KAI’S VOICE BREAKS. I JUMP OUT OF BED, TUCKING THE phone between my shoulder and my ear as I pull on my jeans.
‘I’m on my way. I’ll be with you in five minutes. Don’t worry. Stay in your room and don’t answer the door without checking it’s me first.’
I scribble a message on the back of an envelope and place it against the kettle where Tim can’t fail to see it, then I hurry out.
Kai is wearing his pyjamas with an over-sized green hoodie, his hair spiked in opposing directions. I get him to tell me what he knows, but it isn’t much. He’d woken in the middle of the night because he’d had a bad dream. He got up and went to the loo, and peeked in on his mum, but she wasn’t there. He phoned her mobile number, but she didn’t pick up. He kept trying, leaving messages every few minutes, then found the class address list and called me.
‘I’m sure she’s fine.’ It’s difficult to think of anything to say that will reassure him. ‘Does Mum have a boyfriend?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kai says. ‘But I think there might be someone, because she’s sometimes whispering on the phone.’
‘That’s probably what’s happened,’ I say brightly. ‘She’s out on a date, but she decided not to tell you in case it didn’t work out. She’ll be back soon.’
He doesn’t look convinced.
‘Kai, why did you call me instead of one of the other mums?’
His lip quivers.
‘It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.’
He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie. He’s trying so hard not to cry, it makes me want to. ‘I thought she might have gone where Lottie’s stepdad went.’
‘Oh, Kai.’
His reaction is entirely understandable. Lottie’s stepdad vanished, and the police have been here asking questions. And now his mum has gone. I’m not sure whether to hug him or not, but when I put a tentative arm around his shoulder he leans into me. ‘Of course she hasn’t. I expect she’s lost track of time. Please don’t worry.’ I feel his skinny body shaking with tears and draw him closer to me. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’
‘I don’t want to be on my own.’
‘You won’t be. I’ll stay and look after you till she comes back. Do you think you can go back to bed now? Mum will be here when you wake up. I promise.’
I feel a trickle of cold slither through my veins. I made that promise to Lottie not so long ago. I should learn from my mistakes.
Once Kai has plodded back upstairs, I go into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Anna hasn’t tidied away her supper things. There’s a glass on the side, its bowl stained with the evaporated residue of red wine, and her supper plate is still on the table. I almost tidy them away but change my mind and leave them where I find them, in case she thinks I’m making some kind of point. The sort of thing Cora does. I touch the In-Step app on my phone and open groups. Anna’s done two thousand three hundred and sixty-seven steps today. That’s about one and a half kilometres in In-Step-speak. She’s not walking now. Maybe her phone is lying switched off beside someone else’s bed, or in her bag, slung over a chair in someone else’s kitchen. As distressed as I am at the neglect this implies, I hope this is the case.
I have a look round. She’s finished Thomas’s chair and started on the next one, lightly pencilling in the name ‘William’ with a stencil. I chew my lip. I have an opportunity here. I need evidence that Anna was expecting to see Nick that Saturday night, that she lay in wait for him, and that Nick is the reason she moved here. If someone comes to the door and I’m downstairs I can hit the sofa; if I’m upstairs, I can get into her bed and pretend to be asleep. Anna will be bewildered, possibly cross, but she won’t be able to say anything. She’s the one who’s left her ten-year-old alone because she doesn’t want to pay a babysitter while she’s on a date; I’m almost certain that’s what it is. I expect it’s unusual for Kai to wake up in the night and she thought she could get away with it.
I start in the kitchen, working my way through the cabinets. I move into the dining area where there’s an old dresser. The drawers contain paper, sketchbooks, crayons and felt-tip pens. Kai likes to draw seascapes full of weird and wonderful creatures.
The tiny front sitting room is equally fruitless. The shelves are loaded with books and DVDs. It’s an inviting room, mellow and cosy. Upstairs there are two bedrooms and a bathroom, and above the landing a hatch in the ceiling; a pole with a hook on the end leans into the corner. I creep past Kai’s bedroom door and enter Anna’s room, close the curtains and switch on the light, then tackle her bedside table before moving to the wardrobe. A moth flies out as I open the door, and another as I flick through her clothes.
