by Rachael Blok
‘Is that what you’re worried about?’ he asks.
The figure in the trees, the lake behind, white in the moonlight. She had dreamt it. She holds it tight in her head.
‘Do you want to come in? Talk about it?’
‘No, I can’t today.’
‘Look, it’s not about what I think. And the police haven’t charged you. If what you say is true…’
She hears him talking, but the last bit catches. If what you say is true. Is it true? She doubts so much at the moment. Should she doubt the facts she thinks of as concrete and real?
He’s still talking, offering time. She hasn’t got any today. But she can feel her heart beating a little faster.
She hears herself say goodbye, that she has to go, and they make another appointment. She stares ahead, out of the window. The world is white, and all her usual markers are gone. She doesn’t recognise this landscape any more, buried under the snow. Herself.
And she misses her mum.
Holding the phone in her hand, Jenny feels like she is holding a panic button. She can press it if she starts losing control. She knows it’s his job, but it’s like he knows her, he sees her. As Will drifts further away, Klaber is there for her. She thinks of his hand, warm on her skin. The phone on the line is dead, but she presses it against her ear.
58
‘Maarten?’ It’s the super. Maarten can detect a conciliatory note in there.
‘Sir, come in.’ Maarten stands.
‘I’ve had a letter from Rotterdam, to address your possible finish dates. It’s decided? You’re thinking of leaving us soon?’ He doesn’t sit down, but stands at the other side of the desk. Maarten can’t sit either.
‘Yes. I need to give an answer the day after Boxing Day. I do need to think about it.’
‘Well, good luck. Not that you’ll need it. I know how keen Rotterdam are to get you back. Seems a couple of your old colleagues have climbed the ranks. It’s always good to be wanted. I just wanted to say again, how pleased we are to have you here, but I won’t stand in your way.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘One last thing. With it being Christmas Eve tomorrow, we were thinking that one last press conference, one last appeal…’
‘Yes, sir. Good idea. We’re all set with clothes, timings, et cetera, to run the re-enactment of Becky’s last movements; to jog someone’s memory.’
‘Well done. I didn’t think you’d get it arranged in time. It was a big job. Fingers crossed.’
‘Yes.’ Maarten nods, glancing at the clock, thinking of the things he still has to do. He thinks of Leigh’s headmaster and his desire to promote the school, his help had been invaluable. They can’t use Becky’s primary. Too young and so unsettled. And it’s Nic’s primary too. Some things need to be kept an arm’s reach away.
‘Good stuff. Did that wallet turn anything up?’
‘No, sir. It could have been dropped at any time. We can’t find any link to the case.’
The super nods his head, looking tired. ‘And Maarten, I know you’ve been speaking to the Brennan woman, the one who seemed to think there were ghosts involved. Keep the force out of that, will you? I know you’ve been humouring her, but Rotterdam won’t want to hear about any of that. Not before the job has been signed.’
There’s not a flicker on his face. Maarten admires his impassivity. Being able to deliver such a threat without blanching even a shade takes some stoniness.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Christmas Eve drinks in the office are kicking off at four o’clock tomorrow. I’m not in, so if you wouldn’t mind leading them?’
‘Of course.’
‘Happy Christmas, Maarten. Let’s hope it’s a happy Christmas for the Dorringtons as well. There’s still time. Statistically, not looking good, but all is not lost just yet.’
59
Christmas Eve
Heathrow is packed. They are struggling to get the holiday passengers through immigration. Queues of people, piles of luggage and litter are scattered higgledy-piggledy all over the terminal. Even the cold, conditioned air seems thicker than usual: hotter, almost humid, plastic. Christmas has sent the travel world into overdrive.
Jenny had left before seven a.m. to collect him and is early for the flight; she thinks about trying to find a seat in a coffee shop with a book for an hour while Finn naps, but there is barely anywhere to sit down.
Picking up a paper, she finds a spare red plastic seat near the screen. A bottle of water sits in the buggy cup holder. It’s warm and the bubbles that had fizzed down her sleeve when she had opened it earlier have dissipated, leaving a mineral saltiness. It will have to do. She sips at it, for something to occupy her hands. She can’t settle.
