The Day She Disappeared Page 4

  “Never,” Janine had said, “never.” Then, “I mean, someone did mention a body, I don’t know, I thought it’d be some down-and-out.” Shaking her head. “Come to think of it, he’s not been in, has he?” Glancing at Steve. “Since Beth did her runner.”

  Nat just stood, frozen, not wanting to think about it, at all, any of it. The girls whispering about it in the lane, excited and horrified—but did they care? Just a kid. Ollie: she tried and tried but something had stuck in her brain; all she could picture was his mop of hair, head bent over his glass, Beth nudging and pointing, he’s the shy one. That stuck in her throat. Maybe the girls did care. But then Victor hearing them talk and staggering, keeling over.

  Then Janine had been concerned, in a distracted way. “Ah, bless, old Victor. Well…” She tailed off before she could say something about his having had a good run, which was just as well, as Nat might have lamped her. Janine had a good heart, but she just didn’t bloody think, sometimes. She’d rolled her eyes when Nat had asked if she could get off early—again? unspoken—and looked distinctly put out when Steve had said he’d give her a lift to the hospital, but Nat wasn’t going to think about that.

  She could see Victor from the corridor through some curtains, still motionless on his back under a sheet. They’d said to wait a bit, the consultant was in there. Did all hospitals smell the same? It made her uneasy, to remember sitting on the bed, behind the curtain, taking the pill the nurse had given her. “That’s done with,” she told herself. “This is urgent. Come on, come on.”

  Owen Wilkins was still there: she saw him on his phone at a window, looking down into the car park. Geography teacher trousers, and as he turned at the sound of her, the same look most of Nat’s teachers had had, exasperation at everyone else’s stupidity. He was here, she supposed, which was something. Victor had stuck up for him, but then Victor was kind.

  Wilkins hung up, frowning at her.

  “What’s the news?” she said. “What do they say? Is he going to be all right?”

  Wilkins cleared his throat. “They’re still assuming it was a stroke,” he said, Welsh somewhere faint in his accent. Eyeing her, hostile. “What’s your connection with him?” Rude. A pause. “If I might ask.” Still rude.

  “I’m his friend,” Nat said. “I expect you’ll need to get back sooner or later, won’t you? To your caravan site.” She was angry now. And blurting, finally, “I don’t like to think of him being alone.”

  Wilkins pursed his lips, but before she could get angrier, the curtains around Victor’s cubicle opened and a consultant emerged, gave them a look and turned to walk off. Nat had to hurry after him, practically tugging at his sleeve, but when he did stop he was patient. “Is it a stroke?” she said.

  “It could be just a TIA, transient ischemic attack, meaning it will pass without effect, or it might be more serious,” said the doctor, shoving his glasses up his nose to look at her.

  “I’m a friend,” she said quickly. “He’s … he’s got a daughter, I know that. Sophie. His daughter. They’re very close.” How did she know that? She knew how Victor’s voice changed, down a register, tender, when he talked about Sophie—which was rarely. “Should I contact her?”

  “Mr. Wilkins has offered to do that,” said the consultant. A laminated tag around his neck had a photograph, and his name. Mr. Paget. He was maybe fifty and wore a crumpled shirt and tie. “Have I got that right, is he called Wilkins?”

  Nat turned, but the site manager wasn’t where she’d left him. “Yes,” she said, “Owen Wilkins.”

  “He … is he the manager of the … wherever Mr. Powell lives?” Obviously Mr. Paget had not quite gotten his head around a man like Victor living in a place like the Sunny Slopes, in a mobile home.

  “It’s a caravan site,” she said, feeling the need to be blunt. “Victor’s pretty happy there, as a matter of fact.” She didn’t know if she was sticking up for the place or for proud Victor. He had seemed happy.

  “Well, yes,” said the consultant dubiously, “I don’t know if we can take your word for that. Anyway, we have his daughter’s number too, now.” It sounded ominous.

  He made as if to turn away, frowning, but she said quickly, “Can I … talk to Victor? Or just be with him for a bit?”

  Paget regarded her. “We’ll be taking him for more tests very soon,” he said. “But in the meantime…” He shrugged. “He’ll be glad of the company, I’m sure. No dramas, though.” He leaned down to look into her face. “All right?”

