I hand my phone to Richard, who has a brief, rather monosyllabic conversation with Mather and says he’ll go to Worcester police station to ‘sort this out’ before he ends the call.
‘What the hell’s going on, Richard?’ I ask, my heart pumping, my breath sucked from my body.
We are both still sitting in the car. Zoe texted me a few minutes ago to say she and Jodie are in the house waiting for us, but this isn’t something we can discuss in front of anyone.
‘I wanted to tell you, Kat. I’ve been trying to tell you. On Sunday night when I got back from golf with Roger, I wanted to tell you. I called Amy, well I tried to call her on the Sunday night when I got back from playing golf. I went upstairs so you wouldn’t hear and I called to say please phone your mum, she doesn’t have to know we met up if you don’t want her to. But she didn’t respond. And then like you I began to worry that something had happened, so I tried to tell you when we were in her room at university, but you were so traumatised, you were manic. I didn’t know what to do for the best but all the time I was protecting you.’
‘I don’t understand… so when you said you were on the phone to Roger about the merger you were trying to get hold of Amy?’
He nods.
‘But why?’
‘She didn’t want to hurt you, wanted to sort out her feelings first…’ He looks terrible, and his voice is breaking, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this.
‘Her feelings?’
Suddenly the porch light goes on, the door opens and then there’s another flood of light from the hall as Zoe appears on the doorstep.
‘She must have heard us pull up,’ I say.
‘Oh Christ, this is all I need,’ Richard says, putting his head in his hand.
‘What the fuck’s going on, Richard?’ I hiss. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you saw Amy on Friday? It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Amy made me swear on your life not to say anything. I’m so sorry,’ he’s saying, and I’m so confused. My mouth’s so dry I can barely speak. I want to talk about this, I want to hear his explanation. ‘So many times I’ve almost said something to you. Last night at home, then today on the drive, but I kept thinking she’d be there, in her flat, and it would all be okay.’
‘I don’t…’
‘Look, I’ll go to the police station in Worcester now, sort this out before it gets silly,’ he says. ‘You just go in the house with Zoe and say I’ve got to deal with something at work. We don’t want any whispers starting, she’d love a bit of scandal.’
‘Scandal?’
‘No… I don’t mean…’
‘Fuck! Just tell me what’s going on?’ I insist. I can’t begin to imagine why he was there. Or why he hasn’t told me, but Zoe’s now walking briskly towards the car.
‘No. I can’t. Not now, not with her there,’ he nods his head in the direction of Zoe, who’s now a few feet from the car, leaning sideways mouthing, ‘Any news, sweetie?’ ‘Just keep her out of everything,’ he’s saying. ‘I’ll explain when I get back, when she’s gone home.’
‘I don’t care what she knows, it doesn’t matter, she’s my friend and she’s concerned about me. At least she doesn’t lie to me and skulk around my daughter’s university without telling me. Or the police.’
‘That’s why I need to go now and sort this out,’ he says, just as Zoe whips open the passenger door.
‘Oh, I’ve been so worried about you. Darling, are you okay, what’s happening? Are the police involved yet?’ She’s hurling questions at me, and I can feel Richard’s irritation boiling over at the side of me, so I grab my bag, get out of the car and give the door a good slam.
Richard then sets off, wheels spinning.
‘He’s in a hurry,’ Zoe says, putting her arm around me and walking me up the drive.
‘There’s a problem.’
‘Oh?’ Her face changes colour.
‘At work.’
‘Thank God for that, I thought it was Amy.’
‘No. Nothing yet.’ I sigh and we walk into the house together. Jodie greets us in the hall, and it looks like she’s been crying again, this has really hit her so badly. I hope Zoe’s keeping an eye on her, Jodie has anxiety and a couple of years ago stopped eating for a while. God, I hope this doesn’t cause her to relapse, Amy will be so upset when she gets back.
‘What’s happening, Kat? What did the police say?’ Zoe asks.
Where to start? There was no sign of Amy and her clothes were missing, but her flatmates are more concerned about eating pancakes and the police think I’m just an overprotective mother. Oh, but Richard drove to Aberystwyth on Friday to see her but didn’t bother to tell me and nobody’s seen her since.
‘Nothing really,’ I say, unable to go through it all again. I just want to sit quietly and think about everything while continuing to check and recheck my phone. ‘To be honest, I think they genuinely believe she’ll turn up tomorrow or the next day. Like she’s just forgotten she was planning to come home – like she’d gone off and never thought to let me know.’
‘Well, that could still be the case, love,’ Zoe says as we walk into the living room. ‘Josh is here,’ she says, and despite feeling angry with him about breaking Amy’s heart he’s standing in the middle of the room looking so forlorn I push my anger aside, step towards him and give him a big hug.
‘Oh, love, it’s so upsetting, isn’t it?’ I say.
