I Found You

by Lisa Jewell

  She peels back the thin blanket she’d covered herself with last night and swings herself to a sitting position. She feels numb with tiredness and strangeness, with the echoes of the dreams that had chased each other about in her head last night while she lay suspended just out of reach of deep sleep. She folds the blanket into a neat square and tucks it back into the cupboard from where she’d taken it. Then she smooths down the duvet cover and the pillowcase, restoring them to the state of perfection in which she’d found them. She pulls a single dark hair from the pillow and drops it on to the floor. She doesn’t want this elegant woman to think of her, a scruffy stranger, lying on her beautiful white bed.

  She pulls a can of Coke from the carrier bag she brought with her from home and drinks it down in a few short gulps. Then she swallows down the remains of one of yesterday’s doughnuts. She sits for a moment, feeling herself re-form.

  Her phone pings and she picks it up.

  Good morning. Please text me when you get this. Russ.

  She texts him back: Hello. I am here. Everything is OK.

  He texts her back a smiley face and she smiles. He is a nice man. She almost texts him back with her own smiley face but stops herself. It is too much.

  She goes to the window and winds up the blind. Then she gasps. Everything is pink. The sky, the sea, the grass, the trees. Even the undersides of the seagulls circling overhead are pink. She holds her hand to her throat and surveys the undulating, glittering lawns that fall in terraces down towards the sea, the peach-hued statues that dot the gardens, the ancient walls grown over with ivy and creepers, the small ponds and sundials.

  She is truly in heaven now. She wishes her mother could be here to see this place. Her friends from home. She brings her phone to the window and takes some photos but not one of them captures the true majesty of this place.

  Last night she’d gone through the woman’s possessions but had found nothing to link her to Carl. Just clothes, jewellery, menus for local restaurants, a camera with no charge, a pile of local business cards, receipts from shops. She would take these into the town today, talk to local shopkeepers, ask them about the woman who lives in the big white house on the cliff. Ask them about Carl.

  But first she wants to look around this house again. She waits until the sun is fully up, until the pink has turned to gold, then brightened to a stringent blue, and then she lets herself slowly out of the attic bedroom and tiptoes across the landing, a small paring knife held tight inside her hand.

  Is this where Carl grew up? she wonders. Did he play in these magnificent rooms, run across those rolling green lawns? Did he kick off sandy boots in the small boot room by the back door and hurtle into the kitchen to beg for snacks? She finds dogs’ leads hanging from coat hooks and imagines a small Carl and a large dog, jogging towards the beach together.

  She spends an hour exploring and investigating the house. She goes through drawers in the living rooms, finds nothing more than spent matches, broken Christmas decorations, dead batteries and packets of fuses. She opens packing boxes and finds nothing more than cutlery and wine glasses, paperback books and knick-knacks.

  Russ phones her at eight. ‘How are you getting on?’

  Lily’s heart warms at the sound of his voice. ‘It is fine,’ she says. ‘I’m looking through the house now, and then I will walk into town.’

  ‘Have you found anything?’

  ‘No. Not one thing. Just … crap. Books and stuff.’ She sighs. ‘It is strange, I think, for a house to have no clues? Don’t you think? To be so full of things, yet to hold nothing of itself?’

  ‘It is strange, yes.’

  She pauses, imagines Russ in a suit, striding towards the Tube station. ‘How are you?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘I’m great.’

  ‘I hope your wife, she wasn’t still cross when you came home?’

  ‘No. She was fine. I got home an hour earlier than I said – I think that helped. And the baby had gone down well. And she’d had a glass of wine. So …’

  ‘So. Good. I am glad. And thank you.’

  ‘It was nothing. It was nice. I like driving.’

  ‘Good,’ she says again. ‘You are a good driver.’

  He laughs. ‘Thank you. I’ll tell my wife you said that.’

  ‘Yes. Tell her.’

  She wants to say more to this warm, kind man. She has not met anyone like him before. She wants to tell him that he is special and that Jo is a lucky woman. Instead she says, ‘Well, goodbye, Russ. Have a good day at work.’

