Just What Kind of Mother Are You? (4 page)

I nod again, more firmly this time, because I cannot share this with anyone. Not right now, not yet.

She leaves, but not before taking another glance at me, to check that I’m okay – because that’s what mothers do. They check. They make doubly sure. They confirm that all is well.

And I had not.

I’d been so caught up in … 
what
exactly? What had I been doing? Because as I think back to yesterday, I can’t come up with anything. Nothing at all.

I look around. Kate’s car is still not here. Of course it’s not. She won’t be coming to school today. She won’t be dropping Fergus off, she won’t be chatting with the school secretary about a collection she’s organized for the teaching assistant, who’s leaving at Christmas. She won’t be sorting through the lost property, handing out school sweatshirts to their rightful
owners. She won’t be telling Fergus to
Hurry up! Chop chop, get your boots off, sunshine
.

I put my hands on the steering wheel. I need to move from here, from right outside the school gate. People are beginning to stare.

No one knows yet.

No one knows what I’ve done.

I start to cry. I need Joe. I need him in that way you need your mother when you’re small and despairing. When the sky is falling in. I need him, but I’m scared to hear his voice.

Finally I dial his mobile. He answers on the eighth ring, he coughs a couple of times, then shouts, ‘I’m up! I’m up! I’m on my way to Booths now, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten.’

‘Joe?’

Instantly, he realizes I’ve not rung to berate him about the pizza ingredients. ‘What is it, baby? What’s happened?’

‘It’s Lucinda,’ I say, straining to keep my voice level. ‘Kate’s daughter, Lucinda. She’s gone missing.’

‘Aw, Jesus, Lise. When? Where was she? Have you spoken to Kate? Has she gone to the police?’

‘Joe, it’s worse than that,’ I say, choking on the words. ‘It’s worse than that, because it’s my fault. It’s my fault she’s gone.’

‘How can it be your fault?’ he says. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

This is Joe. He leaps to my defence even if he’s not in possession of all the facts. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done. Doesn’t matter whether I’m guilty or not. Joe will launch a counter-attack on whoever is attacking me even if I’m in the wrong.

But today it’s worthless.

‘Lucinda was supposed to be staying at ours last night,’ I say. ‘She was supposed to come home with Sally after school and work on a project. I don’t know what it was for, geography
maybe, I can’t remember. But Sally didn’t’ – I struggle with the words – ‘Sally didn’t—’

‘Sally didn’t go into school yesterday,’ he finishes for me.

‘That’s right,’ I say quietly. ‘She didn’t. She said she felt sick and I didn’t have time to argue, so I let her stay at home. When Sally got on the minibus this morning and Lucinda didn’t, she started panicking about the project and rang Lucinda’s mobile. When Lucinda didn’t answer, she rang Kate—’

‘And Kate said, “Isn’t she with you?” ’

‘Yes.’

The horror of what we’re facing slaps me in the face for the second time as it dawns on Joe. I can picture him, sitting on the edge of the bed, not up as he’d pretended to be, but in his underwear, his head hanging low.

‘So, she’s been missing since – when?’ he asks. ‘Since yesterday afternoon?’

I don’t speak.

‘Shit,’ he says, realizing. ‘Has she been gone since yesterday morning?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ I say, ‘but it’s overnight, Joe. She’s been gone overnight and she’s only thirteen. Thirteen! She’s only thirteen.’ I am sobbing fully now. ‘What’s happened to her? Jesus, Joe, it feels like it’s happening to us, only it’s worse because it’s not our daughter I’ve lost, it’s not
our
daughter … it’s Kate’s.’

Joe sighs then says as softly as he can, ‘Lise, why didn’t you tell them Sally was ill?’

‘I told Sally to text Lucinda and tell her she wasn’t coming in, but I should’ve done it myself, I should’ve rung Kate—’

‘Kate’
, he says emphatically. ‘Dear God,
Kate
,’ he says again.

I imagine his expression.

‘Joe,’ I say carefully, ‘are you meaning that this would be easier if this was somebody else’s child? Not Kate’s? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘No,’ he answers firmly, but then admits: ‘You know what I mean, though … don’t you?’

I do, but I don’t let myself think that way. I close my eyes. I feel as if I’ve been shot in the stomach. I can’t move.

