Little White Lies

‘She’s already been interviewed and had a medical assessment,’ the detective was saying, ‘so you’ll be able to take her straight home.’ He was young and neat, had a long, oval face: DS McCarthy, Lincolnshire Police, brand new to the case and assigned at the request of the team down in London. It was completely irrational of me not to like him; there was nothing wrong with the way he looked, with how he spoke or anything he said, and all the officers before had been so kind and understanding, going to the ends of the earth to help us, so why should it be any different with him? And yet every time his grey eyes gazed at me without flickering, all I could think was, you don’t trust what anyone before might have said.

‘Will that be all right?’ The grey eyes came to rest on me. ‘We’ve assumed you’re ready for that?’

I forced myself to hold my gaze steady and not lose my courage. I’d done my best to make the house look perfect, prepared her room and put framed pictures of her everywhere, but now I thought, what does it matter how neat the couch cushions are or how her room looks and whether or not I’ve hoovered the stairs? If a bomb is about to go off, what good will any of that do?

‘Yes,’ said Robert. The clock on the wall read twenty past ten. ‘But the medical assessment – do you know if she’s all right?’

The detective reordered the notes in his lap, as though all the answers about Abigail were in there. I pressed my wrists against the rough chair arms. I didn’t want him to talk about my daughter. I wanted to tell him myself: she’s mine and she’s perfect, and I’ve loved her from even before she was born and I’ve loved her exactly like that ever since.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Overall, physically, she’s okay.’

Physically. But what about all the other ways to be hurt? The typed words on my sheet ran on: Follow the child’s lead. Don’t assume s/he wishes to be touched straight away. The page detailed nothing about what a child might say, what accusations they might blurt out.

I made myself look back at the detective. ‘But what about the man? Where is he?’ It sounded as though I was accusing him, but it was only because his grey eyes kept fixing on me, or on Robert, as though he was peering into every corner of our lives. I thought again, you don’t know how I feel about my daughter and you can’t judge the mistakes I’ve made. I didn’t say it though, I just squeezed the flopsy in my lap.

Robert echoed me. ‘Do you know where he is?’

The clock on the wall ticked: twenty-five past ten. DS McCarthy shook his head. ‘We’re looking, but we haven’t found him yet.’ A car crunched on the wet gravel outside. ‘Now,’ said the detective, ‘they’re here.’

When the door of the suite opened, we all stood up. The photographs went sliding from my lap and I didn’t even try to pick them up. I was still holding her flopsy though – I had that at least. I drew on all my strength to stand there and just keep holding it out to her so she would know it was us and that we loved her – to stand there and not to burst into tears. There were so many phrases Robert and I had rehearsed, but overrunning all of these was the avalanche of words I was suddenly desperate to say, words I’d been living with all these years, wondering if I’d ever have the opportunity to say them. Finally, here and now, was my chance – before she could possibly say anything herself, what if I could put right what had happened, make it okay, and if I could do that, then nothing else would matter but that she was home now, rescued and safe and everything else would be forgiven.

They came together down the long aisle of the room. The police officer escorting her was pretty and graceful and had such a kindly face, and then next to her: my daughter. Robert reached for my hand, and I knew he was also shocked at the sight of her because, my God, she looked so different. All these years I’d pictured her the way I’d remembered: light and lithe as a ballerina, her golden skin, her rosy mouth, her plaited hair the loveliest blonde. Happy, shining, brimming with love – that was the version of her I remembered. Instead now her hair was dull and ragged and there was a pudgy thickness to her shoulders and thighs. Her face was so pale that all her freckles had gone – our family trademark completely disappeared. Now it was such a different Abigail I saw, like a side of her that I had pushed away or forgotten, or like a different person entirely.

Yet all of those physical changes I could have accepted, overlooked and not minded; it was what happened next that threw everything off, tearing up my script and all my good, brave intentions. The escorting officer didn’t even touch her – she would have known better than that – the kind hand was only there to usher her forwards, but Abigail wrenched her arm from that kindness with a movement so brutal that even Robert flinched.

And with it, every word in my throat dried up.

