Then She Was Gone(60)

Ellie still carried round the raw wound in the pit of her belly, the place where her mother lived. Constantly, she pictured her mother alone at home, touching Ellie’s things, lying down with her face pressed against Ellie’s pillow, circling an empty trolley around a supermarket, black-faced and wondering why why why her perfect girl – because Laurel had always made it abundantly clear to Ellie that she perceived her as such – had gone and left them.

She’d picture Hanna, too, her infuriating big sister, always trying to pinch brownie points from her, always snatching back little chunks of Ellie’s glory with barbed comments that she didn’t even mean. How would she be feeling now, now that Ellie was gone and she had no one left to play out her childish power struggle with? She would be hurting. She would be blaming herself. Ellie wanted to reach through the walls of this house and into hers, place her arms around her sister’s body and hold her tight and say, I know you love me. I know you do. Please don’t blame yourself.

And her father? She couldn’t think about her father. Every time he came to mind she saw him in his towelling gown, with bed hair. She saw the softness of his morning stubble, his bare feet, his hand reaching up to pluck the coffee jug from the shelf in the kitchen. That was how her father existed now to her, trapped in an amber tomb in his dressing gown. And Jake – she saw Jake as a free spirit, she saw him when he was a young boy, in the garden, playing football, slouching to school in his oversized blazer, a weighty school bag slung across his small boy body, picking up his pace at the sight of his friends up ahead.

And it was surprising to Ellie how little she thought about Theo during those first few days of captivity. Before Noelle had taken her she’d thought about him virtually every living moment of every living day. But now her family had taken centre stage. She missed Theo but she needed her family. Ached for them. Curled herself into a ball with her hands pressed hard into her stomach and cried for them.

Ellie’s days were longer than twenty-four hours. Each hour felt like twenty-four hours. Each minute felt like thirty. Dark came late at this time of year and the sun rose early and the time in between was spent in a violent swirl of dreams and nightmares, twisted bed sheets and sweat-drenched pillows.

‘I want to go home,’ she said to Noelle one morning when she came to deliver her breakfast.

‘I know you do. I know.’ Noelle squeezed Ellie’s shoulder. ‘And I’m sorry about all this. I truly am. I’m trying to make this as nice for you as I possibly can. You can see, can’t you, you can see the effort I’m making? The money I’m spending? You know, I’m going without myself to pay for you.’

‘But if you let me go home you wouldn’t have to pay for me. You could just go somewhere and I’d never tell anyone it was you. I’d just be so happy to be home, that’s all I’d care about. I wouldn’t tell the police, I wouldn’t …’

And then crash.

The back of Noelle’s hand hard and sharp across Ellie’s cheek.

‘Enough,’ she said, her voice still and hard. ‘Enough. There’ll be no going home until I say. You need to stop with your talk of going home. Do you understand?’

Ellie held the back of her hand to her cheek, rolled the cool flesh across the red sting of Noelle’s knuckles. She nodded.

‘Good girl.’

Noelle went out that night and Ellie awoke in the dark, confused by the sound of heavy footsteps down the basement stairs.

‘Ah, did I wake you?’

Noelle was in the room. She swayed slightly in the doorway, before clicking it shut behind her and locking it.

Ellie sat up straight, clutched her racing heart. Noelle looked strange. She was wearing an awful lot of make-up, some of which had been rubbed away. One eye had more eye shadow than the other. There was a black smudge by her cheekbone. And she was dressed very smartly: a shiny black blouse with fitted black trousers and some high-heeled shoes. She had a single gold hoop in one earlobe.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, edging towards Ellie. ‘I didn’t realise how late it was. I’ve had a bit to drink and you know how the time just rolls itself up when you’ve had a few jars.’

Ellie shook her head.

‘No,’ said Noelle, perching herself on the side of Ellie’s bed. ‘Of course you don’t. You’re just a girl.’

She smiled and Ellie could see a blackish stain on her teeth.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me where I’ve been?’

Ellie shrugged.

‘I’ve been to my boyfriend’s flat,’ she said. ‘Did I tell you I have a boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘I bet you can’t believe it, can you? Boring old Noelle the tutor. Having a boyfriend. I mean, he’s not a patch on your fella. Obviously not. But he’s a god to me. Cleverest human being I’ve ever met. No idea what he sees in me, of course.’

‘You look very nice tonight,’ said Ellie, obsequious in the wake of Noelle’s slap to her cheek earlier on.

Noelle glanced at her. ‘Oh, you little sweetie. I do not. But thank you.’

Ellie smiled tightly.

‘Anyway, how has your evening been?’

Ellie shrugged and said, ‘OK.’

Noelle glanced around the room then and sighed. ‘I was thinking maybe I could fix you up with a TV and a DVD player. You can get one of those little all-in-one things for next to nothing these days. It might mean less treats and what have you for a while. But better than staring at these four walls for hours on end. What do you think?’