The Girl You Lost: A gripping psychological thriller (14 page)

I go to bed feeling uneasy and even when Matt joins me, his solid body against mine offers little comfort. So much has happened since Grace came into my life, and now Chris Harding’s story adds to my confusion. Can I trust him? This and so many other questions spin around my head.

Where are you, Grace? Who are you?

I
t is nearly midday
before Abbot returns my call. He is still on leave so I sit at my desk, his empty chair next to me, and don’t mention I’ve been worried about him. ‘I’ve been following Ginny,’ he explains. ‘Trying to get a sense of her. Plus, I wondered if Grace might turn up there. It just seemed weird that Ginny wasn’t worried she’d been missing lectures to go and visit a friend.’

My pulse races. ‘And? Anything?’ Before he has a chance to answer I hear the words I want to hear.
Grace is there, at Ginny’s house. Acting as if nothing’s happened.

‘Well,’ Abbot says. ‘The woman does work hard, I’ll give her that. She left home dressed in a carer’s uniform and spent the day visiting different houses. I can only assume she was working. Other than that, she didn’t go anywhere, and had no visitors.’

My heart sinks, all my hopes evaporating with Abbot’s words.

‘But one thing’s for sure,’ he continues, ‘she doesn’t seem worried about her daughter.’ In the absence of a reply from me Abbot asks if I’m okay.

But I am far from okay. Yesterday, after speaking to Chris Harding, I was almost convinced of Grace’s story. But now what Abbot has said once again throws her words into question. But if Grace is lying then how can the rabbit be explained? ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I tell him. ‘Just taking it all in.’

‘I’m going there again today. To Ginny’s. I may as well use this time off work to do some good.’ He chuckles, but I don’t reciprocate. It is hard to find lightness in any of this.

When he asks how things have been going with me, I tell Abbot about Nick’s call and he can hardly contain his excitement. ‘That’s great! This is the closest we’ve come to getting anywhere, isn’t it? What do you think he’s going to tell you?’

I tell Abbot I have no idea, but it doesn’t sound good. Although I know it’s about Lucas, it can’t be that he knows his whereabouts, otherwise he would have said so on the phone. It must be serious for him to want to meet up, away from his house.

‘There’s something else,’ I say, and then I tell him about my encounter with Chris Harding yesterday.

‘Shit. No wonder you were trying to call me so much. Sorry. Anyway, I haven’t heard anything about his sister but I’ll check it out, see what I can find out. We both know so many people go missing every day that it’s hard to give media attention to them all.’

Abbot and I say goodbye and arrange to meet at his flat after I’ve seen Nick. For the rest of the afternoon, I bury myself in work, keeping an eye on the clock, anxiously waiting for six p.m.

T
he White Cross
pub is lovely, looking as if it is sitting right in the River Thames, and I can immediately tell it is a family pub, the kind of place it feels safe and right to bring children. There aren’t any out tonight, of course, but I can imagine people like to spend lazy summer Sunday afternoons here.

As I walk up the steps to the entrance, my phone beeps with a text message. It is Nick, letting me know he’ll be ten minutes late. He writes
Sorry
in capital letters at the end of the text, and I am surprised he feels it necessary to emphasise the word.

Inside, I order a Coke without ice and take it to a round table by a large bay window. There are only a few people in here tonight, and nobody pays me any attention.

I barely touch my drink while I wait for Nick. Instead, I stare out of the window and go over everything Grace told me the afternoon we first met. The blue rabbit is still in my handbag – I have not had the heart to remove it – and I reach inside now and feel the soft velvety fabric. It makes me feel closer to Helena. This is the strongest piece of evidence to suggest that Grace is Helena, or at least knows something about her abduction, and when I think of it, it’s hard to see how it can’t be Helena’s. There may have been thousands manufactured, but details of the toy were never made public, so how can Grace having it be explained any other way?

Nearly twenty minutes pass before Nick walks in, making his way straight to my table. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘The kids were fighting and I had to sort it out before I left. I didn’t want to leave Sienna to deal with it on her own. She’s not feeling well today.’

I wave away his apology. ‘I hope it’s nothing serious?’

‘No, just a cold-type thing – she’ll be okay. She just needs to rest. Can I get you another drink?’

I hold up my glass of Coke and tell him I’m fine, watching as he strides to the bar and leans on it while he waits for the barman to notice him.

