Just What Kind of Mother Are You? (10 page)

Both have drawbacks. Here, it’s the cameras. There, it’s the nosey, chatty staff
.

He wouldn’t have this problem in a city. No one gives a shit what you need rolls of polythene for if you live in Newcastle or Liverpool
.

He takes a detour outside and makes like he’s comparing the sizes of the bags of ornamental gravel while he decides. He doesn’t want to hang around for too long in one place, because people notice
.

And he’s got an admirer
.

A sad-looking redhead in a denim jacket and spike-heeled boots keeps following him. So far she’s put caustic soda, mildew remover and a four-pack of decorator’s dust sheets in her trolley. He suspects she needs none of these items and he’s tempted to stay by the gravel a bit longer. Just to see how she fares hauling a 30 kilogram bag of aggregate
.

Back inside, he makes the decision to split his shopping trip between two stores. The cleaning products he’ll get from here, the protective sheeting he’ll get from the builders’ supply yard. He’s just remembered that the staff there couldn’t be less interested in what you’re purchasing
.

He runs through the list in his head. Bleach. Cloths. Black bags. Might as well get a mop and bucket to make the job faster
.

His wife likes those Vileda mops. Says the floor dries quicker than with the old cloth types, so he’s probably best to pick up one of those
.

11

K
ATE SEES ME
hanging over by the road and stares back at me blankly. I’m about to turn and go back the way I’ve come, because it’s immediately obvious I’ve made a mistake. It was stupid to show up here.

I think I had some half-baked notion that if they could see me searching, if they could see just how much I want to put things right, it might go some way towards helping them to forgive.

Stupid. Stupid and self-centred. I’m embarrassed I came.

I turn to go, take a few steps, and hear, ‘Excuse me?’

A woman is making her way towards me. At first I start in her direction but then I see she’s a reporter. She’s immaculate, clearly not local press – she has to be national news to be dressed in this way: navy cashmere coat, flawless hair and make-up. ‘Do you know the family?’ she asks.

‘I’m a friend.’

‘What can you tell us about the missing girl? What kind of girl was she?’

I stare at her.
‘Is she’
, I correct. ‘You mean to say, what kind of girl
is
she.’

‘Of course. Apologies,’ she says briskly. ‘Do you know the Riverty family well?’

I nod, but I’m feeling hugely uncomfortable. I shouldn’t be speaking to this woman, and I glance to the house to see that Kate and Guy have retreated back inside. ‘I’m
sorry,’ I tell her, trying to walk away, ‘but I really must go.’

‘Please, just one moment, it won’t take long.’ Her eyes are full of kindness. Is it fake? I can’t tell. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time than I have to, but the media plays a crucial role in finding missing children. We can get information to the public in an instant. It can
really
mean the difference between the child being found alive … and—’

She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to. She knows she has me.

‘What do you want to know?’ I say.

She whips out a recording device from her handbag. ‘State your name and spell it as well, please.’

I’m spelling out K-A-L-L-I-S-T-O when I see Kate in the drawing-room window.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I’m not sure I should be doing this,’ and the reporter’s face hardens in an instant.

‘Okay, but can you just confirm something for us?’ She doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘Is it true that Lucinda Riverty has an older boyfriend? A much older boyfriend. Can you confirm that?’

‘What?’ I say, shocked. ‘No.’

‘No, as in
not true
? Or, no, as in you can’t confirm it, because you don’t know?’

I stammer something along the lines of it not being true but, to be honest, I’m thrown. Where has she got this from? Who is telling the press this stuff?

I look at her levelly, because all at once I’m annoyed. ‘Have you seen a picture of Lucinda?’

‘Yes, a school one. We could do with another, actually.’

‘So if you’ve seen a picture of her then you know she’s not the kind of slutty girl you are making her out to be—’

‘I did not suggest for a second she was slutty.’

‘Yes you did. Lucinda’s running around
with a much older boyfriend
. You go printing crap like that and instantly people stop caring. People think, oh, well, she’s obviously
that kind
of girl. She’ll probably turn up dead.’

She goes to interrupt, defending her job, but I continue on.

