Losing You (25 page)

‘Ms Landry.’ He was shouting too, hard and fierce. ‘Your behaviour is improper. It is inappropriate and it may be dangerous. You may be putting your daughter at greater risk because of it.’

‘Did you hear? They knew each other. This is what she said: “And being blown over in the wind? And the wettest wetsuit in the world. Sorry for silence. Computer down. Yeah, you’re right. Gonna finish it. Don’t know why I ever let it start. See soon. Luv Liv.”’

‘
Ms Landry!
’

‘Did you get that? She was going to end an affair or something. And she knew Charlie.’

‘I’m sending a police car to collect you. Do you understand? And if you’re not there…’

I put the phone down. I shut my eyes and pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to think. Olivia and Charlie were friends. How were they friends? I didn’t think I’d ever heard Charlie speak about her and I’d never seen her myself. Who would tell me? Ashleigh? I picked up the phone and dialled Ashleigh’s mobile.

‘Hello, Ash–’

‘Did Charlie know someone called Olivia Mullen?’

‘What? Olivia? I don’t know. She didn’t say. Maybe, but you know Charlie has all these different compartments in her life and she kind of keeps them separate, so there’s school and then –’

I cut her off, and stood holding the receiver, keeping the police calls at bay. A nasty little thought sneaked into my brain. Who would know? Olivia’s parents, of course. But Olivia’s parents probably didn’t yet know that their daughter was dead. I couldn’t call them. That would be unforgivable. Yes, I could. I could do anything, however terrible, if it meant that it helped me find Charlie. I could ring up the parents of a girl whose body had just been found and ask them questions. It was a brutal thing to do, but I didn’t care. I could save my guilt and my pity for later. I didn’t have time for it now.

I dialled 118118 and an operator asked me what number I was looking for. ‘Mullen,’ I said. ‘Steven Mullen, from Brampton Ford.’

There was a pause.

‘I have the number here,’ said the operator. ‘Shall I put you straight through?’

‘Yes,’ I said. My heart was thumping so loudly I felt she must be able to hear it at the other end of the line.

An automated voice came on, giving me the number, which I didn’t write down, and saying that the remainder of the call would cost ninepence a minute. Then there was a ringing tone. Then there was a voice.

‘Yes?’ The woman sounded quavery and breathless. I knew at once it was the mother, and that she hadn’t heard yet
about her daughter. I knew she was sitting in the house, waiting for the phone to ring, and every time it rang she would snatch it up and say, with that same breathless anxiety, ‘Yes?’, thinking it might be Olivia, or someone ringing about Olivia. I knew exactly the sickening dread and the choking hope she was feeling. I knew all that and still I pressed on. Did that make me a monster? Yes.

‘Is that Linda Mullen?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Mrs Mullen, this is Detective Constable Andrea Beck,’ I said.

‘Olivia?’ The question came out in a gasp, as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

‘There’s no news as yet,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to ask you a question.’

‘Yes?’ This time the voice was flat and dull.

‘Do you know if she ever went to Sandling Island?’

‘Sandling Island? Yes, yes, she did. I think I told that other detective she –’

‘That’s fine. It’s just something we’re checking. Can you tell me why she was there, and when? The exact dates, please?’

‘She went on a five-day windsurfing course.’

Charlie had done the windsurfing course. I remembered her at the end of each day, her hair streaked and bleached by sun, sand and salt, her skin gritty and golden.

‘She had a wonderful time, made friends with some other teenagers there. She came back all tanned and glowing,’ continued Linda Mullen. ‘She wanted to go again next year.’ There was a tiny sob at the end of the line. ‘Um, sorry – when? Hang on, I’ve got my diary here, I can check the exact
dates.’ There was a rustling of pages. ‘Here: Monday the ninth through to Friday the thirteenth of August.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Why? Is there something you’ve found?’

‘One last thing: did she ever mention a girl called Charlie. Charlotte Landry Oates?’

‘Charlie? Yes, she really liked her. There’s a postcard from… Hold on. There’s someone ringing at the door. I won’t be a minute. I’ll just see who it is.’

Now she was walking across a tiled floor. I could hear her feet clipping, her breath still coming down the line. There was the sound of a door opening. ‘Hello,’ she said, to whoever was there. Then her voice changed. ‘What? What is it?’

