The Disappearance of Emily Marr

by Louise Candlish

  ‘No, not that, not if she’s had no access to her own self, only the delusional one. That’s one of the differences between this and a schizoid disorder, a dual or multiple personality: with that, there’d be incongruities, inconsistencies. The behaviour would not match the claim, whereas from what you’ve told us Eve’s behaviour is completely in keeping with that of the person she thinks she is: a fugitive, concealing her identity, living under the radar.’

  Tabby struggled to absorb medical concepts she’d never been faced with before. However convincing Emmie’s ‘portrayal’, it was impossible not to continue to find fault with her own gullibility. ‘I feel so stupid not to have realised. I honestly thought she was getting over a broken heart or something.’

  ‘Well, she was, in a way,’ Ray said. ‘It just wasn’t her own heart, it was someone else’s. As I say, there’d be no inconsistencies for you to pick up on, no clues, and in any case, how would you be able to recognise one anyway? You didn’t know her or Emily before. You didn’t stand a chance.’

  This was a more medically informed variation of what Emily had said the night before, and it gave Tabby a comfort of sorts to know that they at least did not hold her accountable for Eve’s dangerous slide. ‘It still doesn’t make sense to me, though. OK, so she’s cut off contact with you and shut herself away, thinking she’s Emily, but I’ve been living with her for months and I can tell you she does everything a normal person does. She cooks dinner, she works, she manages her budget. We’ve been out for walks, for drinks.’

  During which she had believed people were recognising her – recognising her as Emily.

  Ray and Kerry both murmured in agreement. It was clear that there was no argument they had not already raised themselves. ‘According to the psychiatrist she would be highly functional and persuasive,’ Ray said. ‘To the casual observer, she would appear to be managing perfectly well.’

  ‘Really? But for so long? It’s incredible!’

  ‘Delusions can last for weeks or months, even years.’

  ‘Given how extreme this is, we have to be grateful she didn’t continue to pursue Emily Marr after she stole from her,’ Kerry added, ‘or Arthur Woodhall, who from what you say would have been easy enough for her to locate. It’s actually very good news that she went to France, out of their sphere.’

  This raised another baffling detail. ‘But she speaks fluent French,’ Tabby said. ‘The real Emily doesn’t, she’s beginner level. So Eve isn’t being that much like her. Anyone who knew anything about the real Emily would have guessed straight away.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true,’ Ray agreed, ‘but sadly she was not among people who did, or better still, people in a position to recognise her as Eve. In terms of the French, she would have had access to her previous skills, just not to the knowledge of how she attained them. Eve has a degree in French, she taught it at GCSE and A-level. She would be able to go on being able to speak it even in her delusional state. And she chose to make her way to France, didn’t she? There must have been some underlying reason for that.’

  This, at least, Tabby could explain. ‘She knew about the island because Emily mentioned it in her journal. Arthur was going to take her there for a holiday.’

  Ray was pleased with the detail. ‘So it was the natural place for her to go. Well, as Kerry says, we have to be grateful for that, because from what you say she’s been relatively safe there. She’s kept herself to herself.’

  The three sat for a moment in silence, sipping their drinks, their intense little conference in bold contrast to the lighter spirits of the other travellers in the airport café. Emily’s written account was at the centre of the crisis, Tabby thought. Perhaps reading it had been what triggered Eve’s slipping from obsessive interest to the more severe state that Ray called grandiose delusional psychosis. ‘It’s awful,’ she whispered. ‘If what you say is true, then it’s like she’s been trapped, sealed away from her real self.’

  Ray nodded. ‘She can be unsealed, though, if we can get her the right treatment, which we need to do urgently. What you described to us on the phone, how she’s been the last two weeks, sinking into helplessness and not looking after herself, her psychiatrist says it could be an acute depressive episode. She’s had those before. She needs medication, but more importantly she needs psychotherapy.’

  And I gave her sea air and a glass of wine to help her sleep, Tabby thought. Had she done anything right? ‘I tried to persuade her to see a doctor, but she refused point blank. She insisted she was feeling fine.’

  ‘That’s one of the hardest things for the professionals, and for family, in situations like this: often the sufferer doesn’t accept that he or she is suffering. They feel perfectly all right and can get very defensive if you suggest otherwise. Of course, if they realised they were ill, they wouldn’t abscond to other countries and live like hermits, would they? They would try to stop the behaviour and get help.’

  ‘It must have been terrible for you,’ Tabby said. ‘Knowing she was out there somewhere, really ill but not realising or accepting it. I wish I could have known and put your minds at ease sooner.’

  ‘It’s been a living nightmare,’ Kerry said. ‘When your child goes missing, there’s nothing worse.’

  Except if they die, Tabby thought. But then she wondered if that were true. Arthur had his sons’ graves to visit and, in time, if not yet, that might be a source of comfort. Was what the Barrons were experiencing actually any easier? To not know: was it worse than knowing the worst?

  ‘It just seems so selfish that she didn’t let you know she was alive. Or she could have asked me to let you know, just to stop you from worrying so much.’

