The noise of so many reporters and journalists and cameramen stationed outside Blossom Hill House is constant. Like the hammering of rain in autumn, or the drone of a fan in summer. How long will they make our lives the nation’s business? This story, with my hauntingly beautiful sister at its centre, means a reprieve is far from our reach.
It’s been a week since I made that call to the police. Since they arrived at my parents’ house and brought everyone in for questioning. Predictably, my father was fuming. Judging by the look on his face now as he sits opposite me in the suffocating heat of their living room, he still is. We are silent, listening to the rise and fall of too many strangers’ voices in their front garden. The police are outside, too, keeping them all back. This morning, I was jolted awake by nightmares of reporters pouring into the house like a plague of cockroaches, falling through windows and doors, falling over each other, all the while screeching their questions at glass-breaking pitch. And among them, standing strong and perfectly still, the masked man.
I blink the image away but my father’s angry face isn’t much of a reprieve. His fingers tighten around the handle of his mug as a particularly loud journalist hurls his questions at the drawn curtains of the living room. Dad stares at me with two hard, green pebbles for eyes.
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, longing for Mum and Olivia to return from the police station. I glance down at my phone, ignoring all the messages from friends who have seen the news – I have a dozen missed calls from Gemma – and check the time. Morning has bled into afternoon, bringing with it a sticky heat. ‘They should be back soon,’ I offer.
He doesn’t respond, just frowns and sips his tea. Sadness swells because, naively, it seems, I thought that if Olivia ever returned, our family would go back to how it was before, and the frostiness between my father and me would thaw. It hasn’t. In fact, the roads between us are icier and more treacherous than ever.
There’s a reason my father withdrew from me after Olivia’s abduction. I’ve never been brave enough to bring it up. Maybe I never will.
I cast around for something to say but I don’t have the words to fix what has broken. I can’t go back and undo my decision to tell the police, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. At least now, with the house surrounded, we are safe. Olivia is safe. Isn’t that important to him? ‘The masked man won’t dare approach now.’
He looks away. This small rejection makes my stomach clench. I don’t think he believes I saw anyone outside Florence’s building that day. He probably thinks I fabricated the entire thing just so that I could call the police sooner rather than later. For my father, control is paramount, and I took that away from him when I disobeyed his instruction not to involve the authorities. Maybe he is worried that the decision not to act quickly reflects badly on him.
The front door opens. With it, a wave of noise rushes in, the clicking of cameras and roar of excitement. Then the door slams shut and the wave recedes. I imagine cockroaches again, flinging themselves at the wood, splatting against it.
Mum appears in the doorway, looking drained. ‘Vultures,’ she hisses. ‘I wish they’d leave us alone.’
Dad goes to comfort her, shooting me an accusatory look. Guilt colours my cheeks.
Olivia wanders into the living room, frowning down at a pile of leaflets in her hands. God, she is incredibly beautiful. Her face angular and symmetrical, her lashes long and thick and curled. I was right about her hair. All it took was a shower and a comb to restore it to its former silky, golden perfection.
Dad turns to her. ‘Hello, darling.’ And there is more warmth in those two words to Olivia, than there was in the half an hour I spent with him before she arrived.
She doesn’t reply, though, because she glances up and sees me, her face splitting into a wide, white smile. ‘You’re here.’
She brushes past Mum, ignoring Dad completely. I stand. She flings her arms around me, the brochures she’s been holding crumple between us as I hug her slender frame. There’s a petty curl of satisfaction that she breezed past Dad and came straight to me. The same, small satisfaction you feel when a cat turns its nose up at every other lap in favour of yours. It is the feeling of being chosen by a wild, coveted creature.
I breathe in the sweetness of her cherry shampoo. Over her shoulder, I see Mum and Dad exchanging a look. She mouths, ‘Nothing’ to him. Mum told me yesterday that she was hoping on the drive to and from the station today, she’d be able to coax a little more information out of Olivia. At twenty-nine, she’s an adult, and the police don’t have to share details of the investigation or repeat to us anything Olivia has divulged about her time in captivity. As a result, we know almost nothing. Whenever any of us attempt to talk to her about it, she goes remarkably still, like a silent, bronzed statue. Now that the reality of her daughter’s reappearance has settled in, Mum is desperate to know what happened. Dad, on the other hand, craves normality. They were bickering as I left here yesterday: Mum insisted they push for more details while Dad urged her to drop it. But I want to know, too. None of us will ever truly understand what life for Olivia has been like these last sixteen years but choosing to be ignorant to it won’t benefit anyone.
‘Missed you,’ she whispers.
‘Don’t crumple those,’ instructs Mum, relieving Olivia of the creased leaflets. ‘What’s this?’ she asks, plucking a small, cream business card from the pile and holding it up.
‘New therapist,’ answers Olivia in a bored voice, taking it back from her. ‘The family-liaison officer gave it to me. Appointments start this week.’
Mum pulls a face. ‘Another therapist?’
