eventually if he hadn’t died today.
I want to believe it. Want to comfort myself with the idea that Nick’s death saved my mum’s life.
“Bec?” As I lower my hands I realize she’s panting scarily fast. Rasping something I can’t make out: the word pills and maybe police or promise.
Her body stiffens and then bucks backward. I’m slow to react, until everything snaps into focus and I see her convulsing on the floor. Blue seeping into her lips. Her limbs jerking even faster than I remember from last time.
I crash onto my knees. As I support her head, its weight and warmth are so familiar, the silky texture of her hair. Should I call an ambulance? I remember Becca saying that it isn’t really necessary anymore, not unless she doesn’t regain consciousness. But today it feels like anything can happen.
I close my eyes again.
When I open them, I want none of this to be true. I want to be standing at my dressing table helping Mum with her ponytail, hardly aware that men like Nick even exist.
I think of the plane that day, soaring over me, the raked-up night sky followed by the beautiful calm. I’m back there and I’m gazing upward and I’m never going to move.
Becca’s seizure is slowing. Her face is soft and sleepy, with drool running down her chin. Eventually she lies still. I see her chest rising normally, find a pulse on her wrist, and drop my head in relief. As she comes round, I almost envy her because she’s temporarily forgotten everything that’s happened. She’s been granted a few seconds of absence.
I settle her on the sofa. The seizure has zapped her energy and given her an excuse to stop thinking, stop deciding what to do. Recovering from her own small ordeal, she can just sit. And so I do the same.
40.
CHRIS
Chris’s flat had never felt more claustrophobic. Another sleepless night had triggered a constant sickly motion behind his eyes, and his entire living room was lit with images of Freya that seemed to carousel around him. She was on his TV, which Vicky’s sisters were glued to; on Di’s phone, supplementing the TV; on the front page of the Surrey Comet, from which Jane was loudly reading extracts. The whole street could probably hear her penetrating voice, including the Harlows two floors above.
“‘Following last night’s discovery,’” Jane said, her chewing gum moving around in her mouth, “‘the search for Freya Harlow, missing since Thursday evening, has reached a critical point. Police are appealing again for anyone with information—’” She broke off and stared at Chris. “Hey, are you okay? You’re green.”
He was trying to breathe through a tide of sickness. “Fine,” he croaked.
His eyes floated to Vicky, who had said hardly a word all morning. She was sitting by the window, gazing up at the street, where reporters had now started to gather, attracted by the increased urgency of the case. She had been on shift last night but hadn’t gone to bed since; she’d kept frowning at Chris, asking why he wasn’t at work. He didn’t want to tell her he’d had three more cancellations in the last twenty-four hours. And that they’d actually come as a relief.
He wished he could stand up and go to her, touch her wrist and feel the grounding thump of her pulse, with no un-Vickyish bracelet in the way. But he was trapped on his sofa with one of her sisters at either side. Why were they even here on a Monday at midday? Didn’t they have anything else to do with their lunch hours? Jane was chain-chewing gum, texting news links to her workmates and her on/off boyfriend; Di was bossily shushing them all, even though they were silent, as Detective Ford came on the TV wearing her sharpest suit.
“Tests are being done but the jacket is thought to be Freya Harlow’s,” Ford said, her face grave. “And regrettably the stains are thought to be blood.”
Chris let his chin sink toward his chest, lower and lower, until the doorbell made him freeze.
“I’ll get it.” With another pitch of his stomach, he flapped to free himself from the sister-in-law sandwich. He dashed across to the kitchen to take a subtle peek out of the other front window, and his fears were confirmed.
Except he hadn’t been as subtle as he’d intended. The two PCs in uniform had seen him. Chris went back into the hall, kicking shut the door to the living room to stop Vicky and her sisters getting wind of the situation. He took a second to try to pull himself together, but his brain and body refused to sync.
“Mr. Watson, we need you to accompany us to the police station.”
Chris’s voice was thick but his words came out oddly formal: “In what capacity?”
“We need to re-interview you, on the record, about Freya Harlow’s disappearance.”
Chris couldn’t move. His T-shirt sucked against his back. Then he heard a door swing open behind. He’d given Vicky and her sisters enough time to wonder what was happening, and now they were spilling into the hall, and he couldn’t bring himself to turn and see their expressions.
“What’s going on?” This was Di, of course, taking charge.
“Chris?” Jane sounded giddy.
Vicky said nothing.
Chris stepped toward the police officers. He wanted to say something to his family, something reassuring but appropriate: Jus
t doing my bit for the investigation. But he didn’t trust himself not to misjudge it.
He prepared to walk up the steps onto the unforgiving stage of the street. Maybe it would have turned into an amphitheater, with high stands full of neighbors baying for his blood. He glanced back at Vicky and her sisters and realized what an idiot he’d been not to make that reassuring comment. His silence had hushed them all, too, even Jane. They were watching as if something momentous was happening, and Vicky was holding on to the edge of the hall table looking utterly lost.
41.
EMMA
Emma sat in her chilly car, engine off, watching the curtained upper window of a small maisonette. She’d been there for half an hour and seen no movement. The house radiated a shut-down air, exacerbated by the fact that the lower floor was boarded up. In fact, the whole street seemed lifeless, the bricks and pavement an unbroken gray.
The maisonette’s address lay on the passenger seat beside her. She couldn’t stop glancing at Steph’s handwriting, remembering her eyes as she’d pressed the note into Emma’s palm. Remembering, as well, Steph’s howl the next morning, when she’d been told, as Emma had later understood, that Freya’s bloodied jacket had been found buried in a ditch thirty miles north.
The new discovery had thrown everything into confusion, including Emma’s own conviction about what to do with the address, even how to approach Zeb. Steph’s feral roar had rattled her soul. The harrowing mental image of Freya’s familiar Puffa jacket soaked in blood had seemed to raise all the stakes. What had happened to her? Why was Steph keeping secrets from the police, from Paul? Why was he keeping secrets from her? And if Zeb had lied about the amount of time he and Freya had spent together, how might that muddy the waters of the investigation, even if it was entirely innocent—as hopefully, surely, it was? Then Emma would loop back to worrying about Zeb in general, imagining more cuts on his hands, convincing herself he was slaving under unsafe conditions while Robin turned him irreversibly against her.
