The Flavours of Love (36 page)

Deep down inside, I know Phoebe is not here. I know she’s gone.

But I will not panic. I will not go to the extreme place right away. I won’t connect Joel’s killer to this, this is simply me being late when I shouldn’t have been. There is nothing more sinister going on here.

I dial her number on my mobile.

‘
This is me. Leave me a message. Or don’t. It’s really up to you
,’ her recorded voice cheerily tells me after a click without a ring. I forget sometimes that Phoebe can sound happy, that she has the capacity to be and sound joyful, young, delighted with everything.

‘Pheebs, it’s me. I’m waiting outside. I’m really, really sorry I’m late. See you in a minute or two.’

My body starts to tingle, the sickness twirling inside. Phoebe is gone. I know she is.

No she isn’t
, the sensible, sane part of me replies.
You’re overreacting
.

I would be overreacting if Joel hadn’t been murdered, if I wasn’t getting those letters, if we weren’t being stalked.

From the darkness of the school, two figures approach: one is tall, the other a little shorter. As they draw nearer, the smaller one two paces behind the taller one, I realise it’s Mr Bromsgrove and Curtis. He has a box filled with books in his arms, as well as his laptop case over his left shoulder, his school bag slung over the wrist of his right arm. Curtis is walking with his school bag over his shoulder while fixated on his phone.

He’s good-looking, is Lewis Bromsgrove. It’s not only the way his large, dark deep eyes stare at you, it’s not simply the way a smile is
never far away from his full, oh-kiss-me-now lips, it’s not just that he has irresistible features. It’s also the way he stands, the way he exudes a quiet, gentle confidence, the way he looks in clothes. He is the entire package. It’s hard to believe he could be involved with Phoebe in ways he shouldn’t be, but it’s not an impossibility.

‘Mrs Mackleroy,’ he says, overtly pleased to see me. ‘Hello. What brings you here?’

Curtis looks up at hearing my name, then immediately dips his head, abandoning his phone in favour of his feet.

‘I’m picking up Phoebe,’ I say.

‘Phoebe? She went hours ago. I was on library duty and she told me someone was picking her up.’

Curtis, who carries on inspecting his feet as if he has only recently discovered them, develops a renewed and vigorous interest in them.

‘I am meant to be picking her up. She knows she only leaves school with me.’

I don’t need to see to know that Curtis’s face is twisted with anxiety, a partner in whatever Phoebe is embroiled in now.

‘Do you know something about this, Curtis?’ I ask him. ‘Do you have any idea why she would lie to your dad?’

He shakes his head without raising it.

I return my attention to his father with my eyebrows raised. ‘Curtis?’ he says in a modulation that suggests he’s not going to be impressed if his son is lying to him.

‘She didn’t really tell me anything. Just that someone was giving her a lift home and I should cover for her,’ he mumbles.

‘She didn’t say who?’ Mr Bromsgrove asks before I can.

Curtis shakes his head. ‘Honest,’ he adds.

I am not going to panic, I am not going to panic. Nothing has happened to her. Nothing is going to happen to her
.

I am not going to panic, but Mr Bromsgrove is: his face tightens with apprehension, the same worry unpeeling in his eyes. He knows something I don’t know, no one worries like this over a teenager sneaking off. He balances the cardboard box in one arm, roots in his
pocket until he produces his car keys. ‘Go wait in the car for me,’ he tells his son in an agitated tone.

Once his son is shut away, he turns back to me.

‘Why were you hugging my daughter?’ I ask.

Thrown, he frowns as he replies. ‘What?’

‘I happened to drive past the school last Thursday and I saw you hugging her, why?’

The lines on his forehead deepen. ‘Are you thinking … Because if you are, we can go straight to the police to sort this out. I’m not even going to entertain any idea that I might have been inappropriate with her.’

‘Don’t overreact,’ I say. I will go to the police about this. If he is a manipulative bastard, he’ll think that I won’t, he’ll believe him saying that will make me back off. It won’t. ‘I am simply asking why you were hugging my daughter. It’s a fair question.’

‘I was hugging her because she was upset.’

‘Why?’

‘I … I can’t tell you. I said to her I wouldn’t tell you.’

‘Really? You promised my pregnant, fourteen-year-old daughter that you would keep things that have upset her from me?
Really?
’ My voice is barely restrained. ‘
REALLY?
Tell me why I shouldn’t punch you out right here and now?’
Apart from the fact I’m not violent
.

