1982
Dad was crouching by the damson tree with an unlit cigarette dangling in his hand. I hunkered down beside him and we stayed that way in silence for a while.
I wanted to ask him what the police were doing next. Who would they interview? Had they really given up on Tom? I was glad because I knew he was innocent, but I wasn’t sure Dad thought the same. Eventually, I asked about Edward Lily. What had happened about him?
Dad looked at me steadily and for a moment I didn’t think he’d reply. And then he spoke, labouring each of his words so they hung like lead between us. ‘The police have interviewed him.’ I gazed at the ground, waiting for more. Dad cleared his throat and continued. ‘They went to the cottage and didn’t find anything and, anyway, he has an alibi.’
I let the words settle in my mind. ‘So he isn’t a suspect.’
‘He’s innocent.’ It was the end of the conversation.
Later that night in bed I brooded about Edward Lily. I closed my eyes and imagined him at Lemon Tree Cottage. He was standing at the gate as I’d seen him before, staring at Gabriella and me in the lane. And his daughter, Lydia, was floating through the house like a phantom with a cloud of hair. I shifted restlessly in my bed. If only I had that moment again, I’d change the future. Somehow. I’d walk in a different direction, take Gabriella away.
My thoughts switched to Tom. Dad was certain that Edward Lily was innocent, but what about Tom? What exactly had he told the police about Gabriella? Had he been as confused as they’d said he was? If only I could speak to him too before he got more muddled and forgot completely what he’d seen.
It was dark. I got up and peered through the curtains. The light was on in the kitchen, illuminating the front part of the lawn and the damson tree. At the edges, things were harder to pick out, the shapes of familiar bushes and shrubs made ghostly by the shadows.
I should go and see Tom now.
If only I was brave enough.
I’d been brave enough to go into the woods and dig up Martha’s box. But that was different. That was daytime. This was late at night. I glanced at the luminous hands on my clock. Almost ten.
The light in the kitchen went out. My parents must have gone into the living room. I was tired. I wanted to sleep. But the idea kept at me. Scraping away. If I didn’t go now, Tom would forget. I imagined him going through the motions of his life, watching the telly, eating his tea, following the rituals of his evening. Each movement clouding his memory.
I knew I had to do it. I had to sneak downstairs without my parents hearing, and out the back so the reporters wouldn’t see me and then over the neighbours’ walls until I reached the end of the row of houses.
Slowly I pulled on my sweatshirt, and made my way through the house, grabbing my coat, opening the back door and slipping into the night.
It was cold. Clouds drifted across the half-moon, extinguishing its light. There was a rustle in the bushes. A pair of gleaming eyes. But it was only Jasper, pleased to see me, mewing loudly and winding around my legs. I stooped and ran my fingers along his back – tiny bones beneath the fur, so vulnerable, so delicate, so easy to break. I breathed deeply, pushing away my fear as I heaved myself over the wall that divided us from the Hendersons’, and jumped into their garden.
I landed next to the empty chicken coop, banging my arm on the roof. Mrs Henderson was in the kitchen washing up. She looked up. Had she heard me? Could she sense that I was there? I froze, watching her face distorted by reflection and her eyes searching, worriedly, through the dark. I stayed where I was, shivering, teeth chattering, until she went back to her task. But her lips were moving – calling to her husband, I guessed – and sure enough, there he was, his square bulk as wide as she was thin, standing in the background. I sprang into action, scrambling over their wall, running across the next lawn, bending low, to the sound of the new baby crying from inside.
At the end of the row of houses, I jumped onto the pavement. The street was shadowy and quiet in the dim lamplight. I’d never been out so late on my own and now it seemed as though the village was alien, every shape an enemy.
Tom lived in a narrow street close to The Eagle. In daylight, I could run there in minutes, but in darkness, with all confidence gone, my pace was slow. I started at sounds, imagining footsteps, shouts, expecting a hand on my collar and a voice demanding to know why I was there.
At last, I arrived at Tom’s house – a stone-clad terrace. I waited at the gate but there was no movement, no light or sound. Clenching my teeth, willing myself to be brave, I stepped forwards.
The garden was thick with the dark. Keeping my eyes firmly on the path, I groped onwards, stopping only to listen. My breath. The rustle of leaves. The creak of a bough. A new sound – footsteps on the pavement. I crouched as a figure turned into the house next door. The doorbell rang. A rap on the glass. The light in their porch flared and Tom’s house lit up.
