10
Abbie Rose is right. Maybe it’s an aftereffect of the visit from Nick, which I can imagine was anything but friendly, but Jen’s pleased to see me.
“How are you feeling?”
She looks up at me with anxious eyes. “Tired. Frightened. Unsure about everything. There’s this voice inside me that tells me to trust no one.” Her voice wobbles.
“I bumped into Nick,” I tell her. “I recognized him from the photo. We talked for a bit.” I don’t tell her how angry he seemed, nor do I tell her I know about her miscarriage.
A haunted look comes over her. “I don’t know why he had to come here,” she whispers.
“I think the police hoped he might know where Angel is.”
“I never told him about her.” Jen looks petrified.
“So he said. But why?” I’m intrigued. Maybe my misgivings about Nick are warranted.
“He’s bad, Charlotte. He would have taken my baby away.”
“But he couldn’t. You’re her mother.” I can’t believe she’d even think that. You can’t just take a baby from its mother. I wait for her to go on, but her eyes are wide with fear.
“You don’t know Nick. He’d tell the doctors I wasn’t a fit mother. What if he’d found us? What if he’s the one who’s taken her?” Her voice is becoming more and more frantic.
“I don’t understand.... Why would he do that?”
“I had a breakdown. I had a miscarriage, Charlotte. I was six months pregnant.” Her voice wavers, and her eyes glitter with tears. “I gave birth to my dead baby. . . .”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “You’ve told the police this, haven’t you?”
She nods.
“You mustn’t worry. They’ll check him out. You have to trust them. They know what they’re doing.”
“They want to talk to his mother.” Her voice is unsteady.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“You don’t know her. She’ll say anything to make him look good. She hated me, Charlotte.”
“Look, let the police worry about Nick’s mother. They won’t be fooled for one minute.” I pause. “Can I ask you something else?”
She nods.
“I know Nick calls you Jen, and I remember you as Jen, but would you rather be called Evie?”
She nods, but at the mention of Nick, fear flashes across her face again.
“That’s why you changed your name, isn’t it?” I say slowly. Having met him, seen his aggressiveness for myself, suddenly I get it. “You didn’t want Nick to find you. You were hiding from him.”
* * *
On my way out, Abbie Rose catches up with me.
“Charlotte, I wanted to ask a favor. It’s just that Evie seems to trust you, and I need to have a difficult conversation with her . . . probably tomorrow. Would you be able to come back? Only if you’re not busy, that is.”
“I could.... What’s it about?”
“I’d rather keep it for tomorrow . . . if you can come back then?”
I nod. “What time?”
She thinks for a moment. “I’ll try to get over here by two.”
I turn to go, but then I hesitate. I wonder if Abbie Rose saw the same fear in Evie that I did just now. “You do know she’s frightened of Nick? She said she was hiding from him.”
Abbie Rose hesitates. Then she says, “I’m sorry, but I can’t really discuss this right now. But be assured, we’ve talked to him. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Irritation flares up in me, because she wants my help, yet she’s keeping me at arm’s length. I don’t answer, just turn away.
I drive the long way home, taking the road along the coast to Padstow, detouring toward the beaches, keeping half an eye out for a Rick-like figure, who could be anywhere. The roads are quiet. Out to sea, the sky is monochromatic, the gray clouds rolling in making for a dramatic landscape.
The drive is twice as long, but I’m not in a hurry. It’s a part of the coast I’ve always loved. At this time of year, the wide beaches, which in summer are filled with tourists, stretch wild and empty.
By the time I get home, the last of the light is fading and the house is in darkness. I hadn’t planned to get back so late, and as I go inside, for the first time I’m aware of how empty it feels. It’s a big house for one person. I reach in my pocket, pull out my cell to call Rick, pause for a moment while I think about what I want to say. But when I dial his number, whether by accident or design, the call goes to voice mail.
* * *
The following day, I think about not going to the hospital. But in the end, I go, for a number of reasons: because of Jen, and because it’ll make Rick see me differently when he comes back. But also, I’m driven by my own curiosity. I don’t know what the police are thinking, but surely, after what Nick said, suddenly Angel’s existence is questionable. But then . . . I’m thinking, even after a head injury, you couldn’t invent a daughter, could you?
It’s two thirty when I reach the critical care unit.
“So sorry,” I say to Abbie Rose. “I got held up.”
