The Girl Who Never Came Back (9 page)

Today

"I'd go crazy," said Eve Locklear as she and Charlotte walked along the riverbank. "A whole year, missing from my memory, would drive me completely round the bend. I just couldn't function."

Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, but at the last moment she realized that she wasn't quite sure what to say. Pretty much every person she'd met over the years had said the same thing: that a gap in their mind would be intolerable, and that they'd have to seek help in order to fill that gap in and find out the truth. Charlotte had come to realize that her own reaction - which amount to little more than mild curiosity - was abnormal, and she couldn't help but wonder
why
she was so calm and rational about the whole thing. When she was younger, she'd considered herself to be lucky, and she'd ascribed her reaction to strength and good character; lately, however, she was starting to wonder if there wasn't something deeply wrong with her. What kind of trauma, she wondered, could cause someone to not only forget their ordeal, but could even cause them to not be curious?

"So how do you do it?" Eve continued, with a faint smile. "How do you manage to keep from going nuts?"

"Who says I manage?" Charlotte replied.

"You're walking around," Eve pointed out, "and you seem to hold down a job. Most people in your position would be jabbering away in the corner of a padded cell."

"It's hard to be too badly affected by something I don't remember," Charlotte replied. "I suppose I could go to therapy or try to force a few memories up from the depths of my mind, but what would be the point? Just so I could go nicely wacky?"

"That's a very rational way of looking at it. I doubt many people would be able to see things the same way."

"Here," Charlotte said suddenly, stopping about twenty meters from the cave. She turned to look back the way they'd come, and she tried to ignore the police boat slowly making its way along the river as its crew continued their grim search. "Right here."

"So the first thing you remember after your missing year," Eve replied, "is standing right here?"

"Not standing," Charlotte replied. "Walking. The very beginning of my memory is..." She looked down at the muddy ground. "I was just walking along here, making my way back to the house."

"So that would be..." Eve paused as she checked her bearings. "You were walking away from the cave?"

Charlotte nodded.

"And at that time," Eve continued, "did you have any idea that you'd been missing for so long? I mean, what were you thinking?"

"I'm not sure I was thinking about anything, really," Charlotte admitted. "My mother said later that I was in a kind of daze when I arrived back at the house. She said I was a little dirty, and I was limping, and my clothes were torn, but otherwise I was pretty much okay." She paused. "Quiet. She said I was very quiet."

"You were wearing the same clothes you'd been wearing when you disappeared?"

Charlotte nodded again. "My mother immediately got them off me and threw them out. She burned them, actually."

"And I guess you had a load of tests performed," Eve replied. "Physical and mental?"

"No-one touched me," Charlotte replied. "That's what the reports said, and I have no reason not to believe them. I went completely unmolested."

"I looked up your case file last night," Eve continued, with a hint of awkwardness in her voice. "There's not really very much in there. From what I can tell, you just disappeared without a trace one day, and there was no sign of you at all until you wandered back to your mother's house. Every effort was made to find you while you were missing, and then to work out where you'd been once you came back, but nothing helped." She paused. "What about your father? If you don't mind the question..."

"Dead," Charlotte replied. "I don't even remember him, but he died just after I was born. I've seen photos. He sounds like a nice man. If you want my opinion..." She paused as she realized that maybe she should hold back.

"What?" Eve asked.

"I was just going to say that the wrong parent died," Charlotte continued. "God, I sound like a total bitch, don't I? The truth is, my mother and I have never really managed to get along. She's always seemed so nervous around me, almost like she's scared of me."

"Was she like that before you disappeared?" Eve asked.

"I have no idea," Charlotte replied. "My memories of life before that year are..." She tried to think of the right word. "Sketchy," she added eventually. "I remember flashes, images, things like that, but nothing concrete. I guess my year away must have really fucked with my head, huh?" She paused for a moment, before turning to Eve. "She's losing her mind now. Some kind of dementia, although no-one's had it checked out. She gets everything mixed up. Last night, she was acting as if it was twenty years ago and I was the one who was missing."

"She seemed a little confused when I spoke to her," Eve replied.

