I wonder if it was the same day they took the portrait that ended up in the paper, her fair hair’s pulled back the same way. I pore over it for clues, traces of what happened to her, but of course there’s no sign – nothing to say, ‘This is the girl’ – that marks her out. She’s a pretty teenager, nothing more, nothing less, and oh, so young …
Carefully, I nudge the photo to the right again, just one place, and wait for my phone to catch up with the boy on the end.
A shock of dark hair, pale skin, sleepy eyes. He looks younger than I imagined.
I suppose I’d always pictured him as just a little older than me, ageing in the same way. But he was, of course, a teenager then, just sixteen.
Here is he is. Jay.
No, this isn’t right.
I scroll down to where the names are listed in tiny print along the bottom. It’s almost impossible to read – out of focus and the camera’s captured the shine of the photographic paper, a pale streak wiping out the lettering in places. I read across to find the right name, scanning the row … Billingsley, E – I squint – Elisabeth. Curran, Helena. I skip across: Corrigan, Nancy; there she is. And next to her, Nicholls – I scroll in closer, trying to make out the blurred lettering. Nicholls, Benjamin.
That’s him, to Nancy’s right, at the end of the line. Benjamin Nicholls.
I think: she’s got confused. Vicky’s got this wrong. Because this isn’t Jay.
Then: it’s been a long time, no wonder she’s got mixed up after all these years. And I knew Nicholls grew up round here, I knew that already, didn’t I? DI Ben Nicholls, alumnus, who still comes back to the school, like Maureen the secretary told me so proudly.
And at the same time another part of my brain is running over the sums. Jay would be what, sixteen back then, add twenty-six years, so, early forties now? Like me. Like Nicholls. So yes, they could well have been in the same year. Friends, even.
I scroll back up again, my sweating fingers leaving faint smears against the glass. I pull at the image to expand it, so the whole face fills the screens the picture grainy this close up.
Chin up, confident, staring across the decades. I can see the likeness to the man he’d become so clearly now. Those curtains of hair, all the boys had that style then. Now he’s got that short, professional crop. And he’s filled out – his face is weathered, of course. What is it again, more than twenty-five years? That will do that to someone.
And then finally, I know, my thoughts coalescing into some kind of sense.
I’ve no doubt now, no doubt at all.
DI Nicholls. Benjamin Nicholls. Benji.
Jay, for short.
OK. Don’t panic. Think.
It can’t be. Not a policeman.
Someone touched by an old tragedy, they might well choose to start afresh, to drop an old name. And there’s no reason he’d tell me about his past, about a missing girl from nearly three decades ago.
But now images start to flash through my mind, disjointed scenes. Maureen, at the school. ‘He gives talks to the students … He’s very popular with the teenage girls in particular …’
Nicholls, when I first encountered him: ‘I’m up to speed on the case, I’ve read through the files.’ Yet from the start, somehow … off. Reluctant for me to get too involved.
And then telling me about those strange calls, from near my house, that made me look crazy. Did anyone else even know about them? Did they even happen?
Say he saw Sophie, at school. Did seeing her, the spit of Nancy, dislodge something in him, an old obsession reigniting? He saw a chance, to what – repeat the past?
And that phone call when I told him what Holly said about the pregnancy test warning me off. ‘I would suggest, Mrs Harlow, that you don’t take investigations into your own hands. That’s rarely – helpful.’ He was warning me off.
And I saw him here. That black silhouette against the sunshine when I saw him here, right here at the house. ‘I wouldn’t suggest you start trying to find any trespassers yourself.’ And me wondering why I hadn’t seen his car. ‘You can park in the lane, that way’– gesturing to behind Parklands. ‘There’s a little path that cuts through.’
My stomach is churning. I wonder, distantly, if I actually will be sick. I was so focused on being caught here, I felt guilty. He said he was checking up on the house. Was he? Or was it him the night before in my garden, checking on me? Curious, maybe. Before he went back – back to Parklands. Back to Sophie. A policeman wouldn’t struggle to find a reason to look around an empty house. And he’d know how to get in.
I’m absorbed in my thoughts, riveted to the spot. So maybe that’s why I don’t hear the sound, so faint, just a soft footstep on the tiles of the porch. It must be just the light that changes, the pale slice into the hallway dimming as I stare at the phone screen in my hand.
Something, anyway, makes me look up.
The figure in the doorway is blocking out the light.
43
My mind goes blank. I take a step back, looking around for somewhere to run.
And then my eyes adjust and I realise: it’s only Dr Heath – Nick – looking around curiously.
‘Oh thank God, I thought …’ My knees feel weak, watery.
He looks a little embarrassed, the scribbled Post-it that I’d left on my front door still in his hand. ‘Uh, sorry to intrude. I found the note at your house – we can do this another time, if this is a bad moment …’
Incongruously, I feel the urge to laugh, a relief reflex after the scare he gave me.
‘I left that note for my sister’ – I didn’t want her to freak out even more if I didn’t answer immediately –‘I forgot you said you were coming round too – but never mind that now.’ I take a breath, trying to make sense. ‘You’ve got to help me. She was here, right in this house, in the attic, all this time. I’ve realised now, I saw the pictures that she drew. Do you see? This is where she’s been, all this time. This is where he was keeping her.’
His expression is wary, like I’m really losing it now. ‘OK, slow down. Who was keeping who here?’
‘It’s Jay. Nancy’s boyfriend, the boyfriend of the girl who used to live here, DI Nicholls – it’s the same person, he’s the detective on the case. I saw it. I’ve got a photo! Do you understand?’
He looks baffled. ‘Kate. I just came by to check on you, to check everything’s OK, and I find you here, inside this derelict house. This is trespassing …’ Like that’s the worst thing you could do.
I clutch at his arm. ‘I know it looks bad, but you have to listen. She was right here – my daughter, Sophie—’
‘Sophie was here?’ He looks around me, like he might see her behind me. ‘What do you mean – have you called the police?’
‘No, I – I can’t. There is something really weird going on, and I think it’s him. The policeman, he’s behind it all.’ I thrust my phone at him blindly. ‘Look, this is him, I’m sure of it, he looks just the same.’
He looks down at the screen then back at me, frowning, like he’s trying to put the pieces together.
‘And this is the detective who’s looking into your daughter?’
‘Yes, that’s him.’
‘But he was just here.’
‘What?’
‘I saw him, as I was turning into your drive – he was coming out of here, in his car. I passed him just a few minutes ago.’
We take Dr Heath’s car. His was behind mine in my drive, blocking me in. ‘It’ll be quicker,’ he said. He seems bemused, treating this like an unusual episode in his working day, but he’s humouring me, he’s coming with me. He didn’t have much choice, me half dragging him over the threshold and pulling him away from Parklands. ‘Please, if I’m wrong I’m wrong, but if I’m right – please trust me, just for now. I can explain later but please …’ There was no point trying; I let go, went to brush past him—
‘Fine, I’ll go on my own.’
‘No, it’s OK, I’ll help you. Just— Just slow down.’
Now he pulls out of the drive carefully, looking both ways. I want to scream; hurry up, hurry up, my right knee is jiggling with anxiety. ‘So he was definitely going this way?’ I ask again.
He’s turning left out of the drive onto the road, thoughtful. ‘Yes, this way, along to the park.’