Chapter Twelve

When Marnie stops talking, the hush that follows feels weighted. Marnie is crying silently, tears running down her cheeks and slipping down her throat, and Hannah is statue-still in her chair. The release she craved hasn’t been granted, an answer hasn’t been provided. She doesn’t know if she wants to cry, or if she feels sorry for Marnie, or angry, or disgusted or disappointed – or even a tiny bit relieved. She wants to tell Marnie she’s a liar, but she can’t because she believes her, somehow. Marnie’s story is one riddled in blackouts – shaky at best, flat-out unreliable at worst. And yet, Marnie is steadfast that she would never hurt Alice. Marnie is dying. Marnie told Hannah the worst of herself. There is, Hannah thinks, no real motive for Marnie to hold back if she thought she’d hurt Alice. At that thought, Hannah’s emotions crystallise into a single, familiar one: rage.

‘I don’t –’ Hannah’s words come out hard, sharp and pointed, catching on the edges of her mouth and throat so she has to spit them out like solid things. ‘So you didn’t – why –?’ Finally a whole sentence forces itself out: ‘Why did you bring me here then? You said you had … You didn’t tell me anything!’

Marnie doesn’t seem to register the way Hannah’s voice rises to a shout. ‘I told you what you needed to know – that I had nothing to do with Alice’s disappearance, but that it’s my fault.’

Hannah wonders if Marnie is looking for absolution or reas­surance, but there is nothing inside of Hannah that can offer that.

‘She was fucked, see.’ Marnie appears to be blinking herself back into the present, her eyes refocusing. She wipes a sleeve across her face, her nose, rubbing away the tears and snot. ‘Right from the beginning. Because she was my kid, she never stood a chance. So, whatever happened – some arsehole whisking her off the streets, raping her and throwing her into the ocean, or her running away – it all comes down to me.’

‘That’s such bullshit.’ Hannah clenches her fists. ‘Something actually happened to Alice – actually, physically happened – and you’re still sitting here making it about you. You’re not giving me any answers. All you’re giving me is your own sob story.’

‘I –’ Marnie starts, then stops.

‘You can’t give me anything?’ Hannah waves a hand. ‘Anything at all that could actually be useful …?’

Marnie rubs a hand across her face, ducks her head. ‘I told you every—’

‘You told me about you. Now tell me about Alice, about what could have happened to her.’

‘I don’t know!’ Marnie bursts out, whipping her gaze to Hannah’s face. ‘I don’t fucken know! You think if I knew anything I wouldn’t have told the police ages ago?’

‘You mean like how you told them about sending the messages? You do realise that probably sent them off on some tangent and wasted time they could’ve been searching for Alice.’

Hannah can see Marnie’s jaw working, back and forth, grinding her teeth. ‘Telling them wouldn’t have made a difference. It wouldn’t. Christ, you come in here – like what, you think you’re fucking Nancy Drew or something? Seven years of the police working on this, and you think you can waltz back in and figure it out? You always were so up yourself, thinking you were better than me, than Alice –’

‘I never,’ Hannah snaps, ‘never thought I was better than you. Whatever you thought of me, that’s just you projecting.’

‘Oh yeah – what about what Alice thought of you?’

‘What?’

Marnie sneers. ‘Oh, you think she didn’t talk shit about you behind your back to her own mother?’

‘She wouldn’t have said a thing to you.’ Hannah seethes, but she feels cold. ‘She hated you.’

‘She thought you were a stuck-up snob,’ Marnie spits. ‘She bitched about you all the time, said you were fucked up from –’

‘No, this is done.’ Hannah is standing up. ‘We’re done here.’

She makes to leave the lounge – and suddenly Marnie is calling out, and the cruelty is gone from her voice. ‘Wait! Shit. Wait, stop, okay, just stop!’

Hannah doesn’t want to, but she forces herself to take a breath and turn back.

