Mac laughed. ‘No. We just want a word with—’
Suddenly Amy came up behind him. ‘Yes?’ she said sharply. ‘Can I help you?’
She’d changed little since her teenage years, Clara thought. A fraction heavier, a few lines here and there, but still the same doll-like eyes, the tousled blond curls, the careless, unassuming attractiveness. Her face cleared. ‘Oh my God!’ she said in a thick Suffolk accent. ‘Mac!’ She smiled then, and for a moment she looked sixteen again, exactly as she had in Luke’s pictures. ‘Haven’t seen you for years! What the bloody hell are you doing here? I thought you lived in London these days?’
‘Hi, Amy, good to see you,’ Mac said. ‘This is Clara, Luke Lawson’s girlfriend.’
At this Amy gave a start of recognition. ‘Yeah,’ she nodded, ‘I saw you on the news, it’s all anyone’s talking about around here.’
‘I’m sorry to turn up out of the blue like this,’ Clara said. ‘I … we wondered if we could have a word with you?’
She frowned in surprise. ‘If you want. Come in.’
They traipsed after her down the narrow hallway, its walls covered in pictures of Amy in a wedding dress next to a chubby, grinning groom, the living room they passed on the way to the kitchen seemingly full of kids crowded around the telly where some kind of Wii tournament was going on. ‘’Scuse the mess,’ Amy muttered. The kitchen was a pleasant, cosy room with lilac walls and a round pine table around which were crammed several chairs. ‘You want a cuppa?’ she asked, removing a pile of washing from the table.
Once they were all sitting down with mugs of tea, she raised her eyebrows questioningly. ‘So what’s all this about then? I told the police when they came before that I hadn’t really spoken to Luke for years. Occasionally I’ll bump into him in the village at Christmas or whatever, but it’s never more than “Hello, how’s it going” or what have you.’
Clara glanced at Mac. ‘We’re trying to build a picture of what Luke was like when he was younger,’ she said cautiously.
Amy blinked at her, nonplussed. ‘Yeah, that’s what the police said, and like I told them—’
‘We’re trying to find out anything we can, to see if we can work out what happened to him,’ Mac said.
‘Right,’ Amy said, still looking mystified. ‘Well, he’s not here, is he?’
There was a silence. This, thought Clara, had been a really bad idea. They must look completely barking mad. Suddenly Mac got up and went over to a photo stuck on the fridge. ‘Shit,’ he laughed. ‘Is this you and Mandy Coombs?’
‘Yeah, that’s us!’ Amy’s smile lit her face once more. ‘Think it was my eighteenth,’ she took the picture down and handed it to him. ‘Still a nutter – see her all the time!’
Clara listened while they reminisced about a club they used to go to in Ipswich. When there was finally a break in the conversation, she asked, ‘Do you have any of Luke and you? Pictures, I mean?’
Something passed across Amy’s face and she turned away. ‘No, I got rid of them years ago.’
‘Oh,’ Clara said. ‘Right …’
Amy shrugged. ‘Past is past. Ancient history, isn’t it?’ She looked at Mac. ‘Sorry, can you keep an ear out for the kids? Just going to have a quick ciggie in the garden.’
When she’d gone, Clara and Mac glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. ‘Maybe we should go,’ Mac said. ‘We’re not going to find out anything here. Guess it was a bit of a long shot …’
But had there been something strange about Amy’s expression, Clara wondered, her desire to leave the room so quickly? ‘Hold on,’ she said.
Following Amy into the garden she found her standing next to a trampoline strewn with toys, shivering while she puffed on a roll-up. Clara smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ she said. ‘I know you and Luke were a long time ago, it’s just … no one knows what happened to him, he’s completely disappeared. The police don’t seem to be getting anywhere, or not that they’re telling me anyway. I’m trying to work out if there’s anyone from his past who might know something.’ She paused and, her voice catching, added, ‘We’re all so worried about him, his mum and dad, Mac, we’re getting desperate.’
Amy’s face softened. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry he’s disappeared, I am, and I hope he’s OK. But it’s not like we kept in touch. I don’t exactly have great memories of my relationship with Luke.’
Clara looked at her in surprise. ‘Really?’
The other woman stared at her for a moment, and then she turned decisively away, her face closed again. ‘I don’t want to talk about all that, to be honest. And like I said to the police, there’s nothing I could tell you that would bring you any closer to finding Luke. I don’t know anything.’
Clara’s despair hit as if from nowhere, like a bus slamming into her at full speed. After the shock of him vanishing, the news about Sadie, the ridiculous hope she had felt to be finally doing something proactive, she realized now how stupid she had been, how pointless it all was. She sank down on to a rickety garden chair and put her head in her hands.
‘You all right?’ Amy’s voice was suddenly near.
She looked up. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry. We’ll leave you in peace. I don’t know what I’m even doing here, to be honest. You must think we’re mad.’
Amy sighed and sat down next to her. She thought for a moment, then rolled herself another cigarette. ‘You want to find out what he was really like back then? Behind his perfect image, I mean?’ Clara glanced at her in surprise to hear the note of bitterness in her voice. ‘Well, look, I expect he’s changed by now, grown up a bit, but OK. I’m not sure it’ll help but I’ll tell you, if you really want me to. But come on now, stop crying.’
Clara nodded and wiped her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
Amy sighed. ‘I got pregnant when I was sixteen and he dumped me, leaving me to have the abortion on my own. I was quite far along in the pregnancy when I realized and the whole thing was horrendous. I was devastated.’
Clara stared at her in shock. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she faltered. ‘I had no idea.’
Amy shrugged.
‘Did anyone else know about it?’ Clara asked.
She laughed. ‘Everyone thought the sun shone out of Luke Lawson’s arse. No one would ever think badly of him. In fact, everyone always acted like I was bloody lucky to have a spoilt posh lad like him.’ She grimaced and added, ‘He was a selfish little shit, all said and done. I’m sorry, but he was.’ She glanced at Clara. ‘Perhaps he’s changed. But all he cared about back then was what people would think, especially his parents, how it would fuck up his plans to go to uni, how a baby wouldn’t fit in with his perfect bloody image. He dropped me without a backward glance. But no, I didn’t tell anyone what had happened. I guess I felt … ashamed, somehow.’ She sighed. ‘Now I’d like to go back in time and give my head a wobble, tell myself to have more self-esteem and then give Luke Lawson a good kick in the nuts.’
As Clara listened, shock reverberated through her. Amy’s tone was so disparaging, painting a picture of a man she barely recognized. ‘Anyway,’ Amy said, throwing her cigarette butt away. ‘That’s all I’ve got to tell you.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, but I better get on now. Kids’ tea and that.’
Clara thought of the pictures of the chubby, smiling groom in the hall. ‘Will your husband be home soon?’ she asked.
Amy snorted. ‘Probably. I wouldn’t know.’ Clara stared at her in confusion and she laughed. ‘He lives two streets away with someone else.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I thought—’
Amy made a face. ‘I keep the pictures up for the kids’ sake. They’re still a bit messed up from it all.’ She wrapped her cardigan around herself and headed for the door. When she reached it she paused. ‘Funny,’ she said, ‘how it’s always us women who are left to deal with the shit men leave behind, isn’t it?’
Later, as they began the drive home, Clara told Mac what Amy had said.
‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I had no idea.’
‘He never said anything to you?’
‘Not a word. I …’