After You (21 page)

I listened to the uncharacteristic flurry of her words. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I felt like that, too.’

‘I can’t stop thinking about her. I do so want to meet her properly. Do you think she’d agree to see me again?’

‘Mrs Traynor, she’s not staying with me any more. But yes.’ I ran my fingers through my hair. ‘Yes, of course I’ll ask her.’

I couldn’t focus on the rest of the film. In the end, perhaps realizing that I was simply staring at a moving screen, Sam suggested we leave. We stood in the car park by his bike and I told him what she’d said.

‘There, see?’ he said, as if I had done something to be proud of. ‘Let’s go.’

He waited on the bike across the road as I knocked on the door. I lifted my chin, determined that this time I would not let Tanya Houghton-Miller intimidate me. I glanced back, and Sam nodded encouragingly.

The door opened. Tanya was dressed in a chocolate linen dress and Grecian sandals. She looked me up and down as she had when we’d first met, as if my own wardrobe had failed some invisible test. (This was a little annoying as I was wearing my favourite checked cotton pinafore dress.) Her smile stayed on her lips for just a nanosecond, then fell away. ‘Louisa.’

‘Sorry to turn up unannounced, Mrs Houghton-Miller.’

‘Has something happened?’

I blinked. ‘Well, yes, actually.’ I pushed my hair from the side of my face. ‘I’ve had a call from Mrs Traynor, Will’s mother. I’m sorry to bother you with this, but she’d really like to get in contact with Lily, and as she’s not picking up her phone, I wondered if you’d mind asking her to call me?’

Tanya gazed at me from under perfectly plucked brows.

I kept my face neutral. ‘Or maybe we could have a quick chat with her.’

There was a short silence. ‘Why would you think
I
would ask her?’

I took a breath, picking my words carefully. ‘I know you have strong feelings about the Traynor family, but I do think it would be in Lily’s interests. I don’t know if she told you but they had a rather difficult first meeting the other week and Mrs Traynor would really like the chance to start again.’

‘She can do what she wants, Louisa. But I don’t know why you’re expecting me to get involved.’

I tried to keep my voice polite. ‘Um … because you’re her mother?’

‘Whom she hasn’t bothered to contact in more than a week.’

I stood very still. Something cold and hard settled in my stomach. ‘What did you just say?’

‘Lily. Hasn’t bothered to contact me. I thought at least she might come and say hello after we got back from holiday but, no, that’s plainly beyond her. Suiting herself, as usual.’ She extended a hand to examine her fingernails.

‘Mrs Houghton-Miller, she was meant to be with you.’

‘What?’

‘Lily. Was moving back in with you. When you got home from your holiday. She left my flat … ten days ago.’

We stood in Tanya Houghton-Miller’s immaculate kitchen and I stared at her shiny coffee machine with 108 knobs, which had probably cost more than my car, and ran through the previous week’s events for the umpteenth time.

‘It was around half twelve. I gave her twenty pounds for a taxi and asked her to leave her key. I just assumed she’d come home.’ I felt sick. I walked the length of the breakfast bar and back again, my brain racing. ‘I should have checked. But she tended to come and go as she pleased. And we … well, we’d had a bit of a row.’

Sam stood by the door, rubbing his brow. ‘And neither of you has heard anything from her since.’

‘I’ve texted her four or five times,’ I said. ‘I just assumed she was still angry with me.’

Tanya hadn’t offered us coffee. She strolled to the stairwell, peered upstairs, then glanced at her watch, as if she were waiting for us to go. She did not look like a parent who had just discovered her child was missing. Periodically I heard the dull roar of a vacuum-cleaner.

‘Mrs Houghton-Miller, has anyone here heard from her at all? Can you tell from your phone whether she’s even read her texts?’

‘I told you,’ she said. Her voice was strangely calm. ‘I told you this was what she was like. But you wouldn’t listen.’

‘I think we –’

She lifted a hand, stopping Sam. ‘This is not the first time. Oh, no. She disappeared for days before, when she was meant
to be at boarding-school. I blame them, of course. They were meant to know exactly where she was at all times. They only rang us when she’d been gone forty-eight hours and then we had to get the police involved. Apparently one of the girls in her dorm had lied for her. Why they couldn’t tell who was and who wasn’t there is completely beyond me, especially given the ridiculous fees we pay. Francis was all for suing them. He was called out of his annual board meeting to deal with it. It was a huge embarrassment.’

Upstairs there was a crash and somebody started to cry. Tanya walked to the kitchen door. ‘Lena! Take them out to the park, for goodness’ sake!’ She came back into the kitchen. ‘You know she gets drunk. She takes drugs. She stole my Mappin & Webb diamond earrings. She won’t admit it, but she did. They were worth thousands. I have no idea what she did with them. She’s taken a digital camera, too.’

I thought back to my missing jewellery and something in me tightened uncomfortably.

‘So, yes. This is all rather predictable. I did tell you. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really have to go and sort the boys out. They’re having a difficult day.’

‘But you’ll call the police, yes? She’s sixteen years old and it’s been almost ten days.’

‘They won’t be interested. Not once they know who it is.’ Tanya held up a slender finger. ‘Expelled from two schools for truanting. Cautioned for possession of a class-A drug. Drunk and disorderly. Shoplifting. What’s the phrase? My daughter has “form”. To be perfectly frank, even if the police do find her and bring her back here, she’ll simply up and go again when it suits her.’

A wire had tightened across my chest, constricting my breath. Where would she have gone? Was that boy, the one who hung around outside my flat, involved? The nightclubbers who
had been with Lily that drunken night? How had I been so distracted?

