The Missing One (56 page)

‘Ca-at!' he calls. ‘Catty!'

*

Nobody has yet asked what happened up there. Perhaps they'd rather not know.

Sven is putting a steel kettle on the hob while Ana sits quietly next to Susannah.

The pain in my leg is overwhelming and I have to sit. I look down at Finn, who is staring after the cat, as it walks, huffily, towards the back door. His legs are planted apart, and he sways, slightly.

‘Are you hungry, love?' I ask him. ‘You must be so hungry. You need your breakfast, don't you?' It seems completely lunatic to be here, in the kitchen with the woman who kidnapped and almost killed my child – and possibly me – talking about breakfast. I should be calling the police. I really should call the police.

Ana asks, quite politely, if Finn and I would like oatmeal.

‘Yes. Thank you.' I get up, taking Finn by the hand, and hopping the long way round the table, towards Sven. There is a big black pan on the hob, and when he lifts the lid the warm, milky smell of porridge rises up.

‘Maple syrup?' Sven looks down at Finn.

‘Sven.' I rest my free hand on his thick arm. He looks at me and blue eyes are steady. I owe him so much. If he hadn't risked his boat and taken me out there, Finn would have been alone with her all night. And the consequences of that are unthinkable. I owe this man everything.

‘Thank you for coming back for us today. And for taking me out there last night. I know it was risky. But … thank you … ' I realize that if I carry on talking, I'm going to cry – and neither of us would like that. Sven nods, then ladles the porridge into bowls.

It is a long table. I hobble back to the end furthest from
Susannah, with Finn following. But I can see that she is not a threat any more: she is broken, from the inside. She hasn't even lifted her head. I wonder if someone should call Maggie, or somebody else. What are they going to do with her now?

Finn clambers onto my lap and folds his fist round the spoon then begins to wolf the porridge. I eat, too, feeling the warmth spread through my belly even though the pleasure is mitigated somewhat by the pain that radiates through my lower leg. I lean over and gingerly roll up the leg of the dungarees. There is a really big scrape – nasty red flesh, rather mangled, some white globules, some muck and darkness and a lot of swelling. It's probably better not to look. I sit back up.

I hear Ana ask Susannah whether she has any of her pills. Susannah's forehead rests on the scrubbed pine table top, her hands hang down and I see the silver thumb ring, the lines of dirt under the nails, the breadth and strength of her palms.

I put down my spoon. ‘Ana.' I don't look at Susannah. ‘She's been in a very bad state. She's unwell. We really do need to call someone.' I don't want to say the word ‘police'.

Ana nods. ‘Doctor's coming.'

I have no idea how they summoned the doctor, since I was using the phone. Then I remember that as we started up the quay, Ana exchanged a word or two with a man who was passing with a dog.

Finn points at Susannah's curved back. ‘Bedtime?'

‘Yes, love, Susannah's very tired.'

Suddenly I realize that I don't want to be involved in this any more. They have it under control. I don't want to talk to police officers or doctors or anyone else. Susannah was certainly a danger to Finn and to me, but when we are gone she will presumably go back to her yoga and her gallery. Without the two of us she will get her demon under control again. She will round up all the guilt and memories and master them again, with medication – or meditation – or whatever works – and she'll get on with her life.

There is a rip in her jeans, probably from climbing the rocks to the boat. With my fingertips, I gently press the back of my head. It is tender and there is a lump the size of a golf ball, but no blood. I wonder what she hit me with. And then I wonder what Finn saw: did he see me, spread-eagled on the white beach with my eyes closed? I feel anger rising. I should call the police.

I look at the clock above the stove. It's not even seven in the morning.

Calling the police would only make this worse. Nothing is going to change what happened at the floathouse. The best thing I can do is leave. I will get on the next ferry to Spring Tide Island, then the next one from Spring Tide to the mainland. We will go home to Doug. The doctor can decide what's best for Susannah – and these people who clearly know her all too well. Finn and I don't belong here.

Sven puts a mug of coffee down in front of me, and a cup of warm milk for Finn. His hand is massive. I thank him again.

‘When's the first ferry to Spring Tide?'

‘Midday.'

‘Blimey. Not till midday?'

