Where the Memories Lie (13 page)

attempt to get him back, but it hadn’t worked.

That was the last time I ever saw her. After PC Cook left me,

I went to see Rose to try to find out what had happened, but Rose

was drunk and angry. Jack was strangely quiet, sitting in his favourite armchair, already with a glass of amber liquid in his hand, staring into space while his wife ranted and raved about how ungrateful

Katie had been and what a sad excuse for a daughter she was. I’d

left then. They were a pair of hypocrites. They’d never given her

a happy home life, and what with Chris breaking up with her, it

had obviously been the last straw so she’d gone in search of some-

thing better. Something happier. What I do remember distinctly is

silently wishing she found it.

Over the next few days, there were whispers in the village. The

rumour mill had started, of course, as it’s bound to in any village.

The gossip was that she’d stolen something from Rose and Jack who

had then chucked her out. Then it changed to she’d run away to

London to work at King’s Cross as a prostitute. Then something

about her aunt had collected her one day and taken her on holiday.

She didn’t even have a bloody aunt!

After that, I frequently went to see PC Cook to ask if he’d found

anything else out but he always said no. Since Katie was eighteen

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and an adult, and had obviously left of her own free will, there was nothing really they could do. After finding out from Mr Google

just how many people go missing each year, I’m not surprised it had gone no further.

But now there was a big question mark in my head. Had she

really left of her own free will?

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Chapter Ten

It was 9.30 a.m. when I knocked on Rose’s door. She lived in

one of the few remaining local authority-owned houses in the

village. The same one they’d lived in all those years ago.

Recently, the council had sold most of them off to private buyers

in an attempt to boost their sagging budgets. You could spot the

difference between the private ones and Rose’s a mile off. Her con-

crete path had suffered years of wear and neglect, broken in places with thick weeds protruding through and covered with moss. It was

an obstacle course just to get up to the front door, whose navy blue paint was peeling in thick flakes onto the step. Ivy clung in a death grip on to the front of the house, trailing over the windows, even, and the guttering bowed in the middle. I didn’t fancy being around

when that fell down. I bet there were tons of leaves and mud inside.

Probably a few dead birds, too.

A memory flooded in then. Just after we’d bought the barn from

Tom and he was living with us, we had a dove nesting in our gut-

tering outside Anna’s window. Anna had called it Mrs Lovey Dovey

and was so excited to watch her tending an egg, spending hours

with Tom in her room just staring at it. When the chick finally

did arrive she’d called it Baby Davey Lovey Dovey, and Tom had

Where the Memories Lie

gone out in the garden and dug fresh worms for Mrs Lovey Dovey

every day, leaving them in the guttering for her, saying to Anna how hard it was to be a bird parent. Those aren’t the actions of a killer, are they? Someone who could murder and bury a young woman

couldn’t possibly gather worms to feed a baby bird. They’d more

likely kill animals, wouldn’t they? Isn’t that how serial killers start?

A smell hit me as I knocked on Rose’s door. Urine. I hoped it

was cat’s and not human’s. Rose wasn’t the first drunk I’d ever dealt with as a nurse, and I was sure she wouldn’t be the last. I knew whatever would greet me inside wouldn’t be pretty.

I knocked again when I got no response.

An elderly woman with grey curls walked past with a Jack

Russell on a lead. ‘She’ll still be in bed, that one. Never gets up ’til the afternoon,’ she scoffed and walked off.

As I waited I thought about the last time I’d stood here,

calling for Katie. It was months after Chris had split up with her

and she hadn’t been round to see me, which was weird. I mean,

I knew she was devastated, but she practically lived at my house

whenever she could. She never wanted to be at home. And yet, after

Chris, she avoided me. I’d stood in the doorway asking Jack if she

was in. It took a few seconds for his drunken eyes to turn into something lecherous and predatory, as if he was about to lunge forward

and attack me. It had creeped me out. I fought the urge to run back down the path, screaming, or to throw up. Or both. I couldn’t wait

to get away from there when he said she wasn’t in. After he closed

the door and I was walking back up the path I felt that horrible

sensation of someone watching me. I glanced back, expecting to see

Jack leering out of the lounge window, but instead, the corner of

the curtain in Katie’s room dropped suddenly.

I shivered then, just thinking about Jack again, and was about

to turn and go when a dark figure loomed behind the glass panel in

the door and Rose appeared.

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‘Hi.’ I smiled when she opened the door. ‘How are you?’

She didn’t smile back. ‘There must’ve been a mix-up. I had the

stitches out yesterday at the surgery,’ she said gruffly. ‘I don’t need a nurse’s visit.’

‘Oh, right. Good. I’m not here about that. I actually wanted

to ask you something about Katie.’ I braced myself for an outburst

of anger but she just stared at me impassively. ‘Can I come in for a minute?’

She turned around and walked up a tight corridor with the

original threadbare carpet that had been in fashion in the seventies but was now stained, garish. I left the door ajar slightly, just in case I needed to make a quick getaway, and followed her into

the kitchen, which was also stuck in a seventies time warp, all

avocado green Formica and mustard lino on the floor. Dirty cups

and plates were piled up in an equally dirty sink stained with a

thick layer of grime and limescale. The surfaces were covered

with crumbs and food-encrusted utensils. A packet of butter was

open, oozing its yellow creaminess down the front of a cupboard

and onto the floor. Empty bottles of gin and vodka and whisky

spilled out of a black rubbish bag in the corner of the room. The

overpowering odour of urine and alcohol made the back of my

throat close. I pictured Katie living in amongst all this and felt a stab of sadness.

