Where the Missing Go(69)

But he was getting angry, which was worse. Which is why, in the end, I did what he said. I wrote down just what he wanted, his bland, careful message.

‘Is that all of it?’ I said, about to sign it. I was cross-legged on the mattress, writing propped on a book. And it was then that I saw it, one of the little flowers on the wall panelling behind his head, where he was sitting on the sofa. I’d always liked them. I just drew it, the rose, with its little inner frill of petals, instead of my usual daisy. It was a quick sketch, little more than a doodle.

My stomach fluttered and squeezed as I handed the card over to him.

He didn’t say a thing. He read it carefully, holding it in his gloved hand. I hadn’t taken much of a risk, really. ‘It’ll do,’ he said, slipping it in his jacket pocket, before he left.

‘We’re going to be OK, aren’t we,’ I whispered in Teddy’s ear, after he’d gone. ‘We are, we are, we are.’ For the first time in ages, I felt full of lightness.

Of course, nothing happened. No one came. But it made me feel good to know that I was doing something that he didn’t know about.

So the next time, I did it again, and the next, copying just how they were carved on the wall: the rounded, identical flowers running around the room in a row, their petals arranged in their centres, so they looked like double rosettes.

I didn’t really dare hope it would do anything. And the longer I stayed here, the harder it got to imagine that anyone was even looking for me. Who’d even recognise them? I knew no one came round here any more, that much was obvious. I felt like someone in a fairytale, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that the mice gobble up. But it stopped me despairing, every time he made me send one of those postcards home, lying that I was OK.

And it was more than that: I was doing something he didn’t know about. Rebelling. It was like using a little muscle, that I hadn’t tried for a long time. Practice, maybe. I’m still not sure for what.





38


KATE


I’ll find a window. They can’t be that secure, it’s just wood, old now, warped by rain and heat. I’ll get a hammer if I have to. But first I try the main door to make sure I’m right.

With a trembling finger, I trace the outline of one carved flower: there they are, like I thought: roses. A whole arch of them, dozens, if not a hundred of these stylised flower motifs carved into the stone at Parklands.

Just like on her postcards home.

Sophie put her signature daisy on the first one, just like she always did. When she started changing them, I didn’t understand.

But now I see the roses clearly, understanding her message at last. They’re stamped in the brickwork of the building, too, marching round the boarded-up windows, matching the tiles under my feet; a riot of geometric blooms, everywhere, now that I know. I know they will be inside, too.

I don’t have time to stop, fear urging me on. I push against the double doors with my shoulder, hard. They’re solid, but these hinges are old, metal could rust – the right door gives, just a little. Not that much, but …

I reach out a hand for the door knob and twist. It wasn’t locked.

I step over the piled-up letters, leaving the door open behind me, and stop, waiting for my eyesight to adjust from the brightness of the late summer afternoon outside. The hall is big, panelled in dark wood. The air is cold, that chill that you get in houses that have been closed up too long. The envelopes under my feet spill across the floor, years of circulars, now covered in dust; the postman must have stopped visiting long ago. I smell old paper and dirt. It’s so still.

I walk further in.

Doors circle round this dim central hallway; the stairs to my right, grandly curving round and up to an open landing. I’ll start with the door on my left, standing just slightly ajar, the old-fashioned key still in the lock under the handle; I remember Lily saying they let the rooms, individually.

I push on the heavy dark wood and enter slowly.

There’s a flicker in the corner of the room: a dark shadow creeping forward.

Adrenaline shoots through me. I jerk back, recoiling, and freeze.

The movement stops.

Then I realise, suddenly releasing my hands from my throat: it’s just a mirror, propped in a corner, reflecting my own cautious entrance into the bare room.

I find the light switch now, and flick it on. The bulb flickers on, then with that electric ting, goes off again – it’s blown.

But already I can see better in the darkness. The furniture’s long gone, packed up, or sold; even the wallpaper’s been stripped. Just the plaster detail on the high ceiling hints at the old grandeur of the house. A huge crack running across the mirror, fracturing my reflection, tells me why it wasn’t taken with the rest.

My heart’s still pounding, my body processing the shock. I can’t lie to myself: I’m scared.

I work clockwise around the ground floor: more empty rooms, bare wires poking out of the walls where telephones or lamps have been unplugged, faint oblongs on the walls where pictures once hung. The boarded windows, high on the walls, let chinks of light in round their edges, enough to see. I’ve a mad impulse to tear the boards down, to let fresh air and sunshine into the stale rooms. But it’s easy enough to get into them – the doors are just standing open, the keys still in the locks, like whoever cleared the house out didn’t bother to shut up the emptied rooms behind them.