I banged the phone down and pressed my forehead against the wall. There was sweat running down my face, and I felt sick with shame.

But I had no time for that. The police would be here at any minute. I picked up the car key and my charging mobile, and ran out of the door, banging it shut behind me. As I ran, my ankle throbbed and my head throbbed and the blood in my veins banged and the wind howled against my sore eyes, which were straining in the gloom to see where I was going, and the waves crashed on the shore, sucking and slapping against the shingle. I tried to think. Ideas, fragments of thoughts, bounced around in my head, splintered against my skull. Charlie and Olivia had met at a windsurfing course last summer. And who had taught them? Well, among other people, Joel. Bloody Joel. The man who’d held me in his arms and told me he loved me.

I ran up The Street towards my car, praying it would
work. A police car passed me and I put my head down, hoping they wouldn’t see me. Music and light spilled out from the pub. I reached the car, fumbled the key into the door, flung myself into the driver’s seat. There was a newspaper on the front seat folded up in a roll. It must have been left by Tom the vicar because on a white space he had written, in large capital letters, ‘SERVICE ME!’ I think he meant the car. I put the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine coughed and rasped, then started. One day I’d buy the vicar his drink.

I plugged in my mobile, then swung the car out and accelerated into a racing-driver’s start. Past Tinker’s Yard, right on to Lee Close, left on The Street, then on to Flat Lane.

I screeched to a halt outside Joel’s house, leaped from the car and hobbled up to the front door, where I leaned on the bell, banging with my other fist. When the door swung open, I almost fell into the hall, stumbling upright to see Alix staring at me in a kind of angry astonishment. I could see Tam’s frightened face through the banisters.

‘Where’s Joel?’ I shouted into Alix’s face.

‘What on earth –’

‘Where’s Joel?’ I repeated, even louder. I saw her eyes narrow, her face pinch.

‘He’s at the back. He’s just come in and is about to take a shower. I really don’t see why –’

I barged past her, my muddy feet slapping on the floor. ‘Joel!’ I yelled. ‘Joel!’

‘Nina!’ He came out of the utility room, still in his work clothes, although his shirt was half unbuttoned and his boots were off. ‘What on earth…?’

‘Olivia Mullen,’ I said, advancing on him with Alix behind me.

‘What?’

‘Olivia Mullen? Did you teach her windsurfing in the summer?’

‘Hang on.’ He put one hand on my shoulder to steady me and I twitched it off. ‘Calm down and tell me what’s going on. You haven’t found Charlie?’

‘I don’t have time for all of that. Olivia Mullen. I think her friends called her Liv. She was knocking around with Charlie.’

‘I don’t remember her.’

‘You must do.’

‘Nina, I’m telling you that –’

‘She was there from August the ninth to the thirteenth.’

He stopped and thought for a moment. ‘For what it’s worth, I was off that week.’

‘You weren’t,’ said Alix, coldly, from behind him.

‘I was.’

‘Where were you, then?’ said Alix. ‘Off with some woman?’

‘Mum?’

Tam was standing in the doorway. Her eyes were red and her face was puffy. ‘Mum?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Alix, not turning. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute. Wait upstairs.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said. I glared at Joel and his eyes were cold and steady on me.

‘I don’t want to wait upstairs.’

‘I don’t care what you believe,’ he said. ‘It happens to be the truth. I don’t know what this is all about anyway. What’s this Olivia got to do with Charlie disappearing, and what makes you think that I’m in any way involved? If you’re
suggesting that I had anything to do with her disappearance then I’d like you to come out with it.’ For a moment his face was taut with anger, then his expression softened. He took a step forward so his face was now just a few inches above mine. I could see the stubble, the pinpricks of sweat on his forehead, the tiny veins in his irises, the little pulse at his temple. ‘Look, Nina, I know how desperate you are about Charlie. It’s every parent’s nightmare, and if there’s any way I can help you, any way at all, I will, but you should know who your friends are.’ Alix gave a loud snort behind us but I paid no attention. ‘I’m your friend,’ he continued. ‘And you can trust me –’

‘Right. Give me that,’ I said, pointing at the large wooden mallet that was protruding from his toolbag.

‘What on earth do you want it for?’

‘Never mind,’ I said, and bent down to pick it up. Its heaviness surprised me.

