The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

32

September 2018

Kim’s phone rings. She picks it up from where it was balanced on the edge of the kitchen sink and sees the name Megs. At first she thinks, Why on earth is Megs calling me? And then she remembers.

She hits the answer button and says hello.

‘Kim. It’s Megs.’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I assume you’ve spoken to Dom?’

‘Yes, he called yesterday. What’s going on?’

‘He told you about the ring?’

‘Yes. He told me about the ring. He told me they’ve searched those blessed woods, yet again. And that’s about it. Any more developments?’

Kim sighs. ‘Nothing. They talked to Liam again, they’ve talked to Kerryanne’s girl. And they’ve got a handwriting analyst looking at the writing on the sign that was next to the ring.’

‘Fingerprints?’ says Megs. ‘On the ring? Have they found any?’

‘The police have it. I’m sure they’ll be looking for prints. But the woman who found it, she had to clean the box to find the name of the jeweller so it’s unlikely any prints will still be on it.’

Megs murmurs down the phone. Then she says, ‘Anyway, how are you?’

Kim starts slightly. She was not expecting any small talk. ‘I’m OK. You know, a bit freaked out.’

‘Yeah,’ says Megs. ‘It is a bit weird, isn’t it?’

There’s a pause which Kim leaves empty, deliberately, to give Megs the opportunity to ask after her grandson. But she doesn’t.

‘Anyway,’ Megs says instead. ‘Keep me posted. I can’t quite believe that we might finally find out what actually happened.’

‘Me neither,’ says Kim. Then, sensing a hint of softness in Megs’s tone, she says, ‘How are you doing? Are you coping OK?’

She hears Megs draw in her breath. ‘No,’ she says, eventually. ‘No. Not really. But it is what it is, isn’t it? You just have to pull on your big-girl pants and get on with it.’

‘Have you had any thoughts,’ asks Kim, ‘any theories? About what happened? Because you always thought they’d just run away together. Didn’t you?’

She asks this question gently, as if it is a tiny egg that she doesn’t want to crack.

‘Well, yes. I did think that. And, to be honest, a part of me still does. It’s the only thing that makes any sense, really.’

‘I can see that,’ Kim continues carefully. ‘I can see that some people might think that a mother and father would just abandon their son in order to walk off into the sunset together and yes, I agree it could happen. Some people might do that. But Tallulah wouldn’t. And neither would Zach. He worshipped Noah. He was going to propose to Tallulah. He was saving up for a deposit on a flat for the three of them. So I know, Megs, that it’s easier to think of them living somewhere happily together, not wanting to be found, but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense. Because it really doesn’t.’

‘I do sometimes wonder …’ Megs begins, then stops. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Did you ever wonder if the baby was really Zach’s?’

Kim feels something crash inside her head. She says nothing because she can’t find any words.

‘I mean, it’s just a theory. But it might explain it.’

‘Explain what?’

‘You know, whatever it was that happened that night. Maybe Zach found out he wasn’t the father and there was a fight. Maybe he was just so humiliated that he stormed off, too ashamed to come home. And maybe something happened to Tallulah out there in the dark. Or maybe she couldn’t face the shame of it either. You know.’

Kim opens her mouth to say something and then closes it again.

Megs continues: ‘Because I never really thought that Noah looked much like Zach and usually babies look just like their dads, don’t they? And Noah, he just never did. I never felt that sense of connection with him, like I have my other grandbabies. I—’

Kim stabs the screen of her phone with her finger to end the call and drops it on to the kitchen counter as though it is burning her. She rocks backwards slightly against the edge of the kitchen counter.

There, she thinks, there it is. Finally. Megs doesn’t believe Noah is Zach’s son. She thinks that Tallulah slept with another boy and got pregnant and then pretended to Zach that the baby was his so that he would look after them. Even though Zach virtually had to beg for six months to be allowed to be part of the family. And not only that, but Megs thinks that somehow Zach’s disappearance and Tallulah’s were separate events. That poor, emasculated, cuckolded Zach walked off, leaving Tallulah either to be murdered in the dark, or to run away from her child in shame.

Kim looks around her kitchen. She sees the ghosts of the moments that have now passed into unimaginable history. Tiny Noah in his high chair, his cheeks high with colour, thumping his fist against the tray with the joy of discovering that he could blow a raspberry. Tallulah filming him on her phone and laughing so hard her eyes streamed. The pure white-hot love that connected the three of them. The way it filled Kim’s tiny kitchen to the furthest corners of the room. And now Tallulah is gone and Noah is a trying, screen-obsessed two-year-old who spends his days either away from home at nursery, or here pushing Kim’s buttons as hard as he possibly can, who blows raspberries not because he can, but because he wants to express his disgust with the world that Kim has carved for him out of what was left over when his mother disappeared in the night. And Kim is so alone and her world feels so small. And she wants it all back, all of it.

She drops her head into her chest and she weeps until she runs out of tears.