The Missing Person's Guide to Love (16 page)

‘Oh, you know. The kinds of things that always get left undone.’ She sniffled and used the back of her hand to wipe a dewdrop from the tip of her nose. ‘I only wish I’d known Owen better. When we were teenagers he was just my brother and we didn’t really speak to each other because, I suppose, brothers and sisters don’t. There was some rule about it that we must have learned somewhere. Have you got any brothers?’

‘No, I’m an only child.’

‘You’re lucky. Unlucky. One or the other. I suppose it depends. Anyway, then I left home and never spent much time with him again. Just some Christmases or summer holidays when I came to visit. It’s strange. I could count the times I had
a long conversation with him on both my hands, if I tried. The only communication I remember having with Owen is when we were both in front of the telly, talking half to each other and half to the screen, but always looking straight ahead. That must be why I find it hard to picture his face with any expression sketched in. It’s just an outline that won’t keep still when I try to look at it. I probably never really saw it. When he went to prison I was angry with him but so sorry for him too. I was more sorry than angry, I think.

‘It was so painful
here,
’ Annie pressed her hand against her heart, ‘that I never visited or wrote to him. He must have thought I hated him but I didn’t. I had a calendar with cats on.’ She laughed. ‘And I counted the weeks and months of his sentence. Each night I blanked out the square for that day. I did it with incredible care. I took a pencil and shaded it in from side to side, then top to bottom and diagonally.’ She held her finger and thumb in front of her eyes and made quick, deft movements. ‘It was a way of living through the sentence myself. I think I felt guilty and that it would help, somehow, if I was there too. I never told him that. I didn’t know him well enough, you see. It seems like a contradiction that I could know him so little and care so much, but it’s true. Maybe you knew him better than I did. I was only his sister. You were in his class at school.’

Annie was now staring at me with intense curiosity. When she finished speaking, her head and shoulders lurched drunkenly in my direction for a moment, then retreated. I looked directly into her eyes and saw Owen in his prison cell but not with John
or even with Annie. He was with me. Owen was lying on his bed and I was looking down on him from the top bunk. I was holding the grey metal bed-frame and leaning over, not quite on the mattress and not quite off it. I looked down and was able to move my eyes around to take in his body, the folds and wrinkles in his heavy cotton clothes, dark patches of sweat under his arms. His forehead glistened. His eyes stared straight up but, unlike Annie’s, did not seem to see me.

‘Annie,’ I said, ‘it was too long ago. You know, I barely recognized the person they were talking about in church today, and I’m not sure that my memories are particularly reliable. I thought it would be different and I’d be able to share the things I remembered but I’ve realized that I know nothing. Sorry—’

‘No, no. You can’t get away with that. You’ve come all the way from Turkey for this. There’s more to it. I’m drunk but I’m not thick. I know that the two of you were really close for a time. I remember seeing you wandering around together at the weekends. You both walked with your heads bowed like you were in some weird cult or you were acting in a science-fiction film. You must have known each other’s secrets.’

And I understood. Annie believed that I knew something about Julia, that I knew more than she did. We were dancing around each other but we had the same intention. We both wanted information.

‘I don’t think that’s how we walked. I don’t remember it, at least, so I don’t think we can have done it on purpose. You’re reading the weirdness into it with hindsight. We were just a couple of teenagers. That’s what they’re like.’ What Annie had
described was the exact picture I had of Owen and Julia together a couple of years earlier. ‘I probably talked to Owen a lot but he never said much back to me. We liked doing things together, not talking. That was the kind of friendship we had. We went rowing or walking, or playing on the fruit machines in the arcade. But we didn’t even pick machines that were side by side. We showed up, made our way to different corners and left together. That was all. I think we were keeping each other company but I don’t believe we knew each other, not to any depth. If he had talked more, perhaps I would have understood him better, but I’m not sure that it would have made a difference.’

‘But you must have had conversations sometimes. What were they about?’

I knew the answer but I thought for a moment before saying it.

‘For a few months, after all our friends had left town but before the fire, we spent a lot of time talking about Julia Smith.’

‘But that was years after she’d disappeared, wasn’t it?’

