33

Cal waited at the front gate while Sarah knocked at Lotte’s door. After each rap, she added an appeal or injunction: ‘Lotte, please.’ ‘Lotte, let me in.’ ‘Lotte, don’t be childish.’ ‘Lotte, for goodness’ sake.’ ‘Lotte, open the door.’ Finally, saying, ‘I give up,’ she pushed the annexe keys through Lotte’s letterbox. After a final despairing glance at Lotte’s upstairs window, she said to Cal, ‘Olaf might be on the beach. I’m going to look for him. Want to come?’

Cal nodded.

On the way, Sarah alternated between being irritated by Lotte and being anxious about Olaf. ‘Why does she always have to be so impulsive?’ ‘Those driftwood figures in his room, the women – they’re not what Lotte thinks, are they?’ It was as if she was trying to persuade herself of an innocent explanation. ‘Poor Olaf, where could he have gone?’ ‘He wouldn’t do himself harm, would he?’ She stopped. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not dragging you with me, am I?’

‘No,’ Cal said. No, because I need to find out if you know about Olaf and Ruth, if I can trust you.

They walked on, passing a hotel, a café, a steakhouse, another restaurant and, on the other side of the road, a parade of shops with pavement displays of kites, plastic buckets and beach balls in neon pink and green. In almost every window or doorway, the owner or manager was peering out. Cal had the impression of nervous expectancy. ‘What’s happening?’

‘It’s always like this at this time of year,’ Sarah replied. ‘Everyone’s fretting about the weather. If there isn’t blue sky and sun soon, visitors won’t book for the weekend. It’s like waiting for a migration to begin. When will the season start? Everyone’s being neurotic. Perhaps it’s catching. We’re all behaving a little oddly.’ She looked at Cal. ‘Me, Lotte, as well as Olaf.’

Then she pointed out her shop. ‘I’m also waiting for the migration. I’m not going to open until there’s better weather – not worth it.’

At the edge of the village, a road veered left. Another, Badweg, carried on straight and went uphill.

After giving way to cyclists, Cal asked, ‘How long have you known Olaf?’

‘Seems like forever. Must be seven years, not long after I bought my house here.’

‘Olaf lived on Texel before you?’ Cal asked.

‘Quite a long time before, a few years.’

‘How did you meet?’

‘I knew he was Olaf the Strandjutter because that’s what everyone called him. But I didn’t ever speak to him until, one day, he walked backwards and forwards along the beach, coming closer and closer, until finally he got up enough courage to introduce himself.’ She laughed at the memory. ‘He’s been stopping to talk ever since, once or twice a week. We sit in deckchairs, side by side. We’re very middle-aged.’

‘So he found you?’

‘Yes, yes, I suppose he did. But I’m glad. He’s become a friend.’ She gave Cal a worried look. ‘Lotte wouldn’t have frightened him away forever, would she?’

Cal waited before asking another question. He rehearsed it silently. It had to be delivered in an offhand way. ‘What brought Olaf here, do you know, a woman, what?’ He coughed afterwards because he thought his voice had sounded tight, unnatural.

‘He washed up here. That’s all he’s ever told me as well as Lotte. And she’s turned out to be a lot more inquisitive than me. It’s what he tells everyone.’

‘Yes, he told me that too,’ Cal said.

Sarah sighed. ‘Years have passed and none of us, you, me, Lotte, is any the wiser or knows him any better. How does Olaf do that, manage to be aloof, mysterious and pleasant, all at the same time?’

Cal stayed quiet. He’d said enough for the time being. Also, he was making up his mind about Sarah. Did he believe her? Was that how she met Olaf? Wasn’t she aware of his past, his connection to Ruth? She appeared genuine, guileless. Her answers about Olaf sounded truthful. Cal had one more question, the last test. He’d wait before asking it, surprise her.

