by Nicci French
‘It’s as if…’ I was struggling to make myself clear, when I wasn’t even clear in my own head ‘…as if she could only take the things she could see.’
‘I suppose she was in a hurry,’ Alix said.
‘But to forget her medication. Or take her makeup bag but not the makeup remover. Maybe it means that she sent somebody to get the stuff for her, somebody who didn’t know where everything was.’
‘I’m going to make you something to eat now.’
‘No. I’ve got to go.’
‘Where to?’
‘I’ve got to go,’ I repeated. ‘I’ll let you know if anything…’
It was a sentence I couldn’t complete. Images swirled in my mind and I made myself focus on the tasks ahead. Before I could leave there was Jackson.
‘Renata!’ I called up the stairs.
There was a muffled groan, then silence. I ran up the steps, two at a time, and knocked on my bedroom door.
‘Yes,’ came her faint voice, and I pushed open the door.
She’d closed the curtains and at first I couldn’t see her. Gradually I made out a humped shape in the bed, and shook it gently where I thought her shoulder might be. ‘Renata?’
‘Whassit?’
I pulled the duvet back. She was fully dressed under it, but half sat up. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ she said. I could see she had been crying. Her mascara had run in smudgy streaks down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Nina. Maybe I ought to leave. I’m no use to you – I’m just in your way.’
‘You can’t leave,’ I said. ‘You have to stay here and make sure Jackson’s all right. I’m going out to look again. Up you get.’
‘I feel a bit sick.’
‘Here, up. Make yourself some coffee, help yourself to food. Keep an eye on Jackson. Thanks. I’ll call you.’
I didn’t wait for a reply, but ran down the stairs again. Alix followed me out of the house, looking awkward. She began to say something but I got into the car and drove away, with that rattle still there, not knowing where I was going.
For the moment I had done with rationality. Now I had the wild idea of searching randomly. Perhaps I would find her lying injured beside her bike, or spy her walking by a distant shore. I drove along The Street, quickly passing the shops, the bungalows, the bowling-green and the playing-fields and then I was in open farmland – The Street becomes a country road that bisects the island. After a few hundred yards I turned right on to a road that leads directly to the sea. At the end there is a youth camp where children come in the summer to swing from ropes, play football and canoe, get fresh air and get drunk, smoke and steal from local shops. But now it was deserted. I parked in front of Reception, a green wooden hut. I had thought of asking if anybody had seen Charlie but I didn’t even get out of the car. The car park was empty, the hut door padlocked. A cat lay on the step and peered at me suspiciously. A couple of seagulls stalked round the bins, steadying themselves in the breeze with their huge wings. Was it worth walking along the sea wall? I decided I was better off in the car. I turned round and drove back to the main road, then right, heading for the less populated end of Sandling Island.
On my left I saw a sign for Birche Farm. Jay. Did I need to get back in touch with him in the light of what I had learned? I felt my brain was working slowly when it needed to be quick and nimble. I had thought Charlie had made it up with the girls who had been bullying her but they had spiked her drink and she had vomited. I thought she had planned to run away. Now it seemed as if it had been more of an impulse, and that someone had helped her. Who could that have been? Jay was an obvious candidate, but would he help her and not go with her? Was there someone else she hadn’t told me about?
The road narrowed into a lane and then into a rough parking area. It was hard to believe that in the summer there was often a jam even to get into it but now only two cars were there. Dog-walkers. I stopped, got out and ran across the rough grass that led to the sea wall. In the distance I could make out a small group of people. As I got closer I saw there were three of them, an elderly couple in conversation with a white-haired woman. Two small dogs scampered and yapped at their feet. They turned as I ran up to them, panting with the effort.
‘I’m looking for my daughter,’ I said. ‘Have you seen anybody?’
They shook their heads.
‘We just got here,’ said the man.
‘I’ve walked along the sea wall to the marsh,’ said the white-haired woman. ‘There’s a man picking cockles on the sand. I didn’t see nobody else.’
