Grace Is Gone

by Emily Elgar

  “There is no theory, there’s only what happened. She’d been studying people driving for years. She took the Craig twins’ car, managed to drive herself to the haulage depot, and hid in the empty cab of one of the trucks, the first batch that left at midnight that night. No one knows where she ended up because those trucks went from Oslo to Sorrento. The twins were picked up the morning after, trying to board a boat from Plymouth. Traces of Megan’s blood were found on Tony’s coat and her DNA was in the caravan. They’re in prison now. That’s all there is to know.”

  Tim has been leaning forward too much. He’s got my wheels stuck in a particularly sticky patch of mud. He pulls me back a few paces for a run-up.

  “And what about the girl, the neighbor who let her get away?”

  My jaw clenches again and this time I know, no matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to release it. Ruth told me Cara came to the hospital twice while I was unconscious. She left flowers. She kept calling until Ruth persuaded me to let her visit at the end of September. Both my arms were in plaster and my leg was still a formless red sausage with pins sticking out like someone had been practicing voodoo. Cara stood awkwardly by my bed in the spare room at New Barn Cottage, her eyes skittish, unable to find where to rest. She looked younger than ever, just a kid. What had I been thinking, getting her caught up in the whole business?

  “Well, at least you look a bit better than last time I saw you,” she said.

  I laughed; it turned into a cough that hurt my chest. Cara’s eyes widened in alarm. She glanced towards the door, looking for help. I shook my head, telling her not to bother, I was fine.

  We talked clumsily about other things—Cara’s place at Bristol Uni, Jakey’s summer football camp—until Cara bit her lip and blurted, “I’m sorry you think I did the wrong thing, letting Grace leave that night.”

  The weight of her words landed heavy in my bones. I felt exhausted just hearing her name.

  “I don’t think you did the wrong thing. I just wish we’d got more answers.”

  “But you read the real diary, what Meg was doing to her, it was . . . it was torture. If she’d stayed she’d have been charged with accessory to murder, she’d have escaped one prison and gone straight into another.” Cara’s voice was strained, her words too practiced. I don’t say that if I’d had my way Grace would’ve been charged with something more serious. I took a deep breath that made my ribs scream.

  “Look, I don’t want to argue about this. There’s no doubt, no doubt that Meg was sicker than any of us imagined. But does that justify her murder? There were so many other ways Grace could have got away. There were people she could have told about what Meg was doing to her.”

  “She tried, Jon! You’ve read her diary, the real one. She tried telling me, telling that nurse. Meg had total control, not only over Grace but over all of us. Even if one of us had listened to Grace, heard the truth, I doubt we’d have believed it.”

  “That doesn’t justify murder.”

  “But she didn’t murder anyone.”

  “Tony has withstood every questioning, every test. Both of them confessed to their role in my fall but have resolutely denied Tony’s involvement in the murder.” I was getting angry now.

  “So?”

  “So if we’d been able to question Grace, maybe we’d have more answers.”

  “Yeah, but don’t forget, Jon: if we’d had more time with Grace, you wouldn’t be lying here now.”

  Cara blinked, glanced down at her feet. I saw a tear drop to the floor.

  “Look, Cara—”

  But she didn’t want to hear. She just turned on her heel and ran out of the door.

  That night in June comes back to me in sharp fragments of memory. Like stepping on a piece of broken glass when I thought all the shards had long been swept away, it cuts just as deep each time. Of course I’m grateful to Cara, bloody grateful to her for saving my life. I don’t blame her for anything. I blame myself. I was the one who fell, who forced her into making a decision between saving me or freeing Grace. What I can’t do is pretend that a dangerous person on the run God knows where is a good outcome. Other lives could be at risk because of me. It’s that thought, not the painful knitting back together of my bones and muscles, that keeps me awake at night.

