‘They were very young. They had a baby. It was horrible.’ She shakes her head. ‘They never found a trace of them, as far as I’m aware. But, God, the rumours afterwards.’ She shakes her head again and puts a hand to her neck. ‘So much gossip, so many conspiracy theories. Because, unfortunately, and I don’t know if your brother is aware of this, but the girl whose house the couple had been at before they went missing was a former pupil at Maypole House. And they were with another former pupil of the school, plus a teaching assistant and the matron’s daughter. So it all got very messy for a while, from the school’s point of view, even though none of those children was under our care at the time. Itwas one of the things that made me want to leave.’ She sighs. ‘Your poor brother, having it all raked up all over again. What was it they found, exactly?’
‘Oh,’ Sophie says. ‘Something in the woods, just behind the cottage, he said? A ring?’
‘A ring?’ Jacinta arches an eyebrow. ‘How strange. I thought you were going to say—’ She stops.
Sophie looks at her questioningly.
‘Nothing,’ she continues. ‘I’m just not sure why a ring would bring the whole case back up to the surface.’ Her eyes go to the clock on the wall behind Sophie. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she says. ‘I do have to go. But please wish your brother all the luck in the world with the new job.’
Sophie smiles and thanks Jacinta again.
Then she turns to leave and waves at the girl called Alice at the desk.
As she heads towards the sliding glass door, Alice calls out, ‘Mrs Beets. Don’t forget your prospectus. For Pixie.’
Sophie turns back and takes the shiny brochure from the woman’s hand. ‘Thank you,’ she says brightly. ‘I can’t believe I nearly forgot!’
Sophie breathes out hard as she turns the corner and back on to Vauxhall Bridge Road. She finds a recycling bin and tosses the prospectus into it. Then she looks at the time and realises it is still early and that she is in no hurry whatsoever to head back to Upfield Common, so she texts her friend Molly who works in Victoria and asks if she’s free for lunch. Molly replies immediately that she is.
As she slides into the soft leather banquette of the buzzy, pistachio-hued brasserie a few minutes later, she feels it all start to fall away from her: the remoteness of her existence, the silence at night under the sloped ceiling of their bedroom in the cottage by the woods, the little rosebush behind the bus stop, the sad face of Kim Knox polishing glasses behind the bar at the Swan & Ducks, Shaun’s brittleness, the preciseness of his necktie, the smile she hasn’t seen for days. Suddenly it is as if she never left, as if none of it exists; it is just she and Molly, a glass of wine, and the three businessmen across the way eyeing them, hungrily, and it almost comes as a shock to Sophie when the lunch comes to an end, that she is not to return to her flat in Deptford, that she is instead to get on a lumbering, creaking train out of Victoria and sit on it for forty-five minutes watching London fade into the distance.
‘You know,’ she says to Molly as they pull on their jackets and prepare to leave, ‘I miss London so much.’
‘The grass is always greener,’ says Molly. ‘I’d give anything to go and live in the country. With a handsome head teacher. Andno rent.’
Sophie smiles a tight smile. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I know. I just … I feel a bit lost.’
‘You’ll find your way,’ says Molly. ‘It’s not even been two weeks. You’ll find your feet. You’re such a flexible person, Soph. You always have been.’
It’s nearly two thirty by the time Sophie and Molly part ways outside the restaurant. For a moment, Sophie stands on the spot, her feet strangely glued in place. She looks across the street at the dark shape of Victoria station. She doesn’t feel ready to headback. Not yet. She takes a the Tube to Oxford Circus and spends an hour trawling up and down its infuriating pavements full of people walking either too slowly or too fast. She wanders blindly around a branch of Zara, a branch of Gap, she goes in one side of Selfridges and out the other without really looking at anything. Her head churns with everything and nothing. She doesn’t want to go back to Upfield Common and the thought chills her.
She keeps walking and she keeps walking. She sits in a Starbucks and drinks strong tea from a paper cup. She looks at books in a bookshop, checks the spines in the Fiction D–F section, finds only one copy of one P. J. Fox book and sighs. No wonder she doesn’t sell if the shops don’t stock any. She spirals through the huge Primark at Marble Arch and comes out with three pairs of lacy pants for seven pounds.
It’s four thirty. She still doesn’t want to go home.
Her thoughts go back to Jacinta Croft as she threads through Mayfair’s back streets and on to Park Lane. She’d stopped, hadn’t she, at one point during their conversation. Stopped at the moment that Sophie had told her about the ring. What was it she’d said? Something to do with expecting there to be something else dug up in the woods?
Sophie finds the number for Jacinta’s school on Google and calls it. To her surprise she is put straight through and a moment later Jacinta’s warm but professional voice is greeting her.
‘I had a feeling I’d be hearing from you again,’ she says.
32
September 2018
Kim’s phone rings. She picks it up from where it was balanced on the edge of the kitchen sink and sees the nameMegs. At first she thinks, Why on earth is Megs calling me? And then she remembers.
She hits the answer button and says hello.
‘Kim. It’s Megs.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I assume you’ve spoken to Dom?’
‘Yes, he called yesterday. What’s going on?’
‘He told you about the ring?’
‘Yes. He told me about the ring. He told me they’ve searched those blessed woods, yet again. And that’s about it. Any more developments?’