I ran past them to the edge of the path. The tide was still quite low, shingle, sand and mud. The water between the island and Frattenham on the mainland was just a hundred yards or so wide. I was standing on the point, the easternmost tip of the island, and from it I could see along the path a mile to the north and almost as far in the other direction, to the south-west, until the path disappeared from view round the gentle curve of the sea wall. North, I could only see one figure, the cockle-picker, on the sands. South-west, there was nobody. A small crane stood in the distance, where the sea wall was being repaired, but even that was still and unused at the weekend.
As I turned back towards the car, I passed the three old people again.
‘She’s a fifteen-year-old called Charlotte,’ I said. ‘If you see her, ask her to call home.’
They didn’t speak. If I had chatted with them about the weather, or asked them the ages and names of their dogs, they would have been content and polite. But they were uncomfortable with a strange woman in search of her daughter.
It was impossible to drive north of the road except for a couple of tracks that led directly into the yards of the two main farms on the island. The north of the island that faced the mainland was much less accessible than the south, arable fields that gradually wettened and dissolved into marshland, reeds and disused oyster beds, then the sea and England. Of course Sandling Island was England as well, but it didn’t feel like that. It had just about clung to the mainland for centuries, but its grip was loosening and I sometimes imagined that one more storm would wash it away.
On the way back, the grey sky started to break up and widening patches of blue appeared. An idea occurred to me, and instead of heading back into the town I turned right on the road that led to the mainland. The island is almost flat, except for a few hillocks, bumps and sandbars, and one prominent reminder of the island’s ancient past, a tumulus beneath which is a large burial site. It must have been chosen because of its vantage-point, the views it gave of potential threats, whether from the North Sea or the two channels running round the island or the mainland. Now it was a grass-covered anomaly in this otherwise flat landscape.
I parked the car and made my way up the slope. It was really nothing more than a large knoll but it gave a view of much of the island and across the sea to the mainland beyond. I could see the town to the far west and then I let my gaze follow the line of the coast, past the caravan park, then a mile of marshland and grass until it reached the causeway, which stood well clear of the water and the mud, now that the tide was still only half-way in. Once, years ago, there had been a path round the whole island but there had been a winter of terrible storms ten years earlier and the sea wall had collapsed under the onslaught. Now, just down from where I stood, there was a treacherous series of creeks and salt marshes, old concrete emplacements, pillboxes, and paths that led nowhere. As I turned, clockwise, the land seemed to firm and harden, and the path between the marsh and the mud reappeared. The far end of the island was difficult to make out in the haze of the winter day and the south side of the island I couldn’t see at all, hidden as it was by lines of pine trees, planted for some obscure tax reason back in the seventies and now left, unmanageable and unsaleable.
I took a deep breath and felt the cold wind and the cold sun on my face. Either my daughter had passed across that causeway and was gone, or she was somewhere within my gaze on this island. But where? And what should I do? I looked up. Far, far a
bove I saw a trail of smoke in the sky and at the end of it a plane, small as the point of a pin, spilling out the smoke in its wake as it headed away to Europe, the Far East or Australia. People inside that pinprick were settling down to their bloody Marys and miniature bags of salted nuts, their trays of food and their in-flight movie, anticipating the beach or the ski slope. I remembered that we could have been among them and the thought made me gasp as if I’d been struck in the stomach.
I looked beyond the silver plane at the growing blueness of the sky and thought of the stars and the light years of cold, empty space, and I closed my eyes and prayed to the God in whom I didn’t believe. Give me my daughter, I said. Give me my daughter back and give me my son and you can have anything. I’ll do anything. I had uneasy memories of a teacher at school telling us that we shouldn’t bargain with God. But then I had gone away, read the Old Testament and found that it was full of bargains. I remembered a recent walk along the sea wall with Charlie and Sludge, on just such a day as this, bright, windy and cold. I remembered her wild eyes, her growing body leaning into the wind, Sludge leaping up at her, tongue flapping in happiness. Charlie had looked at me with her hair blowing across her face. Give that moment back to me. I’ll do anything. I’ll go to hell for all eternity if you make my daughter safe.
