Looking for JJ (20 page)

Her mum didn’t come in until six. The front door banged shut and Jennifer sat tensely. Her mum’s voice called from down in the hall, two, three times, the room doors opening and shutting. Footsteps sounded and then she poked her head into the bedroom, breathless from running up the stairs.

“Jen, there you are! Helen Livingstone wants to talk to you. She can’t find Michelle anywhere.”

Jennifer looked at her mum’s smiling face and a thought took hold of her. She could
tell
her what had happened. It was a sort of
accident
, she could say. She hadn’t meant to do it. Her mum would understand. She would explain to other people.

“I’m angry at you anyway,” her mum said, glancing down at the bag with the school clothes in. “Mr Cottis waited for over an hour today. He was fed up, I can tell you! And now I find that you were off playing with Michelle!”

A feeling of hopelessness hit her. She couldn’t tell her mum anything.

“I don’t know where she is,” she said, her eyes fastened on Macy.

“No one does, I’ve told you! Helen hasn’t seen her since this morning. She’s rung the police. She wants you to go round there.”

The police
. Jennifer felt a swooning sensation and let her head loll back against the headboard.

 

Alice felt a hand on her bare shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw bright sunlight in the room. Sophie was standing by her bed. She was wearing a pink dressing gown tied tightly across some pyjamas.

“I brought you a cup of tea,” she said, pointing to a china cup and saucer sitting on the bedside table.

She bent down and picked up the white nightdress from the floor. Alice took it from her, embarrassed.

“I was so hot in the night!” she said. “I must have taken it off.”

“Mum bought me one of those,” Sophie said, using one finger to push her glasses up her nose. “I didn’t like it either. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

Sophie sat on the edge of Alice’s bed and watched as she drank her tea.

 

 

 

Two days later they went for a walk across the downs. They packed Frankie’s rucksack with food and drink and sun lotion. His mum drove them to a little village outside Brighton so that they could start a circular route. She would be back at five, she said, to pick them up. Sophie waved mournfully from the passenger window as the car moved away. She had wanted to join them but Frankie had said
No
, firmly, several times.

It had been his suggestion to go. He had wanted to get out of the house, away from his mum and his sister fussing over Alice. Alice hadn’t minded. She liked Sophie and Jan, but she was a little weary of always having to look happy and in a good mood. Once alone she and Frankie could both relax and drift into companionable silence. That was the idea.

But Frankie’s mood dipped soon after they started. He was too hot, he said, the rucksack was too heavy, Alice was walking too quickly, he complained. She slowed down, looking at the map and finding the right paths to take. Whenever she turned round he seemed further behind.

There were other walkers on the downs and the paths were clearly marked with yellow arrows. They struggled up steep inclines and went through shady woods. They even passed a bench or two. Eventually, after a couple of hours they came to the halfway point of the walk and Alice rested on a grassy mound. When Frankie finally reached her she waited for him to sit down before she spoke.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders, getting out a bottle of water and drinking from it.

“Do you want me to go home? Are you fed up with me being here?”

He looked startled by her comment and leaned over and pulled her towards him, burying his head in her chest.

“Of course not,” he mumbled. “I love you.”

“What’s wrong then?” she insisted.

“It’s just that I can’t bear to think of you going to uni. I know I’m going to lose you!”

She lay back on the grass and looked at the sky. She felt the weight of his head on her breasts and his hand stroking her leg. She put her arm across his shoulder and felt the tension that was there. They’d had this discussion a couple of times since she’d arrived at Frankie’s house. In October he would be returning to Croydon to do the last year of his degree. She would be starting at the University of Sussex, just outside Brighton. Although the distance was only seventy kilometres or so Frankie had been talking as though they were studying in different countries. What he really wanted, she knew, was for her to transfer to his college, to start her degree there instead of Sussex so that they could be at the same place. He’d even suggested that they share a flat together.
Think of the money we’d save
, he’d said. But it wasn’t about money, she knew. Frankie wanted her close by. He wanted to know that she
belonged
to him.

