Losing You (16 page)

I described everything: not just the chronology of the day, but the context surrounding it. I knew everything they wanted to ask me before they framed the questions. I told them about Charlie’s father, about my affair with Christian and Charlie’s initial disapproval of it, about her hard time at school. I described my relationship with my daughter as honestly as I could. I heard myself say that my daughter was recalcitrant, volatile, emotional, romantic and intense. I saw the way they exchanged glances when I told them about Jay, about Rory. I wanted to make them realize this story was different from all the other stories like it that they must have heard in their jobs.

At the same time, my dissociation and my obedience filled me with a new, cold terror, like an icy wind blowing through me. It was as if I had, for those few moments, half given up on Charlie. By letting go of the urgent sense that I could rescue her if only I tried hard enough, thought clearly enough and loved strongly enough, I felt I was allowing her to slip
further from me. Somewhere out there, in the cold and the wind and the inhospitable wilderness where sea and land meet, was my daughter, my lovely, darling, beautiful, kind and precious daughter, and I was sitting in that warm little room, an untouched mug of coffee at my hand, reciting the precise events that had led to her disappearance and even attempting to describe her character and behaviour as if that had anything to do with this sudden loss, this fall through a crack in the world.

I leaned forward suddenly, half spilling the coffee.

‘CCTV,’ I said.

‘Sorry?’

‘Is there CCTV on the causeway? Because then we could see if Charlie’s been taken off the island or not.’

DI Hammill looked doubtful. ‘Mahoney? Do you know?’

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘No CCTV.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘CCTV is really for town centres and shopping arcades,’ said DI Hammill.

‘For important places,’ I said.

‘It’s not about importance,’ said DI Hammill. ‘It’s about places where crime happens –’ He checked himself, realizing what he had said. ‘Where crime normally happens.’

‘So she could be anywhere.’

I heard the break in my voice. She could be anywhere, with anyone, as far from here as five hours could take her; as inexorably and eternally far from me as it was possible to be. I made myself think it, and it was as if my own heart almost stopped beating while I did so. In the hidden cinema of my mind, I glimpsed a series of pornographic freeze-frames:
Charlie raped, Charlie tortured, Charlie screaming, Charlie dying. I saw her coppery curls spreading across the muddy grasslands, her fingers stretching out for help, and once more I heard her cry out for me, calling me ‘Mummy’ the way she never did nowadays. I gripped the table with my fingers. ‘Is that all?’ I asked. My voice was strong and steady now, someone else’s voice.

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ said DI Hammill.

‘And what now?’

‘We’re here to evaluate the situation.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I thought you were here to find my daughter.’

He looked up at the clock on the wall. Twenty to three.

‘It hasn’t been much more than five hours since your daughter was last seen. It’s still most likely that she’s safe and well and that she’ll be contacting you.’

‘That is what people keep trying to tell me,’ I said. ‘I was trying to make myself believe it as well, until we found the bike. If Charlie were an eight-year-old, you wouldn’t be here “evaluating the situation”. There’d be helicopters and roadblocks and people walking in lines across fields.’

‘An eight-year-old is different from a fifteen-year-old,’ said Hammill.

‘What about the bike?’

‘I’m trying to keep an open mind about the possibilities.’

‘There’s only one possibility.’

‘That’s not necessarily true.’

‘What else could have happened apart from her being snatched?’

DI Hammill sat back in his chair. ‘Every case is different, of course,’ he said, ‘but I deal with a lot of young people. An
abduction of the kind you’re describing is extremely rare. Teenagers running off is relatively common. In this instance, she might have encountered someone she knew, abandoned her bike and departed with him or her. It might have been a previous arrangement or a decision made on the spur of the moment.’

‘Who the hell would do that?’ I said.

He paused for a moment, drumming his fingers on the desk.

‘An obvious possibility is that it was whoever took the things from her bedroom. Your daughter may have arranged to leave with someone. She could have told him – or her – to collect some possessions from her room.’

‘Why didn’t she do it herself?’

‘She might have been nervous about encountering you. I’m sorry. That’s a painful thing to say but it may be true.’

