Secrets of the Tides (32 page)

Steven shrugged. ‘Sure I did.’ They sat in silence a little while longer before he spoke again. ‘It’s been a year now. Does it get any easier?’

Dora hesitated.

‘Sorry,’ he held up his hands, ‘none of my business. I’m an idiot for asking.’

‘No,’ said Dora, ‘it’s OK. No one really talks about Alfie. Everyone tiptoes around what happened. It’s actually nice to be asked. And no,’ she added, ‘it doesn’t get any easier, at least, not yet.’

‘I can’t imagine.’

Dora closed her eyes. ‘It’s like living with a wound. You think it’s starting to heal, you feel like it’s getting a little better, that a scab is forming but then something happens, you hear something, or see something . . . anything . . . the sound of an ice cream van . . . the sight of a little boy learning to ride his bike . . . and it hurts like the first time, all over again. It’s horrible. I don’t honestly know if it will ever be any different.’ She looked up at Steven, wondering if she’d said too much. A simple ‘no’ would have done. But he was staring back at her with sympathy.

‘It must be awful.’

She shrugged.

‘How are your folks?’

She gave a dry little laugh. ‘Put it this way, our house isn’t exactly a great place to be right now.’

Steven nodded and seemed to think for a moment. ‘I was wondering . . . you know . . . perhaps you might like to go out sometime, you know, with me? We could get a pizza . . . or go to the movies? Some mates and I are going down to the Dog and Duck on Friday night. I passed my driving test last week. I could pick you up . . . you know, just in case you ever needed to get out sometime?’

Dora’s breath caught in her throat. Was Steven Page,
the
Steven Page, really asking her out?
Yes, yes, yes
she wanted to scream,
of course I want to go out with you, what girl in her right mind wouldn’t?
Her heart stirred and she felt a fluttering of . . . what was it – excitement? – happiness? – way down in her belly.

She was just trying to formulate her response, to assemble the right words into a coherent sentence, when a violent gust hurled yet more rain up against the window. It splattered loudly onto the glass, making them both jump.

‘Jeez,’ said Steven, ‘it’s really raining cats and dogs out there.’

Cats and dogs
.

Dora felt the smile playing on her lips fade. Instantly, she was reminded of little Alfie, peering out of the rain-streaked windows at Clifftops, watching a summer storm lashing down onto the sea. ‘Where are the cats and dogs, Dora?’ he had asked, all childish innocence. ‘I can’t see them.’

And just like that, the ache was back in her belly. For a few blissful seconds she’d forgotten. She’d felt like a normal sixteen year old, being asked out on her first date by a boy she liked. But the euphoria was over as soon as it had begun. The wound had reopened and she felt it throbbing deep within her, pulling her down once more into the depths of her sadness. She couldn’t go out with Steven. Who was she kidding? Hanging out with him would only serve to act as a reminder of that day on the beach, and of how she had failed them all. She didn’t deserve to forget. She needed to feel it all, achingly raw and real, for Alfie, always.

‘So, how about it?’ Steven asked. ‘Friday night?’

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’m actually a bit busy at the moment.’

‘Oh.’ Steven looked crestfallen. ‘And I can’t tempt you, not even in a week or two?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

It seemed it was Steven’s turn to blush. ‘OK then.’ They sat for a moment in uncomfortable silence until he shifted in his seat and opened up his rucksack. ‘I’ve just remembered I’ve got some homework I didn’t finish last night. You don’t mind, do you?’

Dora shook her head, a little stung, and as Steven busied himself with a hefty biology textbook, she turned to look out of the window once more. The rain looked like teardrops on the glass. She put her finger against one and traced its slow trail down the pane. She’d done the right thing, she told herself. There was no way she could go out with Steven. It just wouldn’t be right.

By the weekend, her parents’ creeping worry had taken root.

‘I’m going to call,’ said Richard. ‘It’s Saturday morning. Even if she was out last night with new friends she should be in her room now, don’t you think?’

Helen nodded. ‘It’s been a week and we’ve been more than patient. I think we should call.’

‘You don’t think it’s too soon?’ Richard asked.

‘No. Call.’