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She feels completely alone when Russ has hung up. The house looms around her, strange and silent. But soon the silence is replaced by the sound of traffic beginning to pass by the house on the main road outside. Monday morning. The town is awakening.

  She returns to the attic bedroom and collects her coat and her belongings.

  Forty-eight

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ says Frank.

  Alice is making packed lunches in the kitchen.

  ‘Where?’ she asks.

  ‘To drop Romaine at school.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugs. ‘To say goodbye. Say goodbye to Derry, too. And Daniel. Also …’ He pauses. ‘I just wanted to … you know, hang out with you a bit longer.’

  Alice smiles and strokes his arm. ‘You funny boy.’

  She tears off a piece of cling film and wraps up Romaine’s bagel. She’d been hoping that Frank might have woken up this morning with his memory restored. That he might burst through the back door and say: It’s all fine! I didn’t kill anyone! And I know where I live! I’ll be back tomorrow with my cat and all my stuff and we can start a new life together!

  Instead he seems more withdrawn than normal.

  ‘Not funny,’ he says. ‘Just scared. And sad.’

  She stops what she’s doing and looks up at him. ‘’Course you are,’ she says. ‘So am I.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘’Course I am.’ She feels her face flush and turns away from him, unzipping Romaine’s packed-lunch box.

  He doesn’t ask her why and she’s glad.

  She decides to leave the dogs at home. She doesn’t want to spend her last walk with Frank stopping to collect steaming turds from the cold pavement.

  She calls the teenagers in to say goodbye to Frank before they leave the house and then at eight forty they set off. It’s a startlingly beautiful day, not a cloud in sight and already some warmth in the platinum sun. Romaine holds one of Frank’s hands in hers. Frank holds her packed-lunch box in the other. It has a picture of Olaf from Frozen on it and looks impossibly small in his big hand. Without the dogs holding her up, Alice finds herself at the school gates a few minutes early. Derry looks at her askance. ‘What’s going on?’ she says, looking at her watch, theatrically.

  ‘Shut up,’ say Alice.

  Derry looks at Frank impassively. ‘Morning,’ she says.

  He nods and smiles.

  ‘You off today, then?’ she asks.

  ‘I reckon,’ he replies. ‘It’s been almost a week. It’s time.’

  She nods. Then she says, ‘I was thinking – let’s have a coffee, before you go. All three of us.’

  Alice and Frank nod at each other. Anything to prolong things.

  ‘I’ll check my email after nine, see if the editor from the Gazette has written back.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Alice, ‘good idea. You never know’ – she turns to Frank – ‘depending on what they know, we might not have to go to the police at all.’

  ‘Assuming they reply,’ says Derry.

  ‘Assuming they reply,’ echoes Alice.

  They all nod. They all know it’s a last chance saloon.

  The school gates are unlocked and the children stream in. Alice catches the eye of Romaine’s class teacher from last year, her nemesis. The teacher looks at her and then at Frank. She arches an eyebrow. Alice wants to
punch her. Derry puts a soothing hand against her arm and says, ‘I’ll walk them in. I’ll meet you out here.’

  ‘What’s her problem?’ asks Frank, squeezing hold of Romaine and saying goodbye.

  ‘She hates me.’ She shrugs. ‘And no doubt someone with nothing better to do with their sad little life has informed the school that I’m housing a deviant in my shed. So she’ll add that to her little list of reasons to treat me like shit.’

  Frank sighs. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No!’ she says, more sharply than she’d intended. ‘No. Do not be sorry. Do not be sorry. That’s her problem. It’s not yours. It’s not ours. We are good. Well, we were …’ She trails off.

  ‘We were,’ he agrees. And then he takes her hand in his and he holds it tight, right there in front of the school. Right there in front of the teacher. Alice squeezes it back.

  The café is quiet on this Monday morning. A couple of other mums from the school sit outside at pavement tables, smoking and drinking coffee out of mugs; one of them has a Yorkshire terrier on her lap. Inside a young mum sits with her newborn in a pram and two elderly couples sit side by side, still in their coats, nursing mugs of tea, having quiet, broken conversations punctuated by moments of blank contemplation. Frank, Alice and Derry order coffees and bacon rolls at the counter and then sit down.