And I remembered her in the summer, the impossibly distant heat of last August. I had gone to collect her on a late Saturday afternoon when she had been – what was it? Kayaking? Canoeing? Sailing? I had seen her from a distance with a group of people her own age who were too far away to identify. But I could recognize Charlie’s profile anywhere. At that moment I had thought, She’s becoming a woman. And, She has friends I don’t know anything about. At the time it had made me feel happy, complicatedly happy. I remembered how I had seen her throw back her head and laugh. That lovely, carefree sound carried to me over the months that had gone and I could hear it again now as I stood on the barrow in the icy winter silence: a peal of mirth so clear and fresh that I stared wildly around as if Charlie would suddenly be standing in front of me and I could run to her and put my arms round her lean body and hold her safe against me. Of course, no one was there, nothing, and I was alone on a solitary hill.
What now? I wondered if I should go home and wait for the phone to ring. But even if I should, I couldn’t. There was one more thing.
I ran back to the car. As I reached it my mobile rang. Once more, I felt a wave of hope, quickly followed by despair. It wouldn’t be Charlie. I knew that.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s me. Rory. I’m nearly there.’
‘No Charlie yet. Listen. When you come, wait with Jackson. Try to cheer him up. Keep him occupied. I’ll be back soon. There’s something I’ve got to do.’
‘I’m here to find my daughter, not to baby-sit my son.’ He was practically shouting down the phone.
‘I know. Look, I’ll call later.’ I cut him off before he could say anything else and, very briefly, put my head in my hands, trying to collect my thoughts. Then I drove back the way I had come, and turned at last on to the main leg of The Street, where most of the shops were. I drew up outside Walton’s, the newsagent, and leaped out.
‘Hello,’ I said, pressing up against the counter and ignoring other customers. ‘I’m Nina, Charlie’s mother. I phoned earlier to ask about her newspaper round.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ said the woman behind the counter. She was counting ten-pence coins into a small plastic bag.
‘No. I can’t hold on. It’s important.’
The woman didn’t answer, but carefully sealed the little bag. ‘How can I help you?’ she said, chilly disapproval in her voice.
‘I have to know who’s on Charlie’s paper round. At once.’
‘What for?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. She’s missing. I’ve got to have those names.’
‘We don’t just give out customers’ names to anyone, you know.’
‘Why not? You’re not a doctor or a priest.’
‘There’s no need for that tone. You’re still quite new round here, aren’t you?’
‘Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I’m doing this wrong. It’s because I’m worried. So please – please – can you give me those names?’
‘I’ll have to ask my husband.’
I gritted my teeth to stop myself howling in her face. ‘All right.’ But she didn’t move. ‘Is he in the back?’
‘He’s out on a delivery.’
‘What? Out?’
‘I’ll ask him when he gets back. It shouldn’t be long.’
‘But I need the names now !’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be patient.’
‘You don’t understand –’
‘Excuse me, I’ve got work to do.’
She went into the back of the shop, the bead curtains parting to let her through and dropping back into place. In despair, I banged hard on the bell on the counter, but she didn’t reappear.
So I left the shop, barging past customers, stumbling over the threshold like a drunken woman. I could feel fear rising in me inexorably, and I knew that if I let it, it would engulf me. I stood outside the door and closed my eyes, feeling the throb from my temples in the tips of my fingers. In the darkness, I searched for a way forward, a pinprick of light that I could follow.
‘Where are you?’ I whispered. ‘Where are you, my darling one?’
‘Here. This is what you were after.’
My eyes snapped open and the world loomed back into view. ‘Joel. What are you –’
‘The names you were after.’ He held up a sheet of paper.
‘Were you in the shop? I didn’t see you – how did you get them?’