“I need to talk to her,” Abbie Rose says as we walk toward Jen’s room. “We’ve had some forensic reports back, and I’m not sure how she’s going to respond.”
She doesn’t elaborate. There’s a police officer I haven’t seen before outside Jen’s door as Abbie Rose knocks, then pushes the door open. “Hello? Evie? Charlotte’s with me.”
From over Abbie Rose’s shoulder, I see Jen turn toward us.
“How are you today?” Abbie Rose asks.
But Jen doesn’t answer.
Abbie Rose walks over to the corner where there’s a hospital-issue plastic chair, pulls it close to the bed, nodding toward another beside the door. “Why don’t you get that, Charlotte?”
As if she senses something, Jen glances at me, then back to Abbie Rose, as I pull the chair over and sit next to her.
“Evie . . . there’s another case we need to talk to you about. Another little girl who disappeared. Fifteen years ago.”
“What does it have to do with Angel?” Jen’s face is pale. Suddenly, I’m dreading what this newest revelation will do to her.
“We don’t know if it’s connected, but at the moment, we have to consider the possibility.”
“Why? What happened?” Jen’s voice trembles.
“She went missing from her home on a Saturday morning. The police were called straightaway. Dogs were brought in, and an extensive search was carried out. It was only a few miles from here, on the road to Chapel Amble.”
The Dannings’ family home was a Cornish farmhouse about a mile from Chapel Amble, up a long, bumpy road, a rambling place that backed onto trees and farmland. Only dimly can I picture it, slightly shabby and unloved. Casey rarely had anyone over, and by the time we were friends, all she wanted was to escape. I wonder if Jen remembers it.
“How long before they found her?” Jen’s hands are clenched; her knuckles white.
It’s the question she was always going to ask. I’ve no idea how Abbie Rose will handle this, because Jen’s already fragile. The more she learns, the more her fear visibly escalates. Abbie Rose pauses, then takes a deep breath. “They didn’t.”
“No . . .” Jen’s mouth falls open as she breathes the word. The reality is too much for her. “They must have. You said they had dogs. She couldn’t just disappear.”
“We never got to the bottom of what happened.”
“How old was she?” What little color Jen has drains from her face.
“Nearly four.”
Jen’s eyes are riveted to the policewoman’s. Her voice is tiny when she says, “Tell me.”
Abbie Rose speaks slowly, quietly, but Jen flinches at each sentence. But even if she hadn’t asked, Abbie Rose would have had to tell her, trying to trigger a hair’s-breadth memory of the smallest detail that might be relevant. “It was a Saturday. A teenage girl was babysitting while the child’s mother was at work. It seems the little girl let herself out of the yard, which backed onto farmland. She could have been out of sight only for minutes. The babysitter saw the open gate and went running after her, but there was no sign of her. The most likely explanation is that someone abducted her, but it was never proved.”
I watch Jen closely, but her only thought seems to be what this means for Angel, and her shock appears genuine. Either that or she’s a supremely good actor.
“That doesn’t mean it’s happened to Angel.” She shakes her head, refusing to let herself go there.
“There’s more I have to tell you, Evie,” Abbie Rose says quietly. “There are press cuttings. They all say the same thing. The name of the teenager who was babysitting when it happened is . . . Jen Russell.”
It’s as though Jen’s been given an electric shock. “No!”
Abbie Rose gives her a few seconds. “I know this is upsetting, Evie, but . . .”
Jen’s shaking her head. “It wasn’t me. . . . I couldn’t forget something like that.”
But as I watch her, doubt flickers across her face. Her eyes swing round to me. “Charlotte? You must have known about it. Tell her, please. . . .”
Her eyes are pleading with me to back her up, to tell Abbie Rose that this is a terrible mistake. I shake my head slowly, glaring at Abbie Rose, hating that I’ve been put in this position.
“No . . . ,” Jen keeps saying. “No. This is proof. Don’t you see? Proof that I’m not Jen, and that I just look like her. You have to believe me. . . .” She looks from one of us to the other.
“I have a photo of her.” After taking it out of an envelope, Abbie Rose holds it out to Jen. “This is the little girl you were babysitting. Her name was Leah Danning.”
Jen looks at the photo, then puts it on the bed. “I don’t remember any of what you’re telling me. . . .” She thumps her fist weakly on the sheets, a look of desperation on her face.