‘She’s gone mad,’ said Alix.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. I need a powerful torch.’

‘I’m calling the police,’ said Alix.

‘There’s one in the bag,’ said Joel. ‘Here.’

‘This is insane.’

I walked past them all and out of the front door, carrying the mallet in one hand. I was huge and strong with despair.

I climbed into my car, and as I was about to pull away, the passenger door opened.

‘Nina.’

‘I don’t have time,’ I said.

He got in and shut the door. ‘I’ll come with you, then. Wherever it is you’re going. I’m not leaving you like this.’

I shrugged and moved off, out of the corner of my eye seeing him wince at the sudden speed.

‘I don’t know Olivia Mullen, whoever she is.’

‘That’s what you say,’ I said.

‘You have to believe me, Nina. How can I help you if you don’t believe me? And how can you not believe me, after all the things we –’

‘No more, Joel. I’m through with people’s promises, and I’m through with trust. It doesn’t matter what you say.’

There was a brief silence.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Not far.’

I turned on to the Saltings and drove past my house. A thought occurred to me. ‘If you weren’t teaching that week, who would have taught her?’

‘It’s not like that,’ said Joel. ‘In the summer there are dozens of people teaching sailing, kayaking, windsurfing. Some of them belong to the yacht club. Some are just students hired for the summer. Some instructors come with their groups. Then people from the island help out as well. Lots of us, even if it’s only for a day or so. Me, of course. Bill usually, but then boats are his business. Rick, though it’s become a bit of an issue that Eamonn always refuses to join in. Tom occasionally, and some of the kids think it’s a hoot when they find out he’s the vicar. Even Alix has been known to rig a dinghy or two on weekends off. If you want to find the one who taught this girl, I wouldn’t know where to start. We could go to the yacht club when it opens tomorrow morning, but it would be a long business.’

‘I can’t wait till tomorrow morning.’

Everything that was familiar now looked strange. The
moon was low in the dark sky and I could see the first scattering of diluted stars above the inky, shifting water. I used to love Sandling Island at night: the silence, the slap and murmur of water, the smell of salt and mud, the chime of halliards and the forlorn cry of birds. Now it terrified me.

I rounded the corner, past the boatyard, with the skeletons of boats, and above the sandy beach. I drew to a halt and climbed out, dragging the mallet.

‘Bring the torch,’ I called to Joel, over my shoulder.

‘Nina, what are you doing? Where are we going? Wait. Let’s talk about this. Nina!’

Joel was behind me, slipping on the soft sand in his big boots. I ignored him and marched towards the beach huts, my ankle stabbing pains up my leg. They stood in the gloom like a row of sentinel boxes. They weren’t like the pastel pictures in Olivia’s postcards. Some were smart and freshly painted, with names above their doors – ‘Pitlochry’ and ‘Avalon’ and ‘Nellie’s Squat’, like punch lines to jokes you hadn’t heard. Some were run-down, with peeling paint and rusty locks. They were numbered, as if in a residential street. There weren’t that many – twenty or thirty, perhaps.

I started with number one, a green hut with curtains at its windows and a white door on which there was a knocker in the shape of a seagull. After a cursory push to make sure that the door was locked, I lifted the wooden mallet to one side, like a cricket bat, and swung it violently. There was a satisfying crash, a splintering sound, and the door caved in. When Joel spoke it was in a faint, strangled tone: ‘Nina! What the hell…’

‘Torch. Shine it inside.’

Joel turned it on. I saw his face glowing eerily in its light,
then the beam turned on the interior of number one. It was all put away neatly for winter, everything in its proper place, not a thing awry.

‘You can’t –’

‘I can do anything. Charlie might have been in there.’

I stepped out, picked up the mallet again, and walked the few steps to number two, which had seen better days. It was a faded red, and someone had patched up its holes with rusting corrugated iron. I laid the torch on the ground, its beam pointing at the door, swung the mallet again. This time, I aimed wrong and missed, spinning with it, and feeling the force of the blow wrench my shoulder almost from its socket. The mallet glanced off the side of the door, leaving an ugly welt in the wood.

‘Are you planning to break into all these huts?’

‘That’s the general idea.’

‘There’s no point in me talking about things like criminal damage or breaking and entering?’

‘No.’

‘Here,’ said Joel. ‘Give it to me.’