The Day She Disappeared Read online

  There was a man with blood on his arm, coming out of the darkness. Someone sitting down to talk to him on the bench in the sun, girls chattering like birds about a body in the weir. A boy’s body caught in the sluice, like a rabbit.

  There was the ambulance ride. Victor had lain as though in a box, feeling the bumping underneath him, his body shifting, a strange man sitting beside him, and the last he’d seen of the real world was her face through the ambulance doors. Natalie. Nat. In his chest something swelled, released, joy, at remembering. The strange man wasn’t a stranger, either, was he? Owen. Wilkins.

  He tried to sit up, but her hands were still there. Something did move, though, something quivered, the right arm, tired but willing, and he saw surprise in the nurse’s face. She sat back, releasing him. Her name was on a tab on her breast, he stared but the letters jumbled. An S, an A. Laboriously he focused. Lisa. Lisa frowned at the uneaten breakfast and made a sound of exasperation; she said something under her breath.

  “We’ll get you something you can eat, Victor,” she said. “When the consultant’s been round, when he’s said if you need … more tests.”

  I can’t eat if they’re going to operate, Victor intended to say to stop her worrying. I’ve watched enough telly to know that. No words came out—but he could see, she knew. If he could only smile at her. He was smiling as hard as he could but all that happened was that one corner of his mouth trembled, there was a trickle he couldn’t dab away. He closed his eyes to stop the feeling that gave him. He tried to focus in the dark on that shining point.

  Where was she? Where was Sophie? Victor didn’t want to cause her trouble, but somehow he felt she should be here by now. If she knew, nothing would prevent Sophie from coming, his kind, small Sophie. A trembling set up somewhere deep inside him, that he tried, and failed, to subdue; it was as though the man with blood on his hands and his Sophie were in dangerous proximity, there in his muddled, misfiring brain.

  “It won’t be long, Victor,” said the nurse, as if she knew. “Not long now.”

  Thank you, Lisa, he said, in his head. You’re very kind.

  But then her meaning broke free and floated, translucent in the white light of the hospital morning. I may die, thought Victor, before I see my Sophie again. For a second he felt perfectly calm.

  And then he thought, No.

  * * *

  It was in the paper.

  He stood in the newsagent’s shop on the concourse with it in his hands, reading the front page. He could see the tiny tremor he transmitted to the pages—excitement, not nerves. The rush, and “rush” was just the word, he could feel it in his veins, fast water through a sluice. Roaring. No one else could see it, and he liked that. He turned for the cash desk because the fat jobsworth behind the till would say something if he stood there reading for free, and he didn’t know what he would do then. His hands at her fat throat.

  Took his time, selected the exact change, smallest coins he could find, standing between the chewing gum stand and the special offer, bar of chocolate plus bottle of water one pound. The fat woman eating chocolate bars when the customers’ backs are turned, you can bet on it, breaking out in spots. A line of acne on her cheek: the memory of that and he felt a sound in his throat, waiting to be let out. And all the time the headline sat between them on the counter. He had turned it so the fat woman behind the till could read it. A secret sign: he willed her to look but she was punching the computerized till with her pudgy fingers, peep, peep, ping. The drawer opened, the cash went in, and then he saw her pause, saw her look.

  BODY FOUND IN LOCK. LOCAL YOUTH IDENTIFIED AS VICTIM. Smaller lettering. “Not misadventure,” says DI.

  He would have liked something bigger, bolder, a screaming headline. The photograph showed a police tent among the dusty reeds, and he would have liked to have seen the body—to make the fat woman look at it. I did that. The ankles tied, the swollen face. He felt her look up, but he just turned the paper slowly, folded it, and only then did he raise his eyes to hers, smile, take the receipt she held out.

  I got him down there. The bloody rags for tying him kept safe, folded carefully in plastic in his pocket, her DNA on another one of her men. Just what the boy had always wanted, and a little hint they’d be too stupid to understand, into the bargain. The stupid police.

  “Cheers, darling,” he said, to see the shadow cross her face, to see her unsure. To see her understand something, without knowing.

  Their bodies in his hands. I did that.