A gully opened up below them. At the bottom, to their left, was a collection of buildings in red and grey with blue doors, the largest of which was a long, low structure – Sarah said it was the reception for a campsite. To the right was an almost empty car park. Spanning the gully bottom was a wooden bridge, after which the road went uphill. At the crest of the next dune were buildings, luxury holiday suites on the left, a hotel and restaurant with a glassed-in eating-out area on the right.

Flags flapped in a desultory manner.

Desultory was the mood of the day. Although the mist was clearing, few people were about – some dog walkers, a family of cyclists. As if no one was expecting much to happen. As if a migration of holidaymakers was still weeks away.

Cal said, ‘So what happened to make Olaf move into town? When I first met him, he was outside De Koog in the house he built from flotsam, on his own plot.’

‘I don’t know the full story,’ Sarah replied. ‘Does anyone know the full story about anything to do with Olaf? His house, the plot, was sold because he’d run out of money. Even Olaf can’t quite live on thin air. He agreed a deal privately with a neighbouring farmer. But he had to clear the site, which was expensive. After paying off the bank and other debts, he only had a few thousand euros left.’ Sarah sighed. ‘I warned him about being taken advantage of. I said to use a lawyer, but he was determined not to. Said lawyers earned money dishonestly but farmers didn’t. The farmer saw Olaf coming. He sold the land to a property company to build holiday flats. He’ll make a fortune.

‘Afterwards, Olaf tried to rent somewhere but no one wanted him as a tenant or as a neighbour after the mess he’d made at his farmstead. So I asked Lotte if she’d let him stay in the room at the back of her house and, bless her, she said yes. I thought it would suit them both – Olaf doing odd jobs instead of paying rent; Lotte having someone about the place. She’s widowed and doesn’t really like her own company, particularly at this time of year.’

Sarah’s face was set in sympathy. ‘Poor Lotte. Her husband was unfaithful to her, even when he was ill and dying. She said to me once, “Why do I only ever like men who aren’t what they seem?” When she saw those driftwood –’ Sarah struggled to find the word – ‘people around Olaf’s bed, she must have thought Olaf’s another one.’

A pause. ‘But he’s not, is he?’

Cal said nothing.

After crossing the wooden bridge, they continued uphill in silence, Sarah lost in her own thoughts, Cal biding his time. At the summit, they stopped to look at the view. The sea was grey to the horizon apart from three vast black hulks, container ships going north towards Hamburg and the Baltic.

Cal turned to Sarah. ‘Where did you live before Texel?’

‘London.’

‘What brought you here? That’s quite a change.’

Sarah’s eyes narrowed as she hunted the beach for Olaf. She appeared not to have heard Cal but then, when he was about to ask again, she said, ‘It’s complicated.’

Cal suggested, ‘You washed up here, like Olaf?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose I did.’

Cal cupped his eyes and looked for Olaf too. ‘You know, I think you’re both here for the same reason.’

‘Really? What might that be?’ She sounded off balance, not sure whether to be offended or amused.

‘Not what but who.’ He was aware of her watching him as he carried on scanning the beach. ‘Ruth Jones,’ he said. ‘Isn’t she why you’re here?’

‘How do you know about Ruth?’

Cal walked on.

‘Yes,’ Sarah said after him. ‘Ruth’s the reason I moved to Texel.’

He stopped and turned round. ‘Isn’t she why Olaf’s here too?’

‘No.’ Sarah looked bewildered. ‘Why on earth would Olaf be here because of Ruth? He didn’t know her.’

‘Are you sure?’ Cal watched for any change in her reaction. There was none.

‘Yes, of course I am.’

Then Cal said, ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

‘Know what?’

The outline was blurry though sufficiently distinct for the shape to be obviously a young woman caught in a moment of time. She was leaning towards the camera and framed by the blown-up, out-of-focus legs of two other people. Her right arm reached forward. Her face was hidden by her hair which was long and dark. She wore a turquoise T-shirt.

