The next day, I bring the computer from the study and set myself up on the table in the kitchen, where it’s airier. It’s too hot to be in that little cubbyhole any longer. I make proper coffee, in the cafetiere, and I’ve my big jotter pad by my side, where I wrote down my notes from my call to Olivia. They’re painfully brief, when I review them.
Olivia Corrigan
Nancy
Left a note
‘But I need to get away’
Was going to boarding school?
For something to add, I write now: Corrigans still own Parklands but sister says time to sell.
Now I’m ready to – what? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.
I stare out of the window, into the sunshine. My mind starts to wander. All I want to do right now is stop. To just stop thinking. And to go somewhere far away from here, where nobody knows who I am. For a second, just for a second, I can understand the impulse to run away …
When the doorbell rings it takes me a second to come to.
‘Oh. Hi!’ I’m a still a beat behind as I look up into the friendly face in front of me, try to place the navy car in the drive. Then I recognise him … outside of his GP room.
‘Dr Heath, uh, hello.’
‘Hi, Kate, how are you?’
‘Uh, I’m fine thanks, you?’ I try to hide my surprise.
‘I was in the area, doing some house calls, and I finished earlier than I planned. I thought I’d check in on you, too, before I go back to the surgery.’ I realise he’s looking at me expectantly.
‘Sorry, yes, of course. Come in.’ I step aside. I feel awkward and out of practice at having a guest. ‘Would you like a coffee? I’ve just made some.’
‘Please. I’ve just been at a patient’s who gave me instant coffee in cold water, with milk that had gone off. I had to tip it into a plant pot.’ I laugh, relaxing a little, as he follows me into the kitchen. ‘So how’ve you been?’
‘Oh good.’ I busy myself with the mugs, my back to him. ‘Well, you know. There’s a lot going on.’ How ever to answer that question, when the asker knows things aren’t well.
‘And you’re sleeping? Are you still relying on the pills?’
‘Yes,’ I say instantly. ‘I do need them.’ I don’t want to kick away that crutch. I just haven’t taken them the last couple of nights, since the figure in the garden. And last night was OK, actually, now that I think about it. I was so tired from the lack of sleep the previous night that I just dropped off.
Maybe all the running helps. I went again, this morning, just in the fields round here. I can feel the ache in my calves, my body unused to the exercise. But it’s a good ache.
‘And how’re you coping with …’ I remember that I told him about Sophie’s call last time ‘… the investigation?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I pour out the coffee. ‘I’m not sure where they’re up to … I mean, they’re not going to trace the call. Because of all the anonymity stuff. But they’re looking into it.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘I don’t know. The detective said they’d speak to the charity.’ What exactly are they doing, if anything? Nicholls has barely told me anything. It’s still just me, with my pathetic attempts to take things forward myself. I clear my throat. ‘Would you like milk, Dr Heath? I promise it’s fresh.’
‘You can call me Nick, Kate. And I don’t want to upset you. Are you finding the police helpful?’
I roll my eyes. ‘I don’t know. This detective, Nicholls …’
‘Nicholls?’
‘Ben Nicholls, his name is. I’m not sure how much he’s really doing …’ I turn round and hand him his coffee. I smile at him, his face is a picture of concern. But if he gives me any sympathy, I’ll break down. ‘Actually, I did want to ask you something. My neighbour, Lily Green, just up the drive, in the little carriage house? Well, she must be in her eighties – I check in on her, every so often.’ He sips his coffee and nods. ‘She’s been getting more confused, recently, and I’m a bit worried.’ How to phrase this? ‘I noticed that she’s on some quite serious medication: painkillers. Morphine.’
‘So you noticed this?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where? In her bedroom? She had just left her prescription out? That might be something to worry about, if she has children round, but otherwise …’
‘No, I saw it in her bathroom cabinet. When I was looking for something.’
‘So you were looking in her pill cabinet,’ he says.
I don’t reply.
‘Right. Kate, I have to say, as your doctor, that that does alarm me, a little. After what happened—’
‘No, that’s not it at all.’ I laugh, but it sounds forced. ‘You’ve got this wrong, honestly. I’m not – I wasn’t looking for her pills. That was never – that was never my problem.’
