What to do? Go into the house, pack the rest of his things and leave? Run? His mind fogged: where to go, and how? Were they already watching? They must be. If he withdrew money, would they know? If he tried to leave the country again, would they be there? He imagined the scene, the passport official glancing at his photo and picking up a phone, uniformed men dragging him from a queue of holidaymakers, the curious looks on their faces. Would they know, when they saw him, what he was? No drug-dealer, no terrorist – no: he must be something else. Something worse. He looked at the blank and boarded windows, and imagined that they were inside, they were waiting for him there, they’d already been through his things, his books and his papers, they’d already turned the house upside down searching for evidence of what he had done.
And they would have found nothing. He felt the faintest gleam of hope. There was nothing to find. No love letters, no pictures on his laptop, no evidence at all that she had ever set foot in his house (the bedlinen long gone, the entire house cleaned, disinfected, scrubbed of every last trace of her). What evidence would they have, save for the fantasies of a vindictive teenage girl? A teenage girl who had tried herself to win his favour and been resoundingly knocked back. No one knew, no one really knew, what had passed between himself and Katie, and no one need know. Nel Abbott was ash, and her daughter’s word worth just about as much.
He gritted his teeth and fished for his keys in his pocket, then walked around the house and opened the back door.
She came at him before he had time to turn on the light, barely flesh, nothing but a dark maw, teeth and nails. He batted her away, but she came again. What choice did he have? What choice did she leave him?
And now there was blood on the floor and he didn’t have time to clean it up. It was getting light. He had to go.
Jules
IT CAME TO me, quite suddenly. An epiphany. One moment I was terrified and panicking, and the next I was not, because I knew. Not where Lena was, but who she was. And with that, I could start to look for her.
I was sitting in the kitchen, dazed, punch-drunk. The police had left, gone back to the river to continue the search. They told me to stay put, just in case. In case she came home. Keep calling, they said, keep your phone on. OK, Julia? Keep your phone on. They talked to me as though I were a child.
I couldn’t blame them, I suppose, because they’d been sitting there asking me questions I couldn’t answer. I knew when I had seen Lena last, but I couldn’t say when she was last in the house. I didn’t know what she’d been wearing when she left; I couldn’t remember what she’d been wearing when I saw her last. I couldn’t distinguish dream from reality: was the music real, or did I imagine that? Who locked the door, who turned on the lights? The detectives eyed me with suspicion and disappointment: why did I let her go, if she was so distressed after her confrontation with Louise Whittaker? How could I not have run after her, to comfort her? I saw the looks that passed between them, the unspoken judgement. What sort of guardian will this woman make?
You were in my head, too, admonishing me. Why didn’t you go after her, like I went after you? Why didn’t you save her, like I saved you? When I was seventeen, I saved my sister from drowning. When you were seventeen, Nel, you drove me into the water and held me down. (That old argument, back and forth – you say, I say, you say, I say. I was losing the stomach for it, I didn’t want to have it any longer.)
And that was where it was. In the buzz of exhaustion, the sick thrill of fear, I saw something, caught sight of something. It was as though something moved, a shadow just out of my line of sight. Was it really me, you asked, who drove you to the water? Was it you, or was it Robbie? Or some combination of the two?
The floor seemed to tilt and I grabbed hold of the kitchen counter to steady myself. Some combination of the two. I felt breathless, my chest tight as though I were going to have a panic attack. I waited for the world to go white, but it didn’t. I kept standing, I kept breathing. Some combination. I ran to the stairs, bolted up them and into your room, and there! That picture of you with Lena, when she’s smiling her predator’s smile – that isn’t you. That isn’t your smile. It’s his. It’s Robbie Cannon’s. I can see it now, flashing up at me while he lies on top of your body and pushes your shoulders down into the sand. That’s who she is, who Lena is. She’s a combination of the two of you. Lena is yours, and she is his. Lena is Robbie Cannon’s daughter.
Jules
I SAT DOWN on the bed, the photo frame in my hand. You and she smiled up at me, bringing bright hot tears to my eyes, and finally I cried for you as I should have done at your funeral. I thought of him that day, the way he’d looked at Lena – I’d misread that look completely. It wasn’t predatory, it was proprietary. He wasn’t looking at her as a girl to be seduced, to be possessed. She already belonged to him. So maybe he’d come for her, to take what was rightfully his?
He wasn’t hard to find. His father used to have a string of flashy car dealerships all over the north-east. Cannon Cars, the company was called. That didn’t exist any longer, it had gone bankrupt years ago, but there was a smaller, sadder, low-rent version in Gateshead. I found a badly designed website with a picture of him on its homepage, the photo taken some time ago, by the look of it. Less paunchy then, still a hint of the handsome, cruel boy in his face.
I didn’t call the police, because I was sure they wouldn’t listen to me. I just picked up the car keys and left. I was feeling almost pleased with myself as I drove out of Beckford – I’d figured it out, I was taking control. And the further I drove from the village, the stronger I felt, the fog of tiredness clearing, my limbs loosening. I felt hungry, savagely hungry, and I relished the sensation; I chewed the side of my cheek and tasted iron. Some old part of me, some furious, fearless relic, had surfaced; I imagined myself lashing out at him, clawing at him. I pictured myself an Amazon, ripping him limb from limb.
The garage was in a rundown part of town, under the railway arches. An ominous place. By the time I arrived, I was no longer brave. My hands shook as I reached to change gear or flick the indicator switch, the taste in my mouth was bile, not blood. I was trying to focus on what I had to do – to find Lena, to make Lena safe – but all my energy was sapped by the effort it took to push back against memories I hadn’t let surface for over half a lifetime, memories which rose now like driftwood out of water.
I parked across the road from the garage. There was a man standing outside, smoking a cigarette – a younger man, not Cannon. I got out of the car and on trembling legs crossed the road to talk to him.
‘I was hoping to speak to Robert Cannon?’ I said.
‘That your motor, is it?’ he said, indicating the car behind me. ‘You can just bring it in …’
‘No, it’s not about that. I need to speak to … Is he here?’
‘It’s not about the motor? He’s in the office,’ he said, jerking his head to indicate behind him. ‘You can go on in if you want.’
I peered into the cavernous dark space and my stomach contracted. ‘No,’ I said as firmly as I could, ‘I’d prefer to speak to him out here.’
He sucked his teeth and flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the street. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, and strolled on inside.
I slipped my hand into my pocket and realized that my phone was in my handbag, which was still on the passenger seat. I turned to go back, knowing that if I did I wouldn’t return, that if I made it to the safety of the driver’s seat I would lose all courage completely, I would start the engine and drive away.
‘Can I help you?’ I froze. ‘Did you want something, pet?’
I turned around, and there he was, uglier even than he had looked on the day of the funeral. His face had become heavy and hangdog, his nose purpled, mapped with blue veins which spread to his cheeks like an estuary. His gait was familiar, listing side to side like a ship as he approached. He peered at me. ‘Do I know you?’
‘You’re Robert Cannon?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m Robbie.’