Where the Missing Go(30)

‘Oh, I thought you’d gone.’ The librarian, David, sticks his head out of the cubby. ‘Have a look at this.’

I follow him in. ‘Sorry, I’ve left all my stuff everywhere, haven’t I, I’ll just get my jacket’ – I want to get out now, my mind on what’s ahead – ‘and here’s your pen back.’ I start to shuffle my jacket off the back of the chair he’s commandeered.

‘I really should sort these archives out,’ he’s saying, ‘but you know, with the amount they expect us to do now, we’ve two of us doing the work of three, and they’re already muttering about a mobile library, which poor Lynn finds very alarming, she can’t even drive …’

The photo on the screen is in black and white, a poor reproduction.

‘You’re right, the film jumps right past that edition,’ he says. ‘I found it on a separate roll of film, a few of the issues that were missing. They were so thorough then, they must have added them later.’ He gives a rueful laugh. ‘If only we had the resources, these days. Um, are you all right?’

I can’t reply. I’m fixed where I stand.

So they’d put her on the front page again, that second week – but with a photo, this time. Nancy’s school photo, a headshot against that mottled grey background school photographers always seem to use. Nancy Corrigan. Blonde hair, round face, that sweet smile. Laughing eyes.

Nancy, not Sophie. Just breathe. It’s OK.

‘Thanks,’ I hear myself say. ‘That’s really helpful, really it is. And you’ve got my details.’

It shocked me, catching me off guard for a second, that’s all.

She’s the spit of my daughter.





15


I wish for a breeze as I drive, opening all my car windows to cool the sweat prickling under my arms. It’ll be fine, I tell myself. Don’t think what it could be, don’t think what they could have found. But I know what that means, that polished professionalism, before they break some new horror to you. ‘Mrs Harlow, we have video footage of Sophie at a bus station.’ What could they need to tell me now – what have they found …

Stop it.

I switch on the radio and turn it up loudly. It’s the news. A shadow minister caught on a walkabout being rude about the voters, not realising the cameras were still rolling, will probably have to resign. A big-name footballer’s been caught up in a tax row. And now the weather: the hot spell is going to stick around. There’s a drought warning in five counties, please don’t use your hosepipes …

It’s soothing, to me. By the time I’m at the police station, waiting in another of their small rooms, I’m almost calm. The building’s all carpeted corridors, muffling its sounds. I start as the door opens and DI Nicholls walks in. He nods at me and drops something bulky on the table, in a clear plastic bag.

The pages have warped at the edges. Brown spots fleck the cover – damp? The diary still has the sticker on, a large white rectangle – a car bumper sticker from our last holiday to Florida: ‘Mickey me.’ I didn’t know you still liked Mickey, I’d teased Sophie in the gift-shop queue.

No, Mum, it’s cool, she’d explained patiently. It’s ironic.

I reach towards it, automatically, and he touches my arm, just gently. Hold on.

I sit back, startled by the contact.

‘Do you know what this is, Mrs Harlow?’

‘It’s Sophie’s.’ I sound angry. Another shock. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘Why do you think it’s Sophie’s?’

‘I bought it for her. Back to school.’

‘Do you remember when you last saw it?’

‘No. Yes. I mean – not recently. Years ago. When …’ When Sophie was still around.

It must have been a few months before she went, just before Christmas. I’d been in her room while she was at school. They were finishing late that year, it was how the dates fell. I’d been putting away her washing, when I’d found it at the back of a drawer. I recognised the chunky little notebook, a week across two pages of thin paper, and I reached for it before I let myself think it through.

The first few pages were full of details of her homework, reminders of what she had to do for school, but after a few weeks she’d abandoned those good intentions. She’d started to use it like a normal diary: recording details of what had happened in class, funny comments that her friends had made. And all her little doodles and sketches, cartoon animals peeking out from the page at me, hiding behind flowers. I’d smiled to see them, as I flicked through. Danny got the odd mention; they’d got together earlier that year, not that she really told me. But it was obvious, when he and Sophie started doing more things together just the two of them, without Holly and that crowd.

6 December, 2015

Cinema with Danny. Holly wanted to come too, so I said she could. He was a bit annoyed. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but why shouldn’t she come? I don’t care. The film was great, so interesting to look at, the colours they’d used …

She spent more time writing about what the film looked like than what happened.

I leafed through the rest quickly. There was nothing particularly personal, really. Still, I must have spent twenty minutes sitting there, glorying in getting to know my teenage daughter, always so closed now, and all the things she’d stopped telling me.