Reading a discarded newspaper, a distraction, she is exhausted, and the print swims before her. She had spoken with Matt and another reporter late yesterday. Will had thought it a great idea; he is now a force to be reckoned with: full steam ahead on the Jenny PR train. She understands his success at work. His tenacity. He’s building a wall of goodwill around her in the city: the woman who jumped. His hackles have not gone down. He prowls.
The headlines are about the disappearance of the other girl, but there is nothing new about the case. The story describes Becky’s family life: she has an older sister and a dog; she loves ice skating, Harry Potter, Star Wars; it’s her birthday next month… Her mother’s voice, fragile even on the page, said she hoped that wherever she was, she was being strong now: frightened. Alone. The article repeatedly names her, appealing to her captor: Becky, Becky, Becky.
It is the same sad news, and she is away from St Albans. She doesn’t want to think of it today.
Will had called when she’d got here, asking about Erin and Connor.
‘Thank God we’re not them,’ he’d said. ‘What a way to carry on.’
In some ways, Jenny agrees with him. Had Will had an affair, she wouldn’t have known what to do. But babies are hard. They’re hard when you have them, but getting them can be just as hard. She glances at Finn. They are lucky. It is something she has to remember, even if she’s been stuck in the house all day, if she’s exhausted, if she feels as though Will has it easy and she’s fraying. She would never be without him, and neither would Will.
The tannoy announces movement and she checks the Arrivals board. It is almost eight thirty. She flicks the brake up on the buggy and pushes Finn towards the long line of people, who wait, some carrying boards with names written on, some carrying flowers.
Jenny squeezes in, searching for him. They pour out like Lego figures spilling from a jar, tumbling in a crush, all faces looking the same. The last twelve days have felt like the longest of times.
There he is. She runs the three steps.
‘Oh, Dad!’ Jenny falls against her father.
The noise fades.
‘Dad, oh…’
*
‘He looks like your mum, you know. Just like you do.’ He glances at her, throwing his arm around her shoulders.
The car park is huge, and because she was in such a rush to make the flight, Jenny can’t quite remember the number of the floor level where she’d parked.
‘I’ve missed you both, Jen love. How’s it been? I’m sorry I haven’t been on the phone much, there was limited reception on the ship.’
‘Well, there’s been a bit going on.’ Where to start? ‘You heard about the murder, in St Albans?’
‘Yes. And another girl’s gone missing?’
Jenny spots the car, and pushes the buggy towards it. There is so much to say, starting is hard. But there’s no rush. Not now he’s back.
‘And Will? Busy at work, I bet.’
‘As usual.’ She nods. ‘But things are starting to even out a bit.’
‘Oh, Jen. You know your mum and I rowed all the time when we had you. I wasn’t even allowed in the room when you were born. She felt from the start she’d been expected to do it alone.’ He smiles, lifting his bag to load into the boot.
‘Has it hit him yet? That he can’t write a contract with Finn, forcing him to sleep through the night?’
She laughs, feeling better herself. ‘I’m pleased you’re staying for Christmas, Dad. Be good to have someone on my side, once the Brennans are all here.’
Clicking Finn into his seat, she climbs in the car.
‘Don’t you worry about them, love. I’ll have Henry eating out of my hand; I tell him how clever he is, ask his advice. I don’t take it, but it keeps him busy. And Felicity needs a sherry, and to have someone else to entertain Henry.’
‘I’ve missed you, Dad,’ she says.
‘Missed you too, pet.’ He leans over, clicking his belt in, and kisses her on her brow. ‘I love you. I always wish your mum was with us at this time of year, and she’d be so proud of you. Of the mother you are.’
He places his hand on hers, just as she begins to release the handbrake.
‘I know you’ve had a rough time recently: that the lake has been bothering you…’
Jenny opens her mouth to speak, but he shakes his head.
