Grace Is Gone

by Emily Elgar

  A nurse appeared. Neither of us have met her before, but everyone knows about us.

  “Hello, Grace,” she said, her head cocked at an uncomfortable-looking angle. “I’m Faye. I’ll be keeping an eye on you tonight.” She smiled at Mum. “Good to meet you, Ms. Nichols.”

  Mum smiled back and told the nurse to call her Meg, like she always does.

  I couldn’t roll over on my own, so I just smiled and waited while Mum and Faye talked about what I would need during the night, when the doctor would be back in the morning, where Mum would sleep. She’s spent so many nights at the hospital she sometimes jokes the visitor’s chair is her second home. Poor Mum.

  Love, Grace xxx

  8

  Jon

  I kick the sheets off my bed and roll to my left in the hope that a new position might bring some rest, some sleep, but my mind chatters away like a chimp. Reading Grace’s diary was harder than I imagined. She was so good, and the bond between her and Meg was extraordinary. Why didn’t I write an article celebrating their relationship instead of questioning the way Simon had been treated? For the first time, I understand why the community was so angry with me.

  It’s been three days since Grace went missing, three full days without any medication. Whenever I close my eyes I see a tiny mound in bed under white hospital sheets, the face changing from Grace to Jakey and back again. I sit up. Drink a pint of water. I need air, that’s what I need. I need something to remind me life exists outside my tiny one-bed flat, outside my own head. The bedroom window opens on to the lower high street but the sitting-room window is bigger, and opens to a series of wheat fields that eventually lead to the sea. There’s no breeze coming in from the street, so I pad across the sitting room, open the window wide, and feel my lungs expand like balloons as they fill.

  Get a grip, Jon, get a fucking grip.

  I take another lungful of air as a ghostly cry is carried along on the warm night. The cry comes again and again, like someone calling, pleading. I think of Meg. I think of Grace.

  The shout comes again, clearer now, and I realize it’s her name: “Grace!” It’s like the night itself is calling for her to come home.

  Am I actually going fucking nuts?

  The shouts get louder and then I see glinting lights, like fireflies in the distance, and I realize it’s not Meg’s ghost and it’s not the night calling her name, it’s a search party. A very human search party with flashlights, loud voices, and reflective vests. They must be doing a sweep of all the fields that run down from the town to the beach.

  “Grace! Grace!” they call. Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab my jeans from the bedroom floor and pull on a T-shirt. As I worm my feet into my Converse, I look at myself in the hall mirror to reassure myself that I look different from how I looked just before Christmas. I have a beard now, thick-rimmed glasses, and I’ve put on a few pounds since Jakey went back to school. Even if Susan and her mates are out there searching, especially in the dark, they’re unlikely to recognize me from the photos online. But I shove on a navy baseball cap just in case before I head out into the warm, salted air.

  The bright moon hangs above us, lighting the way for the searchers as though it too wants to help find Grace. I read a couple of articles from the national papers claiming volunteer searches can hinder rather than help investigations. They said the searches around Ashford are well intentioned but unprofessional, random sweeps across the countryside into old abandoned mines and farmhouses, and that untrained eyes can miss key pieces of evidence. But neither the volunteers nor the police have found anything yet, so the jury’s still out as far as I’m concerned. And instead of a disorganized rabble, the search seems well organized. Most people have flashlights and the lines look ordered, the volunteers walking perfectly in time and only a few tasked with calling her name. They all keep their eyes fixed on the ground as they brush through the golden wheat fields. It seems unlikely she would have been taken across this field—it’s well used by dog walkers in the day and is too close to the high street to be private—but perhaps they’re searching the more public areas at night. Statistically, time is running out for Grace and there must be hundreds of square miles to search. I fall in step next to a woman at the end of the line. She’s around my mum’s age and wears a Barbour jacket under her reflective vest.

  “You look like you’re thinking about joining us,” she says when she sees me.

  I nod. “Would that be all right?”

  She throws me a reflective vest from her pocket.

