11 Missed Calls: A gripping psychological thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat

‘Debbie.’

My mind wakes up, but I leave my eyes closed. It’s so hot. I’m on a beach, lying on sand in a cove that only I know about.

‘Debbie.’

Was that a voice in my head? I open one eye to find a nurse bending over me.

‘Oh God,’ I say. ‘The baby.’

I sit up as quickly as I can. How could I be so careless falling asleep so heavily? The nurse rests a cold hand on my wrist.

‘Baby’s fine,’ she says. ‘There’s a phone call for you.’

I swing my legs so they’re dangling over the side of the bed. The nurse pushes the payphone towards me and gives me the handset.

‘Debs, it’s me.’ It’s Peter. ‘How’s Annie? Did she wake much in the night? I wish I could be there. Shall I ask if you can come home early?’

It takes a few moments to digest Peter’s words. He must’ve thought of them during the night, to be saying them all at once. Being with children does that; makes you go over things in your mind, with no adult to talk to. He’s not used to it being just Bobby and him.

‘No, no,’ I say. ‘It’s fine. She’s being as good as gold.’

Good as gold? I sound like my mother.

‘I can’t make the afternoon visiting times today,’ he says, ‘but I’ll be there at seven tonight. I’ll drop Bobby off at school, then I’ll work straight through. Is that all right? I have to make sure I can spend at least a week at home when you both come out.’

‘That’s fine. Monica’s visiting this afternoon.’

‘Good, good.’

‘I have to go now, though. They’re bringing lunch round.’

‘Really?’

‘Bye, Peter.’

I place the handset back into the cradle. I hate making small talk, especially while a whole maternity ward can hear me shouting down the payphone. The nurse doesn’t say anything, even though when I look at the clock on the wall it’s only eight in the morning, and four hours from lunchtime. I suppose she’s seen everything, so I don’t feel as embarrassed as I should. I’ve spent so long lying to Peter – Yes, I’m fine and Yes, I’ve always wanted two children – that it comes naturally to me.

Why is he taking a whole week off? He’s branch manager now at Woolies – surely they can’t be without him for that long. I’m sure he didn’t with Bobby, though that time is a blur. I don’t think I can remember anything – I might’ve forgotten how to look after a tiny baby.

The woman in the bed next to me is snoring so loudly, it’s like being at home. A silver chain her boyfriend bought her is dangling off the hospital bed. ‘I can’t wear necklaces at night,’ she said yesterday, ‘in case they strangle me in my sleep.’ I was about to tell her that I was afraid of spiders to make her feel better, but I remembered Mum saying I shouldn’t make everything about me. ‘It’s called empathy,’ I said. ‘Ego,’ she said. She’s too humble for her own good. I blame Jesus – she loves him more than life itself.

Yesterday, she whispered, ‘Mothers are so much older these days.’ (Some of her opinions aren’t as Christian as they should be.) ‘Women want everything now,’ she said. ‘They all want to be men.’

It was, of course, a stupid thing to say in a maternity ward. And she was an older mother herself.

An assistant is coming round to change the water jugs.

‘It’s good that you’re dressed,’ she says to me. ‘Makes you feel a bit more together, doesn’t it?’

I look down at my Frankie Says Relax T-shirt and red tartan pyjama bottoms. My mouth is already open when I say, ‘Yes.’

She looks at my birthday cards, displayed on the cabinet. I can’t even remember opening them.

‘Happy Birthday, lovey,’ she says.

It’s only then I realise that Peter forgot my birthday.

At last, Annie makes a feeble sound as though she can’t be bothered.

‘I know, little girl,’ I say. ‘Sometimes it’s more effort than it’s worth, waking up.’

I pick her up and out of the plastic fish tank (that’s what Bobby called it when he visited yesterday) and put the ready-prepared bottle to her lips, settling back into the pillows. She suckles on it – probably going too fast, too much air – but I let her. She’s going to be a feisty little thing, I can tell.

Everyone else wanted me to have a girl. No one believed me when I said I didn’t mind, that healthy was all that mattered. But I would’ve been happy with two boys, I’m sure. It seems longer than nearly six years since I had Bobby – I was only twenty-one, but I felt so grown-up. He’s so loving, so sensitive. ‘Perfect little family now,’ said Mum. ‘One of each.’ And I should feel that, shouldn’t I?

But I don’t.

