Where the Memories Lie (17 page)

love going to Charlotte’s.’

‘But I’m hungry,’ she whined.

I didn’t have time for this now so I rolled my eyes and jerked

my head to the door. ‘Come on. Now. I’ll explain later.’ Which was

probably the worst thing to say because Anna questioned me over

and over on the short car ride there.

‘If you’re going to tell me later, you might as well tell me now.

Come on, Mum, why can’t you tell me? I wanted to go out with you

and Dad. Go on, tell me. What’s the big secret?’

I’d never been so glad in my life to get rid of my daughter for

a few hours, but as soon as she was out of the car I felt guilty. Then I was angry at Tom for putting me in that position in the first place.

By the time I got home, hot and harassed, Ethan was on the

phone in the kitchen. He put it down as I came through the hallway.

‘I was just calling your mobile. Where’s Anna? I thought we

could all go to the pub for dinner.’

‘What are you doing home?’

He raised his eyebrows and laughed in mock annoyance. ‘Well,

that’s nice, isn’t it? I’ve rearranged some things so I can stay for a bit and spend some time with Dad.’

I rubbed my forehead. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I thought I was

going to have to tell you over the phone. But . . . shit.’ I dropped onto the stool at the island before my legs gave way.

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‘Tell me what?’ The grin slid off his face. ‘What’s wrong? Is

Anna OK? Where is she?’

‘No, Anna’s fine.’ I ran a shaky hand through my hair.

‘Oh, no. It’s Dad, isn’t it? They didn’t ring you to say he’s had

another heart attack, did they?’

‘No, he’s . . . um . . . he’s not ill.’ I stared at the exterior kitchen wall that was nearest to the detached double garage, as if I could see through the layers of brick and concrete with X-ray eyes.

‘Then what’s up? You look a bit ill, actually. Have you been

overdoing it?’ He sat next to me and pushed a tendril of hair behind my ear.

Was Katie really buried under our garage? ‘Bloody hell. I don’t

know how to say this.’

‘You’re scaring me now. What’s wrong?’ His voice turned hard

and deep. He cupped my chin between his thumb and forefinger and

turned my face away from the wall back to him.

‘It’s Tom.’

‘You said he was OK.’

‘No, not like that.’ I stared into his worried face. ‘It started with Georgia, but it wasn’t really about her. He was just getting two different stories mixed up together.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It wasn’t Georgia he killed. I think it was Katie.’

‘What?’ His eyebrows shot up to his forehead.

I swallowed hard and talked slowly, telling him about how

Tom had confessed to me that he’d killed Katie. That I checked her

medical records to see which doctor’s surgery she’d used in the years since she went missing but there was no trace of her. It was like she’d vanished. That I’d spoken to Chris, who’d reminded me he was the

last one to see her, and that she was walking towards our house. And that Tom had told me exactly where he’d buried her body.

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‘Not this again! You’ve got to be joking!’ He shot off the stool so quickly the movement sent it clattering to the floor. He ran a hand through his hair, his mouth gaping open.

‘I wish I was.’ Despite the summer warmth in the air I felt chilly

and wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing up and down.

‘You can’t seriously think he knows what he’s saying.’ He paced

the floor. ‘He said he’d killed Georgia and that was just a waste of everyone’s time. This is the same. He’s just fixated on some strange, messed-up story. Katie is alive and well somewhere.’

‘I don’t think so. He was getting the story about Georgia mixed

up with what he’d done to Katie.’

‘No.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘No.’

‘Then where is Katie?’

‘She ran away! The whole point of running away is so no one

can find you!’ He threw his hands in the air.

‘I don’t think that’s what happened. If she did, why didn’t

anyone ever request her medical records?’

He blinked for a moment, taking that in. ‘I don’t know. Maybe

she’s never been ill.’

‘What, in twenty-five years?’

‘When was the last time
I
went to the doctor?’

I shrugged. ‘At the very least she’d need a smear test every five

years from the age of about twenty. And she was on the pill, she’d

need a prescription to carry on with that, but there was nothing,

Ethan. No record in all these years.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything.’ He paced the floor.

‘Tom told me! He told me she was buried under the garage. The

garage we’ve been walking over all this time. Right next to where

we’ve been living. Where Anna’s been living!’ I shouted and pointed in the direction of the garage. ‘We have to find out if she’s under there. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.’

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He stopped pacing, leaned against the oven, his face red with

anger. ‘No bloody way.’

‘This is my house, too. We have to tell the police. We
have
to.

How can we not?’ I shrieked. ‘Katie’s buried under the concrete

floor and Tom killed her. I know it.’

‘You don’t know anything. Why would he kill her? Answer me

that. What reason could Dad possibly have for killing her?’

My neck shook in a nervous twitch. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been

thinking that they might’ve been having an affair.’

‘What? Are you mad? She was eighteen and he would’ve

been . . .’

‘Fifty.’ I’d had time to work out the age difference. ‘So what?

Plenty of men have affairs with younger women.’

‘Dad wouldn’t have had an affair with his own son’s girl-

friend! He loved us. He would have never done something to

hurt us.’

‘But I remembered something she said to me at the time and

I thought she was talking about Chris, except now I think she was

actually talking about Tom.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She implied they’d had sex, but Chris says he never slept with

her after they split up. She was talking about someone who was

with us at the pub that jazz night before she left. Now I think she meant Tom.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘Is it? He could’ve been secretly sleeping with her. After all, he’d been involved in a relationship with Georgia before without anyone

knowing.’

‘Katie always was a troublemaker. I never knew why you liked

her so much. She was sly and lied and she even stole stuff from

Nadia’s room when she was here seeing Chris. Did you know that?’

‘What?’

