Into the Water(71)

You were angry because you thought I’d done it to hurt you, to get you into trouble. To make Mum love me more, even more than she already did. To make her reject you. Because it would have been your fault, wouldn’t it? You had bullied me, and you were supposed to be keeping an eye on me, and this had happened on your watch.

I turned the tap with my toe and let my body slip down into the tub; my shoulders submerged, my neck, my head. I listened to the sounds of the house, distorted, muffled, made alien by the water. A sudden thump made me jerk upwards into the cold air. I listened. Nothing. I was imagining things.

But when I slipped back down I was sure I heard a creak on the stairs, footsteps, slow, and regular, along the corridor. I sat bolt upright, gripping the edge of the tub. Another creak. A door handle turning.

‘Lena?’ I called out, my voice sounding childish, reedy and thin. ‘Lena, is that you?’

The answering silence rang in my ears, and in it I imagined I heard voices.

Your voice. Another of your phone calls, the first one. The first one after our fight at the wake, after the night when you asked that terrible question. It wasn’t long after – a week, maybe two – when you rang late at night and left me a message. You were tearful, your words slurred, your voice barely audible. You told me you were going back to Beckford, you were going to see an old friend. You needed to talk to someone, and I was no use. I didn’t think about it at the time, I didn’t care.

Only now I understood, and I shivered despite the warmth of the water. All this time, I’ve been blaming you, but it should have been the other way around. You went back to see an old friend. You were looking for solace because I rejected you, because I wouldn’t talk to you. And you went to him. I failed you, and I kept on failing you. I sat up again, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees, and the waves of grief just kept coming: I failed you, I hurt you, and the thing that kills me is that you never knew why. You spent your whole life trying to understand why I hated you so much, and all I had to do was tell you. All I had to do was answer when you called. And now it was too late.

There was another noise, louder – a creak, a scrape, I wasn’t imagining it. There was someone in the house. I pulled myself out of the bath and dressed as quietly as I could. It’s Lena, I told myself. It is. It’s Lena. I crept through the upstairs rooms, but there was no one there, and from every mirror my terrified face mocked me. It’s not Lena. It’s not Lena.

It had to be, but where would she be? She’d be in the kitchen, she’d be hungry – I’d go downstairs and there she would be with her head stuck in the fridge. I tiptoed down the stairs, across the hall, past the living-room door. And there, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A shadow. A figure. Someone sitting on the window seat.





Erin


ANYTHING WAS POSSIBLE. When you hear hooves you look for horses but you can’t discount zebras. Not out of hand. Which is why, while Sean took Callie to have a look at the scene at Henderson’s place, I’d been dispatched to speak to Louise Whittaker about this ‘confrontation’ she’d had with Lena just before Lena disappeared.

When I got to the Whittakers’ house, Josh answered the door, as he always seemed to do. And, as always seemed to be the case, he looked alarmed to see me. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Have you found Lena?’

I shook my head. ‘Not yet. But don’t worry …’

He turned away from me, shoulders slumped. I followed him into the house. At the bottom of the stairs he turned back to face me. ‘Is it because of Mum that she ran away?’ he asked, his cheeks reddening a little.

‘Why would you ask that, Josh?’

‘Mum made her feel bad,’ he replied sourly. ‘Now that Lena’s mum’s not alive, she blames Lena for everything. It’s stupid. It’s as much my fault as hers, but she blames her for everything. And now Lena’s gone,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Who are you talking to, Josh?’ Louise called from upstairs. Her son ignored her, so I responded. ‘It’s me, Mrs Whittaker. DS Morgan. Can I come up?’

Louise was wearing a grey tracksuit which had seen better days. Her hair was pulled back, her face wan. ‘He’s angry with me,’ she said by way of greeting. ‘He blames me for Lena’s running off. He thinks it’s my fault.’ I followed her along the landing. ‘He blames me, I blame Nel, I blame Lena, round and round and round we go.’ I stopped in the bedroom doorway. The room was all but empty, bed stripped, wardrobe empty. The pale-lilac walls bore the scars of hastily removed Blu-tack. Louise smiled wearily. ‘You can come in. I’m almost done in here.’ She kneeled down, returning to the task I must have interrupted, which was placing books into cardboard boxes. I squatted down at her side to help, but before I was able to pick up my first book, she placed her hand firmly on my arm. ‘No, thank you. I’d rather do this myself.’ I stood up. ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she said, ‘I just don’t want other people to touch her things. It’s silly, isn’t it?’ she said, looking up at me, eyes shining. ‘But I only want her to have touched them. I want there to be something left of her, on the book jackets, on the bedclothes, on her hairbrush …’ She stopped and took a deep breath. ‘I don’t seem to be making a lot of progress. Moving on, moving past things, moving at all …’