I Found You

by Lisa Jewell

  Frank meets her off the train at East Croydon. He looks well. He has kept the beard that had begun to grow during his days in Ridinghouse Bay and it is now a hefty chin-covering wedge of copper and brown. His hair is short and he is dressed in a well-cut black suit with a dark checked shirt and sensible black lace-up shoes. He looks exactly like a trendy urban maths teacher should look. Except that he is not a maths teacher any more. The school gave him extended sick leave when he came back to Croydon but after six weeks on the psychiatric ward he decided that he didn’t want to go back to work. So now he is unemployed. Which is bad, because he won’t be able to take them to the Ritz. But good, because it leaves them both with options.

  ‘Hello,’ he says shyly, kissing her softly on her cheek and hugging her lightly. ‘You look gorgeous.’

  She touches her hair, embarrassed. It would be true to say she has made a very big effort. The badger stripes have gone at some not inconsiderable expense and she is wearing strange twangy pants that hold in her tummy. She is also wearing make-up applied by her daughter, who is quite skilled in make-up application, being a member of the YouTube tutorial generation. And a dress.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says.

  He leads her to his car, a crap Vauxhall with dirty upholstery. He apologises for the dirty upholstery and she tells him not to worry, reminding him that he’s seen her house, that dust doesn’t really figure on her personal landscape. It’s strangely awkward for a while. Alice hasn’t seen him for such a long time and she’s torn between wanting to sit on his lap and cling on to him for dear life and wanting to pretend she really isn’t bothered either way.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she says.

  ‘Sick,’ he says.

  ‘Well. You’ve been waiting for this for twenty-two years.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he says, eyes on his wing mirror as he goes to overtake a parking car. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘How’s your mum?’

  ‘Nuts,’ he says, eyes on the other mirror, pulling back into his lane. ‘Totally and utterly nuts. No wonder I was such a mess. I’m hoping that this will finally calm her down. Burying her baby. Give her some peace.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Alice. ‘It must have been …’ She thinks of her three babies. ‘I can’t imagine. I really can’t.’

  She’s nervous about meeting Frank’s mum. She’s nervous about all of it. The aunts and the elderlies, the grief and the pain and the coffin full of delicate girl-bones.

  ‘I brought something for your mum,’ she says uncertainly, touching a plastic bag at her feet. ‘I’m hoping … I don’t know. It’s risky. She might like it. She might hate it. I wanted to show it to you first.’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, his eyes going to the bag. ‘Is it one of your pictures?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘How did you guess?’

  He smiles. ‘Because you wouldn’t have brought something unless it came from your heart. And your pictures come from your heart. Also, I can see a bit of the frame.’

  She nudges him and laughs.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he says, ‘I haven’t had any breakfast and I don’t suppose there’ll be any food on offer for quite some time.’ He rubs his stomach. ‘Shall we stop somewhere for a bite to eat? We’ve got plenty of time.’

  She nods, grateful for an excuse to defer the moment of meeting Frank’s family.

  He pulls on to a side road and parks outside an old-fashioned café furbished entirely in orange-stained pine. ‘Bring your picture,’ he said. ‘I can pass judgement.’

  They order sandwiches and jacket potatoes, Diet Cokes and cups of tea. They talk about Mark Tate’s court case, about the chances of any convictions being brought in the face of so little physical evidence. They talk about all the women who have come forward since his arrest claiming to have been assaulted by him, about the ‘other wife’ who came out of the woodwork. They talk about Lesley Wade’s surprisingly fairly-written Gazette exclusive which has been syndicated by all of the nationals and is going to be expanded into a ten-page feature in the Sunday Times Magazine once Mark Tate has been tried and sentenced. They talk about Kitty Tate, how she was arrested shortly after Mark’s arrest on charges of joint enterprise and is currently on bail awaiting trial and how, within days of the disinterment of Kirsty’s body, Kitty had sold both her houses to a property developer at a knockdown price and was currently living in a rented flat in Ripon. They talk about Alice’s children and her dogs, about how all the teachers at Romaine’s school now treat Alice with a kind of star-struck awe after seeing her name in all the newspapers every day for a week. They talk about Frank’s time in hospital and about his plans for the future. They talk like old friends who once went on a remarkable journey together and have no one else with whom to share the memories. Their eyes meet across the table and there is nothing but warmth between them. She wants to take his hand but she waits for him to take the lead. He is the one who has been broken and glued back together again. He is the one burying the ghostly remains of his sister today. He needs to dictate the pace.

  ‘Are you better?’ she asks.

  He smiles. ‘I think so. I feel … I feel like … not like Gray. But also, not like Frank. I think …’ he says, ‘I feel like Graham.’

  ‘And who is Graham?’

  ‘Graham is the man I was supposed to be. All along. You know … Graham.’ He widens his eyes at her, urging her to get it.