  She had sold herself to him as a loner, no ties, no obligations, free agent, here today, gone tomorrow. She had had a friend, though, hadn’t she. And walking back out of the door with the newspaper in his hand and knowing the fat woman was watching him go, he let the friend materialize behind his eyes, growing, as he stared down at the headline. She was smaller, darker. Quicker on her feet maybe. But not quick enough.

  * * *

  The pub was quiet. It was early still, but Nat could tell it was going to be one of those days, the morning after the night before.

  There’d been too much going on for closing time to come easily, the feeding frenzy that wasn’t all to do with some kid’s body found a mile away. Janine had spent twenty minutes bellowing, turfing them out of their dark corners. Haven’t you got homes to go to, and sometimes that phrase had a nasty ring to it, sometimes it made Nat think, No doubt, I’ve got to get out of this place.

  Some of them had hung around smoking in the garden, on the doorstep, even once the doors had been bolted on them: teenagers from the campsite, barely old enough to drink, some bikers from up north, a handful of Dutch students off the ferry. There had been no sign of anyone she recognized as a friend of Ollie’s. She’d caught Craig standing in the door into the bar’s kitchen, swaying with tiredness, scanning the room, hollow-eyed. Janine had packed him off at ten; even she could see the lad was shattered.

  Now Paddy was in, drinking bitter lemon in the gloom and reading the local newspaper, but otherwise the bar was empty.

  Nat had her laptop on the counter next to a mug of coffee and was googling, her search terms all the names she could think of for Beth’s mum, plus Otley. It was at least half about finding Beth, although the search seemed redundant this morning, the whole village having more to think about. A mile-wide radius around the house where Ollie had lived with his parents—two villages away, inland—might as well have been radioactive, no one would be going that way any time soon.

  The other half was diversionary tactic. It nagged at her: this isn’t about her, it’s about you. You’ve messed up, not just your life but Jim’s too. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to face it. Get things straightened out.

  The doorbell had rung at seven thirty, not the kind of ring the postman makes, either, nothing polite or tentative about it but someone standing on the bellpush until it shrieked, and with no intention of getting off. Nat had known who it would be, even before she leaned out of the window, wrapped in a sheet. Oh, Jim. And it came down on her, like a great crushing weight, sadness all mixed up with anger. I can’t. I can’t.

  Not content with phoning her at crack of dawn to see if she’d dragged someone home, he wanted to see for himself. As she clumped down the stairs, the anger came to the fore, anger like a child’s. And she felt like telling him there was someone in her bed. With tattoos and a shotgun.

  It was only as she reached to unlatch the front door that Nat, with a small shock, remembered the cameraman. She could have, they could have. Then she saw Jim’s face and she felt it all depart like air from a balloon. “For Christ’s sake, Jim,” she said, unhappily, as he almost fell into the hallway, reaching blindly with his head for her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes red. “I’m sorry.”

  He wasn’t exactly sorry, though, like people often aren’t. There was a thin layer of sorry laid over something nastier. There had been a moment as she stepped back into the hall to let him in, a moment when she got a whiff of that, sweat a
nd desperation, and she had to tell herself, this is just Jim. Jim you’ve known since you were a kid, Jim you woke up next to every day for five, nearly six years, it’s OK. Just Jim. Poor Jim, not all his fault.

  Nat had made him coffee in the kitchen, making him sit down. She told herself, if he starts on about it, he’s out.

  He started on about it.

  “I didn’t give you the space,” he said, staring down into the mug. His hair was standing up stiff like he hadn’t washed it in days, weeks. “Now it’s done, I think, we could have made a go of it. I mean, people do. Does anyone think they’re ready to be a parent?”

  Nat felt it sour in her throat, she felt it hammer at her head, there, where the bone was thin at the temples. She wanted to scream, You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know how this feels. I can’t undo it. “No,” she managed, rusty-voiced. “No. I know.”

  But it’s too late. It’s too late. We didn’t understand. I didn’t.

  Jim looked up at her, his eyes sore-looking, red-rimmed, bright blue, his hands cupped around the mug. And then he said it. “You’ve moved on, though.”