‘Oh my heaven, that’s Ruth.’ Sarah stared at the photograph. ‘It is her, isn’t it?’ She seemed unsure, then certain, angling the phone one way and another for a different view. ‘It is her. It is! It’s Ruth.’

She stared wide-eyed at Cal before being dragged back to the screen. ‘That T-shirt … I gave it to her for her birthday.’ She looked again. ‘Oh my God!’ She stared at Cal. ‘Her birthday was the week before she disappeared!’ Each implication or realization brought another exclamation. ‘She told me she was going to wear it for the gig …! Where did you get this? When was it taken? Was it that night?’

Cal replied, ‘I don’t know exactly but I think it was around the time Ruth went missing, so the sixteenth or seventeenth of August twenty-three years ago. I was given the photograph by Mikey Jones. He doesn’t know who took it.’

Sarah’s expression hardened. ‘You spoke to Mikey Jones.’ It was an accusation. ‘Why? What’s going on?’ When Cal didn’t answer, she said, ‘Ruth hated him. Why did you go and see him?’

Again Cal didn’t react. After manipulating the screen, he handed the phone to Sarah. ‘This is the same photograph; a different part’s enlarged. See the woman in the flowery dress, red hair? Do you know who she is?’ Sarah shook her head. He held out his hand. Sarah was slow to give the phone back.

With two fingers, Cal reduced the photograph. ‘Now look. That’s the whole photograph, Ruth, the woman in a flowery dress and a boy. The detail isn’t sharp, but can you also see the blond-haired young man at the back?’

‘Yes,’ Sarah said.

‘Recognize him?’

She looked closer. ‘No.’

‘He wasn’t one of the people Ruth and you used to know in Margate?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

Cal took back the phone. ‘I’ve enlarged his face.’ He showed it to Sarah. ‘Recognize him now?’

A cry of shock was followed by Sarah exclaiming, ‘Oh my God, it can’t be! It isn’t!’ She stared at Cal. ‘Olaf? It looks like him, younger but like him.’

Cal said, ‘Same slant to the nose. Same scar by the right eye. Same hair, though shorter and curlier, blonder. Twenty-three years ago, he’d have been seventeen. Yes, that’s Olaf.’

Sarah’s head jerked up. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide. She scanned the beach. Before, she’d looked for Olaf in hope, wishing his familiar bulky figure to be there, finding his presence reassuring. Now she was alarmed at the possibility.

‘He didn’t tell you he knew Ruth? You didn’t know?’

Her head shook. Her eyes darted from one part of the beach to another. ‘I told him about Ruth. I used to talk about her and Olaf listened and never, ever said anything about having met her. I thought he was being nice to me, letting me talk, not interrupting or changing the subject. He wasn’t, was he?’

Cal said, ‘Perhaps he needed to hear about Ruth as much as you needed to talk about her.’

‘Why?’ She frowned. ‘I must be stupid or something. I thought Olaf was different. But he did have a secret. Lotte was right.’

She looked at Cal again. ‘The driftwood people in his room … Is Ruth supposed to be the one with dark hair?’

‘I think so.’ Cal nodded. ‘And the one with red hair is called Christina Tolmie. And the boy is the boy in the photograph.’

‘You mentioned a Christina.’

Cal carried on. ‘She was reported missing about the same time as your friend Ruth. No connection was made because Christina was last seen on the other side of the English Channel, in a French town called Gravelines, close to Calais. It wasn’t just different countries and twenty miles of sea that separated the inquiries. Christina Tolmie was older, thirty-one, a mother of two daughters, middle-class, who liked to take off in a van and distribute clothes to orphans in Romania. Also, the police in Margate had Ruth pigeonholed as trouble, as one of life’s casualties. They expected her to come to a bad end one day. When she did, they weren’t really interested in finding out what happened because they thought they already knew.