He looks like he’s about to cry. ‘I’m sorry – I feel so bad. When you left that message yesterday, I just thought she’d had a late one, hadn’t texted you,’ Josh says. ‘I had no idea… I never thought that…’
‘There’s nothing to think, Josh, just because she hasn’t been in touch doesn’t mean something terrible’s happened,’ Zoe says, plumping the cushions on the sofa for me as I sit down. ‘We mustn’t jump to any conclusions.’
I nod, feeling like a child with a cold and an overbearing mother, but it’s just what I need right now. Especially as Richard, who I thought was my rock, is now being questioned by the police in relation to Amy’s disappearance. I need all the friends I can get.
‘Jodie, go and make Kat a coffee, black,’ Zoe instructs her daughter.
‘I know Kat takes it black,’ she snaps, ‘you don’t need to tell me.’
Zoe rolls her eyes at me, but I don’t join in, I just wish Amy was here snapping at me.
We watch Jodie leave the room; my heart is breaking. Jodie’s like a second daughter to me, she used to be round here most days before the girls went to uni. Richard had said she might as well move in.
He’d sometimes get grumpy when he couldn’t listen to The Moral Maze on Radio 4 because two teenage girls were having a karaoke competition or gymnastic event in the living room.
‘Why doesn’t she go home to her own mother?’ he’d ask.
‘Because she prefers mine, and who can blame her?’ Amy had joked. But if I’m really honest, I think there’s some truth in that. Zoe can be hard on Jodie and sometimes she just needs to be allowed to chill. I can see this is really upsetting Jodie, and I feel for her, like I’d feel for Amy if it were her friend missing.
‘You okay, anything else to report?’ Zoe says in a quiet voice, obviously trying to be discreet. Josh has followed Jodie into the next room while she makes my coffee. I get the feeling he’s wary of being around me after what’s happened with him and Amy.
Even now, with the police and everything, I think Zoe still believes that Amy’s fine, that she’ll walk in any minute. But if she knew about Richard she might feel differently.
The stepfather did it.
Unwanted thoughts keep going round and round my brain and I feel that I want to tell Zoe about Richard. I feel I need another perspective and Zoe will offer that, but don’t want to be disloyal to him, as he’s specifically asked me not to tell her he’s with the police. As yet I don’t even know what there is to tell as he didn’t get the chance to explain – but Richard won’t have done anything, will he? I’m sure there’s an explanation and I should wait and speak to him first. So I try to stay on safe ground, and hope I can keep this to myself until I know what happened.
‘I’m touched that Josh showed up,’ I say. ‘It shows how much he cares about Amy. Apparently they broke up – I’m not sure what happened. But I wouldn’t be surprised if, when she comes back, they get together again, they always seemed so happy.’
‘Yes, shame, but it was just too much for them right now, the whole long-distance thing.’
‘Oh, you knew that they’d finished?’ I’m surprised Zoe knows when I didn’t.
‘Yeah, Jodie mentioned it.’
‘Oh, of course.’ So Amy had told Jodie. Why hadn’t she told me? ‘I don’t understand it, they seemed happy, he was always so besotted.’
‘Well, they’re young, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, but she must have been so upset.’ I try to stem the tears, I’ve cried too much today. ‘They’ve been together for almost three years and I feel so guilty I wasn’t there for her.’
‘Don’t torture yourself, Kat, she was probably trying to be emotionally independent. There comes a time when us mums have to cut the cord, you know?’
‘I know, but I can’t help but be hurt that she didn’t tell me. That she was going through it and kept it from me.’
‘There was probably a lot she was keeping from you,’ she says. ‘Same as Jodie, there’s a lot she keeps from me. We just have to accept we aren’t such a big part of their lives anymore.’
But Zoe’s always been quite distant with Jodie, they never had that close mother-daughter bond, which presumably makes this whole university separation easier in a way. And it’s why sometimes Zoe thinks I’m overreacting – because she wouldn’t be so involved in her daughter’s life. I respect that we both have different ways of parenting, no one is right or wrong, but I do sometimes feel as if Zoe’s judging me – which is why it’s taken her longer than it should to believe me since I first said Amy was missing.
‘No, I know, but we should still be there to support them, and I wasn’t.’
‘She had her new friends at uni, she probably talked to them instead… and Jodie of course.’
‘I suppose so. But I still talked problems over with my mother when I left home, and if she was still with us, I’d be talking to her now. Every day. You don’t stop being a daughter, or a mother, just because you don’t live under the same roof.’
Zoe shrugs, and changes the subject, she knows I’m upset and now isn’t the time to discuss our changing maternal roles in our children’s lives. ‘So Richard’s had a work emergency? It must have been pretty important, with how fast and furiously he drove off.’
‘It’s not like him,’ I say, ‘it’s really getting to both of us.’
‘Yes, but you don’t need him losing it. That’s going to stress you out even more.’
She knows there’s more to it. Zoe has a sixth sense for these things, and she’ll get it out of me, there’s no point in hiding anything from her. I don’t know why Richard didn’t want me to tell her he was with Amy on Friday, but if there’s a reason he wants to keep it a secret it will come out soon enough. Besides, he lied to me, and about God knows what else, so I suddenly decide he doesn’t deserve my loyalty.