  It wasn’t so much the words, though she could have laughed at how far they were from the truth. It was the undertone: ragged, gravelly, on the brink of rage. He never used to be angry. She held herself very still, on instinct. This could go wrong. She knew he needed her to tell him it was all right, to tell him they could try again. But she needed to save herself.

  “I haven’t moved on, Jim,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m coming back, either. I can’t be near you, I can’t—”

  And then, jerkily, Jim was on his feet; Nat had stepped back quickly on the same instinct that had kept her still. The mug tipped and rolled on the table, the hot liquid spreading, dripping onto the flagstones.

  She hadn’t dared even say it, she’d just crossed her arms across her body to protect herself and somehow the gesture had stopped him in his tracks, then turned him around and he was gone, the door swinging behind him. And Nat had stood there alone in the green shifting morning light, knowing that it wasn’t sorted, not by a long long way.

  How did you leave someone you’d known since you were twelve? When you could see how much it hurt. She had no idea. She was going to have to find out.

  By eleven thirty things had livened up a bit, half a dozen customers and another few outside in the lane. Nat had shifted the computer under the bar because Janine was downstairs and breezing in and out, singing under her breath. Steve had gone off somewhere for the night, but wherever it was hadn’t been on Janine’s radar as a cause for concern, and anyway he’d be back that evening. That was why she was singing.

  A car pulled up outside the pub, something with a big engine. Paddy, in for light refreshment and a bit of silent company, raised his head from the paper a moment. He ran a hand through his rumpled hair and darted a glance at her, his blue eyes, surprisingly bright in the tanned face, lingering, then looking away.

  Paddy knew what she was looking for: he knew the questions she’d been asking about Beth. Probably most of the punters did, the regulars, anyway, she supposed she’d mentioned it to anyone who’d listen. And one or two of them had asked even that morning, where’s the one with the big … the big brown eyes? Not even using her name, just the old joke about her boobs.

  Unless it was Jim he was thinking about; Jim who could have turned up at the yard in any kind of state this morning. No wonder he was up here to read the paper.

  Outside, a heavy car door slammed, and before Nat could look up from the computer screen, Jonathan Dowd was in the bar. He looked, if anything, even more unhappy than he had the previous week, when Janine had patted him briskly on the hand and told him never mind, plenty more fish in the sea, and what was he drinking.

  Janine had expected him just to suck it up, move on. Not all men did move on, though. Jim, for one. Jonathan Dowd walked heavily up to the bar, and after a bit of frowning, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing there, settled on an orange juice. He seemed to have gotten thinner since she last saw him, the regular features she’d thought handsome turned gaunt. He hesitated as if about to ask something, but then Janine breezed back inside and instead he dodged across to the table where Paddy sat. They nodded to each other, then both made that little shift on their stools that would allow them to ignore each other.

  A dad came in with a little kid and took her out to the garden at the back. Two of the previous night’s bikers, bleary-eyed and wanting a hair of the dog, shambled through the door. As she pulled pints and loaded trays and filled the dishwasher, Nat kept looking across at Dowd: his orange juice barely touched, he sat with his hands loose on his knees. Then there was a lull and Janine was upstairs doing something in the bedroom and on impulse Nat slipped over to where Dowd was sitting. Paddy shifted farther down.

  “I do think there’s something funny about it,” Nat said, launching straight in. Dowd raised his eyes to hers, wary. “About Beth disappearing,” she added, and he nodded as if he’d known. “She left her stuff behind. The landlady came and told us.” She saw him go still, unhappiness turning into something else, more like panic. He put his head in his hands.

  “What is it you do, um, Jonathan?” Nat asked, more in an attempt to comfort him than anything else. “You’re camping down the estuary, aren’t you?” She had some idea—from Beth?—that it was some eco-project.

  “Living off-grid,” Dowd corrected her, saying dully, “I’m collecting samples from the water. Monitoring the algae—” He broke off then, with a slightly impatient look, at having to explain. “I can get … closer, that way. To the work, I mean, to the river. I’m not so keen on … well. Campsites are noisy. I’ve got a generator, for the refrigeration. The samples need refrigeration.” Brushing her off, he was a funny mixture, she’d seen it before. On the spectrum, was that what they called it these days? Arrogant and shy at the same time, anyway.