‘There was a party going on at the house,’ I protested. ‘Charlie knew that. She arranged it.’

‘She might have asked the person because she knew they were going to be at the party. This is the sort of possibility we need to eliminate in our inquiry.’

‘The problem with this way of thinking,’ I said, making an immense effort to sound calm, ‘is that by the time you’re convinced that she’s genuinely missing, it may be too late. Or, at least, valuable time may have been lost.’

DI Hammill looked at me gravely. DC Beck had an intensely sympathetic expression on her face that made me want to slap her. Probably a woman had been sent along because women are supposed to be better at dealing sensitively with such situations. Except that I didn’t want the situation to be dealt with sensitively. I didn’t care whether it
was the most sympathetic woman in Britain or the most oafish thug. I didn’t care so long as they got Charlie back.

‘We’re not going to waste time,’ Hammill said. ‘As soon as this conversation is over, we’ll be contacting the people whose names you’ve given us and ascertaining your daughter’s state of mind over the past days.’

‘Then we’d better get the conversation over with, hadn’t we?’ I said.

‘Indeed. But first of all, I want you to give me a thumbnail sketch of your daughter. Not just her appearance, her character.’

‘What?’

‘Describe her to me.’

‘Why?’

‘Bear with me, Ms Landry. I need to know who I’m looking for.’

Like an obituary, I thought. Charlie’s life and times in a few choice phrases. I took a deep breath.

‘As you know,’ I said, rather formally, ‘Charlie is fifteen years old, nearly sixteen. You know what she looks like. That’s a good photo and very recent. It was taken only last Sunday. She’s grown quite a lot in the last few months and is about my height now. Slim, lean. Maybe because she’s my oldest child, I’ve always worried about her. She had lots of tantrums when she was younger, and often got into trouble at school, not for big things, but she was always a bit of a fighter. She hates injustice and was always standing up to teachers if she thought they were being unfair. She’s always had good friends, but she’s always had enemies as well. She quarrels with people, she has fierce opinions. She was bullied at her new secondary school, maybe because she was an
outsider. I don’t think she’s ever been a bully, though. She’s always been protective of Jackson, her younger brother.

‘She likes…’ I stopped and cleared my throat. I was flooded with memories of Charlie as a yelling baby, then as a toddler, sweet and grumpy, Charlie learning to talk, to walk, to ride a bike, her first day at school. But I needed to focus on what might be important about her for DI Hammill. ‘She likes weird bands whose names I can’t begin to tell you, and strange fashions. She likes Japanese films. She reads modern novels. She’s good at art and drama. She spends a lot of time on MSN with her friends. She loves sailing and kayaking, things that make her feel free. She’s quite political, but more about single issues, like the environment. She only works hard at things she’s interested in. She’s very keen on not following the crowd. She draws tattoos on herself. A few times last term I noticed she’d cut herself a bit. Not seriously, but the way teenagers do at the moment, little grazes done with the blades from pencil sharpeners. I asked her about it and she said it was nothing, just a stupid thing. She seemed a bit embarrassed by it, and I don’t think she ever did it again.

‘The trouble with me telling you all this is that I used to think I knew everything about Charlie and now I’m discovering that she probably had many secrets. Well, of course, she’s a teenager. I don’t think she smokes except the occasional cigarette at a party, but she might. I don’t think she takes drugs, but again, she might. I don’t think she drinks much, though she has got horribly drunk once or twice. I don’t think she’s sexually experienced, but maybe I’d be the last to know. I think she’s close to me, although we quarrel. I think she’s close to her father too, but she’s become very critical of him since he left, and can be scornful. She was a
bit upset, or maybe angry is a better word, when I started going out with Christian, but recently she’s seemed much happier about it. They get on well together. I think they do anyway.’

I stopped for a few seconds and looked at my daughter’s face on the desk.

‘What else? She was horrified when we left London and came to live here, but when Rory left she was worried that we might leave too, so I think she likes it here after all, although she says real life happens in cities. Sometimes she seems very grown-up, far older than fifteen, but then she can seem like a little child. I don’t think she’d ever get into a car with a stranger. I think that if someone tried to grab her, she’d resist. She hates waiting and inaction. She’s a fighter. Is that enough?’

