Just so I’m sure, I log into her old email, the one that I know about.
It was never tricky: we’d found the password, ‘loopysophie,’ written on the jotter on her desk by her laptop, almost like she knew we’d look there first. The police took the computer itself too, to check the hard drive for anything alarming, before returning it: all clear. I’m trying to remember: did they ever say anything about a second email account? I’m sure I’d remember if they had.
I haven’t checked in here for a while. I clear the few spam emails, reading each one carefully before deleting: an appeal for a male ‘performance enhancement’ drug, a few fake software upgrades.
Sophie didn’t email much. Teenagers were always all over their smartphones, so I read in the papers, plugged into a scary world we parents couldn’t access. But Sophie was never desperate to be part of it, always leaving her phone around the house until the battery was dead, so we couldn’t even ring it to find it. She seemed aloof in a way I never was, so self-contained.
I was glad of that, then. She didn’t even complain when I told her not to post photos of herself all over the internet, she didn’t know what sort of people might be looking or where they might end up. And what would happen in five years, when she was starting her career? Much better not to leave a trail.
But in the end, all I wanted were traces of Sophie, ways she might reach me. And I worried that it slowed us down, when she went. When her friends at school said Sophie hadn’t replied to their messages that weekend, it didn’t worry them: she was always a bit flaky getting back to them. When, eventually, she did get in touch with us back home, by that postcard of all things, that seemed to fit.
I suppose. It didn’t really feel right and it still doesn’t now.
Now I sign out of that account, and log in again, using the email address she has in her diary with the yaymail.com ending.
You have signed in from a different device, the website tells me.
It asks me to type in those oddly shaped numbers and letters to check I’m not a robot.
Then I type in the password again: loopysophie.
Incorrect password.
I try again, various variations on it:
LoopySophie
loopiesophie
Sophieloopy
Nothing. I keep going.
Too many failed attempts, the screen tells me eventually. Now I have to go through the security questions.
The first flashes up. What was the name of your first pet?
Well that’s easy. Morris, the cat we had when she was little. That cat was so patient, more doglike than feline, allowing Sophie to totter after him and give him clumsy hugs.
I type it in: Morris.
The error message flashes up.
Well it surely can’t be King, the dog, but I type that in anyway.
The error message appears again.
I try again with various different spellings, lowercase, uppercase, Cat, Morristhecat, dog, Doggy, and so on, until I’m locked out.
I go and make a cup of tea, frustrated. Think, just think. How would Sophie think?
Another hour passes. It probably was a mistake after all, she just filled in the wrong email address. Because I can’t get past that security question and have got stuck in a loop of attempts, then locking myself out of the account for fifteen minutes.
I could be totally wrong. Maybe my memory’s playing tricks, she doesn’t have a different email at all. But then I see it in my mind’s eye again, so clearly: her familiar round writing on that lined paper.
I roll my chair away from the desk, fretful. All the doubts I’ve forced away are coming back – the things I don’t understand. But this time I hold onto the feeling and let the thoughts come without pushing them down. Nicholls showing me the diary: ‘Do you recognise this as Sophie’s handwriting?’
A new start, just until I’m feeling better about everything.
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘That’s definitely her writing.’ A different answer appears to me now. Yes. It’s definitely her handwriting. But it’s not her.
It’s not the Sophie I know. There’s something so flat to me about the whole thing, her tone. Strange as it sounds but she’s so … serious! I know my daughter. Sophie … dropping out?
So I’ve decided, I’m going to go. I want to live a different life. I’ve got a plan.
It’s just like the postcards: so remote, so bland. So unlike her.
And then there’s that other thing, that I have been resolutely not thinking about: that picture of Nancy. That hair, that sweet round face, the mischief in her smile. Just like Sophie. What happened to her?
Well, I can do something about that, at least. I get up.
17
Vale Dean is the kind of place with no McDonald’s, two card shops and four estate agents, three of them the big chains. I stop at the last and smallest, the local independent, and head in.
I recognise the man behind the desk from the ‘for sale’ signs: Graham Hescott, a generation older than the eager young men in the other agents’ offices. I tell him I am looking to downsize and keen to stay in the area. Yes, I’ll be living alone. I don’t need to say the word divorce. He’s been working long enough to work it out.
He talks me through a few options, mostly flats in new developments, and the pricier apartments they’ve made by carving up the old Victorian mansions.
In the end I just ask. ‘And what about that big one, on Park Road – Parklands? Aren’t they supposed to be turning that into flats?’
‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘Although they’re taking long enough about it.’ We share a disapproving look. People aren’t supposed to let houses go to rot round here. It’s not good for property prices.
‘So would it be worth me getting in touch, putting my name on a list?’
‘If you buy in early you might be able to get a discounted price,’ he says, nodding. ‘We can put you in touch with the developers. Let me see …’ He clicks with his mouse.
I wait, the fan by his desk lifting the hair on the back of my neck. He must be boiling in that suit.
‘Hm,’ he says doubtfully. ‘I’m just looking at our notes. Might be a bit tricky … building work seems to have stopped for a while.’ I know that, of course.
‘Why’s that?’
He shrugs. ‘Could be anything, really. Money running out, the bank getting nervous. Although the market is really picking up now.’ He shoots me a covert look. Don’t scare a potential buyer. ‘Of course, inheritance tax can be very expensive.’
‘Inheritance tax?’
‘People can get caught out. They don’t always like to think of it.’
‘So – the owners died?’
He nods. ‘It went to their daughter, a few years ago now. Friend of mine was their solicitor, before he retired.’
‘Their daughter?’ It can’t be the Corrigans, Nancy’s family. Surely they sold it on well before then. They’ll have moved long ago.
‘I did my best to get in touch to see if she wanted to sell, but she was rather uncommunicative. But what a decision that turned out to be. The way the market’s gone up round here, even before they turn it into flats—’ He catches the look on my face, interpreting it as distaste for his professional enthusiasm. ‘But don’t worry, Mrs Harlow, there’ll be plenty in your price range. I really do think you should have a look at this Carr Road development, it will be ready much sooner.’
‘Why don’t I take a brochure.’ I give him my friendliest smile. It feels a little unnatural. ‘But you wouldn’t have a contact for the Parklands owners, would you? I live next door, actually, and it would be very handy to be able to get in touch directly, about a few things …’ I raise my eyebrows meaningfully.
‘Oh,’ he says, put out. ‘Oh, so you’re next door, that place with the bay windows.’ I can see him trying to place me in his local map, wondering why something about that family rings a bell … in a second he’ll remember. ‘You should have said. So are you planning on selling that house?’