‘I know Janet. It’s a matter of asking her in the right way.’ He handed me the sheet of paper. ‘Tam told me what happened last night.’ He put his hands on my shoulders and gazed at me. ‘I’m so terribly sorry, Nina. And ashamed. I don’t know what to say to –’
‘Never mind that now.’
Together, we looked at the list. There were nineteen names, with the titles of newspapers and addresses next to them. Unfortunately, they weren’t all on the same street, but were scattered through the east side of the town and out towards the coast.
‘Which route would Charlie have taken? Which one is Pleshey Road?’
‘Let’s see.’ He frowned and followed his blunt, calloused finger down the page. ‘We need a map for this. Hold on, Nina.’
Once more he headed into the shop, but this time came back empty-handed.
‘No maps in stock,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to draw our own. Let’s go in here.’ He didn’t wait for my reply but, holding me closely by the arm, drew me into the coffee shop next door. ‘Sit down,’ he said.
I sat at the table next to the window, so that I could see whoever passed by. I was still buttoned up in my jacket and perched on the edge of the seat, ready to jump up at any time. Joel turned over the sheet with Charlie’s paper round on it to give him a blank space, and pulled a pen out of his overall pocket. He handed it to me. ‘Get started on this. I’ll get us coffee.’
‘I don’t want coffee.’
‘It’s going to be all right, Nina. And I’m going to help you. It’s the very least I can do. You’re not alone.’
At that point, I knew Joel was still in love with me, that Alix was right to be jealous and bitter. But I didn’t care, if it meant he would help me. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
He smiled down at me, laying his large warm hand on the crown of my head for a moment, and was gone. I drew the approximate shape of the island, like a clumsy boot, its toes facing out to open sea, then sketched in The Street, running from the causeway towards the south coast, then veering inland.
‘Drink this. Here, let me.’ He took the pen from my hand.
‘This one’s Low Road, and Barrow Road goes here.’
‘The roads that Charlie had to go down were… Hang on.’ I turned over the page. ‘Tippet Row, East Lane, Lost Road and Pleshey R
oad.’
‘Pleshey Road’s the small one that connects East Lane and Lost Road. Approximately like this.’
‘Right.’
‘Now look.’ He drew the pen in a wavering line down a pattern of roads. ‘Charlie’d probably have gone this way, starting on Tippet Row, up Cairn Way, then East Lane, Pleshey Road and ending up at Martin Vine’s house at the far end of Lost Road, here. It’s the obvious route.’
‘Right,’ I said. I stood up and took the paper from the table. ‘Thanks, Joel.’
‘You haven’t touched your coffee. Anyway, I’m coming with you. We’ll find Charlie.’
I didn’t have time for niceties. ‘I hope so. And I’m grateful.’
‘You don’t need to be. I feel responsible, and anyway…’ He stopped himself.
I pushed at the door and the wind stung our cheeks. We stepped out into the cold and my hair blew over my face, half obscuring my vision.
‘We should start here.’ Joel jabbed his finger at the map.
‘Right.’
‘Or this is a better idea. Let’s miss out the first… let’s see… the first six or seven houses that are very spread apart, and start here, with the Gordons. I know them – I chopped down their old elm last month. We can take my truck. It’s a few blocks down. If they haven’t received their paper, we can go backwards instead of forwards.’
He linked his arm through mine and pulled me close to him.
‘Where do you think you two are off to?’ Alix was standing in front of us, a hat pulled down over her head and her eyes bright in the cold wind. ‘I saw your truck and wondered where you were,’ she said.
‘We’re trying to find Charlie, that’s all. We’re going to follow her newspaper round.’
‘We are, are we?’
I didn’t have time for this, but Alix laid her hand on Joel’s arm. ‘You promised to take Tam into town for her Christmas shopping,’ she said.
‘Do you really think Tam deserves to go shopping? Anyway, I’m not taking her.’
‘You are.’
‘This is an emergency. And I’m going to help Nina.’
