Where the Missing Go(56)

‘Was that my grandpa?’ I remember saying. ‘Was that him?’

He didn’t answer, just kept driving, as I tried to calm myself down.

He’d always ignored my questions, like he never even heard me. He prefers to tell me things – to teach me. It was one of the things I liked about him, at first. I thought he was so clever, so certain about what everyone should do, and what everyone was getting wrong. The banks, politicians, teachers, my parents. Me.

But this time I kept talking: ‘Why did you do that? That was him, I know it.’ I was almost crying, my voice getting higher. ‘Is he OK? He looked so … so old.’

He turned in his seat to look at me, his face furious.

‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘I mean it.’

I stared at him, open-mouthed. He never spoke to me like that.

‘You knew what this would mean.’ Then his voice softened, as his eyes returned to the road. ‘We’ve both had to make sacrifices. But isn’t this enough, what we’ve got together?’

I didn’t know what to say. ‘It is,’ I stuttered. ‘More than enough.’ I just wanted him to go back to normal, like he’d been before. ‘Honestly, it was a shock, that’s all.’

He needed so much reassurance. I leant forward between the seats and put my hand over his, tense on his thigh, and felt it stiffen then relax. ‘You’re more than enough. I promise.’

After that, the trips outside stopped. Not forever, he said. Just until it was safe.

‘Look what happened,’ he said. ‘It only upsets us both.’

It’s you who took me there, I thought. But of course I didn’t say that.





28


KATE


‘Amberton Garage, how can I help?’

‘Danny?’

‘Who’s this?’

In a rush I say: ‘Danny, it’s Kate Harlow. Please don’t hang up.’

Silence, then: ‘Are you kidding me? What do you want?’

‘Danny, I am so, so sorry you’ve got mixed up in all this – and I am trying to sort it out, really I am. But I need to know: that car that you saw picking Sophie up, when you thought it was her dad—’

‘You’re asking me about cars now?’ his voice skitters higher. ‘Do you know the police had me in again, about Sophie? Holly got really upset. You’ve got to stop this, it’s not fair, it’s—’

‘Danny, I know. And I believe you now, I do: you didn’t get Sophie pregnant.’ As I say it I realise it’s more than me trying to get him to stay on the line, I mean it. ‘And I know it sounds odd, but please. This thing about the car – I just, I need to know – why did you think that it was Sophie’s dad?’

I’m waiting for him hang up. But he says, more calmly: ‘I don’t know. Well, he was old. And when I asked her, she got embarrassed. Y’know, I teased her a little bit, about her dad still picking her up.’

‘I get it – and what did he look like?’

‘I dunno. Old. Like a … dad. Like he could be her dad.’

I roll my eyes – teenagers. ‘Anything else? Glasses? A beard? His hair colour?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t remember. I didn’t go and say hello.’

‘And this car?’

‘I don’t remember.’

I wince. Come on, Danny. ‘Maybe not the model, don’t worry about that. But you know all about cars. What about the colour, can you picture that?’

‘Well,’ he says hesitantly. ‘Black, maybe, or navy. Dark. Yes, it was dark. Smart.’

I lean against the wall. So it definitely wasn’t Mark. Mark always goes for light colours, pale metallics – silver, beige, one year that horrible gold.

‘Why?’ Danny says now. ‘Do you think – this guy did something?’ His voice is smaller now, fearful. He’s not that old, I think. He’s had a lot to deal with.

‘I think he knows something. I’ve got to go now. And thank you, Danny. I mean it.’

So some guy, someone older, not her dad, picked her up. And someone was emailing her secretly. Are they one and the same? ‘I can’t wait.’

An older man. Too old for Sophie, so they had to be a secret. A secret that he’s managed to protect, until now. Until Holly told me about the pregnancy test, and I started asking questions.

I start walking, pacing up and down the kitchen, the nervous energy forcing me to move.

But what about Nancy? How does that play into this? Am I imagining it, seeing a link, when there’s nothing there but a resemblance between two girls, separated by decades, and a chance stray phrase? Then there’s this boyfriend of hers … Jay. The one they questioned, then he moved away.

He’d be old now too, to a teenager like Danny.

That’s ridiculous. The whole Nancy thing.

The only reason I’m even thinking about Nancy, the only reason I even know about her, is because of Lily, who barely seems to know what day it is nowadays.

‘Nancy was the other one, then … I get a bit confused these days, don’t I?’

I’m picturing her now: Lily pretending not to know about Nancy: ‘No dear. I hope I haven’t forgotten again.’ Not seeming upset to have let that slip her memory, not at all.