The Back Road

18

Day Three: Sunday

It was late when Leo finally woke up on Sunday morning, and she instantly felt guilty. They had left the dessert plates and glasses until this morning on the basis that they would all muck in, and by now Ellie was sure to have cleared them all. She had a quick shower and pulled on a pair of black jeans and a T-shirt, dragged a brush through her hair, and made her way down to the kitchen.

As she approached the open doorway, she was surprised to hear an argument in full flow. There was no shouting, but the tone of their voices was enough. She was about to turn tail and head back to her room when Max noticed her.

‘Come in, Leo. Don’t worry about us. I’m irritating my wife, and she in turn isn’t listening to me. What would you like for breakfast? Bad-temper on toast, or an outraged omelette?’

Ellie and Max were standing facing each other, each leaning back against a worktop with arms folded.

‘Err, maybe I’ll make myself scarce until you’ve sorted out whatever it is that’s bugging you both,’ Leo said.

‘Unsortable. No viable solution. So come on in, and join the party.’

Max was obviously trying to make light of it, but Leo could see that Ellie was upset.

‘Hey,’ Max said. ‘Maybe we could add your opinion into the pot, Leo. I have a strange suspicion that you’d be on my side.’

Leo laughed uncomfortably. ‘I don’t do marriage guidance, guys. Keep me out of this.’

‘Nope. Sorry. You’re not escaping that easily,’ Max said.

Leo looked at Ellie, who still hadn’t spoken. Her cheeks were flushed, and her lips were set in an unusually thin line.

‘I’ll just get myself a cup of coffee and disappear to the sitting room with the papers, if that’s okay,’ Leo said, making her way to the fancy machine and hoping she didn’t have to ask for instructions.

Ellie came across and gently nudged her out of the way with her hip.

‘Don’t worry. It’s just Max being obstinate, and it’s getting up my nose. Nothing serious,’ Ellie said. ‘I merely suggested that we could perhaps go to a few car showrooms today and see if there’s a car he would like. Better than driving round in that old rust bucket.’

‘I’ll have you know that you were delighted when we bought that old rust bucket,’ Max said. ‘But now it’s clearly not good enough.’

Leo realised that her appearance had done nothing to defuse the row, and she really wanted to escape. The coffee was coming through - slowly - but Ellie was obviously set on making Leo one of her favourite cappuccinos, and that was going to take a few minutes.

‘So you get the picture,’ Ellie went on. ‘We’ve got all this money, and I have a fantastic car, and Max insists on driving round in a six year old Peugeot that’s way past its best.’

‘The difference is, Leo, that I bought and paid for that car myself,’ Max said. ‘If I can’t afford a new car because I don’t earn enough, then I’m not having one. End of.’

Why, Leo thought, were all sides of this argument being addressed to her? As if she were going to be the referee. Well, they could think again.

‘Listen guys,’ she said. ‘Whether you get a new car or you don’t is absolutely nothing to do with me at all. I don’t know why you think he needs one, Ellie, but on the other hand I don’t know why you are so adamant you’re not having one Max. So I am not taking sides. Okay?’

‘For somebody who refused The Old Witch’s money herself, I thought you would be with me on this,’ Max muttered, absently pouring more juice into Jake’s Moshi Monsters cup.

‘Oh for God’s sake, Max,’ Ellie said. ‘That’s different and you know it. We’ve got the money. It’s ours. Why are you being so unreasonable?’ Ellie sounded genuinely distressed, which seemed like an excessive reaction to Leo, who would have let him keep his car if that’s what he wanted.

‘And, Leo, I didn’t see him complaining about the money spent on his media room last night - did you?’ Ellie asked.

Oh where was that coffee?

‘That’s different. I had no say in the matter. You did it as a surprise, and I would be pretty ungrateful if I told you to take it all out again, wouldn’t I?’

‘Speaking of your media suite, Max - am I allowed to take my coffee in there, because I seem to remember you mentioning that it was sound proofed?’ Leo asked in her most innocent tone.

‘No - you can forget that. Gulp it down quickly and grab some toast. Max can have the kids. We’re going shopping.’ Ellie said with a look of irritation. ‘We’ll go and spend some of The Old Witch’s money.’

Ellie grabbed her keys.

