Local Girl Missing (4 page)

I’m alone in the apartment for the first time since I arrived, and despite not seeing him for nearly eighteen years I’m missing Daniel’s reassuring presence, his banter. He’s the only thing worth coming back to this godforsaken place for.

Shadows move and shift on the high ceiling, and the sitting room feels chilly, the wooden floor cold under my feet. I throw some more logs on the fire and huddle around it as the flames dance higher and higher, licking up the chimney, and I breathe in the woody scent of burning logs, tasting it at the back of my throat.

Daniel’s parting words are still fresh in my mind. Leon is back in town, and, even worse, tomorrow I’m going to have to face him again. I think of all the excuses I could use to explain to Daniel why I had to return home: one of the hotels is in trouble, my father needs me, Mike’s burnt the house down. But even as these thoughts swill around in my head, I already know I have to accompany Daniel tomorrow, because if I don’t Leon might reveal things I’d rather keep hidden. Things about the past. And I can’t risk that.

I just hope you kept our secret like you promised.
That you weren’t foolish enough to unburden yourself to Leon.

A breeze brushes the back of my neck. Why have I got this feeling that I’m being watched? A sudden gust of wind rattles the window frames and howls down the chimney, flattening the fire, and I jump back in alarm. It sounds as though a ghost is trying to break in. I try not to think about the view behind the heavy cream curtains. The dark, hulking shape of the decaying pier, the memories of what took place there all those years ago. Rain slashes against the glass like a maniac with a knife.

I desperately need a glass of wine.

I go to the kitchen and retrieve a bottle of red from beside the microwave. I knew this was going to be a stressful few days so I made sure to bring enough bottles of vino. I settle myself in front of the television, but the weather causes the picture to fizzle and crackle and, frustrated, I turn it off. Spending a night here is going to send me insane. Why did I agree to this? But I know the answer.

Maybe I should have booked a room at one of the hotels in the centre that overlook the gaudy Grand Pier, the promenade and the beach. Like the one I grew up in. These apartments might be more prestigious than the guest houses and B&Bs in town, but being high up on the cliff tops in winter isn’t for the fainthearted, especially considering my past. I feel isolated up here. Why is it that when I’m on my own all of the scary movies and television programmes I’ve ever
watched play out as if I have the DVDs on a loop in my mind?

I think longingly of my house in Islington. It’s not as though I’m unused to solitude. Apart from my brief marriage and a few short co-habitations I’ve always lived alone. But in London I’m comforted by the city’s familiar sounds – the almost constant hum of traffic in the street, the honk of a horn, the blare of police sirens, the shouts of teenagers, the faint roar of an aeroplane – that tell me I’m never too far away from people, from civilisation. London is never quiet, even in the dead of night. I’d forgotten how deafening silence can sound.

And then I think of Mike in his dusty work trousers and muddy boots, making a mess of the kitchen and walking dirt through the hallway, and the thought of him in my home suddenly irritates me.

As if he’s read my mind, my mobile trills and his name flashes up on my phone.

‘Mike?’ The reception is sketchy but I can hear the background noise of people, glasses clinking, faint music that indicates he’s in a bar.

‘Just wanted to make sure you got there OK?’ he says. It’s a lovely gesture but it signifies everything that’s wrong in our relationship. Mike wants things from me that I can never give him. Commitment, children. We’ve never talked about love, but I know he feels it; it lingers between us in his kisses, the surreptitious glances when he thinks I’m not looking, the way he lovingly twists the ends of my hair around his fingers while we sit listening to music, or watching TV.
And I can never reciprocate his feelings. How can I admit that I fancy him but I’m not capable of anything further? At least, not with him. Deep down I know he’s not the right man for me. The truth is, Soph, I felt sorry for him when I met him. You know what I’m like – I never could resist a lost soul.

I tell him I arrived safely and start to describe how remote the apartment is but he interrupts me, excitement in his voice. ‘I was thinking, why don’t I come down for a few days to keep you company? I don’t like the thought of you in that place by yourself. It sounds lonely. We never spend much quality time together, you’re always working late and I haven’t got much on at the moment …’

The thought of him coming here fills me with dread. ‘I’ve come back to help Daniel, for crying out loud, Mike. I’m not in Oldcliffe to have a romantic break with you.’ It comes out harsher than I intend.

