The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

15

June 2017

DI McCoy leaves Kim’s house at about 10 a.m. and at around 11 a.m. a call comes through on Kim’s phone from a number she doesn’t recognise. She assumes that it must be him, that it must be the detective, that there is news, an update, a development of some kind and her heart immediately begins to gallop and adrenaline pumps hard through her body.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, hi, is that Kim Knox?’

It’s a girl’s voice.

‘Yes, speaking.’

‘This is, erm, Mimi? Scarlett’s friend? She said you wanted to talk to me?’

‘Oh!’ Kim pulls out a dining chair and edges on to it. ‘Mimi. Thank you. Are you able to talk?’

‘Yeah. Sure.’

‘I just wanted to know,’ Kim begins, ‘I mean, I’ve already spoken to Scarlett and her mother. And to Lexie. And none of them has a clue what happened on Friday night. But I just thought that maybe you might have picked up on something? Something that nobody else picked up on, that might explain what happened after Tallulah and Zach left?’

There’s a brief silence and she can hear Mimi inhaling, pictures her drawing on a cigarette clutched between the knuckles of skinny fingers with bitten-down nails.

‘I mean,’ Mimi begins. ‘literally the only thing I can think of is that they might have had a fight?’

Kim’s head rolls back slightly. ‘Fight?’

‘Yeah. They seemed a bit, I dunno, like there was something going on between them? A bit of tension?’

Kim swivels towards the dining table and moves the phone to her other ear. ‘Like what?’ she says. ‘Can you describe it?’

Mimi sighs. ‘I went indoors, to charge my phone,’ she says. ‘Lula and Zach, they were sitting in, like, the little room just behind the kitchen. It’s like a snug kind of thing. They didn’t hear me go past. But I kind of peered through the gap in the door and I saw he had his hands really tight around her wrists and she was trying to get them free and he just kept them pinned down, like he was trying to stop her hitting him, or maybe trying to stop her leaving … I dunno. He looked really angry.’

Kim blinks slowly. Mimi’s words slot into the space in her head where her own misgivings have been gestating, the place where she wonders how Zach might have reacted to a rejection. As they do so, she feels a jolt of nausea pass through her. The ‘what if’ starts to take shape, and the possibility of Zach having played some part in her daughter’s disappearance overwhelms her for a moment.

‘Did you hear either of them say anything about a ring, maybe? Or an engagement?’

There’s a solid pause on the line and then, ‘No. Nothing like that. They were both quite quiet, really. To be honest, I wasn’t really sure why they were there. I didn’t feel like they even wanted to be. You know?’

Sunday never ends.

Instead of putting him down in his cot, Kim takes Noah for a long walk around the village in his pushchair for his daytime nap, her eyes scanning every hedgerow, every alleyway and crevice between houses. As she passes Maypole House her eyes go to the back of the grounds where the student accommodation is. She thinks of Scarlett’s ex-boyfriend, Liam, the only person who was there on Friday night whom she has not spoken to. But she’s sure, as Lexie had said, that he didn’t see or hear anything more than she had, as he left early with her.

A moment later she finds herself outside the Swan & Ducks. The front terrace is heaving, as it always is on a sunny Sunday lunchtime: prosecco on tables in wine coolers, jugs of Pimm’s, children in high chairs being fed chopped-up sausage and mash by mums in floaty dresses with sunglasses on their heads, cockapoos curled underneath tables in the shade.

Kim wheels the pushchair through the throng and into the bar where it is cool and overcast. There are fewer people in here and she goes straight to the bar. She recognises the young guy behind the bar; it’s Nick. He’s an out-of-work actor who likes flirting with middle-aged men just to watch them blush.

‘Hello, you,’ he says, ‘don’t normally see you here during the day. What can I get you?’

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘no. Not here for lunch. Just wondering … you were here on Friday night, yes?’

‘As it happens, yes, I was. They work me like a dog.’

‘And Megs told you, about my daughter and her son?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. Did they get back OK?’

‘No,’ she says, her voice threatening to crack. ‘No.’ She draws her breath in hard and regains control. ‘They’re still not back. I’ve reported it to the police now. I guess they’ll want to talk to you at some point, ask you what you saw.’

‘Oh, God, Kim. That’s terrible. You must be worried sick.’

‘Yes,’ she says, squeezing out a strained smile. ‘I really am. But I just wondered what you saw exactly?’

‘Well, not much really, I’m afraid. They started off over there.’ He points to a nook at the back of the bar. ‘All cosy and lovey-dovey. He bought a bottle of champagne. They had the seafood platter. They were so cute. And then there was this other group. A kind of Maypole group, you know? Loud, in your face. And I think they knew your daughter? And sort of infiltrated your daughter’s nice romantic evening. I felt really bad for them!’

Noah starts to stir in his pushchair and Kim rocks it a little, absent-mindedly.

‘Did you see anything strange happen?’

‘Strange?’ Nick turns and fixes his lighthouse beam of a smile on a customer who has appeared at Kim’s side. He takes their order, then he switches back to Kim a moment later and says, ‘I wouldn’t say strange, no. Lots of drinking. And given the amount of cashbacks the Maypole kids were asking for, I suspect maybe a drug delivery of some kind, but I didn’t see any evidence of that. And then it was closing time and they all just left. And that was that.’ He looks at her sadly and says, ‘Fuck, Kim. I’m sure they’ll be home any minute now, they’re bound to be. You know what teenagers are like.’

She carries on walking. She goes to Tallulah’s friend Chloe’s house, just outside the village, the last in a row of small flat-fronted cottages with doors opening directly on the main road. Chloe says no, she hasn’t spoken to Tallulah in ages. But she also says something interesting. When Kim mentions that Tallulah had last been seen at the house of Scarlett Jacques in Upley Fold, Chloe’s eyes narrow and she says, ‘Weird.’

Kim says, ‘Why?’

Chloe shrugs. ‘There’s just something off about Scarlett and that lot. Something, I dunno, dark, and there was this night, last year, the college Christmas party, when I was sitting with Lula, and Scarlett sort of took her away, kind of rude, and I can’t really explain it, but it was like Lula already knew her? Even though she didn’t? And they were dancing for a while and then they went outside for like about ten minutes and Lula was all on edge when she came back in. Couldn’t really work out what it was about. I mean, as far as I was aware Scarlett and that lot are just this uber-clique, never speak to anyone, yet she spoke to Lula. It was weird. Anyway, Lula and me didn’t really talk again after that.’

Kim grimaces. ‘After the Christmas party?’

‘Yeah. I mean, we say hi if we see each other, but we don’t hang out.’

‘But what about in February? When you were … going through the thing you were going through?’

Chloe gives her a blank look.

‘You were feeling really low and Tallulah came and spent the night with you?’

‘Are you sure you mean me?’

‘Yes, back in February, Tallulah told me you were really low and she needed to spend the night with you in case you did anything stupid.’

Chloe shakes her head. ‘God, no. No, that definitely never happened. I did not feel low and she did not stay the night. I promise you, Lula and I have barely said a word to each other this year. We’ve barely seen each other. It sounds like she might have been lying to you, to be honest.’