But he’s not listening. ‘Last year, when it happened, I thought I was doing the right thing. I took you at your word. That you didn’t understand how the pills interacted with alcohol – that you were being sensible. So I let you stay on them, it didn’t need to go any further. Though your family were very upset.’
‘I know.’
It was Charlotte who found me. Mark had left a few months earlier. I was very lucky, really.
That was back when the whole sleep thing had got really bad. Even the pills weren’t working. Maybe I’d got used to them. I’d got into the habit of taking a few more than I should, just to get the effect. Then, one night, the April before last, I’d drunk a bottle of wine in front of the TV, and fallen asleep on the sofa. I didn’t want to hurt myself, I really didn’t. I just wanted to turn my brain off – I was so tired.
I’d woken up in a hospital bed.
Afterwards, Charlotte had told me, crying, that my lips were blue when she found me. She’d known something was wrong, she said. It had been Sophie’s birthday. So when I hadn’t answered the phone that day, she’d driven round that evening and let herself in with the key I’d given her when we moved in. And I am so grateful to her, of course I am. It’s just tricky sometimes, to be around someone who still treats you like an undetonated bomb.
‘Kate?’ Dr Heath wants more from me. ‘You have to understand, it puts me in a difficult position when you tell me you’ve been looking through a neighbour’s pill cabinet. That’s a red flag. Can you understand that?’
‘Yes.’ I feel like a child being told off. ‘But—’
‘Your neighbour’s medication is really her business, whatever her age.’
And now I feel like I’m age-shaming my neighbour with dementia. ‘I know that, I do. But I’m not sure she’s got enough support, let alone anyone checking if she’s taking her pills at the right time. I’ve been in touch with social services, through the council, and they haven’t got back to me.’
He sighs. ‘It’s not a perfect system. But listen – why don’t I check with the surgery, see if she’s registered with any of my colleagues, I can ask them to take a look at her prescription.’
‘Would you?’ I should have thought of that. Of course Lily will be registered there. Everyone goes to the Amberton GPs, from miles around.
‘But really it’s your health that you should be prioritising.’
He’s looking behind me now, at the table. I follow his glance to my open jotter with my scrawling notes. A messy mind. I reach out and flip it closed, embarrassed.
‘You’re very alone here. Are you getting out much? Are you seeing friends and family?’
‘Yes, a bit more.’ That’s true, what with the running and the trips to the library and the garage, I’ve been out more than in, well, a long time. I’m not sure he’ll count a chat with the local librarian as a budding new friendship, though. ‘And, I’ve got my family support.’ When I ring them back.
‘Hm.’ He’s unconvinced, but then he catches sight of the kitchen clock. ‘I’ve got to go. But why don’t you make another appointment soon. Just to keep things on track.’
It’s probably a good idea. ‘I will, I promise. And thanks.’
‘Do. Thanks for the coffee.’
I feel a bit flat after he’s gone. It’s nice to have company, even a professional. And his visit has reminded me of all sorts of things. My limitations. My mistakes.
But he’s given me an idea. I’m going to further a relationship, I think, as I dial. Even if I’m not sure Nick Heath would quite approve of why I’m doing this.
David, the librarian from the other day, is surprised but pleased to hear from me as I remind him, as casually as I can manage, of his suggestion that I speak to his sister. When people know you want to know something, they can clam up. But he doesn’t.
‘Why don’t I give you Vicky’s number? I did mention you, but she’s busy with the kids. And she’s not the most organised person I know, I have to admit …’
I don’t know if I’ll ever get over how helpful they are up here.
‘Thanks very much, David. I’ll do that, right away.’
She doesn’t pick up the first time, but she does ten minutes later.
‘Hello?’ She sounds harassed. ‘Jesse, no. No! Put it down!’
‘Hi, Vicky?’ I say. ‘My name’s Kate. Your brother may have mentioned that I might call?’
‘Hiya, yes. He did, didn’t he? So how can I help?’
