Now You See Me (10 page)

Paul came back for Alice late the next morning, his face haggard and pasty from lack of sleep. Alice screamed and clung to my legs, refusing to go. Paul stared at her, bewildered, looking helpless with exhaustion.

“I'll come too,” I said.

“You sure?” Paul glanced at Dad for confirmation, but I didn't give him a chance to object.

“I'm sure,” I said firmly.

Alice sucked her thumb the whole way, staring out the car window at the dog walkers braving the rain. It was one of those wet, drizzly Saturday mornings that made you wonder why you even bothered with weekends – you might as well be at school.

I sat in the back with Alice, crossing my fingers and tucking them under my knees so Paul couldn't see. Please let everything be okay, I repeated silently to myself, over and over, until the words felt flat and drained of meaning. Please. Please. Please.

As soon as we got into the house I saw my prayers had gone unanswered. Everything was most definitely not okay. Martha was standing in the hallway, the phone in her hand, tears rolling down her face, her dark hair loose and messy and her expression so anguished it made my stomach curl.

“Jesus, Martha…” Paul strode over and grabbed the receiver, listened for a moment before setting it back in its cradle.

“Who was it? The police?”

Martha shook her head miserably.

“Who then?”

I flinched. Paul seemed annoyed, almost angry.

“I don't know.” She sank onto the bench near the front door. Alice scowled and marched into the lounge. Seconds later a children's channel boomed in the background. By the sound of it, she'd turned the volume up as high as it would go.

“What do you mean, you don't know?” Paul persisted. “Didn't they tell you?”

“He…they…didn't say anything.”

“And you didn't ask?”

“Of course I did,” Martha sobbed. “I always do. But he never answers.”

She spoke so quietly that I nearly didn't catch what she said against the noise of the TV. But I heard enough to send shivers right through me.

The phone calls.

“Martha, what are you talking about?” Paul looked at the very edge of his patience. Clearly he'd been up half the night, churning over the news from the police.

Martha swiped her hand across her eyes. “It rings. I answer, but there's just silence.”

“A wrong number then? One of those automated marketing calls?”

Martha shook her head again. “No, there's definitely someone there. Listening, I mean.”

“You're telling me this has happened before?”

“Yes. I…normally it doesn't bother me, it's just right now…today…” She started crying again, her brow creasing into lines that seemed to have deepened overnight.

“How many times, Martha?”

“I don't know. Perhaps a dozen.”

Paul was almost glaring at her, his expression incredulous.

“And me.”

I blurted it out before I could change my mind. Martha and Paul both turned and stared, Paul frowning in confusion.

“When?” Martha gasped.

“I'm not sure. A few times, maybe three. Once at home.”

“Hannah, sweetheart, why didn't you tell us?” Martha grabbed my hand and pulled me to face her.

I shrugged. “I don't know. I just assumed they were from someone at school, messing around.” It was easier to ignore them; we all had enough on our plate as it was.

“So how long has this been going on?” Paul turned back to his wife.

“A few months. Maybe a bit longer.”

“Christ, Martha, this is crazy. Why the hell didn't you say anything?”

“Because I knew you'd be like this,” she said quietly. “I knew you'd never believe me.”

Time to go. I picked up my bag, but Martha hung onto my hand and shot me a pleading look.

“Believe you about what? Why wouldn't I believe we've been getting prank calls, Martha?” Paul's voice had softened, but only a little.

“You don't understand,” she said after a pause. “I thought it was Danny. I know it's crazy but I thought maybe he couldn't speak to me, that he just wanted to hear my voice. Our voices,” she added with a quick glance at me.

“So why didn't you tell the police? Ask them to trace the calls.”

“I did,” Martha wailed, “and they can't. I checked 1471 every time, but the number is always unavailable. And all the police could find out was that the calls are coming from abroad, probably using one of those phonecards. They're untraceable.”

Paul looked at the floor and clenched his fingers into his palms. Closed his eyes briefly before fixing them back on his wife. “And did they think it was Danny?”