My throat went dry. The door and the walls were covered in giant red letters. Pervert, they said. Weirdo. Nutter. An upstairs window had been smashed in. The windows on the ground floor had been boarded up. Had Tom and his mother gone away? Hope choked inside my throat. But I wasn’t going to go home yet. Creeping down the path, I stood at the door; taking a deep breath, I leaned on the bell. Nobody came. I rang again and stepped back. I had to speak to Tom to find out what he’d seen. Next door, the light went out, but not before I’d seen the twitch of the curtains above me. I rang for a third time and the door opened.
It was Tom’s mother. A short, solid woman with grey hair and grey glasses and a face like a wizened orange. She stood blinking at me, whilst behind her, Tom hovered, his thin body stooping, his eyes large, like an owl, illuminated by the dim light that filtered from the room beyond.
There was kindness in the woman’s eyes. And something else. Fear? I snatched at the kindness as I asked her to let me in. But as soon as I was through the door the tears came. Hanging my head, I let them fall unchecked. ‘Poor child,’ said Tom’s mother, producing a handkerchief. ‘How can I help you?’
I took the handkerchief and blew my nose, pulling out words at last, trying to explain how much I wanted to know what had happened when Tom had seen Gabriella.
There was a pause, and then: ‘He’s innocent,’ she said quietly. ‘People accept that. Now.’
‘Can I speak to him?’ I glanced at Tom who was hanging his head. ‘I only want to know . . .’ My words faded.
‘You can try, child, but I don’t think he’ll reply.’
A car drew up outside. The engine stopped. A door swung open. Quickly, Tom’s mother pushed the door shut and we were left in the semi-darkness. I clenched and unclenched my fists. I wouldn’t be afraid. This woman was kind. Tom was kind. They would never harm me. Or Gabriella.
‘Where did you see her?’ I asked him quickly. ‘Was she in Acer Street like Mrs Ellis said? Was she with someone?’
Tom glanced at his mother. They exchanged looks and she answered for him. ‘He’s confused,’ she said. ‘He thought he saw a man. He thought he saw a girl.’
I nodded. I knew that already. Which was it? A man, or a girl? ‘What did the man look like?’
Tom shook his head.
‘What about the girl?’
He shook his head again.
Now I wanted to grab Tom and shake the words out of him. Tom’s mother must have sensed my feelings because her look hardened as she stepped forward, blocking me. ‘You mustn’t push him, child,’ she said. ‘He’s too easily confused. But I know . . . I know he wouldn’t have harmed your sister.’
I bit my lip. I needed to speak to Tom alone, but his mother was herding me to the door, wanting me to leave. I allowed myself to be guided. It was only when I was on the doorstep that she spoke again. ‘I understand how you feel, child. I understand that you want to know, but my son has nothing to say. He’s told everything he remembers to the police.’
I stared at her, feeling the sharpness of my disappointment. I didn’t want to leave without learning something new. Closing my eyes, I imagined Tom and Gabriella passing each other in the street. I tried to picture her face. Was she friendly as she always was to Tom? Was she happy in those moments, looking forward to seeing me? I needed to fill in those blanks. Swallowing hard, I forced myself to ask: ‘Did Tom say she was smiling?’
There was silence and beneath the folds of her wizened skin her eyes glistened. ‘Please tell me,’ I urged. ‘Did Tom say if Gabriella was happy?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, child.’
‘What then? How did she look?’
But his mother wouldn’t answer. She only shook her head again and closed the door, mumbling that she was sorry.
A few days later, I found out that Tom and his mother had moved away, driven out by those in the village who hadn’t believed in his innocence, despite what his mother had told me. ‘Don’t worry,’ PC Atkins had said. ‘We know where he’s gone. Family in Colchester. If we need to, we can interview him there.’
But I’d had my chance. I’d never see Tom again which meant I’d never know how my sister had looked that day.
I went back to school three weeks after Gabriella disappeared. My friends surrounded me, pressing forwards, vying with each other as to who could get the closest, while Gabriella’s friends were shadows, barely visible, huddling in twos and threes. And Martha. She was on the edge of it all. Her face tear-stained, her eyes huge and watching. I turned my back on her. I had no time for pity.
Mrs Green asked me to go to her office. I perched on the leather sofa reserved for visitors while she sat at her desk. She took off the glasses she wore on a chain, polishing them with a cloth, leaving them resting on the shelf of her bosom, before picking them up and cleaning them again. She kept clearing her throat and restarting her sentences. ‘I’m so sorry, Anna . . . We’re so sorry, Anna . . . The whole school is so sorry . . . We’re all devastated . . .’
I waited while she pulled out a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose. She tried again. ‘Will there be . . . ? What do your parents feel about . . . ? A memorial service might be . . .’ She stopped.
I stared at her. ‘A memorial service?’
