KATE
I haven’t moved, trying to decide what to do. I should tell the police.
But then I picture Nicholls at my kitchen table, explaining that calls had been made from the phone box near my house … I can’t risk being dismissed again, facing the polite suggestion that I’m not quite reliable in this area; that it’s all got a bit much. That even this, too, will have an explanation.
I can almost hear it: ‘So what you’re saying, Mrs Harlow, is that someone else knew Sophie planned to run away – but you can’t think of anyone else who’s missing. Well, now, that’s to be welcomed, surely? And if Sophie didn’t mention that in her diary … didn’t you say that you’d found it, and read it before? Perhaps it’s understandable. But, of course, we’re happy to take a look … If that will make you feel better.’
No, surely they won’t. Surely this they’ll take seriously. They have to.
But I’m not confident, not totally certain.
I need someone to back me up.
Charlotte picks up on the third ring.
‘I know it’s been a while. But could you come and see me? Dad too? I’ve some things I need to talk about with you.’ I take a deep breath. ‘I need your help. It’d be better if I could explain face to face.’
‘OK. I just need to sort the kids out, check if Phil’s around and – don’t worry, it’s fine, we’ll be there. When?’
‘How soon can you come?’
I feel relieved, just a little, when I hang up the phone. She’s good in a crisis. Maybe it’s time for me to share this with my family a little and let them help – I hope. She says she’ll speak to Dad and drive them both over first thing in the morning, then I’m going to explain everything that’s been happening, properly. I’ll make them understand, then we can all go to the police together.
Those emails are more than two years old. How will one more night make a difference? But even so, I’m uneasy. I don’t want to wait around.
Restless, I get up and go into the living room. Her postcards and note are still laid out on the glass table, untouched of course. That’s a perk of living alone, I suppose.
Then I feel a jolt of excitement.
If Sophie’s diary hid that email address, what could these messages be telling me?
I quickly go to fetch my jotter, feeling energised. I cracked the email; I got in there. There’s got to be something here: a message hidden. I can do this.
After half an hour, I’ve reached the familiar conclusion. These words are random. No secret emails or words or puzzles. There’s just nothing much to them.
Our address. A dutiful, bland message home, just enough to reassure us all that she’s still alive. Her writing unchanged, three kisses – xxx – always, that delicate little flower doodle by her looping signature.
I wonder when she’ll grow out of that; I smile a little, flick a finger at the cards to scatter them. Maybe she has already. It was daisy-like, a child’s idea of a flower, on the first card home, as usual, but then she mixed it up a little. That cheered me, when I noticed: was it a little sign that she was thawing towards me? Because they get more detailed, a little ruff of petals inside each one. It is supposed to be a rose, maybe?
Well, biology wasn’t really her subject. I wonder if she is still drawing as much as she used to.
My smile fades. Perhaps if I’d focused less on academics she’d be here to give me proper flowers, not this sad little bouquet. Unexpectedly, tears spring to my eyes, the writing on the cards blurring. I’m tired, I tell myself, it’s all been so much to take in. It’s OK. It will be OK, it has to be. I can’t get distracted.
So I’ll just have to try something else. What else do I know?
They still remember me at the grammar school. Maureen, the secretary, comes out to have a chat with me on their nubby orange sofas, bright against the beige walls. She’s the same, her pale blonde coif towering upwards like a Mr Whippy ice cream. The pupils haven’t started back yet, so the place is quiet. She tells me they’ve been hosting summer schools over the holidays. ‘More trouble than they’re worth sometimes, but needs must. And then we’re back into term time! And … how have you been?’ she enquires delicately.
I sense a bit of embarrassment about my unexpected appearance today. Sophie, however you look at it, has not been another one of the school’s sterling academic success stories.
As I hoped, it was Maureen who called the police about the diary and she doesn’t mind chatting. But it wasn’t her who was handed the diary, but one of the cleaners, before the building had opened.
‘We had the young artists in that week. Or was it the gymnastic summer school? Anyway, of course when I saw that it wasn’t just one of our, um, current pupils’ names written at the front, but Sophie Harlow’s, I thought I must let the police know, just in case it was relevant, you see. Well, you never know.’
‘You were quite right,’ I say. ‘So, this cleaner, would they be about so I could have a quick chat, perhaps?’
