Losing You (26 page)

‘Get off.’

‘Nina, give the mallet to me.’

‘No.’

He put his hand on the handle, and for a brief moment, we struggled. I saw him in the torch light, his face a luminous whitish-green and his mouth and eyes black holes. Then he wrenched it from my grip.

‘I need to see,’ I said.

‘Stand back.’

He lifted the mallet and with one efficient blow on the lock, sent the door swinging open.

‘It’s about hitting it at the right point,’ he said, with a note of pride in his voice.

I picked up the torch and peered inside. It was a mess – old towels, plastic bottles and crisps packets on the floor, baggy swimming trunks and a stained T-shirt flung across a chair – but nothing sinister. What was I expecting? Charlie tied and gagged, waiting for me there?

‘Number three?’ asked Joel. I nodded, and he chopped into that door. There was a faint smile on his face as the wood splintered. ‘Don’t tell Alix,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she’d be very understanding.’

I didn’t reply. I had no words left for anything except the task in hand. I couldn’t say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’. I could only pick up the torch and shine it into each unfamiliar interior, stare in on the intimate details of some stranger’s life, turn away again.

Joel got into a rhythm, smashing a door and moving on. I followed. The water licked the beach; the torch threw long, quivering shadows against the rippled surface of the sand and the sea. The moon hung its sickly light above us. The ripped doors of the huts banged uselessly in the wind. A dog barked somewhere. The world was as unreal as a nightmare.

‘That’s all,’ said Joel at last.

‘Yes,’ I said blankly.

‘Are we done?’

At that moment I thought, Yes, I’m done. The idea of the beach huts had seemed like an inspiration, a brilliant deduction, which would end with Charlie back in my arms. Now I realized it had simply been a last act of useless despair and nothing had come of it. ‘I think so,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry, Nina,’ he said. ‘The police are, you know, making their inquiries. But if we’re done here…’

‘Yes, Joel, I’ll drop you back.’

We got into the car and I started to drive. We didn’t speak for a couple of minutes.

‘I won’t say anything about all the damage to the huts,’ said Joel finally.

‘I will,’ I said. ‘I’ll be seeing the police in a minute. I’ll tell them about it.’

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘They’ll assume it was the usual vandals. It’ll all come off insurance anyway.’

‘Joel,’ I said, ‘I don’t care.’

There was more silence. Silence and darkness outside, and beyond that the sea. All hope had gone, really, and I felt now I needed activity to stop myself thinking about the darkness outside and the darkness inside and the horror of what the rest of my life would be. I saw my mobile phone blinking up at me as it charged.

‘Could you phone Rick for me?’ I said.

‘Sure.’

‘The number’s on the phone,’ I said.

‘I know it anyway,’ said Joel, punching it in. He put the phone to his ear. ‘Hi, Rick, it’s Joel. I’m with Nina… No, nothing yet… I know… Yes. Any word about Karen?… Right. Well, let me know if you hear anything.’ He looked at me. ‘What do you want to tell him?’

‘Tell him I’ll be along in a few minutes to pick Jackson up.’ I remembered something else. Did it matter any more? Well, what else did I have to do? ‘Ask him for Eamonn’s mobile number. There’s a pen in the glove compartment.’

Joel wrote the number on the rolled-up newspaper. The
rest of the short journey took place in silence. I pulled up outside his house.

‘I hope things are all right with Alix,’ I said.

‘Not too good,’ he said. ‘As you saw.’

‘I’ve probably made it worse.’

‘I’m not sure that’s possible, just at the moment.’ He opened the passenger door and started to get out, then paused. ‘Nina, I’m not sure if I’ve ever properly told you how much –’

‘Joel,’ I said, stopping him saying what I knew he was going to say. ‘This in so many ways is not the time for it. I’ve got to go.’

He got out, shut the door and walked slowly up the path to his house. I put the little light on above the rear-view mirror so that I could read Eamonn’s phone number and dial it. It was answered after several rings.

‘Eamonn? It’s Nina. Where are you?’

He didn’t seem sure. I heard him ask someone the address. I heard the someone say it slowly and clearly, as if to a deaf person. It was Grendell Road, just round the corner on the way out of town. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I heard. I’ll be there in a minute or two. Meet me outside.’