They stopped in front of us. ‘It’s all right,’ the female officer said, but then she seemed to fade into the background, along with all the others in the room – DS McCarthy and the blurred figure of some appropriate adult – and we were there alone, the three of us, a triangle of the most complicated love.

Abigail hitched the trousers she was wearing – dark purple jeans I had never imagined for her. I was so aware of Robert beside me and the fact that he wasn’t holding my hand any more.

When she opened her pale, chapped lips it felt as though my whole world stood still and I thought to myself: here is where it all falls apart. Here is where the tidal wave comes, the force I never knew how to deal with and that I never managed to outrun.

With her free hand, she reached out and took the flopsy, almost idly, from my hand.

‘So I’m going home with you now?’

The words were so innocuous, so devoid of emotion, so exactly the opposite of what I’d been expecting. It was as though a vacuum opened up in the room, sucking out everything I’d been bracing myself against and it left me frozen, ears ringing, completely lost as to what came next. It was only when DS McCarthy stepped forwards that I saw the aching mistake I had made:

That was the moment – the exact moment – when I should have hugged her.

She sat in the front seat of the car and we made sure the heater was on so she wouldn’t get cold. All the way home, my heart scrabbled like a rabbit trying to escape its hutch.

‘Are we going to the same house?’ Abigail strained against the seatbelt, craning to see every road and turn-off we passed. In the wing mirror I glimpsed fragments of her face: her mouth, the discolouration around all of her teeth, and I thought, what on earth has done that? Later I discovered it was the cigarettes he’d given her, the ones she’d grown addicted to.

Robert nodded. ‘The very same.’

She continued to crane, as though she couldn’t believe him, and I thought, does she still not understand she’s come home? At our front door, in the rain, I fumbled the lock and inside it felt as though we all tangled in the hallway, not enough space for us all. She put a white hand on the wall to steady herself, and stared up the stairs and through the doorways as though she feared something would leap out at her. I was so glad when we finally brought her into the clean living room, with the familiar coffee table and TV and a couch that we might sit her down on.

She stood in the middle of the room, her hands at her sides in tight little fists. ‘Where are Sam and Laurie?’ she asked. ‘The twins?’ So she remembered her brothers, even though they’d been so tiny when she last saw them, no more than babies. But she asked as though we were playing a trick on her, bringing her into this house without them.

‘Don’t worry,’ Robert said. ‘They’re with Auntie Lillian and Uncle Fraser.’ He smiled. ‘They’re seven now, did you know?’

She didn’t answer and I jumped to fill the silence, silting up the room with words: ‘Are you hungry? Do you want something to drink? Tea or juice or a biscuit?’ Anything to make this more normal, because that’s all I ever wanted for us, to have her home, to start again, to be the happy family we always should have been.

She sat down with a jerk on the couch and ran her hands over the soft leather as though it confirmed something to her: perhaps that this was really her home. ‘This furniture is the same.’ Her feet jutted out onto the rug and I could take in her shoes as well now: plain white trainers, like old-fashioned plimsolls. She was pushing her heels into the carpet. A few inches from her foot was a crushed rose petal I’d missed and the water stain still shadowed the hearth. Anything could still happen, hadn’t I seen that? My heart was beating so quickly it hurt.

Robert sat down carefully in the armchair nearby, as though trying not to startle a wild, skittish creature. His gentleness had always steadied her, but who knew if it would still be like that now? ‘Abigail? Is there anything at all we can get you?’

She sat there, her eyes seeking mine and her very presence demanded so much of me, her mother, a million words I should have been able to say; the little flopsy was slipping from her grasp but I felt freeze-framed, unable to move, unable to reach out and do anything to correct it. Then in a strange slow motion, Abigail slumped backwards into the cushions, her rough hair rubbing up against the leather. Her eyes were closing like a baby’s, her head tilting, her voice already muffled with sleep.

‘I don’t need anything,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I’m just very, very tired.’

We found her one of Robert’s old T-shirts and a clean pair of my leggings; we didn’t have anything else for her yet. She got changed in her bedroom, behind the closed door, then crawled straight into bed without even pausing to brush her teeth. When we knocked gently, only minutes later, she was already asleep. She was gone.