  She laughs.

  ‘Graham,’ he says again. ‘You know? He’s solid, but ambitious. He’s loving and family-minded. He has a dog—’

  ‘You have a dog?’

  ‘No! No. Just a metaphorical dog. But, you know. Graham has interests and friends. Graham can draw and is quite good at football. Graham is a good man. Not exciting, but good. Graham is good husband material.’

  Alice laughs again. ‘I like Graham,’ she says. ‘I really like him. But can I still call him Frank?’

  ‘You,’ he says, running his fingers around the rim of his mug of tea, ‘you can call him anything you like.’

  ‘Will you come and see us?’ she says, racing ahead of herself, cursing herself as she says it.

  But she needn’t have worried. He nods and smiles. ‘I want to come. I really do. I want to come and see you. When can I come?’

  Alice feels herself flood with relief. ‘Whenever!’ She laughs. ‘Come now.’

  Frank laughs. ‘Maybe not quite now.’

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘no. Obviously. Christ, I’m a desperate old hag, aren’t I?’

  ‘You are neither old nor a hag. And I have no issue with the desperation. None whatsoever.’ He smiles and finally his hand reaches across the table for hers.

  ‘So,’ he says, releasing her hand a moment later. ‘Let’s see this picture.’

  She feels nervous pulling it out of the bag. She’s had sleepless nights agonising over every detail of it, trying to strike the dreadful balance between sentiment and mawkishness. ‘Here.’ She slides it to him across the table. Her fingernail goes immediately to her mouth. ‘What do you think?’ she says.

  It’s a picture of a peacock, tail feathers spread wide open, its head held at a playful angle, one foot off the ground.

  ‘It’s dancing,’ says Frank softly.

  ‘Yes!’ she says. ‘I’m so glad you could tell. I wasn’t sure if it didn’t look like it was having a fit. Jasmine said it looked like it was trying to fly. She said she felt sorry for it.’

  ‘No,’ says Frank, running a finger over the glass. ‘It’s dancing. It is most definitely dancing.’

  ‘And look,’ she says, turning it slightly towards her, ‘see the maps. This’ – she points at one section – ‘this is Croydon. For obvious reasons. But this’ – she indicated another bit – ‘I don’t know. I started to think of what she might have done if what happened that night hadn’t happened. I tried to imagine where Kirsty Ross might have gone with her life. I thought … here, this bit is Sussex: maybe she’d have gone to university there? And here … Crete, maybe her
first holiday with friends? Then this bit is Thailand – you know, backpacking in her gap year. Then Clapham – maybe she’d have shared a flat there with friends for a while. Then I thought maybe she’d have got married, bought a house close to Mum and Dad, maybe here …’ Her finger slides across the picture. ‘Norbury. Not very glamorous, I know. But from what you told me about Kirsty, I got the impression she was quite a simple girl. She would have lived within her means. Within her comfort zone.’ She shrugs, unsettled by Frank’s silence. ‘It was just a crazy idea I had. This idea that I could somehow recreate her lost life. Give her the history she never had. Make something real.’

  Frank looks at her and then down at the picture. He breathes in hard and Alice sees that he is trying incredibly hard not to cry.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ he says. ‘Really. Just incredible. And beautiful. And right.’

  ‘Will your mum like it, do you think?’

  ‘Mum will love it,’ he says, taking her hands again. ‘Mum will love you. I …’ He stops and shakes his head. ‘Come on.’ He pulls a twenty-pound note from his jacket pocket and leaves it on the table. Then he holds out his hand to her.

  The sun shines kindly on the grey streets of Croydon that day. In a funeral home half a mile from here, Kirsty’s casket is being placed in a white hearse, upon which her name is spelled out in pink roses. Half a mile in the other direction Kirsty’s mother is adjusting a pink rose on the lapel of her black jacket while her grandparents unwrap blocks of cheese and packets of crackers, arrange wine glasses on the dining table, pour peanuts into bowls and nervously check the time.

  The press are already gathering around the crematorium, dressed in black, setting up cameras at discreet but workable distances. The funeral of the girl who spent more than twenty years buried under an oak tree 250 miles from home, the girl who died at the hands of a man who has been branded Britain’s Most Evil Man, the girl who was finally found by a lost brother who hadn’t known his own name, is a big story indeed. The country will want to see the close-ups of their faces as they inter their lost girl’s bones in the ground.

  In a large, genteel flat in Ripon, with tall windows overlooking the grounds of the cathedral, Kitty Tate unpacks yet another box of possessions. She stops for a moment as the cathedral bells chime the half-hour and thinks that in an hour and a half Kirsty Ross will be buried by her mother and that in an hour and a half she will finally, after twenty-two years, be able to breathe properly again. She thinks of her upcoming trial, of the possibility of going to jail, and she feels numb. Then she thinks of her nephew, awaiting trial in Brixton Prison, completely alone, horribly convinced of his own innocence, blaming the world for every wrong thing he has ever done, incapable of real love or empathy, damaged to his very deepest core, and her breath catches again.