Abbie Rose looks strained. “We have a Genevieve Russell on our records. There’s a photo.” She pauses. “There’s the fact that Charlotte identified you. I’ve been to your school, Evie. All the evidence confirms that you and the Genevieve Russell who was babysitting that day are the same person, but like everything else, right now you can’t remember.”
Jen stares at her, speechless.
“I have something else I need to tell you,” Abbie Rose says quietly. “PC Miller has gotten in the initial forensic reports from your aunt’s house, which is where you think you’ve been living. It’s clear someone’s been living there, and your aunt has been dead for some time. But . . .”
As she pauses, I look at Jen, wondering how much more of this she can take.
“There are clothes there that look as though they might fit someone your size. They’ve found fingerprints that match yours. But there are no children’s clothes. No toys or books. Evie, there’s no sign a child ever lived there.”
“There must be. . . .” An anguished look crosses Jen’s face. “Surely you saw Angel’s room. It’s at the top of the stairs. Her name’s on the door. Everything’s pink.” She stares at Abbie Rose.
The policewoman looks uncomfortable. “As I said, right now it isn’t as you remember it. Maybe she was staying somewhere else. Maybe you both were. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“I—we—live there.... It’s our home.”
“There are more forensic reports to come. Maybe they’ll show something.”
“And if not?” Jen whispers, terrified. Abbie Rose’s silence tells her that nothing is certain, how little the police know. “Who’s doing this, Abbie?” she cries desperately. “Who’s trying to hurt me?”
“I don’t know.” Abbie Rose looks troubled. “Evie . . . if Angel lived there, forensics will find something.” She speaks gently. “But at the moment, there’s no record of her anywhere—no birth certificate, no medical records. There’s the fact that no one seems to know either of you. Even if we rule it out, we have to at least consider the possibility that the trauma’s brought back the memory of what happened fifteen years ago, when you were babysitting a little girl who meets the same description you’ve given us of Angel.”
Jen gasps as the reality hits her. “You don’t believe me.” She stares aghast at Abbie Rose. “You don’t think Angel exists.”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying.” Abbie Rose is firm, but her eyes don’t quite meet Jen’s. “I’m really not. But I think it would help you to talk to a counselor. The person I’m thinking of is an expert in memory loss. She may recommend a scan, too. I was talking to her this morning—” She breaks off, trying to be diplomatic. “Evie, you’ve suffered a serious head injury. There’s no disputing your memory has been affected.”
“But what I’ve remembered is reliable,” she cries. “It’s what’s missing that’s the problem.” But judging from her face, she knows that isn’t true.
“There’s too much that doesn’t add up, Evie. Right now we can’t be certain about anything. We have to question everything.”
It’s clear from the way Evie looks at Abbie Rose that she doesn’t trust what she’s saying. But I can see the DC’s point. All there is to go on are two subjective accounts—the first being Evie’s, fragmented and unreliable; the second being what Nick told the police. Is he any more reliable? There are no photos, no evidence whatsoever that proves Angel exists.
“Abbie . . . please, please don’t stop looking for her. . . .”
“The search is still going on.” There’s a note of uncertainty in Abbie Rose’s voice. I wonder if Jen catches it.
Then Jen does something that catches us both off guard. As she picks up the photograph of Leah Danning, an uncontrollable wave of emotion seems to sweep over her. Doubled up, she clutches the photo to herself as a terrible noise comes from her. Somewhere deep inside, she remembers. “Oh God . . .” She’s moaning, distraught, and Abbie Rose gets up to call a nurse.
Leaning forward, I take one of her hands in mine. “Evie, it’s okay.”
But she doesn’t hear me. “Oh God, oh God . . . It was all my fault. . . .”
Then, after the nurse comes in, we’re ushered out into the corridor.
“Was that necessary?” I say angrily to Abbie Rose. “You’ve told me enough times how fragile she is, and look what you did to her.”
Abbie Rose shakes her head wearily. “Believe me, I got no pleasure out of that. But there’s a child out there. We’ve no leads. The only person who knows anything about her is Evie herself. I had no choice.”
She looks exhausted as she has a word with one of the nurses, then walks away, leaving me standing there. Uncertain as to whether I should stay, I catch the nurse as she comes out of Jen’s room.
“Is she okay?”
“I’ve given her something to calm her down, but it might be best if you come back tomorrow. Are you a friend?”
“Not really. I knew her a long time ago.” I look at the nurse. “But I suppose, right now I’m all she has.”