Over the weekend, it gets hotter still. The sky’s a glorious, cloudless blue by the time Monday lunchtime arrives, the weather hitting a new high for the month: 30°C. The light in the kitchen is shaded green-gold from the sunlight in the garden, as I linger over the salad I’ve made for lunch.
On the radio, people are talking about how to survive the heat – this is no day to be stuck in an office, they’re joking, employers can expect a record number of sickies. It doesn’t make much difference to me, with no job to go to. But for the first time in a while I think, perhaps it’s time to look into my options up here, seriously. And the thought doesn’t fill me with horror.
I didn’t go into the helpline on Saturday night. I’d finally heard from them: I had a voicemail saying I wouldn’t be needed – not from Alma, but from someone higher up. She wasn’t a volunteer, I could tell by her tone. It’s best if I don’t come in given the strain of recent events.
I know they’re not happy that I went straight to the police about Sophie’s call or tried to get them to trace it. But then it’s an unusual situation, taking a call from your own relative. I imagine that they’re already arranging meetings about it, drawing up good practice guidelines for this eventuality, too.
Anyway, I’ve been busy these past few days, for me.
I’ve had to go back to the station again. DS Hopper, the woman officer who took my statement, rang, asking me to bring in handwriting samples, in case they’re needed to verify the diary. I diligently dug out old exercise books, birthday cards I can’t look at any more. Happy Birthday Mum. To the best mum in the world. And the older ones, crayoned on folded card in careful childish letters: Mummy. I love you. Sophie xxx.
And, of course, the postcards home, carefully protected in a brown envelope.
‘That’s more than enough, Mrs Harlow,’ she’d said, but with a smile. ‘Thanks for all this.’
She’s nicer than Nicholls. She said they don’t even need to keep it all, that I could go and pick the stuff up later.
I ran this morning and yesterday, despite the heat, enjoying the feeling of my legs moving and my lungs pumping, before coming home sweaty and tired. I checked in on Lily. She was slow and sleepy, said I’d woken her up from another nap. She’s not a complainer but even she doesn’t like this heat.
And this afternoon I put music on loud, and started to tackle the pile of bills I’ve let pile up in the hall. I don’t spend much, obviously, and Mark hasn’t tried to get me out, yet – perhaps he feels too guilty – but I suppose this can’t go on forever. I even replied to some emails, friends in London who are dutifully trying to keep in touch, despite my silence. Baby steps, back into the world.
Most of all, I have been trying not to dwell. To trust in the process. It sort of works, if I just keep moving. It was just bad luck that when I drove round this morning, to pick up the envelope from the front desk at the police station, Holly was there too.
She was smoking a cigarette outside as I walked out of the building.
I didn’t know whether to pretend I hadn’t seen her, but she decided for me. She came straight up to me, too close, her breath warm in my face – nicotine and sweet mints. ‘You’ve got to stop this,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to make them understand. That they’ve got this all wrong.’
‘How’ve they got this wrong, Holly?’
‘You need to tell them that I got mixed up. That it was my test, that I didn’t mean it.’ She’d been crying, the skin red round her eyes. ‘Tell them it was mine. Please.’
‘I’ve got to tell the truth,’ I said gently.
I hesitated for a second, then walked on. I could hear her behind me, little hopeless sniffs. She didn’t follow me.
So she’s saying it was her pregnancy test, now. I suppose that’s to be expected, to protect her boyfriend. I don’t blame her, not really. He must be such a good liar. She probably believes him.
I don’t think they’ve arrested Danny, anyway, I think it’s just questioning – for now. I’m not sure how much they have to tell me, or they want to tell me, at this stage.
Even I could have sworn he was telling the truth, in the garage. But I called Dad again, this morning. He said I shouldn’t worry about it, to try to keep my mind off it, for now. I’ve updated him on everything that’s happened with the diary, the renewed police interest. I didn’t tell him how I had started looking into things myself, he’d only warn me off, tell me to leave all that unpleasantness to the professionals. Besides, that’s over now.
He wants to come and stay, or for me to promise to come and visit soon. They can both come, him and Charlotte, without the kids, he suggested.
‘I worry about you, Kate, on your own there.’
‘I’m fine, Dad. You don’t need to worry. I really am fine.’
‘But I do. Charlotte too, you know.’
‘I know, Dad.’
But it’s an old conversation, the two of us settling into its well-worn grooves. Almost reassuring. Things feel back to normal, almost. My normal.
I’ve nearly finished sorting through all my post and am sitting at the kitchen table, pleased with myself, when I notice the brown envelope in my bag on the side. The stuff back from the station. I should go through it now, rather than let it turn into something that I won’t want to deal with for months on end.
Quickly, I go over and tear it open, pouring the contents back onto the table. Sophie’s exercise books I’ll put back where I keep them on her bookshelf, the birthday cards into my special keepsake box in the living room, and the postcards – the postcards I’ll put back on the mantelpiece as usual. Done. This is the way to get things done, I tell myself, without turning everything into a Herculean task.
