The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell
55
September 2018
The following morning starts early, as is always the way when Shaun has the twins. Jack is first on their bed, trying to steal Shaun’s phone off the bedside table and having a mock-battle with him. Lily follows a minute later, her fine brown hair fuzzed up into a thick knot at the back of her head that Sophie knows she will have to spend twenty minutes brushing out before they can leave the house. Over Lily’s shoulder, through a gap in the curtains, Sophie sees an inch of the grey damp day that the forecasters had predicted and she turns to Shaun and says, ‘Looks like it’s the water park today.’ And Shaun peers through the gap in the curtains and sighs and says, ‘Looks like it.’
The children are delighted and everyone runs downstairs to eat the special breakfast that Sophie got in for them: fat American pancakes, Nutella and Coco Pops. Sophie drinks coffee from a big mug, Shaun drinks an espresso from a tiny cup, the children chat and eat and drop Coco Pops on the floor and talk about how if they were at home their dog, Betty, would hoover up the spilled cereal. Rain splashes gently against the windowpanes and for a moment, Sophie feels at one, as though maybe this is how she’s been waiting to feel ever since they first arrived. South London seems distant, and for a moment she thinks that maybe she can do this after all. All they needed was to see the children. Shaun has already lost some of the brittleness he’s been displaying since he started his new job. The harsh haircut he had before they arrived has started to grow out and soften, and he can’t stop smiling, even when the twins are being testy.
She picks up her phone to google the opening times of the leisure centre in Manton, and as she does so, a message arrives from Kim.
They’ve got a warrant. They’re going to Dark Place. I feel sick.
Sophie takes a sharp intake of breath, before typing her reply.
Oh my God. That was quick. When will they give you more developments?
They’re just putting a team together. Maybe in a couple of hours? I can’t breathe.
Is there anything I can do?
She knows it’s the wrong thing to have said the minute she presses send.
Could you come over? Maybe. If you’re not busy?
Sophie looks up from her phone. Lily and Jack are standing over the toaster waiting for their second round of pancakes to warm up, Shaun is loading the dishwasher, everyone is still in their pyjamas and in varying degrees of unreadiness for the day, the day that was very much intended to be a day about the four of them. She sighs and types, My partner’s kids are here. We’re going to the splash pool in Manton.
She pauses. It sounds so harsh. This woman is possibly on the cusp of discovering that her daughter is dead. Splash pool. Really?
She adds another line, But we’re not going for a while, so I could come over for a little bit.
Thank you so much,Kim replies. I just can’t face being on my own right now.
Sophie gets to Kim’s half an hour later. Shaun had looked a little confused when she’d tried to explain in as few words as possible where she was going, and why.
‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ she says as she leaves. ‘Probably less.’
‘But how do you know this woman?’
‘From the ring,’ she says lightly. ‘The one I found in the woods. I guess I’ve got a little bit sucked into things with her, you know.’
‘Well, don’t be too long, will you?’
‘I promise I’ll be back in time to go swimming.’
Kim looks grey when she opens the door to Sophie. She’s not wearing make-up and her usually shiny hair is hanging in matt ropes over each shoulder.
The sound of children’s TV blares from the living room, where Sophie can see the back of Noah’s head as they pass by. Kim leads her into the kitchen and pulls out a chair for her.
‘Tea?’
‘Yes. Please.’
Kim fills the kettle from the tap and Sophie hears her sigh.
‘Any more word?’ she asks.
‘No, not yet. This is the worst feeling. I can’t bear it.’
Kim’s shoulders look small and pointy through the cotton of her long-sleeved top and Sophie wants to touch her, comfort her, but she doesn’t know her well enough.
