The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell
21
June 2017
The police search party emerges from the other side of the woods three and a half hours later. Kim jumps off the bench on the common and runs towards the small lane opposite that leads down the side of Maypole House. The detectives let themselves out of their car and Megs and Simon appear lugubriously from the other side of the common where they’ve been sitting nursing drinks outside the Swan & Ducks.
Kim pulls back at first, letting the detectives convene with the search party. She watches, her breath held. They point behind them, they shrug, they shake their heads. She moves closer, trying to hear what’s being said, catching only parts of words she’s too scared to hear.
‘What’s going on?’ says Megs, appearing at her side, breathing wine all over her. ‘Any news?’
Kim shakes her head and puts her finger to her lips. ‘I’m trying to listen,’ she whispers.
‘Why don’t you just go and ask?’ Megs tuts and strides towards the police. ‘Anything?’ she asks loudly.
Kim turns and glances sideways at Simon, who looks at her from the corner of his eye. She feels a plume of discomfort pass through her and walks quickly away from him to join Megs.
‘Nothing,’ Megs says, almost triumphantly. ‘They found nothing. Literally.’ She stares at Kim scathingly, as if this somehow proves that Kim is wrong to think their children have come to some harm.
Kim looks at DI McCoy. ‘So sorry,’ he says. ‘Not a trace. The dogs didn’t pick up anything either.’
‘But did they cover every part? What about the part that backs on to the school? There’s another entrance there. They might have come that way?’
‘I promise you, Ms Knox. Every inch has been covered and it doesn’t appear that Tallulah or Zach have been anywhere near those woods. I’m really sorry.’
Kim feels her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. ‘So,’ she says numbly, ‘what now?’
‘Well, we’ve still got the investigation ongoing of course. We’re going to take the dogs around the village now, for a while, across the common, even though, as we know, nothing came up on any of the CCTV. We’ve taken some evidence from around Dark Place and Upley Fold, some tyre tracks that we’re following up. We’re going to talk to the kids again, the ones who were at the house on Friday night. We’re trying to get a warrant to search the Jacques place, to look at their home security footage, but I’m not sure we’ll get it. We’re looking at all the CCTV from here to the boundaries of the county for sightings of your children. And we’ll be talking to Tallulah’s teachers and Zach’s employers tomorrow. There are still dozens of avenues left to go down and lots of things to follow up on.’ He gives Kim a cautiously encouraging smile. ‘We’re very much on the case, Ms Knox. Just keep the faith.’
Kim smiles tightly. Her stomach clenches with anger and fear and dread. Anger that no one can tell her where her child is, fear that no one ever will, and dread of what it would feel like to find out that Zach had hurt Tallulah.
‘Well,’ says Megs, sighing loudly. ‘I guess that’s as much as we can hope for for now. So we can all just, you know, get on with our days.’
The knot in Kim’s stomach hardens and she turns to Megs and she says, ‘What the fuck is the matter with you? Huh? I mean, what the fuck is the fucking matter with you? Our kids have been missing for three days. Three days! And all you can do is moan and tut and sigh and act like this is all some kind of massive inconvenience. Well, I’m so sorry to drag you out of the pub, out of your back garden, so sorry to keep you from getting on with your day. And what even is your day, Megs, eh? What do you even do? Because I tell you one thing you don’t do, and that’s give a shit about any of your fucking children. Not to mention your only fucking grandchild.’
Kim reels as she feels her tirade come to an end. She closes her eyes hard and then opens them again. She feels DI McCoy’s hand on her arm and she shakes it off. ‘I’m fine,’ she says in a dark whisper. ‘I’m fine. I’m going home.’ She straightens up and says, ‘Thank you, Detective. Please keep me up-to-date with things.’
Then she strides away from the police and the dogs and the nosy neighbours, and Megs with her jaw hanging open and Simon with his creepy half-stare, and she gets into her car and she drives it around the common and into her cul-de-sac and then she sits, as the engine dies, with her face flat against her steering wheel, tears rolling down her face, saying ‘Tallulah, Tallulah, Tallulah’ again and again and again.