‘Phoebe needs someone she can trust.’

‘No, Phoebe needs someone who will keep her safe before having someone she trusts. If she’s not safe, no amount of people who she trusts will matter. What was she upset about?’

Has she told him? About us keeping vital information from the police?

‘At the end of last week, we don’t know how, it became public knowledge that she’s pregnant. She’s been getting messages online about it ever since. Some of them are hideous, and she doesn’t want me to tell the school officially, nor for me to tell you. I told her that if it hadn’t died down by tomorrow morning, I’d have a duty to tell the school and you.’

‘You kept this from me?’

‘I was trying to do my best for Phoebe.’

‘Well, you haven’t. What do these messages say?’

‘I can’t … I can’t repeat them. You have to see them yourself. She’s deleted a few, but on some sites she can’t so they’re still there.’

‘Sites? More than one?’

‘Yes.’ Jostling the box, he goes into his pocket again and pulls out his mobile. He attempts to unlock the screen with one hand, changes his mind and drops the box onto the ground. ‘I’ve seen online bullying, but this is the nasty end I haven’t really experienced until now.’

I was panicked before, now I am sliding into pure terror, even before he hands me the phone.

*

‘Phoebe,’ I say, ‘I need to know where you are. I need to know you’re safe. Please, call me. Or text me. Just let me know you’re safe. Please, Sweetheart.’ I need to calm down. In this state, the key won’t find its place in the ignition slot, my body won’t placate itself enough for me to check a mirror or to put the car into gear. Eventually, I find the ignition, insert the key.

I pause, pick up my phone, thrown onto the passenger seat, hit redial. ‘Phoebe. It’s me again. If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s all right. Call Curtis, Mr Bromsgrove, Aunty Betty or your uncle Fynn. Even Zane. Anyone. Just let them know you’re OK. That you’re safe.’
Safe
.

I need this to turn out the right way. I need to not be that woman with the bowl of blackberries ever again.

Before I drive away, I make another call.

Monday, 13 May
(For today)

He used to say your name, not like the expensive, fragrant spice but like it was something sour, bitter and poisonous. A bit like you, really.

Knock-knock!

Phoebe has a key and I doubt she’d knock, but I run to the front door and snatch it open anyway because you never know.

Fynn.

‘
I know you don’t want to speak to me right now
,’ began the message I left earlier, ‘
but Phoebe has gone missing. I need your help. A couple of other people are out looking for her, and Aunty Betty is here in case she comes home, but I need someone else out looking for her before I call the police. I hope you don’t ignore this.
’

My disappointment is so evident that it’s him and not Phoebe, I have to explain: ‘I thought you were her.’

‘When did you last see her?’ he asks. He is not looking at me: he stares at the wall beside the kitchen door at the end of the corridor, way beyond my shoulder. Way out of reach of eye contact with me.

‘I dropped her off at school this morning. She’s been staying a bit later so I can pick her up after school. I got there a bit late and the teacher who covers library duty said she hadn’t come in. Mr Bromsgrove, you know, her form tutor, said she’d told him she was getting picked up instead of waiting for me and left at three-thirty.’

‘Did you have a row or something?’

‘No, but a few days ago people found out at school she’s pregnant. And she’s been getting nasty messages online and probably texts ever since. She never told me. I was trying to give her space. I didn’t want to pressure her until she’d made a decision, so I’ve not checked her Facebook, Twitter or anything like that. I’m so stupid. She’s out there, alone and scared and probably has all those things running through her head – I saw what they’d written – because I was too
stupid to just clamp down on her. I’m so scared for her.’

He inhales deeply. ‘Who’s out looking and where have you looked?’ he says evenly. He is scared, like me. He too is back at
that day
and he is telling himself that it will turn out fine.

‘Is it her?’ Aunty Betty calls from the living room.

‘No. It’s Fynn,’ I call back. I return to speaking to Fynn: ‘Mr B—’

‘Does he know where she is?’ Aunty Betty interrupts.

‘No! He’s come to help look for her! … As I was saying, Mr B—’

‘Tell him hello from me!’ she interrupts again. ‘And thank you!’

‘For the love of … Yes! I’ll do that!’

Before I attempt to speak again, I wait a second, then another, to give Aunty Betty a chance to interrupt.

