The Girl You Lost: A gripping psychological thriller (20 page)

Charlotte tells me the gold key is for the main door, and I open it and step into a communal corridor, with one door to the right and a set of stairs leading to the first floor.

‘It’s the upstairs one,’ Charlotte says, and I let her walk ahead.

Surprisingly, the seagrass carpet looks fairly new and is out of place against the yellowing woodchip walls. As I stare at Charlotte’s back, and Ginny follows behind me, I can’t help but let out a stifled laugh. In the last week I have found myself searching so many houses I have lost count. But my levity quickly evaporates when I remember why we are here.

Lucas’s front door seems in better condition than the main one downstairs, and I knock on it three times, just in case the buzzer isn’t working. But again there is silence.

‘Do you realise we’re breaking the law?’ Charlotte says, as I’m about to slot the other key in the lock.

Ginny answers before I have a chance. ‘No we’re not. You have the keys. That means you can come here anytime, doesn’t it?’

Charlotte’s face creases in concentration as she thinks about what Ginny has said. ‘I suppose,’ she says, shrugging. ‘But what if he’s in? What will I say? He’ll know I’ve betrayed him and—’

‘Charlotte, remember what he’s done?’ I say, finding it hard to keep my voice from rising. ‘Betraying him should be the least of your worries.’

‘But how will I explain—’

‘Just leave that to me.’ I push the key into the door, but it doesn’t open.

I turn to Charlotte and she takes it from me and tries herself. ‘It’s a bit awkward. There’s a way to do it.’

Seconds later, she has got the door open and, with a deep breath, I step inside.

With the curtains shut and no window in the hall, the flat is shrouded in darkness, so it takes my eyes a minute to adjust. And when I finally take in my surroundings and peer into the living room, I realise there is nothing to see but a tattered sofa. There is no television, or even a stand where one might have been. Much like his flat in Embankment, there are no paintings or personal possessions and not even a mirror hanging on a wall. But this flat is not like a show home. It’s as if nobody has bothered with it at all.

I turn to Charlotte, who is clearly more familiar with this place than Ginny or I. ‘Where is everything? Why isn’t there anything in here?’

‘He doesn’t exactly
live
here,’ Charlotte says, her frustrated tone screaming out that I should already know this.

‘Then why did he bring you here?’ As soon as the question leaves my mouth I know the answer.

Charlotte flushes red. ‘Because he’s married, isn’t he? We had to keep our love a secret.’

I flinch at the word
love
. I’m about to ask if she knows he has at least one other property like this but decide to save her the pain. She is already deluded about her relationship with Lucas, so I don’t need to make it worse. Besides, what could be more horrifying than knowing he is a rapist?

‘What’s through there?’ Ginny asks, pointing to a closed door ahead of us.

‘The kitchen,’ Charlotte says, leading the way. ‘And next to it is the bedroom.’ But she stops short before she reaches the kitchen door. ‘What if … what am I supposed to say to him? I mean, if that’s really his voice in that video—’

‘It
is
his voice,’ Ginny says. ‘I know his voice.’ She raises her own voice, seeming to have found her strength again.

Charlotte nods. ‘Well, what are we supposed to do now?’

‘Find my daughter,’ Ginny says, turning to me with an apologetic shrug.

Even though I am glad Charlotte seems to be facing up to what a monster Lucas is, there isn’t time for this. I stride past them both and fling open the kitchen door, only to be greeted by an empty, dark room.

This leaves only one other room to try. ‘But where’s the bathroom?’ I ask, turning back to Charlotte, who has remained in the hall.

‘You get to it through the bedroom. Bit weird, I know.’

‘Come on then,’ I say. There is very little chance Grace is here, or anything that will lead us to her, and I feel myself flagging, all the hope I had before we got here evaporating into the oppressive air.

I am first through the bedroom door, with Ginny so close behind me I can feel her breath on the back of my neck. Once again the room is pitch black, but it’s somehow a darker blackness than the other rooms.

