Where the Missing Go(20)

And the news that she’d sent us a postcard sparked more media interest, the articles taking on a lighter tone that I didn’t expect: Sophie appearing as a cheeky rebel on a jaunt, sending a postcard home to the parents. One columnist asked if she should be commended for her spirit of adventure, another if her departure would have drawn the same concern if she were a boy. There was a warning note, however, about the drain on police time, a reminder that serious cases needed attention.

And then … nothing happened. Not for a while.

Eventually I did stop going out searching, which made Mark calmer for a bit, reassured that I wasn’t wandering through some abandoned warehouse in the city. Wherever she was, I’d realised, it wasn’t within my reach – not physically.

Going out had got trickier, anyway, close to home.

‘So. You only had the one child,’ the woman said to me, rearranging her handbag on her arm. ‘And then you went back to work?’

‘Yes,’ I said, taken aback. I tried to place her name. A mother from the school? She’d come up to me outside the newsagent’s, patting me on the arm: ‘How are things? Any news?’

‘So why was that?’ she said, then, not hiding her curiosity. No, I didn’t know her at all.

‘Why w— I’m sorry, my parking’s about to run out. I’d better go.’

So I went online, where I started trawling message boards, special ones for runaways, expat communities that a traveller might pass through, forums for postal workers who might keep an eye out on their rounds. I’d leave a photo with a note: ‘Have you seen Sophie Harlow?’ Keeping my messages loving, worried, but encouraging. Never desperate, never angry. Keep it together.

There was no end to the task I’d set myself, really. There didn’t seem to be so much reason to leave the house then, after that, or to step away from the laptop in our study. I drank, a little, to help me relax. And I had the pills, of course, to soften things round the edge, to help me sleep. I kept busy.

Mark tried to talk, a few times. He even suggested, sheepishly, that he ‘explain about that weekend’. I knew he meant the night he missed Sophie’s note. There hadn’t been many slip-ups over the years. But now I didn’t care. ‘I just don’t want to talk about it,’ I told him. He looked relieved. He’d started going back into the office, just ‘keeping on top of things’.

The journalists didn’t bother to call me any more. Though that was all the police seemed to be interested in, now: a phone call. Could Sophie please ring them so they could establish her safety? In my mind, I filled in what was unsaid: so we can close your case.

The second postcard came in December, dropping onto the mat like before.

You’ll want more than a postcard. But I’m fine, really, and I’m happy. I don’t want you to worry.

Sophie xxx

With her usual flower signature. ‘France’, read the script across the front, on top of a dated-looking photograph of the Eiffel Tower. Again, the postmark was London.

This time there was no champagne.

The next night, Mark’d come home punchy after his work Christmas drinks – I hadn’t gone, of course. ‘Don’t you think it’s time to stop this? What’s it all for, really?’

I turned to see him at the door of the study, where I was on the computer, as usual. There was a slurry edge to his voice. ‘You’re drunk, Mark.’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But you’re one to talk. Holed up in here all the time.’

I stayed quiet.

‘With your pills,’ he continued, ‘hiding away.’

In the argument that followed, I finally said it, what I’d held back from telling him for so long. ‘If you’d seen that note, if you hadn’t been where you were, things might have been different.’

He stiffened. But he didn’t back down like I expected.

‘And some people might say this all happened because of you. Overprotective, because of your mum. And now you’re trying to make up for it.’

‘Oh, really,’ I said coolly, hearing the echo of someone else’s judgement in his words. ‘And who exactly told you that bit of cod psychology?’

He coloured at that. Bingo. So she was still around.

‘The thing about you, Mark,’ I told him, ‘is that you are essentially … lightweight.’

I turned my head away from his hurt expression. He’d never known how to fight dirty.

After that, I just – withdrew. We were polite enough after that, moving around each other in our big house with care. It was just a matter of time. He eventually left after that dreadful first Christmas, with both of us wedged round Charlotte’s table trying to act normally for her boys. He told me we could sort out our stuff later, when things were more ‘settled’.

The police investigation never ended, not officially. It’s not currently active, is how they’d put it. I only realised what the last meeting meant, on that grey February day, when I read about it in the local paper. But I should have known: they said I could have the postcards back and her runaway note, they had all the information they needed from them.

When the third one arrived last summer – Austria this time, fresh mountains and gambolling lambs, the postmark London again – Kirstie took the details from me over the phone.