‘Fran …’ The line breaks up and I move to the window to get better reception, but his words fade in and out: ‘… pushing me away … not want to be with me? … tell me honestly … so cold to me sometimes …’

‘The line’s bad. I can’t hear you,’ I cry, then the phone goes dead. I slump onto the sofa, still gripping the mobile as the wind howls outside. Then I pour myself another glass of wine, and for some reason my thoughts turn to Jason.

Do you remember when we first met Jason? My mum recruited him to help her in the hotel kitchen cooking
bacon, black pudding and overdone baked beans. He wanted to be a chef. He was seventeen, a year older than us, and he was the best-looking bloke that our sixteen-year-old selves had ever seen in real life. He had dark wavy hair and sun-kissed skin. It was an unusually hot June and we had come straight from the beach. We still had sand in the turn-ups of our denim shorts and sea salt in our hair. We smelt of candy floss and sun cream, trailing our towels and beach bags through the dining room, gossiping about boys. He was sitting at one of the pine dining tables being interviewed by my mother, his face serious, trying (as he later admitted to me) to appear grown up and responsible, desperate for the summer job. I can still recall exactly what he was wearing the first time I clapped eyes on him: a khaki T-shirt with a sun on the front and a pair of baggy jeans – and he had those dog tags around his neck. He loved those things, didn’t he, Soph. He was wearing them the night he died.

A baby is crying, its wails high-pitched and persistent. The sound shocks me awake. I must have fallen asleep on the sofa, my neck at an odd angle on the purple cushion. I sit up, rubbing my shoulder and flexing my joints. An empty bottle of wine sits on the coffee table in front of me. I look at my watch. It’s 2 a.m. The fire has burnt itself out and the apartment is freezing. I wonder where the baby’s cries are coming from. It sounds like they are somewhere within the building, although Daniel said the flats are empty apart from the one directly below mine.

I get up from the sofa with great effort; my limbs feel stiff, my feet numb. The curtains to the bay window are wide open, framing the pier as though it’s scenery on a stage. A wispy fog swirls around the amber light emanating from the two Victorian lamps that still stand proudly at its entrance. I frown, puzzled. I don’t remember leaving the curtains open. In fact I’m almost certain I closed them. I go to the window and look out onto the pier and the rough sea beyond. I’m just about to thrust the curtains shut when, through the ethereal fog, I see you
.
Standing on the pier, illuminated by the lights, in a long dress, the wind whipping your hair across your face. I blink a few times. I’m mistaken – of course I am. I’ve drunk too much, I’m still half asleep. When I look again the pier is empty, as I knew it would be.

All those ghost stories we told each other when we were young, I never believed in any of them. But despite my rational thoughts, a chill runs through my body and I hurriedly close the curtains on the pier. And on you.

To take my mind off being back here I unpack my laptop and, balancing it on my knees, try and catch up with some work. With the opening of the new hotel there is so much to do: decorating to oversee, staff to hire. Luckily my dad made sure he employed a hard-working manager, Stuart, but even before his stroke I’d taken on more responsibility so that my parents could semi-retire. My mother is unable to help because of all the hours she spends at my father’s
bedside. A wave of guilt washes over me that I’m not sitting with her.

Before driving down here I made a detour to visit my dad.

His room was unnaturally warm and smelled of boiled vegetables with an undercurrent of disinfectant. Witnessing him lying there in his hospital bed, hardly able to move, a drip in his arm, brought tears to my eyes. My strong, capable father, who I admired and looked up to, now appeared shrunken, wizened, old. It had been three weeks since his stroke and there was little improvement in his condition.

Mum barely glanced up when I entered, and didn’t even register surprise at my early arrival; I usually visit Dad after work. She continued to fuss around him, wiping his brow, smoothing back his greying hair and placing a wet sponge to his lips. I could tell by the rigidness of her shoulders, by her mouth pursed in a disapproving line, that she didn’t think I visited enough. I wanted to scream at her that I had the business to take care of, and when I did show up, which was every few days, she made me feel like I wasn’t wanted. But I swallowed my resentment, telling myself I was here for my father, not for her. I dragged a chair closer to his bed, the plastic feet making a screeching sound across the floor, causing my mother to wince.