And just as my eyes begin to adjust, and focus on the upside down Converse trainer that’s lying on the floor, I am shoved to the floor, and barely have a chance to register the slam of the door, and a key turning in the lock on the other side.

F
or months
I was distracted and I let my studies slip. I was so consumed with what we were doing and spent every moment waiting for the next buzz. Oh, don’t get me wrong – I know this is far worse than a drug or alcohol addiction, but I was just as powerless to stop it, especially when I knew there were no boundaries, no limits to what we could do.

My night with Leanne had opened the floodgates for us, and now we were in it together. We picked the girls together, and then once we got back to their places, they were helpless to stop us doing whatever we wanted to them. We used alcohol at first, to numb them and keep them quiet, but he decided we’d need something stronger.

We travelled all across London, spending our nights in unfamiliar bars, but it was safer this way; we couldn’t risk doing it locally.

When he first suggested the others join us, I was disappointed. Until then, it had been something just for us, and now he wanted to open it up. Although they had become friendlier towards me, I still didn’t like it. But once he explained the potential, the things we could do to these women with all of us there, I came around to the idea.

I’m not sure which one of us suggested filming, but it brought in an added element. I could watch back the videos, once I was alone, and relive the moments, even if I had been just a bystander on that particular occasion.

The girls knew nothing of their experience, they were so drugged up, and we always needed a way to find new highs, once the buzz began to wane. But we chose the girls together. That was the deal.

Those months were good. Does my saying that disgust you? Doesn’t that make it even worse than just carrying out the acts?

But how long can you ride the high? Sooner or later you have to come down, and that’s what happened when I met Becky. She was a literature student and had just transferred to our university. She would always sit in the same place in the canteen, and I began to join her at her table, hoping to spark up a conversation.

I know what you’re thinking: it wasn’t how we normally met girls but she must have been the next one on our list. But you’ve got it wrong. Becky was different. I can’t say how, all I knew was that I couldn’t let the others know about her. I was infatuated with her before she’d even opened her mouth to speak.

She was small and cute like a doll, with wild, curly red hair that fell down her back and bounced every time she moved her head. I wanted to nuzzle in it and breathe in her flowery scent. I was fascinated by her freckles. She hated them, but I found them endearing.

After sitting together a few times at lunch, we struck up a conversation. I don’t remember who started it, or what we talked about, but it must have been casual talk to start with. Family. Studies. Music. Nothing deeper than that. And then we went for a drink. I can’t remember whether it took days or weeks, but eventually we were together. We fell into place.

Being with Becky should have changed things, shouldn’t it? She should have been a distraction from him, someone I could focus all my attention on – she was certainly deserving of that. And sex worked with us too. It was nice. Comfortable. Exciting even. So different from the acts I carried out with him. Acts I couldn’t pull myself away from.

I should have known it couldn’t work with Becky, that I couldn’t change and definitely wouldn’t be able to share her. He threw a party and I was supposed to take her, to introduce her to everyone, show her off, see if she met with their approval. But I wanted to keep her to myself. I didn’t want her to become part of it. She made me feel decent, despite what I was doing when I wasn’t with her.

I told myself she wasn’t like the other ones, surely everyone would see that? Surely they would say she wasn’t right. She was too perfect, too innocent. Her view of the world was yet to be corrupted or blackened by events out of her control. I badly wanted to keep it that way.

I wouldn’t let them have Becky.

So I did the only thing I could to protect her. I told her I didn’t want to see her again, and watched, frozen like ice, while tears streamed down her red, puffy face, obscuring her freckles. She was still cute in that state, and part of me wanted to tell her I’d made a mistake and changed my mind, and that we should just run away. Get away from there. From everyone and everything. But then she would ask what we were running from, and there was no way I could answer that question. And how can you run from yourself?

For weeks she’d turn up at my door, knocking repeatedly while I held my breath on the other side, hoping she didn’t know I was there. She said she just needed to understand. To be able to move on. And why couldn’t I just give her that? If she’d ever meant anything to me?