Shortly before midnight, Robert left to fetch the twins and I went into our chilly bathroom and counted long breaths to slow my skipping heartbeats. When I had a hold of myself, I wiped my eyes, blew my nose and went back into her room.

I had promised Robert I wouldn’t wake her and he needn’t have worried; she was in a deep sleep, her breathing slow and steady. The cave of her bedroom was musty from all the books and toys we’d brought down from the loft; the dust we’d disturbed was scratchy in my throat. I questioned suddenly if we’d done the right thing, putting her room back like this. I had always been like that, so different from Lillian: making choices and then never being sure; and if there was ever a time I trusted my own judgement, since Abigail went missing, I hadn’t seemed to be able to at all. In the soft light that followed me in from the landing, I moved aside the tangle of clothes she’d left on the low chair at the foot of the bed. I could make out the purple jeans, underwear, the plain blue acrylic jumper. Careful not to make a sound, I sat down.

In the quiet and dark, it felt so much easier. Asleep, she looked so gentle, so peaceful: the sweet, lovable Abigail I remembered. I’d been so afraid of what she might blurt out, but in the end there’d been nothing. Could I tell myself then that she’d simply forgotten? Should I make myself try and forget then too? I laid a hand on the bottom of the duvet, my fingertips finding the smooth buttons a hand-span from her feet. My daughter had found her way back to us, to a happy home, a happy family, and Lillian’s advice years ago made more sense now than ever: if she had forgotten, why confront her with it now, and if the three of us made sure to say nothing, couldn’t it be like it never even happened? Abigail stirred beneath the freshly washed sheets and on the pillow the little flopsy slipped sideways again, its long ears tilting over the edge of the bed. Abigail needed us, her family, to be strong for her – no doubts, no questions. Speaking about it could only risk ruining everything. Better to leave it then, bury it, unmentioned; better for everybody that way.

On the night-stand, Abigail’s little clock glowed as the minute hand stepped gently over the hour: one day over and a new one begun. Still without waking her, I settled the little toy back in beside her, smoothed the blankets and stood up.

Chapter 4

Wednesday 29th May:

Day 3

JESS

I had to wait two whole days before I was allowed to see her. Two whole days. I badgered Mum all round the house, but all she could say was, it’s complicated, like a bad status update. It maddened me the way Mum’s rules were so rigid, the way her opinions were always right. Because what could be simpler than Abigail and me? Ever since we were tiny it had been that way.

I roamed upstairs, downstairs, hardly knowing what to do with myself. I couldn’t even get hold of Lena – out of reach on a last-minute half-term holiday with her mum, a family package with her mum’s new partner too, some Mediterranean island where mobiles barely worked. Without her, without Abigail, I had to hold all my excitement like a fat balloon in my chest.

Then finally, that Wednesday, we were on our way, Mum and Dad in the front seats of the car, me folded into the back. Driving all the way through town, seeing places and shops I passed all the time: Costa, Oxfam, WHSmith, estate agent, hairdresser, a new bridal boutique. They were the same but everything was different.

On her lap, Mum was holding the card we’d bought. So formal. Like we’d been invited to a birthday party. Mum’s idea, but all three of us had had to go to choose it. I’d watched Dad thumb through all the ready-made messages: ‘Congratulations.’ ‘With Sympathy.’ ‘New Home.’ No one makes cards for an occasion like this. In the end Mum chose one labelled, Blank inside for your personal message. What were we supposed to write? I’d told Mum to just put: With love from us all – cousin Jess, Auntie Lillian and Uncle Fraser. Now Mum was running her fingers round the edges, giving the envelope a turn each time she reached a corner. The seams were sharp enough for paper cuts.

I closed my eyes. Behind my eyelids, my cousin rose up, the bright flick of her hair. So real, so close I could practically feel her. The memories came sweeping like a tide. Scraped knees, bug bites, skipping ropes, cartwheels. Her face, close up, like a copy of mine: same nose, same freckly forehead, same mouth, only the frame of her hair different between us, hers butter yellow and mine dark brown. Hand in hand and breath for breath, the pair of us at three, five, eight years old—

I opened my eyes. In the front seats, my parents were skirting an argument.

‘We should have left earlier. You knew there’d be traffic.’ That was Mum.