‘A couple. That was what we had in common, though. Owen was the one who always wanted to talk about her.’ It was an exaggeration but I needed to see Annie’s reaction.

She turned away. There was a long pause. We stared into separate portions of space. An engine revved below the window, then purred. The car drove away and voices moved from the hall to the kitchen. Cups chinked and a chair scraped. Annie spoke first.

‘I always wondered what you knew about that.’

‘What could I have known?’

‘I don’t know. She was your friend. You might have known something.’

‘I don’t, didn’t. Why? Do you think Owen knew something?’

‘Anything you two knew, you would have told each other, wouldn’t you?’

‘I don’t know that we would have. We didn’t talk much, as I said.’

‘But the two of you used to talk about Julia. You must have said something.’

‘We just wondered together what had happened to her and whether there was a way we could find her. Of course, there wasn’t.’

We stopped for a moment. Downstairs, people called, ‘Goodbye,’ and slammed doors. Annie shook her head, giggled and whispered something that might have been ‘Sorry’. She cleared her throat and spoke quietly.

‘Look, Owen was devastated by what happened. He liked her a lot. In fact, I think he might have been obsessed with her even before she went missing.’ She gave me a slow, feline blink.

I nodded but tried to give nothing away. ‘Where was he on the day she disappeared?’ I asked.

‘God knows.’ Annie pulled the hem of her skirt under her toes and hugged her knees. ‘There was an answer to that question but I can’t remember it after all these years. We told the police whatever it was at the time. I think we were all at home together, decorating the house or something. I remember
painting the walls in the kitchen. I’d left school by then but I still lived at home. I’ve lived abroad too. Funny how some people have to get away and some have to stay. I’m a nurse. I’ve worked in different parts of Africa and now I live in London, but I’m ready to move back here for good now. I might take Owen’s flat, I think, if the rest of the family don’t want it. I think that would be a good thing for me to do. You should move back here too, Isabel. We’d get along with each other, I reckon, and you can’t stay away for ever. I’d be happy to be here again, if you were around.’

I suspected that Annie’s affection for me was a side effect of the brandy but I was still touched. ‘Annie, did you hear your mother talking to me outside the church?’

‘I saw her face but I didn’t hear everything she said.’

‘For one thing, she didn’t exactly make me feel that I would like to live here again. But, more importantly, she said she found blood on Owen’s clothes on the day Julia Smith disappeared. She washed it off’

‘Oh, that’s probably bollocks. She was saying that to get a reaction from you.’

‘You think so?’

But I knew that Annie did not mean this. Her voice was breezy and light but a shock had crossed her face for just a second before she spoke. She smiled and relaxed her features. I wondered whether she was as drunk as she appeared to be.

‘The woman’s mad. She thinks Owen killed Julia and she blames you. She blames you for the fire too, but that was Owen’s idea, wasn’t it?’

‘No, it was mine.’

‘Oh. Was it? I’d never thought of it that way. I always felt sorry for you, having the misfortune to be with my brother on that day. Maybe I shouldn’t have. No, I’m just joking. I wouldn’t blame you for it. I’m sure you had your reasons.’

‘Annie, why did you want to talk to me today?’

‘To find out what you know about my little brother. I don’t know if he’s guilty of some horrible murder, manslaughter, whatever. I’ve never wanted to think about it for very long. Okay, I’ll be honest.’ Annie dipped her finger in the brandy glass and licked it. ‘Here we go. My mother thinks he is. Was. She has never said so to me, not in clear sentences, but I know that’s what she believes. He wasn’t at home when Julia disappeared. He had come in from school for about five minutes – just long enough to dump his bag – then gone straight out again. That was normal for him at the time. He used to say that he was meeting Julia on her paper round to keep her company. It seemed sweet to me. We didn’t know that it was a lie. She’d dropped him by then, you see. Maybe he was watching her from a distance.’

‘Julia never told me about that. She would have, if he’d said anything, if she’d known he was there.’

‘He pestered her a bit, didn’t he? Poor girl. I bet she didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about it. Who would, at that age? I don’t know what he wanted from her. On that day, he went out at around the usual time but we only found out later that she wasn’t his girlfriend any more. Then he admitted that they hadn’t spoken for weeks.’