‘Lewis is out looking for her with his son. And I’ve driven around a bit, visited a few places in Brighton where she likes to go, but I came back to check on Aunty Betty. I’m about to go out again.’

‘Where do you want me to cover?’

‘I’m not sure. Mr Bromsgrove is doing out towards the marina and Saltdean. I think I’ll try up Preston Park way next.’

‘I’ll do Hove,’ Fynn says.

‘I’m really panicking. I know this isn’t your problem, but … What if something happens to her? What if someone’s taken her?’

‘Who would take her?’

‘I don’t know. Who would kill Joel?’

The same thought strikes us at the same time: Joel.

‘Have you … ?’ he asks.

‘No. It never even crossed my mind. I’m
so stupid
. Why wouldn’t I think of trying there? I’ve got to go there.’

‘I’ll drive you.’

‘It’s fine. I’ll go by myself.’

‘You’re shaking, you look as if you’re about to fall over – you’re in no fit state to drive. I’ll take you.’

*

‘How’ve you been?’ I ask him.

We have driven for five minutes but it has felt like five excruciating
hours have crawled past without either of us speaking. I was leaving it to him, taking my cues from him and his cue has been silence.

Silence that has its hands around my throat and is suffocating me to the point where I may start to hyperventilate in order to breathe properly.

‘Fine,’ he replies. Succinct, formal. ‘You?’

‘Fine,’ I reply. This is the man who held me for hours after Joel died, who slept on my sofa so he could take care of me when my night terrors started, who I love with all my heart. He will not talk to me. He has nothing to say to me. From anyone else – apart from the kids – I could probably stand it. From him, it is like a drip-dripping torture at the centre of my forehead that is burrowing into my skull.

‘It doesn’t have to be like this, Fynn,’ I tell him. ‘If we could just talk properly.’

‘Is Zane at Imogen’s house?’ His formality remains secured over his words, and keeps the gap between us prised open. ‘Do we need to pick him up on the way back?’

‘No, he’s … he’s in London, staying with Joel’s parents for a while.’

The expression that passes over Fynn’s face is one I understand, I’d have made it too, if I hadn’t been desperate, if Zane hadn’t been quietly falling apart. On the phone I can hear his happiness, his relief. He’s probably not worried any more about being in the house. He misses us, but he can’t be with us. If things were normal with Fynn I could explain and he’d understand that. In this moment, I can’t explain anything. He has nothing to say to me, and he is not getting involved.

*

The entrance to the cemetery is a red-brick Gothic structure with five peaked arches, the largest at its centre. The outer two arches have fixed iron railings, the inner two arches are the foot entrances with iron gates, and the large centre arch has double gates for cars to drive in. On the other side of the locked gates, only a few feet away, is the admin office, another red-brick structure that looks like a shrunken Gothic mansion, where there are lights on. A huge, thick-trunked
tree stands outside each foot gate, immobile and threatening like nature’s own bodyguards for the residents inside.

As we pull up to where the double gates are locked and chained, I see her, sitting with her back against the left-hand gate, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, her head resting on her knees. Every part of my inner being is simultaneously turned upside-down and inside out. I barely wait for the car to come to a standstill before I rip off my seatbelt and bolt out of the door.

I throw myself to my knees and gather her in my arms. She’s breathing, she doesn’t look hurt, I can still touch her. She’s not gone, she’s not ‘evidence of a crime’, she’s still here with me where she should be. ‘Are you all right?’ I whisper into her hair. ‘I thought something had happened to you. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you. You’re my world, Phoebe. You and Zane are my world. Are you all right?’ I hold her as near as I can. She’s cold and shivering slightly.

‘I wanted to talk to Dad,’ she mumbles, her forehead against her knees. ‘But it was closed.’

When she was four, after a bright February morning in the garden, Phoebe was running to the house to fetch her new ball, when she tripped on an uneven flagstone. I watched it happen in horror as she fell forwards, hitting her chin and hands at the same time, the rough uneven surface of the patio stones scraping the skin off her chin and the palms of her hands. Joel, who was nearer to her, leapt out of his seat and ran to her, ready to scoop her up into his arms. ‘No,’ she wailed at him, while I, eight months pregnant, was struggling to become upright. ‘No, Dad, I want Mum. I want Mum. I want Mum.’