Where the Missing Go(27)

‘A while ago,’ she says. She looks sad, unusual for her. ‘Why won’t he come back?’

I don’t know how to answer. ‘Tell me about him, Lily. What’s he like?’

Her eyes brighten. ‘Oh, he’s such a lovely little boy. Such a tinker. And those blond curls!’

‘Blond curls?’

‘Oh yes,’ she says confidently, ‘just like me, when I was a girl.’

‘Lily,’ I say carefully, ‘I didn’t know you and Bob had any children.’

I know they didn’t. Bob, Lily’s husband, is long departed but honoured with a photo in pride of place on the hall table, in a fancy gilded frame. When I first met her, she made discreet references to their ‘disappointment in the family way’. She’d run a shoe shop in Leeds before she met Bob, and they’d made a good life for themselves, she told me.

She doesn’t reply. ‘So what’s his name, Lily?’

‘I don’t know … I’ve forgotten, haven’t I. Do you know?’

‘I don’t. But I’d love to meet him,’ I add.

‘Well …’ Lily glances sideways at me. ‘I don’t know when he’ll next be here,’ she settles on.

I’m reassured by that. If Lily is imagining a little boy to keep her company – the child she never had? – then her reluctance shows that, deep down, she still knows I couldn’t meet him.

‘What about you, dear?’ she says now. ‘Have you heard from your Nancy?’

I didn’t know she remembered. It had upset her, when I’d explained that my daughter had gone away, and I didn’t know where she was. I’d ended up telling her she was travelling.

I clear my throat. ‘I had a phone call, yes. Recently. But it’s Sophie, not Nancy.’

She nods. ‘Nancy was the other one, then. Oh, she was trouble.’ She looks downcast. ‘I get a bit confused these days, don’t I?’

It’s hard when she realises what’s happening to her. ‘Just a bit, Lily, but that’s OK. Now. I think Corrie’s about to start.’

I’m suddenly awake. I lie there, the bedclothes clammy around me, the dark room hot.

The run worked just as I hoped. I fell asleep quickly, no thoughts crowding in. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. My mantra, until sleep descends.

But now I’m awake, in the dead hours. Yet again.

And then I feel it. It’s not so much a prickling of the skin as something else, some older sense, the quiet, electric awareness. The presence in the room. Slowly, inevitably, I turn my head.

The figure in the doorway is quite motionless.

I close my eyes, reopen them. And still he’s there.

He slowly takes a step towards me …

And then I wake up again, for real this time, and grasp for the light.

Of course, there’s no one there. But my heart is still thundering, my whole body flushed with adrenaline. Another dream I’ve had before. Quite common after trauma, my counsellor Lara once told me. A physical manifestation of the perceived threat to my world – my brain making sense of things.

It still scares me though.

I reach for the pills in my drawer. This time, I take two. Just to be safe. They’ll work, as always, and I settle down with a book, keeping my thoughts occupied, till I start to feel drowsy.

As I fall asleep, fragments of my day appear before me. Len’s face, red and angry. That collie dog, whining and afraid. The black shape bursting from the bush. And Lily: ‘Nancy was the other one.’

Just as I slip under, a question bubbles to the surface and stays, for a second. Who’s Nancy?





14


I’m so sick of staring at my computer screen. I’ve spent the morning falling deep into an internet hole, bogged down in the rules around teenagers and privacy. Dr Heath’s right, of course. If a teenager gets pregnant, medical workers don’t have to keep her parents informed if … I don’t want to think about it. But Sophie could have done anything, and I wouldn’t know. They respect her privacy. And she can just go into any of the centres in town for help, there’s no need for her to involve the family doctor at all.

Or maybe I’ve got this all wrong, am jumping to conclusions. This feels so pointless and familiar, immersed in web pages, digging and digging, getting nowhere.

I stare out of the study window. It’s been so hot the trees are already yellowing. Or could it be autumn starting early? It’s so hard to keep track. I feel stupid and drowsy. I could take a nap …

And isn’t there something else I’m supposed to do, something I should check? It’s dancing on the edge of my consciousness, like when you can’t remember something just as you fall asleep … I fell asleep quickly last night, tired out after my run. But I’m sure I still woke up again, took a pill or two …

And then I catch my thought again: who’s Nancy? That Lily mentioned. I’m always intrigued by Lily’s life, she can be really quite guarded.

I don’t really expect to find anything, but I type it in anyway. Just to check.

Nancy – I pause, type more – Vale Dean. That’s all I know.

Oh. I see. I lean forward.

New appeal over missing Vale Dean girl

Sister of schoolgirl missing for 20 years says she’s never given up hope.