Chapter Three

Anna

I used to have dreams that Debbie was dead and had come back to life. Sometimes she would be rotting, sometimes she would be an unwelcome guest as the family was sitting around the table for Sunday lunch. I don’t remember seeing her happy in my dreams. When I was eight, I used to have the same nightmare, over and over. I still remember it now. Our house was burning down, and a woman stood at my bedroom doorway screaming. Robert came to my side that night and sang ‘Hush, Little Baby’. I thought it childish the morning after, but at the time it soothed me. He said that Debbie sang it to me in the middle of the night a few times when I wouldn’t sleep.

I can’t sleep now. My mind won’t be still.

If Debbie were alive, then it would mean it was my fault that she left. She was fine until I came into the world. Not that anyone has said as much, but Dad, Robert – they all probably think it is down to me that she isn’t here any more. Perhaps I was a mistake.

I can’t stop thinking about her. I wish I hadn’t put all of Debbie’s photographs in the loft. Jack would call me crazy if I got the ladder down at three o’clock in the morning.

What would she look like now? Would she still hate me?

Random thoughts like these always come into my head when I try not to think of her.

A few years after we married, Jack told me I was obsessed with her.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘It’s not enough that you’re aware of it,’ he said. ‘You have to change it.’

Yesterday, he came home after Dad and Robert had left, and Sophie had gone to bed. Dad asked why a conveyancer would be called out to work on a Saturday, but I’ve stopped probing Jack about it. He must be so busy at work that he forgot my birthday. He knows I hate birthdays, which is his usual excuse. I should tell him that it’s not enough that you’re aware of it.

We met when I was twenty-two and Jack was twenty-four, at a Spanish evening class. I only went on Monica’s suggestion. ‘You’re too young to be stuck in all day on your own, love,’ she said. ‘I don’t like seeing you so lonely.’

I had been desperate to meet someone, perhaps have children – a family of my own. I’m not sure I would be in so much of a rush, had I the chance to start again; I was far too young, but I had no friends and hardly ever went out. I had just finished university and was applying for at least twenty jobs a week.

Before the first class, Monica took me into Boots to have a makeover.

‘Could you do something with her eyebrows?’ she said to the lady dressed in white – plastered in thick foundation and bright-red lipstick. ‘They’ve gone a bit wild.’

‘Monica!’ I said through gritted teeth, as I sat on a pedestal for everyone in the shop to see.

‘We might as well, while we’re here.’

After my face had been transformed, Monica took me to the hairdressers: my first visit for several years.

‘She has beautiful hair,’ Monica said to the stylist, ‘but perhaps we could put some highlights at the front … to frame her lovely face.’

On the way home, I caught sight of myself in her car’s vanity mirror and got a fright. I didn’t look like me any more.

When I walked into the classroom that evening, I thought Jack was the teacher. He was standing at the front, talking to the students with such confidence. But when he opened his mouth, he spoke with a broad Yorkshire accent and was worse at Spanish than I was. I learned that he’d stayed in Lancashire after university, after his parents abandoned him to go and live in Brighton.

Jack said I wasn’t like other women he met. ‘You’re an innocent, Anna. It’s like you’ve been sheltered from the world.’

But that was my act – the character I chose to present to others at that time. Self-preservation. I didn’t even look like the real me. I could act like I had no silly fears − of heights, swimming pools, and other irrational things. But I couldn’t pretend forever. When I confessed my greatest fears three months later, Jack hadn’t laughed at me. ‘They’re perfectly reasonable phobias,’ he’d said. ‘But life’s about risk sometimes.’

Jack’s parents moved away so long ago – Sophie has only met them six times. They think it’s enough to send my daughter ten pounds in a card for her birthday and Christmas.

I think because Jack isn’t close to his parents, there’s no love lost between him and my dad. When he’s drunk, Jack often ponders out loud whether my dad had anything to do with my mother’s disappearance, and rolls off the possible ways in which it could have happened.

‘Why else,’ he said one night, ‘would he end up married to Debbie’s best friend?’

I switch off when he starts talking like that. He has stopped saying sorry about it in the morning – if he remembers saying it at all. I console myself that he’s only so boorish when he’s had a drink.

‘Dad … well, Monica … got an email from someone saying they’re my mother,’ I said to him when he got in last night. I was sitting at the kitchen table – the champagne, which had long gone flat, still in three glasses.