Olivia sighs. ‘Yep. I’m such a headcase, they’ve given me an entire team of mental-health professionals. Aren’t I lucky?’
An awkward, stunned silence creeps over us.
‘You’re not …’ there’s panic in Mum’s eyes, ‘a headcase. You just … you’re …’
‘Shall we go upstairs?’ Olivia whispers to me.
Dad’s phone rings. He clears his throat and disappears into the kitchen to take the call. It’s probably work. The council are putting quite a bit of pressure on him to return.
‘I’ll make us some lunch,’ announces Mum with forced cheer.
‘Not hungry,’ says Olivia.
‘I can make lasagne. That’s still your favourite, isn’t it?’
‘I’m fine,’ Olivia replies flatly. Behind her, Mum looks stung. Olivia either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. ‘So,’ she says, ‘where’s Oscar?’
‘London,’ I answer, trying to catch Mum’s eye to make sure she’s alright, but Olivia shifts to the right, eclipsing her from view.
‘Why is he in London?’
‘Work meeting.’
She brightens. ‘We should go to London soon.’
‘What?’ Mum’s voice is shrill. ‘You can’t go to London. It’s not—’
Olivia grabs my hand and drags me out of the living room, into the hallway and up the stairs. At the top, I glance down. Mum is at the foot, wringing her hands, face pained. My stomach flips guiltily, the way it always does when she’s anxious or upset, even when I’m not the cause of it. I’d have taken her up on the lasagne, even if I’d eaten a full roast minutes before she offered, just to please her.
Olivia tugs me into her room. She’s started a collage on the wall behind her bed. Images from our childhood, that last holiday to Cyprus, the two of us floating in the pool on pink lilos; her and Florence waiting in line to see the Spice Girls; me and Olivia dressed in matching Christmas jumpers, beaming up at the camera, surrounded by presents. Dad is off to one side, just visible in the frame, holding open a bin bag, ready to scoop up any discarded wrapping.
On the bed is a pile of her diaries. Olivia shrugs, even though I haven’t asked a question. ‘Dad got them down from the loft for me. I wanted to remember.’
‘You could ask,’ I say gently. ‘If there’s anything you want to know or …’
She nods.
Then I spot a diary I know well. It’s fluffy and purple. And mine. Olivia scoops them up and shoves them back into the moth-eaten cardboard box before sliding them under the bed. I remember how she reacted all those years ago when she caught me with her bee journal. A childish part of me wants to narrow my eyes and calmly hold out my hand, palm up, waiting for her to give it back, just as she did. Would panic and guilt swirl in her stomach too?
‘Did you read it?’ I ask, imperiously.
‘Well, it was in the box.’ A nonchalant shrug. ‘Mum must’ve thought it was mine.’
‘But you knew it wasn’t.’
She blushes guiltily and I get this petulant little thrill at admonishing my big sister. Still, I’m not annoyed. Not really. My journalling lasted only a few weeks before it turned into another sketchbook.
‘I was curious. I missed so much of your life. When I left you’d never even kissed a boy and now …’ She gives a disbelieving shake of her head, her eyes falling on my left hand. ‘Now, you’re engaged. You grew up and I missed it.’
I feel terrible for teasing her just now. I’m not sure what to say in the face of these sad facts. I run my fingertips over my words like flowers along a garden path, unsure which to pick. But before I can petal-pluck them free, she continues, gaze fixed on the window behind me. ‘Everyone’s lives just carried on after that night.’
Our lives carried on only in the sense that our hearts continued to beat, but the rhythm was altered, faster somehow, fluttery with panic. ‘Every day without you was torture, Olivia,’ I say honestly. ‘Wondering where you were, if you were ever coming home, if he’d ever let you. I—’
‘Your dress is lovely,’ she says, cutting me off, artfully dodging the topic of her captor again. She glances down self-consciously at her borrowed outfit. Another from Mum’s wardrobe. It’s too big, bagging around the chest and drooping beneath the armpits, billowing around her tiny waist.
‘I could bring you some of my clothes,’ I offer. ‘They might be a little bit big for you still but …’
‘Maybe.’ She plonks down onto her bed and chews her thumbnail. ‘I wish I had my own clothes. Since coming back, I don’t even feel like a real person.’
I sit beside her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I feel like a doll, dressed in clothes I didn’t choose, told where to go, what to eat, when to eat it. I’m prodded and poked and pushed by police and therapists and medical examiners. I don’t make any decisions for myself.’ Her laugh is mirthless. ‘Actually, I’m less like a doll and more like a bag of evidence.’
I stare remorsefully at my own hands, remembering how I’d coldly referred to her as a walking crime scene that first day. I glance up, wondering if she heard.
‘Mum smothers me,’ she laments. ‘Treats me like a child.’
‘She loves you so much. Hovering and making lasagne … that’s just how she shows it,’ I say, rushing to Mum’s defence, even though I’ve felt the suffocating embrace of her care myself. So absolute, it sometimes feels like a hundred thick, woolly blankets being piled on top of you. Comforting at first, until you’re lost beneath them, struggling to breathe.
