Chapter Seven

The next day, like Tara, Detective Lane also expects my call. He picks up on the second ring and sighs deeply.

‘Hi, Grace,’ he says, exasperated, but not at me.

‘Do you have time today? Can I stop in at the station?’ I ask.

‘Please do. I just want you to know, Grace, that I’m horrified at the way they’ve edited that show, it’s so dramatic. I didn’t expect that, I really didn’t.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is, but drama is what captures attention, isn’t it?’

He knows what I’m asking.

He hesitates before saying, ‘I agreed to be on the show because I thought it would help shine a light on the vulnerability of women living in the city.’ He pauses. ‘Katy is one of many missing girls.’

He doesn’t say it to disparage Katy’s disappearance, but he’s always wanted me to see the bigger picture, or maybe he feels guilty for never giving me closure. I press on the latter, to see if he can give me that now.

‘Did you get any new evidence or information from the show? The studio said they’d share any findings with you.’

‘Why don’t you come in? We can discuss it,’ he says, but I know the answer is no.

‘I can be there in an hour?’

‘Works for me.’

* * *

As I make my way to the police station, I notice a few people look towards me, as if they recognise me, their faces scrunched slightly as they try to place me. Did they see me on the show last night? The mother of the missing girl. My stomach tenses and I feel uneasy, the pain in my chest threatening me once more.

The list helps, and I keep on reciting it as I approach the station. When I enter reception, I know people recognise me here. I used to come in every week, most days, in the years after Katy went missing. But I don’t feel judged here. I don’t feel pitied.

The officer behind reception smiles at me, but I don’t recognise her. She holds up a hand with a pen and I take it expectantly, ready to sign in.

‘Detective Inspector Lane is in his office. I can show you the way?’ she asks politely, knowing that I’ve been here before, many times.

I shake my head, signing my name before placing the pen back down as she buzzes me through the main door. I take the stairs up to the first floor where Detective Lane’s office is.

The station is quiet today, and I’m grateful as I wander through the aisles of half-empty desks to Detective Lane’s office on the other side. The station building is old, with worn blue carpets and teak wooden doors. It felt old ten years ago, that familiar kind of old, smelling of instant coffee and rusty radiators. But now it feels tired and when I swing open Detective Lane’s door, he looks nothing like the man I met ten years ago or even the person I saw on TV yesterday.

Detective Lane used to be handsome. Is that a rude thought? But it’s true. He was a newly appointed detective but you wouldn’t have known. He had, still has, a calmness about him that makes him easy to talk to, but easy to trust as well. He arrived at my front door ten years ago and my life was never the same again.

‘Grace,’ he says, hanging up his call immediately without saying a word to whoever was on the other end.

I smile, taking the seat opposite him.

‘It’s been a while,’ he says, leaning forward, raising a hand. ‘Do you want a tea? One sugar and plenty of milk, if I remember?’

I shake my head. ‘No, I can’t stay long, I need to get over to visit Mum.’

‘Of course. I just thought, it’s been so long, it’d be easier to speak in person. If I’m honest, Grace, I should have reached out to you a long time ago.’

I didn’t take it well when the police stopped actively investigating Katy’s case, but who’d expect me to? Detective Lane told me personally, and I almost thought there were tears in his eyes when he said it. But what had he said? ‘It’s over for now. It doesn’t mean it’s over for ever.’

I think he expected me to find solace in those words.

‘I guess it’s not over,’ I whisper, hoping he remembers.

He smiles ruefully. He was only thirty when I met him, but the years have been unkind to him. What he must have seen… I was only a footnote in his long career. He closes his laptop and runs a hand through his thinning hair.

‘I knew you were going to be a part of the show,’ I confess. ‘They didn’t keep me that out of the loop.’

He nods. ‘How much did they tell you?’

I shrug. ‘I asked a lot of questions; I wanted to avoid what happened. They told me Graham would be involved, I knew that. I just didn’t expect…’

‘…it to be so much about them?’ he finishes my sentence. By ‘them’ he means the suspects at the time. I nod. ‘Me neither.’