Dora held her breath as Richard rifled around on the kitchen pinboard for a scrap of paper containing details of Cassie’s halls of residence. He punched the number into the phone and then waited in silence for an answer.

‘Hello, yes, er, hello. I’d like to speak to Cassandra Tide. She’s staying in room 132. It’s her father calling.’

Dora blushed. He sounded so old and stuffy. She could almost imagine the languid student at the other end of the phone rolling their eyes and stomping off to get Cassie.

‘Yes, of course I’ll wait. Thank you.’

Dora sat at the table running through the questions she would ask Cassie. She wanted to know what her room was like, if she’d made any friends yet, and most importantly, when she could come and stay. She’d sleep on the floor, she didn’t mind, just as long as she could get away from Dorset for a little while.

Several minutes passed. She started to wonder if they’d been forgotten about, if there was a phone receiver lying off the hook somewhere in Edinburgh, while students flitted all around, heading off to lectures and parties, pubs and sports fixtures while the three of them sat there, frozen to the spot.

Finally Richard spoke. ‘Yes, I’m still here.’ He listened a moment longer and then frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What do you mean she never showed up? She left home nearly a week ago. Perhaps you just haven’t come across her yet. You know what students are like.’

There was silence again as Richard listened once more. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense! She must have registered! Where else would she be? What else could she be doing?’

Dora crept closer, trying to decipher the indeterminable burble at the end of the line.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said firmly, ‘there must be some mistake with your registration records. Cassie left home last Saturday—’ Richard listened again. ‘No, by herself. She took the train up on her own. She insisted.’

It was then that Dora knew.

University isn’t exactly the be-all and end-all, you know, Dora . . . It’s not real freedom. It’s not real escape, is it?

The truth sucker-punched her in the guts: Cassie hadn’t gone to Edinburgh. She hadn’t even intended to go. That was why she’d been so adamant about travelling on her own. It wasn’t because she wanted to be independent and arrive at university on her own. It wasn’t because she was embarrassed of being seen with them and was worried about navigating those excruciating first hours with her cumbersome family in tow. It was because she had never intended to travel up there in the first place.

As Richard wound up the telephone conversation and turned to them in shocked disbelief, a more pressing question flew at Dora: if Cassie wasn’t in Edinburgh, then where on
earth
was she?

‘What do you mean “there’s nothing you can do”?’ Richard sat opposite a police officer – distressingly for them all, the same one that had handled Alfie’s disappearance the previous year – and wrung his hands in frustration. ‘Our daughter is missing.’

‘I understand your concern, sir, but Cassie is eighteen years old. She’s an adult now, in the eyes of the law. She can leave home any time she chooses, and while I understand it is upsetting for you to not know where she is, it is, unfortunately, her prerogative. Do you have any reason to suspect criminal activity or foul play?’

Helen looked to Richard who shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s very out of character.’

Dora thought of all her sister’s long solitary walks, her late nights and the broken curfews. Then she thought of the violent scratches she’d seen on her sister’s arms, when Cassie’s careful cover-ups had lapsed for a moment and her bare arms had flashed their painful secrets. Cassie didn’t know she’d seen the marks, but the sight of them had haunted Dora. She wondered now whether to mention it, but decided against it and bit her tongue.

‘But you don’t have any reason to believe a crime has been committed?’

‘How would we know, we have no idea where she is! That’s why we need your help.’

Dora flushed with shame at her mother’s rudeness; the policeman was only doing his job, even she could see that.

‘Did she give you any indication or clues as to where she might have gone? Does she have any friends or family she could be staying with? Any boyfriends she might be with?’

Richard shook his head.

‘Do you remember what sort of state she was in when she left? Did she seem upset? Might she be capable of hurting herself?’

Dora swallowed hard.

‘Of course not!’ exclaimed Helen indignantly. ‘She was looking forward to starting university.’

Richard shook his head. ‘All we know for sure is that she left on a train to Waterloo. She was supposed to arrive in London around midday and then take the Underground to King’s Cross, for a connection to Edinburgh.’

The policeman cleared his throat. ‘London’s a big city.’

