‘That’s wonderful, Jasmine, I’m proud,’ her mother said, and her father nodded his approval.
‘Is Felicity doing the play?’
‘Yes. Actually, I wanted to ask if you would mind giving her a lift to rehearsals with me and dropping her off.’
‘She still having problems at home?’
‘You know what her mum’s like.’
‘She’s back drinking then?’
‘She’s got a new boyfriend who is a complete nightmare apparently. Flick doesn’t like being there.’
‘Well, she is always welcome here as much as she wants over the summer. Poor girl.’
Jasmine smiled to herself at the thought of all the fun she and Felicity could have over the break. She couldn’t help but feel guilty for being glad to be home this year. She had met so many people with much less than her who were more than content with their lives, happy even. Jasmine thought of the tobacco ladies in the tiny village in Peru. They would get paid to sit all day in the blistering heat, threading tobacco leaves onto a long string which would then be hung to dry in large rickety wooden sheds. Her family had visited the village when she was nine years old and she had made friends with the girls from the local area. They often went to sit with the tobacco ladies and help thread the leaves onto the string. A full day’s work there was brutal, the big flat needle often cutting or stabbing your fingers. The seasoned workers had yellow calloused hands and the smell of fresh tobacco permeated every item of clothing Jasmine wore on those days. There were very young girls working there too, younger than her, day in day out, in August heat. Jasmine wondered if some of those little girls she saw threading tobacco with their grandmothers were still working there today.
‘Did you see what Tim’s done in the lounge?’ Lisa said to Frank.
‘No, is it good?’
‘It’s not finished yet, but it’s going to be. He’s built low level cupboards in the alcove.’
‘I always wanted to be a carpenter. Maybe I should get Tim to teach me,’ Frank said.
‘We should see if we can interest him in coming away with us next year. A man with his skills could cut the building time of our projects in half.’
‘We hardly know him,’ Jasmine said, concerned with how quickly her parents were incorporating Tim into every aspect of their lives. Her parents’ mention of ‘next year’ made it sound like they were planning on making him a permanent fixture. Even though they had travelled all over the world they could be quite naive sometimes about people and their intentions. Jasmine had seen them get hurt before when they trusted the wrong people. She hoped they weren’t wrong about Tim. For all of their sakes.
‘Well, we don’t want to put that kind of pressure on him anyway. Especially when he is doing us such a huge favour.’
‘How is he doing us a favour?’ Jasmine asked, trying to keep the snark out of her voice.
‘He’s going to fit our new kitchen for us – it’s costing us about a quarter of what it would if we used a professional kitchen fitter. The things we want done in the house would take years and years to save for, so Tim really is a godsend.’
‘But you’re letting him live here,’ Jasmine pointed out.
‘And he’s paying us.’
‘With the money you’re paying him. How does that make sense?’
‘When you have a house and children of your own, you will understand how much things cost. He’s also continuing his work with the charity in town and doing jobs for elderly people. We really want to help him out. Charity begins at home. I’m surprised at you, Jasmine,’ her mother said, her pride in Jasmine disappearing.
‘I’m sorry. I think I’m just really tired. School was a bit hectic today,’ Jasmine said sheepishly, trying to win her mother’s approval again. She hated disappointing either one of her parents. The older she got the more it seemed to happen.
‘What if Tim had heard you?’ Frank asked disapprovingly. Jasmine could see that she was outnumbered. ‘I want you to make an effort to be nice to him, he’s a good guy.’
‘Look, I know why you’re nervous – it’s because of what happened at school. Not all men are like that,’ Lisa said, reaching across the table to comfort Jasmine, but she pulled her hand away from her mother.
They just wouldn’t let her forget about the incident.
‘So, because of what happened last year I don’t know what I’m talking about? Don’t I deserve a little more credit than that? You want me to be more mature but then you treat me like a child.’
‘You can’t just go around being suspicious of everyone, Jasmine. He hasn’t done anything to warrant this attitude from you. He deserves a chance, at least.’