  Cara’s right, we all should have listened more carefully to Grace—or Zoe, as she is now. She planted the diary at the murder scene, I’m sure of it. She knew Meg was reading it so she only had good things to say about her, only bad things to say about her dad. Meg would have approved of the way Grace portrayed him, pleased to know the tales she’d carefully woven about him were taking effect. As for Grace, she must have known Simon would be the main suspect. Whether he was calling or not, I don’t know, but I don’t think for a minute that Grace didn’t know what she was doing, that her diary wouldn’t add fuel to the fire, giving the police and the community someone to focus on. She was treading a fine line and she did it beautifully.

  Her second account, written after the murder, still wasn’t the whole truth. She’d spent her life studying the best, after all. She knew just how many secrets to give away and how to bury the truth even deeper. I knew when I heard them talking outside the caravan that Tony and Robbie weren’t manipulating her; she was manipulating them. She knew she could frame Tony for Meg’s murder, that everyone would believe her over a man who’d been in trouble with the police since he was a teenager. She was the victim of years of abuse, but she was also her mother’s daughter through and through. After all this I’m in the same position I was a year ago, after I wrote the article for the Chronicle. What I believe to be the truth is totally at odds with what everyone else wants to believe is true.

  Shouting from the game brings me back to the football pitch.

  “Sounds like someone’s scored,” I say to Tim, but he doesn’t hear, he doesn’t care about the football, not now, not when he’s getting the details of a great anecdote he can dine out on for months.

  “I heard that you don’t think it was the twins who did it.”

  “Did what?” It’s facile to play stupid but I’m tired of these questions. The part I’m trying so hard to forget is the only bit everyone wants to talk about.

  “Killed the mum, of course. I read somewhere you thought that Tony Craig didn’t do it.” He’s slowing his pace, trying to eke out the time he has to question me. My leg throbs and my head feels heavy, stuffed with all these questions I’m always asked but have promised Ruth I’ll never answer, not honestly, anyway. She wants to forget almost as much as I do.

  “Mate, trust me, I’ve said all kinds of crazy shit since the accident: just ask Ruth—it’s the morphine. Whatever you read, or thought you heard, forget it. Honestly, I don’t remember any of it.”

  I have the lie down pretty perfectly, but every time I say it a little bell chimes in my head.

  You win, Grace. You win again.

  “So you think he did do it then?”

  “All I know is that those twins put me in this effing thing.” I hit the side of the chair.

  “Yeah, right. The bastards.”

  But Tim’s not interested in what happened to me. My story is clear, you just have to look at me to believe it. He wants the other story, but he can’t have it.

  “What about the dad?” Tim isn’t going to let his chance with me escape so easily. “You saw the interview with him on The Morning Show?”

  I tried to watch it but I didn’t get far. The presenters, sitting next to Simon, looked a bit uneasy perched on the edge of their orange sofa, but Simon seemed better than ever before. His dark eyes still crawled like shiny beetles around the studio, but he seemed to fill his own skin at last.

  “So, Simon, tell us, did you ever suspect Megan was abusing your daughter?” The presenter did quite a good job of masking her discomfort. Simon cleared his throat carefully before he started speaking his rehearsed words.

  “Well, Katie, Megan was a master manipulator. She’d blackmail me to keep my su
spicions to myself. She’d threaten to accuse me of rape or being violent and she’d remind me that everyone would believe her over me.” Although he’d probably been told not to, Simon stared right into the black eye of the camera. I felt as though he was talking directly to me.

  “I wasn’t in a good place at the time. I was unwell myself after Meg blamed me for our son’s death and wouldn’t let me see Grace. I lost sight of what was real and what wasn’t. I knew Meg was lying about Grace’s name and age, of course. I suspected she was up to something else but I didn’t know what. I came close to telling a doctor the truth once, but I’m ashamed to say I lost my nerve. Meg could have ruined me, got me locked up. You see now what she was capable of.”

  I didn’t know if it was sweat or tears, but Ruth saw the droplets running down my face.

  “Maybe we’ll watch this another time,” she said, flicking the television off and wiping my cheek with a tissue. I’m relieved that, so far, there hasn’t been another time. The truth is I think Simon knew Grace was involved in Meg’s murder, he knew she’d do anything to get away from her. He didn’t come forward when the police were looking for him because he wanted to give her the time to get away, to escape. That’s why he didn’t tell the police about her real name and age. He let the world think it was him and that she was someone else to protect her, to give her a chance. He was, in his way, trying at last to be a father to her.

