Then She Vanishes(34)

‘Jessica?’ She knows it’s her. She just needs to be sure someone else – maybe another journalist – hasn’t got hold of the phone. She still can’t quite believe she’s doing this.

‘Margot! Hi. Thank you so much for ringing,’ says Jessica. She sounds like she’s somewhere echoey.

‘I’m …’ Margot hesitates ‘… I’ve been thinking about what you said. Yesterday. If I gave you an exclusive, would everybody else leave us alone?’

‘I promise you they will,’ Jessica says. ‘And if they don’t, call me. I’ll come over and tell them where to go.’

She laughs, sounding so like the girl who used to stay with them all those years ago that Margot can’t help but smile. But just as quickly she remembers that Jessica is a journalist now. And that she hurt her precious Heather. She puts up the barriers again. ‘Adam doesn’t want me to do it.’

Jessica pauses. ‘Okay. But I promise you and Adam will get copy approval before anything is printed.’

Margot shuffles in her seat. Her back aches. She spent too long out with the horses after visiting Heather earlier, then that jaunt across the field. She turns sixty next year, and keeps forgetting she’s not thirty any more. She’d cleaned one of the static caravans, too, as a family wants to rent it this weekend. It smelt strongly of dog and there was a wee stain on the lino so Margot had had to get down on her hands and knees and bleach and scrub until it was spotless. During the summer months she has a cleaner, but in the off season she wants to save the money. And then the whole thing with Ruthgow. It’s too much. It’s all just too much.

She sighs. ‘Okay. Fine. Can you come over tomorrow? I’d rather do it face to face, if you don’t mind.’

Jessica sounds thrilled and Margot feels the familiar lurch in her stomach. Can she trust her?

They arrange a time for the next day and Margot hangs up. She sits for a while longer, staring at the phone in her hand, wondering if she’s made a huge mistake by allowing Jessica Fox back into her life.





19


I’m feeling cold now. Too cold. It doesn’t matter how many blankets I’m swathed in, I can’t stop shivering. Your face flashes through my mind, as well as Dylan’s, Uncle Leo’s, Jess’s.

Jess.

In my mind she’s still the same fourteen-year-old. More or less neglected by her own mother and so desperate for attention from ours. I could never blame her for that. She thinks nobody knows about the secret she’s kept to herself all these years.

But she’s wrong.





20




Jess


I hardly slept last night for worrying about what I’d told Jack. Could Wayne Walker really have found me here? I wasn’t imagining it last night when I noticed that light in the derelict building opposite. Was someone in there, watching my movements?

I have to be honest with Rory. Jack’s right about that. He’s been so good to me. He deserves better. Tonight. I’ll tell him tonight. I’ll cook dinner for a change. I’ll make an effort.

And in the meantime I need to see Margot.

Ted was ecstatic when I told him this morning that Margot had agreed to an exclusive interview. He didn’t show it, of course. That’s not his way. But I could tell by the shine in his eyes and the way his chewing slowed down, the gum moving around his mouth less frantically than normal. He told me to take Jack and get as many photos as possible. ‘And if you can get some of Margot’s personal ones of Heather growing up that would be even better.’

I told Margot on the phone last night that I’d be there at noon. She wanted to go to the hospital to see Heather first thing, she’d said. But at eleven Jack still hasn’t turned up for work. I text him, mentioning that Margot has agreed to talk, but when there’s no response I ring his mobile. In desperation I leave my desk to find Ellie, the trainee.

She’s on a computer in the corner uploading press releases onto the Herald’s decrepit website. It’s supposed to be updated daily, but Ted hates anything too technical and because it’s so out of date hardly anybody reads it. Ellie has sprayed the ends of her brown hair blue today. Usually it’s pink. The odd occasion it’s been green. I ask her if she’s seen or heard from Jack yet today, but she shakes her head, without looking up from the keyboard.

Seth is painstakingly sorting through photos in his side room. I go up to him and stand in front of his desk. He looks up and smiles kindly, pushing his black-framed glasses further onto his face. ‘You all right, girl?’ He calls everyone ‘girl’. Even Sue. But nobody is ever offended. If Ted said it, or Jack, it would come across as condescending. But Seth is old-school. A Cockney who worked in Fleet Street back in the day. Getting on for seventy now, he should have retired long ago but he loves his job. And it’s not as if he goes around brushing up against us or slapping our arses. Even Ellie, twenty-three and a staunch feminist, doesn’t seem to mind. In fact she calls him ‘Pops’ in retaliation, and he loves it.

‘Just wondering if you’ve heard from Jack. I’ve tried to call his mobile but it goes straight to voicemail.’

Seth glances at the clock on the wall, his brow furrowed. ‘No. Now you mention it I haven’t. He’s never late.’