JOANNE’S BRAIN IS fully alert but her body is still asleep.
She didn’t make it back home until after eleven last night, when she had to abandon her car in Windermere village. Some idiot had abandoned their car outside the Co-op, blocking the road, and there was no way down. So Joanne had to make her way along, clinging on to parked cars like Velcro Woman, at one point thinking it would be easier just to give up and slide along on her arse. But even though there was no one else around, she couldn’t quite bring herself to do that.
Of all the times for freezing rain, it couldn’t have been worse. Two teenage girls missing and nine out of ten roads in Cumbria impassable.
The police have warned people to make essential journeys only – which of course is interpreted differently by everyone.
Joanne remembers seeing an American family being interviewed on TV once after a particularly bad ice storm in Minnesota. They were telling the reporter that they had no choice but to drive in the deadly conditions, because they had to eat – as in go to a restaurant – because, like a lot of Americans, they never cooked at home.
Life-and-death situations mean different things for different people.
Joanne untangles the covers and makes her first attempt at getting out of bed. She sleeps cocoon-like with the duvet pulled around her and tucked between her legs. That way she stays warm but her legs don’t get sticky.
She shifts on to her back and runs her fingers underneath the lower rim of her sleeping bra. She’s slept in a bra since she was fifteen years old and can’t wait until she’ll no longer need it.
There’s banging coming from downstairs. Jackie’s usually gone by now, showering at six, out of the door for six thirty, tending to the clients who need help getting up. Today she must be stranded also.
Jackie was already asleep when Joanne returned home last night. Joanne had popped her head around the bedroom door, but the sounds of Jackie snoring and grunting told her she was flat out, helped on her way by a bottle of Mateus Rosé. Joanne had found the empty in the bin.
Joanne pads down the stairs and finds Jackie eating toast and marmalade and watching breakfast news in the lounge. Her short blonde hair is wet and has that orangey hue that comes from home bleaching. ‘Car’s stuck,’ she says, her mouth full. ‘It’ll need a man to get it movin’.’ Joanne tells her that they’re thin on the ground this time of year.
She’s not told Jackie about her breast reduction because – well, she doesn’t know why she hasn’t, but she’s just not. So when Jackie says, ‘There’s a letter come for you,’ nodding her head towards the coffee table, ‘says it’s private and confidential,’ Joanne doesn’t have a suitable answer ready and tells her it’s probably a bank statement.
‘It’s postmarked Lancaster,’ Jackie says, eyeing her suspiciously. ‘Bank statements don’t come from Lancaster.’
Joanne taps the side of her nose with her finger, an action guaranteed to stir Jackie up into a frenzy, so she goes out to make some tea.
‘I know you’re up to something,’ Jackie shouts from her chair.
As the kettle boils, she picks up her phone and curses as it’s been set to go straight to voicemail. She listens to her messages, expecting something from the DI reprimanding her for not being within reach, but there’s just one garbled message from that woman at Troutbeck. Lisa Kallisto.
Something about a dog and the rapist.
It’s hard to hear properly, because Lisa’s message is bordering on hysterical and Jackie’s turned up the volume on the telly. Joanne has to plug her other ear to decipher what Lisa Kallisto is going on about. She’ll call her in a moment, after she’s had a mouthful of tea and at least woken up enough to hold a conversation.
‘Another girl has gone, then?’ Jackie’s shouting from the lounge.
Joanne squeezes her tea bag against the side of the mug with a spoon. When it doesn’t look strong enough, she drops Jackie’s used bag in there as well. ‘Yeah, yesterday,’ she shouts back. ‘That’s why I was late home. Pressure’s really on – we need to find something quick.’
‘You missed seeing Nanna.’
Wednesday evening, they both visit Nanna at the nursing home. Well, she’s Joanne’s nanna, she’s Jackie’s mother. Jackie’s always called her Nanna, though. Probably since her own son was small and it was less confusing for him to know her just by one name.
‘How was she?’ Joanne asks as she comes into the lounge, spilling her tea slightly as her foot catches on a rumple in the carpet.
‘The usual, coming on like she didn’t recognize me.’
Nanna pulls this trick if they visit when there’s a particular programme on she wants to watch.
They’ve learned to ignore it.
‘Does she need anything?’ Joanne asks. ‘She all right for talc and stuff?’
‘She could do with some new slippers if you want to get her a pair when you’re next near Marks’s; size three. And you owe me twelve quid for the hairdresser. She had a perm last week.’
Joanne and Jackie split the cost of sundries. Joanne’s mother is supposed to contribute as well but, since she’s been living in Lanzarote for the past four years, it’s not worth the hassle trying to get her to pay her share. Thank God the state covers the nursing-home fees is all Joanne can say. At four hundred quid a week there’s no way she and Jackie could manage it, and the alternative would be to have Nanna living with them … not really doable.
Jackie stops chewing and looks at Joanne straight. ‘You having that breast reduction, then?’
Joanne looks to the ceiling and sighs. ‘Does nothing get past you?’
‘Sylvia saw you in the doctor’s on Tuesday, and since you were keeping it to yourself, I thought that’s what you must be going for.’
‘He’s referring me to a consultant. I’ve got an appointment after Christmas.’
‘You’re a bloody fool.’
‘In your opinion.’
‘Not my opinion. Fact.’
Joanne says nothing. She knows Jackie’s thoughts on the subject well enough. She really doesn’t want to go through it again right now.
Joanne’s phone vibrates in her dressing-gown pocket. She pulls it out and checks the screen.
It’s Ron Quigley.
‘Joanne,’ he says, wheezy-sounding and short of breath, like he’s running up the station steps. ‘Get yourself to Troutbeck soon as you can, love. That Riverty woman’s only gone an’ tried to top herself.’