‘Oh, and while I think about it Max, what happened to the keys Sean brought round last night? We could give those to Leo.’

Max looked puzzled.

‘I don’t know. I left them on the worktop, I think. I presumed you’d put them away.’

Ellie gave an exasperated tut.

‘I didn’t move them - so you must have put them somewhere else.’

Max was known for losing stuff, and Leo saw a glimmer of a fond smile from her sister as they made their way out of the door.

* * *

Ellie was glad to escape the house, and Max was happy looking after the twins. He’d find something fun to do with them - and always something that didn’t cost a penny. He would get them making things, or exploring the garden for bugs. They’d have a great time. She smiled as she thought of their chunky little bodies, crouched down and looking in wonder at a worm or a shiny black beetle.

She should have been there with them, but she was struggling so hard not to scream “Is it true?” at Max, that it was in everybody’s best interests if she disappeared. She didn’t seem able to shake off the tension that was gripping her, and was terrified of what Max might answer if she asked him a direct question. It hadn’t been a real row earlier, but Ellie got the feeling that Max didn’t want anything that was hers. His moral code would never allow him to use any of her inheritance to buy a new car if he was about to leave her.

‘Did you get the gist of that, Leo?’ she asked as they climbed into her car, knowing her sister would only have seen the superficial problem and not the deeper implications.

‘Couldn’t help it really. He doesn’t want to spend any of that money on himself.’

‘The thing is,’ she said to Leo, looking over her shoulder as she reversed the car, ‘he wants to make sure that we use ‘our’ money, that’s the money we both earn, to pay all the bills. We don’t have a mortgage now, but the running costs of the house are pretty high so the two things sort of cancel each other out. He reluctantly went along with the move, because he could see it was something that I genuinely wanted to do - although like you he thinks my reasoning is madness. But that’s it. We can’t change our lifestyle at all, and we have a budget for shopping every week, same as before.’

‘So what are you going to do, because you can’t carry on arguing about it, can you?’ Leo asked, not unreasonably.

Ellie slammed the car into drive, and turned left out of the gates.

‘I’ve transferred the money into his name. I’ve put him in sole charge of all of our finances. I thought that by doing that, I would make him feel that he was the head of the household, which seems to be his bugbear. But he won’t spend it unless he’s earned it. He thinks it’s my money and he won’t touch it. And you won’t have any of it, so we’ve got all this money just sitting in the bank! You’re the bloody life coach. You tell me what to do,’ Ellie said in despair.

‘It’s not like that Ellie. I don’t tell people what to do.’

Ellie glanced sideways at her sister with concern.

‘I hope Fiona didn’t get to you last night. I thought she was bloody offensive, and I was dying to jump in and give her hell. But I knew you’d hate it.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about Fiona. I’d have preferred it not to be so public, that’s all. I know my job sounds like a bit of a non-profession, but I really do help women, believe it or not. I help them to have the strength to be themselves, rejoice in their individuality, and chase their dreams. We all have issues, Ellie. Every single one of us. But I don’t think constantly striving to fix them is necessarily helpful.’

Ellie felt her throat tighten and her eyes burn. She focused hard on the road ahead. How little she sometimes understood her sister. She and Max were always telling Leo it was time to change – to be more tactile, more open to relationships, to put her past behind her. That was so wrong of them. Leo clearly accepted who she was, and lived with the scars of her early life in her own way.

They travelled in silence for a few minutes, then Ellie slowed the car to a crawl and glanced out of the window. They were going down the back road, and they were passing some police incident tape that she assumed marked the spot where Abbie had been knocked over. A few bunches of flowers were lying on the grass verge.

‘Do you mind if we stop for a minute?’ Ellie asked. ‘It’s just that having spent all those hours with Abbie yesterday, I would like to sort of pay my respects, if that makes sense.’

Leo seemed happy to get out of the car with her sister. They stood silently by the side of the road for a few minutes, and Ellie wondered what could have driven a young girl to be out here, in the middle of nowhere, at that time of night.

She looked at the woods and she couldn’t help remembering the past, when she wasn’t much older than Abbie. It wasn’t the first time in her life that this had been the scene of a crime, even though the previous one had never been reported. There couldn’t be a link, though. It was all so long ago, and such an unhappy time.