  Pulling gingerly at the cubicle curtain, Nat half expected to see Wilkins in there, but there was only Victor, his old hands folded together on top of a clean blanket. For a second all she could think was that it took this to get him properly looked after. He shouldn’t be on his own, he shouldn’t—but then he made a sound. His breathing seemed quick to her, and she remembered, No dramas.

  “It’s all right, Victor,” she said. “It’s just me. Nat.” She swallowed. “Natalie.”

  She couldn’t ask him anything. She didn’t want to be the one who disturbed whatever equilibrium he’d arrived at. His head turned, minutely. One hand strayed toward her, no more than a centimeter, and without thinking she took it. It was warm, but she could feel the bones under the papery skin. She held it between her hands.

  He was trying to speak, his mouth still lopsided and his tongue working in one corner. His hand fluttered between hers. “No, no,” she said. “Don’t, Victor.” Trying to keep her voice calm. “We’re here. I’m here. And your … Sophie’s coming.” She pulled the chair closer, to see his face. There was an awful slackness to it that made her heart race, so unlike Victor was it, but then she saw his eyes, soft, brown, searching. Alive. He was trying to communicate something to her urgently, something was in there.

  She came even closer, leaning across him a little so he could see square into her face, so there could be no mistaking what she was saying. “It can wait, Victor.” Enunciating carefully, watching for him to understand. “Whatever it is, it can wait.” For a second everything in him seemed to strain, without actually moving, then relax, his head tilting back. “Victor?” she said, alarmed. “Victor?” But he was breathing, he was breathing still, no alarm sounded.

  Then behind her the curtain rattled back and a nurse was coming around her and talking as she came, leaving no pause for an answer, “All right then, Mr. Powell, are we ready, is this your daughter, well, that was quick.” And Nat stepped back.

  A porter came around the curtain to the head of the bed. Nat shook her head when the nurse addressed her directly, asking if she was Sophie, and then the woman, leaning down to shift some lever under the bed, said briskly, “Well, we’ll take it from here then, love. Visiting’s five till seven.” Dismissing her.

  Nat watched the nurse’s broad behind retreating down the corridor alongside the wheeled bed, her hand on Victor’s blanket, tucking, patting, rearranging, her head moving up and down, mechanically reassuring.

  He’s in good hands, Nat told herself, he’s in the right place. But her heart fluttered on, like a bird in her chest. What was it? What did you want to say?

  * * *

  The pub was buzzing when Nat climbed out of the taxi, and cars lined both sides of the lane. Squeezing through the punters, she didn’t have to wonder what had brought them all out for a drink: she lifted the flap and got on the right side of the bar, breathing a sigh of relief for once. The buzz was all about Ollie.

  “You all right, love?” said Steve, sliding someone’s pint across the bar. “How was he then? Poor old sod.”

  She shrugged, not really able to say anything that mattered. “They don’t know yet” was all she came up with, and Steve just nodded, kind. “I’ll get off then,” he said. “Madam’s on her way down, she retired to repair her face. Kid’s out the back, it’s heaving out there.”

  Craig. She grimaced at the thought: Craig had known him. Ollie.

  “All right” was all she said, though, and Steve reached for his jacket
. For a second or two she wondered where he was going, but she didn’t even need to ask the question. Anywhere but here, on a night like this, after a day like this, somewhere cool and quiet, where you could hear yourself think.

  Just a boy. Ollie. Off to see bands with Craig on a Friday night, crawl home stinking of booze in the early hours, still too young for hangovers. It wouldn’t be the same, would it? Not for Craig, for whatever other mates he had. Not for Ollie’s parents. Not ever again.

  Janine clattered down the stairs to catch Steve, planting a lipsticked kiss as he headed out the back before turning, pleased, to Nat. She sobered quickly at Nat’s expression. “I know, I know,” she said. “But it’s an ill wind, or whatever. Look at the place.”

  Keeping her voice lowered, though, and just as well, because although Janine couldn’t see him, Craig was coming through the side door from the garden with a tray loaded with greasy glasses. He looked shaky: catching Nat’s eye on him, he ducked his head.