  “Mate?” Tim asks, pulling instead of pushing my chair as though he’s trying to jerk an answer out of me.

  “No, I never saw it.” I sound the full stop at the end of the sentence. People like Tim don’t want to know what I know, not really. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t, because if he did he wouldn’t be able to smile so much. Instead, he’d lie awake night after night and he’d see a hundred different Graces, one a waifish shop assistant in Paris, another a beggar in Munich, another a waitress in Rome, all of them walking with the same barely perceptible limp.

  We’re almost at the pitch now. Ruth is standing just outside a small group of mums and dads. She’s bundled up in a scarf and hat but she’s still moving from one foot to the other to keep warm. She’s shouting, “Good pass, Leo! Come on, Bethell’s!”

  My heart constricts with love as soon as I see her and I start impatiently pushing myself along. Now the ground is firmer, I don’t need Tim anymore, Tim and his questions about something that can never be made right. I need Ruth and I need our future.

  “Thanks for your help, Tim, I can take it from here,” but Tim keeps pushing me along.

  “Thanks, mate, I can take it from here,” I say, louder. Tim stops pushing and moves round to the front of my chair. He looks like he’s thinking about shaking my hand, so I keep pushing myself on, towards Ruth, and say with a nod, “Appreciate your help.”

  There’s a small note of failure in his voice as he calls after me, “Any time, mate, any time.”

  Ruth claps her hands together when she sees me, kisses my cheek, and I bite my tongue when she says Tim is a good bloke. I wave at Jakey. He skip-runs a couple of joyful paces when he sees me and waves back. Ruth holds my hand until Jakey has the ball and he’s running fast up the wing. We let go of each other to clap but then the ref blows his whistle, someone’s offside, and through the gaggle of parents groaning at the ref, laughing with each other and calling encouragement to the muddy players, I see a young woman in a blue coat. She’s standing at the opposite edge of the football pitch. She has blond hair that looks too perfect to be real and she’s staring straight at me. When she knows I’ve seen her she smiles and raises her finger to her little rosebud lips.

  Shhh.

  Then the ref blows his whistle and I blink and realize it wasn’t Grace but another woman in a blue coat and a familiar wave of relief and fear washes through me as I remind myself that even though we don’t know where she is, Grace is not here. Grace is gone.

  27

  Cara

  “Welcome to your first tutorial. It’s wonderful to see you all here.”

  Dr. Mackenzie makes a point of trying to look each of the twelve of us in the eye as he scans the table, like he’s making a toast. Some look away, embarrassed, giggling quietly, but I look straight back. I want to show him I’m ready, that I’m where I should be, here in his large office at Bristol University that smells like leather, the air humid with concentration.

  “As most of you know already, I’m Dr. Mackenzie and this place where you find yourselves now is where we shall, all of us, be meeting every Tuesday and Thursday, two to five p.m. for the next year. Perhaps some of you will come to love this place, while for others, I’m afraid, it may feel like your own personal penitentiary.” There are shy titters from around the group. “But I hope, at the very least, it will be a sort of mind gym for you all. A place to sweat out ideas, take a few punches and give a few—considered and well placed—in return. Here, together, we will try to understand some of the most ethically challenging acts committed by humans and, in turn, try to formulate a framework for how we believe society should respond to those acts. It will be hard work for us all, and for some it may feel distasteful at times, perhaps even morally and spiritually confrontational, but it is my belief that in order to understand people and therefore the world in which we live, we have to understand all different types of people and expressions of humanity, even if to us they may seem inhumane. So, there we are. Now, before I go on, and I will go on and on and on”—more polite laughter—“I want to meet all of you and for you to meet each other. So, let’s go round the table and if you could introduce yourself please, and explain a bit about why you’re here, champing at the bit to study criminology.” Dr. Mackenzie opens a large white palm towards the guy sitting to my left. Next to him there’s a girl who’s scribbling notes already and then, I realize, my stomach plunging, it’ll be my turn.

