The Girls Who Disappeared(35)

As she walks across the yard she feels like someone has carved her insides out, her mind full of Ralph and Sally, Tamzin and Katie.

From one of the stables she can hear Radio 2 and she freezes. Pixies’ ‘Where Is My Mind?’ is playing, and grief washes over her. It had been one of Sally’s favourite songs. She used to play it over and over again. Olivia stands, hidden by the wall of the stables, and listens to it, a lump in her throat. How strange that it should play today on the twentieth anniversary. She hasn’t heard it in years. And straight away she’s back there, in Sally’s bedroom at fourteen, watching her best friend put the album on the turntable, the hiss of the record as she lowered the needle, the haunting guitar intro. Sally would replay that song over and over. She closes her eyes as a thousand memories flood through her: the smell of the mini meringues Sally’s mum used to buy from Tesco and they used to eat straight from the plastic tub, the sweet taste of Dr Pepper on their lips, the blue nail varnish, the black-and-white Kurt Cobain poster pinned to the woodchip wallpaper. She can almost see Sally standing in front of her in her faded black jeans, her favourite checked shirt and leather bracelets entwined halfway up her arms. Her first best friend and her last.

Sally hadn’t wanted her to start dating Wesley. It had put a bit of distance between them for the first time ever.

‘But he’s a creep,’ she’d said, when Olivia first told her about it. They had been in Sally’s bedroom – Olivia had raced straight over there to tell her as soon as Wesley had asked her out on a date.

‘He’s not,’ Olivia said. ‘He’s funny and popular and charming.’

‘He might have been in school, but he’s turned weird,’ Sally replied dismissively, and Olivia had felt instantly irritated. It was all right for Sally, she’d thought, with her swishy hair and perfect skin and pick of the boys. But this was the first time someone like Wesley had asked her out and there was no way she was going to say no.

‘Don’t you remember how he hounded me?’

Of course Olivia remembered. She’d been jealous as hell when Sally had told her that Wesley had pursued her the year before. He’d bombarded her with love notes and roses through the post and mix tapes. Olivia had thought it charming but Sally hadn’t been so enamoured. In fact she’d got cross with him after he sent one Forever Friends teddy too many and told him if he didn’t stop she’d go to the police. Olivia had thought that a little harsh. Wesley had a crush on her. That was all. If only, she’d thought wistfully, someone felt so strongly about her.

Wesley did eventually stop and then, one night at the Raven, she’d got talking to him and when he’d asked for her number she’d thought she’d combust with happiness. She’d mentioned the Sally thing to him, of course, and he’d laughed it off, his cheeks pink with embarrassment, and said he’d been an idiot but that he’d thought she’d liked him and wanted to be ‘wooed’. ‘I didn’t read the signs properly,’ he’d said, lowering his bright blue eyes, and all she could think of was how she wanted to snog him so badly that she had to contain herself from throwing her arms around him there and then.

But it continued being awkward between him and Sally, so Olivia had met up with her friends away from him, making Saturday nights their night. And then, just months later, the accident happened and all their lives had changed for ever.

‘Where have you been? Roxie and Sabrina still need mucking out.’

Olivia jumps, her eyes snapping open at the sound of her mother’s voice. She’s aware she’s been standing with her hand on the stable door, her eyes closed, swaying. Her mum will start to think she’s on something. She straightens. ‘Sorry. It’s been …’ She swallows. ‘Mum, something awful’s happened.’

The annoyance freezes on her mother’s face, replaced by fear. ‘What?’

‘Ralph Middleton was found dead last night.’

For a few seconds her mother doesn’t move – she doesn’t even blink. Olivia wonders if she’s even heard her. ‘Mum?’

‘I … How?’ she asks, seeming to come to. In the background they can hear the murmur of the Radio 2 DJ talking. Her mother puts a hand to the corduroy collar of her waxed jacket as if it’s too tight and threatening to strangle her. Olivia knows the feeling.

‘A head injury. They think …’ her lip wobbles ‘… they suspect he was murdered.’

‘Oh, my God. When?’

‘Last night. They didn’t say what time.’

A gust of wind blows through the yard and sends a hay-net skimming across the concrete. Her mother makes a dash for it, then strides back to Olivia, the hay-net over her shoulder, her face grave. She pulls her daughter into her arms for a rare hug. ‘It’s really sad about Ralph,’ she murmurs, into Olivia’s hair. ‘I know you liked him. I didn’t know him very well but I always felt for him, living in the caravan all alone like that. There was something sad about him.’

This makes Olivia cry even more.

‘It’s a difficult day even without that,’ her mother says. ‘What with it being the anniversary. All sorts of emotions must be flooding to the surface right now.’

Olivia sighs and pulls away. When she looks up at her mother’s face she sees something she can’t quite place. Grief, perhaps, or guilt.