Gone Again (5 page)

It was intrusive, having a stranger rummaging through their stuff. Abusive, somehow. Lauren wouldn’t like it.  

They rarely had people round to the flat these days. Since Nathan was born and everything that Lauren went through afterwards, the opportunities for socialising had withered. Friends moved away, all of them focusing on their own lives, setting up their little shells, safe from the outside world.

And now here was a police officer, a woman barely out of her teens, going from room to room. Mark saw the place through her eyes, the worn patches on the hall carpet, the dust bunnies under Nathan’s bed, the burnt food stains on the old cooker. It was like putting their whole lives on display, a personal museum exhibition.

Ferguson didn’t appear to know what she was doing. Picking things up, putting them back again. She stopped at some pictures stuck to the fridge by magnets, flipped over a postcard.

This was useless. Shouldn’t they be out looking for Lauren?

Ferguson sauntered through the flat, Mark trailing behind. She went into the couple’s bedroom. Opened and shut the bedside drawers. Rennies and paracetamol on his side. A couple of books on Lauren’s, Pelecanos and Leonard. He could never be bothered to read. Easier to watch the films when they came out.

Ferguson went to the wardrobe. Mark remembered the Browning and the old grass tin, felt a weight descend on him, his eyelids suddenly heavy. No licence, never any licence, the pistol liberated after the war by his grandad. Not handed in after Dunblane either. Stupid, but there you are.

He didn’t want the gun to become a sideshow, a distraction from the search for Lauren.

Ferguson was flicking through Lauren’s blouses, skirts and dresses.

Mark approached and stood close to her.

‘I don’t think there are any clothes missing, if that’s what you’re looking for.’

She turned to him. ‘Just background, really, Mr Douglas.’

‘Call me Mark.’ He edged towards the drawers. ‘Did you say something about needing financial statements?’

‘Please. Any bank accounts, savings plans, mortgage, life assurance, all that.’

Mark hesitated. ‘OK, I’ll go and dig that stuff out. Do you want a coffee? You can wait in the living room if you like.’

‘Coffee would be great.’

Ferguson opened Lauren’s underwear drawer. Shuffled some panties around at the front. Closed it. Then she opened his drawer. Did the same. Pushed it closed.

She missed it.

‘Are you OK, Mr Douglas?’

Mark was standing holding the wardrobe door, eyes closed. ‘Fine.’

‘I realise how stressful this is for you, but the police are here to help.’

‘I know.’

She closed the wardrobe doors, Mark lowering his hand.

‘Now, let’s get that coffee and go through the paperwork, shall we?’

She led him out of the room.

Mark switched the kettle on and went rooting for files. Flicked through and found all the stuff. Brought it back and handed it over. Gave Ferguson a description of Lauren’s car, number plate, her mobile number, then went and got her toothbrush.

‘This seems weird,’ he said, handing it over.

Ferguson placed it in a small, see-through zip-lock bag, then into a pocket.

‘I know it does, but I can assure you it’s entirely routine.’

They got their coffees and moved to the tiny office corner of the living room, really just a desk and a laptop. Mark fired up the MacBook.

‘I don’t have any recent pictures printed out, but I could email a couple to you.’

‘That’s fine.’

Ferguson handed over a card with her email address and phone number on it.
DETECTIVE CONSTABLE TRACEY FERGUSON
. Tracey with an ‘e’.

Mark clicked down through the picture folder on the desktop. Ferguson picked two and he emailed them to her address.

‘What about your wife’s email?’ she said.

‘She has a Gmail account. I’ve already checked it, we know each other’s passwords. There’s nothing in there that I could see.’

‘I’d like the username and password all the same, so we can check it in more detail later.’

He wrote it down for her. Every bit of information he handed over seemed to make this more real, more concrete. She was really missing. Gone again.

His pulse became loud, thudding in his ears. His lungs seemed to collapse, and he struggled to take shallow breaths. His hands began to shake. He put the pen down and gripped the edge of the desk to steady himself. His vision seemed to roll on its axis.

‘Mark?’

He felt Ferguson’s hand on his, a tiny, bony thing. Not like Lauren’s hands at all. His fingers trembled against the scratchy wood of the desk. The shaking spread up his arms to his body, and he raised a hand to his face. Tears fell on to the desk and he wiped his eyes, trying to regain control.

‘It’s OK,’ Ferguson said. ‘We’ll find her.’

He tried to fill his lungs, then he pulled his hand out from under hers and sat back, blinking away tears.

‘I didn’t tell you last night.’

‘What?’ She was perched on the edge of the desk, close to him. He could smell lemony perfume.

