He left at some point before sunrise, while I was sleeping. I never saw him again. Instead I was left with just the memories of his pimpled skin moving up against mine, the sporadic hairs on his chest, and the salt of his sweat on my lips. Even now I don’t know what his name was, because when I asked Elle, it turned out that she didn’t actually know him.
Elle woke me that morning by slipping into my lumpy bed, wrapping her arms around me. When I tried to turn to her, she hushed me, turned me away with the shape and weight of her body. I could feel her breathing as she spooned up behind me, hot air whistling across the back of my neck, her knobbly knees pushed into the back of mine. She felt good up against me, protective, one of her arms draped across my chest, pulling me in close. She didn’t care that I was naked, and perhaps I didn’t either. After a while she whispered to me, ‘Did it hurt?’ She knew what I had done. Instinctively she knew.
‘Yes,’ I said, and without wanting to, I began to cry. For some reason I felt utterly sad, like the life I had didn’t fit me. I reached down, cupped myself between the legs, thinking about Margot Wolfe. I was bruised, throbbing. But what happened to me and Margot wasn’t the same. I had been kissed, stroked. He had whispered breathy sounds of what I took for appreciation when his hands slid across my breasts. At some point he asked me if I was all right, if I wanted him to stop. Afterwards he told me I was beautiful and I forgot all about my scars. Nobody had done that for Margot.
‘Don’t worry. You’ll feel better soon.’ I felt her stroking my hair, kissing the skin of my shoulder. ‘It gets better. The next time it will be easier.’ She held me tight, her body warm. ‘I’ll never hurt you like he did, I promise.’
And it was such a beautiful moment that I knew it wasn’t real. There was disaster around the corner. Her kindness, as sweet as it tasted, was tainted. Like we were in a dream. This moment would end, and at some point, irrespective of her promises, she would hurt me again like she had before. I hadn’t forgotten the times she had hit me, or the time she burnt me with a cigarette. She’d said it was an accident, but I had my doubts. I knew I was able to love her more when she wasn’t around.
‘I’m leaving in a few weeks,’ I said. Getting to university had been my ticket out of my life, something I knew I needed after what I had done to Margot. So I’d knuckled down and done my best, which turned out to be more than enough. Medical school. A place where they would give me a new title, and a new start in life. I knew it had to be the end for me and Elle, and this was my moment. ‘Will you come and visit?’ I turned my face into the dusty pillow. Hoped she wouldn’t hear the lie.
‘Of course I will,’ she replied, squeezing me a little tighter. My tears burned my eyes.
‘Good. I’ll be in Leeds.’ It was the first outright lie I’d ever told her.
I should have left the same day. Got up and gone. But I had nowhere to stay, so instead I waited, hoping to outrun the inevitable. It happened, though. Of course it did. This time it was like nothing that had ever gone before. I doubt even Elle could have predicted the terrible resolution to our time together at the end of that summer, just two short weeks later. There was no way of foreseeing what would happen that day. But it happened nevertheless. And when it did, it drove me away, made me run faster than I ever had before, for my life.
27
Days pass before we hear anything else. I call in sick at work, telling them I have gastroenteritis, even though I know they won’t believe it. But this little white lie is designed so that the person on the other end of the phone doesn’t feel uncomfortable with the revelation of the truth. It isn’t supposed to be believable. Nevertheless, to add a veil of authenticity to the whole thing, I make a phone call to the local GP’s surgery to get a note, and because I’m a doctor she agrees to a diagnosis of food poisoning without doing any tests or an examination. That’ll shut work up for another week at least.
The mood of the house is sombre. It seems that every time I turn my back, Antonio is picking up his phone, rattling away in Italian, something that seems to have deepened the fissure between us. His telephone conversations have become more frantic, almost as if they are verging on disagreement. On several occasions I ask who he is speaking to. Once he tells me his father, another time his mother. Then a friend I’ve never heard of before. But the conversation always sounds the same, and it is always peppered with the translation of the word fuck. So I know he is lying, because he would never say that to his mother.
