The Lies We Told(38)

Tom dropped his gaze from Clara’s. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said, abruptly getting to his feet. Let’s pay at the bar, shall we?’

Amy Lowe lived in a small house down a cul de sac of 1930s semis. Clara and Mac paused in the front garden for a moment, taking in the broken swing set and stack of roof tiles piled high amongst the weeds. On the chipped front door was a peeling sticker with the words ‘BEWARE OF THE DOG’, illustrated by a toothy Doberman. From inside they could hear the sound of a TV at top volume, a girl’s voice wailing, ‘Mummy he hit me! Jakey hit me, he did! Mummeeeeee!!!’ They glanced at each other and shrugged, before Mac pressed the bell.

A boy of about six answered. He was dressed in a Superman onesie and the small round face below his buzz cut was covered in freckles. He glared at them suspiciously. ‘You selling stuff?’ he asked. ‘Mum says she don’t want any.’

Mac laughed. ‘No. We just want a word with—’

Suddenly Amy came up behind him. ‘Yes?’ she said sharply. ‘Can I help you?’

She’d changed little since her teenage years, Clara thought. A fraction heavier, a few lines here and there, but still the same doll-like eyes, the tousled blond curls, the careless, unassuming attractiveness. Her face cleared. ‘Oh my God!’ she said in a thick Suffolk accent. ‘Mac!’ She smiled then, and for a moment she looked sixteen again, exactly as she had in Luke’s pictures. ‘Haven’t seen you for years! What the bloody hell are you doing here? I thought you lived in London these days?’

‘Hi, Amy, good to see you,’ Mac said. ‘This is Clara, Luke Lawson’s girlfriend.’

At this Amy gave a start of recognition. ‘Yeah,’ she nodded, ‘I saw you on the news, it’s all anyone’s talking about around here.’

‘I’m sorry to turn up out of the blue like this,’ Clara said. ‘I … we wondered if we could have a word with you?’

She frowned in surprise. ‘If you want. Come in.’

They traipsed after her down the narrow hallway, its walls covered in pictures of Amy in a wedding dress next to a chubby, grinning groom, the living room they passed on the way to the kitchen seemingly full of kids crowded around the telly where some kind of Wii tournament was going on. ‘’Scuse the mess,’ Amy muttered. The kitchen was a pleasant, cosy room with lilac walls and a round pine table around which were crammed several chairs. ‘You want a cuppa?’ she asked, removing a pile of washing from the table.

Once they were all sitting down with mugs of tea, she raised her eyebrows questioningly. ‘So what’s all this about then? I told the police when they came before that I hadn’t really spoken to Luke for years. Occasionally I’ll bump into him in the village at Christmas or whatever, but it’s never more than “Hello, how’s it going” or what have you.’

Clara glanced at Mac. ‘We’re trying to build a picture of what Luke was like when he was younger,’ she said cautiously.

Amy blinked at her, nonplussed. ‘Yeah, that’s what the police said, and like I told them—’

‘We’re trying to find out anything we can, to see if we can work out what happened to him,’ Mac said.

‘Right,’ Amy said, still looking mystified. ‘Well, he’s not here, is he?’

There was a silence. This, thought Clara, had been a really bad idea. They must look completely barking mad. Suddenly Mac got up and went over to a photo stuck on the fridge. ‘Shit,’ he laughed. ‘Is this you and Mandy Coombs?’

‘Yeah, that’s us!’ Amy’s smile lit her face once more. ‘Think it was my eighteenth,’ she took the picture down and handed it to him. ‘Still a nutter – see her all the time!’

Clara listened while they reminisced about a club they used to go to in Ipswich. When there was finally a break in the conversation, she asked, ‘Do you have any of Luke and you? Pictures, I mean?’

Something passed across Amy’s face and she turned away. ‘No, I got rid of them years ago.’

‘Oh,’ Clara said. ‘Right …’

Amy shrugged. ‘Past is past. Ancient history, isn’t it?’ She looked at Mac. ‘Sorry, can you keep an ear out for the kids? Just going to have a quick ciggie in the garden.’

When she’d gone, Clara and Mac glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. ‘Maybe we should go,’ Mac said. ‘We’re not going to find out anything here. Guess it was a bit of a long shot …’

But had there been something strange about Amy’s expression, Clara wondered, her desire to leave the room so quickly? ‘Hold on,’ she said.

Following Amy into the garden she found her standing next to a trampoline strewn with toys, shivering while she puffed on a roll-up. Clara smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ she said. ‘I know you and Luke were a long time ago, it’s just … no one knows what happened to him, he’s completely disappeared. The police don’t seem to be getting anywhere, or not that they’re telling me anyway. I’m trying to work out if there’s anyone from his past who might know something.’ She paused and, her voice catching, added, ‘We’re all so worried about him, his mum and dad, Mac, we’re getting desperate.’

Amy’s face softened. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry he’s disappeared, I am, and I hope he’s OK. But it’s not like we kept in touch. I don’t exactly have great memories of my relationship with Luke.’