‘So, even if he had done nothing wrong, he might have been a witness to whatever did happen. If he had seen something, why wouldn’t he say so?’

‘He claimed that he didn’t go near Julia that afternoon. He said he’d been by himself, having a smoke behind some building. Mum panicked and cooked up a better alibi that included the smoking but had him coming home sooner. She made us all stick to it but she never explained why we had to. I think I knew there was something sinister underneath the lie. Otherwise I would have asked, wouldn’t I?’

Owen’s story of going for a cigarette was consistent with what he had always told me, though I had never believed it.

If I hadn’t gone off on my own that day, it never would have happened because I would’ve rescued her,
he often said.
I just wanted to sit by myself for a bit.

‘Which building was it?’

‘I can’t remember. I knew but I can’t remember now.’

‘Was it the bingo hall?’

‘It might have been. Yes, you’re probably right. It would have been that patch of grass where people used to congregate in the evenings. I used to go there sometimes myself. I think you’re right.’

‘Good. That all makes sense. But were there any witnesses?’

‘There was one. A neighbour noticed him and mentioned it to my dad. He made some joke about not wanting to grass Owen up for smoking, but since everyone had to say where they were that day, he felt he had no choice.’

‘The bingo hall is only fifteen minutes or so from the reservoir, maybe less. Owen could have gone to both places.’

‘It’s not out of the question.’

‘It’s not out of the question at all.’

So, Annie’s thoughts mirrored mine. I took another sip of brandy. Annie pulled herself heavily to her feet and put the bottle on the floor.

‘Let’s have some music on. It’s too quiet.’ She pulled an old record-player from under the bed, then a pile of vinyl. It took her a few minutes to connect up the speakers and get it working. ‘See what he kept down here.’ She blew fluff from the sleeve of a record, placed it on the turntable, turned up the volume before the music started. The floor shook when the guitar began to play.

‘Is it a bit loud, perhaps?’

‘Oh, I can’t do with all this sitting around in black. You’d think they were at a fucking funeral.’ She let out an empty laugh.

We danced to music I did not recognize. We closed the door and kicked off our shoes. The people beneath us, talking in the kitchen, must have heard. The thud of the drums and of our feet through the ceiling. It felt good.

An arm grabbed my waist. I swivelled to see John at my shoulder.

‘Hey, Isabel. Been looking everywhere for you.’

‘What were you up to in the garden?’

His face was close to mine. He felt cold.

‘I was chatting to Owen’s dad about things. Stuff Owen used to do. Dennis is a great bloke. Did you know he’s done six parachute jumps for charity? Hello, Annie. How are you bearing up?’

Annie smiled at John and twizzled on her toes. She lowered her heels and stepped forward. They embraced each other with a peck on the cheek. She darted from the room and returned seconds later with a camera. ‘Can I take a picture of you both? It’s a special day, kind of. I’d like to have a souvenir.’

She stood in front of the window and screwed up her face behind the camera. John and I sat on the bed.

‘Get a bit closer.’

She fumbled with the lens cap, the focus lever, trying to work out how to use it.

‘We should all go downstairs and gather round the coffin,’ John muttered in my ear. If she wants a good photograph.’

‘Ssh.’

‘Why are you getting so involved?’ He spoke to me without looking.

‘I just came to see what I could find out.’

‘Why now, all the way from Istanbul?’

‘You know why. I’m here to find out what happened.’

Annie took a step back. ‘Perfect. OK, keep still.’

‘Don’t believe you, Isabel. That’s not why you’re here. You’re going to get sucked in again and this time you won’t be able to escape. Smile.’

‘It’s a fucking funeral.’

He grinned at the camera. ‘I know that. Smile.’

I smiled at Annie. I would deal with John later.

We sprawled on the floor, the three of us, sipping brandy and listening to music, one song after another. I didn’t know the music and barely heard the words. Sometimes a phrase drifted into my ears but it didn’t contain any particular meaning for me. Annie stared at a spot on the ceiling for long, silent periods, squeezed out slow, heavy tears. John lay flat on his back for a while and shut his eyes so I couldn’t tell whether he was sleeping or awake. I fell into a reverie.