KATE
Now they’ve gone, I am wired and exhausted, ready to crash. But there’s nothing to do now but sleep, for a little bit, dozing on the sofa.
When I wake up, the house is quiet, the sun telling me it’s already the afternoon. Too quiet, it feels now, just the wind in the trees, the odd distant hum of a car on the road.
I want to get out. Quickly I shower, the hot water waking me up a little; downstairs, I can hear the landline going. I pull on jeans and a T-shirt. I need to think about what to do next. But I can’t stay here. My head’s killing me: I can feel the pressure in the air, the sky not blue but that heavy, blank pallor – surely, finally, it’s going to rain soon.
Before I go I remember to pull out my mobile from the pocket of the hoodie I had on earlier. I’ve two missed calls from Charlotte already, and a voicemail. I play it as I grab my handbag, snatching my car keys.
‘Kate, are you still screening my calls? Even after this morning?’ My sister is seriously rattled; the drive home hasn’t quietened her down. ‘We need to make some changes, Katherine. We can help you with this, I promise. But you need to let us. Phone me, soon, or I’m coming right back over. Bye.’
I didn’t think she’d be on my back again quite so quickly.
And then another message: it takes me a second to place the male voice.
‘Kate, it’s Dr Heath. Nick. Now, I’ve had your family on the phone – they’re rather concerned about you. We think it would be a good idea if I came and checked on you, nothing to worry about. Are you in today? Why don’t you call me.’ He reels off his mobile number. ‘I’m doing my rounds today, anyway, so I’ll see if you’re in.’
I swear under my breath. So this is why Charlotte’s calling me, so soon after she and Dad left. They’ve already got my doctor involved. Can they even do this? I know I gave them permission to speak to him, when they were so worried – but shouldn’t that expire at some point? I don’t know. They can’t do anything, can they? Make me go somewhere. And then I couldn’t do anything for Sophie.
That decides me – I’m not waiting around for them to turn up and talk at me – and I hurry out of the house, heading for my car. I barely see the road as I turn right out of the drive, my windows down, and then stop at the crossroads, turning it all over in my mind again.
The faceless man. Sophie. Nancy. What’s connecting them all?
This boyfriend, Jay, so maybe he got Nancy pregnant. Then what? And now – thirty years later, history repeats itself? It can’t be him. It can’t be possible. But I’ve got to find him, somehow … Nancy has to hold the key.
A honk behind me. I lift up my head – the lights have turned green. I press down on the accelerator, lurching forward. I need to get off the road, I’m so distracted that this is dangerous.
When I get to the village I turn in at the supermarket: I’m thirsty, I realise suddenly. I’ll buy a water.
Once inside the place, I think, as I always do, that it’s far too big for its village setting. And yet you can always be sure to bump into someone you don’t want to—
‘Katie! Is that you?’ I turn round. It takes a second to place the two sleek blondes in their leggings and bright trainers: Ellen Fraser, a basket on her arm, and with her Lisa Brookland, my husband’s girlfriend.
I don’t want this, not today.
‘Kate, how are you?’ says Ellen, glancing at Lisa next to her. But Lisa’s chin is up just a fraction, to tell me she’s nothing to be embarrassed about. ‘Are you OK? You look …’
Lisa interrupts: ‘Actually, Kate, I was going to call you. But as you never answer your phone…’ – taller than me, she takes a step closer – ‘… we may as well do this now. Now, Mark’s very worried, everyone’s worried, you’re clearly falling apart. But it’s really time you moved on now and I—’
She stops as I give her trolley a little nudge towards her, so she has to take a step back.
‘No. Stop it, please,’ I say politely but firmly.
Lisa flushes with anger: ‘But have you even given any thought to getting a lawyer yet, or moving out of that house—’
‘I said, stop it.’ Something in my voice seems to make her pause. ‘You go your way,’ I say, ‘and I’m going mine.’ And I give the trolley a push, so it bumps against her knees.
They get out of my way.
‘Can you believe …’ I hear Ellen say quietly, as I walk off.
The thing is, I realise all of a sudden, I really don’t care any more, not about them – but my worry renews itself. Everyone is concerned for me, about what I might do next. But what should I do next? I feel like everything is closing in on me. Fragments of conversation reach my ears as I pass through the aisles, oddly disembodied.
‘… y’know why they’re diet crisps? Because you only get seven in a bag! It’s a joke, it really is …’
‘Apples, milk, kitchen roll. Apples, milk, kitchen roll. I’m sure there was something else …’
‘Mummy, look at these ones, can we try them, please can we, Mum-mee …’
‘No, I’m still here.’ A pause. ‘Why would I go without telling you? No, I’m still here.’ A girl’s voice, a teenager. ‘You’ll have to come back and get me …’
I stop. ‘No, I’m still here.’ Why does that tug at something in my brain?
I turn round and see the girl, her phone in her hand, loping off to the exits, all long hair and high dudgeon, clearly outraged at being forgotten.
‘I’m still here …’ Sophie said that on the phone, in that call, that triggered all this. ‘I’m still here.’
She meant she was still on the phone, of course. Not like this girl.
This girl is still here. She hadn’t gone anywhere …
Suddenly, I feel off balance, like the floor’s twisting under my feet. I lean against the shelves behind me, dislodging tins.
‘Careful!’ One of assistants is already hurrying up. He stops: ‘Are you all right, madam? You look a bit peaky …’
I nod, slowly righting myself. ‘Sorry. I’m fine, yes.’
I start walking again.
Of course Sophie went away. That’s what everyone knows. There’s no doubt about it, it was clear from the start. There’s been so much: her note, the sighting at the bus station, the postcards home. The call to the Message in a Bottle helpline, a helpline for runaways, for God’s sake.
Although she sounded scared; no ‘Love you, Mo’ for me. Just ‘I’m still here …’
And then the diary, pointing to why she’d really gone. Just in case, say, someone started asking questions. Because in the end, the diary wasn’t what it seemed, was it?
‘I’m still here …’
I stop. Behind me, the automatic doors open and shut, sensing I’ve not moved.
I know. I know what those postcards were telling me. It was there, all the time, under my nose: you just have to read them properly. It’s so simple I hear myself laugh out loud, then stop, shocked at myself.
No wonder I couldn’t see it. Sophie was never into crosswords, word games, all that stuff I liked. She was visual, she loved art, her drawing. And that’s how she’s been trying to communicate with me, even now.
Sophie wasn’t just doodling flowers on her messages home. Oh, she was, but that’s not all they are.
I know them. I know what they are now.
Stylised and symmetrical, they’re not much like real roses. But that’s because she’s not drawing roses, but carvings of roses, the kind you might see etched into antique stonework. Pretty, carved stone roses that might run round the sides of a big Victorian mansion house, say, with a little ruff inside of each one, the sort of detail we don’t bother to build into our homes nowadays.
Slowly I break into a jog, heading to my car, then pick up my pace. Because I recognise them now – I am absolutely certain where I saw them.
I was outside Parklands. Sophie’s been drawing the roses that cover Parklands, sending me the house’s motif. I bet you’d find roses inside that place, too – inside Parklands, the house where Nancy grew up.
Because Nancy was always the answer.