‘Let me speak, I’ve been too nervous… I’ve wanted to say, but I know you’ve had a lot to deal with since the birth, and I’ve not wanted to add to that. When your mum died, I wasn’t in a great place.’
‘None of us were, Dad.’
‘No, well I missed out part of… about her death.’
‘She died from pneumonia, didn’t she?’ Jenny shakes her head, confused.
‘Yes, yes she did. But I’ve never really told you about how she developed it. I was trying to protect you… you were so young.’
The car feels as though it’s suffocating. The car park – its concrete roof lowers. She wants to scream, to run.
‘She drowned, Jen. We were fishing from the riverbank, near a waterwheel, staying with some friends for the weekend. You held a rod, and tipped in, and she plunged in after you.
‘You were only five, and you were both splashing, thrashing, floating down. Your mum managed to pass you to me, and I pulled you out, but she disappeared under, and she surfaced downstream in the lake. She was calling your name, desperate to hear you were alive. You stood on the side, and you hid behind a willow tree. You screamed. I can still hear you, even now. Your legs all scratched, bleeding.’ He shakes his head.
She is a young girl again. She is underwater, terrified, looking into her mother’s face. She is by the willow tree, wet, her mother calling over and over: ‘Jenny! Jenny!’
He continues. ‘I managed to run down the bank, and she grabbed my fishing net. She got out, alive, but in a bit of a state. We thanked our stars and thought that was the end of it. But the next morning, after we’d driven home to Tonbridge, she was sick… shivering, high temperature, and when we visited the hospital, they found water on her lungs.’
‘But I remember her in the hospital, I remember visiting her… I don’t remember the river,’ Jenny says, things blurring.
‘It’s called secondary drowning. She developed pneumonia. You didn’t remember at the time. One of the doctors said you had probably blacked it out. The screaming and the splashing.’
‘Oh, Dad!’
‘We were both with her when she died, so it’s not like it was hidden from you. There just never seemed to be any need to tell you the whole, horrible story. It was horrible enough. But now, this girl dying, drowning, nearby…’
With shaking hands, Jenny releases the handbrake and starts the car. She doesn’t look at him, but she can feel his eyes on her. She knows he’s waiting. But she’s not ready. Not yet. Nothing has really changed: her mother is still dead. She had died as she remembered her dying. Only now there was sinking, flailing.
‘And there’s another thing. And I’ve wrestled with telling you this over the last four months.’ His face twists, eyes close then open.
Jenny’s breath is hot in her mouth, and she holds it in. Full of air, inflated. Light-headed. She knows.
‘Well, you might have guessed from the description, I don’t know… but our friends we were staying with, they lived in St Albans. You both fell in the river, by the waterwheel. Your mum was in the same lake when I pulled her out. And with the girl dying in that lake… you’ve been in that river before. You and your mum. Your mum drowned in that lake.’
He leans forwards, places his arms around her.
‘You started to flow downstream, away from me. The very worst moment of my life… the start of the hardest part of my life.
‘Jenny, love. I don’t even know if telling you is the right thing, but I can’t just tell you half.’
Dizzy, heady, Jenny’s vision swirls. She has been wrestling with a dream or a ghost. Or a memory. Black hair – but whose? Her mum had black hair… Giving in. The damp: familiar, singing to her, calling her, leading her. Had she been there the night Leigh died? She had been there years ago.
Seeing a face, in the water. Green eyes. That her mother’s eyes were green had never even occurred to her. Jenny struggles to remember what she thinks she had seen: it had been so dark underwater. The eyes had shone. Fetid water had clouded everything else. And that mass of black hair. Had it ever been Becky, in the water’s gloom?
If places hold memories, if they soak up even a fraction of a footprint, of our most vivid moments; if we spread ourselves around the earth, and blend – dust to dust – then surely part of her mother remains here. And in returning to St Albans, in coming back, had she found the part of herself she had abandoned… buried deep? If time bends, is her history echoing now, even now, with Leigh Hoarde?
