The Waiting List (Strong Women Book 5)

by Sarah Till

  “Let me handle this, Caz. I can explain.”

  Caz. Caz. My anger rose as she stepped back into his protection. But I wasn't here for him. I pointed at her and spoke at Tim.

  “She's my sister. She left when she was sixteen. We haven't seen her since.”

  His eyes flickered for a second.

  “So, that's why... why... you're here. OK. I'm sure we can sort this out. Caroline.”

  She stared at Mum.

  “No. I've no idea what they're talking about. Go away or I'll call the police.”

  Mum started to cry, pulling at Charlotte's arm.

  “But love, it's me. Whatever's happened we can sort it out. We know about the baby.”

  Charlotte shrunk back deeper into Tim.

  “Have you been watching me? Look, just leave me alone. I'm happy as I am. Go. Just go.”

  Mum faltered on her legs and Dad held her up. He started to lead her away to the car. Her sobs echoed up Carlisle Crescent. Dad turned around and looked Charlotte in the eye.

  “You know where we are if you want us, love. You know where we are.”

  I remained standing by the door.

  “Why? Why are you doing this?”

  She relaxed a little.

  “Timmy, go and get my phone. I'm going to get the police if they don’t go soon.”

  Tim retreated into the house and she pulled the door almost shut behind her and moved closer to me.

  “I always knew where you all were. Don't you think I would have contacted you if I wanted you? She's hounded me for years, sending fucking letters from missing people, from the benefits agency.”

  “You mean they knew where you were all along?”

  “No. no. Not for the first six or seven years. I covered my tracks. But after that, well, it’s none of your fucking business, but I told them all I wanted my confidentiality and anonymity to be protected.”

  I reeled. So, in reality, away from my parents’ shrine to their missing daughter and my confusion, lots of people actually knew. My mother and father's pain had been allowed to remain because of Charlotte's anonymity. She tried to go inside but I grabbed her hand.

  “Do you know what you've put them through? Do you? And me?”

  Her voice was a harsh whisper, now and she was so close that her spittle hit my face.

  “No. And I don't care. I've got my own life now. I've had to deal with it. I just don’t want anything to do with them. Or you. So, fuck off, Clementine.” I let her go but she remained. “Oh, and if you repeat this little conversation, I'll just deny it. No witnesses and all that.”

  It was true. Except I could see Tim's shadow reflected through the small pane of glass in the lounge door.

  “So, you admit you’re my sister then?”

  “Of course I fucking am. But I'll never ever acknowledge those two. I just don’t want anything to do with any of you. Understand, Clem? I mean it. Don't come back here.”

  Tim reappeared and she changed back into Caroline before my eyes.

  “Timmy, call the police. I don't want these people round here. Get my other phone from upstairs, the black one on my dressing table.”

  Her eyes were hard, the stare of someone who had watched suffering. Or maybe of someone who had caused suffering. I had no idea what had happened to her in the past sixteen years, but I had an idea that she still wasn't such a nice person. Tim went inside and shut the door. I made one last appeal to her better nature.

  “Why, Char, why? What happened? Did something happen before you left?”

  She folded her arms.

  “If you don’t know I'm not telling you. Anyway, it doesn't matter. What matters is that it's simple. I just choose not to have any association with my family. Why can't you understand that? I choose. I'm a person, you know, I have a choice.”

  “But it doesn't seem fair on them. They're upset.”

  “Lots of people upset. So I have to sacrifice what I want just because they're upset, do I?”

  “Well, no, but...”

  “You've no clue about this. You only see what you want to see, with her shoving it in your face all the time. I know because the police told me she was arrested. I know all about her constant stalking of me through missing people. Didn't she get the hint when they closed the case? No body was found? In fact, they told me the other day you were on your way round. But what can I fucking do? I'm a sitting duck here. I could move but why should I? Amy’s settled. I've got my own family here.”

  “But it's cruel, Charlotte. She's in bits watching murder cases and going to mediums to find out what's happened to you.”

  “Well, she fucking knows now. I'm here, alive and well. Didn't she realise when the police stopped looking for me? When the missing people lot took down the search info? The problem here is that she likes it. She fucking knows what happened, in her heart. I ran away, I had my reasons, and I made my own decisions. She's done all this because she doesn't want to look bad. She needs to fucking get over it. And what’s with the plastic surgery?”

  “She wanted to see you when she looked in the mirror.”

  I thought I saw a flash of emotion speed across her expression, but it was soon gone as Tim returned. Stone-face Caroline stood there now as he handed the phone to her.

  “Thanks, Timmy, babe.”

  He looked at me. I thought it was pity, but it could have been sorrow. She pressed the nine button three times. I turned round and looked at my mother fighting my father to get back out of my car. Caroline smiled.

  “Go now or I dial. 999. And don't come back.”

  I turned and walked away, slowly, like a wounded animal.

  “You know where we are, Charlotte. You know where I am.”

  “Don't hold your fucking breath.”

