Behind Closed Doors (7 page)

And like a grisly sort of heirloom they reverberated down the years.

‘Anything from social services?’ Andee asked, returning to the Sophie Monroe case.

‘Still waiting,’ Leo replied.

Unsurprised by that, since social services were rarely speedy, she got to her feet. ‘OK, talk to CAIT,’ she said, referring to the Child Abuse Investigation Team, ‘find out if they’ve had any dealings with the Monroe family. I’m going home,’ and grabbing her bag and phone she swept out of the office.

‘On my way,’ she told her mother’s voicemail as she steered her car from the station car park on to the leafy quadrant where Kesterly Police HQ was located. A drink at the Melvilles’ might be just what she needed this evening. Better still would be a drink with Graeme, and a whole night with him would be best of all, but that wasn’t going to happen until Wednesday at the earliest.

Would she really go through with it? She’d never slept with anyone but Martin.

Slowing up behind the tourist train on Kesterly seafront, she found herself wondering what her father would advise were she able to discuss the Sophie Monroe case with him. In a way she was glad she couldn’t, since she knew only too well how deeply the subject would distress him. It was having much the same effect on her with all the memories it was bringing back, though this wasn’t the first time she’d been involved in a misper since joining the force. She could handle it, she felt sure of that, even though this was the first case of a missing fourteen-year-old girl to come her way.

Penny had been only thirteen the first time she’d taken off without a word. They’d been living in Chiswick then, where they’d always lived from the time Andee was born, though not in the same house. They’d moved to the four-bedroomed semi, just off the high street, a year after her father’s promotion to DCS, which was about a year before all the problems began.

Andee understood, now it was too late, that her sister had started to suffer from depression almost as soon as she’d hit puberty. The trouble was, as a family they were always so busy – her father with his job, her mother with her small estate agency, Andee, who was two years older, with studying, boys, socialising, all the usual mid-teen stuff – that Penny’s change of behaviour, if it was noticed at all, was invariably put down to ‘a phase she was going through’.

Andee’s memories of Penny back then were always darkened by the way she, Andee, used to yell at her for crashing into her room without knocking, or for her constant complaining and whining.

‘What do you mean you’re not pretty?’ she used to snap at her. ‘Just because you’ve got a few spots doesn’t mean you’re ugly. Get over yourself, will you, and go and annoy someone else.’

Penny would return to her room, but then she’d come back again, saying something like, ‘I wish I was as clever as you. I’ll never be good enough to go to uni.’ Or, ‘Mum and Dad love you the best, I can tell.’ Or, ‘I don’t have any friends. Nobody likes me.’

And Andee would shoot back with, ‘Stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself and grow up.’ Or, ‘I don’t have time for all your crap, so get out of my way.’

Andee’s insides still churned with shame when she recalled how cruel and impatient she’d been with her sister, and the pain of it had burned deeper with time. She’d never stopped tormenting herself with the private tears Penny must have shed over the way no one would listen to her. Her fragile young heart must have fractured into thousands of pieces under the strain of longing to be understood. There was nothing Andee wouldn’t give for the chance to make it up to her, to be able to tell her how pretty, intelligent, loved and popular she was, to make her the very centre of her world, but fate, God, whatever it was, had never allowed it.

The first time Penny stayed out all night, causing her parents to frantically ring around all her friends, even to go out searching the streets into the early hours, she’d shown up again the next morning saying she’d been at Mia’s, a recent arrival at the school whom she was getting to know. The second time, a few weeks later, there was less of a fuss and afterwards it hadn’t taken the family long to get caught up in their hectic lives again. Eventually they’d stopped worrying when Penny went off in ‘one of her funks’. They assumed she was at Mandy’s, or Kelly’s, or Mia’s, and because she always came back after a night or two no one ever checked.

Then one day she didn’t come back. She’d been gone for an entire weekend by the time Andee and her parents began ringing everyone they knew, searching the streets, the local shops, refuges and hospitals, but they’d found no sign of her. The police were alerted, neighbours’ gardens were trawled, everyone was questioned, but no one could throw any light on where she might be.