"A
little
confused?" Charlotte smiled. "Sounds like you caught her on a bad day." She paused. "So the worst-case scenario here is... what? That Sophie stays missing for a year, and then maybe, just maybe, she turns up, the way I did?"

"The odds of that are very slim," Eve pointed out. "We can't count on miracles here."

"But that's what it was," Charlotte continued. "A miracle. When I turned up." She looked down at her hands. "Sometimes I feel as if I didn't come back at all."

"Then how am I talking to you?" Eve replied with a smile.

"Maybe you're nuts," Charlotte muttered, turning and looking down into the water. Once again, she was finding it hard to banish horrific images from her mind: images of Sophie's dead body on the riverbed, or of her being swept along for miles.

"Divers have searched the river for several miles," Eve explained. "Based on our best estimates, she couldn't have been washed more than five miles away. We're in the middle of a second check of a ten mile stretch, just to be absolutely certain, but it's looking increasingly unlikely that Sophie went into the water. Besides, it's not as if the river's particularly deep along this stretch, and the current's not strong."

Charlotte continued to stare at the river for a moment. "Then where the hell is she?" she asked eventually.

They stood in silence for a few seconds.

"Maybe she's in the same place that you were for a year," Eve said eventually.

Charlotte turned to her.

"It's the only lead we have at the moment," Eve continued. "You said you've never made much of an attempt to dig into your past, but... Even though it might not be something you want to do right now, would you consider seeing someone? Odds are, it won't help at all, but if there's even a chance that it might help Sophie..." She left the end of the sentence hanging, hoping to encourage Charlotte to finish the thought for her. "When two unexplained things happen in the same way in the same place to the same family," she added eventually, "we'd be fools not to take a look at the possibilities."

"It'd be a needless distraction," Charlotte replied cautiously. She was used to fending off such requests from her sister, but it was harder to argue with Eve.

"Probably," Eve replied, "but if there's even a chance that it might help, then surely it's worth considering the possibility?"

Although she was tempted to agree, Charlotte couldn't help but think back to her mother's words the previous night. All her life, her mother had been the sole voice supporting her decision not to seek therapy, and she was tempted to defy the old woman purely out of spite. Then again, she was also scared of what she might discover, and she was certain there could be no link between the events that had conspired to spirit Sophie away, and the events that had taken place twenty years earlier.

"Maybe she was abducted," Charlotte said after a moment, giving voice to the fear that she'd been nurturing since the previous night. "If she didn't have an accident, then someone must have chosen to take her away. Someone who..." She paused, not wanting to consider the full implications of this possibility. "There are freaks in the world," she continued after a few seconds. "I mean, you're a cop, right? I don't need to tell you that there are some fucking evil bastards out there."

"I'm well aware of that," Eve replied calmly.

"Sophie was a quiet, shy girl," Charlotte continued, before realizing that she'd begun to think of her niece in the past tense. "I mean, she
is
a quiet, shy girl," she added, "and although she's been taught not to talk to strangers, it's still possible that someone might have... lured her..." Her voice trailed off as she realized she was on the verge of tears. Glancing over her shoulder for a moment, she looked along the towpath. "We didn't hear any vehicles yesterday afternoon," she added after a moment, hoping that the emotion wasn't evident in her voice, "but that doesn't mean that someone couldn't have done something."

"That's a possibility that we're looking into with active interest," Eve replied. "We're checking to see if any known offenders might have been in the area, and we're looking at camera footage from various locations in the area to see if anything suspicious is apparent."

"Like what?" Charlotte asked, turning back to the officer. "A car driving past with a pair of girl's legs sticking out the fucking boot?"

Eve smiled patiently. "Nothing so dramatic, fortunately," she continued, evidently trying to calm Charlotte's fears. "We're following multiple avenues of investigation simultaneously until we can narrow the search down."

"And how long are you going to give it?" Charlotte asked. "Before you give up and decide that she must be dead?"

"That's not a -"

"Five weeks," Charlotte added, interrupting her. There were tears in her eyes now, but she knew there was no point trying to hide them. "That's how long they looked for me when I disappeared twenty years ago. Five fucking weeks, and then they packed up and said they've just have to continue the investigation in a more stripped-down form back at the fucking station. They basically assumed I was dead and gave up."