And Dad: ‘I know. But we’ll be there by five-thirty at the latest.’ We were past the church now and heading round the one-way system.

‘Yes, Fraser. But they said five. I saw you write it down.’

Dad’s hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Lillian,’ he said. ‘Not now.’

‘You know it might upset her. Arriving late.’

‘Listen-’ Dad switched on the windscreen wipers, smearing wet across the glass. ‘I don’t know anything except that we’re her family and they’ve asked us to come. I for one will be so damn happy to see her and there are bigger things to worry about than being a few minutes late.’

He pulled the handbrake as we stopped at the south-side traffic lights. Thank you, Dad, I wanted to say.

But even he had told me to prepare myself, his face all kindly and solemn when he’d knocked on my bedroom door last night. Dad was like that, always wanting to talk about things, always wanting stuff out in the open. I had to understand, he’d said, Abigail would look different, would be different now. Was I prepared for that? I couldn’t just go running up to her, jumping on her, hugging her. She would need time.

I’d nodded, pretending to agree. But he had never known Abigail like I did.

The lights were green now and we were moving again. But in the front, my parents had both gone quiet. Mum was looking away out of the passenger window. I couldn’t see her expression, only the angle of her head, the stiffness in her neck.

We took the turn-off onto Springfield Road and I craned forwards to look out of the front windscreen. Up ahead, my aunt and uncle’s little patch of front garden was surrounded by a huddle of men and women. I recognized the set-up at once. Journalists, their collars raised against the untimely spring rain. For weeks, months, they’d reported her missing. Now they would write the best headline of all, the perfect ending to our story. I wondered what Lena would make of all this. She’d refused to believe it would end this way. That argument we’d had when we were thirteen, when I’d yelled that her parents’ divorce was stupid and she’d flung back, Jess, don’t you get it? Real life isn’t happily ever after. In real life, my parents are getting divorced and your cousin is never coming back! It took me weeks to forgive her for that but what did it matter now? I’d been right.

The seatbelt was tight around my shoulder. The journalists looked as keen as bloodhounds. ‘Go round the back,’ I said to Dad. He nodded silently and heaved the wheel. As the car jounced over a speed bump, Mum put a hand to the dashboard to steady herself. She didn’t have to say anything – the gesture was enough. ‘Sorry,’ said Dad.

We parked on the narrow, pot-holed road behind. Here the street was empty, just a dog barking somewhere with a steady, grinding bark. We got out of the car. Through the misty air, I could see up to where the road became a dead-end, to where a scrubby path led off through lopsided railings. Off to the sleek tracks of the railway line, where the fast trains didn’t stop, just thundered through. I remembered how Abigail had always wanted to go up there. We weren’t allowed though, Auntie Anne had been adamant – a girl had once fallen from the bridge down there. Still, Abigail used to stand and stare until I’d grab her arm and yank her back, off up the road to the corner shop or playground.

The envelope in Mum’s hand was crumpled, creases running across the creamy paper. She handed the card to me and looked up at the house, the brown brick walls and white-framed windows gazing back down at us. She dug in her pockets like checking for loose change or bus tickets. ‘What are you looking for?’ said Dad.

‘I’m not – nothing.’ Mum took the card back.

Dad drew a hand down the bristles of his cheek, as if to smooth things out between them.

‘Let’s just go in,’ I said.

I pulled down the sleeves of my jumper and tucked my thumbs in the cuffs, a move that always annoyed Mum. But for once she said nothing, just hitched up the zipper on her coat and headed through the little wooden gate at the bottom of the Whites’ back garden. I followed behind and Dad brought up the rear, careful to drop down the latch of the gate after him as if there was something inside that might want to escape. On the slippery decking, Mum rapped on the whorled glass of the back door. We could hear sounds from inside and I could see wavering shapes. We waited.

‘Knock again,’ said Dad. ‘Maybe they didn’t hear us.’

‘Annie knows we’re coming to the back. I texted her from the car.’

‘Well, just knock again.’ He was reaching past her to bang once more when the door swung open and there was Auntie Anne.

