‘Uh, OK. Now?’ I glance at my watch. It’s just after four.
‘Yes please, if you could.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘Something’s come up,’ he repeats.
Fear clutches at me. ‘Is it bad news? Have you—’
His voice is firm. ‘It really would be best if you came in to discuss it.’
‘Yes, of course. I can be there in ten.’
I lick my dry lips as I end the call. Something digs into my palm. I look down, realise I’m still holding the librarian’s pen, my knuckles white around it, and head back in.
‘Oh, I thought you’d gone.’ The librarian, David, sticks his head out of the cubby. ‘Have a look at this.’
I follow him in. ‘Sorry, I’ve left all my stuff everywhere, haven’t I, I’ll just get my jacket’ – I want to get out now, my mind on what’s ahead – ‘and here’s your pen back.’ I start to shuffle my jacket off the back of the chair he’s commandeered.
‘I really should sort these archives out,’ he’s saying, ‘but you know, with the amount they expect us to do now, we’ve two of us doing the work of three, and they’re already muttering about a mobile library, which poor Lynn finds very alarming, she can’t even drive …’
The photo on the screen is in black and white, a poor reproduction.
‘You’re right, the film jumps right past that edition,’ he says. ‘I found it on a separate roll of film, a few of the issues that were missing. They were so thorough then, they must have added them later.’ He gives a rueful laugh. ‘If only we had the resources, these days. Um, are you all right?’
I can’t reply. I’m fixed where I stand.
So they’d put her on the front page again, that second week – but with a photo, this time. Nancy’s school photo, a headshot against that mottled grey background school photographers always seem to use. Nancy Corrigan. Blonde hair, round face, that sweet smile. Laughing eyes.
Nancy, not Sophie. Just breathe. It’s OK.
‘Thanks,’ I hear myself say. ‘That’s really helpful, really it is. And you’ve got my details.’
It shocked me, catching me off guard for a second, that’s all.
She’s the spit of my daughter.
15
I wish for a breeze as I drive, opening all my car windows to cool the sweat prickling under my arms. It’ll be fine, I tell myself. Don’t think what it could be, don’t think what they could have found. But I know what that means, that polished professionalism, before they break some new horror to you. ‘Mrs Harlow, we have video footage of Sophie at a bus station.’ What could they need to tell me now – what have they found …
Stop it.
I switch on the radio and turn it up loudly. It’s the news. A shadow minister caught on a walkabout being rude about the voters, not realising the cameras were still rolling, will probably have to resign. A big-name footballer’s been caught up in a tax row. And now the weather: the hot spell is going to stick around. There’s a drought warning in five counties, please don’t use your hosepipes …
It’s soothing, to me. By the time I’m at the police station, waiting in another of their small rooms, I’m almost calm. The building’s all carpeted corridors, muffling its sounds. I start as the door opens and DI Nicholls walks in. He nods at me and drops something bulky on the table, in a clear plastic bag.
The pages have warped at the edges. Brown spots fleck the cover – damp? The diary still has the sticker on, a large white rectangle – a car bumper sticker from our last holiday to Florida: ‘Mickey me.’ I didn’t know you still liked Mickey, I’d teased Sophie in the gift-shop queue.
No, Mum, it’s cool, she’d explained patiently. It’s ironic.
I reach towards it, automatically, and he touches my arm, just gently. Hold on.
I sit back, startled by the contact.
‘Do you know what this is, Mrs Harlow?’
‘It’s Sophie’s.’ I sound angry. Another shock. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘Why do you think it’s Sophie’s?’
‘I bought it for her. Back to school.’
‘Do you remember when you last saw it?’
‘No. Yes. I mean – not recently. Years ago. When …’ When Sophie was still around.
It must have been a few months before she went, just before Christmas. I’d been in her room while she was at school. They were finishing late that year, it was how the dates fell. I’d been putting away her washing, when I’d found it at the back of a drawer. I recognised the chunky little notebook, a week across two pages of thin paper, and I reached for it before I let myself think it through.
The first few pages were full of details of her homework, reminders of what she had to do for school, but after a few weeks she’d abandoned those good intentions. She’d started to use it like a normal diary: recording details of what had happened in class, funny comments that her friends had made. And all her little doodles and sketches, cartoon animals peeking out from the page at me, hiding behind flowers. I’d smiled to see them, as I flicked through. Danny got the odd mention; they’d got together earlier that year, not that she really told me. But it was obvious, when he and Sophie started doing more things together just the two of them, without Holly and that crowd.
6 December, 2015
Cinema with Danny. Holly wanted to come too, so I said she could. He was a bit annoyed. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but why shouldn’t she come? I don’t care. The film was great, so interesting to look at, the colours they’d used …
She spent more time writing about what the film looked like than what happened.
I leafed through the rest quickly. There was nothing particularly personal, really. Still, I must have spent twenty minutes sitting there, glorying in getting to know my teenage daughter, always so closed now, and all the things she’d stopped telling me.
Then I caught myself. What on earth was I doing? I’d have been furious if my own mother read my diary, however innocuous. Embarrassed, I put it back.
She noticed, of course – I should have known. I replaced it in not quite the right way, displaced something balanced in the drawer. Or perhaps she’d just guessed: she’d always found it easy to read me. She’d stood at the door of the kitchen that evening, her face serious.
‘Mum. Did you read my diary?’
I’d actually blushed.
She’d moved it after that. I hadn’t checked where – I’d felt so guilty – but I’d never seen it again. After she left, we looked, of course we did – the police too, after we mentioned it – but there was so much that was missing. She could be ruthless in throwing things away.
‘I haven’t seen it for a long time,’ I say now. ‘Where on earth did you find this?’
‘Amberton Grammar called in. There’s a common behind the school, behind its own grounds?’
‘Yes, I know it. The kids play sport on it sometimes, and there’s cross-country.’ I’d gone to watch Sophie run a couple of times. It’s a huge grassy field, far too uneven to mark a pitch, fringed by scrubby trees.
He nods. ‘The school secretary rang us. Apparently a dog walker saw it and handed it in – he thought it must belong to one of their pupils. Of course the woman in the office knew who Sophie was, and so it came to our attention.’
‘Can I have a look at it?’
‘Let me.’ I notice now that he’s wearing those plastic gloves. He opens it at the front page. ‘Do you recognise this as Sophie’s handwriting?’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘She’s filled in all her details.’
It’s one of those old-fashioned diaries asking you for your name, address and the rest. I don’t remember her having filled it in when I’d seen it before. I follow the script with my eyes, relishing the familiarity of those shapes, her letters all fat round bubbles and short spiky stems.
Name: Sophie Harlow
Age: 15
Address: Oakhurst, Park Road, Vale Dean, Cheshire.
Contact details: [email protected]