Marnie is dragging a hand down her face with enough force to pull the skin beneath her eyeballs down. ‘Sorry,’ she breathes out. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have … You just got me worked up. Because you’re right –’ she shakes her head ‘– shit, you’re so right. About it all.’ She sniffles, eyes welling once more. ‘Alice didn’t say bad things about you.’ Her voice is quiet. ‘I’m pretty sure she loved you more than me. You were a good best friend.’

‘Thanks,’ Hannah says, and if she chokes slightly on the word, she doesn’t let herself focus too much on why.

‘Look.’ Marnie seems tired. ‘I don’t know what else I can tell you that might help with – whatever you’re doing.’ She pauses, then her face hardens. ‘That teacher, though … maybe.’

‘The teacher who you thought was “seeing” Alice …?’ Hannah asks.

‘Yeah. I still can’t remember her name. I mentioned her to the police, when Alice went missing. They never got back to me – I don’t even know if they checked her out. You know, I’ve always thought she might have something to do with it. I reckon if you’re gonna get real answers from anyone, it’s that creep. Yeah –’ Marnie’s face is hard ‘– yeah, I reckon she’d be the one to look into.’

‘But you can’t remember her name.’

Marnie sags. ‘No, sorry. But she was at your school, and you were in the same classes as Alice. You don’t remember any teacher being creepy towards her?’

Hannah is shaking her head, even as a slideshow of faces flicks through her mind. Names jump out – Mrs O’Connor, Ms Watson, Ms Olney – but none of them stick, seem right, fit the information that Marnie has given her.

‘Woulda been right before she went missing. Did Alice mention anything?’

‘No,’ Hannah says, and the flurry of names and faces recedes as a tiredness sets in. ‘No, she didn’t.’

Marnie heaves herself from the couch. ‘Well, you could always ask around. But yeah, if I were to lay my money on anyone having something to do with it …’ She is herding Hannah towards the door. ‘You know, if you end up finding her – that woman.’ Marnie’s mouth settles into a grim line. ‘I wouldn’t mind a swing at her. Just once, before I go.’

Hannah says nothing, letting Marnie have her moment and her dark chuckle.

They reach the front door. Marnie opens it, and Hannah steps out onto the porch and then pauses. ‘Do you remember back when you were still being questioned … I saw you outside the police station? You smiled at me.’

Marnie inclines her head.

Hannah shrugs. ‘I just … I always wondered, why?’

‘I thought you were waiting for me.’ Marnie’s laugh is a bitter, hard noise. ‘I thought you had come to see me because you believed I was innocent. I dunno. Maybe I thought Alice had told you I’d never hurt her, never woulda hurt her. I was just – I was relieved someone was on my side.’

Marnie’s eyes scan Hannah’s face for something. Hannah keeps her expression blank, and gives nothing.

‘But you weren’t, I’m guessing. And I also figure Alice probably never said a nice thing about me. Which would be fair enough, I guess.’

Hannah knows the closest Alice ever came to being nice about her mum was to be neutral. She can see, in Marnie’s eyes, the hope that Hannah will reveal Alice had expressed love, affection, anything vaguely positive. And, for someone who finds that lies come as unthinkingly and naturally as breathing, Hannah surprises herself by being unable to offer this false comfort to Marnie. Hannah isn’t sure if it’s because she thinks Marnie doesn’t deserve the solace, or because she thinks Marnie doesn’t deserve any more deception in her life. Perhaps it’s both. In any case, she keeps her face, as before, deliberately blank.

Resignation fills Marnie’s eyes. ‘Anyway, at least you were on Alice’s side.’ She offers Hannah a smile. ‘At least for all that I fucked everything up, Alice had you – still has you, really. You’re still looking for what happened to her after all these years.’ Marnie has stepped back to close the door. ‘I hope you find something,’ she says, then, ‘You’re a good friend, Hannah.’

Hannah nods, the door closes, and she turns in the direction of her car but doesn’t see it – doesn’t see anything except Alice’s face twisted and red and crying, with heaving sobs.