Then suddenly it stopped, and I never saw her around the university. I heard from someone that she had transferred to another campus; that she’d had a family emergency and needed to be near her parents.

I missed her for months, her absence feeling like a hole somewhere in my body, but at least I had kept her safe.

S
omething lands
on top of me with a heavy thud, and it takes me a moment to realise it is Ginny.

‘What the hell?’ she says, easing herself off me and rubbing her arm.

Standing up, I rush to the door and pound on it until my knuckles are sore. ‘Charlotte? Open this door. Now!’

But there is only silence on the other side, and after a few moments I hear the slamming of the front door and footsteps thudding down the stairs.

I scramble in my pocket for my phone, but it’s not there. ‘Ginny, your phone – where is it?’

Her hand crosses to her shoulder, but there is no bag hanging there. We are in trouble.

Ginny takes over the pounding, panic etched on her face. ‘Open this fucking door, now!’ She turns to me but her fists continue slamming against the door. ‘She’s taken our phones. She planned this whole thing. Got us here on purpose. But why?’

It is an important question, but I have just remembered what I saw when I first peered into the room. I reach down and pick up the Converse trainer. There is a dark stain on one side, which even in the darkness I can tell is blood. ‘Ginny, is this … Grace’s?’

Ginny stops pounding on the door and squints into the darkness, holding out her hand. I pass it to her and wait for her to tell me that of course it isn’t. She turns it around and studies the stain, her eyes widening as she comes to the same conclusion I have.

‘I … I don’t know. It could be. She has got a pair of these, but they all look the same, don’t they? I just don’t know! But if it is hers, and that’s blood …’

I nod. ‘Just try to stay calm.’ I say this but I’m having trouble doing it myself. I need to keep focused and not just assume the worst. ‘We’ll work this out, okay? First we need some light in here.’ I survey the room to determine where the window is, but there isn’t one. ‘That’s weird,’ I say. ‘How can there be no window? Try the light switch.’

Ginny locates it next to the door and flicks the switch, but nothing happens. I stare up at the ceiling and of course there is no light bulb hanging from it.

‘Try the bathroom, that must be it,’ Ginny suggests, pointing at the other door, and I head to it and peer inside. The room has a narrow slit for a window, and it is sealed shut, but leaving the door open should let in at least a sliver of light. There is a shower and a toilet in here, but nothing else. No toiletries, towels or bathmat. No signs of life.

Back in the bedroom, Ginny stands still, holding a red piece of material out to me. I take it and quickly realise it’s a dress. I check the label and see it is a size eight Lipsy Dress. ‘Grace’s?’ I ask, finding it hard to picture the casually dressed girl I met wearing this fitted dress.

Ginny shakes her head. ‘No. I’ve never seen her wearing that and she usually shows me any new clothes she buys. And it’s not really her style.’

I only feel slight relief at this. ‘But it’s someone’s, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘Maybe the girl in the video?’ The image of the girl’s face appears in my head, but she was dressed only in underwear so there’s no way of knowing.

‘I don’t know. Could be,’ Ginny says.

I think of Chris Harding again and wonder if the dress belongs to his sister. If only I had tried to text him before we entered the house. I would have realised my phone was missing and could have prevented this mess.

But there is no time for ifs and maybes. I need to think on my feet and find a way to get us out of here. Now my eyes have become more accustomed to the darkness, I look around the room. There is nothing in here but a bed with a sagging mattress and burgundy duvet and a wooden shelf on the wall opposite.

Ginny sinks to the floor. ‘Why would Lucas do this? Why? Daniel was his best friend. I thought he was looking out for us. And what’s he done with Grace?’

‘I don’t know, but we need to stay calm. Conserve our energy. We don’t know how long we’ll be here or what he’s got planned. And I need to be able to think.’

With tears flooding from her eyes, Ginny nods and hunches up against the wall by the bedroom door, looking like a small child rather than a woman in her late forties.

‘Someone will find us,’ I say. I’m not sure if I believe this but I need to give Ginny some hope.

She perks up a bit and wipes her eyes. ‘So that little bitch, she planned to get us here all along?’