‘You’re right,’ Olivia says contritely. And I feel a stab of regret for making her question how she feels. ‘I’m being unreasonable. I’m—’
‘Mum can be a bit much,’ I offer quickly, then bite my lip, shocked I’ve just stabbed my adoring mother in the back. Then Olivia smiles and something between us crystallises. Something sisterly that eases the unforgiving grip of loneliness.
‘She can be, can’t she?’ Olivia tucks one leg beneath her and leans forward conspiratorially. ‘She’s everywhere. All the time. I wish you and I could go and do something on our own. Get away from everyone.’
‘Me, too.’
She glows. ‘Really?’
I nod.
Then she is up, off the bed, pulling the box of diaries out from beneath it. She plucks mine from the top, flips it open and riffles through the pages until she finds whatever it is she’s looking for.
‘What’re you doing?’ I ask.
Apparently satisfied, she grins at me and slaps the diary shut before tossing it onto the dresser. She leans around the doorframe and hollers for Mum, sounding so much like she did when she was thirteen.
Mum is at the top of the stairs a moment later, eager and hopeful. ‘Everything OK?’
Olivia nods. ‘Sorry about earlier,’ she says in a creamy voice. ‘Going to the police station always puts me in a weird mood, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’
‘You don’t need to be sorry, darling,’ says Mum. ‘If there’s anything I can do, you know I’m always here.’
Olivia’s mouth quirks up in a satisfied little smile. ‘I’d love lasagne for dinner if you’re still happy to make it?’
‘Of course.’
‘And Caitie’s going to stay for dinner, too.’
Mum glances at me. ‘You are?’
‘Sure. That’d be great.’
‘Perfect. I love it when we’re all together. Just like it used to be,’ says Olivia, pulling her into a tight hug. Mum’s eyes widen in surprise, but then serenity slides across her face and she squeezes her daughter back. ‘Caitie was just telling me about this delicious cheesecake from Butterwick Bakery in Bristol. She said it’s the best she’s ever had.’
She’s lying, I haven’t once mentioned Butterwick. I can only assume this is the detail she was searching for in my diary just now. Bemused, I watch the scene unfold.
‘Gosh,’ says Mum. ‘Yes, we haven’t had a cake from there in a long while.’
‘Can we have one tonight? For dessert?’
‘Well …’ she frets. ‘The bakery is the other side of Bristol.’
‘Is that too far?’ asks Olivia, all buttery innocence.
Mum glances at her watch. ‘It’s an hour’s drive. I’d have to leave now to make sure I get there before they close.’
Olivia’s bottom lip juts out. The pout of a child model. ‘I haven’t been hungry all day and then Caitie talked about this insane chocolate-orange cheesecake and now it’s all I can think about.’
‘Well …’ Mum looks between the two of us, her resolve faltering beneath her instinct to please her daughter. ‘I suppose so.’
Olivia grins. ‘Thanks, Mum. You’re the best.’
Mum bathes in the compliment, the warmth of it turning her cheeks pink. ‘I’ll tell your father to make sure he’s back from the office in good time. We can make a trip of it, maybe stop for coffee along the way.’
‘Actually, can Caitie and I stay here? I don’t think I can face pushing through the wall of press again today.’
Mum’s disappointment is quickly replaced by concern. ‘On your own?’
‘I won’t be on my own, I’ll be with Caitie,’ she says, sidling so close to me that her arm brushes mine. ‘Besides, there are police outside. We’ll be fine, won’t we?’
‘Yes,’ I say, feeling a prickle of trepidation. What is she doing? ‘Absolutely.’
Mum dithers, clearly not wanting to leave us here alone. Though we are adults now, she is remembering us as girls. That final night she kissed us goodbye and returned to only one daughter. She bites her lip. ‘As long as you’re sure?’
And even though I’m anxious about the man in the mask, I remind myself we are surrounded by police. We both nod.
Soon, she is gone and we are alone.
‘What was that about?’ I ask as we hear the car pull out of the driveway. But Olivia is jogging down the stairs, swinging into the kitchen.
She takes my handbag and thrusts it at me. ‘Where did you park?’
‘Why?’
‘Because, little sister, we’re going shopping.’
I open my mouth. Close it again. ‘We can’t.’
‘Of course we can. We’ll get to Bath and back before Mum arrives home. She’ll never even know we left.’
‘But—’
‘They can’t keep me locked in this house forever. I’ve basically exchanged one prison for another.’
‘Olivia …’
‘I’m meeting Florence next week and I can’t do it in another of Mum’s Marks and Spencer’s dresses. I won’t.’ She lifts her chin. ‘So either you come with me, or I’m going alone.’
The idea of her venturing out alone makes anxiety swarm low in my stomach. He is still out there. After seeing him outside Florence’s building, I am sure he has plans to get her back. He’s hunting us again. I don’t have a choice.