She pressed her lips together, blinking back tears. “Janet reckons it's someone who heard about him and gets a kick out of calling us.”

“But you don't agree?”

Martha didn't answer.

Paul said nothing for almost a minute, but a vein on his forehead started to pulse. “Face it, Martha, it isn't him. It can't be him, can it?”

Another long silence while we listened to a chirpy song coming from the living room. It sounded like that programme about the chimpanzees.

“Alice seems okay,” I said, handing Martha the plastic bag with Alice's teddy and books. “I really ought to get home.” She nodded mutely, releasing my hand with a little squeeze. Her face was crumpled with misery as I turned to let myself out the front door.

Right at that moment the phone rang.

All three of us froze, watching the flashing light on the receiver, listening to the shrill scream of the ringtone.

No one moved to answer it.

Several moments later, Alice appeared, her face dark with fury. “Shut up!” she yelled, picking up the receiver and throwing it at her father. Paul lifted it to his ear, his hand pressed against the other side of his head to block out the noise of the TV. I could see a tremor in his jaw, a twitch of raw emotion.

“Hello?”

Martha and I watched him. Most of me wanted to run out the door and never look back. But I simply couldn't move.

Paul stood there, saying nothing. Just listening. It seemed to go on for ever, and I remembered that silence at the end of the line, the way it made the back of my neck prickle with dread.

Suddenly Paul spoke. “You're sure? There can't be any mistake?”

He dragged his thumb and forefinger across his brow, pulling the skin into a pleat above his nose. A ball of ice formed in my stomach.

This wasn't another of those calls.

“Right, okay.” Paul's voice was shaky, uncertain. “Yes…fine…thank you. Thank you for letting us know.”

I looked at Martha. Saw my own panic reflected on her features.

Paul placed the phone down gently, staring at the floor for a moment, then turned towards both of us. The colour had seeped right out of his face, leaving it ashy and sheeny with sweat.

Martha spoke first. Firmly, almost calmly.

“Paul, just tell us.”

He gazed at her, finding the words.

“It's not him. The body in the water. It's not Danny.”

I watched the alteration in Martha's face like it was in slow motion. Relief washed across it in a deluge, tears of gratitude springing to her eyes as she gazed at her husband, open-mouthed, like someone who'd just witnessed a miracle.

I stared at her, unable to move or look away. It wasn't him. It wasn't Danny. I waited for the impact, for the news to sink in, to flood me with the elation I saw on Martha's features.

But there was nothing. Only numbness. Empty space. Like the silence on the end of the phone line.

This was good news, I told myself fiercely.
Good news
.

So why did I feel so defeated? Then it hit me, and a hot prickle of shame flared up inside.

A darker, deeper, buried part of me had been hoping all this was finally over.

There was something approaching silence in the assembly hall. It was unnerving. None of the usual hum of whispered conversations and barely suppressed giggles; just the occasional cough or scrape of chairs as people shuffled in their seats.

Mr Givens, the head, stood at the front, hands in pockets, rocking backwards and forwards on the soles of his feet as he waited for the stragglers to find a place. Behind him, the teachers sat in semicircles, staring out at us with faces drained of expression.

Givens cleared his throat to get our attention then treated us to his oiliest smile. Even before he opened his mouth, I had the urge to leave. Pretend I felt faint and take myself off to the sickroom or something. No one would blame me, after all. Not today.

But I was stuck right in the middle of a row, between Lianna and Georgia from my tutor group. The whole school was here and it was a crush. There was no way out without creating a disturbance.

“All of you knew Daniel Geller,” Givens began, “and are aware of his unfortunate disappearance last September.” He paused and scanned the nine hundred faces staring up at him, like an actor surveying his audience. “I'm sure you are also aware, despite a nationwide search and the tireless efforts of his parents, that Daniel is still missing nearly one year on.”