I’d expected her to look filled up with happiness. Instead there were muddy circles under her eyes and a restless flush on her cheeks, like someone with a brand new baby – hair a bit rumpled, skin a bit pale. I tried to look past her, to catch a glimpse of Abigail.

My aunt ushered us in through the doorway and into the fug of the kitchen. Dad stepped on the back of my heel and mumbled another apology, and I was pressed up against the scratchy wool of Mum’s coat. We stood crammed in with them between the blue kitchen units and shiny wall tiles. Mum held out the card to no one in particular until Uncle Robert reached out and took it. The twins stared at me, wide-eyed. In the background a kettle came to the boil, thrummed and thrashed then clicked itself off. There were fresh mugs laid out and a full jug of milk, but no one got up to pour the hot water.

I undid the Velcro fastening on my jacket, the sound a huge big scrape in the room. It was hot in here, way too hot. I pushed my fringe up off my face. Next to Auntie Anne, framed by the doorway to the hall, was a figure.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. But still nobody moved.

They’d said she’d look different, but she didn’t to me. All right, so her skin was pale and she was heavier than me now but shorter. Her hair was an odd colour and she was wearing a weird combination of clothes. In bunched leggings and one of my uncle’s huge T-shirts, she was wrong-shaped, wrong-sized, coloured in all wrong, but all that was like a costume I could see right through. I pushed forwards past Mum, past the chairs and the table and the waiting kettle.

I came to a halt in front of her. I could hear the sighing of her breath as it drew in and out – in time, it seemed, with mine. I held her gaze and she held mine.

‘Welcome home, Abigail,’ I said.

Across the great chasm of time, it was like the years were winding up, rethreading themselves. There was the tiniest pause, then, ‘Hello, Jess,’ she replied.

I smiled and summoned the magic words from long ago, when we were best playmates. Words that worked just the same for our fifteen-year-old selves.

‘Come on then,’ I said. ‘Let’s go up to your room.’

The house smelled the same as it always had – a scent of pine from some cleaning product, and the smell of oil and sawdust from Uncle Robert’s overalls. Behind me, as we climbed the stairs, words floated, my aunt’s hushed voice: ‘… the house was empty and the police haven’t traced him…’ I let the words fall away behind us.

On the landing, we came to a halt. Sam and Laurie’s bunk beds showed through the open door to the left and next was my aunt and uncle’s bedroom. Opposite that, the bathroom, and at the end of the hallway a spare room, for guests. Abigail gestured to the door nearest on the right. ‘Here’s my room.’

She was right. It had always been hers. But I hadn’t expected the transformation.

She pushed the door wide and led me through. Pictures, teddies, board games, books. Skipping ropes, rosettes, the blue flopsy at the head of her bed. The articles, paperwork, search posters all gone, and all the belongings of eight-year-old Abigail laid out once again.

I stood in the doorway, on the threshold, as if by entering I’d break some spell. Then softly as I could, I stepped into the room and stood beside Abigail at her childhood dresser. On the polished wood a little glass frog squatted on a lily pad, its bulging eyes crossed and goofy.

‘Albert McCroak,’ she said. I made him take a few hops across the dresser and landed him gently beside her. As she slid a finger down the smooth curve of his back I noticed the tip was stained nicotine yellow, like our granddad’s used to be. ‘Ribbit,’ she said. I grinned.

She looked up at me, as if waiting for what I might do next. Above her bed was the volume we used to always read. Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I pulled it down and sat on the bed, opening the book across our laps as she sat down next to me. I could smell the tang of her teenage sweat and I listed towards her as the mattress dipped. I knew she didn’t want to be hugged, not just yet, but I let our shoulders touch, let the clumped mess of her hair tickle my cheek. As we turned the pages in a hypnotic rhythm, whole worlds passed before us, stories we’d lived within, once upon a time. I’d never let myself forget them. I could feel the heat of her against my arm. ‘We used to read these to each other,’ I said.

She ran her hand over the pictures – beautiful watercolours I knew so well. ‘The Frog Prince,’ she said. ‘Hansel and Gretel.’

So she did remember. The relief was like little bubbles in my chest. I leaned across and helped her flip forward. ‘You always liked this one – with the donkey and the cat. The Bremen Town Musicians.’