I dig out the most recent telephone number I have for Aunt Jemima, in an old address book filled with emergency contacts that she created for me just before I left for university. I call her a couple of times, each effort bringing the contents of my stomach somewhere into my throat. I would love to know if she will tell me the truth now that both of my parents are dead. I would love to know what she thinks about Elle’s disappearance. But she doesn’t answer. I guess we are still estranged.
DC McGuire calls a couple of times, just to keep us informed. He tells me they are checking the local hospitals, but that so far nothing has turned up. The house-to-house questioning is ongoing. He asks me if Elle has any identifiable features that I can recall, so I tell him about the only thing I can think of, which is the small pink scar on her forehead. He suggests I use social media to begin a search of her friends; that perhaps I could message them and ask what they know. He seems pretty disturbed when I tell him that I don’t have any such accounts, and in somewhat of a fluster suggests I could make one. When I say I am not sure how, he stutters out an unorthodox offer to create an account on my behalf, but tells me that he will first need my photograph. I agree, and send it via email, and within an hour he sends me a list of links and passwords. On my behalf he has sent over one hundred messages to the people that Elle is friends with on Facebook.
By the time I log on a few hours later, not one of them has responded. I go through, search for anybody I might recognise, but a quick check of the accounts proves that none of the people she is friends with are from Scotland. No Greg, and no Matt. They are all far away, Americans and Australians. A few Russian names pop up, followed by a sprinkling of other Eastern Europeans. Finally one from Brazil. All men. In fact, there is not a single female friend. McGuire calls back, asks me if I would have any idea what Elle’s passwords are, because he is waiting on a warrant to access them. Obviously I don’t.
I do eventually get a few responses to DC McGuire’s messages, but they amount to a collective disappointment. One is in another language, probably Russian. I have no idea what it says, but the text is followed by a winky emoticon, and so I dismiss it as bullshit without bothering to translate it. Another is from Facebook user ‘Randy Ronny’, based out of Bullhead City on the Nevada–Arizona border. He suggests Elle should come home soon, offering to spank her cute little ass red raw once she does. Everything is starting to feel a bit hopeless, and thanks to DC Forrester, the idea that I am responsible for her disappearance is growing. So by day three I decide that I need to at least try to do something to help.
I begin with the humanitarian group the Guardians. They have a good website, a photograph of a child that actually makes you want to need them, not just help them. Lots of happy faces: kids, cripples like me, the disabled and drug-addled all living happily ever after in an institutional utopia. Play groups, dance groups, cooking groups. Groups for coming off drugs, groups for finding a home, centres for sleeping, eating. The only thing they need is a brothel and all basic human needs would be met.
I call the number for the office in the Scottish borders. A woman answers, her voice soft and smooth, trained to make problems go away.
‘Good morning, you have reached the Guardians, Alice speaking. How can I help you?’
‘Good morning. My name is Dr Harringford.’ I start like this in the hope that she will make the basic assumption that I am not complete dirt. Which is a conclusion that, if she knows Elle, she could easily reach. ‘I am looking for my sister, who has been missing for several days. Elea
nor Harringford.’
‘Has she stayed with us before? I can search on our database for her name.’ I can hear her tapping on a keyboard, slow, like she doesn’t really know what she is doing. At one point I hear her whisper something to a person nearby, as if she is asking for help.
‘Not that I know of.’ But in all honesty, how would I know?
‘Well, I’ve put the name in here and nothing comes up. It says no results found. That’s right, isn’t it, Bob?’ I realise she isn’t talking to me, so I wait for Bob to check what she has done. I hear more tapping, and Alice repeats the name to Bob. After a few seconds she says, ‘I’m sorry, there were no results found. She hasn’t registered with us. How long has she been missing?’
‘A few days,’ I repeat. ‘The police are looking into it.’
‘Oh yes, I recognise the name now. I heard it on the news last night. That poor girl from Horton, right? What a terrible shame.’ Helpful Alice turns serious. ‘They said she was the last surviving member of her family. What did you say your name was?’ Nothing like being cut off from a bunch of dead people by local news reports to make you feel good about yourself. I can’t even belong to my parents’ corpses or my missing sister. I hang up before I give her another chance to rub salt into old, open wounds.