I think about this for a moment. There was no way Charlotte could have known we would turn up at her house, but the idea must have come to her as soon as we talked about Lucas’s flat in Wood Green, which means that she must have texted Lucas in the car. I was concentrating so much on driving us here that I didn’t glance at her in the rear-view mirror, and Ginny wouldn’t have noticed either. It’s possible she was communicating with him for the whole journey, and he told her what to do once we got here.

Charlotte certainly put a good act on at her house; I was convinced she didn’t know where he was, especially after I dropped the bomb about him being in France.

Ginny agrees when I tell her all this, and curses herself for not paying attention to Charlotte.

‘We’ve just been so intent on finding Lucas,’ I say, ‘so that we can get to Grace, it’s not surprising we didn’t suspect Charlotte.’ And this is also how she managed to get our phones, and Daniel’s, without us noticing.

Knowing this doesn’t make me feel any better, but I need to stay focused.

At least Ginny is calmer now. ‘Do you have people?’ she asks. ‘You know, people who will miss you? Who might worry?’

I join her on the floor and lean against the bed. It smells damp, but that’s no surprise given the likelihood that this room never sees fresh air. I long to smell even the heavy polluted smog outside; anything is better than this. ‘Yes,’ I tell Ginny. ‘My husband.’ But of course, Matt won’t be looking for me. Not for a long while. He’ll be drinking his morning coffee in that cottage in Cornwall, peaceful in his oblivion, planning how to fill the rest of the time until I return. And because we’ve always been so trusting of each other, he won’t even worry if he can’t get hold of me for a while. He will think I’m – once again – swamped with work and too busy to return his call. And by the time he realises something is wrong, that I have never taken quite that long to reply, it will be too late.

And then I realise something even worse: Charlotte could easily be texting him from my phone, pretending to be me, telling him all sorts of lies. Although I have a passcode for my phone, it’s plausible that she could work around it, or knows someone who can do it for her, just like Abbot did with Lucas’s laptop. Panic bubbles inside me, but I keep it smothered. I can’t fall to pieces now.

‘So he’ll call the police, won’t he?’ Ginny asks, her reluctance to involve them apparently thrown out of the window.

‘Yes, he will,’ I say, keeping my fears to myself. ‘But we’ll be out of here before then. I just need time to think.’ Saying this keeps me sane, allows me to believe I can save us both.

‘I have nobody but Grace,’ Ginny says. ‘I mean, there was Daniel before, but it’s always been just the two of us really. You know, even if I have to lose her, I don’t care if it means we get her back safely.’

I fully understand what she is saying, because even if Grace is mine and I have to give her up all over again to keep her safe, I would do it in a shot.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘We probably shouldn’t talk about that now. I just … miss her so much. I can’t bear not knowing where she is. It’s like someone’s scraping out my insides, leaving me hollow inside.’

And with those words, it all comes flooding back to me; all the pain of losing Helena, not knowing where she was, whether she was alive or dead. That feeling of suffocation. I crawl across to Ginny and put my arm around her, pulling her into me so she can rest her head on my shoulder. It is strange to remember that she’s a carer, used to taking charge and looking after others, but now she is the helpless one. Abbot was right. He is a good judge of character. There is no way this woman could have abducted a baby.

Ginny closes her eyes and after some time she appears to be asleep, a light whistling sound escaping from her mouth with each breath.

Keeping as still as possible, I try to think of a way out of here. But it is hopeless. There is no escape: the bathroom window is too small even for a child to climb through and the bedroom door is too sturdy to break down.

I search the room thoroughly but there is nothing in here we could use to even dent the wood.

Abbot was the one person I could have depended on to notice me missing and try to find me, but we haven’t spoken since Tuesday. I’m not due in work, so nobody there will question my absence, and if Abbot does ask where I am, he will just hear that I am in Cornwall with Matt, and that will be the end of it.

I need to pull myself together. Nobody is coming. Not Matt, not Abbot, nobody except Lucas Hall. Whether it’s in five minutes, five hours or five days, he will show his face. And that will have to be our chance. Because until somebody opens that door, we are not leaving this room alive.