‘It’s going to happen,’ says Kim. ‘They’re going to open that slab in that tower, they’re going to go down there, and they’re going to find something. I know they are. And it could be something that breaks my world apart completely. And I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’m not sure I’ll ever, ever be ready for that. I want it to happen but I don’t want it to happen. And I need to know, but I don’t want to know. What if she’s down there? My baby girl. What if she’s down there? With spiders. You know, she suffers from arachnophobia. She’s terrified of spiders. Literally to the point where she can’t breathe if she sees one, where she would physically shake. And what if someone locked her down there, with spiders. In the dark. Alone. That’s what I can’t bear. The idea of her being down there, alone …’
And then Kim starts to cry and Sophie gets to her feet and encircles her in her arms and says, ‘Oh Kim. Oh Kim. I’m so sorry. This must be so tough. So tough.’ The kettles comes to a boil and clicks off but Kim does not make the tea; instead, she collapses on to a chair and stares at the clock on the kitchen wall as it turns from 10.01 a.m. to 10.02 a.m.
Then Kim’s phone buzzes and Sophie can see from here the name Dom flash up on her screen.
Kim straps Noah into his car seat in the back of her car while Sophie gets into the passenger seat. She takes out her phone and messages Shaun.
Kim and I are going to Dark Place. Apparently they’ve found something.
Her message goes unread until they are almost out of the village, when Shaun replies with, Oh God. I hope it’s nothing too awful. We’ll wait here till we hear from you.
Kim drives hard through the country lanes outside the village and then rather too fast up the tiny lane that leads to Dark Place. There’s a female police officer in high vis standing at the gates to the house and Kim winds down her window and says, ‘DI McCoy told me to come. I’m Tallulah Murray’s mother.’
The officer lets her through the gates and they drive up the potholed driveway to the front of the house which is circled with marked and unmarked police cars. Another police officer approaches them and Kim once again winds down her window and explains who she is and the police officer speaks into a walkie-talkie and then asks her to wait in the car for a moment.
The front door of the house is wide open. Inside Sophie can see an elegant marble hallway with a creamy stone staircase circling through the middle to a glass balustrade above, with a huge modernist chandelier hanging at its centre. The walls are hung with abstract art and at the base of the staircase there is a pair of 1960s’ leather lounging chairs facing each other across a low coffee table. It’s exquisitely tasteful, a perfect blend of old and new. But this beautiful house has been left abandoned for over a year and now, finally, everyone will know why.
Dom appears at the front door a moment later and Kim steps immediately out of her car and heads towards him. Sophie would like to follow, but needs to stay in the car with Noah, so she opens her door and swivels around so that she is half in and half out of the car. She watches as Dom says something to Kim and then she sees Kim’s body crumple at the knees and Dom and another man bring her back to standing with a hand under each elbow, before Dom takes her into his arms and holds on to her hard.
Sophie turns and looks at Noah. ‘I’m just going to check your nana’s OK, all right? I won’t be long. You just wait there, like a good, good boy. OK?’
Noah stares at her and then sticks out his tongue and blows her a raspberry and she starts slightly. No child has ever blown a raspberry at her before and the classroom assistant inside her would like to react to it in some way. But instead she ignores it and strides towards the front door.
She rests a hand gently on the small of Kim’s back and says, ‘Kim? What’s happened?’
And Kim is breathing too hard to speak so Dom speaks for her and says, ‘We’ve just got into the tunnel. There are human remains down there.’
Sophie feels a veil fall across her vision and wobbles slightly. ‘Is there any idea yet whose remains?’
‘No. Not yet. But Kim,’ he says, turning to address her, ‘you should know that it is a male.’
Kim sobs. A choking sound.
‘And we found this, as well.’ He holds up a sealed clear plastic bag. ‘Are you able to identify it, Kim?’
Sophie looks at the object in the bag. It’s a phone in a clear plastic case with some kind of design printed on it. She feels Kim’s shoulders crumple under her hand and she hears a noise come from Kim that she has never heard before, half banshee wail, half feral growl, and Kim collapses on to her knees there on the gravelled driveway and says, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, not my baby. No, no, no, no, not my beautiful baby girl.’
In the back seat of Kim’s car Noah starts to scream and cry and soon the damp air is filled with the sounds of raw human agony being played out in stereo and everyone else falls completely silent.