Where the Missing Go(14)

‘Oh dear,’ she’d said, as we stood by the phone box: her bumper was hooked over mine. ‘I am sorry. Shall we have a nice cup of tea in the warm, and sort this out?’

I’d walked her back down the road the little distance to the main drive to our houses and followed her in to her hall. She walked stiffly: a hip injury, she told me later. ‘Just a little sore.’ She made us both Earl Grey. ‘I can’t drink that supermarket tea, dear, who can? Or should we have a sherry instead?’

I’m not sure that was what Mark meant when he said I should make an effort to make friends locally, not spend all my time moping around the house when Sophie was at school. I’d found the not working harder than I’d thought – the days went so slowly.

‘Why are you spending so much time with that old woman?’ he had asked once, crossly. ‘Whenever I ring you seem to be at hers. Shouldn’t social services be looking in on her?’

‘I think she’s got someone who goes round. I just like to check on her. She’s fun.’

She’s nothing like my mum, really, who barely bothered to look in a mirror and would have laughed at the idea of spending time on a full face of make-up and polished pink nails, for another day of, well, a coffee afternoon at church, at most. But there’s something in Lily’s full-tilt approach to life, her heroic refusal not to have a nice time, that reminds me of Mum. Or used to, when we first met.

‘Lily,’ I say, once I’m upstairs. ‘Did you forget about the gingerbread? It’s all burnt.’ I put down her tea in front of her – in a proper cup and saucer, of course.

‘Don’t be silly.’ She frowns. ‘Of course I didn’t forget. I just closed my eyes for a minute.’

‘Lily, you’ve got to be careful. The oven had started to smoke. Didn’t your smoke alarm go off?’ I’m sure I checked it just the other week.

‘Oh, that thing,’ she says. ‘It would not stop that awful beeping. So I switched it off.’

I get up to look in the hall. ‘Lily, there are wires hanging down. Did you take the batteries out?’

Her eyes look very blue, in the late sunlight. ‘No …’ Almost childlike.

‘OK.’ I can replace the batteries the next time I’m round, and tape the cover back in place. Despite this, I already feel soothed just being here, away from my life. This? This I can deal with.

I pull the worn pack of cards from the drawer. ‘Anyway, what are you going to beat me at today?’





8


Finally, the call comes from the police, on Monday – a voicemail left on my mobile while I’m in the shower. Could I come into the station? It’s a name I don’t know. DI Ben something. I play it again. Is it bad news, good news? I can’t tell. Good, I decide, let it be good. It has to be.

I’m there within the hour, my hair still drying. And then I wait.

Half an hour passes in the small windowless room they’ve put me in. Definitely more than that – but then I only started counting when the clock was at three. I make up my mind. I’m out of my plastic seat, hand on the door handle, when it pushes open and I’m forced to quickly step back.

‘Somewhere to go, Mrs Harlow? I’m so sorry to have kept you. Shall we sit down?’ I haven’t met this one before: dark hair, sleepy eyes, about my age, maybe. ‘DI Ben Nicholls,’ he says, pulling out the chair opposite mine. He doesn’t hold out a hand to shake.

‘I’m Kate,’ I say. ‘We used to deal with Kirstie,’ I carry on, suddenly nervous. There’s not a flicker of recognition. ‘Kirstie Waller? Curly blonde hair? She’d told me a few months ago that she was going on mat leave, so she was passing on her responsibilities.’

Neither of us had punctured the pretence that the investigation was going anywhere, even recently. I was grateful to her for that. ‘None of the officers I used to speak to are around,’ I say now. ‘Everyone seems to have retired, or be on leave.’

He nods, unsmiling. ‘I’m up to speed on the case, I’ve read through the files.’

‘OK.’ So the small talk’s clearly over.

‘And I understand you’re keen for us to get hold of some phone records from the charity where you work—’

‘Yes, you’ve got to,’ I say, launching in. ‘My daughter phoned me, she’s missing, she’s been missing for years, she phoned me, and I need to know where she is, I need to talk to her—’

‘Mrs Harlow, can I interrupt?’

I lean back.

‘I want to manage your expectations,’ he says. ‘A helpline has privacy procedures in place for a reason. And we can’t necessarily overturn them to trace the call, even if you are concerned about your daughter.’

‘Well, why not?’

‘Police officers have to follow rules, too. We’d have to have a very strong reason to break those protocols. The helpline’s got a commitment to protect its clients’ anonymity—’

‘But I’m her mother!’

‘And that’s why she might not want you tracing her, isn’t it? If it was her.’ I flinch. ‘She could have phoned home. But she called the helpline, you say, to let you know that you shouldn’t expect contact any more.’