‘Help me, Joe,’ I cry to him. ‘Help me. I don’t know what to do.’

‘I will, baby,’ he shushes gently. ‘I will. Where are you? I’ll come and get you. Don’t drive. I’ll come.’

Like us, Kate and Guy Riverty live in Troutbeck, but their house is on the other side of the valley. We leave my car outside Sam’s school and Joe drives us up there in the taxi.

Sam jumped out of my car and got himself into school when I was receiving the awful news from Sally. I don’t think I even said goodbye to him. Sally was not in good state. I have no idea what to do about her. Whether to bring her home or leave her at school. She said the police were at school taking statements, and she wasn’t sure if she’s even allowed to come home until she’s spoken with them.

My mind is blank and my body leaden. I look at Joe. ‘I don’t know what to say to Kate and Guy – what the hell am I going to say to them?’

‘Tell them you’re sorry. Say that. Kate’ll need to hear it.’

He’s right, of course. It’s just that I’m so scared.

‘What if she screams at me? What if she throws me out?’

‘Then you’ll have to take it. You have no choice.’ He looks at me, his face woeful. ‘I won’t let her hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ll stay with you.’

I turn away, sickened at myself. ‘Listen to me – scared of facing her, when her only daughter is
gone
. How fucked up is that? I should be thinking of ways to support her.’

Joe reaches across and puts his hand on top of my tightly clasped palms. ‘It’s not your fault, Lise,’ he says.

I don’t respond. We’re almost at Kate and Guy’s and if I say what I want to say, if I scream, ‘Of course it’s my fault! You
know
it’s my fault,’ and allow the hysteria I’m holding inside to surface, I won’t be able to get out of the car.

I close my eyes and steady my breath. Instead I say, ‘Thanks for coming to get me, Joe.’

He looks across at me, his eyes sad. ‘Always,’ he says simply.

5

D
C J
OANNE
A
SPINALL
gets behind the wheel of the grey Mondeo. She’d been given the choice of Midnight Sky or Lunar Sky. Grey, basically. But Joanne wasn’t bothered about the colour; for her, it was all about engine capacity.

In recent years they’d lowered the spec for the plain clothes, the thinking behind it that detectives don’t find themselves in many car chases, it mostly being traffic who deal with the druggies on the run, the stolen vehicles. Which was a shame, because Joanne liked a good chase.

At the station they said Joanne had two speeds: stop, and gone.

Sometimes she wondered if she’d made a mistake joining CID. Slow cars. And she’d certainly be making more money by now as a uniform; she’d be a sergeant. It was harder to rise up through the ranks as detective. That’s why the force was short of them. It put the younger officers off, especially if they had families to support.

Joanne glances back up to the house and considers the scene she’s just left. Naturally, her first instinct is to suspect the family. The statistics don’t lie. Children are almost always abducted by someone they know.

It’s one of the trickiest approaches to pull off as a detective – gathering the necessary information from the family, simultaneously
keeping a demeanour of total empathy and clocking the parents for anything out of the ordinary.

Of course Joanne’s been trained never to make assumptions. Not in this job: it wastes time. It clouds judgement and leaves avenues unexplored. The words of Joanne’s old chemistry teacher pop into her mind each time she thinks of this: ‘Never assume,’ he used to say, during experiments, ‘because to
assume
makes an ASS out of U and ME.’

Joanne smiles briefly as she takes out her notepad. She observes the list in front of her and, without really understanding why, she underlines the name Guy Riverty. The missing girl’s father. She sees she’s already written it bolder than the others. Already gone over the ‘G’ a few times without realizing, when she was questioning the couple.

What was it about him? There was no previous; he was all very above board and proper. But even so something didn’t sit quite right with her. Joanne looks around at the snow-covered valley as she thinks. Guy Riverty had an awkward, uncomfortable air about him. Babbling, but not really saying anything. Richard Madeley sprang to mind.

Babbling per se was fine with Joanne. After an incident, particularly something unsettling, people tend either to talk continuously or to go silent; there was no in between. They either needed to tell Joanne
absolutely everything
, beginning at the moment they were born and leading up to whatever had put them in the particular time and place of the incident, or else they said nothing, they became mute.