‘To cut a long story short, there’s a connection between Christina’s disappearance and Ruth’s death. That’s why I went to talk to Mikey Jones. Before I saw him, I wasn’t sure whether the two cases were linked. Now I’m certain they are. He had the photograph of Ruth, Olaf and the others. It was shown to him about six years ago by a detective constable called Jane Jarvis. She gave Mikey the impression that Olaf was a suspect – the detective asked Mikey if he knew who the young man was or where he lived. Mikey went to his local newspaper about there being a new line of inquiry. Nothing was published. The police warned off the newspaper editor, said Mikey was a fantasist. The detective constable vanished. Mikey doesn’t know where she went. It turns out she didn’t exist. Jane Jarvis was an imposter.’

Another shock. Sarah stared at Cal, seeming to be in a daze.

Cal said, ‘Those figures, in Olaf’s room … I don’t know why they’re there, why Ruth’s there. Sometimes killers like to have mementos …’ He stopped and gave Sarah time to understand his meaning. ‘But there could be another reason.’

Sarah’s eyes registered horror. They searched the beach for a monster in the form of Olaf.

‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘Mikey Jones told me you keep a hut in memory of Ruth. Can I see it?’

*

We. Us. Sarah’s version of Ruth’s story, their joint story, was of two girls growing up together, who were sisterly, if not sisters, who were kinder to each other and more supportive than siblings frequently were, who shared everything, clothes, cigarettes, make-up, as well as secrets, and who became, to all intents and purposes, a single, harmonious organism. Ruth and Sarah.

With every telling of the story – in summer, when Sarah was in her deckchair, holidaymakers might stop two, three times a day to inquire about Ruth’s hut – the merger had taken place.

We. Us.

The erosion of singularity had been gradual, an elision of incidents or anecdotes, or a shift in emphasis. Sarah refined the narrative as she might have polished a stone. But, with each rub of the cloth, the friendship became less as it had been, more as Sarah imagined it might have become, hoped it would.

As Sarah pushed at a pile of blown sand with her left shoe and opened the double doors of Ruth’s hut, she experienced a peculiar dizzying sensation. Inside the left door, on the window’s wooden surround, were captioned photographs of her and Ruth: ‘Ruth and Sarah eating ice cream’; ‘In school uniforms’; ‘On Margate beach’. Sarah looked at each one in turn, oblivious to Cal. Another photograph was in her head: ‘Ruth and Olaf’. It forced her to remember Ruth as she had been, unpolished.

Sarah recalled her parents’ home – a big house in a well-to-do street in Margate. Sarah was sixteen, like Ruth, and restless. She was in her bedroom on the top floor. It had gone eleven o’clock at night. Next door, Ruth’s room, her off-on sanctuary from a neglectful and drunken father, was empty. Sarah was at the window watching and willing Ruth to appear, running along the street, long hair flying, hurrying to tell Sarah her news: the cafés and bars she’d visited, the boys she’d seen, the ones who’d tried to kiss her, those she liked, those she didn’t, those she’d kissed back.

‘No Ruth tonight?’ her mother asked after looking round the door.

‘Uh-uh.’ Sarah’s reply was offhand, unbothered. ‘At her dad’s.’

By then the lie was well honed. With each repetition, Sarah suffered sharper stabs of resentment at Ruth for taking her for granted, using her as cover. That night she dreamed up the idea which would change the course of her life. Danny Allison, a good-looking, older and amusing boy who lived in Ruth’s street, had asked her out. Her! Sarah! Not Ruth. He’d tried to kiss her after school. The next day Sarah bought two tickets to a gig. A local band called Crazy Stupid Dreams was playing later that week. Her parents said she could go if she went with a girlfriend. In their hearing, she offered Ruth a ticket and made an arrangement to meet up at seven twenty p.m. on Marine Drive.

Instead she went to Danny’s house and lost her virginity. She felt changed, grown-up, as she waited at the back of the venue for the gig to finish. Would Ruth notice something different about her?