"We
never
give up -"

"Yes," Charlotte continued, finally giving voice to the anger that had been simmering since the previous night. "At some point, people are going to give up and accept that Sophie's dead, just like they gave up and accepted that
I
was dead. It's just human nature, and..." She paused as she finally realized she was becoming too emotional. "No-one found me twenty years ago," she added. "Wherever I was, I got out of there myself, and I made my own way home, and when I got to the back door, everyone assumed I was a fucking ghost. Sometimes, it's as if they
still
think I'm a ghost, like I never really came back. And do you know something else? They're right. That's exactly how it feels!"

"We're going to find Sophie," Eve said, her voice filled with doubt. "I feel it in my -"

"Forget it," Charlotte said, turning and walking away. She sniffed back tears and wiped her eyes, determined to find somewhere she could be alone. She felt like a fool for having even considered getting therapy to deal with her amnesia. All she wanted, at that particular moment, was to hide away from the world and to never, ever have to see anyone again.

Twenty years ago

"Help!" Charlotte screamed, with tears flowing from her eyes. "Mummy! Help me!"

She paused for a moment to catch her breath. She couldn't remember how long she'd been shouting, and she was barely even able to remember her own name anymore. All she knew was that she was cold and scared, and that she needed someone to save her.

"Mummy!" she shouted, despite the fact that her throat felt as if it was burning. "Help me!"

Today

"It's Charlotte Abernathy," she said quietly as she leaned out the guest room door and double-checked that no-one was nearby, before pushing the door shut and walking over to the window. "I'd like to speak to Dr. Gould, please."

"Do you have a scheduled phone consultation today?" the receptionist asked with effortless, clinical professionalism, as if she'd dealt with a thousand such requests already that day.

"No, I just need to talk to him!"

"Dr. Gould requires patients to book phone consultations in advance," the receptionist continued with a steady, disinterested tone. "I could fit you in on Tuesday the eleventh at -"

"Now!" Charlotte hissed, careful to keep her voice down. "I need to speak to him right now! Tell him it's literally a matter of life and death."

"I can fit you in on Tuesday the eleventh," the receptionist replied calmly. "Dr. Gould has a very strict policy of not -"

"Tell him it's Charlotte Abernathy."

"His policy is -"

"Tell him it's Charlotte Abernathy and the police are involved."

"One moment," the receptionist replied, clearly sounding annoyed as she put Charlotte on hold.

Taking a deep breath, Charlotte looked out the window. There were a couple of police cars parked down near the river, but that didn't mean anything. Police had been swarming all over the place since sunrise, and now, just to add to the charm of the whole situation, a bunch of journalists had begun to sniff around, keen to get another 'missing child' story off the ground. They'd clearly twigged that Sophie was a telegenic young girl whose plight would attract the interest of the nation and, crucially, secure big ratings for the news channels.

Sighing, she considered putting the phone down. She'd been seeing Dr. Gould for a few years, although their therapy sessions were carefully designed to avoid directly prodding the mystery of her disappearance; instead, they always talked about her
current
life and problems. She'd never mentioned the sessions to her sister, preferring to keep these disparate parts of her life separate from one another, but finally she was starting to feel as if everything was coming crashing together.

"Hello, Charlotte," Dr. Gould said suddenly, his voice sounding calm and authoritative. "I'm sorry, I can't talk today, but -"

"My niece has gone missing," Charlotte hissed.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry, can you -"

"My niece," she continued. "My sister's daughter, Sophie. She vanished yesterday, down by the river, right where I was when..." She paused for a moment. "You must have seen it on the news," she added. "Her name's Sophie. There have been police all over the place since yesterday afternoon. They've been looking everywhere, but..." She paused again, and finally she realized she was on the verge of tears again. "They're blaming me," she continued eventually. "I can tell. They think it's something to do with me."

"Who thinks that?" Dr. Gould asked, his voice locking into a calm, professional tone that made it clear he was willing to engage on the subject.

"Everyone," Charlotte replied. "I can tell by the way they're talking to me." She took a deep breath. "My niece hasn't been seen since yesterday lunchtime. She's eight years old and she just vanished down by the river."