A few heads craned around the hall, presumably looking for Paul or Martha. They settled on me instead. I sank lower into my seat, training my gaze on the head's receding hairline as he got into his stride.

“So I felt it appropriate that we mark this today by taking a moment to reflect upon him and what his absence has meant for all of us…”

In front of me Robby Burchill yawned and fidgeted with the knot of his tie. I bit the inside of my cheek, fighting the urge to thump him. After all, if Danny had been here, he'd have been just as bad. Danny had the lowest boredom threshold of anyone I'd ever known – including Alice.

“He had the kind of outlook on life we all aspire to, always willing to participate, never afraid to make mistakes…”

Several of the more sensitive teachers had the decency to look embarrassed at the head's careless use of the past tense. He'd obviously made up his mind that Danny was dead.

“He was always a most friendly and good-humoured member of the school. Indeed I never saw him without a smile upon his face…”

Lianna turned to me and grinned, and I almost laughed. Danny said Givens looked like a chipmunk. He never could walk past him without smirking.

“…the sort of boy who set an example to everyone, who put his all into everything – his studies, his swimming, his friendships…”

His studies? Jeez. Had the head got Danny mixed up with someone else? I tuned out, watching the clock at the front of the hall, the second hand idling its way through a minute, and let his voice melt into a background drone. I was no longer interested in anything he had to say about Danny – after all, Givens had probably never uttered more than ten words to him the whole time he was here.

It was like the vicar who spoke at Mum's funeral – the more he went on, the more he told you how wonderful she was, how thoughtful and kind, the more you realized he didn't know a single genuine thing about her. It wasn't that those things weren't true; just that he made her sound too perfect to be real. More like someone in an advert than an actual person.

“Before we bow our heads and say a prayer for Daniel and his family, Mr Cozens would just like to add a few words.”

A dull murmuring filled the hall, as everyone took a welcome opportunity to stretch and whisper to their neighbours. I kept my eyes fixed on Mr Cozens. He was clutching a small pile of notes, which he balanced on the lectern in front of him. He'd lost his usual fierce expression. His face was beet red and the overhead lights bounced off the sweat on his forehead, making him look like he'd just completed several laps of the top pitch.

Cozens looked up and coughed into his fist. We all stared back at him and waited for him to speak.

The silence lengthened. Mr Givens gave him an anxious glance. Someone sneezed loudly at the back of the hall, and finally Mr Cozens seemed to come to. He picked up his notes and shoved them in his pocket, stepping aside from the lectern to give himself a clear view across the hall.

“So…I've thought a lot about what I want to say about Danny…” He stopped and cleared his throat again. “But now I find I don't want to say very much. I'm not going to try and convince you that Danny was some kind of saint. Most of you knew him, some of you better than others. You knew he was a good lad – and a superb swimmer. But in many ways…most ways…he was just an ordinary boy.”

A couple of girls in the rows in front of me turned and checked out my expression. I dug my teeth into my bottom lip, pretending not to notice.

“Not that there's anything wrong with being ordinary,” continued Mr Cozens. “Not at all. And it doesn't mean we feel his absence any the less. Every swimming practice, every day, I look at the pool and I feel there's something missing. That there's
someone
missing. It's worse in a way
because
Danny was an ordinary kid, someone just like all of us.”

A burning sensation started behind my eyes. I blinked hard and leaned forward, allowing my hair to fall across my face. I could feel Lianna watching me intently.

“But Danny wasn't the kind of person to look back. If he were here now, I'm sure he'd be laughing at us all. At our straight faces, all this serious talk.”

A tear broke free and rolled down my cheek. I swiped it away with my fingers. I felt Lianna's hand take mine and give it a squeeze. I blinked hard and held my breath, willing myself not to cry.

“That's all I want to say, really,” said Mr Cozens, looking sheepish as the head stared at him in astonishment. “I don't think Danny would want us moping around missing him. I'm sure that Danny – wherever he's got to – is getting on with life. And I know that's exactly what he'd want the rest of us to do too.”