The Daughter (3 page)

“Yeah. I think he was around in the theater sometimes.” She glanced down. “You know, at the back.”

“At the back?” Again, barely inquisitive.

“Yeah. Where ­people waited. Maybe.” She looked up and there was reluctance in her dark eyes. “I didn't really see.”

“What did he look like?” I asked quickly.

“Don't know.” Nikita didn't look at me. There was a pause. “Maybe dark hair?”

She moved nearer Shan on the sofa and closed her eyes. I didn't think she would tell us anything else, but Ted was asking another question.

“And tonight? What did she say to you about tonight?”

There was silence. Nikita was completely still. Then Shan stood up. “She's tired now.” Her voice was firm. “She needs to go back to bed.”

“Tell us, Nikita, please.” I touched her on the arm lightly, carefully. “Please, please tell us what she said.”

She looked back at me then, her brown eyes wide with surprise. Her best friend's mother was a busy figure in the distance; cheerful, running in and running out. In charge of her life and her family. She didn't plead.

“She said”—­Nikita paused for a fraction—­“she said, ‘Wish me luck.' ”

 

Chapter 2

DORSET, 2010

ONE YEAR LATER

A
utumn deepens into winter. In the morning the silence presses coldly against my face.

I listen, though I'm not sure what I'm listening for. By now I should have learned the absence of the sounds that I took for granted: the muted steps of bare feet, the distant kettle, murmuring radio voices, and the porcelain clink of the coffee cups on the edge of the bath. The noises one person makes are quiet, careful, separated out. They ebb into silence. I open the window and the softly crashing breath of the sea comes into the room like something alive.

I touch her bedroom door as I pass to the bathroom. She chose this room when she was small. It was never really her bedroom, because until the past few months it had just been our holiday home, but we all thought of that room as hers. As a child she liked to pretend the little round window under the thatch was a porthole and that her bed was a boat.

The police took the mattress away, and all the bedding. The wood of the door is cold and damp under my fingertips. Ted washed the blood off the floor; I haven't been inside since I arrived.

The wavering reflection of the window frame fractures around my hands as I lie in the bath water. When the bell rings I get out quickly, a towel around me, then my dressing gown. At the top of the stairs my steps freeze. I can see a man in uniform through the glass of the front door. My heart goes so fast I feel faint and I hold the banisters. This could be the moment they have come to tell me they have found something in the mud of a field: the heel of a shoe perhaps, soft and rotten, the gleam of a silver charm, the white of a tooth. There is nothing they can tell me that I haven't thought of, but I stop as if I've been shot. Then I see red somewhere on his jacket, a bulky bag. Someone with a special delivery. When I open the door, he hands me the post: the order of small paintbrushes from the art shop in Bristol. On the mat already is a postcard of a Welsh mountain from Ted's vast collection. His way of keeping in touch. No message, as usual. I sit at the kitchen table and my heart slows. The sketchbook is in front of me and I pull it toward me, open it at the next page. When the police came to the door, and I saw the black and white, the padded jackets and the badges, her absence became official. It was still dark but it must have been early morning, maybe four or five
A.M.

The pencil is rough in my fingers; I can feel the chips where it's been bitten as I draw a little hooded top, shading between the folds with short gray lines.

BRISTOL, 2009

THE NIGHT OF THE DISAPPEARANCE

The policeman at the door was in his mid-­fifties, his colorless eyes sunk in soft pouches of flesh. Whatever natural expression he had was overlain by a veneer of professional calm, though his eyes, moving quickly over my face, betrayed his unease. Behind him was a small woman, brown hair in a tight French pleat, immaculate red lipstick. I thought I could see anger tamped down. Perhaps she'd had to get up specially, put on the crisp uniform and the thick makeup.

“Dr. Malcolm?” The man's voice was carefully neutral.

At home I didn't call myself doctor; I was the children's mother, my husband's wife, but if this policeman thought I was a fellow professional he might try even harder.

“Yes.” I stood back to let them in.

“I'm Police Constable Steve Wareham and this is Police Constable Sue Dunning.”

He took off his hat; there was a little ridge running around his thin gray hair. He shook my hand and spoke quietly. He was sorry for us but not the sort of sorry I was afraid of. I'd been afraid he would say sorry for your loss. The woman was brisker. She nodded but put her hands behind her back as if she didn't want to touch me; I was the kind of woman whose child doesn't come back home.