‘Richard was in Aberystwyth on Friday,’ I say quietly.
Zoe looks at me, slightly puzzled. ‘You never said.’
‘I didn’t know.’ I go on to explain about Richard being identified by one of Amy’s flatmates as an older man who’d been in her room.
‘What the hell was going on?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know.’ I see the look on her face and immediately regret saying anything. ‘Like you said, we mustn’t jump to conclusions.’
She clearly thinks this is dodgy, and I have to say I’m on shaky ground with this too. But I want her to do what she always does, soothe me, tell me it’s nothing, that it’s probably insignificant. But she doesn’t.
‘So why was he there?’ she asks, her brow furrowed.
‘I don’t know, he didn’t get chance to tell me, it could be nothing… But I’m hurt that they met up and neither of them mentioned it.’
‘I’m sorry, Kat, but I don’t like that,’ she wraps her arms around herself and pulls her mouth down either side in a disapproving expression.
‘Well, I don’t know what that is yet. When he roared off in the car just now, he wasn’t going to work. He was going to the police station. He needs to sort it out and says he’ll tell me what happened when he gets back.’
She’s looking at me with deep concern, and is about to say something when Jodie returns with drinks on a tray.
‘Thanks, darling,’ she says as Jodie hands me the cup of coffee. I get a whiff of Jodie’s drink, and breathe in the sweet, heady peppermint, but it does little to soothe me. I’m so tender my heart hurts.
‘Where’s Richard?’ Jodie asks, looking round. ‘Does he want a coffee?’
‘He’s gone to work,’ Zoe says.
‘Oh?’ She sighs, her face is pale, her voice is tearful. ‘I thought he’d gone to look for Amy.’
‘No,’ says Zoe, looking from me to her daughter, concern on her face. Poor Zoe, she’s caring for her best friend and her daughter. I feel guilty for putting this on her, but so grateful to have her here, someone I can trust, who is loyal.
‘Sweetie, why don’t you ask Josh to drop you off at home?’ she says gently. ‘All this is upsetting for you, and I need to stay with Kat a little longer, I don’t want to leave her alone.’
‘It’s fine, Zoe,’ I say, ‘you take Jodie home.’
‘No. Josh will drop her off.’ In his silent presence it’s easy to forget about Josh – he’s clearly uneasy, not sure what to say or do, but he nods to say yes he’ll take Jodie home.
Jodie seems okay with this and within minutes she and Josh are heading out of the front door.
‘Thanks, Josh. See you soon, darling,’ Zoe calls from the living room. ‘And don’t worry, I’m sure Amy’s fine, just off on an adventure.’
I wish she wouldn’t say things like that, I know she’s trying to protect Jodie, but I feel like it might also be a dig at me. I don’t know how long Amy has to be missing before people start taking me seriously.
As soon as the front door is closed, Zoe turns to me. ‘So, Richard. What the fuck?’
‘I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me,’ I say. ‘Zoe, what’s he hiding?’
She shakes her head, as confused as I am.
‘And why did he go to see Amy anyway? They get along, but she was quite grumpy with him last time she was home, said he was annoying,’ I explain.
‘Annoying?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Wonder what she meant by that?’ she says mysteriously, causing my mouth to go dry. ‘Thing is, he’s a lawyer, he’ll be able to squirm out of anything,’ she adds.
‘I’m not sure that’s what he’s doing… He just said he was going to sort it out. I’m sure it’s nothing,’ I start and Zoe begins to say something, then thinks better of it, but I know my friend, she clearly has an informed opinion on some aspect of this.
‘What, Zoe?’
‘No, I…’
‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’
‘I’m not thinking anything.’
‘Yes you are, please tell me.’
She covers her face with both her hands, and for a few seconds I hold my breath.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I never gave it much credence at the time, but now I wonder.’
She’s clearly trying to work out how to tell me something in the kindest, gentlest way, but I can’t stand the tension.
‘Just tell me, Zoe.’
‘Jodie said once Richard was “creepy”, and she felt he was looking at her – and at Amy – in an inappropriate way.’
‘Inappropriate?’ I say this hoping blindly that there’s another meaning for this word than the obvious one. ‘I’ve never ever felt—’
‘Well, you wouldn’t. I doubt he ever shows his true colours in front of you.’
‘No. No. I would know, Zoe.’
‘You’re right,’ she suddenly says. ‘If you haven’t spotted anything, then I’m sure Jodie was just imagining it.’ But I can tell by her tone she doesn’t believe Jodie was imagining it. ‘You’ve been through enough, and you don’t need me saying these things to you right now,’ she adds, as if to draw a line under it. But I can’t, because what she just told me is shocking, it goes against everything I’ve ever thought about my husband.
I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours wondering if I really know my daughter. But now I’m beginning to wonder how well I know my husband.