‘Is that why you’ve taken to drink?’ he said, shrugging off his suit jacket and hanging it on the back of a chair.

‘It’s not funny,’ I said.

I thought he would be more surprised. It was like his mind was elsewhere.

He grabbed the glass with the most wine in, and downed half of it. He winced.

‘It’s flat.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Do you think it’s really her? It can’t be, surely. It must be some lunatic wanting a bit of attention.’

‘I’ve no idea if it is or isn’t. How would I know that?’

Jack raised his eyebrows. He hates anything that borders on histrionic.

‘If it is,’ I said, ‘then it means she left us … That she left me.’

I saw the briefest flicker of irritation on his face. He gets like that when I talk about Debbie in that way. He hates people with a poor me attitude. It’s bad enough that I have a fear of swimming pools and spiders. I don’t want to be a victim. I have tried to overcome that feeling all my life.

He pulled off his tie, in the way he always does: wrenching it off with one hand, while grimacing as though he were being strangled. Who’s the victim now, eh? I thought to myself.

‘What a day,’ he said, as usual. ‘Have you got a copy of the email?’

‘Yes. Dad gave me and Robert a print-out. I wonder if we could trace the email address. Do you think I should ring Leo?’

‘Will he care?’

‘Course he’ll care … he grew up with us. At least, until I was ten.’

‘Sharing a bedroom with your brother would make anyone want to flee the country.’

I don’t laugh.

‘I’ll look at the email later,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a really long day. Is there anything in for tea?’

I looked at him for a few seconds, waiting for him to realise. But he didn’t. Sophie had claimed the balloon my dad gave me; it was floating from her bedpost. My cards were on top of the fridge, but Jack hadn’t noticed them.

I stood.

‘I’m going to bed,’ I said. ‘There’s a new volunteer starting tomorrow.’

He snorted. ‘Ah, the ex-con. And on a Sunday as well.’ He made the sign of the cross with his left hand. ‘Lock up your handbag.’

‘Yes, very funny,’ I said as I walked towards the door. ‘It’s part of the offender-rehabilitation programme Isobel’s been going on about.’

His chair scraped on the stone floor as he stood.

‘Guess I’ll just stick a pizza in the oven then.’

I tried to stomp up the stairs, but failed in bare feet. Happy sodding Birthday, Anna.

I look at him next to me in bed now, jealous of his ability to sleep soundly at this hour. He’s never had anything big to worry about. It’s 3.45 a.m. If I get up now, I’ll be a wreck later, but I can’t lie here with only my thoughts.

I manage to avoid all the creaking floorboards and make it quietly downstairs to the kitchen. The ticking of the clock is too loud. On the table, Jack’s plate is covered with pizza crusts, and crumbs litter the floor under the chair.

The three wine glasses are now empty. Why the hell did he want to drink flat champagne? I go to the fridge to count the bottles of beer left: there were six, and now there are none. No wonder he’s sleeping so soundly. I don’t know why he’s drinking so much when he’s looking after Sophie tomorrow. He’s usually the sensible one.

I sit opposite his empty chair. It’s wearing the jacket that Jack was earlier. His right pocket is slightly open, and the top of his wallet is peeking out.

Before I know it, I’m out of my seat.

The wallet slips out of Jack’s pocket so easily, it’s like it was waiting for me. Inside is a picture of Sophie and me. It’s old – from Sophie’s first birthday. I look quite together in the photo, which is surprising considering what I was going through. There are some receipts – the usual expenses he claims: newspapers, dinner. I scan the food he ate at lunchtime yesterday: steak, crème brûlée, and one small glass of pinot noir. Only one meal, but quite an extravagant one – on my birthday. I almost give up searching, but I feel like I am missing something.

There is a compartment I’ve not noticed before: to the side and underneath his cards. I wedge my fingers inside it. There’s something there. I grasp it, using my fingers as tweezers, and pull it out.

It’s a note. The paper is blue, with black lines – like the old-fashioned Basildon Bond writing pad my grandmother used. The creases are crisp; it’s not been read many times. I unfold it and look straight to the name at the bottom: Francesca.

I read the rest of the letter.

This woman definitely knows my husband.

Chapter Four

Friday, 27 June 1986

Debbie

Peter’s holding Annie while I pack. I almost don’t want to leave the hospital. With Bobby, I wanted to go home straight away, but regretted it as soon as I got back.