Mark shook his head. ‘Lauren has suffered from depression in the past. Postnatal, after Nathan was born. She disappeared for days.’

‘I see. Do you know where she went?’

Mark shook his head. ‘She never said. I was too afraid to ask. I wanted to know, but at the same time I didn’t want to scare her away again. It was horrible. I think she was in a hotel somewhere, maybe still in Edinburgh, I don’t know.’

‘What about her work?’

Mark’s breathing calmed, his head cleared a little.

‘What about it?’

‘You said earlier about her boss, Mr Taylor.’

‘Gavin, yeah.’

‘You think he was hiding something?’

‘I don’t know.’

Ferguson straightened up, shifted her weight to create distance between them.

‘This isn’t an easy thing to ask.’

He rubbed his eyes. ‘I know what you’re going to say.’

‘Do you think Lauren might be having an affair?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

He rubbed at his hair. ‘Of course I’m not fucking sure.’ His voice was louder than he expected. ‘I have no clue any more about what she might’ve been doing or thinking, clearly. She’s gone, isn’t she?’

‘OK, take it easy.’

‘I don’t want to take it easy, I want to find my wife.’

‘Look, I’ll pay a visit to the Caledonia Dreaming office, talk to Mr Taylor. I need to get access to her work email and files anyway.’

‘I can’t believe I need to think about this,’ Mark said.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Now you’ve got me worrying that Lauren was being unfaithful.’

‘I have to ask these things.’

‘Any other ideas you want to poison my mind with?’

‘There is something else I need to ask.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Have you ever given your wife reason to leave?’

Mark rolled his neck and stood up so he was standing over her.

‘Like what? Sleeping around? Hitting her?’

She held out a placatory hand. ‘I have to ask.’

He held one fist in the other, as if clutching an injured bird. ‘Nothing like that. We’re happy together.’

She stared at him for a moment and he looked away, his gaze falling on the laptop screensaver, a picture of Lauren, Nathan and him taken at East Links Family Park, all smiling. He remembered it was a bitterly cold day, they only spent a few minutes feeding the animals then ducked into the cafe for hot chocolates. Ordinary family stuff. Everything called into question now.

Ferguson was shuffling the paperwork against the desk.

‘I’ll have all this copied and get it back to you. And I’ll pay a visit to Caledonia Dreaming. I’ll be in touch soon.’

Mark turned to her. He didn’t like the look in her eyes.

‘What am I supposed to do in the meantime?’ he said.

‘Just try to stay calm.’

Mark wished people would stop telling him that.

Upper Gray Street was a respectable and quiet line of terraced houses, only broken up by the modest church halfway down. Many of the houses had been split into lowers and uppers, and most of the lofts had been converted.

Bushes in the tiny front gardens shivered in the wind as Mark tried to find a parking space. He eventually got one near the top, a permit holders’ place, but sod it, he would take his chances.

He got out and walked to number 22. The door had ‘Bell’ on the nameplate.

He hadn’t set eyes on this front door in five years, ever since he’d stood on the step and assaulted his mother-in-law. He was ashamed about that now, that slip, a permanent stain on his life. He’d let his anger get the better of him. He worried at the time about it, whether he was destined to repeat his father’s short temper, flying off the handle at the smallest thing. His dad hardly ever hit Mark as a kid, but he was quick to bawl him out at every opportunity, so that Mark soon learned to tune it out, become immune, which only led to more impotent rage from his dad.

But the incident with Ruth hadn’t been the start of anything as far as he could tell. Mark got angry, sure, who didn’t, but so far he’d managed to keep a lid on it. He tried especially hard around Nathan, despite the boy infuriating him at times with the standard kid stuff, the pushing of boundaries, the testing of limits, how far could he go before Mark or Lauren would flip out and the boy gained control. It was all normal family dynamics, but it was new to Mark and Lauren, this sudden subconscious battle for power within their home.

Mark pressed the doorbell. Heard a familiar two-tone chime he hadn’t heard in years. Waited. Nothing. He pressed it again. No answer.

He stepped back a few paces and looked at the house.

Ruth had the ground-floor flat, the double upper owned by an old spinster Mark couldn’t remember the name of now. The whole street was populated by over-sixties, folk who had bought when property was cheap in Edinburgh, way back in the mists of time. The houses were small and old but they were impeccably laid out, the kind of homes that were out of the reach of most young families. That and the tiny gardens made them a dim prospect for anyone with kids, with the result that hardly any new blood had entered the street in twenty years.

