‘So, my colleague tells me that your daughter failed to come home on Friday night? Is that correct?’
Kim nods. ‘My daughter, and her boyfriend – he lives with us. They both failed to come home.’
‘And they’re how old?’
‘They’re both nineteen. They turned nineteen in March.’
DI McCoy looks at her strangely, as if she shouldn’t be worried about a couple of nineteen-year-olds.
‘But they’re parents,’ she continues. ‘Noah – he’s their son. So it’s not as if they’re likely to just take off on a whim. They’re good parents. Responsible.’
He nods, thoughtfully. ‘I see.’
She wonders what it is that he thinks he sees. But then she answers his questions about the events of Friday and of Saturday. She gives him Scarlett’s address, Lexie’s address, Megs’s address. She almost mentions the engagement ring, but then decides against it at the last minute; she’s not sure why.
Half an hour later he stands to leave.
‘So, what do you think, then?’ Kim asks. ‘What do you think might have happened to them?’
‘Well, there’s no real reason to believe that anything has happened to them. Two youngsters, a lot of responsibility, theirfirst night out in a long time, maybe they just made a break for freedom.’
‘No,’ she replies immediately. ‘Absolutely not. They’re devoted to their son. Both of them. Particularly my daughter. Absolutely devoted to him.’
He nods thoughtfully. ‘And the boyfriend, Zach? Was he in any way controlling? Would you say? Were there any signs of abuse going on?’
‘No,’ she replies again, almost too fast, as she tries to override the uncomfortable little doubts she’s starting to have. ‘He adores Tallulah. Dotes on her. Almost too much.’
‘Too much?’
She realises what she’s said and retreats. ‘No. Not too much. But, you know, it gets on her nerves sometimes, I guess.’
‘I wouldn’t mind being doted on like that,’ he says with a smile.
Kim closes her eyes and nods. Men don’t know, she thinks, they don’t know how having a baby makes you protective of your skin, your body, your space. When you spend all day giving yourself to a baby in every way that it’s possible to give yourself to another human being, the last thing you want at the end of the day is a grown man wanting you to give him things too. Men don’t know how the touch of a hand against the back of your neck can feel like a request, not a gesture of love, how emotional issues become too cumbersome to deal with, how their love for you is too much sometimes, just too much. Kim sometimes thinks that women practise being mothers on men until they become actual mothers, leaving behind a kind of vacancy.
DI McCoy leaves a minute later. He promises that he will open an investigation. He doesn’t say when or how. Kim watcheshim from her front window, climbing into his unmarked vehicle, adjusting his rear-view mirror, adjusting his lanyard and his suit jacket and his hair, turning on the engine and leaving.
She turns to Noah, who is in his bouncy chair, a mushed-up rice cake in the palm of his hand, and she forces a sad smile designed to distract him from the tears running down the sides of her nose and says, ‘Where’s Umma, Noah? Where is she?’
13
August 2018
Sophie leans down to read the inscription on a small wooden plaque beneath the rose bush behind the bus stop. It says: ‘Tallulah Rose, until we meet again.’
She stands straight again and glances around herself, looking for the window at which poor Tallulah’s mum might have stood, watching her girl waiting for her bus to school. There are no houses directly opposite the bus stop, but there is a small cul-de-sac just off the other side of the common, very close to Maypole House. From here Sophie can see the glint of sunlight off windows.
She crosses the common again and heads towards the cul-de-sac. It consists of about six houses, set in a half-moon around a small patch of green, cars parked half up on the pavements tomake room for other cars to squeeze past. The houses themselves are small post-war dwellings, with rendered fronts and wooden porches. She turns and looks back across the common, trying to ascertain which of the houses might have a view of the bus stop. Two of them appear to. One of them seems quite run down; the other looks bright and modern, with cacti in copper pots in the window and a brown leather sofa covered in brightly coloured cushions just visible against the back wall.
The article said that, on the night they went missing, Tallulah and her boyfriend had been drinking at the Swan & Ducks, the local gastropub that had been recommended to Sophie and Shaun by Peter Doody the day they arrived. Sophie carries on circling the common until she finds herself outside the pub. It’s very attractive, freshly painted in heritage shades of grey, a gravelled front area with round wooden tables and chairs, huge cream parasols and chalkboard signs advertising the menu and the beer selection.
She pushes open the door. It’s classic gastropub: tongue and groove, funky abstract art on the walls, designer wallpaper, reconditioned floorboards and halogen spots. The woman behind the bar is forty-something, attractive in an unconventional way. She’s wearing a fitted black cap-sleeved T-shirt with black trousers and a bartender’s apron tied tight around her waist. Her dark hair is tied back in a ponytail. As she approaches Sophie she rests her hands against the bar, fixes a smile and says, ‘What can I get you?’
‘Oh, just a cappuccino please. Thank you.’
‘Coming right up.’
She turns towards the big chrome coffee machine and Sophie notices the tattoos on the undersides of her arms. At first shethinks they might be burns or scars, then she sees that they are baby footprints.