Bryony extracted the key from her handbag, unlocked the familiar front door and called out.
‘In here,’ came the reply. Geraldine Masters had once been a tall, elegant lady with golden-blonde hair swept back in a perfectly coiled bun. Time and events had taken their toll. Her mother’s hair was now white and wispy. The bun was no longer neat and some errant strands had escaped to hang limply down her drawn face. Bryony noted her mother was becoming more wizened each time she visited. Fresh wrinkles had appeared on her once unblemished forehead and her eyes were bloodshot.
She stood in the kitchen, stirring a large pot of chicken soup. Steam curled above her head, bringing with it delicious aromas of lemon and tarragon that filled the room. Gurgling from her stomach reminded Bryony she had not eaten since breakfast, and had drunk nothing other than the wine at Melinda’s. She placed the cake on the worktop.
‘Melinda’s baked a cake for you.’
‘She’s a sweet lady. Thank her for me. Her little boy is such a charmer, isn’t he? He’s growing up fast. I saw her in Derby the other day. They were shopping for new wellington boots for Freddie. You want some soup, love?’ asked her mother, ever the carer; ever the strong woman who carried her husband through tough times.
‘Later. I’ll go and see how he is first.’
Her mother’s eyes were red-rimmed with blue-grey smudges under them. Her face was drawn, worn out by fatigue. Bryony’s heart ached. Her mother did not need any more sorrow in her life. She had suffered enough. ‘How are you?’ she asked gently.
‘You know. Okay. The same. You know,’ came the reply. Her mother emptied the soup into a cream-coloured bowl adorned with tulips, the pattern faded over years of use. Bryony looked about the familiar kitchen and her heart sank. It was also looking dated. The walls were in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint and the scrubbed worktops required updating, yet it only seemed a few years since they had all moved into the cottage in an attempt to start anew. Time was a cruel thief, robbing each of them of their youth and even their home of its energy and appeal.
Bryony held out her hands. ‘Let me take it to him.’
Her mother handed her the bowl. ‘He was awake all night. He was crying. I didn’t know what to say to him.’
Silence filled the room; unspoken words flew between them then Bryony set the bowl down on the kitchen table and held her mother, who was choking back tears. After a few moments, her mother pulled away and dabbed at her swollen eyes. ‘Thank you. It’s hard to stay strong some days.’
‘You’re amazing,’ said Bryony. ‘You’ve always managed to support and look after us in spite of everything. This’ll get easier. He’ll get better. And I’ll help you both.’
‘There’s only one person who can truly help him and I don’t believe she is here any more. If she were, surely she would have been in touch by now. All these years. All these long years,’ she said, wiping her eyes with the edge of her yellow gingham-checked apron – a gift from Bryony. ‘Why wouldn’t she try and get in contact?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bryony with a pang. Her mother was right. It was heartless to have made them all suffer like that. Another voice in her head whispered that Hannah had good reason not to find her way home. ‘I’m still hopeful I’ll be able to find her. I’ll track her down. Don’t give up hope, Mum. Sometimes, it’s all we have.’
Her mother regarded her with soft, dove-grey eyes. ‘No, I have more than hope. I have you.’
Bryony kissed her gently on the cheek and took the soup to her father. He was slumped in his usual chair, eyes open but unseeing, lost in a tangle of memories. His face twitched on hearing the door open and he turned his head towards the sound. Expectation flitted across his face, and in a reedy voice he asked, ‘Hannah? Is it you?’
Bryony felt a familiar pain in her chest. She took a deep breath and in as normal a voice as she could muster replied kindly, ‘No, Dad. Hannah isn’t here. It’s Bryony.’
The light in his eyes extinguished. He nodded dumbly and dewy-eyed, accepting his bowl of soup.
As her father dozed in the lounge, Bryony sat with her mother in the kitchen. A frail figure, pale veined hands cupping her teacup, she poured out her concerns to her daughter.
‘The speech therapist worked with him again this morning but he’s still slurring his words so badly, I can barely understand him. He gets frustrated when no one can comprehend what he’s saying and then angry. I don’t know how to handle it when he’s like that. I’m scared it’ll bring on another stroke and this time it’ll be a fatal one. I want him to get better so much. Oh, Bryony, what if he doesn’t?’
‘He’ll make it, Mum,’ said Bryony softly. ‘You’ve both been through bad stuff before and survived.’
‘He’s not as strong as he used to be, and he’s become so confused. You can see that. He talks endlessly about her. He asks when she’s going to visit. I don’t know whether to tell him Hannah left years ago.’