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Where the Memories Lie

‘Look, I know she was your best friend and everything, but it’s

true. When Katie first started going out with Chris, Nadia didn’t

think anything of it. Little things would disappear from her room

and she just thought she’d misplaced them, or Dad had moved them

when he was tidying up. But then it was bigger things. Sometimes

Dad would give her her weekly pocket money and she’d leave it on

her dressing table, but then later she’d discover a couple of pounds missing. Or she’d look for some clothes that she hadn’t worn for

ages and they’d be gone. And jewellery, too. Then she worked it

out that it always happened after Katie had
been in the house visiting Chris.’

A vivid memory flashed into my head of Katie and me when

we were about sixteen. My mum had given us a lift into Dorchester

to spend my Christmas money and we were in a new trendy shop

that had just opened, trying on piles of outfits in the changing

rooms. It was a Saturday and madly busy. The staff were harassed

at the tills with a long queue and hadn’t had time to take out

the discarded clothes left in the changing rooms by shoppers who

didn’t want their selected items. Katie went into her cubicle with

a couple of dresses and a pair of jeans while I took the one next

to her with a few skirts and a new bra in hand. We took our time,

slipping in and out of the cubicles as we got changed into our new

items and parading them up and down the centre of the room

for each other in front of the mirrors, doing a bizarre walk that

was supposed to make us look like a couple of catwalk models

but really made us look like we both had one leg shorter than

the other.

My stuff looked awful on me but the two dresses looked great on

Katie. I asked if she was going to get them but she said she couldn’t afford to. I even offered to buy her one. I was sick of seeing her in the same old clothes all the time. Probably not as sick as she was, though, thinking about it now. She waved me off and said she didn’t 127

Sibel Hodge

like them that much, anyway, so it was no biggie. It wasn’t until we were on the bus on the way home that she opened her big handbag

and showed me the dresses folded up into tiny bundles inside.

I was shocked, of course, but I just thought it was daring and

brave of her. It was my rebellious streak coming out again. Yes,

Katie could be a troublemaker and a live wire, but she was fun and

wild and reckless and exciting, too. No one would stop her doing

what she wanted. And anyway, didn’t most youngsters dabble in a

bit of shoplifting? She justified it by saying that if the staff weren’t interested enough to try and stop people stealing, then why should

she feel bad?

I shook the memory away and tried to question what Ethan

had said, but I knew deep down it was the truth. ‘Was Nadia sure it was Katie? She never stole anything from me.’

‘She said she was positive.’ He shook his head at me. ‘You

always see the good in people instead of the bad.’

‘Maybe.’ I shrugged. ‘Did Nadia confront her about it?’

‘Yeah, but Katie denied it. Then Chris finished with her a few

days later, which I was glad about.’

‘Well, people change, don’t they? We all do things when we’re

younger that we regret. Are you saying you were the model child?’

I snorted.

‘No, of course not, but she was a thief and a liar and a

troublemaker.’

‘Well, whether she was a thief or liar is not the point.’

‘What is the point, then? That you’d rather believe Dad is a

murderer than that Katie didn’t just run away? She could’ve changed her name.’ He gave me a knowing smirk. ‘That’s why there are no

medical records. Did you think about that?’

I hadn’t thought of that. It was possible, I supposed, but in my

heart I knew that wasn’t right.

‘Or she could’ve moved abroad.’

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Where the Memories Lie

‘No, I remember asking Mr Cook that almost a year after she’d

gone and he said she’d never applied for a passport. And anyway,

why would Tom tell me he’d buried her under the garage?’

‘He told you he’d killed Georgia, for God’s sake, and she’s

perfectly fine!’

‘Like I said, he’s mixing up the stories. I could understand him

getting confused about Georgia, but Katie’s different. She really did go missing and hasn’t been heard from again.’

‘We are not digging up the garage because Dad’s mixing up

stories
.’ He opened the fridge door, pulled out a beer without offering me one and unscrewed the cap. He took a big swig, his eyes angry narrow slits.

‘Look, I know how this sounds, but—’

‘I don’t think you do. Are you actually listening to what you’re

saying?’

I stood up, poured a glass of chilled white wine from the fridge

and slumped back down on the stool. Sod the headache. I needed to

feel the warmth of alcohol as it broke through the cold, hard horror and softened everything around the edges, making it all fuzzy and

less real, less horrific.

‘We’re not going to the police. If we do, we’ll have forensics and

officers swarming around. We live in a village! Everyone will find

out about this. Imagine how they’ll react! This is going to affect all the family, and the ones who will suffer the most of all will be Anna and Charlotte, so you need to think very carefully before you carry on with your crusade.’

‘I’ve thought about that. Of course I have. I’ve been plagued

with thoughts about what this could mean for all of us. The damage

it will do to the whole family. But how can we ignore it? Just

because he’s got Alzheimer’s doesn’t mean he’s not telling the truth.

We have to tell the police! How can we suspect she’s under there and not do anything?’

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Sibel Hodge

‘
We
don’t suspect anything. You do.’

‘So, you’re perfectly happy with walking over a skeleton, if

she’s down there, are you?’ I challenged him with a tilt of my head.

‘You’re perfectly happy with Anna and us living in this house with

the possibility there’s a
fucking body out there?
’ I knocked back a third of my wine.

He blew out an angry sigh, hand on hip.

‘You should’ve heard him. He was scared and upset and he kept

saying it was an accident.’

Ethan clamped his jaw shut tight, the muscles working under

the skin.

‘I think that she was seeing him secretly. I think she wanted him

to get her away from Jack and Rose because—’

‘Why would she want that? It’s insane!’

‘Because Tom had money. She’d set her sights on Chris – don’t

you remember? How she kept pressuring him to get a place together