Florence lives in a spacious, three-double bedroom, Georgian maisonette in the centre of Bath. Her fiancé, Daniel, gets very upset if anyone dares refer to their property as a flat. Over the years, Florence has dated both men and women. I always imagined she’d end up with someone creative, like her. Someone artsy and bohemian with tattoos and piercings. I pictured them living together in a renovated warehouse, a lofty, exposed-brick affair. But she’s happy with Daniel and his wardrobe of dark suits and crisp white shirts, his creativity limited to the occasional patterned tie. Still, he’s kind, and he’s always gone out of his way to make me feel welcome. He’s a hedge-fund manager, though if someone put a gun to my head and made me explain what, exactly, a hedge-fund manager is, I’d tell them to put us both out of our misery and shoot me because I don’t have a clue.
Outside, it is hot and loud. A crowd is gathering. Today, the summer carnival opens. Performers, gymnasts and dancers, fire-eaters and contortionists, parade down this street, all the way along to Victoria Park where the funfair awaits. I dither on the pavement below the maisonette, not knowing how to tell Florence that Olivia is back. She’ll be incredulous, just as I was, and hopeful, too. There will be questions, so many questions I can’t answer. And even though I know my parents will be furious, I have to confide in Florence; because she’ll be just as outraged that Olivia’s reappearance hasn’t been reported, and maybe her conviction will bolster my own, giving me the push I need to ring the police myself.
I press the buzzer. Daniel answers. Though surprised to see me, he’s too polite to ask why I’ve showed up unannounced. Mutely, I step inside and slip out of my trainers. There are golf clubs by the door. It is bizarre to me that when something monumental happens, the world continues to spin. That the same morning my missing, presumed-dead sister, drops back into my life, he’s off to spend a pleasant few hours hitting balls with metal sticks that cost more than my monthly mortgage.
As I follow him into the lounge, my heart gallops so hard in my chest, I feel it in my lips. The secret that my sister is back rushes through my veins. Daniel is talking to me but I can’t take in any of what he’s saying so I nod along, instead. In an attempt to ground myself, I focus on the colours around me. Warm terracotta walls. Olive-green sofa. Beige cushions, fat and welcoming. Gold hardware: candlesticks and drawer handles, wall sconces and trinket dishes. Gold. Just like her hair. My chest tightens and I push my toes into the soft clotted-cream rug underfoot.
Then Florence sweeps into the room, clutching what I assume is another script, brightly coloured sticky notes slid between pages. Her dark brows knit together. ‘Did we have plans? Did I know you were coming over?’
I shake my head, words locked in my throat. There is so much inside me, swirling and writhing, I want to expel it from my body on a banshee’s howl.
Florence and Daniel exchange a look.
‘Go,’ says Florence to her fiancé. ‘You’ll be late if you don’t leave now.’
He kisses her cheek but keeps his concerned gaze on me. ‘Good to see you, Caitie.’
When he’s gone, she says, ‘Is everything … are you OK?’
The truth is on the tip of my tongue but then I see the angry twist of my father’s mouth and the watery-grey eyes of my mother, and I swallow it down.
Florence takes a seat beside me and I breathe in the comforting, familiar scent of her Jo Malone perfume. She bought me a bottle as a graduation present. She’s been with me in moments big and small. Moments Olivia couldn’t play a part in. These last few years, Florence has been a sister to me. I know I can trust her yet the words stick in my throat.
‘What’s happened?’ she presses gently.
And suddenly, sitting still is impossible. Feeling like a coiled spring, I surge to my feet and start to pace. ‘Do you ever think about what it would be like if she came back?’
A beat of silence, then, ‘Olivia?’
I nod.
‘Of course. All the time.’ She gets up and drops the script onto the coffee table. She is all concern and breathless anticipation. ‘Caitie, what’s happening?’
‘I’ve pictured it. Every day. Sometimes, I bargain with a god I don’t even believe in. Bring my sister back and you can take twenty years off my life. Bring her back and I’ll give up everything I own. I’ll wander barefoot around the city if I can just have one more day with her.’
I stop pacing and move to the window, turning my face to the sun, though I am cold and can’t feel its warmth.
‘I’d have done anything to bring Olivia home. But then I’d think about what she’s been through. All those years made up of all those seconds and minutes and hours. What’s been done to her.’ My breath comes harder, faster. ‘It’s no secret why men take young girls, is it? It’s not a mystery. It doesn’t take a genius. And when I thought about the damage he’d have done to her, I knew she’d never come back the same, and I wondered …’ I inhale. Exhale. Feel the words catching in my throat like splinters of glass. ‘I wondered if she’d be better off dead.’
The silence falls around us like burning ash. I can’t look at Florence. Can’t believe I said it out loud. I feel her move behind me. Feel the heat of her body at my back. Close but not touching. I stare down at the stream of people below. The procession has arrived, dancers in vibrant costumes of feathers and sequins. The crowd is thicker now, lining the streets on either side of the road. The music is so loud, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of my rushing pulse. ‘I always hoped if she was dead, it was quick,’ I say. ‘Painless. That she didn’t see it coming.’ I rest my head against the sun-warmed glass. I imagine pushing my forehead into it until it cracks. I imagine myself falling through air, splitting open like a watermelon on the hot pavement below. ‘How can I look into her eyes knowing I’d wished her dead, Florence?’