I lean forward. ‘I was hoping, with you being involved with the show and Graham now talking, that maybe something new came up in their research? Something you can’t share with me yet, in case you’re worried it’s nothing?’

He winces, his blue eyes lost in a cloudy haze. ‘No,’ he says, finally. ‘There isn’t.’

‘But—’ I search his eyes desperately, hoping to find some light in them, but there is only a darkness. ‘You aren’t reopening the case?’

He shakes his head.

‘But what Graham said about Katy’s English professor, that’s suspicious, isn’t it? The fact that he’s now talking after all these years.’

‘I’m sorry, Grace.’

‘No, there must be something else. What about Ian?’

‘You want to talk about Ian?’ he asks. ‘He wasn’t involved, we have an alibi.’

‘An alibi?’ I say, louder than I intend to.

He shakes his head. ‘Grace,’ he says softly. ‘He means nothing in this; don’t let him think he does.’

‘He already does think that! They even gave him an interview, so he can tell the world lies about being her father, and God knows what else he plans on saying.’

‘Let him, it means nothing.’

‘To you, maybe.’

‘Don’t, please.’

I feel bad for saying it, I know how hard he worked, the long hours, how much of his life he sacrificed to find Katy and how he blames himself for failing, but I’m angry.

‘I know you hate what the show turned out to be even more than I do, but it is shining a light on Katy’s case. Someone could come forward, someone might have seen something that night and not have known it was significant at the time. This kind of exposure is only a good thing, Grace, and just because we aren’t working on this doesn’t mean we’re ignoring it, either.’

My shoulders relax slightly. ‘Really?’

He nods. ‘I should have called you about this, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up. And you still shouldn’t, but I’ve spoken to the studio, and they’re also passing on any tips they get to us, okay?’

‘Okay.’

I rise, blinking back tears, hoping he doesn’t see them, but he’s already seen me at my worst. ‘I have to go.’

‘Right, but do me a favour?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t watch anymore of that show, please?’

‘You know I can’t do that.’

‘I know,’ he says, ‘but you shouldn’t, and I’m sorry for not reaching out to you sooner, when I knew this was airing. That was callous of me.’

‘I don’t think you’re capable of being callous, Harrison. I wouldn’t blame yourself. None of us knew what this was.’

He smacks his lips together. ‘Maybe not, but I will reach out to you, Grace, and you know you can always call me. If you didn’t know that, then I’m sorry, because you can.’

I nod. ‘Thank you for your time.’

* * *

In the car on the way to Mum’s, I wonder if I should have told Detective Lane about going to see Tara, Graham’s mum, if it would make any difference that I had a feeling about her, that something felt off to me. But I’m glad I didn’t. I can’t make accusations based on a hunch. I would have and did a long time ago, but I learned quickly that the system doesn’t work that way. I knew that I would be in more trouble for contacting Tara than she would be, based on my suspicions. Detective Lane is compassionate, but I don’t want to test that, I don’t want to play the bereft mother card, not with him.

When I arrive at the care home, Mum is already in her room. It’s only 3pm, but the nurse tells me she didn’t want to go out for her daily walk or watch Judge Judy with people I call her friends but she insists are acquaintances. It’s not like her to break from routine, but she’s upset, of course she is, and it’ll be my fault for being so naïve as to do that show in the first place. How could I trust the studio? How could I think they’d have my best interests at heart?

Of course, they want to make money.

I knock on the door even though the nurse tells me to go straight in. I shake my head, waiting for a reply.

‘I told you to bugger off,’ she calls.

‘It’s me, Mum,’ I say, and there is silence.

‘All right,’ she says finally, as I open the door.

Another person waiting expectantly for me. I lay down the lilies, which I got on the way, on her dressing table and she tuts.

‘Put them in water, don’t just shove them anywhere.’ She rises from her chair swatting my hand away. ‘No, no, no, let me do it.’

‘Are you okay for me to leave you?’ the nurse asks.

‘We’ll be fine.’

Mum looks straight at the nurse. ‘She’ll leave in half an hour and I’ll have my tea.’

‘Okay, Mary, be back then,’ she says, closing the door.