‘Maybe it would be best not to. At least give me some more time to see if I can find her. I’ve got my blog for her and the page on Facebook. I keep hoping somebody who knows her will see them, or she will and get in touch.’
‘I don’t understand how that works. I know what these sites are but I can’t see how it might get Hannah back.’
‘It’s along the idea of putting up a lost and found poster but you do it on social media rather than actually putting up posters. It worked for a friend of a friend’s dog. Hector was stolen from her front garden but the police couldn’t do anything. His owner – Lexi – set up a page and asked her clients to share it. By the end of the first day it had been shared by hundreds of people, including some England rugby players and Ant and Dec, who tweeted about it to their thousands of followers. The newspapers got hold of the story and so did GMTV, who invited Lexi onto the show to share her story and to ask viewers to look out for Hector. A couple of days later, two people turned up at Lexi’s house with her dog. The thought was that whoever had taken Hector had been frightened off by all the publicity and abandoned him. It’s surprising who knows who on social media, and once something like that gathers sufficient momentum, it really attracts the attention of the press.’
‘The press was involved before and it made no difference.’
‘That was the local press. I’m aiming for national press and maybe even coverage on nationwide television. If the right person gets involved in this, then it’ll work.’
‘I’m sorry, love, but I don’t think you’re right. I don’t want to hurt your feelings but you’re being naïve or probably placing too much trust in this approach. I can’t imagine an old forgotten case of a sixteen-year-old who ran away thirty years ago, would cause a sensation. It didn’t attract sufficient attention when we tried to find her even back then because lots of young girls and boys run away – too many. Some don’t even leave goodbye notes like Hannah did. She wasn’t forced to leave, or kidnapped or—’ Her mother stopped, anger making her voice rise. She continued, resignation softening her words, ‘She upped and left and hasn’t contacted us since and although for many, many years I hoped she would, I now think she might not even be alive. I appreciate you want to help your father but you’ve set yourself an impossible task.’ She sighed, a sound filled with heartache and sorrow. ‘I drove her away. I should have been there for her when she needed me. I believed she was a normal teenager with moods and quirky behaviour and I didn’t spot the signs she was unhappy. She never hinted there was any real problem. I failed her, Bryony. She obviously couldn’t talk to me, and for that I blame myself. I was far too wrapped up in work and your father’s career. I was so intent on supporting him, I failed my daughter.’ She stopped again. This time the tears trickled down her face, down the creases that had recently appeared.
Bryony had borne witness to her mother’s suffering and her father’s decline over the years. At first, both of them had believed Hannah would walk back into their lives. Derek Masters had kept up the appearance required of an important headmaster at a large school. He taught his sixth form classes and ran his school like a tight ship, but as time passed and it became increasingly unlikely that Hannah would return home, cracks in his demeanour appeared.
The police had written Hannah off as a runaway. After all, she had left a note saying she was leaving and had taken some personal belongings with her, and they did not consider the possibility that she might have been abducted. Her parents were less convinced and had hired two detectives at different times to track down Hannah. Neither detective found evidence she was alive. Hannah had simply vanished.
Both her mother and father eventually began to fear the worst – that their daughter was dead. Her father could no longer maintain his front. The responsibility of looking after 400 children, ensuring their well-being and education when he could not look after his own daughter, was too much to bear. Worry ate away at him and eventually he had the breakdown that saw what was left of their fractured family move to a village outside of Derby and where he was confined to the house for many months with Geraldine caring for him.
Once he began to mend, Hannah’s name was mentioned less often. Gradually, her mother’s tears dried up and she took employment in a local hospice where she helped care for those who were terminally ill by reading to them or visiting and chatting with them.
Bryony too erased the painful memories that followed her sister’s departure, although on occasion, she would stop dead in the street, convinced she had spotted her sister – another woman with blonde hair and grey eyes – and scurry after them only to recognize at the last moment that she had made a mistake.
Bryony buried her self-reproach deep within herself. She studied hard. She went to university, made some new friends and lived a life without her sister. Each time the memories rose to the surface she drove them back, although sometimes she would shed a tear with Melinda. The year before, she’d suddenly decided to look once more for Hannah. She’d begun the quest, set up the blog and hoped, but then in March, her father had suffered a serious stroke and suddenly it became imperative to find her sister.
Bryony held her mother’s hand and squeezed gently. She felt the acrid taste in her mouth as guilt stirred in her stomach. Her mother wasn’t at fault. Nor was her dominating, demanding father. She knew there was only one person to blame for Hannah’s leaving, and that was Bryony.