Poor Abbie. Whatever she had suffered on Friday night, she didn’t deserve it. She was only a child, and Ellie’s heart ached for her and her family.

When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet.

‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, Leo, but when Abbie was brought into the hospital, her feet and legs were in a shocking state. She was covered in a horrendous nettle rash from her toes to her knees, and her feet were bleeding and bruised. The police don’t seem to have made that public, so please don’t say anything. She can’t feel it now, of course. But it must have hurt like hell at the time. Poor kid.’

It was hard to think how that could have happened, but Ellie would bet on the fact that the police had searched every inch of these woods yesterday.

‘How do they think she got here?’ Leo asked. ‘Has anybody said anything?’

‘None of it makes sense - to me at least. She was a good kid, by all accounts. Not the type to be out in the middle of the night, and definitely not a child whose parents wouldn’t know where she was. But however she got here, some bastard left her to die, and by the look of her legs, that wasn’t the only torture she’d gone through that night.’

The two women were subdued when they got back in the car

‘Would you mind very much if we went via the hospital? I’d like to call in and see how Abbie’s getting on. I won’t be long, but I can’t let you come in because it’s only close relatives at a time like this.’

‘Of course it’s okay. It must be hard to tear yourself away when it’s a patient like Abbie.’

Ellie smiled sadly, and put the car into drive. They didn’t speak again until they reached the hospital.

* * *

Swiping her key card to get through security, Ellie made her way towards the nurses’ station. They were a small tight knit group on this ward, and nobody had to ask why she was there. She looked towards Abbie’s bed and could see that the doctor was there, talking to her mum. Ellie stayed where she was and waited.

Finally he excused himself and headed towards Ellie. Sam Bradshaw was probably her favourite doctor and like the nurses, he felt no need to query her presence. He got straight to the point.

‘Before you ask, Ellie, there’s nothing to report, I’m sorry to say. No change with Abbie. Do you want to go and talk to her mum for a while? I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you.’

Ellie couldn’t hide her disappointment at the lack of improvement, but adjusted her expression as she made her way towards the bed where Abbie’s mum, Kath, was sitting. She seemed slightly more composed today but didn’t look as if she’d slept for a week.

‘Hi, Kath. I thought I’d pop in and see how you all are,’ Ellie said. Giving Kath’s shoulder a quick squeeze, she sat down on the other visitor’s chair.

‘I expect the doctor’s told you she’s just the same,’ Kath muttered. ‘Her legs look less sore, though. That awful rash has gone down a bit. What happened to her, Ellie? What happened to my little Abbie?’

The look on Kath’s face said it all. She was barely holding it together, and who could blame her? Imagine if it was Ruby lying there. It didn’t bear thinking about.

‘I wish I could help with that, I really do. Have the police said anything?’

Kath shook her head sadly.

‘She was out with friends. She was so chuffed, you know. I can’t begin to tell you how excited she was. Abbie’s always had difficulty making friends. Oh, don’t get me wrong; she’s a lovely lass. But she finds it hard to get close to people, and we’ve probably sheltered her a bit. I don’t know. It seemed like the right thing at the time. But last night all the girls from her class were going out together for a burger, then to the pictures, and then back to Emily’s house for a sleepover. About twelve of them, I think.’

Ellie’s eyes opened wide at the idea of that many fourteen year old girls in one house for the night.

‘I did check it all out, though,’ Kath said, as if afraid of being accused of bad parenting. ‘I went round personally to see Emily’s mum to confirm that she was expecting them. I half thought that they might have been teasing Abbie, and going somewhere completely different. Some of them are a bit like that, I’m sorry to say. But it was genuine. Emily’s parents don’t live in a big house, and it was all a bit cluttered, you know. Her mum looked as if she didn’t care how many turned up, and they could look after themselves. But with so many of them, it didn’t seem they could come to any harm.’

Kath went quiet.

‘So what happened,’ Ellie prompted.

‘I’ve only met Emily a couple of times, but I could see that she could be a little so-and-so. She kind of ruled the roost, if you know what I mean, because she was the one that had the best parties. So nobody ever wanted to fall out with her. The police say they’ve talked to all the girls that were there, and they’re all agreed that Emily said something nasty to Abbie - although they claim not to know what - and they had a row. Abbie told them she wasn’t going with them to the cinema; she was going home.’

Kath started to cry quietly.

Ellie patted Kath’s arm and turned towards Abbie to give her mum some privacy, holding the child’s hand lightly and stroking it with her thumb. She carried on talking softly.

‘It sounds to me as if you did everything right. Poor Abbie. Sometimes teenagers can be very hurtful to each other, and I don’t think you could have done another thing. Just keep talking to her. We don’t know for sure what’s happening in her mind, so talk to her about the good times and don’t worry about Emily now.’

‘Do you think she can hear us,’ Kath asked.

‘I don’t know. Sometimes patients come round from comas and say they had random thoughts and impressions, others that they had lucid dreams. Most say it was a complete void. The brain is such a complex thing. But if I were you I would talk to her, sing to her, touch her. It can’t do any harm.’

‘Whatever happened after she left the burger place, it must have been a nightmare for the poor love,’ Kath said. ‘One of the girls saw her using her mobile and texting or something, but even that’s missing, and she never went anywhere without it. They left her, the little horrors. How could they have done that? They said they thought she was coming home.’

‘Didn’t Emily’s parents wonder where she was?’

‘They asked Emily if everybody was okay, and left them to it. Emily apparently said yes, and didn’t think it necessary to say that Abbie had gone home. They didn’t bother with a head count or anything. I suppose you wouldn’t with that many of them. Still, somebody should have known. I would have phoned her to check she was all right, but I know what she would have said. “Stop fussing, Mum. I’m fourteen,” as if that is old enough to take care of yourself.’

‘Where do you think she might have gone, Kath?’

‘That’s just it. I’ve absolutely no idea. We don’t have any other family nearby, and I can’t believe she didn’t phone me and ask me to come and get her. She knew I’d be there in a flash. Well, either me or her dad. Brian didn’t even have a beer that night in case something went wrong and he needed to go and collect her. He always says he’s ‘on call’ when Abbie’s out. Just in case. So none of it makes sense.’

Kath rubbed Abbie’s leg gently through the thin sheet and blanket.

‘I don’t want to touch her legs below her knees. The doctor said she won’t feel it, but what if he’s wrong and she just can’t say? They look so sore.’ Kath choked back a sob, wiping the tears that were escaping from the corner of her eyes with the back of her other hand. ‘Do you know, when they found her she wasn’t wearing any shoes? That’s why her feet are so cut up. How could that have happened? The police searched the whole area close to where she was found yesterday, and there’s no sign of her shoes. Her feet must have hurt so much - they’re cut to pieces.’ Kath put her head down and rested it on Abbie’s thigh. ‘Oh, Abbie love. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry we weren’t able to take better care of you.’

* * *

Ellie was very quiet when she returned to the car. Apart from saying that Abbie was no better, she hadn’t had much to say for the rest of the journey and appeared lost in thought. But by the time they reached John Lewis - Ellie’s idea of shopping heaven - Leo was relieved to see that her sister seemed to have recovered a little. The tension had eased in her face, and she was making a concerted effort to be a bit more cheerful.

As it was Sunday the store didn’t open until late, so they had a few minutes to wait. Leo saw her sister typing away on her phone, and presumed she was texting Max. She hoped Ellie wasn’t having another dig.

‘What are you up to, Ellie?’

‘I’m texting Georgia. I somehow seem to have offended her, so I’m hoping it was just a mistake,’ she replied.

She carried on typing with her thumbs.

‘I thought I’d keep it casual, as if whatever I’ve done to upset her never happened. I’ve written “Max being an arse. Gone to John Lewis. Plan to buy lots. Hope to see you soon.” Anyway, come on. The doors are opening. Let’s see what we can find to spend some money on, and irritate Max even more.’

Leo wasn’t a great fan of shopping, and had only agreed to come for Ellie’s sake. She didn’t see herself buying any clothes from this store and she had no interest in kitchen appliances - Ellie’s passion at the moment. After ten minutes of listening to her sister extolling the virtues of a particular set of pans, Leo escaped to the perfume and cosmetics counters to wile away some time trying new fragrances and checking out the latest makeup. Not her favourite pastime, but infinitely better than comparing pans.

Finally, she made her way back to the ground floor. It was forty minutes since they’d arrived, and she had no more than one new shiny red lipstick to show for her trip. Surely by now Ellie would have finished shopping?

Her sister wasn’t where she’d expected her to be. The store was busy now, but there was no sign of her. Sod it, Leo thought. I’m going to do one skim of the basement, and if she’s not there I’ll go and get a cup of coffee. She used the seconds at the top of the escalator to scan the crowds below, and spotted Ellie in the garden department, looking at some imitation flowers. Out of the corner of her eye, Leo glimpsed a figure in the crowd who seemed to be walking purposefully in Ellie’s direction. All she could see of him as she looked down into the crowd was the top of his hat. It looked like an Australian leather bush hat, and she had always thought they looked sexy on the right man. He was making a beeline for her sister, but just as he got close, Ellie looked up and spotted Leo, raising her hand to wave. The man veered off to the right towards the greetings cards. Leo shrugged. She must have been wrong.

Ellie was holding a fake bunch of freesias in her hand.

‘What do you want with those, Ellie? You’ve got a garden full of plants.’

Ellie thrust the flowers towards Leo, and held them under her nose.

‘I was wondering why anybody would buy fake flowers when the fresh ones are so very beautiful. See, there’s no smell. Wouldn’t you think that by now with all these fake room perfumes they would build something into fake flowers? I was only rooting around while I waited for you.’

Ellie put the flowers back into a huge vase, which was filled with every sort of bloom - from roses to tulips and daffodils.

‘Waiting for me? You have to be joking. I thought you would be ages with your pans - and you haven’t even bought anything yet.’

‘You think?’ Ellie laughed. ‘Everything has gone to collection, so that I can drive round and pick it up. But I need to pop into the supermarket next door for a few bits and pieces first. Come on. Let’s choose some scrummy things for lunch and try to cheer Max up. I won’t mention the car again. It’s not worth falling out about.’

Ellie linked her arm through Leo’s and headed towards the escalator back to the ground floor. Leo gave it a second, and then gently removed her arm. Ellie gave her a sideways glance, but said nothing.

In the event, they were longer than they thought buying the groceries and for once Leo enjoyed shopping for food. Ellie made everything sound so tasty. She could eulogise over some raw prawns, when all Leo could see were grey, slimy looking things. Somehow Ellie made them sound plump, pink and mouth-watering.

Ellie glanced at her watch.

‘I think we need to do a bit of multi tasking here, Leo. I’ll walk round to the collection point, but can you take the shopping back to the car and drive round to meet me?’

Leo looked at her sister in surprise.

‘Drive your car? To what do I owe this privilege? Max seemed to think that would be out of the question.’

‘Hah! That’s because I wouldn’t let him borrow it.’ Ellie giggled. ‘It was all part of my cunning plan to get him to buy a new one. But of course you can drive it, and so can Max.’

Ellie threw the keys to her sister, and set off back towards the department store.

Leo pushed the trolley through the car park, and in spite of only having the vaguest idea of where they’d parked, she found Ellie’s Mercedes easily and went straight to the rear to unload the shopping. With the trolley returned, she went round to the driver’s side, and stopped. There was something on the windscreen.

Strange, she thought. Why would anybody leave a fake flower there? She pulled it out from under the wiper blade, climbed into the car and threw it on the passenger seat. After giving herself a moment or two to become familiar with the controls, Leo drove round to where her sister was waiting with some large bags. She pulled into a parking bay and jumped out to give Ellie a hand. Everything was quickly stowed in the back of the car, and Ellie surprised Leo.

‘You drive. Just to prove that I am not precious about my car.’

Leo shrugged and went back round to the driver’s door. As she settled into her seat and adjusted the mirror, she realised that Ellie wasn’t in the car. She was standing by the passenger side, holding the fake yellow rose and staring at it intently.

‘What’s this doing here?’ she asked Leo, her voice wobbling slightly.

‘Oh yes. I’d forgotten about it. The weirdest thing,’ Leo said. ‘It was on the windscreen when I got back to the car. It’s like those that were on display with the freesias, isn’t it?’

Ellie didn’t answer. She walked over to the nearest waste bin and threw it in. When she returned to the car, she was quiet. The earlier good humour seemed to have evaporated.