I See You(41)

‘I’m afraid I don’t do complicated.’





12


I pull the grey blanket around my shoulders. It’s wool, and looks nice draped across the sofa, but now it scratches my neck and makes me itch. The light makes a buzzing noise you can hear upstairs – yet another thing that needs fixing – and even though I know Simon and the kids are fast asleep I’ve left it switched off, the light from my iPad making the rest of the lounge seem even darker than it really is. The wind is howling and somewhere a gate is banging. I tried to sleep, but every sound made me jump, and eventually I gave up and came downstairs.

Someone took my photo and put it in the classifieds.

That’s the only solid fact I have, and it runs through my head on a loop.

Someone took my photo.

PC Swift believes it’s my picture too. She said she’s looking into it, that she knows that sounds like a brush-off, but that she really is working on it. I wish I could trust her, but I don’t share Simon’s romanticised views of the boys and girls in blue. Life was tough when I was growing up, and round our way a police car was something to run away from, even if none of us really knew why we were running.

I tap on the screen in front of me. Tania Beckett’s Facebook page has a link to a blog; a diary written by both Tania and her mother, in the run-up to the wedding. Tania’s posts are frequent and practical: Should we have miniature gin bottles for wedding favours, or personalised Love Hearts? White roses or yellow? There are only a handful of posts from Alison, each one laid out as a letter.

To my darling daughter,

Ten months till the big day! I can hardly believe it. I went into the loft today, to find my veil. I don’t expect you to wear it – fashions change so much – but I thought you might like a tiny piece of it sewn into your hem. Something borrowed. I found the box with all your school books, birthday cards, artwork. You used to laugh at me for keeping everything, but you’ll understand when you have children of your own. You, too, will stash away their first pair of shoes, so that one day you can climb into the loft in search of your wedding veil, and marvel at how your grown-up daughter ever had such tiny feet.





My vision blurs and I blink to clear the tears. It feels wrong to read on. I can’t get Tania and her mum out of my head. I crept into Katie’s room on my way downstairs, to reassure myself she was still there; still alive. There was no rehearsal last night – she did her Saturday-evening shift at the restaurant as usual – yet Isaac brought her home regardless. They walked past the lounge window, then paused for the length of a kiss before I heard her key in the lock.

‘You really like him, don’t you?’ I asked her. I expected her to brazen it out, but she looked at me with her eyes shining.

‘I really do.’

I pause, not wanting to spoil the moment, yet unable to keep quiet. ‘He’s quite a bit older than you.’ Instantly her face hardened. The swiftness of her response made me realise she’d predicted my concern.

‘He’s thirty-one; that’s a twelve-year age gap. Simon’s fifty-four; that makes him fourteen years older than you.’

‘That’s different.’

‘Why? Because you’re an adult?’ I felt momentary relief that she understood, before I saw the flash of anger in her eyes; and the saccharine tone she’d just used was replaced with harshness. ‘So am I, Mum.’

She’s had boyfriends before, but this feels different. I can already feel her slipping away from me. One day Isaac – or some other man – will be the first person she turns to; the one she leans on when life gets too much. Did Alison Beckett feel like that?

People keep reminding me that I’m not losing a daughter, she wrote in her last diary entry.

But she did.

I take a deep breath. I won’t lose my daughter, and I won’t let her lose me. I can’t sit by and hope the police are taking this seriously; I have to do something.

Next to me on the sofa are the adverts. I’ve cut them out from the back pages of the London Gazette, carefully marking the date on each one. I have twenty-eight, spread out on the sofa cushion like an art installation.

Photographic Quilt, by Zoe Walker. It’s the sort of thing Simon would go and see at the Tate Modern.

I collected the most recent issues myself, picking up a paper every day, but the back issues I got from the London Gazette offices on Friday. You’d think you could walk in and ask for old copies, but of course it’s not that simple. They screw you for ￡6.99 for each issue. I should have photocopied the copies I found in Graham’s office at work, but by the time it occurred to me it was too late; they’d gone. Graham must already have put them out for recycling.

I hear a creak upstairs and freeze, but there’s nothing else and I resume my search. ‘Women murdered in London’ brings up mercifully few results, and none with photos that matched the adverts beside me. I realise quickly that headlines are little help; Google images are much more useful, and far faster. I spend an hour scrolling through photographs of police officers, crime scenes, sobbing parents, and mugshots of unsuspecting women, their lives cut short. None of them are mine.

Mine.

They’ve all become ‘mine’, these women beside me. I wonder if any of them have seen their own photo; if they – like me – are frightened, thinking someone is watching them; following them.