I wonder, vaguely, if I’m going to be sick. Suddenly I’ve got to know. What happened next? So she never came back? Did they ever hear from her again? I feel caught out, like I should have known about this. But why would I? It’s so long ago.
Think. It’s a Saturday, so Lily will be out – she gets picked up by people from the church for a coffee afternoon, I know that. It’s fine, I can just ask her later. If she remembers any details. My heart sinks a little. It’s hard to get information out of her at the best of times. She hates to admit she’s forgotten anything. Sometimes she pretends not to hear me. ‘You what, dear?’
Olivia Corrigan, 29. So she’d be 35 now. Younger than me. It brings Nancy’s story closer, out of the past.
But it doesn’t mean anything for you, I tell myself, it’s not a sign. It’s not. Don’t think like this. There are so many families like mine, after all. That’s what working on the helpline’s taught me. So many parents whose children don’t – won’t – come home, I tell myself, even as I go into the hall and rummage for my car key in the drawer. The library’s not far, it’s just off the high street in the village. And then I can just settle my mind.
The phone rings as I’m going through the front door and I wait until it clicks to answerphone, the voice carrying loud from the kitchen. It’s Charlotte again.
‘Kate,’ she sounds harassed, noise in the background: the boys. ‘Kate, are you ignoring my calls now? It’s really not on.’
No, she sounds upset. Nothing drives Charlotte crazier than someone ignoring her. I should know, it was my last resort to wind her up when we were little. I’d compose my face, and block her out.
It’s harder now. ‘I really need to talk to you, I mean it, Katherine.’ Like Mum used to call me. She’s definitely mad. ‘You are not doing to me what you’ve done to everyone else. I’m not letting you. Call me back, or I’m coming round. Soon.’
Shit. I almost stop, pick up the phone to call her back, then tell myself I’ll wait – I’ll go now, before the library closes, then I’ll call her. Maybe.
I have to speak to the librarian to get access to the archives and sign something promising I won’t make off with any of their microfilm, but after explaining the machine to me, a sort of light-up magnifying box with a screen, he leaves me alone in a small dark cubby off the main room.
It’s story time this afternoon, and snatches of the book being read to the half a dozen or so children drift through the door left ajar. ‘Once upon a time, there was a princess, who lived in a castle …’
They’ve only kept records of the very local papers here, the weeklies, they don’t even have copies of the daily evening paper. But as I’m here, I might as well look. I’ve a pile of little paper boxes to go through, each containing weeks, months, of Amberton Telegraphs copied in miniature onto small rolls of film. The librarian’s showed me how to do it; loading the right one into the machine for me to start me off.
I start scrolling, turning the knob on the machine, and watch the pages of old newsprint blurring on the screen in front of me till I near the date Nancy went missing, Friday 10 April, 1992.
I start to track forward more slowly. It’s easy to find once I’ve got the hang of it: an appeal for a runaway Vale Dean schoolgirl. It’s dated 15 April, the Wednesday after she went, so the first mention in the local paper. She’s made the front page, alongside suspected arson at Amberton football ground.
The piece about her is surprisingly short, just a headline and a couple of hundred words, relating that police are appealing for information after Nancy Corrigan, 16, from Vale Dean, went missing. She left a note signalling her intention to run away, it says.
There are a few more details, but not much. I suppose it would all have been covered in the bigger papers already. She went to Amberton Grammar, like all the kids round here still do, if they can get in. It’s still a good school. Her family are concerned for her welfare.
The next week’s edition’s missing – the film just reels right on to the following paper without a gap. But this time the article has a bit more detail: a sixteen-year-old boy questioned by police has been released without charge. The rest of it just repeats what I know already. It doesn’t seem like anyone was panicking.
So what happened to the boy?
But I can’t find another mention of him and I get sidetracked as I scroll through the pages on the reader, my attention wandering into details of decades-old mayoral visits and planning disputes. A Cabinet member visited Amberton and was egged outside the town hall, the photographer catching him furious in his grey pinstripe. The church is appealing for a new roof. It still is today, I think. The more things change …
I’m getting stiff, my lower back seizing up. Wanting to move, I wander out of the side room and over to the water fountain by the main desk. I feel grumpy and tired. I should be worrying about Sophie, I think now, not this. But what exactly can I do? I should be honest with myself: I’m just looking for distractions.
‘How are you getting on?’ says the librarian. He’s tall, thin, with a friendly air. I’ve told him I’m researching local history.
‘Not that well. It’s missing some of the dates I’m looking for, the film I’m looking at. There’s no paper for 22 April that year?’
‘Ah, well,’ he says, frowning slightly. ‘It’s all going digital so we’re not exactly on top of it all, I must admit. What are you looking for, anyway?’
‘I’m looking into a local girl, who went missing. Nancy Corrigan.’
‘They’ll have more papers at the Central Library, in the city centre. I think you’ll have to make an appointment. You might need to be a student. Are you a student?’
‘No.’ I can see he’s waiting for an explanation ‘I mean, it’s a personal project. I’m looking into the social impact of – of missing persons on small communities.’
‘Ah well, it should be fine then,’ he says. ‘Fascinating story, too.’
This gets my attention. ‘Nancy? The missing girl? You know about her?’
‘Oh, it was all very sad,’ he says cheerily. ‘And of course, it was what, twenty years ago?’
‘Nearer thirty. So did you know her? Are you local?’
‘I am yes, grew up round here. But she was a bit older than me.’ He must be younger than he looks. ‘But we used to go and look at the house after the family left, dare ourselves to get into the grounds. You know how kids are.’
‘What house?’
‘I forget the name. You know the big grey one. Park Road, the one on its own at the end.’
‘She lived at Parklands?’
‘That’s it. Parklands.’ He misreads my look of surprise. ‘It would have been different in those days, a lovely house. Grand, even. They had big parties on the lawns …’
So Nancy lived at Parklands. No wonder Lily got mixed up. Another runaway girl. And then they all left. How could they? What if she came home one day and they’d gone? The door closed, a new family in the house, like Peter Pan. I push down the rush of concern. It’s not my story. But now I’m curious.
‘It said in the papers that a boy was questioned?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ He starts to tidy, moving books about, then he stops. ‘But my cousin went to school with her. Nancy. She might remember things. I could ask her if she’d speak to you, for your project.’
‘Uh, OK. Would you?’ I’m always surprised at the friendliness here. I was in London too long. I pull out a piece of paper from my bag and grab the pen in front of me, before he changes his mind.
‘I’m Kate,’ I say. I don’t write down my surname, just in case. I’ve had enough of the questions.
‘David.’ He gives me a little awkward wave from behind the counter.
‘So here’s my number, if she—’ as my phone starts ringing in my bag. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I fumble for it as he gives me a look and tilts his head meaningfully at story time. ‘I’d better take it outside,’ I whisper. On the other side of the sliding doors I wrestle it out.
It’s a withheld number. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Mrs Harlow? DI Nicholls here.’
‘Yes, it’s me. Hello?’
‘Can you come into the station today? Something’s come up.’