I took them to the kitchen. We had just returned from Shan's house and I needed to watch the clock. It was ten hours since Naomi had walked out of the back door, and I wanted to tell them immediately about the man whose shadow seemed thrown against the bright walls of the kitchen. In my mind I was screaming at them to hurry. Leave now. You might catch them. He is driving with her down a long street in the rain, he is going into a house, he is locking the door, he is turning around to face her, she is crying. No, of course not, she never cries. Hurry.

Ted began talking; he started from the beginning, which was what they wanted. They wanted everything and it took an hour. They asked for her laptop, then her birth certificate and passport. They tried the cell phone again, but there wasn't an answering message, or even a ringtone this time. Out of charge. Naomi's phone was often dead, it didn't mean anything. When Steve Wareham told me they could have traced the location of the phone if it had been charged, I fought back a surge of helpless anger and fear.

I gave them her school photo from last term. I stared at it for a few seconds. It had been taken a few months ago, but still, she looked so young. It was as though I was looking at another person with a wide smile, her bright hair pulled back in a ponytail, her face shining. I thought of the foundation pooling around the little bottle. She hadn't looked like that child in the photo before the play. Did she have hobbies? Maybe. I didn't know. I was at work all day, I couldn't know everything. The constable raised an eyebrow briefly. What school, what doctor, what dentist? (Dentist? What, dental records? The brief spasm of pain on Ted's face showed he had got there too.) School friends? Names? Boyfriends? Not a boyfriend, no. Someone who waited at the back of the theater. He had dark hair and she thought he was hot. He's got her. He could be hurting her at this very moment; his hands tight around her neck. Perhaps he's forcing her down on the ground, pulling off her clothes, pushing her under him, the side of a hand in her mouth to stifle her. I pushed my fingers hard into my own mouth, biting them to stop myself screaming.

They wrote everything down.

Police constable Sue Dunning gave me a missing person form to fill in. She said it was too soon to call it an abduction, no evidence as such. My hands were shaking, so I wrote slowly. They kept talking to me, asking questions. Height, about five foot five. Weight? One hundred ten pounds. Yes, she was slim. No, not anorexic, just one of those ­people always on the go; she ate plenty.

Are you hungry? You didn't have supper, did you? I didn't mind about that then, because I thought you were going out for a meal. You should have told me, I could have made you something.

What was she wearing when I last saw her? She was coming downstairs with her bag and I think she was wearing a raincoat, or was it her school coat? Perhaps her little gray hoodie. Let me think. I can check in her closet and let you know.

I hope it was a raincoat; it's raining, you'll get wet.

She was going to change into a dress for the . . . for after . . . and new shoes. They were black with straps, high heels. Different. They may have been a present, do you think? A trick, a bribe. She was wearing a charm bracelet. That might be important. The bag she was carrying had little holes in it. I don't know, Tesco's? Waitrose?

Don't try to run in those shoes, you'll break your ankles. Take them off, and then run.

Were there problems at home? Had she gone missing before? Had she ever tried to harm herself? The questions were relentless. I was exhausted. They hadn't understood anything. She was in the play. She was tired, of course, tetchy sometimes, but underneath she was fine. And all the time, I was listening for her footsteps; she might walk in at any moment, an excuse ready-­made, amazed at the fuss. All this would fade into a nightmare.

Steve Wareham was still speaking. “Before we go any further, we need to search the premises.”

I stared at him. Didn't he believe anything we had said?

“What?” Ted's voice was incredulous. “Now?”

“You'd be surprised.” He didn't mean to sound patronizing. “You wouldn't believe the number of missing children we find still at home; kids hiding in the closet. Making a point.”

They looked upstairs, Ted showing the way. They went into the loft, the cabinets, and the closets. They were methodical and quiet, so thankfully the boys slept on. They looked in the garden shed and the garbage bins. I waited in the kitchen, my hand resting on the phone. When they had finished, they looked tired.

“Someone from the force will come back later.” Sue Dunning was faintly embarrassed. “You will have to be eliminated from the inquiry. Routine measures.”

She didn't need to be embarrassed. They were being thorough; that meant they would find her.

Ted asked what would happen next and she reeled off a list: file the report, contact the school and the theater, visit Nikita for a witness statement, look at Facebook, examine her laptop, and the cell phones of friends for texts, interview the teachers, go to clubs, pubs, restaurants, garages, railway stations, seaports, airports. Interpol. And, if she's not back in twenty-­four hours, get the media involved.

Airports? Media? Ted put his arm around me.

“One final thing. We'll need her toothbrush,” Steve Wareham said quietly. “In case.”

