‘Erica?’ Luke grabs a pen and points to the phone. Amanda gives him a thumbs up. ‘How can I help?’
‘I have a name that I’ve been researching. Pete Lawton. I hope you’re writing this down. He was with Craig when Lucy disappeared. He was having work experience at the garage. Craig said it was called Anderson & Campbell in Ashton. I thought you might do a better job of tracing the man. It would clear Craig’s name. It’s very important.’
‘Erica, have you seen the news?’
‘Well, I saw the girl… I mean I saw a girl on the news… they mentioned Craig, but they’ve got it all wrong.’ She talks slowly, as though choosing her words carefully. ‘I know you think I’m only saying that because he’s my son… that I’m burying my head—’
‘Erica,’ says Luke. ‘The police know he’s taken a young girl… taken her away in a car. She’s only seventeen.’
There’s a clatter down the line, like she’s dropped the handset – or has she fallen?
‘Erica!’ Luke shouts down the phone. ‘Shit, Amanda. I think she might’ve collapsed or something.’
She grabs the handset from Luke’s hand.
‘Erica, love. My name’s Amanda. Can you hear me?’ She looks to Luke. ‘She’s crying, wailing. She’s not unconscious.’ She turns to face the desk. ‘Erica. Come on. Talk to me. I’ll have to phone an ambulance if you don’t talk to me.’
Luke watches, holding his breath as Amanda stands still.
It seems the whole newsroom is listening to the silence.
Amanda’s shoulders drop and she turns to face Luke.
‘Thank God, Erica. You had me worried, then. Do you want us to pop round?… Oh really? Well, I’ll let you get that. We’ll come and see you in an hour or two… check you’re all right.’
Amanda holds the handset away from her ear.
‘She hung up… said there was a knock at the door.’
‘Police.’
She replaces the handset. ‘Well, yeah. Most likely.’
‘Come on,’ says Luke. ‘Sunningdales, then Erica’s.’
Luke walks across the office, the adrenaline pumping down his legs, his arms. This is the best he’s felt in years.
18
Jenna was a lot feistier than Lucy. She didn’t really want to come out with me that day.
‘Tell her we’re only popping to the shop,’ I said to her.
‘But she’s thirteen,’ she said. ‘I can’t leave her on her own.’
‘Thirteen’s fine. Kids walk home from school from eleven years old. Listen… she won’t know we’ve gone – we could sneak out. We’ll only be a few minutes.’
‘But what’s the point of going out if it’s only for a few minutes?’
Jenna was a loose end. She was the one who could get me into trouble. I wanted to know if she’d keep quiet for me.
We drove to somewhere different than I went with Lucy. They still hadn’t found her. I should’ve pointed them in the wrong direction, but then I’d look like a grass, wouldn’t I?
I’d put vodka in a SodaStream bottle and she’d been drinking it on the way there.
‘Don’t worry, Jen,’ I said. ‘It’s six o’clock now. Your mum and dad will be home.’
‘What? What time is it? Have I been asleep?’
‘No, no.’
She sat up straight in the car.
‘The police came round the other day,’ she said. ‘They asked about you.’
‘I’m sure they didn’t, Jen.’
‘They know a lot about you.’
‘But you didn’t say anything, did you? Because I know a lot about you, too, Jen. About how you betrayed your friend. And you wouldn’t want that to get out, would you?’
She shook her head, but there was something in her eyes. Back then I thought it was guilt, but looking back, it was probably fear.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Did you take Lucy somewhere? Have you hurt her?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘As if I’d do a thing like that. I loved – I mean I love her.’
I almost slipped up – Lucy was only missing then.
‘But what about me?’ said Jenna, relaxing into the seat. ‘I thought you loved me.’
It was the stuff in the vodka I gave her that made her less resistant. It didn’t take as long as with Lucy.
I knew that she knew, as soon as I saw her face.
Once she got in the car, she wasn’t coming out alive.
I made sure she was totally clean.
And now, I’ve done it again.
19
I’m still on the floor after hanging up the telephone and the thuds on the door are getting louder, stronger.
‘If you don’t answer the door,’ a woman’s voice, stern, ‘we have a warrant to forcibly enter the premises.’
‘Wait, wait,’ I say. ‘I’m here. Just give me a minute.’
She’s looking through the letterbox now, and I’m sitting against the wall of the hallway.
‘Are you all right, Erica?’ she says. ‘Has Craig hurt you?’
‘What? No, of course he hasn’t.’
Why aren’t I moving? It’s like my bottom’s been glued to the wooden floor.
‘We don’t want to break your door, Erica,’ she says. ‘Can you get up? Or is your back door open? Have you had a fall?’
Those last five words seem to be louder than the others. I’m not at the foot of the stairs and I’m not bloody deaf.
‘I’m getting up,’ I say. ‘It’s just that my knees…’ I try to get purchase on the telephone table, but it’s too high up and the legs are too unstable. Instead, I rest my left hand on the bottom step of the stairs and the other on the floor. Jesus. When had getting up from the ground become so difficult?
I’m dizzy when I stand, but shuffle to the front door to unlock it.
As soon as I open it, about six or seven police officers dressed in black storm into my house – half go upstairs, the rest check the rooms downstairs.
‘He’s not here,’ I say to the woman in a black suit and white shirt. Her hair is short, blonde. Her skin olive and covered in freckles. ‘I heard about it. I was talking to Luke…’
‘Luke?’
‘A reporter at the local paper. He said it was on the news about Craig. It can’t be him, though. He hasn’t got a car… he’d have had to tell his supervising officer if he bought a car… I found the leaflet ten minutes ago—’
‘Well,’ says the detective – I presume she’s the detective as she’s not in uniform. There’s a man behind her that I’ve only now noticed. Young, in a smart suit that must have cost a few bob. It doesn’t have that sheen that cheap suits have… that’s what he used to tell me. ‘He won’t necessarily have told them if he’d borrowed one, will he? When did you last see your son?’
‘On Saturday… he’s been spending time with his friends.’
‘He’s meant to be staying here, though, isn’t he? Has he been in contact with you since?’
I think about the phone call I made to him, the strange banging and the swearing. But it could be nothing – he won’t be stupid enough to take a young girl away – not straight after getting out of prison.
‘No. I didn’t want him to think I was checking up on him.’
She raises one eyebrow.