Joanne was good with the mutes. Especially the guilty ones. She didn’t use tricks. No good cop, bad cop. No ‘Trust in Me’ routine, like Kaa, the hypnotic snake from
The Jungle Book
who had frightened Joanne to death when she was a kid. No, Joanne was methodical and conscientious. She started at the beginning and worked her way through to the end until she got what she needed.

If this made her boring, she didn’t care. If it got up her colleagues’ noses, she didn’t care about that either. She worked this way because it was the only way
to
work. You get cavalier-cocky during an investigation and there’s only one outcome: you end up looking like a complete tosser. And Joanne had worked with enough fools over the past few years to know that swinging your dick about didn’t guarantee results. Quite the contrary.

Joanne taps her pen on the steering wheel and thinks about the missing girl.

Lucinda Riverty.

Thirteen years old, slight, small, with her mousy-brown hair cut just below her chin. She likes school, she’s doing grade-five piano, she’s not keen on sport, not what you’d call outgoing. But neither would you say she was introverted. Just an ordinary girl.

But, to her parents, an
extraordinary girl
. An extraordinary girl who’s now gone.

‘Who took this one?’ Joanne wonders out loud.

6

A
LWAYS
,
SAYS
J
OE
.

Me and Joe together, always.

It’s what he said to me when I pushed his babies out. What he says when I’m vomiting hard over the toilet after too much wine. Or when there’s a beautiful woman in the pub and my face falls, and when I check to see if Joe’s looking at her, and he’s not, he’s looking at me, and he’s smiling at my insecurity.
Always
, he says, and I’m okay again. It fixes me.

If I screw up, it doesn’t matter. Because, to Joe, nothing I do is ever really a screw-up anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s as bad-tempered and as hot-headed and irritating as the next man. And we’ve definitely had our moments. But they were just moments. No different to any other couple faced with kids, faced with having to
be
better, having to
do
better, than we ever thought possible. Day after day after day after day.

Kate’s house suddenly comes into view and I see there is a ton of cars parked outside already. All at once I lose the breath from my lungs. ‘Oh, Christ, Joe, I don’t think I can go in there. Pull over, will you?’

He does as I say and cuts the engine.

We’re in a passing place about fifty yards from Kate’s. The house looks so imposing. More than it has ever done before. It’s a grand house, built entirely from lead-grey Lakeland stone.
Today it’s bleak and exposed. There’s a Christmas tree in the front bay, but its lights are off.

‘What do you want to do?’ Joe asks me.

‘I know I’ve got to go in. But I just want to go home and crawl into bed. I want to bury my head and hide.’ I turn to him, and my voice cracks. ‘I don’t want to see what I’ve
done
to her, Joe.’

He nods, understanding. ‘You have no choice, though. It would be worse if you didn’t show up. They’ll be expecting you.’

‘I know.’

For a minute we sit in silence. Me working through what I need to say, and Joe letting me have some space. There’s a foul, putrid taste in my mouth. I keep swallowing to shift it, but it’s no use, my mouth is dry.

When Joe senses I’m maybe starting to get a grip on things, he speaks. ‘What do you reckon Kate and Guy will be thinking right now? Will they be considering … you know, the worst?’

‘What, that she’s already dead?’

Joe flinches.

‘Well, there is
that
possibility,’ he says, ‘but I was thinking more along the lines of the young girl who turned up in Bowness. Remember? The one who was raped?’

I put my hands to my face. I’d forgotten all about that poor girl. Discarded on the street, no idea where she was.

When I’d read about her I’d immediately thought of Sally. About how self-conscious Sally can be. So much so that she turns away from me when undressing. If we’re out shopping, she has this way of trying on shirts, a way of covering herself so I don’t see the front of her bra. When I’d read the story of the girl, an image of Sally had flashed into my mind: Sally naked from the waist up. Sally walking into that busy travel agent’s asking for help after her hellish ordeal, quietly dying inside.

‘Please, no,’ I whimper to Joe. ‘Please don’t let that be Lucinda. She’s so young.’

Joe scratches the area of skin under his chin. He hasn’t shaved yet and the re-growth is starting to itch.

‘Is there any chance she could have meant to do this?’ he speculates.