  ‘Right,’ says Derry, pulling off her scarf, swinging her red coat over the back of her chair and switching on her phone, ‘let’s see if our friendly local rag editor has come up with anything.’ She swipes the screen, her brow furrowed; then she switches it off again. ‘Nothing yet,’ she says. ‘But it’s only just gone nine. I’ll keep trying.’

  They all turn then as the door opens and a tall, attractive woman walks in. She’s very young, with fine, dark hair tied back off her face and wide-set features. She’s wearing a lightweight black Puffa jacket, jeans and high-heeled boots and carrying a plastic bag. She marches straight to the counter and says, fairly loudly and in a strong Eastern European accent, ‘Please, can you help me. I am looking for someone. I wonder if you know her. She is a lady, well dressed, probably middle-aged; she lives in the big house up there.’ She indicates the cliffs to the left of the café. ‘Do you know her?’

  Alice and Frank exchange a look.

  The man behind the counter says, ‘You mean Kitty?’

  ‘I don’t know her name,’ says the girl.

  ‘Well, that’s the only person I can think of. You mean the house around the bend? The white one?’

  ‘Yes!’ she says. ‘It is white.’

  ‘Well, yes, then it must be Kitty you’re talking about. Very elegant woman.’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘What did you want to know about her exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She sounds excited. ‘Everything, I suppose. I’m married to her son, and—’

  He breaks in. ‘Ah, well, no, in that case we’re talking about different people. Kitty has no children.’

  The young woman stops. Her shoulders slump. Then she straightens again and pulls something from the carrier bag. It’s a photo album. She opens it and passes it to the man. ‘Here,’ she says, ‘do you know this man?’

  Frank and Alice watch with held breath as the man behind the counter studies the book. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Sorry. I can’t say I do. Is that your husband?’ He passes the book back to her.

  ‘Yes!’ she says. ‘My husband. And he has been missing now since last Tuesday. He told me this woman, this Kitty, was his mother. Do you know where she is?’

  ‘Kitty?’ he says. ‘Gosh, no. As far as I know she hasn’t been here for years. I mean, you know that house is just her holiday home?’ He laughs incredulously. ‘Apparently she lives in an actual stately home, over in Harrogate.’

  ‘But I called her yesterday. I called her here. And she answered her phone. Here.’

  The woman is beginning to sound aggressive and the man recoils from her slightly. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’m not the oracle. Maybe she’s here. Maybe she’s not. I don’t know.’

  Alice gives Frank a questioning look. ‘Her husband is missing,’ she whispers urgently. ‘My God, do you think …?’ She has to see the photos in that album. ‘Is she Kirsty?’ she hisses. ‘Frank? Is that Kirsty?’

  He shrugs and looks panicked. ‘I don’t think so,’ he whispers back. ‘I don’t know.’

  Alice gets up and approaches the woman at the counter. The woman spins round at the touch of Alice’s hand against her arm and gives her a chilling look.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Alice, ‘I couldn’t help overhearing you and, well, I don’t suppose … I mean …’ She turns to the table where Frank and Derry are both watching her avidly. ‘You don’t recognise that man, do you?’

  The woman turns and gives Frank a withering look. ‘No,’ she says, ‘I have never seen that man before in my life.’

  Alice exhales a small deep-seated breath of relief. To say goodbye to Frank now, here, to hand him over to this hostile, impossibly young woman … She would rather take him to the police.

  ‘Oh. OK. But, you know, it’s interesting, because he just turned up here, late on Tuesday night. He came from London on the train. And he can’t remember anything. And then a couple of days ago he remembered that house. The house you were asking about. He said …’ She pauses. ‘He said he thinks he used to live there.’

  The woman has lost her expression of impatient disdain and stares at Alice now with her mouth hanging open. ‘Oh,’ she says, looking behind Alice to Frank and then back again.

  ‘I wonder,’ says Alice, ‘would you join us? Just for a minute? We might be different characters in the same story. If you know what I mean?’