‘Thank you,’ said DI Hammill, writing a note as he spoke. ‘We’ll keep you constantly informed.’ He took his wallet from his jacket and produced a card. ‘This has my mobile number on it. Call me any time you want. And now we’ll drive you home.’

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Please, get on with your work. It’s just as quick for me to walk.’

‘I insist,’ he said, and nodded at PC Mahoney.

It really did take longer. Mahoney rummaged in a drawer for the car keys and led me out to the dinky little car park behind the station. He had to turn the car round and drive left and right along residential streets and left on to The Street to reach the front of the police station and then to the seafront and along to my house. He pulled in and leaned across to open my door. ‘Just ring us if you need any information,’ he said.

‘You must keep me informed,’ I said. ‘Please let me know if you find out anything at all. Anything. Even if it’s…’

‘You’re in good hands,’ Mahoney said.

‘We’ll see,’ I said, then felt guilty. ‘Sorry, that was rude.’

I got out and Mahoney began the two-minute drive back to the police station. We should both have been charged with wasting police time. I walked up the short path and put my key into the door. As I did so, I felt a hand on my shoulder. There was something familiar about the feel of it and before I turned I knew. I just knew. ‘Rory,’ I said wearily.

‘Are you going to ask me in?’ he said.

He looked different from when I had last seen him. His coppery hair was cut shorter, so that it stuck up on top. He was unshaven and the skin under his eyes was dark, as if he had missed a night’s sleep. He was wearing a thigh-length leather jacket, blue jeans turned up at the bottom and scuffed brown suede shoes. I breathed deeply. He was Charlie and Jackson’s father. This man had sat beside me, held my hand and mopped my face with a cold flannel as they were born. But now when I looked at him, I could believe he had done something to Charlie. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anyone.

‘Rory, I know all that’s happened between us. There’s bad things. God knows, there were faults on my side as well. But if this is something you’ve done to get at me, or if it’s a kind of joke or if you know something, just tell me, I implore you on my knees. Tell me and I promise I won’t do anything. I’ll try to protect you…’

‘Nina,’ he said, in the sorrowful tone that used to make me feel so helplessly angry, ‘how can you think that?’

‘And if it turns out that you were involved in some way, I swear that I’ll make sure you go down for it.’

‘We’ve started well, haven’t we? Our daughter’s missing and you’re accusing me. I’m here to help. I came as soon as I could and I don’t see why I should stand here and listen to you insulting me. It’s freezing. Can we please go in? It’s still my house in a way.’

I bit back a reply because, after all, he was right. I turned the key in the door and opened it. Rory pushed past me. Within seconds I felt like I was suffering from a migraine and a heart-attack simultaneously. Jackson ran to Rory and pressed his face into his stomach, sniffling, while the hysterical Sludge jumped wildly up at them, then ran round the room barking. Meanwhile Renata was sitting in the corner of the room with one foot up on a stool. She explained to me that she had been holding Sludge on the lead when the dog had seen another Labrador and leaped forward, pulling her over.

‘It’s my ankle,’ she said. ‘Now I can’t put my weight on it.’

I apologized profusely on behalf of my dog. Or, rather, strictly speaking, Rory’s dog. I said I’d make her tea and retreated into the kitchen. I filled the electric kettle and switched it on. After a few seconds I touched the surface with my fingers. It was still cold. What proportion of our lives do we spend waiting? For kettles to boil. For lifts to arrive. For people to answer a ringing phone. To see Charlie.

I made myself consider the situation. The police had arrived. The professionals had taken over. What I ought to do, as a good citizen, was wait for them to apply their specialized skills. There was nothing for me to do now. By the time I had felt the kettle once more and found it was lukewarm, I had dispensed with that defeatist nonsense. I had to do something. Anything.

I thought of some advice I had once heard or read about for when you’ve lost your keys while walking home in the dark. You should look under a lamp-post, not because they are any more likely to be there than anywhere else, but because if they happen to be there, it’s the only place you’ll be able to see them.