As the audience pushed for the exit during the encore, Sarah stood on a rubbish bin looking for Ruth. ‘It’s your turn to lie for me,’ was all she’d say. She’d be mysterious. She’d make Ruth jealous. But Ruth wasn’t there. The crowds dispersed and Sarah went searching around town for her. A stab of resentment goaded Sarah. Ruth hadn’t been to the gig. Where had she been? Where was she?

Sarah did the rounds of Ruth’s haunts and hang-outs – the beach, her favourite cafés. There was no sign of her. No one had seen her. Sarah went home, anxious that Ruth might already be there and her parents would know they hadn’t met up.

She wasn’t. They didn’t.

‘Had a good time?’ her father asked.

‘Yes,’ Sarah replied.

‘No Ruth?’ her mother asked.

‘Oh, she’s gone to her dad’s.’

The following morning Sarah went to Ruth’s dad’s house. A woman wearing a man’s shirt, knickers and a smudge of lipstick opened the door. ‘Who the fuck are you, girlie?’

Mikey Jones stumbled out into the passage. Swaying, slurring, he said, ‘Only the little girlie who’s stolen Ruthie from her dad. That’s who the fuck she is. Where’s my Ruthie? I want to see her.’

A bare foot slammed the door shut.

Sarah told her mother, ‘Ruth didn’t go to her dad’s last night. She lied to me.’

‘Ruthie, as in Mikey Jones’s daughter?’ the police officer inquired when Sarah’s mother rang the local station to report a missing person.

‘You know her?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Oh.’

‘Ruthie Jones will turn up in her own good time,’ the policeman assured her.

‘But she’s only just sixteen.’

‘Sixteen going on twenty-six.’

Now, on Texel, in Ruth’s hut, a few hundred metres from where Ruth’s body had washed up, Sarah experienced again that familiar and bitter feeling of being left out by Ruth, of Ruth not really taking her into consideration, of Ruth being selfish and wilful. That night long ago, had Ruth met Olaf? Olaf! How had she known Olaf? What had Olaf been doing in Margate? How did Ruth know Christina Tolmie? What had Ruth been doing on a boat?

Why hadn’t Ruth told her?

Cal was copying old photographs on the hut’s walls, apparently unaware of Sarah reliving the past. Then he was talking about the mural, wondering whether it was a good likeness of Ruth at that age. What age would she have been? Eight, twelve? Next he took an interest in a small rectangular piece of paper, which would once have been white but was now yellow. The print was still black and legible.

Carter Emery Entertainments presents

Crazy Stupid Dreams

Winter Gardens, Margate

Friday 16 August, 7.30 p.m.

He said, ‘Is that a ticket to the concert the night Ruth disappeared, the night she didn’t turn up?’

Startled by the question, Sarah blurted, ‘Ruth could be a total bitch, a bitch to me, a bitch to any girl, really.’ She appeared surprised at what she was saying. ‘If a better offer came along, she’d always take it. She liked stealing boys. She didn’t mind what girls thought of her. She didn’t have girls as friends apart from me and I was more of a friend to her than she was to me.’

‘Is that why she didn’t go to the concert? She had a better offer?’

‘I didn’t used to think so.’

‘That evening,’ he persisted, ‘was Olaf the better offer?’

She flinched.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cal said, taking another photograph, this time of Sarah and the beach behind her.

‘Don’t.’ Her head shook. Her eyes closed. She turned around, hiding her face from Cal.

Cal asked, ‘Why did Olaf follow her here? What happened? Do you know?’

‘No.’

Cal carried on photographing the hut and noticed a reflection in the window, a movement, someone approaching. He glanced up just as Lotte rushed towards them. Her right hand was brandishing some papers. She stopped, out of breath.

‘Sarah,’ she gasped. ‘Olaf … he’s not Olaf at all. His name’s Thomas Larsen. Olaf and Haugen are his middle names. Look.’