‘That’s what journalists do. You write, “Mr So-and-so, who was the victim of an armed attack
at his eight hundred thousand pound home
.” It’s the same deal. You’re telling people how sorry they should feel for the victims instead of just reporting it. You make me sick.’

‘That’s what news is … Mrs—’ she pauses, and I remind her, answering ‘Kallisto.’

A faint smile crosses her lips. ‘Oh yes. That wouldn’t happen to be the same Mrs Kallisto who was supposed to be looking after Lucinda Riverty, would it? … At the time she disappeared?’

Shocked into silence, I glare at her.

‘That’s not what happened,’ I say finally. ‘That’s not how it was—’, but she’s moved the digital recorder back towards my lips.

‘How about you tell me, in your own words, exactly
what did
happen?’

I glance towards Kate’s house. She’s still there, in the drawing-room window, beckoning for me to come up.

I turn to the reporter. I know I’m guilty. I know that Lucinda’s disappearance is my fault. But saying it out loud to this woman? Saying it out loud to the nation, and having them judge me, having this vile woman put words into my mouth? I can’t do it. It’s the coward’s approach, but I can’t bring myself to form the words.

‘Mrs Kallisto?’ she prompts, and, short of something intelligent and cutting to say, I tell her to piss off and make my way to the house.

Kate is standing right there in the hallway when I go in. For a second I hesitate. She sees my apprehension and embraces me.
She feels so tiny beneath her clothes that I think: When did this happen? When did she get so thin without my noticing?

‘What did that reporter say to you?’ she asks.

‘Nothing,’ I reply uneasily. ‘Just if I knew you. I told her I did but that I couldn’t answer her questions.’

‘I’ve been watching her.’

‘She’s very businesslike. I suppose you’ve got to be if you’re to survive in that game.’ I don’t tell Kate what the reporter said to me.

‘They’re here fast,’ I say. ‘The media.’

‘It’s because of that other girl,’ Kate replies. ‘Because Lucinda’s the second one to disappear.’

My voice is weak and shaky. I want to ask Kate how she is, but I can’t bring myself to do it, because it’s such an inadequate question. Because you know they’re not all right. You know they’re holding on to the edge, their fingernails scratching to keep a hold.

She looks at me as if sensing what I’m thinking and says, ‘I’m so scared, Lisa. I’m so fucking scared.’

My heart is breaking for her. ‘I know,’ I say softly. ‘I know.’

‘Where is she?’

‘They’ll find her.’

Kate rubs her face with her hands. She’s exhausted. We move through to the kitchen. I can hear the quiet pitter-patter of footsteps signalling there are people upstairs, but compared to earlier, the house is deafeningly quiet. Everyone must be out searching.

We sit down at the kitchen island. There’s a huge lean-to conservatory that runs along the back of Kate’s house; it’s flooding the kitchen with white light from the snow-covered garden.

From where I’m sitting I can see the children’s playhouse. It’s painted in nursery colours to look like the gingerbread cottage from Hansel and Gretel. Sally and Lucinda spent whole days out
there when they were nine or ten. Making up clubs, and secret codes, and whatever it is girls do at that age. It seems so painfully long ago now.

‘I know this sounds stupid,’ Kate says quietly, ‘but I never thought this would happen to me. I never thought I’d be the woman on the news, the woman you never want to be. I always thought I was protected somehow. I always thought I was shielded from things like this.’ She tries to smile. ‘Stupid, really.’ Her eyes are red-raw, her skin almost see-through.

‘Kate, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am.’

She takes my hands in hers. ‘Stop saying that, Lisa. Please. You’ve said it already. This is not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault.
I
should have checked as well, if we’re looking to apportion blame.’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know how you can do this,’ I say, truly staggered by how she’s dealing with the situation, by what she’s saying. ‘I don’t know how you can be so discerning. Is that really how you feel?’

‘What’s the use?’ she says softly. ‘I’ve not got the energy for anger right now. I just want her home.’

‘She will be.’

And she looks at me, the dark shadow across her face lifting for a second. ‘Do you know what?’ she says, ‘I really think she will. I think she
will
come home. I’m at the stage now where I don’t care what’s happened to her as long as I get her back. We can get through anything as long as she’s alive.’