There was another pause. "I see," Dr. Gould said uncomfortably.

"I don't know what to do," Charlotte continued, trying to slow her voice down and keep all her thoughts from tumbling out at once. "Everyone's looking at me like this is my fault!"

"I'm sure no-one's -"

"They are!" Charlotte hissed. "I can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices... My sister's pretty much come out and said it, and the others... Even the police think it must be something to do with everything that happened to me. It's like they think I'm some kind of twisted bitch who brings devastation and disaster trailing in her wake wherever she goes. It's a cold day in hell when my mother turns out to be the most agreeable out of all of them, but that seems to be how it's going." She paused. "They blame me," she added eventually. "They just... do."

"I'm sure that's not possible," Dr. Gould replied. "Charlotte, I think there's a danger that you might be becoming paranoid -"

"I'm not paranoid!" she replied, raising her voice before remembering the need to keep quiet. "People are blaming me for not remembering what happened twenty years ago. They think I can help them work out what happened to Sophie, but I can't, can I? There's no way..." She took a deep breath as she tried to get her thoughts straight. "I feel like I'm losing my mind," she said eventually. "I keep telling myself that Sophie's disappearance can't be my fault, but it's as if somehow I'm missing something important. It can't be a coincidence, can it? It's just not possible..."

"It sounds highly unlikely," Dr. Gould replied, "but that doesn't mean it's your fault, Charlotte." He paused. "When are you coming back to London? I'd like to see you, and I think we should reconsider your earlier decision to -"

"No," Charlotte said firmly. "I'm not doing it."

"If -"

"No!"

Dr. Gould sighed. "I want you to listen to me very carefully, Charlotte," he continued after a moment. "Your niece's disappearance is not your fault. Even if there are some similarities between her case and your own, no rational person could possibly make such an accusation."

"They're still thinking it," she replied, close to tears.

"You need to reconsider -"

"No-one can make me!" she continued, glancing out the window and spotting a couple of police officers approaching the house. "Looks like it's time for the lunchtime update," she muttered, wiping away a couple of tears from her cheek. "I don't mind therapy for general shitty life stuff, but I'm not going deeper, I'm not going back into the past. I feel like someone's doing all of this on purpose, just to force me, like they think they can break me if they force me to relive the whole damn thing."

"What are you scared of, Charlotte?" Dr. Gould asked.

"Nothing."

"Are you sure?" He paused. "Are you absolutely certain that this current event isn't prompting you to start remembering things that you'd previously suppressed?"

"I'm certain," she replied, even though there was the faintest hint of doubt in her mind. "It's other people. They're talking about me, and thinking about me -"

"There's that paranoia again," Dr. Gould pointed out with infuriating calmness. "Charlotte, you have to calm down and consider coming back to London immediately. Are you under suspicion of being involved in your niece's disappearance?"

"Suspicion?" she paused. "My sister seems -"

"I'm talking about the police," he replied, interrupting her. "Have the police advised you that they have any reason to suspect your involvement?"

"No," she said, "of course not."

"Provided you're free to leave," he continued, "I think you should get back to London as fast as possible. I believe you're at risk of suffering significant mental harm if you stay in that house a moment longer."

"I can't just leave," she replied. "She's still missing!"

"There's nothing you can do to help find her," he replied. "Nothing! You have to let the police do their job, Charlotte, and you have to let me do mine. I can't force you, but I'm advising you very strongly to remove yourself from such a damaging situation." He paused, as if he was waiting for her to meekly acquiesce. "I don't mean to alarm you," he added, "but even in this short phone conversation, you'd said a number of things that give me cause for concern. You don't sound like yourself."

"Of course I'm myself," she muttered, before pausing as she stared out the window. Her mind was churning, racing with possibilities, but while she could actually bring herself to consider leaving both Ruth and her mother, she couldn't contemplate abandoning Sophie. "I need to be here a little longer," she said eventually. "Even if it's bad for me, I need to stay and make sure that..." She paused again, trying to work out why she felt so strongly that she couldn't leave. "It's Sophie," she added, close to tears. "That poor little girl doesn't deserve anything like this. What if someone's taken her? What if someone's abducted her?"