She rubbed her glasses vigorously. ‘A service to remember—’
‘I know what a memorial service is.’ I spoke loudly. For a moment, I had the feeling I was outside of myself, looking down, and I marvelled. Who was this girl with the broken glasses and the grubby socks speaking so rudely to the head teacher she’d barely had the nerve to glance at in the past?
‘We could have one at school,’ she said, finally finishing a sentence.
‘My sister isn’t dead,’ I retorted.
‘I’ll speak to your parents.’ She shuffled a pile of papers on her desk and looked away. ‘In the meantime, I hope . . . Please ask if . . .’
I left the room.
There was no memorial service. I knew there wouldn’t be. My parents thought the same way as I did.
As well as Mrs Green, all the teachers, even those who’d never taught me, wanted to talk. Each of them had a different way of doing so. Mr Riley, the sports teacher, with his bluster. Miss Davidson, who taught geography, with her kindness.
Teachers stopped me, pulling me from corridors into empty classrooms to offer me advice or to ask me how I was coping. Some of them spoke in low tones about loss and uncertainty, never once mentioning Gabriella by name, their words spinning in circles. Others were silent, communicating only with sympathetic smiles, passing over me when they collected in homework, or asked for shows of hands. Perhaps they thought if they spoke they’d remind me of the terrible thing that had happened. If they were silent, I might forget. And they could too.
Soon, though, the attention stopped, and the hollowness inside me grew. Like the reverse of a cancer, it was an empty place, a chasm, pushing aside my organs, squeezing my heart into a smaller and smaller space, until I wondered whether it was there at all. I longed for a voice to fill that void, to shout at me, to tell me to sit up straight in class, to demand my overdue homework, or to touch my arm and say, I miss Gabriella too. Nothing happened. It was as if I didn’t exist, and worse than that, as if my sister had never existed either.
In December my policeman came back. I was glad to see him in a funny kind of way. He was like a comfortable sadness with his mournful eyes hiding so successfully in the folds of his skin.
I listened outside the kitchen door. Dad talked too fast, complimenting the police on their persistence, their doggedness, their determination to find the culprit. Then came the excuses; the reasons why Gabriella hadn’t been found. I pictured Dad silent now, with his head bowed and his arms slack. Mum was crying, a soft, persistent sound.
‘There must be something you can do,’ Dad said.
‘We’re doing our best. We haven’t given up.’
‘But you can’t stop searching. Please. Tell me what else you can do.’
Covering my ears with my hands, I ran to my room. Where was Gabriella? Why didn’t she come home? Wild theories marched through my mind. She’d self-combusted. She’d burst into particles and not one trace could be found. She’d run away to be a dancer in Russia. She was hiding out in a nunnery. She was a scientist in Antarctica. Each thought I had, I rejected, just as each path I’d followed trying to find her had come to nothing.
Outside, the wind lurked around the house, prising at the windows and the doors. I pulled out a notebook and wrote a heading, Suspects, and then Edward Lily’s name underneath. But I didn’t know what to write after that. Dad had said he was innocent, but why was he so sure? What if Edward Lily had hidden Gabriella in his cottage, or was, right now, trying to persuade her to leave and go with him to Spain? Or was she already there, learning flamenco, falling in love with dark-eyed gypsy boys? Or was she outside in the cold, longing for me to find her? Like Cathy in Wuthering Heights. Only Gabriella wasn’t a ghost. I refused to believe that was true. And why would Edward Lily want Gabriella anyway? I shook away the obvious. Stories about kidnapped girls. The things I’d read in newspapers. The things people said.
My thoughts roamed back and forth as I picked through my theories, until finally, I threw the notebook down.
It was late evening by the time I emerged. Mum had forgotten to give me tea but I didn’t care. Brave since my midnight trip to Tom, I grabbed the parka from its peg and went into the garden.
The wind had blown itself out now and the sky was black and clear. The damson tree hunched in the moonlight like a tired old man, gnarly branches hanging as if it had given up the fight. I felt that way too, as I stood there shivering. In the distance an owl hooted; closer, a small shape zigzagged past. There was movement in the laurel bushes. The night animals were hiding, alert to intruders. Gabriella had never cared about danger, never been afraid. So what? I heard her saying. I’ll do it if I want to. Nothing frightens me.
‘Please God,’ I whispered as I listened to the crack of the damson tree, the rustle of leaves, tiny paws on broken twigs. ‘Please God, if anything happened to my sister, please say she wasn’t afraid.’ And as I thought of God I wondered, if she had died, had she been lifted upwards, taken to a different place, to heaven, like they said at church?
But when I looked up at the vast, dark sky, I couldn’t contemplate my sister being lost there. It wasn’t possible. I went back inside.