Since she’d been at his parents’ home he’d been desperately possessive, sitting a metre away from her, his hand or arm always touching her skin in some way. She didn’t mind, she liked it. He seemed uneasy, though, as if he had some second sight that she was going to pack her bags and leave him for good. As if she would.

There’d been no sex. She had wanted to, brought condoms with her, felt her chest aching for him. He had shied away, though. After laughing at her nervousness in his shared house or in Rosie’s flat, he was now tense, always listening for Sophie’s footsteps on the stairs or his mum’s movements. The previous night, when everyone was asleep, he had crept down to her room and laid on top of her bed. After a couple of moments of kissing and touching she had pulled the white cotton nightdress off again and sat naked in front of him. She wanted him. Was it
love
? It had to be. But he covered her up with the duvet and lay beside her, eventually falling into a doze from which he woke up with a start, not knowing where he was.

In a way she was grateful for his preoccupations. It kept her from thinking about her meeting with the reporter in a few days’ time.

“There’s still time to change course. It’s the easiest thing. You just ring up the college and ask about the History BA. You’ve already got your A level results, so you’d be ahead of all the kids who have just finished school.”

“I’ve already got a place. At Sussex,” she said, firmly. “And anyway, you’re finishing your course in a year. Then I’d be on my own.”

“But I’d stay round there, get a job, we could still be together. Then when you’ve finished your degree we could go travelling. The Far East, India. Anywhere. We could go anywhere.”

“I like the course that Sussex offer. I don’t know about your place.”

“But you could find out,” he said, softly.

She felt herself wavering. Would it really matter so much, if she changed colleges? If it made him happy? Rosie wouldn’t like it, she knew that. But could she be won over? If she knew how much Frankie cared for her? What would Jill Newton think? And Patricia Coffey? She would have to ask all of them. Otherwise she wouldn’t have any confidence in her decision. A lot of it might depend on the newspaper article. Whether they could
really
keep her identity a secret.

Frankie rolled away suddenly and sat up.

“Don’t bother answering,” he said, his back to her.

He had taken her silence as a negative sign. She sighed. She wished he could be a little less childish.

“Most probably you’d rather be away from me anyway,” he continued, his face in a sulk. “You’d rather start fresh among new people. Maybe meet someone less pushy than me.”

“That’s not true. . .”

“Then why won’t you change? Why won’t you come to my college? Is that too much to ask?”

Alice looked at him for a few moments, his forehead bunched up in a petulant frown. It only took her a moment to decide. Yes, it was too much to ask. She had made her plans over a year before. She wanted to go to Sussex and do a degree in History. She’d already arranged it. She stood up, shaking the stiffness out of her legs. Even if she did change there was no guarantee that it would make him happy.

“I’m walking on,” she said, coldly. “Are you coming?”

He stayed on the ground, staring into the distance. She tossed the map at him and walked on, without looking back.

Using her compass and the posts with arrows she walked on for more than an hour, each step propelled by growing frustration. Didn’t she have enough to worry about? Why couldn’t Frankie just be happy? She was here, in Brighton, with his family. It was a glorious day and they were alone; he had her all to himself. The previous evening she had been prepared to take him into her bed, something he had wanted for a long time. Why couldn’t he be
satisfied
?

Up ahead she saw a big tree, its branches making a canopy of shade on the grass beneath. She headed for it. She was thirsty and hungry and realized then that Frankie had all the stuff. Would he follow her? She looked back, along the path, but there was no sign of him. It was too much. How could he be so childish and spoil their day? She lay on the grass, her head resting on her arm, and closed her eyes. Why was it like that with people? You got close to them. You began to love them. Then they let you down.

After a while she allowed the memory of Michelle Livingstone to come into her head.

A light breeze riffled the leaves above her and she opened her eyes and looked at the branches and the ragged bits of sky in between. Michelle let her down, just like everyone else. She didn’t deserve to die, though. Not like that.