The pink toothbrush looked oddly childish in the yellow plastic mug in her bathroom. Sue Dunning slipped it into a little plastic envelope and it wasn't Naomi's anymore. It was DNA from a missing person. In case.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” Steve Wareham stood up stiffly, hand in the small of his back. The lines on his face looked deeper. I wondered what it must feel like to face parents like us, and for a fleeting moment I felt sorry for him.

“We will fully inform the day shift, which starts at seven
A.M.
There will be a meeting with the senior manager of the Criminal Investigation Department, not, of course, that we know there is any criminal activity involved at the present time.” He took a breath and continued: “In the meantime, it would help us if you searched for clues here in your house, in case there's anything you might have overlooked. Go through everything that's happened in the last few days and weeks. Anything that seemed different about your daughter. Write it down and tell us. I'll take the laptop away with us for now.”

He smiled at us as he picked it up, and his face became gentler. “Michael Kopje will be in contact. He's the family liaison officer for this area. He'll be around in a ­couple of hours.”

A ­couple of hours. What about the next five minutes, and the five minutes after that?

They have a picture. It'll help.

But it doesn't show the way her hair shines so brightly it looks like sheets of gold.

She has a tiny mole, just beneath her left eyebrow.

She smells very faintly of lemons.

She bites her nails.

She never cries.

Find her.

 

Part Two

 

Chapter 3

DORSET, 2010

ONE YEAR LATER

T
he faint morning bustle that washes up the lane from the village has faded. The morning sinks into a dull afternoon and, unannounced, grief settles closely around me. It will pass as long as I stand quite still. On home visits in the past, I could tell from the door if patients were sick by how still they lay. Appendicitis, a ruptured abdominal aorta, meningitis—­the muscles become rigid to shield the disaster unfolding inside. In the summer I lay motionless as the hours dissolved, watching the dust dance in glittering columns as the sunlight slid through each window in turn. I wanted to die, but I knew then as I do now that one day I might look up and she could be there, framed in the doorway. And, of course, I would never abandon the boys; besides, her dog sleeps in my kitchen.

On cue Bertie yawns, climbs out of his basket, and wags his tail. His opaque eyes track me as I cross the kitchen. His neck is warm under my fingers when I clip on the lead; the deep fur has toughened with age. I shove the notebook and pencil into a pocket. The back door of the kitchen opens into the garden, which leads onto fields. Mother gave me the cottage before she died. It was lucky that she did; it gave me somewhere to hide.

Lucky. Good luck, this is my lucky day, wish me luck. A trivial word to describe the weight of those swings of fate that open or close against you, like great doors banging in the wind. Naomi never thought she would need luck. She thought she had been born lucky. I thought she had been too; I thought we all had been. Only a year ago, I thought we had everything.

It's hard to see exactly where it began to change. I go back, over and over again, to different points in time, to work out where I could have altered fate. I could pick almost any moment in my life and twist it to a different shape. If I hadn't decided to become a doctor, if Ted hadn't taken the books out of my arms in the library years ago, if I hadn't been rushing that afternoon in my office, if I'd had more time. Time was running out but I didn't know it then.

I climb the cliff path, waiting as Bertie jumps stiffly up the ledges of gray rock. At the top the wind blows spray against my mouth like rain. It seeps between my lips, salty, more like tears than rain.

My mind goes to the afternoon in my doctor life, when the clock started ticking down the hours of Naomi's last days with us. The afternoon I met Jade, the chili in my eye.

Sitting on a rock, the sea and sky stretching in front of me, I pull the sketchbook from my pocket and begin to draw a toy giraffe, smudging the coat and making the edge of one ear ragged. Bertie settles to wait, his head on my feet, whining softly from time to time.

On the second of November a year ago I had no way of knowing that we had only seventeen days left.

BRISTOL, 2009

SEVENTEEN DAYS BEFORE

It had been raining all day. Patients were coming in off the narrow street with dripping clothes and wet hair, letting in the swish and rumble of the main road at the end of our little cul-­de-­sac. Our practice was near the docks, set back a little between a pine furniture shop and a rubbish-­strewn parking lot where the weeds grew high and thin through patches of broken tarmac. The streets nearby were dense with small Victorian terrace houses; when I drove to work, nudging the car through the narrowing streets, I would glimpse the dark water off the docks between old warehouses.

The practice was popular, or perhaps just convenient. The small waiting room was always crammed with patients, though the few minutes we had for each never seemed enough. In the allotted seven minutes it was almost impossible to give ­people what they wanted. All the same, I thought they knew we were on their side; at least I thought so until that afternoon. I remember quite a lot; in particular I remember the smell.