I
must fall asleep
because my eyes snap open and I am sprawled on the floor next to Ginny. Her eyes are still closed and her head rests against the wall. When I check my watch I realise it is past midday, so we haven’t been here that long.

My stomach grumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten since dinner with Matt yesterday evening. I am also thirsty. Careful not to disturb Ginny, I ease myself up and head to the bathroom, praying the tap will work.

I am in luck and a stream of cloudy water flows out. Cupping my hands I ravenously throw water down my throat, ignoring the metallic taste.

Back in the bedroom, Ginny stirs and opens her eyes. ‘I can’t believe I fell asleep,’ she says, looking around the room.

I remind her that she waited up for me all night, so it’s hardly surprising. ‘What time is it? And what the hell are we going to do?’

The panic is back in her voice so I need to calm her again. ‘We’re going to wait. Sooner or later he’ll show up, and then we take him by surprise.’

Her eyebrows knit together. ‘But … how? What do you mean?’

‘Just trust me, okay? I’ve got an idea and I don’t know if it will work, but it’s worth a try.’

The lines disappear from her forehead. ‘Okay. Look, sorry I’m panicking. It’s not like me. I’m usually the rational one, the one sorting other people out. But when it’s my own problem I seem to fall apart.’

‘I think you’re allowed to, given the circumstances.’ I walk over to her and sit on the floor again. The bed would probably be more comfortable but I can’t bear the thought of sitting on it, knowing what has happened on the mattress. ‘Grace is … well, you raised her, didn’t you?’ I try to keep the resentment from my voice. It is impossible not to feel anger, but I keep it under control. After all, Ginny and I are in this together now. And at least now, after eighteen years, I am close to knowing exactly what happened.

‘She’s a great daughter, you know,’ Ginny says. ‘And if we’re right about Daniel lying, which I’m sure we are, then she will be to you too when we find her.’

I am glad she is finally being positive about our dire situation, and only hope I can pull off what I need to do.

‘You know,’ she says, ‘perhaps I could talk to Lucas. When he gets here. I’ve known him a long time and he was Daniel’s best friend, surely that counts for something?’

I open my mouth to tell her how unlikely it is that Lucas will care about her feelings, given what he did to Grace, but think better of it. Ginny has only just pulled herself together and I don’t want her panicking again. Instead I tell her we should see what happens when the moment arrives.

‘What’s your husband like?’ she asks. ‘Sorry if I’m being nosy, but I can’t stand this waiting, I need to take my mind off it.’

She is right, in the absence of anything else to do but wait, there is no harm talking about things. Perhaps it will help us both keep it together.

‘Matt’s great,’ I say, and an image of him walking along the rain-soaked beach floats into my head. ‘I mean, he’s not perfect – who is? – but I can’t imagine my life without him. We’ve been through so much together, losing Helena, and we met so young, so—’

‘He’s like the other part of you?’

I think about this for a moment. ‘No, I don’t believe in all that needing another person to complete you stuff. We’re both so independent – we have our own careers and interests, but when we come together, it just works.’

Ginny chews her lower lip and takes a moment to answer. ‘I would have loved to have met someone special. It just … never happened. I guess I’m not that lucky.’

Her words set off anger inside me I thought I had suppressed and I stare at her in disbelief. Does she want me to feel sorry for her? Now I can no longer keep my emotions hidden. ‘Are you serious? I may have Matt but we lost our daughter. Our baby. And you’re talking about not having anyone.’

‘No, I didn’t mean—’

The door is flung open and a shadow appears in the doorway. Before I have a chance to comprehend what’s going on, a man steps in, grabbing Ginny and dragging her backwards by her hair. She lets out a piercing yelp and I shoot to my feet to try and help her, but I am too far away from the door. By the time I am up and ready, the door has banged shut, a key turning on the other side of the lock.

Ginny has gone.

But I recognise the man who has taken her.

I know exactly who he is.