‘I guess my feelings matter less than the feelings of some stranger you’ve just let move in with us.’
‘That’s enough,’ Frank said in a voice that indicated he was done talking. He rarely snapped at Jasmine but she knew enough to know that she had lost this argument.
‘I’m tired, I’m going to bed,’ Jasmine told them and stood up quickly, the chair making the angry scream she wished she could.
‘Jasmine! Come back!’ her mother called after her, but she was already halfway up the stairs.
Chapter Nine
Now
I wake up confused, slightly panicked at my unfamiliar surroundings before I remember where I am. I am still on my side of the bed, still locked in my old routine. I look at the clock and see that it’s after lunch. Without the children or Chris to tend to I feel aimless. I go to the window and look out towards the seafront and see the people walking from the centre up towards Jacob’s Ladder. It’s weird being this side of the looking glass. I glance at my phone and see Chris hasn’t called. He’s still annoyed at me, but what can I do? I have spent more than a decade just being available, changing my plans to accommodate his deadlines, having nothing better to do. Well, for once I have something better to do.
After my shower I put on a grey summer dress that touches the floor when I walk. I feel very monochrome with my black hair and white sandals. I add my trademark red lipstick – I feel uncomfortable without it and it pulls the outfit together – and I take a small bottle of vodka from the minibar and drink it. I need some courage before I venture outside.
I completely missed breakfast and so my first task is to find some food. I decide to walk via The Triangle, where the main bus terminal for the town is located. That was the last place the missing girl was seen. There won’t be anything there but it’s as good a place as any to start. The closer I get to my destination the more my stomach turns. I walk up the road past the Bedford Hotel and The Triangle comes into view. Nothing has changed about it. It’s strange how you can spend so long away from a place but still know it so well. I sit on the wall opposite the actual terminal and watch the buses come and go, the drivers a mix of men and women. The drivers were all very familiar with us kids, going up to town and back hundreds of times a week. There was one old driver who would offer the girls free bus rides if they would touch his crotch. As far as I know, no one ever did, but that didn’t stop him from asking. We all referred to him as Pervy Pete and that was all there was to it. No big deal. The thought of my Daisy dealing with guys like that really makes my skin crawl but she is the same age as I was back then; it would be naive of me to think she lives in a bubble of innocence.
I keep my head down as I watch people gather at the stop, waiting for the next bus, all ignoring each other even though they probably get the same bus together day in, day out. The discomfort of proximity in a small town. I wonder what the people I used to know in school would look like now – would I even remember them? I hope they don’t remember me. I wasn’t what you would call popular and if the people I used to know are anything like me they will barely remember their friendship group, let alone anyone outside of it.
There are no cameras here at The Triangle and so it’s unlikely that there is any lead on who took the girl, what kind of vehicle, or exactly what time. Her name was Mandy Green and she was fifteen years old, the same age as my Daisy. Did she get in a car with someone she knew, or was it just an opportunistic drive-by kidnapping? I remembered reading on the local news website that one bus driver saw her there waiting for a bus, but when the next bus arrived she was gone. There are a few bunches of flowers tied to the railings, which I find odd. The girl wasn’t dead, or at least they hadn’t found a body. Who put the flowers on the railings? I am too scared to go and look at the flowers in case there is a note. There is one name I am scared of seeing. How much do the police actually know? The thought that he might be here again is too much to bear. Did he come back for me? No – it must be someone else, but why? And why is it so similar? Maybe I’m over-reacting; maybe the girl has just run away. Where the hell was Mandy? The voice in the back of my head tells me I did the right thing by coming here. I remember standing in this same spot all those years ago and wondering what had happened to the girl who disappeared, the girl who could have been me, could have been any of us. I have so many questions that I never dared ask, questions I never thought I would get answers for. I’m still too afraid to even think of what the answers might be.