  “Course! Grace needs all our help. Come next to me, I’ll get Martin to budge up a bit.” She calls to the man next to her: “We’ve got another joiner, move up the line!” The words echo along the volunteers and a space is made for me, and suddenly we’re together, the wheat scratching at my legs, and I feel calmer as I search in gentle time with these good people doing what they can to help.

  Once we reach the end of the field the lady in the Barbour sighs and, unzipping her jacket, sits on a log. She pats the space next to her and smiles at me, like she’s expecting a little lap dog to leap up next to her. She pulls a thermos out of her huge pockets.

  “A break at last!” she says with a chuckle as I come to sit next to her. She offers me a plastic mug.

  “Oh no”—I wave my hand—“you’ve been out here much longer than I have—”

  “Oh away with you. There’s plenty for us both.”

  I take the cup and have a sip of tea. The tea is good—sugary and flavorful. I feel the woman looking at me.

  “So, if you don’t mind me saying, you looked a bit dazed when you joined us earlier. Wake you up, did we?” she asks in her warm Cornish accent.

  “Oh no, I always look like that,” I say with a smile, which she returns. “No, no, you didn’t wake me. I have trouble sleeping sometimes so thought I’d make myself useful.”

  “Good for you!” she says, taking my empty mug. “We need all the help we can get, what with the police being so bloody useless—they don’t seem to understand how much Grace will be suffering after three days without her meds.” She shakes her head. “Sorry, but I just get so upset with it all. I’m Maggie, by the way,” she says, raising the cup in a silent toast before taking a sip. Maggie. A small bell in the back of my mind chimes but I’m too tired to figure out why.

  “I’m Jon. So did you know Grace?”

  Maggie looks suddenly stern.

  “Oh no, love,” she says, “we’ll have no past tenses, thank you very much. But yes, to answer your question. I do know Grace, knew them both, Grace and her mum.” As she says it she leans forward and I see her T-shirt has the Wishmakers logo on the front. I remember Grace talked about a Maggie in her diary and my mind snaps like a twig: she’s Maggie from the Wishmakers. I spoke to Maggie when I first called the charity to ask if they had any families I could interview for my article. Although I told Maggie I was working with Dads Without Borders, I suspected she didn’t understand the real intention of the article, that I was on the side of the dads kept from their kids rather than the mums doing the keeping. Maggie immediately started telling me about Grace and Meg. She told me earnestly how Meg had called her just a few hours earlier, how devastated Meg was that Grace could no longer go to Hawaii. Maggie said an article about them could be the boost they both needed. I should have said something, explained the article in more detail, but even I’d heard about Meg, Grace, and Simon on the Ashford grapevine. I wanted to interview them as much as they wanted to be interviewed. I needed them for the article. I found it easy to shush my conscience and ask Maggie to give them a call.

  I have to go carefully now. Although we never met in person, I can’t risk Maggie recognizing me. I want to keep talking to her—she was close to Meg, she might know something.

  “You’re Maggie who works for the Wishmakers, aren’t you?”

  She looks puzzled, then nods.

  “That’s me.” She looks at me more closely. “Don’t I recognize you from somewhere? I
can’t for the life of me figure out from where.”

  I try not to panic.

  “Oh, I have one of those faces. My wife, Ruth, was friends with Meg—that’s how we got to know them.” Maggie sips her tea as she listens.

  “I remember Ruth saying how disappointed both Meg and Grace were when she couldn’t go on the Hawaii trip,” I say, keeping my tone light.

  “Oh I know, poor mite. She would have loved it—all that sunshine, the lovely hotel. But it wasn’t meant to be. First all the trouble with the passport, then she was admitted to hospital again. That was it, I’m afraid, there was no way she could go.”

  Maggie passes the cup back to me.

  “Her passport?”

  “Oh, it was a silly thing really.” Maggie looks around her at the other volunteers, who are standing in small groups talking quietly, eating chocolate bars and smoking.

