By eight I’m showered and dressed and staring at our notes. We’ve got very little to go on with Katie. Never married. No kids. Cared for her mother. Fragile. No job. There were also no photos of any use. She could be anyone in them. She’s a few months older than me, so around forty now, but the few pictures we found were so grainy and so old, they’re no help.
I wonder about the lack of images. Did she hide from cameras, like me? Even though her identity had never been revealed – the papers never had her name or photo – did she worry the world would somehow know and she’d be guilty by association? No, I realise. It was always for this moment. For when she could find me. She needed to stay a ghost, invisible and unknown. She needed to stay hidden as much as me.
I sip the strong coffee. Well, she found me and now I’m going to find her. The circle of fucking life. I crave a cigarette – Charlotte once more coming to the fore, old habits dying hard – but instead I pick up a pen and chew on the lid, like a child, as I start to write.
The list of names is depressingly short. My life as Lisa has been private; fearful and small.
Penny. Highly unlikely. Julia. Not her. I list the various other people I come into contact with through work and none of them strike me as potentials. Too old, too young, been there too long, too dull. Mrs Goldman? Does she have a nurse or friend who comes to see her? I’ve never seen anyone but her family and they don’t visit often. Someone perhaps when I’m out at work? I put lots of question marks next to her name. Maybe Marilyn can go and talk to her. She’s a lonely old woman, she would talk easily.
Under the heading ‘Ava’s teachers’ I start a new list, but from the names I remember from parents’ evenings I can’t see anyone on it who’s new to the school or who has overly befriended her. A teacher would probably be able to get into her bag to steal her keys. And they’d know where we lived. They’re all possible, but it doesn’t feel right. Teachers have background checks, degrees, etc. How much could Katie fake? Don’t underestimate her, I tell myself. She was always too clever for her own good.
Ava’s friends go under another heading. This is the biggest grey area. I have done my best to know as much as I can about her life, but as she’s grown older it’s been harder. Alison was constantly telling me I had to let her be a normal teenager. Well, so much for that, fuck you very much, Mrs Probation Officer. Secret Facebook messages. How many people did Ava know who I never met? People who could learn about me through her?
The swim club girls I know, and I cross them off my list. Katie didn’t have any children and there are no wicked stepmothers newly arrived on the scene. I’d have heard.
I stare at the page, stumped. She found me through Jon. Maybe I should start with him. Go there and talk to his neighbours. I know I can’t as soon as I have the thought. The police will be all over his place and any woman turning up and asking questions will get picked up straight away. I wish I had Marilyn’s phone. At least I’d be able to look up news reports on him. See if there’s anything we’ve missed that’s not showing on the TV.
The list blurs before my eyes I’m concentrating so hard. Katie, Katie, where art thou? She wants you to find her, Charlotte reminds me. This is a game. She won’t be a total stranger. There will be clues. Something jars in my memory and I frown. Something I really need to remember.
And then I see it. Plain as day. I know who Katie is.
58
HER
It’s hard to disappear completely. I should know. I’ve done it several times. You have to plan. A lot. And well in advance. Small amounts of money moved around at first. Yes, there may be paper trails, but generate enough paper and it causes a mess that no one can be bothered to dig through. Most of planning is waiting. I’ve become very good at waiting. My mother finally died – some accidents happen more easily than others if you use a drunk mechanic to fix something – and I put my plans for my carefully invested inheritance into action.
I travelled. Foreign bankers are always less stuffy about the rules of cash bank accounts if you know how to persuade them. I sold property to offshore companies deep in the web of assets I owned. I sold companies to various of the identities I forged, ready for when I might need them.
You’re looking at me like I’m crazy, Ava. So I didn’t go to school or university, but I never stopped learning. I slept with the kinds of criminal and white collar people who could teach these things and when I’d taken all I could from them, I’d vanish. Probably a relief to both parties. I’ve never been overly lovable. Mother would tell me so in her later years. When she’d started to see me rather than the princess she’d always wanted.
Charlotte always longed desperately to be loved. I didn’t. I’d had her and she was enough. Charlotte though, I knew she’d always need someone. And the thing with people, as you know, little Ava, is that they talk. The bigger the secret, the more likely it will eventually burst free gloriously loud, telling everyone at once, and that’s what happened with your father.
I read the story in Spain. I got the newspapers every day after Charlotte was released, and never missed a day. You have to be meticulous if you want to find someone. How could I risk a tiny detail or photo evading me that could lead me to her? As it turned out, she was all over the front pages when it happened. When he told. I devoured every word. All those ridiculous details he made up to make himself sound better and her sound worse. I knew that whatever happened I’d have to kill him one day. Just for being so pathetic, if not because I needed to, and as it turned out he came in far more useful dead than alive. Everything ties up so nicely.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the story he sold. The waiting was much harder after that. God, it was hard. What if he died? Drank himself to an early grave? Had a car crash? Life never seems more fragile than when your success depends on someone else staying breathing a few years longer. But lack of patience destroys plans. People get sloppy. I had to focus on what I needed to do and hope fate would stay on my side with Jon. I had to wait for years. But I had plenty to keep myself busy.
The first thing I had to do was kill Katie Batten off. It was easy. If you’re unloved, no one asks questions or looks for you. Certainly not the Spanish police with their hands full of drunk and high teenagers. Who’s going to waste time looking for some drowned English woman’s body? So, once she was dead I activated one of my other dormant identities – the government aren’t the only people who can create those – and bided my time. I couldn’t put myself in Jon’s world straight away. He needed to forget her, you see? He needed to be over it. To have her words vague in his head. To have forgotten all mention of Girl B. Time and space were required.
I still checked the papers, of course, every day like clockwork, but after Jon’s betrayal, your mother was obviously much more careful. And she had you to focus on. To love. To keep safe. She’d want to stay settled. Give you the childhood she never had. A big heart, Charlotte. Damaged, but big.