Dora realised it was time to pipe up. ‘She said something to me.’ She could feel her parents’ eyes boring into her but she continued, regardless. ‘The night before she left she said something a little strange. She said university wasn’t “real freedom . . . a real escape”. I didn’t think much of it at the time but now it sort of makes sense. I think maybe she wasn’t planning on going to university after all.’ She paused. ‘I think perhaps she was having second thoughts about it all.’ Dora looked up at her mother and felt daggers.

The policeman nodded encouragingly. ‘That’s good information, Dora. Did she say anything else? Does she have any friends you can think of, friends in London, or elsewhere who she might want to stay with?’

Dora shook her head. ‘Only the friends we used to have way back when, before we moved here. But we lost touch with all of them years ago. There’s no one.’

The policeman sighed. ‘Well, I could ask the London Transport police to review their security camera footage for Waterloo station, around the time Cassie’s train was scheduled to arrive last weekend. We might get lucky. Perhaps we’ll be able to see if she met up with someone. Or which direction she went in. It’s a long shot, but I can certainly ask the question.’ He paused momentarily. ‘You might want to phone round the hospitals too.’ He didn’t meet their eyes.

‘Is that it?’ Helen was aghast. ‘Once again a child goes missing and you lot do nothing?’

‘Helen!’ snapped Richard. ‘I hardly think that’s fair.’

Dora noticed the policeman flush slightly. ‘I understand your distress, Mrs Tide. I’ll do what I can, but in the meantime, you could consider a private investigator – someone who can trace your daughter’s movements independently. You might have some luck that way.’ He was standing now, preparing to leave. ‘I’m sorry, there’s not a lot else I can do for you. I’m sure she’ll turn up. From what I remember of Cassie she seemed pretty streetwise. Try to keep your phone line free and your spirits up. I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.’

And with that he was gone.

The hours that followed carried with them the painful echoes of Alfie’s disappearance. Richard was frantic. He tore around the house, making urgent telephone calls and conducting intense, emotional conversations with Helen behind closed doors, all the while berating himself at every available opportunity for missing the signs that something was amiss with Cassie. Had she run away? Was she being held against her will? Perhaps she’d been taken ill? Or worse, was lying in a ditch somewhere, undiscovered. He shoved furniture, slammed doors and lashed out at inanimate objects. He was wild and terrifying and virtually unrecognisable in his panic.

By comparison, Helen was quiet, seemingly in shock. She sat on the sofa, her hands clasped around her knees as she rocked over and over to some inaudible internal rhythm. Her lips moved, but Dora never heard the words she whispered; frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Instead she stayed at arm’s length, circulating carefully around both her parents, bewildered and scared and riddled with disbelief: could it really be happening all over again?

As if on some strange autopilot, the three of them gathered together in the kitchen at dinnertime. Richard told them about the investigator as they pushed uneaten food around their plates.

‘He seems very competent – the agency has a ninety-eight per cent success rate when it comes to missing persons and he’s promised to handle Cassie’s case himself.’

Helen nodded, cleared her throat as if to say something, but then fell silent, twisting her water glass around and around on the table. It made an annoying grating sound on the wooden surface and Dora saw her father throw Helen an irritated glance.

Richard pushed his plate away. ‘I just feel so utterly helpless. I don’t know what to do.’ His voice cracked painfully. ‘Tell me, what am I supposed to do?’

Helen looked up then and stared at Richard, as if really seeing him properly for the first time. Slowly, she reached a hand across the table towards him. Dora could see a strange softness in her face, a vulnerability in her eyes that told her how scared she was too; but at the exact same moment Helen reached out to him, Richard, unseeing, pushed back his chair and stood from the table.

‘Sorry, but I can’t just sit here, eating dinner, playing happy families, pretending nothing’s wrong.’

Dora saw her mother flinch and retract her hand.

He turned to them both at the door. ‘I’ll be in my study if you need me.’

They sat in painful silence as the door swung shut behind Richard’s retreating back.

True to his word, the police officer phoned twenty-four hours later. Dora held her breath as he relayed his findings to a grim-faced Richard.

‘What is it?’ Helen whispered. ‘We’ve lost her too, haven’t we?’ Her knuckles were pressed against her mouth.