There’s a painted chair in front of her dressing table; I drag it over, climb up and check the top shelves. All I find are bags of jumpers, vacuum-packed presumably to protect them from the moths, and baby things neatly folded that give me a pang of want. Nick and I would have had a child together. Does Anna yearn for another one? Is that what she’s looking for in a man? Someone to help complete her family? To complete her?
I get down off the chair and sit on the bed, tired and fed up, the adrenaline all but gone. I check underneath it and find a folded carrier bag. I pull it out and open it. Inside is a cheap mobile. I sit with it in my palm, then press one of the keys. It lights up, but it needs a passcode, so I put it back where I found it. Why would Anna have a second mobile hidden under her bed? Maybe it’s an old one she couldn’t bring herself to discard. She’s the thrifty type. I don’t have an answer. I find myself yearning to sink into the pillows and close my eyes, so I force myself up, switch off the light and part the curtains. Street lights bathe the road in their yellow glow. The night sky is scattered with stars. It’s a quarter to two in the morning and a mother has left her son. What Kai said about worrying that she had gone where Nick went, like the children following the Pied Piper, blindsided me. The poor boy must be terrified.
Come back, Anna. I press my palm against the glass. I should call the police, I think. And I will. But there’s one more place to look.
In the loft, itchy from the fibreglass insulation wedged between the joists, I sit back on my heels, my prize in my hand. The date stamp on the photos I’m holding under the single bare bulb is July 2000. From a quick shuffle through the pile, it quickly becomes clear they were taken during that holiday. I recognize a young Alex Wells, slouching against a wall, frowning at the photographer. He’s a cool kid. There’s another one of him, his arms and legs dangling over the edges of a wheelbarrow while his little brother pushes, running barefoot and bare-chested across the lawn. There are slim pickings of Nick. The photographer has caught him looking up from his book in one, his shoulder and part of his profile in another. In neither does he look happy. I run my finger over it, a lump catching in my throat. What happened to you, my love? If you aren’t dead, then it’s time to come home. It’s not too late.
I discovered, spending time with Nick, that relationships don’t have to be abusive, that you can love without an agenda, that it isn’t a matter of keeping one step ahead of the enemy, of watching what you say and what you do every moment you’re with them. I discovered give and take, tolerance, humour and warmth. I saw that what I’d had with Douglas was unhealthy, and that this had been bad for me and worse for my daughter. I discovered that I had a mind of my own, and that I wasn’t unintelligent, just poorly educated. I should have found some backbone, told Nick what I had done, and taken the consequences. He might have understood. Now, I’ll never know. The past attaches itself to me like cobwebs.
I go through the pictures again. I assume Anna got hold of the film in the aftermath, when the last thing anyone wanted was a visual reminder of that summer. Anna’s mother might be glad to have the pictures of Izzy. She’s a smiley little thing, less robust than the other children whose rude good health appears vulgar beside her translucent pallor, but her face is open, and you can tell she has a good nature. Although that might just be my interpretation, because I know that she was kind to Nick when he needed a friend.
I put it to one side, because I may take it away and see if Alex Wells wants to take it. Anna will never know; I doubt she’s looked at them in years.
I pull a few more items out and find a letter in an envelope addressed by hand. That’s unusual enough to merit inspection. I put it to one side to take downstairs and dig around some more. My fingers touch something thin and rubbery. It turns out to be a small, clear-white plastic strip with a sticker attached. Lottie had one of these around her wrist after she was born. This must be Kai’s. I lift it closer to the light so that I can read it properly. And then I read it again, because it isn’t what I expected at all.
There’s a metallic clank, the unmistakable sound of someone putting their weight on the ladder. Shit. I stuff the bracelet into my back pocket and slide the letter under my top, pulling the waist of my jeans over it, then I turn as a tousle-haired Kai puts his head through the hatch.
‘Oh, sorry, Kai. Did I wake you?’
‘I woke up anyway.’ He looks round, his eyes large. ‘What are you doing?’
My mouth is as dry as the wood in the rafters above me. I think fast. ‘Your mum told me she had some old junk for the school fair up here, and as I couldn’t sleep I thought I’d take a look.’
‘Can I come up?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s filthy. I’m coming down.’
The school summer fete has a bric-a-brac stall, and we’ve all had a letter asking for donations, so as excuses go, it’s not a disaster. Kai looks sceptical but evidently decides not to press the point. I climb down after him and close the hatch, then put the hook back where it came from.