Quickly, I tell her that I’m doing a project on missing people, with a focus on the local area. ‘Social studies,’ I say, knowing it’s a flimsy excuse. But like her brother, Vicky likes to chat.
‘Nancy Corrigan.’ She sighs. ‘I thought she was so pretty.’ Nancy, she says, just had the best kind of hair. ‘Unlike my own frizzy mess! I had a perm back then, could I have picked anything that would have made it look worse? On top of my puppy fat, if I can call it that now I’ve still got it.’ She laughs, unbothered. ‘She was just one of those girls, you know. Someone you want to be.’
But she’s short on detail about how she left.
People said, in that random way that gossip goes around a school, that Nancy had gone to London. ‘God knows why she would, looking back now. What’s she going to do there?’ But it seemed she’d cut ties with her friends, as well as her family, and they weren’t any better informed. She’d packed a bag, taken money – people said.
Soon, two policemen had come into school and, one by one, Nancy’s friends had been called out of lessons to talk to them in the headmistress’s office. But they couldn’t tell the police what they wanted to know: where Nancy was. Eventually the police had gone away and the school had returned to normal routines, before lessons gave way to the long summer.
Nancy’s year, upper fifth, hadn’t all come back for sixth form anyway. They’d done, oh, cooking courses and things like that, and some had gone off to the sixth-form college in the next town, where you could wear your own clothes all the time. With Nancy’s year dispersing, it didn’t seem so strange, in a funny way, that one girl had gone so suddenly. Almost as if she’d just got a head start on everyone.
‘Now it feels different,’ Vicky tells me. ‘I do think about her sometimes, even now. I must have been, what, fourteen then. I don’t think I quite got it. Now I’m a mum, I look at my little boy and his sister – she’s a baby, but she’s so easy, honestly – and I think, those poor parents, what did they do?’
I don’t want to talk about the poor parents: I sense she could go on for a while.
‘Yes, it was very sad,’ I say, knowing how heartless I sound. ‘And there was a boyfriend, I think, when she left? Who I’m trying to find out a bit more about. So I can speak to him.’
I’m half-expecting her to say, no, like Olivia, she doesn’t remember, but she chuckles.
‘He was a bit of a hunk. Dark hair.’ Clearly, teenage Vicky was more informed about teenage romance than Nancy’s ten-year-old sister.
‘Oh?’
‘They weren’t my year though; he must have been a couple of years above, too.’
‘So what was his name?’ I try not to sound impatient.
‘Hm, let’s see … James, Jack. J-something. Jay!’ she crows. ‘That’s it, Jay.’
‘And his surname?’
‘Ooh, I couldn’t tell you. He moved away. And the prices have gone up so much round here, I don’t know how anyone could afford to move back!’ she says happily, vindicated in her decision to stay. She lowers her voice a little. ‘People talked, of course.’
‘They did?’
‘Oh, you know.’
No, I don’t know. ‘In what way?’ Be nice, Kate.
‘Well, teenagers argue, don’t they? Some people said Nancy and Jay had broken up, that that was the real reason she’d gone. I mean, I couldn’t be sure about that. Nothing concrete. But anyway, his family moved away, it must have been that summer. He didn’t come back to school.’
Half a name. ‘I see.’ Back to square one.
‘But you know,’ she says, enthusiastic again. ‘I’ve got all my old school photos at my mum’s. I could have a look next time I’m round, if you like. It might jog my memory.’
‘Could you? I’d be grateful.’ It sounds like a long shot.
‘No bother at all. Thing is – Jesse! Careful with the baby! Put her down! – Thing is,’ she says confidingly, ‘they did have a leak in the garage that soaked all the boxes, all my old stuff.’ She laughs. ‘I should have sorted it all out years ago. So I don’t want to get your hopes up.’
‘Well, thanks anyway.’ I make sure she’s got my email, and my phone number, knowing I’m never going to hear from her.
‘Don’t mind at all. So, where’s this going to end up? Will you write some kind of paper? I don’t mind if you quote me, you know.’