Ghosts – not white, flying creatures – but traces, echoes, imprints. Ourselves, déjà vu: already seen; always seen.
60
Loss snakes amongst the crowd, weaving, parting; grief and shock vibrate afresh. Maarten’s fingers are cold, even in his gloves, and his mouth is dry as he prepares to speak: arid. He can feel Jenny near him, her body swamped with wintry layers: more for the cover, he suspects, than simply the cold.
She had looked frightened, an hour ago, when he had picked her up from the house.
‘Look after her,’ her husband had said, his face set hard as his gaze locked on Maarten. She had squeezed past him to get to the door; his fingers catching her sleeve and tugging her back.
‘I need to go, Will,’ she’d said.
‘I could still come?’
‘No, I don’t want Finn there. Stay here. You and Dad look after him. I’ll be fine. Sam’s meeting me there.’
‘Have you told her?’
‘Not everything; I said I wanted to go, and she’s got Ben’s mum to look after Rosie.’
Brennan’s fingers had still been holding her sleeve when she slipped out of his grasp, kissing him goodbye and then joining Maarten on the path, ducking into the car.
‘Will’s angry. He thinks we should stay out of it.’
Maarten had nodded. It wasn’t his business. But it was easy to dress yourself in the safety of distance. This community, made up of its invisible lines, provides the comfort of zoning. In the right zone, you could feel quite impregnable. But then Becky had vanished too, and the centre of town, with its ‘outstanding’ and ‘good’ primaries, had rippled with terror. A ricochet.
He wonders if there would have been more opposition in closing down one of the main streets for the afternoon had it been only for a girl from Abbey-Ville. But he is being unfair. Surely communities pulled together when it mattered. Despite this new-world order of protectionism: door closing.
‘Are you OK?’ Maarten asks Jenny.
The smallest of nods. She is white-faced, blending with the snow, washed into the background. It won’t hurt, he thinks. She shouldn’t really be here in any other capacity than another observer in the crowd. No penalty.
It is Wednesday, Christmas Eve, and the market is in full swing. Busyness thronging outside the blank street, lined with police tape, behind which the crowds breathe and rustle.
The streets paving the way to the lake have been cleared. T
he media is here, and the police. The two families stand in huddles; packed together, hostile, vulnerable.
‘Sir?’ Adrika is at his right.
‘Yes,’ he says. It’s time. He had instructed them to scan the crowds. He can feel it in his bones that the killer will be here. Somewhere.
‘Good afternoon.’ His voice is metallic through the loud hailer. ‘Thank you for coming along. As you all know, we’re tracing the last known movements of Becky Dorrington. We have managed to piece together a few sightings, and some locations based on evidence retrieved, and they lead us from here, down through the park, where some of her belongings were found. I ask you to stand well behind the barriers at all times. There is a leaflet circulating with a number to call, should something occur to you.
‘As you all know, another girl was also taken and killed. We believe the two crimes are connected. Assistance may help us locate Becky and may also lead to solving the murder of Leigh Hoarde.’
The rustle, the murmur, takes hold, like the buzz of a hive, and the press – clicking all around him throughout – begin to move; swarming in clusters, and stepping forward as the young girl, chosen for the part for her long brown hair, and the following police car begin inching their way forward.
It’s slow, macabre walking.
They have prepared a signal. If Jenny sees or senses anything in the crowds, she will text the word PACKAGE.
It is ridiculous, really: he is placing such faith not in the sightings of the public, but such fantastical imaginings. He is hoping for some sort of sign; some sort of supernatural stirring?
61
‘Shit, this is weird,’ Sam says, muttering quietly. ‘Are you sure you don’t just want leave? We’ve not got the kids. We could just go and get pissed instead.’ Her head leans to Jenny, moving instinctively away from the throng of the crowd following the girl.
Long brown hair falls down her back, as the girl, aged about twelve, Jenny guesses, walks slowly over the cobbles, moving into the park. She leads the town, walking metres ahead of everyone else. She’s older than Becky, but Jansen had said someone of Becky’s age was too young to do this.