 

Jennifer stood in Mrs Livingstone’s living room and told the policewoman that they’d been playing in the park and had an argument.
Michelle just walked off!
she said, holding her hands out in a gesture of hopelessness. After more questions by different people they left her alone. She sat with Lucy Bussell in the kitchen and heard her mum and Mrs Livingstone talking. The police were doing house-by-house enquiries, she said, and the neighbours and local people were helping with a search of the town.
She may have got locked in somewhere
, Mrs Livingstone said, hopefully,
in someone’s garage or shed.

Or maybe she’s with some other friend, someone you don’t know about,
her mum had answered. Mr Livingstone said similar things, his voice cheerful.

“What’s happened to Michelle?” Lucy whispered.

“I don’t know,” Jennifer answered.

For a while, sitting in the big kitchen with the pots and pans hanging gaily from the ceiling it began to seem as though she really didn’t know. As if the events of the day were some kind of bad dream. The voices from the living room, the suggestions that Michelle had wandered off and got lost, or was playing with some new friend and had forgotten the time, seemed possible. Whenever there was a knock on the door Jennifer looked expectantly around, as though Michelle and her ginger hair might bounce into the kitchen at any moment, laughing and wondering what all the fuss was about.

As it got dark the mood changed and her mum took her home and told her to go to bed. She didn’t get undressed. She lay on the top of the bed, still wearing the same clothes she’d had on at the reservoir. There was noise from downstairs, neighbours calling round to see what had happened. At one point there was a man’s voice and she crept out of her room to see who it was. She heard Mr Cottis talking and her mum hissing at him, telling him about the missing girl. He left immediately, without another word. Jennifer imagined him slipping out of the door and into the night, his glasses hardly having time to adjust to the darkness.

She went back to bed. Lying under her duvet, she closed her eyes and seemed to dip in and out of sleep, a heavy blackness then wild dreams. Opening her eyes she was immediately aware of her room, of unusual noises outside, car doors banging, voices talking. Then she would slide back into a dream. Once, she was sure she could see the feral cat sitting in front of her, on the end of her bed, licking its paw. A feeling of dread settled on her, and she wanted to put her hand out to ward off the animal, but before she could do anything she seemed to sink back into pitch-black sleep again. Waking much later, her room was no longer dark, only shadowy, a cold light glowing at the window. She got up, stiff and uncomfortable from lying in her clothes. She went out on to the landing and heard her mum snoring gently, her room door wide open.

Out of the living-room window she could see that the police car was still there. Otherwise it was quiet, and there was no one else around. It was six o’clock. The day lay before her, flat and empty. All she could do was wait.

She watched breakfast television and saw the presenter explaining that a ten-year-old girl had gone missing in Berwick. She was pointing to a lamp-post that had a poster stuck to it.
Have You Seen This Girl?
it said, flapping in the early morning breeze. The presenter’s face was serious although she was wearing bright lipstick and orange earrings that looked like boiled sweets. The scene changed and there was a shot of the reservoir, and talk of divers searching the lake in case the little girl had fallen in. Jennifer held her breath, looking hard at the screen, at the flat, black water of the lake. Once it had been fields and houses; now it covered everything, even some dead cats.

At midday everything changed. The sound of knocking on the front door alerted her. There was a bell that could have been used but the knocking just got louder. It was insistent, urgent.

“All right, all right!” her mum said, shuffling along the hall.

There were sharp questions, demanding words, footsteps that were determined to walk up the hallway and find her. The muscles in her back tightened until her chest had sunk and her shoulders were rounded balls. The living-room door swung open and they were standing behind her. She could see the shape of them reflected in the television screen.

“Jennifer Jones. You must come with us. This minute.”

Lucy Bussell had told them the truth. In a way she was relieved.

 

Alice sat up cross-legged, looking around her. Ahead the path led upwards and she judged that she only had a few kilometres to go before getting back to the village. Then she would wait for Frankie’s mum. Looking back she could see the fields and meadows that she’d walked across. In the distance was a small figure. She relaxed, sure it was Frankie. They could make up. All he needed was a little reassurance. She felt calm watching him. He was walking alongside a field of corn and looked small, like a child, beside the giant stalks. It would be ten or more minutes before he reached her. She stood and waved anyway and the figure paused for a moment and waved back. Then she slumped down, her back against the trunk of the tree, and waited.