There are streets on Sandling Island that could be in the suburbs of any English town. Built just before the war, covered with pebbledash, bright new conservatories and paved driveways, sheltered from the wind by rows of leylandii. You would never have known you were out on an island in the North Sea, except for the occasional boat parked on a trailer in a front garden. I was outside number fourteen less than a minute after I had talked to Eamonn, and when I arrived I could see that the front door was ajar. As I shut
the car door I could see the outline of a person standing to the right of the porch. There was the glow of a cigarette. I pushed open the gate and walked up the gravel path. ‘Eamonn?’ I said.

‘Yeah.’

He stepped out of the shadow into the light of the lantern hanging from the front porch. From inside I could hear voices and music that I could feel under my feet. As I approached Eamonn, I realized I hadn’t thought of what I wanted from him, of what I needed to know. He took a last drag of his cigarette and tossed it aside. His eyes looked different from when I had seen him last, the pupils dilated.

‘Are you stoned?’ I said.

He gave a shrug. ‘I’ve had some weed,’ he said. ‘Are you going to tell my dad?’

I brought up my right hand and slapped him hard, then again with the left. I felt so very, very angry. About his silence, his evasions, but also his being here, with music and friends and dope on this night of all nights, for laying his hands on my daughter, for loving her but not being out on the marshes howling her name, for letting life go on while she was in danger, for being young and thoughtless, for being safe and alive. He hardly reacted, just breathed deeply, his eyes filling with water.

‘You fucking cretin,’ I said. ‘I don’t care about your dad. Why the hell didn’t you tell me about you and Charlie?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Stop this,’ I said. ‘I know. I know that you and Charlie had sex. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘How could I have told you?’ he said.

‘For Chrissake, Charlie’s missing, Eamonn. Missing. Gone.
That’s the only thing that matters. I needed to know. And hours ago, not now.’

‘It’s not got anything to do with Charlie going,’ he said. ‘Why should I have told you? I promised Charlie it would always be a secret between us and that I’d never tell anyone. She’d never forgive me if she knew I’d told you.’

‘Charlie’s in danger. It doesn’t matter what you promised her then. There aren’t rules like that any more.’

‘It was just something that happened,’ he muttered, his face screwed up. ‘It happened, and then she was sorry it happened and I… I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t relevant to anything.’

‘Relevant?’ I said, my voice raised, shielded from curious neighbours by the din inside. ‘Who are you to judge that? The police will be talking to you soon. I’d guess they’ll be suspicious of a boy who had recently slept with the missing girl and said nothing about it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shuffling from one foot to another. ‘You know how much I like Charlie. I love her, if you want to know. I loved her as soon as I set eyes on her. She’s different. But she doesn’t love me. She thinks I’m a weirdo. She’s sorry for me.’

He turned abruptly and kicked the wall of the house several times; little chips of plaster flew off his massive black boot. When he turned back to me tears were rolling down his face.

‘You’ll need to pull yourself together before you’re interviewed. But before that, I want to ask you a couple of questions.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Do you know where Charlie is?’

‘No.’

‘Who knew about you and Charlie?’

‘Nobody,’ he said. ‘It was a secret.’

‘That’s not true, for a start,’ I said. ‘There were other people at the party. They knew.’

‘They didn’t really know,’ said Eamonn. ‘And I didn’t talk about it. Maybe there were rumours.’

‘Did Jay know?’

‘I don’t think so. Unless Charlie told him. She might have. She’s a very honest person.’

‘If she’s so honest, why did she sleep with you?’

There was a pause. Eamonn looked as if he was really thinking about it. ‘Like I said, I think she felt sorry for me,’ he said. ‘I knew that even at the time. And she was a bit drunk.’

‘What did that make you feel?’ I said. ‘Did it make you angry with her?’

‘No, not angry. I suppose I was grateful. That’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it? Maybe I was a bit angry when she told me it had been a mistake. But it was what I expected in a way. It seemed too good to be true.’

‘Did your parents know?’

‘My dad found out.’

I felt a terrible plummeting sense of misery that was almost physical, as if my stomach had been pummelled. Did everyone know more about my daughter than I did? Rick should have told me. He owed me that. That was what I needed. Honesty, not someone mending the rattle in my car.