  They were gone. Tim and my sister, back inside number four Carlisle Crescent, back to her anonymous life where she was a victim of harassment from her family. My attention switched now to my car, where Mum flailed like a wild animal and Dad held her

  tight.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mum sobbed loudly all the way home as I tried to drive through my tears. They were both sitting on the back seat with Dad staring straight ahead. When we arrived, she clambered out and ran to the front door, fumbling with her key, and let herself in. By the time we got inside, she had tipped the entirety of the blue suitcase on the floor. Dad stooped to pick up some of the scattered photographs. She went upstairs and we could hear the screaming and crying clearly. Dad stared at me.

  “It was her, wasn't it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “She said she didn't want anything to do with us. That she knew we had searched for her but she had told the police and the others that she wanted to remain anonymous. That she doesn’t want any more contact. I don’t think that they found out she was living around here until later on.”

  “Yes. I gathered that.”

  “So. What now?”

  Dad sniffed loudly and looked upwards.

  “I suppose we should be glad she's still alive. Shouldn't we?”

  I nodded.

  “UH-huh. But will Mum leave it alone? I mean, she won’t keep going round there, will she?”

  “Don't know, love, I just don't know.”

  Dad pressed the play button on the old video recorder and a life from long ago clicked into being. The press conference that we had recorded when Charlotte had gone out flashed onto the screen. A set of plastic chairs, finally filled by the tree of us flanked by a policeman and woman. Mum looked like I remembered her best, all blonde wavy hair, her bright eyes heavily shadowed and framed by a frown. Dad sat beside her, bigger and wider, his shoulder slightly behind her and his arm round her. I sat to the left. I half smiled at the innocence of my fifteen-year-old self. I clearly remembered the excitement I'd felt about being on TV, the way I'd smiled and the way they had told me not to.

  This was serious. Just before the broadcast, the policewoman had told
me that they were doing everything possible to find my sister and that I would see her again soon. Maybe that was why I looked so relaxed on the film. The police man had started to speak, giving the details of the case, times, places, an appeal to get Charlotte back. I studied my own face as I began to look worried and remembered that this was the first time I'd considered that something sinister could have happened to her. I watched as tears rolled down my cheeks. No one helped me, no one comforted me as Mum began to speak. She looked into the camera with eyes that still held some of her soul and pleaded for whoever had taken Charlotte to bring her back. The more she pleaded, the more I cried and the more no one wiped my tears.

  I turned off the tape and Dad stood in the kitchen, one hand on his forehead.

  “What a mess. We’ve come a long way from back then yet we’ve got nowhere.”

  I wiped away a tear.

  “We have, Dad. We’ve found her. We don’t have to lie awake at night now wondering if she’s buried in a shallow grave.”

  “Some of us don’t.” His eyes rolled upwards where loud wails could still be heard.

  “I know. She’s never going to stop this now. She must know it’s her. I just don’t understand why she won’t understand.”

  “It’s her life. It’s all she has. She goes to meetings. She goes on walks and runs, all of them holding placards with their children’s faces on them. Except they’re not children anymore. Most of them would be adults now, like Charlotte. It’s like your Mum’s stuck in some kind of time warp. They all are.”

  “But, Dad, you can understand it, can’t you? They’re desperate. Desperate to find their kids. It’s as if they have just evaporated into nowhere.”

  “I know, love, but to me it’s just logical. They haven’t found a body, so there’s no murder. I know there are a lot of other bad things that can have happened, but, to me, until I see proof, I don’t assume anything. Charlotte was never dead to me. Just missing. But your mum thinks otherwise.”

  “Is that what you’re always arguing about? Why you sleep in separate rooms?”

  Dad reddened and shook his head.

  “No. It's not that. It’s partly because I can’t live in a shrine to Charlotte. She had all this stuff in there, all on show, all the time. I couldn’t stand it. And partly because of something else.”

  He stared at the carpet and I got the message that I shouldn’t ask more. I looked around the room at the scattered remnants of Charlotte’s life. She was Caroline Simmonds now. There was a pile of unsealed cards, more than fifty, all addressed to ‘My Dearest Charlotte’. I opened the first one and it was a birthday card with a handwritten verse inside. The front had been hand-painted – a butterfly and some lavender. I wondered if Mum had painted it. The one underneath was to a special daughter at Christmas. She had chosen it so carefully; the girl in the Christmas scene on the front looked like Charlotte. Inside she had written, ‘One day, we will be reunited and you will see that I never missed a birthday or Christmas’. I thought about what Mum had said in the car the other night, that she hadn’t really been a mother to me. In fact she had never even sent me a birthday or Christmas card since Charlotte went out. Not once, even on my twenty-first birthday. No ‘Welcome to your new home’ card or Congratulations on your Degree’ card. All the time, she had been hoarding and painting and pining, but never for me.

  I gathered the cards and photographs and lists and put them all back in the case. Dad stood watching me.

  “It’s no use, you know. She’ll never give up now. She’s got her group of friends now and who would she be without this?” His arm swept the room and he sobbed a little. “She’s in touch with them on the computer, you know.”