  “I’m ashamed to say I got a bit frustrated with Meg at the time. Not her fault, she had more than enough on her plate. But she was usually so good with paperwork, so organized. Anyway, we’ve got more important things to worry about now, haven’t we?” Maggie looks over again as a low ripple of outrage runs through the group of volunteers. I only catch the odd word, but it’s clear they’re talking about the police, frustrated they don’t seem to have a clue where Simon has taken Grace. I need to keep her attention—I have the feeling Maggie is someone who’ll keep talking if I ask the right questions.

  “Ruth and I are about to apply for a passport for our son, actually. Is it as painful as everyone says? I’m rubbish at admin stuff.”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad. You just have to get everything together and make sure you’ve dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s. Megan’s problem was that she never got hold of a copy of Grace’s birth certificate. That was all. I had all the other forms, all the signatures, the money ready to go. I asked again and again, even gave her the number to call to get a duplicate. She would have got round to it eventually, I’m sure, but then, like I said, Grace went into hospital so . . .”

  A man with a laminated map around his neck and reflective trousers and vest blows a whistle for us to regroup. Maggie pours away the rest of her tea on the stubby ground and nudges me.

  “That’s Martin, one of the organizers. Ignore him at your peril,” she says with a wink.

  I stand and give Maggie a hand up. Next to Martin I’m surprised to see the farmer, Mr. Leeson, and shivering next to him the woman who works with Susan—Zara—in huge hoop earrings. All the news reports keep saying how loved Meg and Grace were, and here’s the proof.

  “Actually, I’m going to head home, try to get a couple of hours’ kip before the alarm goes off. But good to meet you, Maggie,” I say, not wanting to risk being recognized by one of the others.

  “Good on you, Jon.” Maggie pats me on the back before rejoining the huddle of volunteers.

  As I walk back across the field I think about what Maggie said. I understand how any parent, but especially the parent of a disabled child, would be nervous about them going away for the first time. From what I’ve heard, Meg always put Grace first, no matter what. What stopped her this time? Could Simon have had something to do with it? Was Meg worried about Grace going abroad, or was she frightened that a passport would make it easier for someone to take Grace far away, against her will? I remember what Maggie said about Grace’s birth certificate and an idea starts to form. As Ashford comes into view ahead of me the first rays start to lighten the sky and I quicken my step.

  As soon as I’m back in the flat I make a big pot of coffee and open up my computer. The supposedly free genealogy sites won’t give me the detailed information I need without my credit card details. I know I still haven’t paid the minimum payment and I’m almost at my overdraft limit, so I dial the only number I know by heart. I let the phone ring and ring until she finally picks up.

  “Mum?”

  “What is it, Jon? Is it Jakey?” Her fear crackles down the phone line.

  “No, Mum, no—he’s fine.” Idiot. I forgot. The last time I woke her so early was when Jakey was readmitted with an infection and I just needed to hear her voice. “Sorry for calling so early. I have to ask you something.”

  “Jon, it’s half past five in the morning!”

  I picture her in her tiled Victorian hallway in Islington. She’ll be wearing her burgundy bathrobe, Agnes her rescue Scottie dog at her slippered feet. I love how Mum’s world remains the same while the rest of London changes around her, as quick as the weather.

  “Sorry, Mum, I sort of forgot what time it was . . .”

  “Rubbish,” she scoffs down the phone. “You just had an idea you thought couldn’t possibly wait until a decent time. So come on then. I’m awake now, you’d better tell me.”

  Suddenly I wish I was there with her, in my warm childhood home.

  “I wanted to ask about that family tree stuff you got into a while ago.”

  “It’s called genealogy, darling.”

  “Right, well, how did you do it? Do you have an account to look up birth certificates and stuff?”

  In spite of the time, I hear Mum smiling down the phone. It’s rare anyone asks her how something works now—she still uses a pocket diary and would never trust GPS. Like her home, Mum stopped changing somewhere in the mid-eighties.

  “So how’s Ruth?” Mum asks before we hang up.

  “She’s good, sends her love.”

  “Things getting better between you two?” she asks hopefully, and for once I want to bring her good news.