It was impossible for Andee to think of that time, even now, without feeling the same surging panic and fear; however, over the years, she’d learned to quickly bury it and move on. She knew that Sophie’s disappearance was going to make this emotional control more difficult if she didn’t show up soon.

Worse though, far, far worse than not knowing where Penny might be, was the letter that had turned up after she’d been gone for almost a fortnight, bearing a local postmark. Andee knew that in all her life she would never again find anything so painful to read.

Dear Mum and Dad, I probably ought to say sorry for leaving the way I have, but maybe you already don’t mind very much that I’m not around any more, so instead I’ll say sorry for always being such a disappointment to you. I know Dad wanted a son when I was born, so I guess I’ve been a let-down to him from the start, and I don’t blame him for always loving Andee the most because she’s much nicer-looking than I am and likes sports, the same as him, and is really clever so it stands to reason that he’d be really proud of her. I know I shouldn’t say this, but sometimes I hate her for being so much better than I am at everything. No one ever seems to notice me when she’s in the room. It’s like I become invisible and I know she wishes I would go away. So that’s what I’m going to do.

I don’t know what else to say, except sorry again. I expect you’ll all be much happier without me. Please tell Andee she can have whatever she likes of mine, although I don’t expect she’ll want anything at all.

Your daughter, Penny

The shock, the fear and grief that ripped through the family was only surpassed by the desperate need to find her. More police were drafted in; friends, neighbours, even strangers from far and wide came to join in the search. It was all over the news for weeks, but Penny was never found.

Andee remembered her mother being sedated throughout that time, while Andee herself had wanted to die rather than live with the fear of what might be happening to her sister. The question she kept asking herself, that everyone was asking themselves but never spoke aloud was,
had Penny committed suicide? Or was she still out there somewhere waiting, needing to be convinced she was loved?

No body was ever found, and they never received another letter.

The disappearance had proved the beginning of the end for her father. Not knowing what had happened to his daughter tore him to pieces, over and over, ceaselessly. That she hadn’t believed he loved her when he had, more than his own life, wasn’t possible for him to deal with. He’d never had a favourite, he swore it, but how could he tell Penny that if she didn’t come back?

It soon became clear that he was finding it increasingly difficult to focus. The sense of despair, shame and guilt was so consuming that he could hardly relate to anyone, either at home or at work. In his heart and in reality he was still looking for her. Everywhere they went his eyes were searching faces, doorways, alleyways, desperate for a glimpse of his girl. Within a year he’d become a shell of the man they used to know. Though he went through the motions of his everyday life at work, at home it was obvious that he was struggling to carry on the pretence. Hardest of all, it seemed, was sharing any sort of closeness with Andee. It was as though he was afraid Penny might be watching, ready to accuse him again of loving his elder daughter more. So the easy banter that had always existed between them had fallen into silence. They no longer joked and bickered over issues as they came up on the news, he stopped asking how she was doing at school, and he almost never laughed.

It was two years after the dreaded note had arrived that the cottage next to his parents in Kesterly came up for sale. After discussing it with Andee and Maureen, he put in for early retirement and moved the family to the West Country. Though Andee knew that her parents shared her fear that Penny would come back and find them gone, like them she was also glad to be out of the house that Penny would always haunt.

However, being in Kesterly wasn’t any easier for her. In some ways it was worse, since every corner she turned, everywhere she looked, every scent that carried on the breeze seemed to hold a memory of Penny. She could see her leaping up as she found a crab in a rock pool; laughing her head off as she trotted along the sands on a donkey; coming up from the waves gulping for air as she learned to surf. It wasn’t the same for her parents; they hadn’t spent their summers here, so for them it was something of a fresh start.

Even so Penny was always there. She was the tragic hole in their lives, the one that could never be bridged until she was found; the one they always had to step around to find one another.