I get up and walk towards the church and then proceed down the uneven pavement on Church Hill into the market square. I see the butcher’s is still there and the baker’s, a chocolate shop I don’t remember and also a shop filled with luxury Christmas decorations. Only in a town like this would a business like that be viable in July. There was a lot of money among some of the older residents and Christmas was an inevitability that they looked forward to, often because it might be their last.
I thought as soon as I returned that people would be pointing at me and whispering, but that isn’t happening. It feels like most of the people walking around are just visiting for the day. If I didn’t know what I know, I would think it was a beautiful place, the kind of place I would aspire to live in one day.
I go to a small tea room and order a sandwich. It feels like a living room, the walls covered in a flocked wallpaper smattered with little photo frames and inspirational quotes on small tapestries. It’s not the sort of place I would have ventured into when I was a teenager.
‘Has this place been here long?’ I ask the proprietor when she puts my food in front of me.
‘We took it over about twelve years ago, but the previous owners were here for a long time before that. Before that I think it used to be a hairdresser’s. Where are you from then?’ She answers me with far more information than I expected and a question thrown in just to spike my anxiety.
‘Just visiting from The Lake District.’
‘Oh, I’d love to go there, it’s beautiful. You visiting family here?’
‘No, my family is all back in the Lakes, I just fancied a getaway,’ I lie, trying to appear like a person who would just take a holiday on their own for the experience, not like someone who gets an anxiety attack even having to leave the house to post a letter.
‘Oh, well, it’s lovely here, too. You staying local?’
‘Yes, at the Victoria.’ I feel a little embarrassed as I say it, as if I am showing off. I notice a slight change in her expression; I have a feeling she thinks less of me now. Maybe that’s what I wanted.
‘You here on your own then?’
‘My husband is joining me with the kids at the weekend,’ I say, kicking myself for giving anything about myself away. I change the subject quickly. ‘I heard about that girl that went missing.’
‘Oh gosh yes, that was awful. They haven’t found her yet. It’s been a few days so I doubt they will either.’
‘Did you know her?’
She shakes her head.
‘She wasn’t local then?’
‘She lived up Manston way and the family were a little weird. Just her and her mum, I think. They only moved back to the town a year or so ago, but I think the mum was originally from round this way.’
A year would be considered very new to the area. If people could say what age you were when you moved here, they’d hold it against you. I remembered a Polish boy who joined at the beginning of secondary and no one let him forget it. He was the ‘new kid’ until someone newer came along, which wasn’t until four years later.
I turn away from her and start to eat my sandwich. I didn’t think she’d have even this much information for me. The news made it sound like Mandy was a tourist, but she was local.
I can’t help but think of Daisy when I am here. I was her age when I lived here, when I left. The person I am now was moulded back then, from the events that I witnessed, the things I ran away from. I’m hit with fresh guilt over the kind of mother I am, over the fact that I left them to come here and chase ghosts. I promised I would be better than the mother I had, and I have been, but the bar was very low, underground even. When you have your own children it’s much easier to question your own parents’ choices and not just blindly follow them. You realise the precious life you are responsible for looks to you for guidance, for direction.
I realise if I want to get answers then I need to actually go and look for them. I only eat half of the food, my appetite gone, then put a ten-pound note on the table – which more than covers my bill – before leaving the tea room. I walk back to the bus stop and get on a bus, the driver a woman, something you didn’t see very often when I lived here. There is no one else on board and so I sit at the front. There are a few minutes to wait and the driver stands just outside the door having a cigarette.
‘Excuse me,’ I say, and she turns to me in surprise, as though no one has ever done this before.
‘I’ll take your money in a minute.’ She smiles awkwardly and continues to smoke.
‘Oh no, I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about that girl that went missing. They said she was last seen at this bus stop.’
‘Yeah, terrible business, poor girl.’
‘Did you know her?’
‘Seen her on the bus a few times, but no, I didn’t know her. She was a quiet little thing, very polite though, unlike some of the little scrotes round here.’
‘Do you know who saw her last?’