More silence.
The bright-red shame of my admission soaks into my clothes, stains my skin, seeps beneath my fingernails.
‘It’s OK,’ she tells me, taking my hand in hers. We stand shoulder to shoulder. Her fingers tighten around mine. Reassuring. ‘It’s going to be OK.’ She sounds so certain I almost believe her. ‘The anniversary is always difficult …’
My tongue is cut from lead. Telling Florence that Olivia is back commits me to calling the police right away. I can’t do to her what my parents have done to me. I can’t burden Florence with this monumental news and make her promise to silently bear its weight.
I open my mouth, not sure what I’m about to say, when Florence’s phone vibrates across the coffee table behind us. She steps away from me and picks it up.
‘Who is it?’ I ask, worried it’s my parents, or Oscar, trying to track me down.
‘No one,’ she says too quickly.
‘Who?’ I move towards her to catch a glimpse of the caller ID. ‘That’s your agent.’
Reluctantly, she nods. The phone continues to vibrate in her hand. ‘I was waiting to see if I’m narrating the next Noah Pine book but—’
‘Answer it.’
‘Caitie—’
I take the phone from her, accept the call, and then hand it back. She gives me a small, grateful smile and mouths, ‘I’ll be quick,’ before disappearing into the hallway.
I go back to staring out the window. What am I doing here? I should be with Olivia. Maybe, if I go back to the house now, I can convince them to alert the authorities. Surely, once the shock of Olivia’s reappearance has worn off, my parents will see sense. They’ll call the police so an investigation can be launched and her captor can be found. But what if, in the meantime, he returns for her?
Panic flutters in my chest; I need to leave. I need—
My stomach drops.
On the street below, the crowd shuffles along the pavement slowly, following the tail end of the procession. Everyone’s attention is fixed on the performers. Everyone but a figure dressed all in black: jeans and a hooded coat. Too warm for the summer heat. This person is too broad to be a woman. Too tall. He stares directly up at the maisonette. Directly up at me. People surge around him. He’s a black hole in a moving sea of colour. The sun splashes across his Venetian mask. One I have seen before. Its long nose and furious, furrowed brow has stalked my nightmares. It isn’t black, as I’d thought in the darkness of our landing when he abducted my sister. It’s midnight-blue. The deepest, darkest navy.
A rope of fear tightens about my chest until I can’t catch my breath. I am ten years old again, paralysed, watching him steal my sister. Watching him ruin my life.
A hand seizes me from behind and I whirl, fists raised to fend off my attacker.
Florence leaps back. ‘Caitie!’
Heart cantering, I spin back towards the windows. But he’s gone. ‘No,’ I breathe. ‘No.’
He was there. I saw him. Then I am running across the lounge and out into the hallway. Florence follows. I don’t stop to put on my trainers. I yank open the front door and race barefoot down the stairs. Florence calls after me. I keep running, determined to reach the masked man. I throw open the entry door and tumble out into the blinding sun. It’s loud. People are drunk and sunburnt and clumsy. Then I am stumbling down the stone steps and shouldering my way through the crowd. The carnival procession is further up the street now. I jog across the road and stand where he stood, just moments ago. I swivel left and right but there’s no sign of him. For all I know, he’s whipped off his black, hooded coat and shoved it, along with the mask, into a bag. He could be anyone here.
Florence grabs my arm and spins me to face her. I go up on to my tiptoes and strain to see over her. ‘Caitie, what the hell is going on?’
‘The man who took Olivia was watching your building,’ I say, still searching for that black hole.
‘What?’
I shrug out of her grip and start marching along the street, not yet willing to give up. ‘I knew he’d come back for her.’
Florence swings into my path. ‘Come back for who?’
‘Olivia!’
Confusion. Shock. I see it all on her face. I don’t have time to explain so I pivot right and jog up someone’s front steps to get a better view of the crowd. But I’m not high enough. Beside me is a cast-iron railing. I start to climb it. Florence’s fingers clamp around my wrist and she jerks me to her. ‘What’re you doing? Please just tell me what’s going on. You’re scaring me.’
I stare up into her big, brown eyes and I can’t keep the secret a second longer. ‘Olivia is back.’
Her face drains of colour. ‘What?’
‘She turned up at my parents’ house in the small hours of the morning.’
She’s shaking her head. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Mum and Dad are refusing to call the police because Olivia won’t let them. She won’t talk about where she’s been or what happened to her or how she got away. She pretends not to remember anything about that night and witters on about crème brulee.’
‘Caitie—’
My mind is still spinning. Cold, clammy panic spreads like a fog through my chest as I have visions of the masked man sliding in through the French doors of my childhood home, a blade clutched in one gloved hand. I imagine him creeping down the hall into my parents’ bedroom. I hear their screams. See the blade cut through skin and muscle, lodging into bone. This time, he will make sure Olivia has no one left to return to. My resolve hardens. I take the phone from Florence and I do what I should’ve done hours ago: I call the police.