"That's probably what has happened," Dr. Gould replied.

"Don't say that," Charlotte whimpered, shocked by his coldness.

"I'm just being honest with you," he continued. "If she's been missing for twenty-four hours and there's no sign of a body in the river, then the most likely explanation is an abduction."

Charlotte took a deep breath. She usually appreciated Dr. Gould's honesty, but right now she couldn't bear the thought of Sophie being held captive by some kind of monstrous... She closed her eyes, feeling as if fear was gripping her entire body. Having for so long prided herself on remaining in control of her emotions, she now felt that she was losing her grip.

"How do you think you would react," Dr. Gould continued slowly, "if -"

"I have to go," Charlotte said, hearing raised voices downstairs. "Something's kicking off."

"But Charlotte, how -"

"Got to go," she said again, before disconnecting the call. It sounded as if Ruth and Tony were arguing in the kitchen, and Charlotte couldn't help thinking that even though her sister was suffering, she seemed to be taking her pain out on everyone around her. Then again, Charlotte had to acknowledge that she didn't really understand how it felt to be a mother. This was the one area where Ruth was the expert, and Charlotte recognized that she couldn't really compete. She'd never been more aware of the fact that she lacked experience regarding children. Not only had she never had any of her own, but she barely even remembered being one.

***

"They're going to find her," Tony was saying as Charlotte arrived at the kitchen door a few minutes later. Leaning over his wife, who was sitting slumped at the kitchen table, he seemed fraught and tired, as if most of the strings holding him up had already been cut. "The hardest part is to hang onto hope," he continued, running a hand over Ruth's back. "The really hard part -"

"Do you want to know the hardest part?" Ruth replied suddenly, looking up at her husband with tear-filled, scornful eyes. "The hardest part is carrying a child for nine months, giving birth to her, raising her for eight years and then having her vanish one day like she never even -"

Before she could finish, Ruth spotted Charlotte and fell silent.

"Any news?" Charlotte asked after a moment.

"What do
you
think?" Ruth asked, wiping tears from her cheeks. "Of course there's no fucking news, except that the lack of news is kind of the worst news there could be, isn't it?"

"Does anyone want a cup of tea?" Charlotte asked, making her way to the kettle.

"Thanks," Tony muttered.

"No!" Ruth said firmly. "Don't touch anything!"

Charlotte turned to her.

"This isn't your house," Ruth continued. "That's not your kettle or your tea, so why the hell do you presume to start offering things to people?"

"I just wanted to help," Charlotte said quietly.

"If you can't help me find my daughter," Ruth continued, with pure hatred in her voice, "then what's the fucking point of you?"

"Sweetheart -" Tony started to say.

"No!" Ruth shouted, pushing him aside before getting to her feet and advancing upon Charlotte. "What are you, anyway?" she continued. "A sister? You've never been a proper sister, not since your little year away. You're just some barren, sarcastic whore who keeps turning up in my life to make fun of me!" With tears in her eyes, Ruth paused for a moment, breathless after her outburst. "I hate you," she said finally, with sudden calm in her voice. "I've lost my daughter, who I love more than anything or anyone in the world, and yet my bitch of a sister is still here. I'd give anything to change that. Anything."

Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. There were simply no words that could possibly respond to such an attack, and she was overcome by the need to get the hell away from the house.

"Maybe you should have a rest," Tony said, putting an arm on Ruth's shoulder.

"Not while this bitch is in my house," Ruth sneered.

"It's okay," Charlotte said, "I'm going." With that, she turned and hurried through to the hallway, filled with the need to get as far away from the house, and from Ruth, as possible.

"She's just upset," Tony said, coming through to watch as she put her shoes on and grabbed her coat.

"I'm sure Sophie'll come back soon," Charlotte replied, hoping that by not looking directly at her brother-in-law she might be able to hide the tears in her eyes. She just wanted to get to her car and get the hell away from everyone. "If the police need anything," she continued, opening the door, "just give them my details and tell them to get in touch. I don't think there's anything else I can do here."

"Wait," Tony said, hurrying over and giving her an unexpected hug. "Please don't leave," he whispered, his lips close to her ear. "I need someone else sane in the house."

Charlotte shook her head.