‘Yeah, it was Bill Hawkins, drives the Honiton bus. Said she was in the hut when he pulled off. Next bus to come along was one of these, the driver said she weren’t there then.’
‘Was there a long wait? Could she have decided to walk?’
‘Someone would have seen her on the road, unless she went up the back way I suppose. But the hotel on the road up there has CCTV pointed at their car park and it catches the pavement. The local paper said no one walked up that way.’
‘What was her surname again?’ I ask, trying to cover the fact that I have asked so many odd questions with something a little more obvious.
‘You’re not a reporter, are you? Asking all these questions?’ the woman said with a raised eyebrow, maybe teasing, maybe not.
‘Oh gosh no, just curious in case I know her family. Wouldn’t want to put my foot in it,’ I say, realising I must sound odd asking.
‘Her name is Mandy Green. Her mum Liz works up at the Spar shop on Temple Street, although I haven’t seen her there since it happened.’
I want to recognise the name, to justify my being here – but Mandy Green still means nothing to me. I try to think of anyone I might have known back then with that name, but I have done such a good job of suppressing my past that I draw a blank. Something tells me the girl is connected to me. I just don’t know how.
‘Thank you,’ I say as she puts the cigarette out and gets on the bus. I move back so she can get into her cab and put a five pound note on her tray. I can’t remember the last time I was on a bus for anything.
‘Where you off to?’
‘Just up to the fork please. Single,’ I say. It’s only a short walk from there to the Spar. Even though there’s a bus stop outside the shop I don’t want the driver to know I’m going straight there.
She prints out the ticket and gives me my change and I retreat to the back of the bus. It has leather seats and is much cleaner than I ever remember these buses being. Maybe I’m judging this town too harshly – maybe my whole view is tarnished by my own experiences. We go past several houses I remember visiting at one point or another, although I can’t remember who lived there. Before I know it, I am off the bus again. I stand at the fork in the road, very aware of how close I am to my old house. The Spar was my local newsagent for a while; my mother would send me there for milk and I would complain because it was uphill all the way home. I look at the houses that surround me, the faded pastel paint and mossy trails around the foundations as though they had been steeped in algae. The gardens were the real prize, bursts of coloured blooms and a multitude of greens, like something out of a fairy tale. They look exactly as I remember them, almost as if I’m looking at a photograph of the past. That’s the thing about these old towns, changes were hard won because no one wanted them.
I stand outside the shop and take a few deep breaths. Maybe Liz Green could shed some light on what happened to her daughter, her daughter who is just a few weeks older than mine. I try not to think about Daisy. I like to think she would have been safe if I had stayed here, but even that makes me feel guilty. Guilty that I was never a target.
I walk into the shop and browse the snacks, picking up several bags of chocolates and crisps to eat in the hotel room, enough for several weeks, theoretically. I tell myself I can give some to the kids when they come at the weekend, but I know they won’t last that long. I grab several cans of premixed gin and tonic; I don’t want Chris to be able to keep tabs on how much I drink in my room from the hotel minibar bill. They replenish it every day when the cleaners fix the room. I must try to stay away from it. I always have a bottle of something hidden at home, too, for the same reason. He worries about my anxieties and the way I deal with them, which makes me keep secrets from him. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure Chris even knows me at all – all he gets is what I give him, and I certainly don’t give him much. I don’t do it out of spite, I do it out of necessity, to survive. I can’t be without him and if he knew the real me he would run and never look back.
I approach the counter and see a woman with thick glasses and short dark hair. Her nametag says Liz so I know she’s the mother of the missing girl, but without that I wouldn’t recognise her, although there is something familiar about her. I try not to judge her for being at work while her daughter is missing; I know she probably has no choice. Knowing where Liz lives has already influenced what I think of her. I hate that that’s true, but it is. I am already imagining what kind of mother she is purely based on where she lives. Seeing her in person has only confirmed my prejudice. Liz looks hard, much older than she should, and as she removes my items from the basket and scans them I can see she’s a heavy smoker; her fingers are a deep yellow and there are grooves all around her lips from years of sucking on cigarettes. I know my prejudices come from hearing my own mother speak about the people who lived in this neighbourhood. My mother had a lot of hypocritical opinions for someone who lived the life that she did.