Ever since I gave birth to him, I’ve been scared that I’ll die any minute. I go to bed and, most nights, I think I won’t wake up. Sometimes I’m exhausted, but when my mind feels sleep begin – it’s like I’m slipping from life, and I’m jolted awake. I can’t sleep for hours after.

At least in hospital I’m safe. Plus, people give you food to eat, and you don’t have to worry about housework. As much as Peter said he’d become one of these New Men who help tidy up and change nappies, it didn’t happen. Now I know what’s waiting for me when I get home.

I had a little routine here. I got to know Stacy in the next bed. Actually … know is exaggerating it a bit. We watched Coronation Street together, and both our babies decided to sleep through it, which was a miracle in itself. Stacy couldn’t get over Bet Lynch being in the Rovers when it was on fire. I told her that it’s not real life, but she was having none of it. I put a cushion between us when she said she fancied Brian Tilsley – it still gives me shivers thinking about it.

‘Was it horrible spending the whole of your birthday in hospital?’ says Peter.

‘It wasn’t too bad,’ I say.

I smile at him, so he’ll probably think it’s because of Annie that I didn’t mind, because she’s enough of a present. He gives me a smile back. He thinks he can read my mind. I look at him and he’s the same lovely-looking man I’ve been with for years. I love him. Why are my thoughts telling me different? It’s like they’re betraying me.

I zip up my suitcase; the clothes inside’ll smell of hospital when I open it up. I’ll probably feel sentimental about it.

‘It’s too warm in here,’ I say.

He smiles again. Perhaps he likes the fact I’m suffering for our child – even after being pregnant and giving birth. Perhaps he’s right. It was a relatively quick labour – I’ve not endured enough to deserve the life I’ll go back to: swanning about the house all day watching Sons and Daughters, The Sullivans, and all the other soaps he reckons I watched during those long weeks when my maternity leave started.

‘Good luck,’ says Stacy, lying in the next bed, baby fast asleep in her arms – her only child.

‘Good luck,’ I say, to be friendly. ‘Not that you’ll need it.’

‘We should meet up for coffee sometime,’ she says.

‘Yes, we should.’

I pick the baby up from the bed and Peter and I leave the ward. I didn’t give Stacy my telephone number because we’ll never get together. People suggest it all the time and they never mean it. I’m not sure if I’ll regret it or not.

Annie’s wrapped up in the shawl we used for Bobby on his first day out into the world. We’re in the lift and Annie’s not opened her eyes since leaving the ward. She’s going to miss her first proper glimpse of sky if she’s not careful.

‘There, there,’ I say, stroking her soft, plump cheek.

‘Don’t wake her, Debs,’ says Peter. ‘The bright light might startle her.’

‘Don’t be silly. She’s got to see it some time.’

The lift doors open and there are people everywhere.

‘Can we pop into the shop to get a souvenir?’ I say.

I don’t wait for Peter.

‘Is Annie not souvenir enough?’

I pretend I didn’t hear. I want something to put in her little keepsake box, like I did for Bobby. Someday she’ll look at it and know that I cared enough.

On the counter, there’s a selection of pens. I pick one up that has a boat sailing up and down. She’ll like that, I know she will. I’d have loved my mum to have bought me anything that wasn’t on a birthday or Christmas, even if it were practical.

‘A pen’s got nothing to do with hospitals,’ says Peter.

‘They’re hardly going to sell stethoscopes and hypodermic needles.’

I smile at the lady behind the counter, but she doesn’t smile back. She’s not amused. I’m used to it. Peter’s always telling me not to be so honest in public.

I wind the window down because it’s as hot in the car as it was in the hospital. I’m holding on to Annie tightly on the back seat. Peter’s driving at about ten miles an hour. It’s a good job our house is only five minutes away.

I’m staring at Annie, willing her eyes to open, and it seems she’s telepathic: her eyes don’t even squint in the daylight.

‘Welcome to the world, little girl.’

I say it quietly, so Peter doesn’t hear. I’m keeping this moment for me.

They’re due here at three. The house looks okay; I have the baby as an excuse not to bother about it so much. If it were my mum visiting, I’d make it a bit messier – if only to give her something to do. She likes to feel useful.

Bobby’s waiting by the window. His little hands are around the cat’s neck as it lies on the back of the settee. Annie’s in the pram next to him by the window – the midwife said it’s the best way to get the jaundice out of her.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind Monica and Nathan coming round?’ says Peter. ‘I tried to put them off, but she wouldn’t listen.’