‘I hope you didn’t mind me asking to meet here?’ Nick says, when he comes back. His glass is filled with what looks like fizzy water and a lemon slice. ‘I just don’t want Sienna worrying.’

‘It’s fine,’ I say. I don’t tell him that it makes a nice change from sitting in people’s living rooms. ‘What you’ve found out about Lucas doesn’t sound good. Can you tell me what it is now?’

Nick takes a sip of his drink and leans forward, checking around us before he speaks. ‘Like I said, I got worried after your visit. The thing is, I don’t really know Lucas all that well. I mean, we’re definitely acquaintances, but I don’t know all the ins and outs of his life. So it got me wondering. Plus, I really like Hannah, she’s a good woman.’

I almost beg him to hurry up, to get to the point because the anticipation is almost too much to bear. Will what I’m about to hear shed any light on Grace’s story? Will it help me find her? I need him to spit it out.

‘Anyway, I got some friends to do some snooping for me, but I wasn’t expecting to find out what I did.’ He shakes his head and stares into his glass, avoiding my gaze.

I want to ask him who his friends are and how they’ve managed to find anything out, but there isn’t time for that. Plus, I hardly know him and he’s already going out of his way to help me so I don’t want to push it. ‘What did you find out?’ I say.

Finally he meets my stare. ‘It’s probably better if I show you. Stay here, I’ll be back in a sec.’

Leaving his drink on the table, Nick gets up and heads towards the door, disappearing through it and out of my sight. Bewildered, I stay where I am, staring at the pub entrance. The only conclusion I can reach is that he has gone to get something from his car.

As it turns out, I am half-right. When Nick reappears he hovers by the door, holding it open for someone. At first I assume he is letting in another customer, but when a young, dark-haired woman steps in, she looks over at me and follows Nick to our table.

Now that she is close-up I notice how much make-up she has trowelled onto her face.

Nick offers her his seat and takes the one nearest to me. ‘Hayley, this is Gabby. I think you need to hear what she has to say.’ He turns to the girl. ‘Gin and tonic, was it?’

She looks up at him and smiles, pulling off her thick Puffa coat. From her bag she fishes out an e-cigarette, inhaling on it as she watches me.

‘So you know Lucas Hall?’ I ask, trying not to stare at her eyelashes, which are far too long and thick to be real.

She nods. ‘But do you mind if we wait for Nick to come back?’ She glances at the bar, checking on his progress.

‘That’s fine,’ I say, hiding my annoyance. ‘Gabby, is it? That’s pretty.’

She eyes me suspiciously. ‘Thanks. It’s actually Gabrielle, but I don’t think it suits me.’

‘No, I like it. But Gabby’s nice too.’ And now it is my turn to check on Nick; this small talk is becoming difficult. I turn around and see him still at the bar, handing money to the barman.

Gabby finishes pulling on her e-cigarette and fishes her mobile from her pocket, seeming to find something more interesting to do on it than speaking to me. With her head down, she doesn’t notice me watching her, can’t know that I’m making assumptions about her.

I decide she can’t be older than twenty-two and could be a secretary or hairdresser. She obviously takes pride in her appearance, as her long, dark hair extensions are glossy and neat. She has a boyfriend, I decide, and he is someone who looks out for her financially and emotionally. Of course, I could have all this completely wrong, but I like to think I’ve got at least something right about her.

I’m in the middle of deciding what her parents are like when Nick comes back with her gin and tonic. He places it in front of her and she thanks him without looking up from her phone.

‘Please will you tell me what’s going on?’ I stare at both of them, my question needing to be answered by someone. Anyone.

Nick nudges Gabby and she slips her phone back in her bag but still doesn’t speak.

‘Gabby knows Lucas,’ he says, turning back to me. ‘And I think you need to hear this.’ Facing Gabby once more, he pats her arm. ‘It’s okay, you can speak freely. There’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Except judgement,’ she says, looking straight at me. ‘You tell her, I can’t do it.’

Nick takes a deep breath. ‘I know this will be hard for you to hear because you and Lucas go way back, but I’m begging you to keep an open mind. And I need you to help me decide what we should tell Hannah.’

I nod. ‘Of course. You have to remember that I haven’t seen Lucas for years. Haven’t spoken to him either, we totally lost touch. And I want to help Hannah as much as you do.’ I hope I’m not overdoing this; I don’t want Nick to get suspicious of me.