‘Let’s call them regardless. She’s still very young.’

‘No. I do not want the police involved. Francis is having a very tricky time at work right now. He’s fighting to retain his place on the board. If they get wind that he’s involved in some sort of police business that will be it.’

Sam’s jaw tightened. He took a moment before he spoke. ‘Mrs Houghton-Miller, your daughter is vulnerable. I really think it’s time to get someone else involved.’

‘If you call them I’ll simply explain to them what I’ve just told you.’

‘Mrs Houghton-Miller –’

‘How many times have you met her, Mr Fielding?’ She leaned back against the cooker. ‘You know her better than I do, do you? You’ve been kept up nights waiting for her to come home? You’ve lost sleep? Had to explain her behaviour to teachers and police officers? Apologize to shop assistants for things she’s stolen? Bail out her credit card?’

‘Some of the most chaotic kids are those most at risk.’

‘My daughter is a talented manipulator. She will be with one of her friends. Just as she has been before. I will guarantee that within the next day or two Lily will turn up here, drunk and screeching in the middle of the night, or knocking at Louisa’s door, or begging for money, and you will probably have reason to wish she never had. Someone will let her in and she’ll be sorry and contrite and terribly sad, and then a few days later, she’ll bring a bunch of friends home or steal something. And the whole sorry cycle will revolve again.’

She pushed her golden hair back from her face. She and Sam stared at each other. ‘I’ve had to undergo counselling to cope with the chaos my daughter has brought into my
life, Mr Fielding. It’s hard enough coping with her brothers and their … behavioural difficulties. But one of the things you learn in therapy is that there comes a point when you have to take care of yourself. Lily is old enough to make her own decisions –’

‘She’s a child,’ I said.

‘Oh, yes – that’s right. A child
you
turned out of your apartment some time after midnight.’ Tanya Houghton-Miller held my gaze with the complacency of someone who had just been proven right. ‘Not everything is black and white. Much as we would like it to be.’

‘You’re not even worried, are you?’ I said.

She held my gaze. ‘No, frankly. I’ve been here too many times before.’ I made to speak again but she was ahead of me. ‘Quite the saviour complex, haven’t you, Louisa? Well, my daughter doesn’t need saving. And if she did, I wouldn’t be hugely convinced by your record so far.’

Sam’s arm was around me even before I was able to take a breath. My retort formed, toxic, in my mouth, but she had already turned away. ‘C’mon,’ he said, propelling me out into the hallway. ‘Let’s go.’

We drove around the West End for several hours, slowing to peer at the groups of catcalling, staggering girls, and, more soberly, at the rough sleepers, then parked up and walked side by side along the dark archways under bridges. We put our heads around the doors of nightclubs, asking if anyone had seen the girl in the photographs on my mobile phone. We went to the club where she had taken me dancing, and to a couple more that Sam said were notorious haunts for under-age drinkers. We passed bus stops and fast-food joints, and the further we went the more I thought how ridiculous it was to try to find her among the thousands milling around
the humming streets of central London. She could have been anywhere. She seemed to be everywhere. I texted her again, twice, to tell her we were urgently looking for her, and when we got back to my flat Sam rang various hospitals just to be sure she hadn’t been admitted.

Finally we sat on my little sofa and ate some toast, he made me a cup of tea and we sat in silence for a bit.

‘I feel like the worst parent in the world. And I’m not even a parent.’

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

‘Yes, I can. What kind of person turfs a sixteen-year-old out of their flat in the small hours without checking where she’s actually going?’ I closed my eyes. ‘I mean, just because she’s disappeared before doesn’t mean she’ll be okay now, does it? She’ll be like one of those teenage runaways who disappear and nobody ever hears of them again until some dog out walking digs up their bones in the woods.’

‘Louisa.’

‘I should have been stronger. I should have understood her better. I should have thought harder about how young she is. Was. Oh, God, if something’s happened I’ll never forgive myself. And out there right now some innocent dog-walker has no idea that he’s about to have his life ruined –’

‘Louisa.’ Sam put his hand on my leg. ‘Stop. You’re going round in circles. Irritating as she is, it’s entirely possible Tanya Houghton-Miller’s right and Lily will coast in or ring your bell in about three hours’ time and we’ll all feel like fools and forget what’s happened until it all starts again.’

‘But why won’t she answer her phone? She must know I’m worried.’

‘Perhaps that’s why she’s ignoring you.’ He gave me a wry look. ‘She may be enjoying making you sweat a little. Look, there’s
not much more we can do tonight. And I’ve got to go. I have an early shift.’ He cleared away the plates and put them in the sink, leaning back against the kitchen cabinets.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Not exactly the most fun start to a relationship.’

He lowered his chin. ‘This is a relationship now?’

I felt myself colour. ‘Well, I didn’t mean –’

‘I’m kidding.’ He reached out a hand and pulled me to him. ‘I quite enjoy your determined attempts to convince me you’re basically just using me for sex.’

He smelt good. Even when he smelt faintly of anaesthetic, he smelt good. He kissed the top of my head. ‘We’ll find her,’ he said, as he left.

After he’d gone, I climbed up onto the roof. I sat in the dark, inhaling the scent of the jasmine she’d trained up the edge of the water tank, and ran my hand softly over the tiny purple heads of the aubretia that tumbled over the terracotta planters. I looked over the parapet, scanned the winking streets of the city and my legs didn’t even tremble. I texted her again, then got ready for bed, feeling the silence of the flat close in around me.

I checked my phone for the millionth time, and then my email, just in case. Nothing. But there was one from Nathan: