This time there was no champagne.
The next night, Mark’d come home punchy after his work Christmas drinks – I hadn’t gone, of course. ‘Don’t you think it’s time to stop this? What’s it all for, really?’
I turned to see him at the door of the study, where I was on the computer, as usual. There was a slurry edge to his voice. ‘You’re drunk, Mark.’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But you’re one to talk. Holed up in here all the time.’
I stayed quiet.
‘With your pills,’ he continued, ‘hiding away.’
In the argument that followed, I finally said it, what I’d held back from telling him for so long. ‘If you’d seen that note, if you hadn’t been where you were, things might have been different.’
He stiffened. But he didn’t back down like I expected.
‘And some people might say this all happened because of you. Overprotective, because of your mum. And now you’re trying to make up for it.’
‘Oh, really,’ I said coolly, hearing the echo of someone else’s judgement in his words. ‘And who exactly told you that bit of cod psychology?’
He coloured at that. Bingo. So she was still around.
‘The thing about you, Mark,’ I told him, ‘is that you are essentially … lightweight.’
I turned my head away from his hurt expression. He’d never known how to fight dirty.
After that, I just – withdrew. We were polite enough after that, moving around each other in our big house with care. It was just a matter of time. He eventually left after that dreadful first Christmas, with both of us wedged round Charlotte’s table trying to act normally for her boys. He told me we could sort out our stuff later, when things were more ‘settled’.
The police investigation never ended, not officially. It’s not currently active, is how they’d put it. I only realised what the last meeting meant, on that grey February day, when I read about it in the local paper. But I should have known: they said I could have the postcards back and her runaway note, they had all the information they needed from them.
When the third one arrived last summer – Austria this time, fresh mountains and gambolling lambs, the postmark London again – Kirstie took the details from me over the phone.
I’m fine, I’m happy. I don’t want to come home, not yet. I hope you understand.
Sophie xxx
The same with the last one, roughly six months later, in January, this year.
I’m OK, I’m looking after myself and I’m safe and well. Please give me space and time.
Sophie xxx
That was Venice, beaming gondoliers, with another London postmark. I’d thought a lot about her request for space and time. Did that mean she knew of my attempts to contact her, somehow?
I imagined some quiet church somewhere, Sophie tanned – an inch taller, too, maybe – pausing, for a moment, and deciding to head in. Telling her companions – who? I pictured young men with scruffy beards, girls with long hair, in those global traveller clothes: baggy printed trousers, drooping cloth bags.
She’d go in to light a candle – she used to like doing that – her steps slowing as she sees the poster, with her last school photo, that I’d stuffed into envelopes and sent out with notes asking churches to mention her in their services and to pin her picture to their walls. ‘Sophie,’ it reads. ‘Come home.’
Finally, my message has found its target. She walks closer, reaches out a hand to the paper …
The cat mews, butting against my legs. He must be hungry again.
Now, I stare at the messages in front of me, as familiar to me as nursery rhymes. She was always so sparky, but these are dutiful missives home – not to connect with those she’s left behind so much as to let us know that she’s safe, no need for any more panicked efforts to find her. Please leave me alone.
I feel spacey, tired from the heat and what’s happened. I just sit, with the postcards and the note scattered in front of me, but not really seeing them. I must remember to take the washing in, when I can be bothered. The letters go out of focus, so they jump and swim before my eyes …
It’s barely formed as a thought, but – I read downwards, the first letter of each line, as they’re arranged on the first postcard, trying to let a pattern appear.
I know you’ll be worrying.
Please don’t. I’m safe
and I’m well. I love you.
Sophie xxx
I, P, A …
No. You’d have thought I would have learned by now. I’ve spent days in front of these cards, scrambling the letters, looking for anagrams and codes. There’s no hidden message here. I lean down to rub the cat’s ears. ‘Come on,’ I say, feeling his skull hard under the silkiness. ‘Let’s get you fed.’
11
Night-time and I’m dreaming, again. I’m following Sophie through my house, as I always do, always a room behind, a step too slow.
But this time it’s different. I can’t see her, I never do, but somehow I know, as you do in dreams, that it’s not the teenage Sophie, the coltish girl I’m chasing after. It’s toddler Sophie, all peachy chub, silken blonde curls, teetering into a run. And it’s not the house I know now, soft carpets and tastefully chic. It’s bare floorboards and half-painted rooms, like we’ve just moved in, or are about to leave.
We’re playing a game. Shrieks of babyish laughter come from just outside the room, as joyful as sunshine. ‘One two three … ready or not, here I come!’ And I rise from my hiding place behind the sofa and lumber towards her, my tread dramatically heavy on the bare floorboards. I still can’t see her, she’s still a step ahead, but I can hear her – the laughter comes again, high and uncontrolled.
Only it’s too far away, I suddenly realise. She’s wandered further than she should, in such a big house. ‘Ready or not, here I come!’ I call again, louder. ‘Sophie? Sophie!’ My voice bounces around the empty rooms. But already the laughter’s silent, the house full of my echoes.
When I wake, struggling out of sleep, it takes me a moment to remember where I am. That was so real, I can almost still hear the laughter.
Another one, though – I thought these dreams had stopped, mostly. It must be the phone call, stirring things up again. I reach for the packet in my bedside drawer and swallow the pill down quickly, chased by a gulp of water from the glass by the bed. It will deliver me to the morning in one drugged whoosh. I can’t cope if I can’t sleep, and I can’t afford to get off track.
I really will have to go tomorrow, after putting my appointment off again. I’m almost out of pills – I thought I could do without them. I turn over, and give my pillow a thump to plump it. Every time I go to the doctor half the waiting room seems to be checking me over, wondering if the strain’s cracked me up yet.
Maybe it’s the light in here. I don’t keep my phone by my bed, I’ve read too many articles warning me about that wakeful electronic glare. But the moon is so bright tonight, you could almost read by it.
A thought passes through my mind, just as I’m starting to relax a little.
That there’s one small comfort to my dreams, at least. When I wake up, when I’m coming back to consciousness, there’s no moment of sinking horror as I remember my reality. I already know she’s gone.
It’s too early for someone to be ringing, I think, as I stumble downstairs in my dressing gown. Whoever it is won’t just let it go to the house answerphone, keeps ringing off and trying again.
‘Hello?’ My voice is scratchy with sleep.
‘Mrs Harlow? DI Nicholls. This call to the charity, from Sophie …’
‘Morning. And how are you?’
‘Fine. Now, did anyone hear you take the call?’
‘I told you all this already.’ I prop myself up, glancing at the clock: it’s past nine. Not so early after all. That will be the pill. ‘Well, Alma was on the shift with me that night. She’d gone out. But I told her immediately after, when she got back into the office.’
‘And how long would you say the call took?’