I call several other shelters. The first is for vulnerable women, so before I even dial the number I don’t expect to find her there. I can’t accept that Elle is vulnerable. Sad, maybe. In mourning, for sure. But vulnerable? There’s just no way. Ask Margot Wolfe or Robert Kneel if my sister is vulnerable, and they’ll tell you straight. I call anyway, becoming a concerned friend, and when they push me, I tell them my name is Sarah and I live in Hawick. I follow this script for several other shelters, but come up with nothing. One of them must have some kind of number tracker and a suspicious mind, because not long after I finish making the calls, DC Forrester calls me on my home phone, a number I didn’t give her.
‘Afternoon,’ she says as I hear her sipping at some kind of drink. I imagine her with a Styrofoam cup from the canteen, a cheapo alternative to Starbucks. The idea of it seems mildly depressing.
‘Good afternoon, DC Forrester. What can I do for you?’
‘There are a few things I would like to ask you about. Can you come to the station?’ I am standing in my tracksuit with no bra, letting my asymmetrical breasts hang loose. ‘There are a few details of your last days with Eleanor that I think are pertinent. You’re not at work, right?’
‘No, I’m not at work. Sure, why not?’ I say, fiddling with a piece of paper on my desk. My response is too casual, my actions those of somebody who has a choice to say no. I hear her sigh, take another sip, shuffle some papers. ‘Say in about an hour?’ I suggest, trying to sound more serious. I don’t ask her where she got my number.
‘Great. See you then,’ she says, before ending the call.
I hang up the phone, and as I look down I notice that the paper I am fiddling with is my father’s will. I stare at it for a while, wondering what to do with it. Wondering why he would put it in my bag and then take my tablets and kill himself. The envelope with my name on it means that he wanted me to see it. And I can’t help but think Antonio is right about one thing: that the number on the back isn’t there by chance. It would have been helpful if he had written just a brief explanation, but I should be used to this kind of oversight by now.
I sit for a while with the will in my hands, staring at the pages, waiting for the answer to come to me. There has to be something here that I am meant to understand. I remember telling Antonio that if I really wanted to know what the numbers on the back meant, I would call the lawyer who drew up the will. So I flick to the last page, scan with my finger until I find the name. Joseph Witherrington. I know it sounds familiar, but at first it takes me a while to remember where from. When I realise that it is the name that DC Forrester threw out casually when she was here at my house, and once I remind myself that the police don’t throw out anything casually, I start to be concerned. It means they have seen this document. They know about my inheritance of my father’s estate. And now the only person left alive who could contest the will is missing. The person I say I left at the scene of my father’s death. I’m not sure that I could look any guiltier.
I grab the phone and call Joseph Witherrington. He picks up sounding flustered, and I imagine him all red-faced and puffed out. Probably with a cigar.
‘Yes.’ No secretary, no polite welcome.
‘Good morning, this is Dr Harringford. I am—’
‘Oh, Dr Harringford. At last. I thought you were never going to get back to me.’ I hear him pull out a chair, which squeaks as he sits down in it. ‘I suppose you have had rather a lot going on. No time to answer messages. Deepest condolences, by the way. Terrible to lose a father like that.’ His sincerity is about as deep as a saucer, but his tone is softer than it sounded when he picked up, and he is not altogether unlikeable.
‘What messages?’ I ask.
‘I left three messages on your answering machine. I was beginning to wonder if you had made off like that sister of yours.’ He breaks into a fit of stifled laughter before regaining his composure. ‘I say, did you know she’s gone off on a wander somewhere? It’s all over the news up here.’ I consider telling him that I’m about to go to the police station for that very reason, but I’m not sure that getting into the details is relevant or necessary. Regardless, he doesn’t really wait for an answer. I get the impression he is accustomed to giving them, not receiving them. ‘God only knows where she has got to now. Thank goodness you had the sense to take her car.’