Mark remembered the last time he was here. Like a kind of summit meeting. Lauren, Ruth and him around the kitchen table, Nathan asleep in his buggy parked in the hall. Lauren telling Ruth what William had done all those years ago to their only daughter. How ashamed Lauren had felt, guilty, how she’d buried it so deep.

And Ruth refusing to believe. Getting angry, furious at her daughter, accusing her of slander, of avoiding taking responsibility for her own actions. The noise of their shouts woke Nathan in the hallway, who began crying.

Mark became more irate at Ruth’s attitude to Lauren, the daughter she’d given birth to and allowed to be abused under this very roof.

Ruth had bustled them all down the hall and out the door, then gave a parting shot to the effect that if something had gone on between William and Lauren, which she still denied, then it must’ve been because Lauren had brought it on herself.

The idiocy of that, the venom in it, made Mark’s vision go blurry. The next thing he knew he’d struck her, hard, and she was staring at him with wet eyes, holding her cheek, a trickle of blood at her lip.

He heard something now above the wind whipping down the street. He looked to his right and saw three elderly women struggling up the hill. Ruth and two others. One popped into a house a few doors down with a short wave.

Then Ruth glanced up and saw him. Her pace slowed but she kept walking. The woman with her looked at Mark, then Ruth, then put out a supportive hand to her elbow. The women exchanged a few words, then the one Mark didn’t know went into the house next to Ruth’s.

Ruth stopped at her gate, opened it and came into the garden.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I need to speak to you.’

‘You’re not allowed to be here.’

‘I know, Ruth. But Lauren’s still missing. I don’t know what to do.’

Ruth looked at him for a long time, then went into her purse and took out her house key. She walked past him, keeping her eyes straight ahead. She unlocked her front door then turned to him. ‘You’d better come in.’

The house hadn’t changed at all. Dark wood, patterned wallpaper, thick carpets. Gloomy light seeping in through the windows.

Ruth walked to the kitchen without speaking to Mark. He shut the front door and followed her.

In the kitchen she lifted the kettle to the tap, filled it, then put it on. Got a teapot and mugs down from a cupboard. A routine she’d gone through for God knows how many years.

Mark watched her as she moved. She was tall like Lauren, but with a slight stoop now. Her wavy red hair was tied back in a loose ponytail in a style much younger than her years, a style Lauren used as well. Her body had thickened with age but still had a curve to it, and she wore a neat purple blouse and skirt, a green cardigan clutched round her.

When the tea was ready she lifted it over to the table and nodded for him to sit.

He took a chair opposite and looked at her. The same green eyes as Lauren and Nathan, the same strong jaw. He had a fleeting glimpse of the generations spiralling all the way back through time, just a flash of history.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘Hitting you. Back then. I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’ She placed a mug of tea in front of him, then put her hands around her own mug. ‘You know, in my day, hitting a woman was considered a terrible thing.’

Mark sipped his tea. Still too hot. ‘Hitting anyone is a terrible thing.’

‘So you haven’t heard from Lauren?’ Ruth’s face softened, her eyes worried.

‘No.’

‘Have you called the police?’

Mark nodded. ‘I phoned last night, they made it an official missing person case this morning. I had an officer searching the flat earlier.’

‘Searching the flat?’

‘It’s routine.’

Ruth nodded. ‘Yes, I think I recall that from when William went missing.’

‘They’ll probably be in touch with you soon.’

‘I wish I had something to tell them.’

‘To be honest, I don’t think they’re that bothered about finding her yet. They think she just wandered off for a bit of peace and quiet or something.’

‘Did you tell them about what happened after Nathan was born?’

Mark nodded.

Ruth looked at him. ‘You think it’s happening again? With her being pregnant?’

Mark ran a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know. I just need to talk to someone about it. No one else knows her like you do.’

‘I probably don’t know Lauren as well as you think. It’s not as if I’ve seen her much since Nathan was born.’

What she meant was she hadn’t seen her much since Lauren had accused her own father of child abuse.

‘I realise that it can’t have been easy for you,’ Mark said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What Lauren said. About William.’

Ruth gripped her mug. She looked down at the swirling tea, thin slivers of steam drifting up from the surface. She turned and looked out the window, avoiding his gaze.

‘Try to think how you would feel,’ she said. ‘How Lauren would feel if Nathan said that you had been . . .’

Mark felt a knot in his stomach. ‘I know. It’s difficult. But I don’t think she made it up, Ruth.’

Ruth looked back at her tea. Took a deep breath.