He nods.

But I'll get down there early – I've learned my lesson about ferry times here. First I have to work out what to do about the pain in my leg and the fact that I am in Sven's clothes, and need nappies and a coat for Finn. I sip the hot coffee and feel it sink down towards my stomach, warming me.

‘More?' Finn looks up at me.

‘Wowee, you're hungry.' I smooth his hair away from his brown eyes. He looks just like his dad. And he seems remarkably unconcerned about Susannah at the other end of the table. I should take this as a good sign. Children are resilient. Far more resilient than adults.

*

Then the doctor comes through the front door without knocking. He is grizzled and must be at least seventy, with wire-framed glasses and wild white hair and a long waterproof coat, which he throws on the chair next to me. I see him exchange a glance with Ana before he bends down, stiffly, to Susannah. He asks her whether she's been taking her medication, but she doesn't lift her head. I think of the bottles in her cabinets.

None of these people have asked me what happened. Perhaps they know what she did, all those years ago. This is a tiny community, after all. All three of them are watching her closely.

The doctor goes to the phone and I hear him talking in a low voice, but I can't hear what he is saying.

As he comes back in from the phone he notices my leg. He bends, and peers at it without saying anything. Then he holds my foot. He asks me to flex it; I grit my teeth as a sickening pain rolls upwards.

‘You want to get this X-rayed,' he says, gruffly. ‘You don't want any weight on it. There's a clinic over in Spring Tide.' He writes down a name. There are wiry white hairs on the back of his hand. As he passes the paper to me our eyes meet. His are wise and sharp, set in folds of flesh, like an elephant's eyes. ‘I'll clean it up now. Hurts like hell, huh?'

I take the paper from him and I think of how I sprinted over rocks, through the forest of pines, and how I jumped and swam and hauled myself onto that boat, then steered it and pressed my foot into Susannah's neck to keep her down. It can't be fractured. You couldn't do that with a fractured shinbone.

But deep down I know I could have – I could have done just about anything to protect Finn. Something bigger than me took over as I ran through the undergrowth to that headland, as I kicked off my things and as I jumped.

I think about my foot pressing on her neck. I remember reading in the paper about a teenage single mother at home with her one-year-old baby. She took a rifle and shot dead the two men who broke into her house in the middle of the night. I remember the police officer's words: ‘There is nothing more dangerous,' he said, ‘than a mother protecting her child.'

I can hardly touch my toes to the floor now without feeling faint from the pain. The doctor has his bag open.
He cleans my wound with a burning antiseptic that makes my eyes water, then he bandages it from ankle to knee. He offers me a couple of Advil. Finn watches with interest. I consider asking the doctor if tranquillizers, a blow to the head or a plunge into freezing water would kill an unborn child, but the kitchen is so silent. Then he stands up, and puts his things away. He pats Finn on the head. He does not ask how it happened.

I need to change Finn's nappy – it hasn't been changed for hours, and it stinks now. And I am still wearing Sven's clothes.

‘Ana,' I say. ‘I don't suppose you have any nappies – any diapers?'

She glances as Sven, as if handing over Susannah to him, then she gets up. I hop after her, leading Finn by the hand. She pauses at the foot of the steep staircase.

‘You stay there.' She nods at my leg. ‘You can't get up here with that leg. I'll get things down. Get you some clothes too. What size feet are you?'

After a few minutes, she comes creaking back down with a bag of Huggies in one hand, some wipes and some folded clothes in the other.

‘You change in there.' She points to a dining room just off the corridor. I take the clothes and thank her. Our eyes meet.

‘Ana,' I say. ‘She's delusional and dangerous. You do know that, don't you? She convinced herself that Finn was … a little boy who died nearly forty years ago.'

‘Yes,' Ana nods. ‘She thought he was Kit.'

‘Yes!' I stare at her. ‘Of course – you knew them. Of course
you did. My mother … my … ' I can't bring myself to say the word ‘brother'. Or ‘father'.

‘Everyone up here knew your family,' she says. ‘Awful tragedy. I'm sorry for you, Kali. And I'm so sorry for your mother.'