‘What did he say?’

‘He said what he always says, which is basically that I’m a piece of shit and that I’m not worth anything. Which is probably about right.’

That was presumably my cue to say something reassuring and nurturing but I didn’t have time for any of that.

‘Do you know a girl called Olivia Mullen? Her friends call her Liv.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘I think Charlie got to know her over the summer. They learned to windsurf together.’

‘I didn’t know anything of that bit of her life,’ Eamonn said, with a faint smile. ‘I don’t get to the beach much, as you can see. That’s another of my dad’s gripes with me. Why can’t I do outdoor things like other teenagers? Like he does?’

‘One more thing,’ I said, watching his face. ‘Did you take precautions that night?’

His face flamed and he turned away from my gaze.

‘Eamonn?’

He mumbled something.

‘Does that mean you didn’t?’

‘It wasn’t something either of us was expecting,’ he muttered.

‘So you didn’t?’

‘No.’

‘Did Charlie say anything afterwards? I don’t mean immediately, I mean recently.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like being worried.’

‘Worried about what? What are you getting at?’ Suddenly a gleam appeared in his stoned eyes, horror or even a mad pride. ‘You mean she thought that maybe…’

‘Did she say anything?’

‘No,’ he said. He seemed simultaneously dazed and agitated. ‘No. I swear.’

I couldn’t think of anything more to ask. I had to trust him, this sad, strange boy. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘You’d better get yourself some coffee or whatever you need to clear your head because I think you’re going to have a difficult couple of days. I’m driving to your house now to get Jackson. Do you want a lift?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’

‘If you remember anything else, call me on my mobile. You’ve got my number now.’

‘All right. Nina?’

‘Yes.’

‘The police haven’t found anything?’

‘No,’ I said, as I walked away. ‘They’ve found nothing at all.’

As I turned round in Grendell Road and drove back on to The Street I felt like a shell of a person. I would be able to drive and talk and do things but inside there was nothing. All there was to do now was to collect Jackson and then go back to the police station to face the music. Wasting police time. Criminal damage. There was probably plenty more. As I turned towards Rick and Karen’s house I could see the lights on the mainland. Everywhere there were homes for which this had been just another day. But Karen was in hospital and I was… Well, where was I? I turned right along the seafront and pulled up outside their house. The lights were on now. I knocked at the door and heard voices inside. Rick opened the door and I saw Jackson behind him. I thought, What would a normal person with real, human emotions say at a moment like this? They would express regret and gratitude.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said unconvincingly. ‘I’m really grateful to
you for looking after Jackson. Especially after everything that’s happened to you with Karen.’

‘That’s no problem, Nina. Jackson and I have had a rare old time, haven’t we, big guy?’

Jackson didn’t answer. He was leaning on me, clutching my hand, rubbing himself against me, something he would do only if he was very, very tired. It almost made me feel human.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I came earlier but you were out.’

‘We went to do some shopping,’ he said. ‘Your son’s good company.’ His face shifted to that look of useless concern I had become used to. ‘Any word of Charlie?’

I shook my head. ‘I heard about her and your son,’ I said.

There was a long pause. I tried to make out the expressions that flickered across his face: surprise, contempt, anger. For a moment, he looked like a stranger.

‘Rick? You should have told me at least.’

He rubbed his face and when he turned to me again it was simply tired. ‘Maybe you’re right, Nina. God knows, I thought about it at the time because I was worried and, of course, I thought about it again today and wondered if it was relevant in any way. I honestly don’t think it is. The boy’s a disaster zone, Nina. He always has been. I was furious with him at the time. But even then… It was just a mess, a typical bloody teenage mess. I thought Charlie might have told you. Did you have no idea?’

‘No. But I’m discovering that there was a lot she didn’t tell me.’

‘A girl of secrets?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s it.’

‘I’m sorry. So sorry about everything.’ He put a hand on
my shoulder and squeezed it. Jackson tugged at my hand, trying to pull me away.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘And I don’t mean to blame you. I’ve spent the day shouting at people.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Rick. ‘You know I’ll do anything I can to help you. Anything at all.’