Sarah read the cutting, from an English-language Norwegian newspaper, before passing it without comment to Cal. The article was about Thomas Larsen, sixteen, almost seventeen, who had gone missing from home following a row with his stepfather. A small inshore fishing boat was also missing. At the same age, in the same boat, the teenager’s late father had navigated single-handed to Greenland via Iceland. Thomas’s mother feared he might attempt to do the same. Shipping had been alerted to look out for him. There was a photograph of the boat and another of Thomas. Cal recognized both. The boat was similar to the one in Mikey’s photograph. Thomas was Olaf.

Cal and Sarah swapped documents. Now Sarah was looking at a birth certificate. The registered name was Thomas Olaf Haugen Larsen.

‘There’s more,’ Lotte said. ‘Under his bed. Come. Come and see.’ She grabbed Sarah’s arm. ‘Sarah, we must hurry.’

Cal stayed where he was, as though he wasn’t sure if Lotte wanted him along or not. When Sarah glanced back he shouted, ‘I’ll search for Olaf.’

Everything about Lotte was speeded up. She walked quickly. Words tumbled out. She was terrified, she said, terrified for them both. After linking Sarah’s arm, she pulled her close. ‘Hurry in case Olaf comes back and finds us.’ A few moments later, her eyes widened as she stared in fright at Sarah. ‘What awful thing could he have done? What other reason could he have for pretending to be someone he’s not?’ Fear as much as self-justification inhabited each remark and question. ‘We’d never have known if I hadn’t gone into his room. Don’t be cross with me, Sarah. You do understand, don’t you? I had to. I knew there was something wrong with him.’

Lotte shivered as a child might at a horror story.

‘Stop it. Stop it.’ Sarah shook free from her. ‘Stop talking about Olaf. I can’t stand it.’

Lotte reacted as though she’d been slapped. She gave Sarah one of her repertoire of hurt expressions. Without saying another word, she carried on towards De Koog. Sarah followed, walking more slowly, the gap between them widening. Sarah’s eyes were cast down in case Lotte glanced back. Her arms formed a cross, left hand on right shoulder, right on left. Her thoughts were not on Lotte but on the previous twenty-three years. After Ruth’s disappearance and subsequent discovery of her body, every big decision, every milestone in Sarah’s life, every feeling and emotion, could be explained by a single thread of narrative.

Why she’d dropped out of school, aged sixteen.

Why she’d married Danny.

Why she’d moved to London.

Why she’d divorced.

Why, with the money from her parents’ house, she’d moved to Texel.

Why she was alone.

That thread was guilt at having lost her virginity to Danny when she should have been with Ruth, at being alive when Ruth was dead, at having lived when Ruth hadn’t, at Ruth’s chance having been taken away, and violently, because Sarah had been with Danny when she should have been waiting for Ruth at seven twenty that night twenty-three years ago when Crazy Stupid Dreams was warming up at the Winter Gardens.

As she walked behind Lotte, she pulled and pulled and pulled at that thread until there was no more to pull.

That night Ruth hadn’t been waiting for her. She’d gone off with a boy. Olaf! Typical, selfish Ruth. Ruth would be dead even if Sarah hadn’t lost her virginity to Danny. We. Us. How Olaf must have struggled to conceal his amusement at such a fabrication. Was that why he remained so silent, sitting in his deckchair beside Sarah? Was that why he kept on coming back to listen to Sarah talk about Ruth, for entertainment?

At Lotte’s front gate, Sarah hurried past while staring fixedly at her feet. ‘I’m tired, Lotte,’ she announced. ‘I’m going home.’ And she carried on without attempting to see if Lotte was there or waiting for Lotte to answer. She was feeling dizzy again, this time remembering the first time she’d seen where Ruth had washed up. She’d walked from De Koog, alone and nervous. After the switchback of dunes she arrived on the beach. She saw pale golden sand stretching uninterrupted for miles and a line of beach huts with double doors that were painted blue and had windows. Through the glass, she saw folded-away, stripy deckchairs.

Not only had Sarah cried, she had cried her eyes out. ‘Sorry. I’m so sorry, Ruth. Forgive me.’ Over and over.