I can't let her words sink in. It's too much. ‘Well,' I say, brusquely. ‘Susannah seems to think that Jonas has come back to find her. She apparently believes that his spirit is alive in an orca – and I think she was taking Finn out to meet him – it. She may also now think that my mother's spirit is alive inside a whale too – because my mother … my mother died recently. But anyway, what I mean is … she's basically psychotic, Ana. She could have killed Finn. She could have killed us both. And herself probably. Someone needs to know this.'

‘I know it.' She nods. ‘I know it now.'

‘So why did you leave me up there alone all night with her?' I snap.

‘We don't have any money. Sven's boat's his livelihood,' she says, quietly. ‘And we didn't know how bad she'd gotten. None of us knew that.'

Part of their silence today, I realize, is guilt.

‘I'm sorry to hear about your mother. I liked her very much. We were friends.'

‘I don't know what I should do.' I feel my throat tighten.

‘She's not well, but they'll get it under control,' Ana says. ‘I guess it was seeing you – looking so much like Elena – with your little boy, too, same age and so similar to Kit … well. It brought things up for her. But I guess she'll quiet herself again, when you're gone.'

Finn tugs my hand. He's trying to get at the cat, which is coming down the stairs. Ana and I look at each other for a moment longer. I want to ask her how much she knows about the accident, and Susannah's part in it. I want to ask her about my mother. But then I realize that it doesn't matter. I just need to get out of here. Finn yanks again. ‘Cat!' he calls to it. ‘Mama? Cat!'

‘We should at least call Susannah's son,' I say. ‘And tell him what happened.'

She shakes her head. ‘Won't want to know.' Ana looks down at Finn, and then at the cat on the stairs. Then Finn breaks loose from my hand.

‘Now this one here's called Jessie,' she says to him in a grand-maternal voice. She glances over her shoulder at me and our eyes meet again. Hers are self-contained, but warm. She doesn't need anything from me – certainly not forgiveness for leaving me overnight. She just wants to know, I think, that I am all right. No harm has been done. I manage to smile, and she nods. She turns back to Finn. ‘You can pet ol' Jess, but you be gentle, look, like this.'

As Ana and Finn bend to the cat, I look down the corridor at Susannah. Her head is up now, but her eyes are shut. Both hands are resting on her knees. Her silver thumb ring shines in the kitchen light. The doctor is talking quietly to Sven, over by the stove.

She sits, motionless. Her hair hangs in tendrils on her shoulders and her big hands droop on her knees. But then, as if she's sensed me looking at her, she turns her head, very
deliberately, and slowly opens her eyes. She looks right at me. Her irises are bleached, like ancient bone.

I look right back at her – the woman who changed the course of my life. The woman who robbed me not just of a father and a brother, but of a mother. And then she tried to take my baby. I wait for the anger and bitterness to kick in, the fury. But they don't. We stare at each other along the corridor, Susannah and I, while Sven and the doctor murmur on, and Ana helps Finn to stroke the tabby cat. Finally, I look away. I am not going to fight her, or call the police. Because all I feel for this woman is pity.

The sun bounces off the sea as the ferry pulls into harbour.

Everything seems brighter, sharper and more three-dimensional. Masts clatter and seagulls circle above. Finn and I are sitting on the deserted lower deck. I am warm in Ana's white T-shirt, and only slightly too small zip-up fleece and a pair of baggy stonewashed jeans with an elasticated waist, and clean socks and old trainers, only one size too big. She even gave me a woollen beanie, and a gloves and hat set for Finn, as well as a spare fleece jacket for him that, she said, belonged to her grandson who is now thirteen and won't be needing it.

Finn is still pointing and naming. ‘Bird.' He points over the port.

‘Yes, seagull.'

‘Nuther bird.'

‘You're right. Lots of seagulls.'

‘Nuther bird!'

I kiss him. ‘I love you very much,' I say.

‘Nuther bird!' He shrugs me off, pointing.

‘Yes! Another seagull.'

The storefronts are more colourful than I remember, perhaps because of the sunlight. The main street reminds me of a Cornish fishing village. I notice a day spa and a yoga studio just along from the ferry port. This place seemed so threatening that first night in the fog, but on a bright day like today it is just a perfectly pleasant little off-season fishing port.