‘Did you have to drag it, Francesca?’ she said, a pained expression on her face.

Ignoring her I took his hand; it felt heavy and cold in mine. ‘Dad,’ I said in a low voice. I knew he could hear
me because he opened his eyes. ‘How are you today? Are you comfortable?’ He blinked at me twice, which meant yes. One blink meant no. The doctor had told us a few days before that they’d noticed some improvement to my father’s left side, but who knows if he will ever recover further. And if he does, what then?

I smiled at him and squeezed his hand gently, uncertain if he could even feel it properly. ‘I’m so pleased.’ He tried to return my smile but his lips contorted so that it was more of a grimace. ‘I’m taking a few days off work. I’m going back to Oldcliffe. Can you believe it? It’s been nearly eighteen years. But Sophie’s remains have been found, Dad. Her brother … do you remember him? Daniel. He wants me to go back and help find out—’

I was interrupted by a guttural sound coming from my father’s throat. He was blinking furiously and I realised he was trying to speak.

My mother rushed over, nearly up-ending my chair, forcing me to stand up. ‘It’s OK, Alistair, darling. You’re OK.’

I felt close to tears. ‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ I soothed, over my mother’s shoulder. ‘I’m only going for a few days, the hotels will be in Stuart’s capable hands. You know how brilliant he is at running things.’

Dad was still continuing to make that awful sound, which echoed around the room and made the skin on the back of my neck prickle.

‘I think you should go,’ Mum said without looking at me. ‘You’re upsetting your father.’

But now, sitting here in this apartment by myself, I have the horrifying feeling that my dad, ever my protector, wasn’t worried about the hotels. He was trying to warn me not to come back here.

The thought of the desperation in his eyes scares me and to distract myself I try to start up the Internet. Typically, there is no Wi-Fi. My heart sinks when I realise that I won’t be able to go online. At least I’ve got 4G on my phone. I fumble in my handbag for my mobile, but I have no signal. I’m unsure whether it’s down to the bad weather or the location. I throw the laptop and phone onto the sofa in frustration.

I try not to think about the fact that I’ve got no reception, no Internet access, that I’m completely cut off from the outside world, from London, from my old life. I find the screams of the baby downstairs a strange comfort. To know that I’m not the only one awake during this storm, unable to sleep, makes me feel more normal. Even after all these years I haven’t given up hope that one day it will be my baby crying in the next room. Deep down I know it’s impossible, but I can dream.

With nothing else to do I pull on my nightdress and fall into bed, my mind filled with Leon, Jason and you. The ghosts of my past. The baby is still screaming, its cries becoming shriller and shriller. When I do eventually fall asleep I dream of you, standing on the edge of the pier, one foot bare, the other trainer-clad. You’re wearing a floaty, white dress that skims your ankles, which makes no sense because you had jeans on that
last night. As I approach you tentatively, you turn to me and emit an ear-piercing scream so that I wake up with a start and sit bolt upright in bed, trembling all over, my nightdress soaked in sweat.

The baby in the apartment downstairs continues to wail as if its heart is breaking.

My stomach is churning the next morning and the incessant beep of a car horn does nothing to allay my aching head. I thrust the living-room curtains aside in annoyance, surprised to see Daniel’s rust bucket blocking the driveway. He looks up, noticing my nose pressed against the window and gestures for me to come down.

I smooth down my hair in the mirror over the fireplace and add a bit more lipstick, before grabbing my bag and darting out of the apartment. The hallway is quiet, the baby obviously finally asleep after keeping me awake most of the night. There must be a family staying in No. 1, enjoying an out-of-season break, although it doesn’t sound much of a break from what I could hear last night.

As I reach the bottom of the stairs I hear the door to the downstairs apartment click shut and I wish I’d been a few seconds earlier to catch my neighbour and introduce myself. Knowing there is a family staying in the place below mine makes me feel less alone, even if I don’t know them.

I’m just about to head out the front door when I notice a brown A4 envelope on the mat. It is crumpled, slightly damp. The name on the front catches my eye.
It’s been typewritten neatly across the envelope:
FRANCESCA HOWE
. I pick it up, puzzled. There is no stamp. Who would be writing to me here?