  The first guy stands, color flushes to his cheeks. He looks like he was knitted specially to go to university. He’s wearing a plaid shirt under a wool V-neck sweater, and brown cords. He takes his glasses off before he smiles confidently at us all.

  “Hello, I’m Jamie. I did my A-levels at Harrow before working abroad . . .”

  I suddenly feel like laughing. I wish I could take a photo to send to Mum. She’d hoot if she saw this place, these people, me in the middle of them. She cried when the acceptance letter came in the mail and was still crying when she pulled me into her arms.

  “I couldn’t be more proud of you, Car,” she said, a little too loudly, into my ear. Although she’d never say so, I know she’d be even happier if I was studying history of art, or anything other than criminology.

  While Jon was in the hospital I told Upton everything Jon had told me about Meg, what she was doing to Grace. Upton interviewed Dr. Rossi and slowly others came forward, and then there was a flood of stories. Nurses remembered seeing Meg fiddling with Grace’s IV, doctors admitted feeling uncomfortable with Grace’s test results but bowed to pressure from Meg, friends realized it must have been Meg who stole their earrings. Meg forced such a cocktail of drugs into Grace that even she started to believe Grace was unwell. Her conditions and symptoms baffled most doctors and if there was ever a hint that anyone was becoming suspicious she’d move Grace to a new doctor. They didn’t move to Ashford for a better life, they moved because Meg thought—correctly—that the aging Dr. Parker could be more easily manipulated for referrals and prescriptions. She didn’t make those trips to London to get the best care for Grace, she made them to pick up illegal drugs and fake genetic test results that led to Grace’s muscular dystrophy diagnosis. She carefully researched which drugs to give Grace to weaken her heart, which drugs would cause her to have seizures, and which drugs would stop her being able to swallow. Meg was smarter than any of us knew, her deceit well researched and her tracks carefully covered.

  Mum moved a few months after Grace left. Our bungalow sold for far less than it should, but too many people had seen it on the news. People move to Cornwall to live close to
the sea, not the scene of a brutal murder, but Mum didn’t care. It gave her enough to buy a tiny two-bed flat in the center of Ashford. She’s decided, on the advice of her therapist, to get to know her new neighbors slowly. Mum had a breakdown, or in Zara’s words “needed a bit of a rest,” when the truth about Meg came out. Zara and Mum closed the salon for a month. She told me Meg had taken the photo of Jakey in hospital and persuaded Mum to post it online. She said she was sorry before she started crying again. I told her—honestly—that I don’t blame her. We were all under Meg’s spell.

  I helped Mum take down all the photos of Meg and Grace late one night because she didn’t want anyone seeing us. I caught Mum staring at a photo of the two of them, both leaning forward to grin into the camera, Meg holding Grace’s hand between both her own. Mum’s eyes glazed in concentration as she said, “I used to think it was the cutest thing, you know, the way they always held hands.”

  I looked closer: in the photo, Grace’s fingers were swollen red, flushed with blood. Meg was always touching Grace, on her hand, her shoulder, her leg. But like Grace said, it was never to hold her daughter, or to reassure, like when Mum holds mine. It was a way for Meg to remind Grace that she was in charge. Her touch was a warning.

  Mum and Zara are back running the salon again now and Zara dyed Mum’s hair blond on the first day they reopened, which I take as a sign they’re both looking forward.

  Dennis is just “the butcher” again and Sylvia does her nails at home now; she says it’s to save money. David Raffin hasn’t been seen in Summervale since June. Martin has been heard saying he always had his suspicions about Meg but no one believed him. Meg and Grace pulled us all together but, when the truth came out, they pulled us all apart again.

  “So I’m really delighted to be here and look forward to getting to know you all.” The room breaks around me into gentle, supportive applause as Jamie, now the color of a poinsettia, sits down. Dr. Mackenzie turns with a smile to the note-taking, black-haired girl next to me. She’s less red, but far shyer than Jamie.