I must have blacked out because one moment I was lying on the bank staring up into the sunlight sifted through leaves, and the next I was on my knees throwing up gutfuls of bile and silty water, and Danny was crying in great honking brays. I started to feel scared when I saw Rupert’s face, ghost-white, and the remains of my lunch about my feet. I realised I had lost a shoe in the water and that my mother would be cross with me. I was gripped with panic then – a huge, rumbling dread – and the taste in my mouth was the same bright taste that filled my mouth that endless, horrible day many years later. Fear, bright as neon.
Detective Tony Marston introduced himself the way he did everything: slowly, and with great care. He took one of my hands and simply held it in both of his for a moment, catching my eye. His face was so deeply lined it appeared corrugated. Indentations were carved into his brow, his cheeks, a deep cleft in his chin. He had scruffy grey hair and blue eyes nested in creases, and what he said in his soft, coaxing voice was this: ‘My name is Detective Tony Marston and I am here to help you find your daughter.’
I made him a cup of tea and he leaned against the doorway of my tiny kitchenette. Edie had been missing now for a week. Tony had a picture of her in his hand, a school photo, unsmiling. He was talking to me, voice lifting and falling like the sea. My head was low, stomach rumbling.
‘Samantha, in cases like this what we usually find is that these kids come home when they’re hungry or broke. A night or two on the streets is usually a good wake-up call. Makes them think, do you see?’
He lit a cigarette and took the tea from me. The female officer who had accompanied him was tall and thin with flat brown hair, like a reed. She sat silently, sipping milky tea. I don’t recall her ever speaking.
‘What do you mean, “cases like this”?’ I asked. My ears were ringing; the shock, coming in waves.
‘I’ve seen a lot of runaways, Samantha – is it Samantha or can I call you Sam? And I can tell you that they’ve all got one thing in common. They all discover that they can’t run away from a problem. It catches up with them in the end. Now, the good news is that this is something they discover of their own accord, usually pretty quickly, and they come home with their tail between their legs. Not all of them, mind, but most. And you said there had been conflict, did you not?’
He looked to his colleague for confirmation. She gave him a quick nod.
‘It was just a silly row,’ I said. ‘Over nothing, really. A missing necklace. I thought she’d taken it – she does that sometimes, without asking, it’s just a little thing. I can’t believe she’d leave over it.’
Tony smiled at me sympathetically, face crumpled like soft towels. ‘I have a teenager. In fact, I have two of them. You don’t need to explain this to me. But we need to know everything you can tell us because as far as we are concerned this is an open case. The more information we have, the better our chances of finding her.’
‘Sure.’
‘The other good news’ – here he smiled as if he really were delivering good news – ‘is that Elizabeth is what we class as a low-risk missing person. What that means is, from the information you’ve given us, there’s no risk of harm either to the public or herself.’ I thought of Edie thrashing in my arms, that bruise blooming in shades of yellow and deep violet. I stayed silent. I hadn’t told them about that. I didn’t want to look like a bad mother.
‘What that also means is while abduction or kidnap are a possibility, it’s minimal. As there has been a pattern of her – uh – “absconding”, if you like, that gives us hope that this is another one of those times. Her age is the thing that makes her most vulnerable, but according to the notes I’ve got here you’ve told us she is “very streetwise”.’
Had I? Those initial days after Edie had walked out were like stones dropping from my hands.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But she’s never been gone this long before.’
He leant forward, placed his hand on my forearm. His palm was warm. ‘We’ll find her, but in all honesty, Samantha, I think she’ll be home before the end of the week.’
‘I hope so.’
‘End of the week,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’ll see.’
But she wasn’t. She wasn’t home that night, or the night after. Detective Marston returned two days later, alone this time. He had a folded-up newspaper under his arm and when he came into the house he wrinkled his nose as though it smelled bad.
‘How are you bearing up?’
‘Have you got any news?’ I didn’t have time for his pleasantries. My heart had started to stutter, little palpitations at odd hours of the night like rusty machinery, trembling beneath my skin.
‘We haven’t found your daughter yet. But we’re making inroads, Samantha, I promise you. Can I get you some tea? Have you been sleeping?’
I lifted my head to meet his gaze. I’d been mistaken about Marston’s eyes being blue. They were the grey of cold stone. He wasn’t smiling.
‘What is it? Tell me.’
‘Come through to the kitchen. Let’s talk in there.’
He led me through and filled the kettle while I cleared a space on the kitchen table, shoving the junk mail and newspapers and food packets to one side. I was living off cereal and instant noodles. I was too jittery to sit down. I lit a cigarette and when I offered one to Tony he took it gratefully.
‘We’ve been up to your daughter’s school. Spoken with some of her teachers there. It seems Edie has had some problems engaging with her education.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Truancy. We know that, of course. The day she went missing she’d skipped school. Where did she go? We’re still looking into that. But according to our timeline she was with her friends that same Thursday evening at the youth centre at St Mary de Castro. We know that because she was seen with them as late as 7 p.m., when the caretaker was locking up. What we want to establish is, where had she been that day and what bearing does it have on her disappearance?’
He made strong tea for us both, brown and tarry, the milk slightly turned. He handed me the sugar bowl.
‘Stick a few spoonfuls of that in. It’ll taste better.’
We sat opposite each other at the table. The pouches beneath his eyes were dark purple, lined with veins.
‘We got the impression from Edie’s teachers that she has something of a history with the school. Aside from the truancy, there were episodes of bullying – quite severe, by the sounds of it.’
‘Edie never mentioned she was being bullied.’
‘No, no.’ He was talking softly. ‘Edie was the bully.’
There was a pain behind my eyes like an iron band squeezing and squeezing my skull. A warning carved of stillness. In 373 BC historians recorded that all the animals deserted the Greek city of Helice just days before it was destroyed by an earthquake, alerted by some strange telepathy. Rats, snakes, weasels, running in silence. I had that same feeling now. The calm that precedes devastation.
‘Edie wasn’t a bully. She was difficult, but she wouldn’t—’
‘Samantha. You must have known.’