‘It’s fine, it’s fine.’

Sometimes I think Peter knows about my secret, but he doesn’t seem to let on.

He says I look good, considering, but I don’t feel it. I can’t move quickly with these damn painful stitches; I walk like I’ve drenched my trousers in starch. I’d planned what to wear when they came round, but my blouse gaped too much at the front. I’m like a cow that needed milking two days ago, and my breasts are leaking so much. So now, I’m wearing a jumper, in June, with two green paper towels from the hospital stuffed in each cup of my bra.

‘They’re here,’ shouts Bobby, jumping down from the settee, scaring the cat.

‘I’ll go,’ says Peter, as though he’s doing me a huge favour by answering the door.

I hear them in the hallway – Monica’s whispering in case Annie’s asleep, but Peter’s talking normally because we’ve decided to talk at a regular volume during the day so as not to make the baby used to silence. It took Bobby three years to learn that there didn’t have to be quiet in order to sleep.

I’m not the first person Nathan looks at when he walks in the room. His eyes are on the floor until his gaze reaches the pram wheels, and only then does he look up. He almost tiptoes, which isn’t really necessary on the carpet.

‘Well aren’t you a pretty little thing?’ he says.

Monica’s in my face and I almost jump, until I realise she’s kissing my cheek.

‘I know I saw you in the hospital,’ she says, ‘but bloody well done, you.’

She hands me a Marks & Sparks carrier bag that she’s filled with magazines, Ferrero Rocher, and a mini bottle of Snowball. Is it too early to open it?

‘You don’t need to whisper, everyone,’ shouts Peter, as though there were a crowd in the room. ‘We’re doing this thing …’

I let him explain. It’s embarrassing. It’s like we’re pretending to be New Age parents when we’re probably the opposite. Does Nathan think I’m boring now – worrying about babies and what sort of noise is acceptable?

‘Did you see the match on Sunday?’ Peter says to Nathan.

‘Oh God, don’t mention it,’ says Monica. ‘He’s not stopped moaning about it all week.’

‘Bloody hand of God,’ says Nathan. ‘I’m not watching any more World Cup. I just can’t believe …’ He shakes his head.

Monica sits and pulls Nathan down towards the settee by his hand; he lands next to her. Peter goes to the kitchen, and Monica leans towards me, her hands on her knees.

‘Peter’s so good, isn’t he?’

I glance at Nathan; he’s still not looking at me.

‘He is,’ I say. ‘He’s the best.’

Monica tilts her head. They’ve left Leo at his friend’s so they can have a proper visit. She’s so nice to me, she’s been such a good friend. I suddenly have this sense of remorse and a crushing feeling of shame about the thoughts I’ve been having. She gets down onto her knees and reaches into her pocket for a rectangular tissue.

‘It’s only normal,’ she says. ‘I cried for days after I had Leo.’

I hadn’t realised I was crying.

I pat my face dry and look at Nathan above the tissue.

He narrows his eyes when he looks at me.

Was that hatred? Does he think I’m weird? I’ve always been inappropriate. I feel like I’m in the wrong life. I should be with Nathan, not Peter. He was with me first, after all.

There was a girl in my class at school who died in a car crash when she was fourteen. I’ll always remember her name: Leslie Pickering. It’s terrible that I think about her at times like this, and I don’t know why I do. I think to myself: she never has to go through this, and I wish I were her. These thoughts scare me.

‘It’s just … just …’

I think of poor Leslie Pickering’s parents. I bet they wish I were dead instead of her, too.

My face is in my hands. Why am I doing this in front of them?

Monica pats my knees and rubs them like I need warming.

‘We need to arrange a night out,’ she says.

I look up. Nathan wrinkles his nose.

‘Don’t be stupid, Monica,’ he says. ‘She’s just had a baby – why the hell would she want a night out?’

I sit up a bit straighter and stuff the tissue up my sleeve.

‘Mind your language in front of Bobby,’ says Monica. ‘What about Lytham Club Day tomorrow instead? We could let the boys go on a few rides.’

‘Actually, that doesn’t seem such a bad idea,’ I say, pretending I want to go outside – that I wouldn’t care if everyone saw me walking like I’ve a horse missing between my legs. I could take some painkillers. ‘I’ve been in the house for too long. I could do with getting out.’