Penny, Penny, Penny
. The cry rose silently, inextinguishably from their very existence.

Though Andee completed sixth-form college in Kesterly, as soon as it was over she returned to London to begin her police training. She knew it was crazy even to think this might be a way to find Penny, but having no real closure where her sister was concerned was at the very centre of who she was back then. Not only that, she’d felt a burning need to try to restore the connection with her father that she so desperately missed. Maybe becoming a detective would go some way towards encouraging him to take an interest in life again.

To a small degree it had worked. Certainly he’d stopped passing the phone straight to her mother whenever she rang, and during her visits he would invariably sit quietly listening as she told Maureen about street situations she became embroiled in, or serious cases she was helping to solve. The biggest breakthrough came when she was seconded to CID during her second year in uniform. Her father began asking questions, even occasionally offered advice, though before long his conscience almost always seemed to suck him back into his shell, as though he could feel Penny watching with accusing eyes.

In spite of his inner torment he’d seemed proud when Andee had taken the detective’s course at Hendon and officially made it into CID. ‘Just don’t go getting yourself promoted out of policing into politicking,’ he’d cautioned. ‘It was what happened to me, and I always regretted it.’

‘Everyone says you were one of the best DCSs,’ she told him, truthfully.

Though he’d cocked a dubious eyebrow, he’d seemed pleased by the compliment, and as she settled into her new role as a DC she could tell that he was gradually bringing himself to enjoy a second career through her. And he continued to do so all through her twenties and into her thirties, approving or disapproving all the new techniques and procedures, or chuckling at the gossip about old colleagues, or puzzling over the complications of ongoing cases. It wasn’t that he was always on the phone, or urging her to come to Kesterly, he simply waited for her to contact him and when she did it was as though he had new air in his lungs, new blood running through his tired veins.

She never troubled him with the mispers. She handled them alone and always hoped, prayed, that one of them would somehow lead her to Penny.

They never had.

Her father’s greatest joy, her mother’s too, was without question her children when they came along. She’d given birth to Luke, her eldest, during her time on the beat, and Alayna, the darling of everyone’s heart, two years later. Her parents quite simply adored them and were never happier than when they came to stay for the summer, just as she, Penny and Frank used to stay with their grandparents when they were young.

It was at her father’s suggestion that Andee had taken her sergeant’s exam, a little over two years ago. Though she’d passed the board (he’d decided, jokingly, to take all the credit), there had been no positions available to apply for at the time unless she’d wanted to move out of London, which she hadn’t, then, so she’d had no choice but to continue as a DC.

She’d still been a DC eight months later when Martin, the father of her children and her partner of almost twenty years, since sixth-form college in fact, had decided he’d had enough and left.

Three months later her father suffered a massive coronary and didn’t survive.

He’d died without ever knowing what had happened to Penny.

This was a truth Andee had never been able to bear.

More than a year after his passing, Andee was still, in a very private sense, suffering terribly. It was hard to say who she missed most, him or Martin, though she guessed it had to be Martin, considering what a major role he’d always played in her and the children’s lives. In truth, he still did, at least in the children’s, since they saw him often, and during major family events it was as though they were all still a family. Whether he’d ever realised how painful she found those occasions she had no idea since she’d never told him, and he’d never asked. They simply went through the motions, as though they were friends used to being around one another, and when it came time to say goodbye they’d hug and promise to call soon. They always did, of course, since there was always something to discuss about the children, but that was as far as it went. She didn’t want to hear him repeat his reasons for leaving – she’d heard them at the time and didn’t need to have it rubbed in. Over the years, while running the home and taking care of the children, he’d built up a highly successful Internet security company, and when the US government had got in touch to offer him a contract in Baghdad he’d taken it. Just like that. It was his time, he’d said, so he wasn’t going to turn it down. He’d only be gone for three months, four at the most, and perhaps they should use the time apart as a trial separation. That had come as an even bigger shock than the job offer. She hadn’t understood why they needed a trial separation when as far as she was concerned they were happy together.