  ‘That’s not how this works,’ Ray said. ‘She’s not selfish. If she thinks she is this other woman, then we no longer exist for her.’

  ‘You think she’d see “Mum and Dad” listed on her phone,’ Tabby said, before remembering and adding aloud that Emmie had had a new phone with no contacts on it except the few to do with her life in Saint-Martin. ‘But if she checked her email or Facebook or whatever, wouldn’t she see messages from you?’

  ‘She wouldn’t though, would she? She wouldn’t check anything to do with Eve Barron, she wouldn’t see messages from us or from anyone trying to contact her. Perhaps she opened a new account in the name of Emily Marr. Did she say she was using email?’

  ‘Yes – at least not in so many words. All she said was that she hadn’t heard from Arthur.’

  Ray and Kerry looked hard at each other, some unspoken interim acknowledgement of the severe challenge they faced. Then Kerry peered up at the departures screen. ‘The flight’s boarding,’ she said. ‘Shall we go to the gate?’

  As they walked, Ray leading the way, she fell back alongside Tabby. ‘Thank you for doing this, Tabby. Without you, she could have been lost for much longer, maybe for ever.’

  The word ‘lost’ squeezed at Tabby’s heart; it was as if Emmie were a defenceless infant, abducted or disastrously strayed. She thought again, briefly, of her own mother, and understood in that moment that she had to tell her story. Years had passed, yes, but the past had not changed because of it. Paul was gone for good. She had no other family.

  How her mother reacted to her story would be out of her control.

  With the hour’s time difference, it was almost seven o’clock by the time they landed. They took a taxi to Ré, rain splashing violently against the windows as they crossed the bridge. Even allowing for the poor weather, you could see as they drove through Rivedoux and towards La Flotte that the island had emptied this week. The French holidays were over.

  ‘This is La Flotte,’ Tabby told her companions, thinking without pleasure of Moira, who was now about as significant as the wicked witch in a fairy tale. ‘We’re the next village along on this side. Only a few minutes now.’

  Ray and Kerry peered through the glass at the watery green scenery as if it might hold important clues for them. ‘Should we have warned her?’ Kerry said,
half to herself. They had already debated twice whether Tabby should phone or text Eve with word of her return, but in the end had agreed it might work against them and they would be better to arrive unannounced.

  ‘We don’t want to scare her off,’ Ray said, as he had during the original discussion. Tabby was learning that when it came to their daughter, conversation between the two of them was characterised by the painful repetition of doubt, a matter of amateurs guessing what professionals might think best. It was astonishing that their marriage had survived the strain of it.

  ‘Will she recognise you?’ Tabby asked him.

  ‘I don’t know. If she does, it may not be helpful in terms of getting her home. There’ve been times in the past when she’s convinced herself that we’re her enemies. It may be like that this time, as well.’

  ‘Then how would we get her back?’

  ‘We can’t force her. To do that, we’d need to get her sectioned, and I don’t know how we’d go about that in another country even if we wanted to. The consultant says we should handle it very gently, work on persuading her gradually to return with us, not pressure or coerce her.’

  ‘Yes, hopefully she’ll want to come. There’s nothing to stay here for now.’ But as they neared the walls of Saint-Martin, a wild, irrational suspicion assailed Tabby, quite different from the guilty emotions she’d been suffering until then. Perhaps it was the dissection of Eve’s mental health, but what she was thinking was, what if she had imagined all of this? What if she’d never met Emmie, but was leading this poor couple on a wild goose chase? What if they got to the house and it wasn’t there, there was no alley leading off rue de Sully. What if she was the deluded one?

  It seemed to her that the line between trust in reality and a loss of that trust was terrifyingly easy to cross.

  The taxi dropped them at the centre of the village, by the church, and they trudged down the wet cobbles, Ray supporting Kerry, who wore leather soles and feared tumbling. Water dripped as they fought past the overgrown bush that stood at the entrance to the lane. The lane was there. The door was there. It was all real. Tabby drew a deep breath and keyed in the code. The lock released.

  ‘This is it,’ she said, sounding, if not feeling, quite dauntless. She led the others through the stone passageway to the hidden room beyond, crying, ‘Emmie!’ She called the name several times, but there was no answer. The house was silent but for the low whirr of the fridge.

  She opened the windows and shutters to let in some air. The rain fell softly into their narrow hollow of outside space.

  ‘So this is where she’s been all this time,’ Kerry said. ‘I’m glad it’s nice.’ Tabby could tell she was despondent to find the place unoccupied, but given all that she herself had discovered between her departure on Monday and her return now, there was almighty relief on her own part in finding it looking as it did, much as she’d left it. The folder of cuttings was intact, still at the back of the kitchen drawer where she’d placed it, and there were no signs of any frantic search for it or the laptop.

  In the fridge, the stocks she’d supplied were untouched.

  ‘Let’s look upstairs,’ she said. ‘Perhaps she’s sleeping.’

  The Barrons did not remark that it was far too early for someone to be in bed; clearly, they knew better than she did what to expect of a – what had they called it? – an acute depressive episode.