I do my best to put what I hope is a positive expression on my face. Try to show:
Yes, absolutely, Lucinda is coming home
. But I don’t know if I pull it off, because I don’t really believe it. How can I believe it when I’ve watched family after family go through this on the news? Split open with grief when their child turns up dead.

I stand and hug Kate again. ‘Where’s Fergus?’ I ask her.

‘Upstairs with Alexa.’

‘How is he?’

‘He knows an awful thing has happened, he knows Lucinda’s not here, but he doesn’t understand the consequences of it. He’s no idea of the danger she’s in and we’ve purposely not told him.’

‘Of course.’

‘How’s Sally?’ she asks.

Typical of Kate to be concerned about my kids at a time like this.

‘Pretty awful, but I’ve not spoken to her since this morning. I tried calling. The police were at school interviewing them and I’ve heard nothing since. She blames herself, as you’d expect.’

‘Why was she off yesterday?’

‘Stomach pains – nothing serious. I couldn’t stay home with her ’cause there was too much going on at work and so she—’

‘You should have called,’ Kate says. ‘I would have kept an eye on her—’ and then she stops.

Because we’re both thinking the same thing.

If only I
had
called her.

There’s an extended moment of silence as we both consider the what-ifs, the if-onlys, then I shudder as I hear footsteps coming from the floor above.

Kate senses my anxiety. ‘She’s just using the loo. She’s not on her way down here.’

She means Alexa, of course, and I let my breath out slowly.

‘I’m sorry she was so fierce earlier,’ Kate says. ‘It’s just her way. To blame, I mean.’

I avert my gaze. What I always do when Alexa is the subject of conversation.

‘She was right to blame,’ I say quietly, but Kate’s mind is suddenly elsewhere. She’s looking past me to the corner of the room, and her eyes have glazed over.

12

D
C J
OANNE
A
SPINALL
walks up the steps to the doctor’s surgery. It’s 5.40 p.m.

Missing girl number two, day one, and the pressure is building. She had been going to cancel this appointment. She had been going to stay at the station, keep working. But her boss told her they weren’t going to get any further with the investigation today. He sent Joanne home, telling her to call at the Rivertys’ while she was heading back that way. ‘Let them know we’re doing everything we can. Take some more details, speak to the press if necessary.’

Guy Riverty had been out with the search parties and Kate was being looked after by her sister. Joanne hadn’t stayed long.

Detectives usually work office hours – nine to five; staying late if the case warrants it. Sometimes Joanne missed the shifts of a WPC – she used to get more errands done when she worked nights. She sees her reflection in the glass doors at the top of the steps and touches her hair briefly. It has all but come loose from her ponytail. She can’t remember the last time she had a proper cut.

The waiting room’s full and it’s Joanne’s instinct to drop her head. She keeps a low profile in Windermere. She knows better than to advertise the fact she’s CID.

She’d read something recently about ‘Making the police more visible’. Some daft government adviser suggesting that, because
of the cutbacks, they should make the most of police officers. Cultivate a greater perception of police presence – bobbies on the beat and all that.

The idea was that police officers should travel to and from work in uniform. Joanne had laughed out loud when she read it. You go in and out of your
house
in your uniform and it won’t be more than a day before your windows are egged and your tyres are flat. And that’s in a nice area.

Joanne punches her details into the computerized thing on the wall that lets the surgery staff know you’ve arrived. The old people never use it, so you can sometimes jump the queue a bit while they wait for the receptionist to deal with them. She takes a seat next to a smiling old lady, who says to her, ‘Flu jab?’, and Joanne says yes. Just because it’s easier.

There’s a pharmacy within the surgery, which Joanne thinks is a terrific idea. No more driving round in the pouring rain, clutching your prescription, nowhere open after 5 p.m. This pharmacy keeps the same hours as the doctors, so you’re done and dusted all in one go.

Joanne spies a copy of
World of Interiors –
which her Auntie Jackie calls ‘World of Inferiors’, and bypasses it, opting instead for the December issue of
Good Housekeeping
. Unusual to find an up-to-date copy in here, she thinks, and muses over ways to liven up Christmas dinner: Why not try goose? Or guinea fowl? Her eyes settle on a salmon terrine (suitable for diabetics), but her thoughts are never far from the missing girl.