A man had asked her what was wrong and she couldn’t answer properly. Was there something he could get for her? Would she like a drink from the nearby beach restaurant, coffee, water, wine? As he hovered, not quite knowing what to do or to say, a woman walked up to her and wrapped her arms around her. It was dark when they let go of each other. By then Sarah had been able to talk about Ruth, about her regret. How Ruth had always dreamed of being reunited with her dead mother on a beach that stretched for miles, had beach huts with blue doors and deckchairs. Just like this beach had.

The woman, Anneka, a visitor from Germany, was as practical as she was maternal. ‘Look around you,’ she’d told Sarah. ‘Texel has sea defences around its perimeter to keep its residents safe from being overwhelmed by the sea. You’re being overwhelmed emotionally. Build some imaginary sand dunes around you, retreat behind them when the memory of Ruth becomes too much for you. Tomorrow morning, rent one of these beach huts with blue doors. From then on, that’s where Ruth will be. She won’t be lying dead on the shore. Don’t ever remember her like that. Always imagine her to be in the hut or close to the hut. Think of her as being happy, with her mother and digging in the sand. Look after the hut for her, paint the hut every year, sweep out the sand that will blow in, put out deckchairs in summer, sit with Ruth, talk to her, about you and her. When it all becomes overwhelming, and it will, go back to the other side of the dunes. Keep her on this side, your sanity safe on the other.’

After closing the hut door, Cal replied to Flora’s message requesting him to stop work on her mother’s disappearance.

Hello Flora,

I saw you on television. Kate’s lucky to have you fighting for her. The evidence against her means she’s going to need all the help she can get. For that reason, please reconsider your previous message. There have been some interesting developments which might not exonerate Kate but could very well provide context and mitigation.

I’m attaching photographs. Please study them.

Have you ever seen or heard of this young woman before (see Photographs 1, 2 and 3)? Her name was Ruth Jones. She lived in Margate and died when she was sixteen. Her death and your mother’s disappearance are linked. See Photograph 4: the woman with her back to the camera is your mother (she’s holding your suitcase). The younger woman reaching for the rucksack is Ruth Jones. The young man facing the camera is called Olaf Haugen or Thomas Olaf Haugen Larsen, Norwegian by origin. I don’t know the identity of the boy, nor am I exactly sure when or where the photograph was taken. My best guess is around the time your mother and Ruth Jones went missing. Where? It could be Margate but more likely Gravelines in France? If you don’t recognize Ruth Jones or Olaf Haugen, do you remember your mother ever mentioning their names?

Also: who is the boy with his back to the camera? Do you have an idea? Could the clothes in the suitcase be his? Who took the photograph? Why?

Plus: see Photographs 5–6: Photograph 5 is of Ruth Jones with her best friend Sarah Pauling, 6 of Sarah (married name, Allison) as she is now. Photograph 7 is of a beach hut on Texel where Ruth Jones’s body washed up. Sarah maintains the hut as a memorial to Ruth – the girl in the mural on the back wall is supposed to be Ruth; the woman in the deckchair, her mother, Rita.

Any distant bells ringing, any faces you recognize or names your mother might have mentioned?

Cal

PS: I’ve spent some of that money you left. I’ll pay you back.

Having sent the email, he looked around, imagining Olaf approaching across the sand, Sarah putting out the deckchairs for her visitor.

‘We’d sit in the deckchairs and watch the world go by,’ Sarah had told him as they walked, before Cal showed her the photograph, ‘or he’d tell me about the ships that were passing. He didn’t ever say much. He left that to me. I told him I felt guilty about Ruth, about being alive when she was dead. He was very understanding. Talking helped me, talking about Ruth, talking to him. But, I think, listening helped him, listening to someone else’s troubles. It wasn’t that he didn’t have anything to say. I think it was the opposite of that. The thing he had to say was so big and difficult he didn’t see the point of saying anything else.’

Cal had had a similar thought about Olaf once. It was the last time he was on Texel.