‘I don’t think so either.’ She looked up at Mark. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s been like. Lauren and I have talked about it a little. I was so angry at first. What she said turned my whole marriage, my whole life, into a lie. Or worse. To begin with Lauren thought I was complicit, that I knew about it and didn’t do anything.’

Her eyes were wet but she didn’t look away.

‘Trust me, Mark, if I had known . . . Mary Mother of God help me, I don’t know what I would’ve done to William if I had known at the time. But I didn’t. We went on living as a married couple for twenty-five more years. A quarter of a century of lies. My husband, the man I trusted with my life, the man I loved. He had the most filthy, disgusting secret you could imagine and I, like a naïve idiot, shared a bed with him, went on holiday with him, fretted about him when he went missing, cried my eyes out over him when they found him, then again when we buried him.’

She used the back of her hand to wipe the tears running down her cheeks. She sniffed.

‘I feel so ashamed, Mark.’

‘You have nothing to feel ashamed about.’

‘Yes I do. Ashamed and guilty. Lauren is my daughter, I gave birth to her, I breastfed her and changed her nappies and rocked her to sleep. It was my job to take care of her, to make sure nothing bad ever happened. And I failed. I let the worst possible thing happen to her. I let a monster scare her and hurt her in our home and I defended his memory when she first accused him of it. I’m just as much of a monster as he was.’

Mark reached out a hand and placed it on Ruth’s. Felt the loose skin across her knuckles.

‘You’re not a monster. There was nothing you could do. You didn’t know.’

‘I should’ve noticed. I should’ve seen something, should’ve suspected. I lie awake at night thinking about all the things I could’ve done differently, all the times William and Lauren were alone together. What was I doing? What was I thinking? What was he doing to her?’

More tears. She pulled her hand out from under his and wiped at her face again.

‘Why couldn’t she tell me? I’m her mother, for God’s sake. Things can never be the same between us, not after everything that’s happened.’ She sighed. ‘And now she’s missing again.’

She dissolved into tears.

Mark reached for her hand again but she pulled away, tried to straighten herself out. She tugged a tissue from her cardigan sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. Sniffed a few times then blew her nose.

‘Did you know that three hundred thousand people go missing in Britain every year?’ she said.

‘What?’

She took a sip of tea. ‘They told me when William vanished.’

‘Who did?’

‘Missing People. Have you called them yet?’

Mark shook his head.

‘About half of those people turn up safe and sound.’

‘Which means that half don’t,’ Mark said.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think William killed himself?’

Ruth pursed her lips. ‘I didn’t to begin with.’

‘But now?’

A slight movement of the head. ‘Yes, I think he probably did.’

‘Because of what he did to Lauren all those years ago?’

‘You know that in the Catholic Church suicide is a mortal sin.’

‘I know.’

Ruth crossed herself, just a flick of a wrist across her chest. ‘May God have mercy on my soul for saying this, but I hope he killed himself. And I hope he did it because of what he did to Lauren.’

Mark took a sip of his tea, tepid now. He thought about what Ruth had said. Did she really not know what William had been doing? For that matter, did Lauren really not remember until therapy? What if one or both of them had known earlier, before William went missing. He pictured William’s decomposed body, face down in the water at Portmore, and felt a shiver move through him.

‘There’s something else,’ Ruth said.

‘What?’

‘I wasn’t entirely truthful when I said that I hadn’t heard from Lauren since Nathan’s birthday. That was the last time I saw her, but she phoned me more recently.’

‘When?’

‘Two weeks ago.’ Ruth was looking out the window again, avoiding him. ‘She told me she was pregnant. It was after the scan. She said she was having a baby girl and wanted me to know. She said she was worried.’

Mark moved his hands from the mug to the edge of the table, straightened up.

‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’

‘She told me not to.’

‘Why?’

‘This isn’t easy.’

‘Tell me.’

Ruth turned to look him in the eye. ‘She said she was worried that she was having a daughter. Specifically a daughter.’

It took a second for Mark to click. ‘She thought I might do something to my own daughter?’

Ruth shook her head. ‘She never said that. It wasn’t rational, she wasn’t thinking straight. It was just dark thoughts. Consider what it must be like for her. No one wants to have doubts about their husband, God help me, I know all about that. But after everything she went through with her father, you can’t blame her.’

Mark rubbed at his face. ‘I can’t believe it.’

Now it was Ruth’s turn to put out a hand to Mark. He shrugged it off.

‘She never doubted you for a second,’ Ruth said.

Mark pushed his chair back and stood up.

‘Wait, Mark, don’t go just yet. We need to talk about this.’

‘No, we don’t,’ Mark said, and headed for the door.