‘Okay,’ Nick says. ‘Well, Gabby was attacked by Lucas. Recently.’

Confused, I glance at her face and her arms. There is no sign of any bruising. ‘What do you mean “attacked”? What happened?’ But the minute my question is out there I already know the answer.

Nick lowers his voice. ‘He forced her to … to have sex with him. That’s what I mean.’

I cannot keep a gasp from escaping and Gabby finally looks up. This time her eyes are glassy. Instinctively I reach for her arm, but she pulls away. ‘That’s awful … I’m so sorry. So the police are looking for him?’

Gabby rolls her eyes. ‘The police? Do you think I could go to them? Who would believe me? I’m just some stripper who was asking for it, aren’t I?’

I am surprised by her revelation, but it doesn’t change anything. When I don’t react, she continues. ‘I mean, anyone who works in the sex industry is just asking to be raped, aren’t they?’ She fires her words at me, making me feel as if I am the one who has caused her harm.

Although I want to tell her to stop being defensive, I understand it. I know from stories I’ve covered before that she will be used to negative reactions from the people she tells about her work. Ignoring her dig, I ask her what happened.

Her anger dissipates as she begins to tell her story. ‘He used to come into the club a lot, usually Saturday nights, but he’d always be alone and would keep himself to himself. He never asked for private dances or tried to grab any of the girls. In fact we used to call him The Gentleman. Because that’s what it seemed he was, despite being a regular in a strip club.’ She pauses and reaches for her drink, taking a long sip and keeping hold of the glass. ‘He was good-looking, too. For an older guy.’

From the corner of my eye I see Nick’s eyes narrow. He and Lucas seem to be a similar age.

‘But I wasn’t interested in him, if that’s what you think,’ Gabby continues. ‘I have a boyfriend.’

I am pleased to hear this; to know there is someone looking out for the young girl.

‘I didn’t lead him on in any way, I swear I never even spoke to him till that night. Two weeks ago. I was leaving for home and he was sitting in his car outside the club. It was a nice car. A black BMW I think. I was impressed, I can’t lie. But that didn’t give him the right–’

‘’Course not. No man ever has a right to do what he did to you.’ I feel for this girl. She could be Helena. Or Grace.

‘He offered me a lift home and I stupidly let him in to my flat. He seemed kind of fun, and I’d had a huge row with my boyfriend. Just felt like some company.’

‘So he came to your flat?’ I ask. ‘He didn’t take you anywhere?’ I don’t know why it seems important I know this.

Gabby nods. ‘We just spent the night drinking, I can’t even tell you how many shots I had. But … ’ She trails off, and I’m sure we all know what she is thinking.

‘I know this is hard for you, just take your time.’ I pat her arm, and this time she doesn’t move it away.

‘That’s just it,’ she says. ‘I don’t remember anything else. One minute we were drinking, the next I woke up alone.’ She pours some more gin down her throat and waits for me to question her.

‘But … I don’t understand. When did he … attack you?’

Gabby puts down her glass and stares at her nails. ‘That night. But I was so drunk I can’t remember him actually doing it.’

I lean forward. ‘Forgive me for saying this but I have to ask – how do you know for sure that … he did anything?’

Gabby’s mouth twists. ‘Are you a virgin, Hayley?’

‘What? No.’

‘Then you know what it feels like after you’ve had sex. You can just tell, can’t you?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. Perhaps.’

‘Well, believe me,
I
know. And there is no doubt in my mind that I had sex that night. Without my consent. As well as the soreness in my body, I woke up fully dressed, but my underwear was on inside out. How do you explain that?’

I think about this for a moment but she’s right: there doesn’t seem any rational explanation for it. ‘So did you try to contact him after?’ I ask.

Gabby tuts. ‘How could I? I didn’t even have his number. But there he was, the next Saturday, at the club as if nothing had happened. I jumped off the stage and confronted him. Told him I was going to the police, even though I knew I wouldn’t. I’m not stupid, I know it would just be his word against mine.’

‘And what did he do?’

‘He just ignored me and walked out. But I could see fear in his eyes. I’m telling you, he was worried.’

Beside me, Nick shakes his head. He will already have heard all the details. ‘I think Lucas has gone on the run. He’s a successful business owner and will lose everything if this gets out. Even if he won in court, he would forever be tainted by the scandal.’

Gabby nods. ‘Nick told me Lucas has disappeared. My threat has obviously scared him off.’