  “I’m worried about Beth,” Nat muttered, and she saw Janine’s face set, sulky, as if Nat was out to spoil her night.

  “Beth takes care of herself,” she said, reaching for the tray from Craig, dumping the glasses noisily in the sink below the bar and handing it back to him. He retreated the way he’d come but not before Nat had seen his face, pale and sweaty and frightened.

  “Seriously,” said Janine, reaching up to pump a double vodka for someone. “Do you need me to say it again? It’s par for the bloody course, isn’t it? Beth was never exactly Mrs. Commitment. Lads all over the place, she’d follow her fanny to the Outer Hebrides.” Hand out for the punter’s cash, she didn’t bother to keep her voice down now. She slapped the money into the till and folded her arms across her front. “I admit going to see her mum was out of character—but stopping up there for a bloke and dumping us all in the shit weren’t.” She leaned in. “You know what? What surprised me is why she bothered to let us know at all.”

  But the more time passed, Nat thought maybe Janine was more put out than she let on. That evening when Victor had said that about settling down, watching Beth and Janine behind the bar for a moment there, they’d felt like a funny old sort of family: Mum, Dad, big sister, little sister. Victor could even be Granddad in the corner. None of them having the conventional sort of home to go to.

  Wish fulfillment, pure and simple, even if it looked like Janine had fallen for it too. And now where are we? Little sister’s disappeared and Granddad’s in the hospital.

  There was a little stir somewhere in the corner of the room, over by the juke. Still frowning over what Janine had said—because it was surprising, given she hadn’t told her landlady, and what about her stuff—Nat shifted, half unconsciously, to see what it was about. She spotted Kirsty over there, with her mates, a head taller even sitting down, and they were all straining to see someone who’d just come in, the door still closing. Then they hunkered down over their mobiles, busy. Nat tried to see who it was but the room was full of strangers.

  Craig was back with another loaded tray. Janine was already at the other end of the bar, chin up and taking an order for five pints and a blackcurrant shandy, so Nat took it off him this time, cornering him by the sink. “You all right?” she said in an undertone. “He was your mate, wasn’t he? Ollie.” Craig shifted.

  “Yeah,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Not so much lately.”

  Nat supposed that was true. Always a bit of distance between them in the pub, what with Craig being at work, and bussing not being a job you could show off with. Craig was the quiet type too, and if anything quieter when Ollie was around. Ollie would just sit in a corner waiting for Beth to notice him, drinking Red Bull.

  “Do you know anything?” she said. “About what happened.”

  Ollie had been in since Beth went off, Nat remembered now. It seemed important suddenly to get the times straight. Beth had gone on the third of August, and it had been the following week, so it would have been around the eleventh—no, the twelfth, because it had been a Friday. Two weeks ago. He’d sat in his corner, frowning down at his mobile, and Nat remembered feeling sorry for him. She’d had to tell him, she’s gone to see her mum, and he’d looked crestfallen, then tried to cover it up by ordering another drink, like he’d never come in for Beth. He’d been tipsy when he left, a little guy, two halves his limit.

  Craig rubbed his eyes furiously and she put her arm around his shoulders: she had the distinct feeling he wanted to pull away from her, but she held on. “Sorry,” she said. He ducked his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said in a grim monotone. “It felt like we weren’t mates anymore, that’s all.”

  She could see him, little Ollie at the table two weeks ago, frowning down at his mobile the whole evening. “Was it a girl?”

  Craig shrugged again, stiff and resistant under her arm, and reluctantly she let him go. She turned and Craig grabbed the tray and was gone. Janine was at the other end of the bar on her knees ferreting about for chips while her customer wound her up over what flavors he was after.

  “Any chance of some service?” She whipped around, ready to snap, but the voice had been quiet and the face—she liked the face. A big bloke, brown eyes, smiling. Older than her, but not old. “Half of Guinness?” Mildly. “When you’ve got a minute.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Nat saw Kirsty nudging, signaling. She sighed. “Sorry,” she said, reaching for the pump, sticking the glass under it. “It’s bloody mad in here tonight.” She frowned. “Does she know you?”