She unscrewed the top from a bottle of cheap supermarket

brand whisky and poured out half a pint glass. She took a big gulp

and narrowed her eyes at me over the rim. ‘Want a drink?’ As she

set it back on the Formica worktop, some whisky sloshed onto

the floor.

‘No, thanks. I wanted to ask if you’d ever heard from Katie.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ She took another gulp. Swished it round her

mouth. Swallowed. Her gaze locked on mine. ‘Why?’

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Where the Memories Lie

‘I was just . . . I was just thinking about her. You know,

wondering what happened to her. Where she was. What she was up

to. Don’t you ever think about it? The last time I asked you if you’d heard from her you got really angry with me for bringing it up, and I’m sorry, but I—’

‘That’s because Katie’s an ungrateful bitch.’ She slammed the

glass down.

I tried to suppress a gasp but I’m sure a little slipped out. No

matter what Anna did, I would never call my daughter a bitch.

And seeing things now, really seeing things for the first time, it

was actually a miracle that Katie hadn’t left home before she was

eighteen.

‘Fucking ungrateful from the minute she could talk. She was a

nasty piece of work. A liar! She left me here to look after myself in my old age. I gave birth to her and she never gave a toss about us!’

Her voice rose with contempt.

I wanted to mention that the state she was in was entirely her

own doing, but I pushed the thought away. No one would ever

persuade Rose she was in the wrong. That she was the selfish one.

The despicable parent who didn’t even deserve to have a child. Not

when there were so many people out there who desperately wanted

them and couldn’t.

‘Right. So, you’ve never heard from her at all, then, in the

last twenty-five years?’ I asked, wanting to make quite sure so

I could leave.

‘No. And I’m bloody glad. Useless cow.’ Her eyes glinted with

steel and something else. Hatred, it almost looked like.

I took a step backwards towards the corridor. ‘Do you remem-

ber the letter she wrote you when she left?’

‘What about it?’

‘Do you remember what it said?’

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She shrugged. ‘No. I ripped it up.’

‘But it was definitely Katie’s handwriting, though?’

She snorted. ‘Of course it was. Whose handwriting did you

think it would be? The Queen’s?’

I was halfway through my morning patients when a thought struck

me. Maybe I’d been surrounded by a clue to Katie’s whereabouts all

this time and I’d never even realised.

What do you do when you leave a doctor’s surgery and move to

another location? Katie would’ve had to register with a new practice at some point in the last twenty-five years. Even if she was perfectly healthy and never had a reason to see a doctor, she would surely

have been having regular smear tests.

I typed in Katie’s name and date of birth. Before I started at

the surgery all the old paper records had been transferred onto

computer so it only took a few seconds for her name to ping up in

front of my eyes.

It took another few seconds to realise that the last entry in the

records was from when she was seventeen for a repeat prescription of the contraceptive pill, and no doctor or hospital had ever requested a copy of her records.

I sat back in the chair. No. That couldn’t be right, although

there could be a good explanation. Maybe they’d been requested but

someone had forgotten to add an entry. Or maybe the request had

been written in the paper records but accidentally omitted when the information was added to the computer all those years ago.

My eyes scanned the screen, wondering if maybe a request

had been filed at the beginning of her notes, rather than the end.

I scrolled back through the most recent entries and turned the pages, going back in time. And that’s when I saw something disturbing.

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Where the Memories Lie

From the age of eight, Katie had been treated for repeated bouts

of cystitis and vaginal thrush and inflammation. Eight?

Sexual abuse was the first thought that popped into my head.

I remembered Jack’s predatory looks. Katie’s promiscuity. She’d

started having sex with boys at fourteen. I thought it was her way of trying to find love and attention when she couldn’t get any at home, but could it have been more than that? Was it learned behaviour?

Had Jack been abusing her from an early age?

Then again it might mean nothing. Although vulvovaginitis,

thrush and chronic urinary tract infections can be signs of sexual

abuse, they can also be caused by other circumstances, such as lack of hygiene; using soap, shower gel, or bubble bath; diet; and taking antibiotics.

I bit my lip and stared at the screen. She’d been prescribed anti-

biotics for a couple of bouts of tonsillitis, and I knew her diet was pretty poor at home.

Was I looking for something that wasn’t there because I didn’t

want to believe that Tom had killed and buried her like he’d told me?

Katie had never mentioned anything about Jack abusing her.

But now I realised that she’d never said anything about a lot of

horrible things that would’ve been going on in her life, and I was

too stupid to understand back then. If I’d been her, I would’ve been complaining to my best friend about the state of them – that I

had to fend for myself, get myself to school, wash my own clothes,

make myself dinner, survive on pennies because both parents were

living off their unemployment benefits and using most of it to buy

alcohol – but Katie had never complained. She just got on with

things. And that was how she survived, until she turned eighteen

and left it all behind.

After my last patient I had a half-hour gap before Elaine came

in and took over from me. There was no way I could call every

single doctor’s surgery in the country trying to find any trace of

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Katie, but every patient was registered in the NHS database, and

they would definitely have a record if anyone had ever requested

her medical notes. For the first time in my career I found myself

wishing a patient had had an operation or an illness over the years, just so I could try and find her.

I called the NHS records line and got through to a woman

called Linda who I’d spoken to in the past. She checked once, and

I made her recheck, but she still gave me the same answer.

Katie Quinn’s records hadn’t been updated or requested in the

last twenty-five years.

My head was still spinning when I took Poppy out for a walk along

Chesil Beach later. The pebbles crunched under my trainers as I

stared out to sea, thoughts crashing into each other like the waves onto the shore.