Then She Was Gone(47)

‘Now?’ she confirms. ‘I can come now?’

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘My name’s Joshua, by the way. Joshua Donnelly.’

‘And I’m Laurel Mack,’ she says. ‘I’ll be there in about half an hour.’

Harlow Road is a turning off the high road, a section of the road that Laurel is more than familiar with after watching the CCTV footage from the day Ellie disappeared so many times on the news. It’s exactly opposite the spot where the car had been parked, the one whose windows Ellie had checked her reflection in.

Number twelve is close to the turning. It’s a tiny house, in a terrace of other tiny houses, with a small cherry tree in the front garden. The house is in a bad state. It looks almost as though nobody lives there.

Joshua Donnelly opens the door wide and steps aside. ‘Come in, Laura,’ he says. ‘Come in.’

‘It’s Laurel,’ she says, ‘like the wreath.’

‘Oh, sure, like the wreath, yeah.’ He pulls the door closed behind her. He’s small and bouncy in oversized jersey joggers and a red and white football shirt. His hair is cut very short and has a small line shaved into it from the hairline. He has an appealing face, almost pretty, and very long eyelashes.

‘You’ll have to excuse the state of the place,’ he says, leading her into the tiny front room. ‘It’s just me and my brother here and we’re not very domesticated.’

The room is furnished with two brown leather sofas and lots of varnished pine furniture. On the walls are framed prints of modern art. Clothes are hanging to dry by the back door and over the backs of chairs. There are some mugs here and there and piles of what looks like college work. But it’s not so bad, considering.

‘So, you’re the sons of Noelle’s …?’

‘Younger brother. Yeah. There’s four of them. Four brothers. And there were two girls but one of them died when she was tiny and the other one was Noelle and God knows what happened to her.’ He takes some textbooks off a sofa and smooths some crumbs on to the floor with the side of his hand, gesturing to Laurel to take a seat. ‘Can I get you anything? Tea? A Coke?’

She sits. ‘No, no, I’m fine, thank you.’

‘Are you sure? It’s no bother.’

‘Honestly. Thank you.’

He clears space for himself on the other sofa and sits down, his knees spread wide, one leg jigging up and down.

‘Did you inherit this place from Noelle?’ she asks.

‘Well, no, I wouldn’t say inherited. The family just kind of absorbed it, y’know? It’s like our personal little hotel for anyone in the family who needs a place in London. And right now that’s me and Sammy, my kid brother.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Since October. I’ve just started on a degree at Goldsmiths. I’ll be here for a few years yet. But there were others here before me. I mean, there are thirteen of us cousins. But we’re not allowed to move anything or touch anything, you know what I mean? We have to keep it as she left it. More or less.’

‘In case she comes back?’

‘Yeah, sure, in case she comes back. Exactly.’

‘And do you think she will?’

‘Ah.’ He shrugs. ‘That’s a question. You know, I never met her? None of us did, us cousins. She was like a ghost member of the family. We’d hear things about her, that she was buying herself a house, that she’d got together with a famous writer, that she was expecting a baby, all of that. But we never, ever met her. Isn’t that crazy?’

He blinks at her, his mouth set into a wide smiling circle, and Laurel agrees. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘yes, that is crazy.’

She looks around the room at the pine shelves full of books and the sun-bleached prints on the walls. ‘So all this,’ she says, ‘the furniture, and the books, this is all Noelle’s?’

‘Yeah, yeah. All of it. I mean, upstairs, in the wardrobes, all her clothes are still there. Seriously. All her underwear and her bits and pieces.’

‘And no one ever packed anything away? It’s all as she left it?’

‘Yeah. Pretty much.’

Laurel feels a shocking urge to run upstairs now and rifle through everything, to upend drawers and search through paperwork. For what? she wonders. What is it she thinks she will find?

‘What do you think happened to your aunt?’ she asks instead.

‘I genuinely don’t have a clue. I mean, she was supposed to be coming over to Ireland, that’s what I was told. And she took her things: her passport, her cards, she packed a bag, some photos. She was clearly going somewhere. But wherever it was it looks like maybe she never got there? Her passport was never used. She hasn’t used her cash card for years.’ He turns his hands palms upward and then places them on his knees. ‘Strange shit.’

‘You know,’ Laurel says lightly, ‘my daughter disappeared.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Joshua sits forward, his interest piqued.

‘She disappeared in 2005. And the last place my daughter was seen alive was there.’ She points towards Stroud Green Road. ‘Just there. Opposite the Red Cross shop. On CCTV.’

He narrows his eyes at her and they sit in silence for a moment.

Laurel wonders how far she can push this personable young man before he goes on the defence. ‘Poppy,’ she says, ‘your cousin. Have you met her?’