By late afternoon, my room smelled bad. Sweat, blood, and stale alcohol. Flesh took on a greenish color in the harsh overhead light. The blinds were drawn over the window to keep out the street, and in here it was as though that world didn't exist. It was hot. Toys were scattered over the floor. The basin in the corner was full of bloody metal, covered over with blue paper towels.

I was tired. Mrs. Bartlett's examination had been difficult—­it had been hard to see the cervical polyp for the bleeding—­and she would need referral to a clinic tomorrow. I glanced at the list on my screen, and as I cleared the basin, then washed my hands, I thought about the next patient. A temporary resident. Yoska Jones. Polish? I yawned into the little mirror above the sink; my hair had escaped the clasp and was wildly curling around my face. My mascara had smudged again. I narrowed my eyes at my reflection, hoping his problem would be straightforward so I could make up time. I called him in. Mid-­twenties. High cheekbones, tanned skin. It took a second to see he wasn't ill. I could sort this quickly.

“How can I help?”

“Back pain, runs in the family.” A Welsh accent. His hand, strong and weathered, lay close to mine on the table. I put my hands in my lap.

“What do you think brought this on?”

“Carrying my kid sister around.” A defensive note crept into his voice. “She likes to sit on my shoulders, but she's getting heavy.”

“Carrying children doesn't help.” It's tempting, though. I used to carry Naomi everywhere, long after she could walk on her own. I liked the weight of her, her face against mine. “Best to let her walk on her own.”

I caught a flicker of anger in his eyes, but in seven minutes advice was more important than sympathy and I had to look at his back. The long erector spinae muscles on either side of his spine were as smooth and thick as a pair of snakes, but when he lay on his back he winced as I raised his legs. Sciatica. His reflexes and sensation were normal. When I told him what exercises he needed to do and prescribed some analgesia, he smiled and shook my hand. The laying on of hands had worked its magic: his hostility evaporated completely. He left with a leaflet of advice and his script, his foot accidentally tipping a toy as he went. It spun across the room and crashed into the wall. I picked it up as the door closed. It was the little plastic duck with the faded orange beak that had been chewed so often it was frayed into soft spikes, and the wing had come cleanly off, leaving a sharp edge. There was a muffled clang as it hit the bottom of the metal garbage can. I called the next patient in.

I knew Jade was ten, though she looked much younger. She stood motionless as her mother took off her parka, her school sweater, her skirt. There were bruises on her face, her arms, and her legs. She seemed perfect apart from the bruises, but her pretty face was blank. She watched me closely as she clutched a tattered velvet giraffe. I had seen her at least four times this year; there had been tiredness, ill-­defined abdominal pain, poor appetite, and now coughing. Nothing had jumped out at me before, though I had noticed her dirty clothes and the matted hair that hung in silvery ropes. I had simply given advice, and tried to reassure her anxious mother. This time it was different. The bruises were new. I smiled at Jade, but the room seemed to turn darker around her.

Her mother, in bulging fake fur, talked quickly and loudly, leaving no gaps between her words. Gaps held clues, but her words fell out in a tight line.

“Still keeping us awake with the bloody coughing.”

The woman's hard green eyes tracked mine.

“Something else as well.”

The caked face pushed in close and little blobs of hardened mascara trembled when she blinked. Her fingers with long pointed nails gripped her daughter's shoulders tightly.

“She comes home covered in bruises. She says she trips over a lot. We think it's the other kids. Picking on her.”

“Why are they doing that?”

“I don't know, do I?”

I uncurled Jade's fingers and put the steel disk of my stethoscope into the small palm so its coldness on her chest wouldn't shock her.

“Can I listen to your tummy?”

The bright head made a small movement up and down.

I put my stethoscope on top of her undershirt first to gain her confidence; her hair fell over my hand and I saw something black scuttle up a strand toward her scalp. When she stopped holding her breath, I lifted the undershirt to listen and saw that the bumpy little rib cage was bruised; there were more bruises on her backbone. I could hear the mother's voice become louder and faster as she watched me, but I stopped listening to the words. I kept my face under control as I felt the tender lumps on a rib. There were small crackling noises in her chest. I examined her everywhere. By the time I saw bruises high on her inner thighs, wings of worry were beating in my head.

I typed a script for antibiotics as her mother pulled her clothes back on over her head. If I mentioned the lice as well, she might never come back.

“This should help her chest; she needs a spoonful three times a day. I'll need to check her again, so could you bring her back in two days?”