  An elbow on the bar, relaxed, he turned an inch to examine the girls in the corner and winced. “Well, in a manner of speaking,” he said. “It’s not me they’re after. They’re wondering if I’ve got anyone better-looking waiting for me outside.”

  Nat slid his drink across, not understanding. He elaborated. “I’m a cameraman,” he said, sighing. “I’m working on a production a couple of miles away. I’ve seen them there, they just want a look at our leading man. Just my luck to pick their local.”

  “Autographs?” said Nat, raising an eyebrow.

  “And the rest,” said the cameraman wearily. He held out a hand over the bar. “I’m Bill, Bill Sullivan.” The gesture was so old-fashioned she almost laughed, but instead she shook his hand quickly. Over in the corner the girls’ heads bobbed, but she couldn’t see if they were cracking up.

  “How did you find this place?” Nat said, hands safely back behind the bar. “It’s not exactly on the map.”

  “That’s what I like,” he said. “I did think it might be a bit quieter.” He slid his money across. “As a matter of fact I came because I heard the Bird in Hand had the best-looking barmaid in the county.”

  “Oh, that’s Beth,” she began to say, “she’s—” and then she stopped, because he was looking at her quizzically. And, furious, she felt herself blush. Her hand went up to the short hair at the back of her head as she looked down at the drink she’d poured.

  Bill didn’t seem to notice: he lifted the glass, wiped his lip. “Cheers,” he said. “Can I buy you one?” Politely.

  “Not right now, thanks,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Another time, maybe?” he said.

  The blush evaporated abruptly. Nat didn’t know why she was angry suddenly, but she was. Bloody punters, barmaids fair game. She was thinking, If Beth was here, you wouldn’t be chatting me up. Thinking, You came for her, and you got me.

  “I don’t think so,” she said stiffly, knowing she was overreacting, wishing Beth were there to create a diversion, take the heat off her, make a joke, and she saw his face change, hardly at all but enough. He nodded, tilting his head, watching her a second, then he raised his glass again and turned into the packed room.

  Chapter Five

  Saturday

  In the white morning light Victor rehearsed the words. I’ve never been in a place like this before.

  They’d been around with breakfast, a middle-aged man shuffling with a trolley an
d asking Victor questions he couldn’t answer. Because however much he rehearsed them, the words wouldn’t emerge from his mouth.

  Ninety-two, and I’ve never been in a hospital before. What he was trying to say, of course, was that he didn’t belong here, even now, even at ninety-two. But perhaps he was wrong about that.

  There was a smell of boiled coffee and canteen food, there were sounds all the time, bleeps and alarms going off and murmuring voices, the occasional louder voice. An officer’s voice was how he thought of it, overriding the others. Funny how, seventy years away from the war, certain aspects of it were clear and bright and sparkling as a newly polished glass. That would be the consultant, he assumed, talking louder than the rest. Victor’s senses were sharpened, the present was sharpened as though now was all there was. The now.

  They had left a tray beside his bed: a carton of juice, a plate with toast now cold, a tiny packet of marmalade he couldn’t have opened even before this happened.

  But he could remember the consultant, now he thought about it. Had that been yesterday?

  A nurse appeared, leaning over the bed, looking into his face, a round anxious face, and another thought sprang. The dark barmaid, the older one, the sadder one. He felt his body rise to alert as he reached for her name; she had said it to him, but he couldn’t remember now. Was that all that was frightening him? And all at once the absolute hopeless failure of his body rose to overwhelm him, everything crashing at once, memory, muscle, nerves, words.

  The nurse understood: she knew what was happening. He could see it reflected in her face. “It’s all right, Victor,” she said, and her hands were on either side of him, holding his arms, gently.

  Don’t give up now. Not now. Don’t panic. There were strategies. Victor felt his body settle back under her hands. He felt as though he’d strained every sinew to rise and nothing had happened. He knew what it was that had frightened him, although he couldn’t see it, didn’t want to see it. Didn’t dare. A dark corner in the corridors of his rattled old brain. It was where this had started, the dark that had crept up as he sat on that bench in the sun. He had been going to tell Sophie.