Then She Vanishes(17)

‘Oh, Margot.’ I get up and, without even thinking about it, I put my arms around her. She still smells exactly as she used to all those years ago. Yardley perfume mixed with saddle leather. I breathe her in, remembering a time when I was still only twelve and on my first sleepover with Heather. I’d woken up, sweating and agitated, after a dream about my dad. I’d been upset, the divorce still too fresh, and I missed Dad, who had disappeared back to his job on the oil rigs, never bothering to keep in touch. Margot must have heard my crying because she’d come into the bedroom wearing a purple dressing-gown and she’d hugged me, my face nuzzled against the soft velour. I’d felt safe in her warm arms and reassured. I’d instantly calmed down and fallen back to sleep. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say to her now, the irony not lost on me that I’m the one comforting her. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

As I drive along Tilby’s high street a deep sadness descends upon me. The pavements are sleek with rain but I can almost see Heather and Flora hunched together, laughing. Once on our walk home – when I was finally allowed into their inner sanctum – we could hardly put one foot in front of the other as we doubled up with laughter after a car drove past, dousing us with rainwater so that our skirts were drenched. I remember running through the fields to their house, the mud splashing up our legs and over our white socks, then drying off with old towels in our favourite barn – the one where Heather was found at death’s door.

I should be feeling ecstatic. I have no doubt that Adam and Margot will agree to talk to me now, which could be a turning point for my career, and Ted will be overjoyed – but I can’t stop thinking about them, most of all Margot. Seeing her again, meeting Adam and little Ethan has stirred everything up. As a teenager I was more than a little obsessed with the family. I never got to meet Heather’s dad as he’d died a few years previously, before they moved to Tilby, but her uncle – Margot’s younger brother, Leo – was always there. A handsome, jovial guy with the same thick, dark hair as Margot used to have and twinkly green eyes.

I’d been more than a little envious of them, really, Heather and Flora. Being an only child, I’d always wanted an older sister. And they seemed so close.

They had everything – or so I thought then. Even, later, when I got to know them better, when Heather became my best friend, Flora still remained that glamorous enigma.

And then, in August 1994, sixteen-year-old Flora Powell disappeared.





9




August 1994


Flora grabbed her sister’s hand in a sudden rush of excitement. The fair had come to Tilby and it was the most thrilling thing that had happened in their boring little town all year. More amazingly still, their mother had allowed them to go. In the evening. Without her or Uncle Leo tagging along.

Different tunes clashed together so all that was discernible was the heavy beat of the drums. Lights flashed from the rides and laughter rang out in the normally empty field. The sweet scent of candyfloss was heavy in the air, mixed with something else, roasted meat, perhaps. Heather glanced at her sister, seeming unsure. Heather was only fourteen and this was the first time she’d been allowed to go to the fair at night without her mother. Unknown to her, Flora had snuck out last year when everyone was asleep. She’d been brave enough then to go to the edge of the caravan park and watch from that safe distance as the lights of the Big Wheel dazzled and the thump of music floated through the night.

But this year was different. This year Flora had turned sixteen. She was practically an adult. Plus she wanted to meet him.

She didn’t know his name. But she’d bumped into him on the high street yesterday when she was in Gateway getting some shopping for her mum. She’d spotted the flyers attached to lampposts and nailed to fences. The Smithwick travelling fair was back for its second year. It meant the town was flooded with new blood and she, for one, couldn’t be more ecstatic. She was fed up with the boys in her year at school and it wouldn’t be any different in September, even though she’d be in the sixth form. They either followed her around trying to twang her bra strap or they hurled offensive remarks at her, words like ‘dyke’ and ‘frigid’, just because she didn’t fancy any of them. She hated walking past them where they all seemed to congregate at the clock tower, drinking Diamond White and smoking, trying to look hard. She didn’t find any of them attractive or cool.

Flora had been leaving the supermarket, the handle of the plastic carrier bag digging into the flesh of her forearm, when they almost collided. She could tell straight away that he wasn’t a local by the dark hair that touched the collar of his patterned psychedelic shirt and his tanned face. No boys in Tilby would dare to dress to stand out, scared they might get beaten up. He was older than her by a couple of years at least, and when his sea-blue eyes met hers, she actually felt butterflies flutter in her stomach.

‘Oops, sorry,’ he said, in an accent she couldn’t quite place. London, perhaps. Definitely not West Country. ‘Nearly sent you flying.’ His eyes swept over her long black skirt with the tasselled hem, her lacy cream blouse, the many chains around her neck and her DM boots. And then he gave an audacious whistle. ‘Actually, I take that back. I’m not sorry at all. You look like a beautiful gypsy girl.’

Flora had blushed, not knowing what to say or how to react. Instead she muttered something about having to go and scurried past him down the street, but he called after her: ‘Come to the fair tomorrow night. I’m working on the Waltzers there. I’ll look out for you, Gypsy Girl.’ She’d grinned to herself as she hotfooted home, her cheeks still burning in the breeze.