  The woman nods, and follows Alice to their table, the photo album clutched to her chest.

  ‘My name’s Alice, by the way. And this is my best friend Derry. And this is … well, we call him Frank. But actually we haven’t got a clue what his name really is.’

  Alice pulls a chair over for the woman and she sits down. ‘My name is Liljana,’ she says. ‘But people call me Lily.’

  ‘And where are you from?’

  ‘I am from Kiev. In the Ukraine.’

  ‘And you’re married to an Englishman?’

  ‘Yes. His name is Carl. Although …’ She pauses and looks at each one of them in turn. ‘Well, that is not his name either.’ She laughs nervously. ‘No, since I reported him missing to the police, they have told me that his passport is a fake and that no such person as him exists.’ She shrugs. ‘So. Two men with no name. It is weird.’

  Alice shivers. There is a dark pit of unknowable badness beneath her words. Two men with no name. It is much more than weird.

  ‘This is him,’ says Lily, laying the photo album on the table in front of Alice and Frank and pulling it open. ‘This is my husband.’

  Alice looks at a photo of a nice-looking man, dark-haired with piercing eyes in a razor-sharp suit.

  Then Frank looks at the photo and suddenly he is on his feet, his chair knocked backwards behind him, his face drained of blood, his hands bunched together in front of his mouth.

  Alice grabs his arm. ‘Frank?’ she says. ‘Frank. What’s the matter?’

  Forty-nine

  1993

  Gray and Kirsty skidded down the terraces and pathways where Kitty’s garden sloped sharply towards the sea. There was no light here, the treetops cancelled out the moon, and they were running virtually blind.

  Kirsty was babbling.

  ‘I killed him! Fuck! Fuck! Gray! I killed him!’

  Gray placated her breathlessly. ‘You don’t know that! We don’t know anything! Just keep moving!’

  He needed to pull her along to stop her from collapsing. She was hysterical.

  He turned to look behind him, imagining heavy breathing in every rustle of leaves overhead, frantic footsteps in every crash of the waves on to the rocks below. He’d felt the lifeless weight of Mark’s body on top of his but he was still far from convinced that he
was dead.

  They were at the edge of the grounds now, where a small metal gate opened on to a long and perilous wooden staircase attached to the cliff face. The moon reappeared and everything immediately turned silver. In this light Gray could see the state of them both. Their clothes were stained with blood, their hair matted, Kirsty’s clothes virtually shredded. They looked like extras from a horror movie, stumbling down the precarious steps towards the rocky beach below. And then, from behind them, no longer an outcrop of Gray’s adrenaline-fuelled imagination, but as real as the rocks beneath his feet, came the sound of a man breathing heavily and the thud of feet against the wooden steps.

  ‘Faster,’ he hissed at Kirsty, ‘come on!’

  The footsteps behind them grew closer and closer as they approached the end of the staircase. They clambered together over the slimy rocks, spray from the waves soaking them to the skin. On the beach around the bay they could see movement, the light of a torch, a figure moving jerkily.

  ‘Dad!’ Gray whispered. ‘Look. It’s Dad.’

  He turned briefly to check behind them. A figure was lurching over the rocks.

  ‘Dad!’ he called through cupped hands, before moving on again. ‘Dad!’

  The torch beam swung towards them, small and spindly from this distance, but definitely aimed at them.

  The small figure on the beach called something out to them that got snatched away by the sea.

  ‘Dad!’ screamed Kirsty.

  They both moved even faster now, and faster still as the figure on the beach headed towards them.

  They were almost at the edge of the rocks when the figure clambered up and the light from his torch blinded them momentarily. At the familiar shape of his father behind the torch, Gray felt his heart slow down.

  But Tony looked angry. ‘You two,’ he yelled, ‘Jesus Christ. You two. I’ve been …’ And then his gaze moved over them, taking in Kirsty’s bloodstained, sliced-open T-shirt, her expression of sheer terror and then he looked behind them and saw Mark appear and he roared, ‘What have you done? What have you done?’