  I turned to Mum's laptop and pressed the spacebar. The screen flashed up a Facebook Group called 'Find Charlotte Clooney'. Mum had scanned a photograph of Charlotte and uploaded it. The text appeal was the same as we had written together all those years ago, before the internet:

  Please help us to find our daughter Charlotte. Charlotte has blonde hair, blue eyes and is average height. She was wearing a black zip-up cardigan and black jeans, Reebok trainers and red socks when she walked out of our home. Please look at the photographs. If you've seen Charlotte, please get in touch or ring Crimestoppers.

  It seemed too simplistic but the police had told us that the picture was the most important aspect in identification. I scrolled down the page. The group had 981 friends and there were hundreds of messages of support. So, this was how she coped. She had a virtual network of contacts, many with missing relatives or friends of their own, all keeping an online candle burning in the hope that their loved one would return. I scrutinised the messages. She hadn't put up one message informing the group of the recent developments. She hadn't told them that Charlotte had been found, that it was almost certainly her, that today she would find out if the girl from Carlisle Crescent was her daughter. Perhaps she had never believed it. Or maybe she didn't want these people to know Charlotte had simply left - they all seemed to have dramatic stories that speculated what had happened to their loved ones. I knew only too well that this wild speculation was futile and that it was never the truth until corroborated by evidence. But clearly these people needed each other. If only to vent and speculate and hope and wish for the safety of the person they now put above anything else.

  The crying had stopped a little and we heard footsteps on the landing. Mum appeared in the kitchen and put the kettle on. Dad went to help her.

  “Let me do that, love. You go and sit down with Clementine.”

  She still sobbed uncontrollably as we waited for the tea. I remained quiet, not wanting to make it worse than it was. Dad brought in the tea tray and I poured. He handed Mum the cup.

  “Well, at least we know she's OK, love, don't we? At least you'll be able to know she's safe.”

  Mum looked up at him.

  “What do you mean, George?”

  “Well, she looked like she was happy enough with that boy.”

  “Who did, George?”

  “Charlotte. With that boy. At her home. Just now.”

  “That wasn't Charlotte, George. You know that wasn't Charlotte.”

  I interjected.

  “It was, Mum. It was definitely her.”

  Mum set her face.

  “But you heard her. The girl said she didn’t know what we were talking about. She does look a little bit like our Charlotte, but she said her name was Caroline Simmonds. It wasn’t her.” Mum picked up her lists and withdrew a new sheet. “Thought I was done with these. Seems not.”

  She lit a cigarette and drew hard on it, exhaling in my direction. My temper rose as I waved the smoke away.

  “It was her, Mum. I spoke to her and she told me. She told me she went away because something happened and if we didn't know what it was she wasn’t telling me.”

  “Well there you are then. Nothing happened. Me and your Dad did nothing wrong. She just disappeared. My daughter wouldn’t stay away from home like that on purpose. My Charlotte would never have done that.”

  “But Mum, she told me that the police knew where she was but she asked them not to tell us because she didn't want any contact.”

  She was staring at me now.

  “That proves it then. Do you seriously think that's true? They would have to tell me. I'm her mother. I have a right to know. They would have no right to keep it from me. She couldn’t do that, she’s making it up. That girl is making all this up. George, put the television on. It's time for the news.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head.

  “You won’t go round there will you, Mum? She said she'd call the police if you did.”

  “What, go and see that girl? Why would I?”

  She picked up a writing pad and pen and poised herself. The lunchtime news flashed on the screen and she waited for any snippet of information. I sipped my tea, unsure whether I should go or not. The newscaster reported on the crime figures and politics. Eventually, she leaned forwar
d and put

  'Police were called to the M5 motorway today as a man found a body buried in a shallow grave in trees beside the road. A man out walking his dog uncovered the body which is thought to have been there for some time.'

  Her pen worked deftly over the page as she filled in what little information was given. She moved over to her laptop computer perched on the coffee table opposite.

  “You may as well go, Clementine. I'm looking into this now.”

  She poured herself a very large gin and tonic and when she looked up at me, her face was expressionless, her mouth twisted and her eyes dead. I glanced into the back garden just in time to see Dad disappear back into his shed. Everything had clicked back over to 'normal' setting. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t Charlotte and I wasn’t needed anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  By the time I had reached my car, I was seething with anger. Anger at Mum and anger at Charlotte. Even anger at myself for not seeing more clearly what was going on. The police had called off their search for Charlotte and she had been presumed dead. Surely, if they found her, they would have to tell us where she was? We were family after all. Surely they wouldn’t be allowed to keep her existence secret? It couldn’t be right. She had run away and we were the victims. We were the grieving family. Surely the police wouldn’t have any right to keep information from us? Would they?

  I reviewed what few facts I had. She had gone missing without a trace. Nothing had turned up five years later, so they’d closed the case. Then somehow, they had found her living nearby and she had asked them not to tell her family. I knew that Mum had forwarded letter after letter to the charity who deal with missing people to be forwarded on to her, if they knew where she was. Had she received those letters? If she had, why hadn’t she replied?

  I got into the car and accelerated away, imagining I was in a crime movie. Pigeons fluttered chaotically in the road and a man on a bicycle shook his fist at me. I screeched around the corner of Mum and Dad’s road and headed into town and to the police station.