Where the Missing Go(41)

‘And what about, erm, boyfriends?’

I can hear the smile. ‘I don’t really know. I was only ten when she went. But she was very pretty. She loved attention. I can’t imagine anything got that serious.’

‘I read that he, Nancy’s boyfriend, was questioned by the police, afterwards.’ She doesn’t bite, but I press on. ‘I don’t suppose you remember his name?’

‘No, I don’t. They spoke to lots of her friends.’ Her voice hardens. ‘Are you a journalist?’

‘No, absolutely not. Sorry. I don’t want to pry. I just—I’m sorry.’

But she’s upset now. ‘This is exactly why my parents left, to escape all the curiosity. To protect me from all the questions. We came to Canada for a new start.’

I feel bad: I can hear the quaver in her voice under the anger. ‘I really don’t mean to upset you. It’s just – my daughter’s gone missing too. She ran away.’ I might as well admit it. ‘Your family’s story struck a chord, that’s all, being local, and I wondered what had happened.’

‘Oh,’ she says, mollified. ‘Well, you should have said. You don’t meet many …’ People like us, I fill in. The ones left behind. ‘I guess then I’m some years ahead of you.’ She doesn’t offer any reassurance, or platitudes.

‘So what do you think happened to Nancy?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I don’t know, and there’s where I leave it. I leave it in the hands of God. Or whatever there is.’

‘Why do you think she went?’

‘Well. They were going to send her to boarding school. My parents thought it would be best for her – they were traditional, you know? I’ve wondered if maybe that was why … she never seemed that upset. But you just don’t know, do you?’

‘But you do think she – that she’s OK?’

She’s silent. She’s definitely going to hang up this time. And now, I don’t want to know her answer. ‘Ignore that, I shouldn’t have asked—’ but she interrupts.

‘Nancy’s dead.’ She’s almost casual. Like it’s that obvious.

‘Dead?’

‘Of course she is,’ she says, more gently. ‘I’ve known that for a long time.’

‘You have?’

‘Oh, I don’t know what happened, what she might have got mixed up in. Who might have picked her up. But I do know that if Nancy was still alive, she would have come back. A very long time ago.

‘They used to hitchhike, in those days, you know.’ She lets that hang in the air.

I wish, quite definitely, that I hadn’t talked to her now.

‘But why was everybody so sure that she’d run away then, that nothing else – God forbid – had happened to her? Didn’t they search for her?’ I sound angry: like they’ve let Nancy down.

‘Well, they did, at first,’ she says, still infuriatingly calm. No, resigned. ‘But they didn’t think anything that bad had happened. At first, they thought she’d still come back. You see, she left a note.’

‘A note. And that’s what it all hung on?’ At least with Sophie we knew, I think wildly, there was the CCTV at the bus station, her postcards home after—

‘The housekeeper found it, on her bed, in the morning. She’d gone in the night. Although in a way,’ she continues, her tone thoughtful, ‘that was worse. Because it gave my parents hope.’

I don’t want to think about that. ‘What did the note say? I hope you don’t mind me asking. It’s only …’ I trail off. I can’t really conjure up a reason why I should know.

‘That’s OK. I can remember it, even now.’ Now that she’s talking about Nancy she doesn’t seem to want to stop. I suppose it’s the same reason families called me at the helpline.

She recites it by rote, sing-song like a nursery rhyme: ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go away. Please don’t worry about me, it will all be fine. But I need to get away. All my love, Nancy.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘So short.’

‘She was never really a writer, Nancy. More of a doer.’

Outside in the dimming light, Tom is stalking something, slowly pacing forward across the grass. ‘Short like Sophie’s,’ I say, watching the cat. He freezes, a paw suspended in the air. ‘And it was definitely her handwriting?’ Another slow pace forward …

‘Yes, we all knew that. There was never any doubt about that …’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Me neither.’

There doesn’t seem much to say after that. I thank her, before I hang up. And I mean it. She’s been generous with her time, and her story.

I stay by the phone. I should get on. But I can’t seem to move, a chill pooling at the bottom of my stomach.

It has to be a coincidence.

Brief little notes. No long explanations, no angry justifications, no recriminations. Just short, earnest goodbyes, in their own handwriting. So who could doubt, really, that they meant what they said?

And then, of course, there was the call from Sophie, I remind myself. Nancy never did that.

But a phrase plays in my mind again: ‘But I need to get away.’