  Upstairs there was a pronounced stale smell, and Tabby went to flush the loo and open the skylight in the bathroom. Emmie’s toiletries were spilled on the floor, in too much disarray for Tabby to be able to tell if anything was missing.

  ‘This is her bedroom.’ She pushed open the door, unsure of what to expect and careful to enter first, just in case… But she’d lost any sense of what the ‘case’ might be. Certainly, what she saw was no worst-case scenario: it looked messier than usual, yes, with clothing on the floor and bedclothes twisted as though wrung dry, but it was not anything squalid. As the Barrons absorbed the dimensions that had formed their daughter’s temporary sanctuary, Tabby noted those details that concerned her the most: the postcard from Arthur was gone from the mirror, the perfume bottle no longer stood on the chest of drawers. In the wardrobe, the pink-and-green dress was missing, as was the large bag she’d seen Emmie with the first time they’d met.

  Emmie, she felt sure, was now gone.

  ‘I’ll check my room,’ she said. ‘There might be some clue in there.’ But it was precisely as she’d left it: her backpack at the foot of the bed, the collection of folded clothes in the drawers, the secret stash of banknotes. Emmie had not set foot in it.

  ‘Maybe she’s popped out somewhere?’ she said, rejoining the Barrons. She didn’t have the heart to share her conclusions so soon. ‘To go for a walk or get something to eat? She might have been feeling more herself?’

  No one remarked on the phrasing being decidedly inappropriate – or appropriate – for the situation.

  ‘Should we look around the village?’ Ray asked Kerry. ‘Check all the bars and restaurants?’

  ‘I think one of us should stay here.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Tabby said. ‘It will be less of a shock for her if she comes back. But if you think you’ve seen her and need my help, phone me and I’ll come.’

  She gave them a map of the village, directing them to the port and the main streets off it, but she was fairly sure there would be no sighting. While they were out she packed her possessions in her backpack and began making supper with the usable items in the fridge. Only when she’d run out of chores did she fetch her phone and compose the message to her mother she had been avoiding writing for so long: I will be back in England soon. Can we meet? I need to talk to you on your own.

  She pressed Send.

  There was no immediate reply.

  Ray and Kerry returned after an hour or so, puzzled and disconsolate. Over the meal, Tabby confided her discovery of the missing Emily paraphernalia, and it was reluctantly agreed that Eve must have taken the items and left. Timings were clarified: Tabby had left for the UK in the early hours of Monday and it was now Thursday night; Eve could have left at any time in between. Even so, Kerry turned sharply at the slightest noise from the lane, still hopeful that her daughter had been out on an errand or some other innocent excursion.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ she said to Ray. ‘Why would she leave? Something’s wrong.’

  ‘Well, we knew that,’ he said. ‘She disappeared once, she could do it again.’

  ‘But why now, when she knew her friend was returning?’

  ‘I don’t know. She must have cast it from her mind.’

  ‘She might have suspected I would bring someone with me,’ Tabby said, and she coloured as she remembered her original foolish dream of delivering Arthur Woodhall to the house, of facilitating a rapprochement, if not a full-blown romantic reconciliation.

  Kerry made no comment, but she was assiduous in clearing the table, washing up, replacing the plates and cutlery in their correct places, putting the house in order for when her daughter returned.

  ‘Is it too late to find a hotel, do you think?’ Ray asked. But Kerry wanted to stay in the house in case Eve returned overnight.

  ‘We can’t sleep in her room. Imagine if she did come back? She’d get the fright of her life.’

  ‘You take my room,’ Tabby suggested. ‘I’ll sleep down here on the sofa, then if Eve comes back her room will be there for her, just as she left it. She might get a surprise if she sees me again, but I’ll handle it.’ And it filled her mind once more, with a pleasurable warmth close to nostalgia, that memory of Emmie discovering her asleep and demanding, ‘Who are you, tell me? How did you find me?’

  The Barrons agreed to her suggestion with some relief, both visibly bone-weary. Ray said, ‘In the morning, if she’s not back, we’ll go to the police.’

  And it seemed to Tabby that not even Kerry now believed this could be avoided.

  Chapter 29

  Tabby

&nbs
p; She was awake for much of the night, alert to the creak of the front door, to the rush of cold night air that never came, but at last slid sideways into sleep. Awakening to the whispers of strangers in the room, she took a moment to focus and recognise her new comrades the Barrons, both dressed and shod, conferring over a newspaper under lamplight. She remembered she had slept downstairs on the sofa. It had been her fourth bed in as many nights.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ she asked them, sitting upright. ‘You don’t have to read in the dark, put the main light on.’

  Kerry looked up, her brow knitted in fresh patterns of anxiety.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Come and have a look at this, Tabby. There’s been a development.’

  It transpired that Ray had been up early, scouring the village for his daughter in the dawn light, and on his way back to the house had bought a copy of the British Press from the newsagent on the waterfront to read while he waited for the two women to surface. In it, he’d found a disturbing news item about Emily Marr.