‘Are you the mother of the girl that went missing?’ I feel compelled to be at least partially honest with her about what brought me here, as she deserves that. I am confident she won’t remember me. She looks lost; she barely pays attention to my face at all.
‘I am,’ she says, staring past me, her eyes connecting with nothing.
‘I just wanted to say sorry and I hope you find her soon,’ I say as sincerely as I can, even though I don’t believe they will find her – gone is gone.
‘Thank you,’ she says, placing her hand on mine for a moment and squeezing, making me feel guilty for even coming here. I see her eyes brim over and she dashes out to the back of the shop. Her colleague who was restocking a shelf nearby comes to finish serving me.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset her.’
‘She shouldn’t be back at work really, been doing that all morning,’ the other lady says sympathetically. Her nametag says Charlotte.
‘Do they have any idea where her daughter might be?’
‘No. Someone I know who works at the Fort Hotel said they saw her getting into an old brown car but they couldn’t confirm it, could have been another kid or another day. It’s like she just up and vanished. Very strange business. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen around here. There are tons of rumours flying around about what happened.’
‘I heard it happened once before, about sixteen years ago.’ I try to keep eye contact, not shift my eyes or look suspicious in any way, as if we are talking about a movie we saw, not something that matters, not something I was part of.
‘What are the chances it’s the same person? That they would wait sixteen years to do it again? That will be twenty-four pounds and eighty seven pence,’ Liz’s colleague Charlotte said.
I pay with contactless. ‘I guess you’re right, sixteen years is a long time to wait.’
‘Was probably one of those fairground folk. I don’t trust them,’ Charlotte said.
‘Is the fair still in town?’
‘No, thank goodness. Packed up as soon as there was any sign of trouble. Shady bunch. Can I get you anything else?’
‘No. Thank you.’
After I leave the newsagent’s I decide to cut through to the park that leads towards town. There are lots of people out walking their dogs. No mutts in sight, all groomed and healthy-looking designer breeds like labradoodles and cockapoos. I feel torn between my contempt for the wealthy people in this town and my ingrained feeling of superiority over the people on the other side of that coin. I never did fit in here.
I think about the brown car that the woman mentioned. It couldn’t be the same car, could it? Brown wasn’t a particularly popular colour but what were the chances that it was his car? How could it be? And why now? Was he back? I should go to the police and tell them what I know, but the thought of it makes me feel sick. By doing so I could be taking a sledgehammer to the life I’ve constructed for myself. I would be pulled back into a world I only escaped by the skin of my teeth. Mandy can’t still be alive, so I would be hurting myself for no reason. I walk as briskly as I can back to the hotel, afraid with every passing moment that someone will recognise me and the world will find out the truth. I would die before that happened.
Chapter Ten
Then
Jasmine sat in her room listening to music. She had hooked her desk chair under the doorknob because she didn’t want to speak to her parents, and with her headphones on she wouldn’t hear them if they knocked on the door anyway. She was still cross with her mother for bringing up what had happened at school last year.
Jasmine’s English teacher Mr Morrell – who, for obvious reasons, no longer worked at the school – had tried to kiss Jasmine. He had kissed her. He had mistaken her general enthusiasm for the subject as something else.
Jasmine had joined all the after-school reading clubs and the debate club which James Morrell ran. He thought Jasmine was trying to get closer to him because she was somehow attracted to him, but she just loved books. She had been reading Jane Eyre – a book partly about a girl who was in love with a much older man – and Mr Morrell had misread the signs and took her love of the book as something else and made a career-ending mistake. Frank and Lisa had explained in their usual charitable way that he was young and had not long been a teacher, so had blurred the lines between her love of the subject and her possible love for him.