‘Oh. Well.’
‘Just to settle a few questions in my mind,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Nothing official.’ Whatever that means.
‘I’m not sure … they come before school hours. They always seem to send different people’ – she lowers her voice a little – ‘and I’m not sure how good their English is either. You could give the agency a ring …’ She looks doubtful: you could stick a pen in your eye, but why would you?
‘If you wouldn’t mind giving me the number …’
‘I’d be happy to,’ she says, decisive now. ‘Just a moment,’ and she clicks away in her heels. That done, it will be my cue to leave, I sense: the grieving mother ticked off the list; now to sort the stationery order.
Perhaps that’s unfair, she’s trying to be helpful. But I’m gloomy now, imagining what lies ahead as I try to get past the company switchboard, the bemusement then guardedness at the suggestion of something unsavoury.
But what did I expect? ‘Yes, the man who handed it in seemed very suspicious, perhaps he knows something; I took down all his details’?
For something to do, I flick through the visitors’ book in front of me. For all the hoo-hah after Sophie left, I can’t see that they’ve updated their systems all that much; this is the book for guests to the school, more a relic of the school’s traditions than any real security log.
I recognise the odd surname as I leaf through the pages, going back in time; that’ll be the parent of a child Sophie must have mentioned. But schools renew themselves so quickly; Sophie’s year will have left this summer, A levels done. I wonder if many of the pupils still here even remember her now …
One name, neat caps in bright blue ink, catches my eye:
Nicholls, B.
I read across: Greater Manchester Police
This is pages back; ages ago. I check the date:
2 October, 2017 IN: 2.30p.m. OUT: 4.15p.m., his tight scribble of a signature.
‘Maureen,’ I say, as she emerges from the office, a piece of paper in hand, ‘I couldn’t help but notice, this DI Nicholls, I didn’t know that he …’ what? ‘… had a relationship with the school.’
‘Oh, do you know him?’ she says.
‘Yes, he’s been very helpful’ – that’s a push – ‘over Sophie’s diary; it was him who let me know that they’d found it.’
‘He’s very good,’ she agrees. ‘He gives talks to the students; safety and personal whatsit, part of the pastoral stuff. He’s done it for a while, now. He’s very popular with the teenage girls in particular. Tells them how to look after themselves.’ She laughs girlishly. ‘Of course it doesn’t hurt that they’ve all got crushes on him, they’ll all turn up to his talks.’ She’s a little pink herself.
‘Nicholls?’ This doesn’t really match the version of him I know; brusque at best, dour, if you’re not so inclined to be nice. ‘But why does he bother?’ I say bluntly.
She draws herself up a little. ‘Here at Amberton we take pride in maintaining alumni relationships, and we do think both sides get something quite important from—’
‘So he went to the school? Here?’
‘Of course he did,’ she says, mirroring my surprise. ‘Not while I’ve worked here, I’m not quite that old, gracious me. He’s quite the success story, he’ll be a chief constable yet, you know, he …’ I tune out, digesting this information. So Nicholls was new to Sophie’s case. But not new to the area; not at all.
And I don’t know why I assumed he wasn’t local. Of course there’s no reason for him to mention personal ties to the area, or to Sophie’s school; he’s a professional. Though he’s had every chance …
He gave the students talks. I wonder if Sophie ever went to one of them?
It’s funny how your brain works. How something jogs your memory, a little nudge and some synapse sparks, a connection is made. It comes to me as I’m driving home: what Danny said, that was niggling at me.
He’d said sometimes Sophie’s dad would pick her up. I’d corrected him, pettily. ‘Sophie was a daddy’s girl. But he didn’t pick her up. I did, if she was late finishing. Mark was always at work.’ And he’d shrugged.
I’d thought it meant that Danny had seen my car and assumed it was Mark’s. But I’m racking my brains now: had he ever even met him? Mark was always working late and it wasn’t like Danny was staying for dinner every night.
No, now I think of it, I don’t think they had met, even briefly; there’d have been grumblings from Mark, if they had. I’m sure of it. So why did Danny assume it was her dad and not me?
The answer’s inevitable, once I see it. He thought it was her dad because there was an older man in the driving seat. Someone he didn’t know.
I’ve got to speak to Danny.