Kerryanne sighs. ‘Well, it’s different for me,in loco parentisand all that, I’d move quite quickly if someone went missing from school. And in fact they have and I called out search and rescue within a few hours. But as a mother?’ She pauses. ‘I don’t know. I mean Tallulah and Zach are technically adults. They’d been drinking, taking drugs; sounds like they’ve got responsibilities beyond those of normal teenagers. I’d be tempted to look at the bigger picture. I mean, is it possible they’ve just run away? In a mad moment of spontaneity?’
Kim closes her eyes and measures her response. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No. Definitely not.’
‘And between them, as a couple? I mean, was there anything afoot? Maybe they had a row? Maybe something happened?’
And there it is, the thing that’s been gnawing away inside Kim’s head all day long: the little box she’d found in Zach’s jacket pocket the day before when she was looking for the spare door keys she’d lent him. The box with the ring in it with the small but very clear diamond set on a golden band. She’d been expecting them to come back from the pub last night engaged. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it; they were so young and she wasn’t convinced that Tallulah was entirely committed to Zach.But she’d been ready for it, ready to look amazed and delighted and to hug them both to her and tell them she was thrilled and to take a photo and text it to Tallulah’s dad and put it on Facebook and all of that. She’d been ready for it. Even if she thought it was wrong. Because that’s what you did. Wasn’t it? When you had a baby. When you had a man who loved you. You got married.
But then Kim thinks of how long it had taken Tallulah to agree to get back together with Zach after Noah was born. She thinks of how Tallulah shrugs Zach’s touch from her shoulder, from her arm, the roll of her eyes behind his back sometimes. She’s been meaning to start a conversation with Tallulah for a few weeks, just to check in, to make sure she’s still happy that she took Zach back. But she hasn’t. And then they’d planned this night out together and Kim saw it as a sign that things were getting better between them. And then she’d found the ring.
So what, she wonders, if Zach had asked Tallulah to marry him and Tallulah had said no? Because Zach is a good boy, but he has a temper. She’s seen it flare from time to time when he’s watching sport on the TV or when he drops something and hurts himself or someone cuts him up when he’s driving.
How might a rejection of his marriage proposal have triggered that temper? How might he have responded?
10
August 2018
Sophie and Shaun arrive at Kerryanne’s apartment at eight o’clock that evening, clutching a cold bottle of wine. The apartment has glass sliding doors almost the full width of her living room facing directly towards the setting sun. It’s hot and stuffy; a large chrome fan plugged into the wall provides a little relief.
‘Sorry,’ she says to Sophie and Shaun, ‘it gets so hot in here on a sunny day, the heat gets trapped. Come,’ she says, ‘we can sit on the terrace.’
There’s a wickerwork sofa on her terrace and a table set with crisps in bowls and wine glasses and a candle in a jar.
Sophie sits down first, followed by Shaun. The view across the woods is beautiful; the sky is turquoise, streaked with coral, a half-moon is just emerging from the shadows.
‘This is lovely,’ says Sophie. ‘Like a different world to the cottage.’
‘Yes, the cottage is lovely, but you don’t get the views. But then again, you don’t get the heat either.’ She pours wine into the three glasses and raises hers to Shaun. ‘Cheers,’ she says. ‘To my fifth head teacher! And to you, too, Sophie, my first head teacher’s significant other!’
‘Are we the first unmarried couple?’ Sophie asks.
‘You are, yes.’
‘Is it a scandal?’ asks Sophie.
‘Oh God, no. Maybe twenty years ago eyebrows would have been raised. But not now. I don’t think anyone cares about these things any more, do they? And actually, Jacinta Croft – your predecessor, Shaun – she arrived married, but left single. Her husband did a runner. One of those “popping out for a pint of milk” scenarios. No one ever found out why. That’s pretty much why she left, because of the scandal of it. So no, you two will not cause any wagging tongues, I can promise you that.’
They chat for a while about Shaun’s first day at work, about the school he used to teach at in Lewisham, about the differences between the two areas, the two schools. Then Kerryanne turns to Sophie and says, ‘Peter Doody tells me that you’re a writer, Sophie? Detective novels, he said.’
‘Yes.’ Sophie smiles. ‘Though I doubt you’d have read them. They’re quite niche. I’m big in Scandinavia.’ She laughs the laugh she always laughs when she has to explain to people why they’ve probably never heard of her.
‘I told my daughter about you,’ Kerryanne says. ‘She’s the reader in the family. Not me. I think she might even have ordered one of your books. What are they called again?’
‘The series is called The Little Hither Green Detective Agency. I write under the name P. J. Fox.’
‘I tell you what,’ she says, ‘if you want any inspiration for your books, I could tell you some stories about this place. I mean, I could tell you some really, really hair-raising stuff. We had the police here twice last year alone, trawling those woods for missing people.’
Sophie thinks of the abandoned mansion beyond the woods. ‘Wow,’ she says. ‘What happened?’
Kerryanne glances across at Shaun and says, ‘Hm. Probably a bit indiscreet. Maybe not.’
But she throws Sophie a sideways glance that tells her there’ll be another time.
The following day, Sophie gets up with Shaun at 6 a.m. and they breakfast outdoors together, the golden rays of another beautiful late-August day strobing through the trees and across the tablecloth.
‘What will you do today?’ asks Shaun, collecting the plates and cutlery and piling them together. ‘Will you go for another epic walk?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Not today. I thought I might explore the village today. Maybe get some lunch at the infamous Swan & Ducks.’