I feel like I spend the next few days on the phone. I’ve left several messages at the charity, and emailed; not Alma, but the higher-ups. I dug out my induction leaflets, looking for contacts in head office. It’s more corporate than I expected: it’s been hard to get through to anyone via the switchboard.
What I want is a long shot: for them to give me all the details of the call I took – and the number that rang it. I don’t know if they do keep a record, or how it works. And it goes against all the rules, but I’ve got to ask. What else can I do?
I’ve tried everyone I can think of, even the CEO. Eventually her assistant, a young man called Jason, told me, in the politest of ways, to stop calling.
‘Someone will be in touch with you, Mrs Harlow, to respond to your enquiry. When they’re in a position to do so.’ From that I judged they’re working out what to do.
And I told Mark about the call. Well, not directly. I didn’t want to speak to him, so I sent an email to his work address, setting it out in the briefest of details: that when I was working at the helpline on Saturday night, I heard from Sophie, who was trying to get in touch with us. But that when she realised who she was speaking to, the call ended.
Put like that, it’s not the most encouraging development, I know. He hasn’t replied yet, but I know he’ll have read it. He’s always on top of his work email.
I haven’t heard anything else from the police yet.
Every time I check my answerphone, it’s my family: Dad was once the only person I knew who still left messages on a landline, rather than just hanging up and trying my mobile. But Charlotte’s started now too. Probably because she knows I won’t pick up.
There was another one this morning.
‘Kate, I really need to speak to you. Is your mobile switched off again? I want to know numbers for Alfie’s birthday party next month. He’ll want you there.’ He’s turning two, I think, he really won’t notice as long as he’s got his favourite wooden spoon to bang on the floor. ‘And I’d like you there, a lot.’ I sigh. ‘Can you get back to me, please? Also, I’ve been speaking to Dad. We should chat. About this call – what it means …’ Her tone changes. ‘Kate, are you there? Are you listening? Pick up, Kate—’ How does she do that? I shut the kitchen door behind me, muffling her voice.
I went out for another run, to the garage, to pick up my car. Danny wasn’t there. I spotted Len in the garage itself, but he didn’t make eye contact. It was a younger boy, the fluff on his cheeks not making him look any older, who returned my car to me.
But the run seems to have unlocked something in me. I feel more full of energy than I have for ages, despite my phone calls getting nowhere and my worry about Sophie. Despite all that, there’s something driving me forward. For the first time in ages, I’ve got a reason to hope.
And I haven’t forgotten about Lily. I finally got put through to an ‘away on annual leave’ voicemail at the council and left a message. Well, it is August. I want to find out what’s happening: I’ve yet to see any sign of anyone else checking on her.
In the meantime, I’m taking a new tack, starting when I visit her this afternoon: I’m going to stop contradicting her, however politely, when she gets mixed up, and try to draw her out a bit more. I’ve been reading about it: the idea is that it’s less confusing. We can all do with a bit of time indulging in our dreams.
I’m not quite sure how to get on to the subject, as she chats about her programmes – Coronation Street’s her favourite. Mark never liked me watching it, and the moaning got so annoying I’d switch over. Since he’s gone I’ve made a point of getting back into it. And I chat to her about the charity, about Alma and her dog, the other volunteers sometimes rota’d on with us. I’ve not much else to tell her, otherwise.
In the end she brings him up, as we sit on her flowered sofa with cups of tea. It’s so soft you sink right in, knees almost higher than your head. ‘The little boy,’ she asks. ‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I don’t know, Lily. When did you last see him?’
‘A while ago,’ she says. She looks sad, unusual for her. ‘Why won’t he come back?’
I don’t know how to answer. ‘Tell me about him, Lily. What’s he like?’
Her eyes brighten. ‘Oh, he’s such a lovely little boy. Such a tinker. And those blond curls!’
‘Blond curls?’
‘Oh yes,’ she says confidently, ‘just like me, when I was a girl.’
‘Lily,’ I say carefully, ‘I didn’t know you and Bob had any children.’
I know they didn’t. Bob, Lily’s husband, is long departed but honoured with a photo in pride of place on the hall table, in a fancy gilded frame. When I first met her, she made discreet references to their ‘disappointment in the family way’. She’d run a shoe shop in Leeds before she met Bob, and they’d made a good life for themselves, she told me.
She doesn’t reply. ‘So what’s his name, Lily?’
‘I don’t know … I’ve forgotten, haven’t I. Do you know?’
‘I don’t. But I’d love to meet him,’ I add.
‘Well …’ Lily glances sideways at me. ‘I don’t know when he’ll next be here,’ she settles on.
I’m reassured by that. If Lily is imagining a little boy to keep her company – the child she never had? – then her reluctance shows that, deep down, she still knows I couldn’t meet him.
‘What about you, dear?’ she says now. ‘Have you heard from your Nancy?’
I didn’t know she remembered. It had upset her, when I’d explained that my daughter had gone away, and I didn’t know where she was. I’d ended up telling her she was travelling.
I clear my throat. ‘I had a phone call, yes. Recently. But it’s Sophie, not Nancy.’
She nods. ‘Nancy was the other one, then. Oh, she was trouble.’ She looks downcast. ‘I get a bit confused these days, don’t I?’
It’s hard when she realises what’s happening to her. ‘Just a bit, Lily, but that’s OK. Now. I think Corrie’s about to start.’
I’m suddenly awake. I lie there, the bedclothes clammy around me, the dark room hot.
The run worked just as I hoped. I fell asleep quickly, no thoughts crowding in. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. My mantra, until sleep descends.
But now I’m awake, in the dead hours. Yet again.
And then I feel it. It’s not so much a prickling of the skin as something else, some older sense, the quiet, electric awareness. The presence in the room. Slowly, inevitably, I turn my head.
The figure in the doorway is quite motionless.
I close my eyes, reopen them. And still he’s there.
He slowly takes a step towards me …
And then I wake up again, for real this time, and grasp for the light.
Of course, there’s no one there. But my heart is still thundering, my whole body flushed with adrenaline. Another dream I’ve had before. Quite common after trauma, my counsellor Lara once told me. A physical manifestation of the perceived threat to my world – my brain making sense of things.
It still scares me though.
I reach for the pills in my drawer. This time, I take two. Just to be safe. They’ll work, as always, and I settle down with a book, keeping my thoughts occupied, till I start to feel drowsy.
As I fall asleep, fragments of my day appear before me. Len’s face, red and angry. That collie dog, whining and afraid. The black shape bursting from the bush. And Lily: ‘Nancy was the other one.’
Just as I slip under, a question bubbles to the surface and stays, for a second. Who’s Nancy?