She nodded, staring at the script in her hand, and turned to go, pulling Jade after her quickly.

I went to see Lynn, our practice nurse. She was in her room, humming quietly as she refilled her tray with bottles and syringes. When I told her about Jade, her brown eyes narrowed in concern.

“Jade's never been brought in for immunizations. She saw the substitute nurse last summer, bad fall, grazes to her arms.” Her neat hands flew over the keyboard. “The father was here a few weeks ago as well, stitches in his hand. Off his head with alcohol that afternoon.” She glanced at me with a worried frown. “I had the feeling he would lash out at any moment.”

I had encountered drunken men with open head wounds on Saturday nights in the emergency room while training. I remembered the obscene threats, the wildly aimed punches while I sewed skin edges together with trembling fingers.

So Jade's father was that kind of man.

“What do you make of the mother, then, Lynn?”

“Don't really know.” Lynn leaned toward the screen. “Doesn't come in for her smears. It's on here that she saw Frank for depression last year and was prescribed citalopram, but she didn't come back for follow-­up.”

As she spoke, the pieces of the jigsaw began to slot together neatly.

“Thanks, Lynn. Any chance that you could, say, contact the mother about the immunizations . . . ?”

“And use it as a chance to go visit? 'Course I will.”

I phoned the social worker, left a message. Tracking down the school nurse took longer. It wasn't the day for her drop-­in clinic, but the school gave me her work cell number. She picked up on the second try.

“Jade Price? Yeah, I know Jade. Quiet little thing. Not a happy child.”

“Why's that?”

“She gets left out. The other kids treat her like a leper.”

The raspy voice wanted to gossip. I kept it brief.

“Does she get into fights? Her mother said—­”

“Like I said, the kids don't go near her, too quiet. The nits don't help. Her dad fetches her from school sometimes, drunk as a lord, full of temper.”

Another piece of the jigsaw clicked into place. The community pediatrician was out; I'd try later. As the senior partner, Frank would need to be told, but it would have to wait until tomorrow now, as I was running late. The patients would be waiting with pursed lips, checking their watches. The beating wings of worry had gone, leaving a feather edge of panic. When my cell phone vibrated in my pocket, I picked it out and gave it a fleeting glance. Ed. I'd have to remind the children not to phone me here; there was never time to talk to them. I called the next patient in.

Nigel Mancey pushed his insurer's medical report across the desk at me. “They're on about how I've got blood pressure.” He grinned.

As I wrapped the cuff around his curdy white upper arm, his thick fingers tapped the table; they looked like shiny pink sausages, the cheap kind with thin skins that split open with one touch of the knife. His blood pressure was high but not dangerously so. He took the lifestyle booklet and blood test forms, then left to make a follow-­up appointment, muttering to himself.

The air in my little room seemed used up. I was grateful when Jo, our receptionist, brought me a cup of tea between patients. She wore her fair hair piled high on her head, but by this time of day little strands were straggling loose. She set the white china cup gently down in a space on the desk between notes. As I took the first sips, I looked at the framed photographs on the wall. They were out of date now. There was one of Naomi at five, smiling so broadly her eyes had disappeared, tightly holding Bertie, then a new puppy. The boys were leaning in, half hidden, grinning down at her. There was another from a party the previous New Year's Eve. Ted's arms were around us all; he must have said something funny because we were all laughing except Naomi; she was staring at the camera so intently she seemed to scowl. I pulled my attention back and called the next patient in.

The dark afternoon eased into evening. Patient followed patient in a steady rhythm and for a while I felt I was winning. Then Jo put her head around the door, her eyes wide with worry: little Tom had just been brought in with an asthma attack. His mother, a pretty teenager with dreadlocks, was silent with fear. Tom was sweating, his skin tugged in between his ribs, the wheeze was ominously quiet. I switched into automatic mode: soon he was breathing in Ventolin bubbled with oxygen through a pediatric mask, too tired to resist. His head began to loll, and he slept deeply. The ambulance arrived soon afterward to take them both to the hospital so he could be stabilized overnight.

The room was quiet after they had left. My stethoscope lay on top of tattered envelopes with notes spilling out. Blood forms were jumbled together and a wooden tongue depressor was on the floor. The beige surface of the tea was ringed with a milky white circle. I did all the end-­of-­office things, tidied notes, and recorded letters on the dictaphone to the pediatrician and social workers. No visits. Jo left for home, her good-­byes echoing in the empty waiting room. I made a list of things to do in the morning and stuck it on the black face of the computer.