‘You speak of Elle like you know her.’
He chortles, a full belly laugh, wheezy from cigars. ‘I’ve known the family for years.’ I note how he doesn’t say your family, but I let it go. ‘She’s always been a bit of a troublemaker, generally wild, disappearing for weeks at a time. Quite the tearaway, that one. Don’t worry about her, though. She’ll turn up unharmed. Always does, more’s the pity. No offence intended.’
‘None taken.’ His inability to feel sorry for Elle endears him to me, and goes some way to making me feel better. ‘So it wasn’t you that reported her missing?’
‘Good God, woman, are you as crazy as she is? Not in a million years. It was that Mr Riley who owns the village pub. He called the housekeeper, said that Eleanor was acting weird in the graveyard. She in turn calls the police in a panic and they open an inquiry. Somebody else says they saw her with a man, and a few hours later you have yourself a kidnapping slash murder slash missing person case.’
By housekeeper he must mean Joyce, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of trying to contact her earlier. If ever there was a person who could attest to my immediate disappearance following my father’s death, it is her. Plus, she seemed to like me, and so could perhaps even vouch for me that I had nothing to do with the inheritance and last-minute changing of the will. Should it come to that.
‘But with all due respect, Dr Harringford,’ he clears his throat, as if deciding whether to say it or not, ‘she was always with some strange man. She’ll turn up. Mark my words.’ I open the drawer under my desk, find a pack of cigarettes and light one. I waft the smoke away as if Antonio is here to complain. But he is not. He left the house before I woke up this morning, telling me last night that he had an early shift at work. ‘Now, about the transfer of the deeds for the house. How soon can you get up here to sort that out?’
I like his directness. No bullshit. Straight to the point. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as that, Mr Witherrington.’
‘Why ever not, my dear?’
‘Well, as you mentioned, my sister is missing. There is an ongoing police investigation. I don’t think we can be seen to be transferring the deeds of a property that morally should belong to her.’
‘Perhaps. I suppose that is one way of looking at it. But your father was quite specific. What about the money, then? You’re due a pretty penny, my girl.’
>
‘Yes, I realise that.’ While I was looking at the will, I realised there was a sizeable monetary benefit too. Not that I want it. ‘But to be entirely honest with you, I really don’t want to do anything that might lead the police to think I am involved.’
‘Involved? You? Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Well, I am grateful for your confidence, Mr Witherrington. Perhaps the police will want to talk to you at some point. But before we even think about my father’s estate, I wanted to ask you something. On the copy of the will my father gave me there were some handwritten numbers. Do you know anything about them?’
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. I drag on my cigarette, letting the smoke drift passively from my nostrils. ‘What numbers?’ he asks.
‘It’s a series. 0020-95-03-19-02-84. Do you have any idea what it could mean?’
‘Um, er, no. No, I don’t. It’s probably nothing. Call me when you’re ready to proceed with the house and I will be happy to help you.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, but he has already hung up.
I sit on the edge of my desk while I finish the cigarette and look over at the waste-paper bin. My old SIM card is still in the prepaid phone I purchased at the airport. I walk over and fish it out, pushing aside the red-wine-stained tissues and shards of glass from where Antonio cleared up the remains of our argument. Because it is one of those old brick things with a screen the size of a small matchbox, it still has charge. I navigate through the menus, finding ten missed calls and, according to the voicemail service, five new messages. Three are from Wittherington asking me to call him. The next is from DC Forrester asking the same. The last message is from the head teacher at the school in Horton.
‘Hello, this is Miss Endicott. We met at Foxling’s Nursery and Infant School. I have some information I think might interest you, and I would be most grateful if you could return this call.’
She leaves a number, which I scribble down on the back of my father’s will, underneath the hand-scrawled sequence. I resolve that I will call her after I get back from seeing DC Forrester. I wonder if I should call Elle, and even begin to dial her number. But I decide against it this time. Better to let her find me. That’s how this game works; I know it of old. I put both the old and my new phone in my bag and head to the police station.
My Sister Page 20
