KATE
The stairs are a broad sweep towards the landing, passing under tall leaded windows, more boards blocking out their light. This must have been expensive carpet once, too, but now the thick weave is dirty and worn bare in places. Here upstairs, someone’s covered the wood panelling in shiny white gloss in the bedrooms, in some misguided attempt to lighten the place. But it’s the bathrooms more than anything else that show their age against the classic bones of the house: there’s one very eighties avocado suite, rust stains under the taps.
From the main landing, overlooking the entrance hall, short twisting corridors lead to more rooms, shabbier, strewn with the detritus of their former inhabitants: a flimsy folding table; an old sun lounger that can’t have been intended for inside; piled-up magazines, National Geographics. I pick up one and open it, and see the small insect body. I put it down quickly. Silverfish.
I start edging around the half-open doors after that, unwilling to touch anything else. I don’t know why empty houses get so dirty – heavy grey clumps of dust fill the corners.
I’m nearly done now. I must have covered most of the house, moving quickly, and I’m about to head downstairs for a final look, when I realise I’ve missed a door, in a corner I thought I’d checked. It’s shut. But the old iron key turns smoothly in its lock, the door opening into a small set of stairs, and I start climbing, my head close to the ceiling.
I must be under the roof now, in a little hallway under slanting eaves. I explore; the rooms here are smaller, oddly shaped, light coming through the boarded-up windows close to the floor. Servants’ quarters, once upon a time? No, I think, they’re too nice. The outer, original walls, have the same wooden panelling, the rose decoration, as the showier rooms on the lower floors. Perhaps this was a nursery, or some quiet living space for the lady of the house, that’s since been sectioned off. My footsteps sound on the threadbare carpet as I emerge at the end of the hallway.
I’m at the last door, now. This one’s shut too, but the key’s still in it.
There’s a light coming from under the door. And there’s a bolt at the top, and the bottom.
Heavy steel bolts, I can see. Locking only from the outside.
The skin on my arms is prickling. I look down: I’ve goosebumps, I notice absently.
I bend to unslide the bottom bolt, then the top. I turn the key, feel the gears of the lock shifting.
I open the door.
The room’s empty, one glance tells me that. Now I see why it’s lighter in here, even before I flick the switch to turn the bulb on. The modern partition walls have cut off the room from the attic’s original windows, so they’ve put in a modern skylight overhead, through which the sky is a dark violet square. No one’s bothered to board it up – I suppose it’d be hard to climb in from the roof.
I check around with care, anyway, my last hope dwindling.
The wooden roses run around the wall panels, below the sloping eaves. Behind a door in the corner is a small loo and sink; old-fashioned black and white with a hanging flush. Maybe they put it in when this was a place to send the kids – a den, or games room. But that’s it.
And that’s the house done.
There’s nothing here.
Fantasist, my mind whispers. Paranoid.
She’s not here.
I’ve looked everywhere now. This house gives me the creeps. And no wonder, with its sad history. I suppose Nancy and her sister could have played in this room. But Sophie’s not here.
I go over to the window, and look up: fat drops starting to hit the glass, one by one. Rain, finally. Of course she’s not here. What did I think; she’d just be cowering behind some door? So I thought she was telling me it’s all to do with Nancy. Or Nancy’s house. That didn’t mean she’d actually be in here. She meant something else, maybe, that I’ve misunderstood.
And now it’s time to go home. Face the reality. Sophie left. I’ll talk to my family then, maybe Dad – if I can get the police to … Exhaustion overwhelms me. I don’t know what to do now. I’m failing her. Again. She’s leaving me these messages, and I’m failing. Wearily, I walk to the doorway.
I start to pull the door closed behind me, just as I left it.
The pain’s like a bite. I snatch my hand away – a splinter. ‘Ow!’
In the dim light the bead of liquid swells up on my fingertip. I suck it automatically, and wanting to see what I cut it on, swing the door round.
Someone’s forgotten to take these down. That’s my first thought, when I see the drawings pinned to the back of the door.
There must be dozens of sheets of paper tacked to the wood, stuck on with Sellotape, and they’re all covered in crayon scribbles – blue, green, purple, yellow. On one sheet, there’s a wobbly red spiral – a snail? Or perhaps it’s just a shape that’s fun to draw, if you’ve little fingers and a bright red crayon. On another, a rainbow splodge. Whoever did them can’t manage stick people yet – and there are no trees or flowers or farmyard animals. But someone’s bothered to keep them, all the same. Just like I did, with Sophie’s first drawings.
Another drawing catches my eye now, and I step closer to look at the big buck teeth and cartoon eyes – it’s a bunny character to colour in, drawn in pencil by a skilled adult hand. Colourful scrawls burst out of the lines. The artist’s initialled her character – SH for Sophie Harlow, just like she always did – but I’ve already recognised her confident, easy style.
And I almost missed seeing them. It’d be easy, with the door open like that. You might forget the drawings were there, if you were clearing a room, say. Taking everything out, removing any sign that someone was ever here. Perhaps rushing a little, for whatever reason. You might not remember to check behind the open door, flat against the wall. You might walk straight out, if you had other things to think about.
Like he did. He missed them. He’s forgotten to take these down.
I’m on the floor now. My legs gave way, I register in a corner of my brain, as both my hands reach out to the door. This is it. Sophie. I know it, I can touch it. Here she is.
My beautiful girl. And her baby.