But instead I spread the postcards onto the table in front of me. All her familiar messages. I wish I had the diary, too. Maybe they’ll let me have it soon. I try to remember the messages, the exact wording, he showed me – but it was all so quick, I barely had time to take it all in.
All I can picture is that frontispiece, her name and personal details. I’m remembering now: something about it, what was it, just seemed a little off …
Name: Sophie Harlow
Age: 15
Address: Oakhurst, Park Road, Vale Dean, Cheshire.
Contact details: [email protected]
Something cold slithers down my spine.
That wasn’t her email address.
Not the one I know anyway, the one I’ve logged into so many times, the contents I know as well as my own. Now I get up and head to the study upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. I switch on the computer and log into my email. The folder’s called ‘Sophie’, where I keep all the emails she sent me. There aren’t that many of course, she didn’t have much reason to email me. Just stuff she thought I’d enjoy: silly local news stories, funny animal videos.
Yes, I was right. [email protected] They’re all from this email address, the one we gave the police and the one they went through. She hadn’t even bothered to close the window on her laptop, when they came to take it away.
Maybe she got it wrong, I think, she just filled in the wrong thing. Yaymail not gogomail. That’s easy to do: there’s so many of these email services about; this one comes with our broadband, I seem to remember. But even as I think that I’m shaking my head: she was sixteen years old when she left; if she knew anything, she knew what her email address was.
So. Maybe she had two.
Just so I’m sure, I log into her old email, the one that I know about.
It was never tricky: we’d found the password, ‘loopysophie,’ written on the jotter on her desk by her laptop, almost like she knew we’d look there first. The police took the computer itself too, to check the hard drive for anything alarming, before returning it: all clear. I’m trying to remember: did they ever say anything about a second email account? I’m sure I’d remember if they had.
I haven’t checked in here for a while. I clear the few spam emails, reading each one carefully before deleting: an appeal for a male ‘performance enhancement’ drug, a few fake software upgrades.
Sophie didn’t email much. Teenagers were always all over their smartphones, so I read in the papers, plugged into a scary world we parents couldn’t access. But Sophie was never desperate to be part of it, always leaving her phone around the house until the battery was dead, so we couldn’t even ring it to find it. She seemed aloof in a way I never was, so self-contained.
I was glad of that, then. She didn’t even complain when I told her not to post photos of herself all over the internet, she didn’t know what sort of people might be looking or where they might end up. And what would happen in five years, when she was starting her career? Much better not to leave a trail.
But in the end, all I wanted were traces of Sophie, ways she might reach me. And I worried that it slowed us down, when she went. When her friends at school said Sophie hadn’t replied to their messages that weekend, it didn’t worry them: she was always a bit flaky getting back to them. When, eventually, she did get in touch with us back home, by that postcard of all things, that seemed to fit.
I suppose. It didn’t really feel right and it still doesn’t now.
Now I sign out of that account, and log in again, using the email address she has in her diary with the yaymail.com ending.
You have signed in from a different device, the website tells me.
It asks me to type in those oddly shaped numbers and letters to check I’m not a robot.
Then I type in the password again: loopysophie.
Incorrect password.
I try again, various variations on it:
LoopySophie
loopiesophie
Sophieloopy
Nothing. I keep going.
Too many failed attempts, the screen tells me eventually. Now I have to go through the security questions.
The first flashes up. What was the name of your first pet?
Well that’s easy. Morris, the cat we had when she was little. That cat was so patient, more doglike than feline, allowing Sophie to totter after him and give him clumsy hugs.
I type it in: Morris.
The error message flashes up.
Well it surely can’t be King, the dog, but I type that in anyway.
The error message appears again.
I try again with various different spellings, lowercase, uppercase, Cat, Morristhecat, dog, Doggy, and so on, until I’m locked out.
I go and make a cup of tea, frustrated. Think, just think. How would Sophie think?
Another hour passes. It probably was a mistake after all, she just filled in the wrong email address. Because I can’t get past that security question and have got stuck in a loop of attempts, then locking myself out of the account for fifteen minutes.
I could be totally wrong. Maybe my memory’s playing tricks, she doesn’t have a different email at all. But then I see it in my mind’s eye again, so clearly: her familiar round writing on that lined paper.
I roll my chair away from the desk, fretful. All the doubts I’ve forced away are coming back – the things I don’t understand. But this time I hold onto the feeling and let the thoughts come without pushing them down. Nicholls showing me the diary: ‘Do you recognise this as Sophie’s handwriting?’
A new start, just until I’m feeling better about everything.
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘That’s definitely her writing.’ A different answer appears to me now. Yes. It’s definitely her handwriting. But it’s not her.
It’s not the Sophie I know. There’s something so flat to me about the whole thing, her tone. Strange as it sounds but she’s so … serious! I know my daughter. Sophie … dropping out?
So I’ve decided, I’m going to go. I want to live a different life. I’ve got a plan.
It’s just like the postcards: so remote, so bland. So unlike her.
And then there’s that other thing, that I have been resolutely not thinking about: that picture of Nancy. That hair, that sweet round face, the mischief in her smile. Just like Sophie. What happened to her?
Well, I can do something about that, at least. I get up.