  “I think we’re getting there, Mum. I think we’re going to be OK.”

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that, darling,” Mum says with a sigh before she yawns and I tell her to go back to bed and that I love her, and I hang up the phone.

  Outside, the gulls are already circling in the pink sky. I can’t hear Maggie and the other volunteers anymore. Perhaps they’ve finally called it a night. I pour myself more coffee and type Mum’s username and password into the genealogy website. I don’t know exactly what I expect to find, but this missing birth certificate is all I have to go on. I type in Grace’s full name and her place of birth: Plymouth. But the search comes back with no results. I try just “Nichols” and “Plymouth” and now there are a couple of hundred results. I scroll down the first page—most of them are male—and am about to try a third and final search when the last entry catches my eye.

  Name: Nichols, Zoe Grace Megan

  Place of Birth: Derriford NHS Trust, Plymouth

  Date of Birth: 10/09/1998

  The first name and the year of birth are wrong—I’ve never known Grace to be called Zoe, and Grace is seventeen, born 10 September 2001, not 1998. But it’s too much of a coincidence to ignore. I lean in so close I can see each individual pixel. Under my glasses, I press my thumb and forefinger onto my eyelids and rub. I repeat my search—looking first for Grace Megan Nichols born in 2001. Again there are no results. Instead I search for Zoe Grace Megan Nichols born in 1998. One result.

  It doesn’t make sense. Did Grace change her name? But why would she change her birthdate? If I’m right about this—and I think I am—then we were wrong. We were all wrong. We’ll never find seventeen-year-old Grace Megan Nichols because she doesn’t exist. But, according to these records, twenty-year-old Zoe Grace Megan Nichols does.

  I sit, numb and mute, for an hour on the sofa, a film forming over my untouched coffee. I keep hearing Grace’s high-pitched, girlish voice in my head. She had always seemed young for her age, but that she’s an adult, not much younger than Cara, seems inconceivable. Why did Meg lie? And Simon—surely he’d know his daughter’s real name and age, why didn’t he raise the alarm? Perhaps they were both protecting Grace, keeping her in the pediatric system for as long as they could. Perhaps someone in the NHS made an administrative error and Meg and Simon realized that if they didn’t correct it Grace would get better care for longer? That makes sense, that I can understand. But what abo
ut Grace? Was she complicit, or did she never know her real name? Her real age? The questions are thick, heavy in my head, and when I try to pull them apart they seem to stretch and expand like toffee, making even less sense than they did before.

  The sun has risen fully when my phone starts ringing on the coffee table, shocking the silence.

  “Jon? Mate, you there?” Ben sounds slightly out of breath, like he’s rushing somewhere.

  “I’m, I’m here,” I say, my own voice a surprise.

  “Look, mate, sorry to wake you but I thought you’d want to know. I’m headed to the Point. Apparently the police search team found some clothes, a dress looks like, washed up on the rocks. Word is it matches what Grace was wearing the last time anyone saw her.”

  The line starts to crackle, losing reception. Ben keeps talking, but then the line breaks. It doesn’t matter, though. I know everything I need to know. I grab my house keys, wallet, and the blue cap and, forgetting the time and the fact that I have neighbors, I let the front door slam loudly behind me.

  9

  Cara

  I forgot to close my curtains before I went to sleep, so the sun wakes me. My eyes haven’t fully opened but I reach for my phone and open the forum. GoodSam still hasn’t replied to the message I sent as StillSearching last night on a whim: Hi GoodSam, I’m new to the forum. Your avatar is cool—sometimes I wish I could be a cartoon version of myself. Where did you find it?

  I feel like a geeky adult trying to be a teenager, but I think the tone is about right. I know Jon said we should wait to see if GoodSam comes online, but he also didn’t say anything about sending him a message. I close my curtains before getting back into bed. I need to try to get more sleep, but just as I close my eyes the door creaks.

  “Mum?” I call out to her, lifting my head from the pillow.

  She opens the door slowly. She looks hollow, her face sharper without all her makeup.