‘Half an hour, Mum? Thanks for squeezing me in,’ I say, walking over to her kitchen and grabbing a glass from the cabinet. I fill it with water as she shuffles over to me with the flowers, making a fuss of getting a vase out of the cupboard. She sighs.

‘Do you want a tea?’ I ask.

‘No, I don’t want a tea,’ she snaps, as she takes scissors and starts snipping off the bottom of each stem, at an angle, like how she taught me to do it, and how I taught Katy. I think briefly about all those family traditions that won’t get passed down anymore, the carrot cake recipe and the Christmas decorations. Or all the traditions we started to make, Katy and I: watching The Mummy on Halloween and making handcrafted advent calendars at Christmas.

‘You didn’t pick up my call,’ Mum says, filling the vase with water.

‘I didn’t feel like talking.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ she softens. ‘It was hard to watch.’

‘You’re angry at me?’ I ask.

‘Yes, for being very foolish. I told you not to get involved in the show. I said no good would come of it, didn’t I? And look how they portrayed our beautiful Katy, it’s sick. Have you spoken to them?’

‘Not yet, no.’

‘Well, you should give them a piece of your mind, and mine, it’s horrible.’

‘I know, but maybe some good did come of it?’ I say.

She scoffs.

‘I went to see Detective Lane today.’

She drops a stem into the full vase and turns to me. ‘They’re reopening the case?’

I shake my head. ‘No, but he said it’s very good exposure, he said they could get calls, that someone might have seen what happened or something suspicious and call in.’

She nods, considering this. ‘What they said about Katy, it’s complete garbage. That awful boy had something to do with it, we’ve always said that, haven’t we? And he has the disrespect to appear ten years later to slander her name. Despicable.’

‘It is,’ I agree. ‘But I had no idea.’

‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ she says, raising her eyebrows. ‘You wanted it to be something it isn’t.’ She takes the vase to the window sill, sets it down and twists a leaf to face outwards. ‘I know what you thought it would be, a way for people to remember Katy, to see her how we saw her.’ She shakes her head. ‘They have a lot of explaining to do. And the next one is on tonight, isn’t it? I don’t think I can bear to watch. No, I think I’ll get an early night. You should do the same.’ She shrugs. ‘Though you won’t. Who is this English professor? That grubby man they interviewed at the time? I thought they asked him a few questions and that was it? Nothing but some innocent emails between Katy and him?’

She’s asking me if I knew there was more, if I suspected it, but she erases the thought. Swats it away with a hand before I can answer.

‘If I ever see that Graham again, I’ll kill him.’ She says the words without hesitation I think she means it. Maybe I’d want her to kill him too? I’ve had those thoughts before, but I’m always dragged back into the present. What if Katy came home? What if he’s the only one that knows where she is and I’ve disposed of the only person that could tell us?

‘Katy isn’t what he says she is. She isn’t a cheater, a liar, she isn’t any of those things, we know that.’

‘But what does the world see?’ Mum responds. ‘They see a broken man, cleared of any wrongdoing, his life shattered apart by accusations as if he was the one that was wronged. What if someone did see something, but they think Katy’s life isn’t worth saying anything about? What if they push it away as someone else’s problem? That’s how this has always felt, like someone else’s problem.’

‘Don’t say that.’

She sighs. ‘You better go, before I say something I regret.’

‘I love you, Mum,’ I say.

‘I love you too, dear,’ she sniffs. ‘I just get mad is all, I just see what it’s done to you, what it continues to do to you. You’re my daughter, you know.’ She turns to me and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her cry. ‘You’re not the only one who lost a daughter ten years ago,’ she says.

I step forward to hug her, but stop myself. She’s right. I am a stranger to her now, a stranger to myself, everything I used to be taken from me.

‘Bye, Mum,’ I say, closing the door behind me.

I climb into the car and check my phone. There’s an email from Maggie; it’s short, it just reads, ‘Hi Grace, sorry I’ve been so busy today, I will call you first thing tomorrow. I’m sorry if the episode upset you, that wasn’t our intention. Speak soon, Maggie x’

I throw my phone onto the passenger seat, and I start to sob. The only one who knows what happened that day, the only one that could ever tell us left my world ten years ago. Where are you, Katy?