  In Putney, Liljana Mazur sits with her ten-month-old charge on her lap in a café with a friend called Dasha who is also a nanny to a baby, who is also twenty-one and who is also from the Ukraine. She is telling her new friend that today a girl called Kirsty Ross is to be buried twenty-two years after she died. She tells her that she was invited to the funeral but that she couldn’t face it because the people there would hate her for being married to the man who had killed her. She tells Dasha that sometimes she even hates herself for being married to a man who could do that to a woman. And then she turns away so that Dasha cannot see that she is crying. The baby turns to look up at her and places a small hand against her cheek. Lily takes the hand and kisses it.

  And here, in a dirty Vauxhall, parked outside Pam Ross’s Croydon semi, Frank and Alice turn to each other and smile.

  ‘You OK?’ says Frank.

  ‘Sure,’ says Alice. ‘You?’

  Frank nods. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he says. ‘Really glad.’

  ‘I’m glad I’m here, too.’

  ‘I talked about you a lot. In therapy.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Alice. ‘How did that go down?’

  ‘The general consensus was that I should wait. That I’m not strong enough to be part of someone else’s life just yet.’ He pauses and Alice holds her breath. ‘But that’s not the issue. I’ve been part of your life already and I know it’s good for me. The question is: Is it good for you to be a part of my life?’

  ‘Do you want me to be?’ she asks, too fast, her words ending on a sharp gulp.

  ‘I want you to be. Yes.’ He turns and glances at the small semi to his left. ‘But it’s not just me any more, is it?’

  She leans forwards and peers at the house. It’s an innocuous-looking place. Well kept. A shiny green Peugeot 107 on the driveway, patterned curtains at the windows, purple hydrangeas in the flowerbeds.

  ‘I can do family,’ she says.

  ‘Family with baggage?’

  ‘I can do most things.’

  He smiles. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I know you can.’

  ‘What did you think?’ she says suddenly, wanting to delay the onslaught for a few moments more, wanting to hear something light, something hopeful. ‘The first time you saw me. On the beach. In the rain. What was the first thing that went through your mind? Honestly.’

  He smiles. He takes her hand. He says, ‘I thought you looked wet. And a bit scary.’

  She taps his arm and tuts. But she can see why he might have thought it. She’d been acting the role of the scary woman for years because deep down inside she was scared. Scared of being alone. Scared of being an outsider. Scared that she’d had all her chances at happiness and blown each and every one of them.

  He puts an arm around her shoulders, brings her head into the crook of his shoulder and says, ‘I thought you were magnificent.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ she says. ‘For what it’s worth, I thought you were handsome. And also very wet.’

  He laughs and kisses the crown of her newly highlighted head. ‘I’m glad it was you who found me. I’m glad it wasn’t anyone else.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Alice. ‘I’m ready.’

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to Selina Walker, my editor. Thank you for the dozens of paperclips and bulldog clips, sticky arrows and Post-it notes. Thank you for Selina-ing my manuscript in the thorough, loving and totally unannoying way that you always do. Thank you for making my book so much better than it was.

  Thank you to Jonny Geller, my agent. Thank you for your honesty and thoughtfulness and the really long email that showed me how much you care about my writing. Writing first, career second, as it should be.

  Thanks to all at Arrow; Beth, Najma, Georgina, Celeste, Gemma, Cassandra, Aslan – and Melissa Four for the drop dead gorgeous cover.

  And thanks to all at Curtis Brown; in particular, to Catherine, Melissa and Luke.

  Thanks as always to Richenda Todd for copy editing. You are a pleasure to work with.

  In the US, thanks to my former editor at Atria and my new editor at Atria, both called Sarah, both amazing. And thanks to Ariele, my extraordinary US publicist. And last but not least, my publisher, the inimitable Judith Curr, for faith and passion and lovely dinners.

  Thanks to all my lovely readers, all the booksellers, book buyers and librarians who make the world of books go round and allow me to sit around in cafés making up stories. And thanks to my family, my friends, my neighbours, the people who form the fabric of my life, without whom etc.

  Lastly, never leastly, my many writer friends, on the Board and elsewhere. Writers make the best friends, they really do.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law
accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781473507906

  Version 1.0

  Published by Century 2016

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  Copyright © Lisa Jewell 2016

  Map © Darren Bennett

  Cover design: Melissa Four

  Photographs: Getty Images

  Lisa Jewell has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Century

  Century

  The Penguin Random House Group Limited

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

  www.penguin.co.uk

  Century is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781780893617(Hardback)

  ISBN 9781780893624 (Trade Paperback)