  “Look,” said Nat, on impulse, “come on.” She took hold of his arm, feeling him stiffen. “I’m trying to find her mum’s number. At least it’s doing something, you can help me.” Reluctantly he got to his feet and followed her: him one side of the bar, her another, and the laptop between them. At midday Craig came in, slipping past Nat into the kitchen to get started on making up rolls for lunch, just giving them a nervous glance. Janine’s footsteps audible overhead—what was she up to? Scattering rose petals on the pillow? All sorts of pampering went on now Steve was on the scene, at all hours, like she had turned into some film star. At one point she called down to see if she was needed, but the bikers had drifted off, the dad in the garden was making his pint last.

  “’S fine,” Nat shouted back up, but the bubble bath was already running.

  They were trawling through online search results when they got somewhere finally—because Dowd said Beth had told him once she had a cousin who ran a florist’s in Otley. “Called Gorgeous,” Dowd muttered, sheepish. “Beth liked that. It was what the cousin’s boyfriend called her.” Nat gave him a sidelong glance, wondering how that came up in conversation; she couldn’t imagine him calling anyone gorgeous, or darling, or sweetheart for that matter. He avoided her eye. She called the number.

  Even though Nat realized—as the phone began to ring—that she had no name for the cousin beyond gorgeous, they hit lucky.

  “Mimi,” the shop’s owner said, promptly, as if customers phoned asking her name all the time. “Michelle. What’s she got up to now, then?” She sounded amused, fond. “Little Beth.”

  “Just … well, we’re not sure,” said Nat. “She’s done a bunk. We’re trying to get hold of her mum.”

  “On the run again, is she?” said Mimi, and before Nat could reply, she bellowed something—No, cellophane, they want cellophane—before returning to the receiver, impatient. “I haven’t seen her, if that’s what you’re asking. Not in five years.”

  “Did you fall out?”

  “What? No, no—she never gave you a chance to fal
l out, she’d just disappear, off to pastures new.” There was a tiny pause, and when Mimi spoke she was almost wistful. “I don’t know that I’d be helping you if you were a man asking. Always hiding from some bloke or other. Kiss the boys and make them cry, that was our Beth.” Then she sighed. “Hold up. I’ve got a number somewhere. What’s she called these days, Jackson, Johnson, something like that?”

  Beth’s mum was called Johnson at last count, and she lived in Cornwall. Truro.

  “Cornwall?” Dowd’s head jerked up, at the sound of Nat’s voice, perhaps. She could hear the fear in it herself because why would Beth have texted that she was up north, then? She was thanking Mimi when Janine finally emerged, in a warm cloud of bath bombs and scented candles. Something about the sight of Nat and Dowd, flushed and on either side of a laptop, made her eyes narrow.

  “Can I see those texts?” Nat said quickly. Janine frowned. “The ones from Beth? Saying where she was going.”

  Janine reached up and took her phone down from the shelf above the spirits. “What’s up?” she said. “Who was that on the phone?” She stared down at the phone for a bit with pursed lips, then looked up and said, “I must have deleted them.” Apologetic, then defensive. “Well, I was pissed off with her, wasn’t I?”

  Nat sighed, looking down at her own phone, where she’d tapped in the number Mimi had given her. “All right,” she said, and taking a deep breath, she dialed.

  Listening to the phone ringing, did she have an idea of what Beth’s mother was going to be like? Some kind of old hippie chick like Nat’s own mother Patty off sunning herself in Spain, laughter lines from her hairline to her cleavage but happy enough. Nat felt her shoulders sag a little at the thought of her mum, painted toenails, going around the supermarket in a caftan. “Come and visit,” she’d say gaily. “What you waiting for?”

  Waiting for the latest bloke to be off the scene, maybe. Waiting to have some good news like I’ve got a proper job, I’ve got my own place. Not I think it’s over with Jim, Mum. Not I’ve done something, Mum …