I watched the ambulance go, taking Shirley and Heledd with it. As I headed back to my car, I felt eyes on the back of my neck. I turned.
There was no one there.
Chapter 28
The others were eating dinner when I arrived back at the retreat. Max was next to Suzi, with Ursula opposite. I watched them from the doorway for a minute. They were too absorbed in a verbal game of tennis to notice me: Max and Ursula bashed the conversation back and forth while Suzi watched them. I was desperate to talk to someone, but could I take any of my fellow writers into my confidence? I didn’t trust Max. Ursula would probably try to tell me an evil spirit was responsible. And as for Suzi . . . well, I still wasn’t sure about her relationship with Max.
That left Julia – but the thought of telling her I’d hired a private detective to investigate Lily’s disappearance, and informing her the detective hadn’t found anything concrete, filled me with dread. On the other hand, I felt closer to her again after the sighting of Megan and trip to her house. Surely Julia would understand my intentions were good and that I’d kept it from her because I didn’t want to get her hopes up.
The truth was, I had no idea how she would react. But I made up my mind. I owed it to her to tell her, and to stop keeping secrets. And maybe, just maybe, she could help me figure it all out.
‘Hello. I didn’t see you sneak in.’
I whirled round. ‘Julia.’
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump. Do you want dinner?’ I floundered, which made her laugh. ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to answer straight away. Oh, I’ve got something for you.’
I followed her into the kitchen, where she opened a drawer and fished out a small object.
It was the pen Priya had given me. I turned it over in my hands, relief washing over me. I’d convinced myself that I’d lost it. I was tempted to kiss it.
I looked up to see Julia smiling at me. ‘Why is it so special?’ she asked.
‘Because of who gave it to me.’
‘Oh?’
Julia didn’t know about Priya. Since arriving at the retreat, I hadn’t found an opportunity to bring it up – to let her know we had something awful in common – without it seeming as if I was saying ‘me too’. Now was the perfect time to tell her, but first I asked, ‘Where did you find it?’
She hesitated. ‘Do you promise not to cause a scene?’
‘What? Did someone have it? Was it Ursula?’
She sighed. ‘Calm down, Lucas. No, it wasn’t Ursula. I found it in Max’s room—’
‘What?’
‘—when I was changing the bedding, under the pillow.’ Before I could get angry, she hurriedly said, ‘I already asked him about it. He said he had no idea what it was doing there. He thinks he might have picked it up by mistake the night Ursula arrived. He said he has a couple of similar pens.’
‘But why was it under his pillow? Also, I’m sure I didn’t take it out of my room.’
‘You’re not one hundred per cent sure, though, are you?’
I rubbed my forehead. I was mentally exhausted, still shocked by what had happened to Shirley, and Zara’s absence was playing on my mind. ‘No. I suppose it’s possible I brought it downstairs. But what about my phone? I’m sure someone was in my room that night . . .’
Julia tilted her head. ‘What? You didn’t tell me about that.’
I rubbed my forehead. I was getting confused, forgetting that although I’d told Julia about my things going missing, only Suzi knew about my nocturnal intruder.
‘Lucas, are you okay? You look shattered.’
She touched my upper arm and her hand lingered there. It was warm. I had the urge to pull her closer. To kiss her. Take her to bed and lose myself in her. In that moment, despite the exhaustion that threatened to suck me under, there was nothing else I would rather do. And I was sure, from the way she was looking at me, and how she didn’t remove her hand, that she could feel it. The air between us was thick, heavy with unspoken words. I lay my hand on top of hers, held her palm against my triceps.
Max came through the door.
‘Oops,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to interrupt.’
Julia snatched her hand away.
Max saw the pen in my hand. ‘Sorry about the weird mistake, old chap. I’m always picking up other people’s pens. Terrible habit.’
Everything that had happened today, all the stress, including the shattered sexual tension – it combined to make the room lurch around me. I pointed a finger at Max. ‘You took it, you arsehole! You came into my room and stole it!’
He stared at me.
‘I bet you’ve got my phone too, haven’t you? Come on, tell me – where is it?’
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’
‘Have you been going through it?’ I jabbed a finger at him. ‘Trying to find something you could use against me? Oh Jesus, I bet it was you who told Ursula about Priya. You fucking arsehole!’
Out of the corner of my eye, through a pinkish mist, I could see Julia, her mouth open with shock.
‘You’re a jealous, snobbish, has-been loser!’ I spat.
Max sneered. ‘Jealous? Of the tripe you churn out? You’re not even a proper writer. You’re just a hack. No one will read your books in five years, but mine will live on long after I’m gone.’
The mist was dark red now. ‘After you’re gone?’ I jabbed a finger at him. ‘That might be sooner than you think, you fucking—’
‘Lucas!’
It was Julia. She had hold of both my arms now, and held me still like I was a child. ‘Calm down.’
I heard Suzi say, ‘Has he been drinking?’ I hadn’t heard her enter the room.
‘Come on,’ Julia said. ‘Let’s find you something to eat.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not hungry. I’m going up to my room.’
I could feel them all watching me as I headed up. The walls swam around my head; the stairs felt like they were made of foam.
I fell onto the bed fully dressed and blacked out immediately.
When I came to, it felt as if I’d been sucking cotton wool. It was still dark but I was surprised to find it was only midnight. I’d been asleep for four hours. Now my body clock was going to be really screwed up.
I staggered to the bathroom and drank water from the tap, then splashed some on my face and cleaned my teeth. I could hear voices downstairs. The others were still up. A memory of my argument with Max hit me and I recoiled. Had I really gloated about being a bestseller? Oh God, what a dickish thing to do. I splashed some more water on my face until I was fully awake.
Going down the stairs, I could hear Ursula, her voice echoing through the house. I didn’t know who she was talking to. Suddenly, Julia appeared at the bottom of the staircase. She stopped dead when she saw me.
‘Can I talk to you?’ I said when I reached her. ‘In private?’
She looked left and right, then said, ‘Follow me.’
To my surprise, she unlocked the door to the basement.
‘I thought guests weren’t allowed down here? That it wasn’t safe.’
A little smile. ‘That’s not strictly true, about it being unsafe. I just wanted to keep this space to myself. Now I’m making an exception, just this once.’
I followed her down. I expected to find a dusty room full of cobwebs and junk, old boxes and cracked walls. I thought perhaps there would be a broken stair or exposed wires, something to explain why no one was supposed to come down here.
I couldn’t believe what I saw as Julia flicked a switch and a fluorescent strip light juddered to life.
‘Welcome to the playroom,’ she said.
It was a child’s paradise. Bean bags and scatter cushions were heaped on the floor, and there was a comfortable old sofa, in front of which stood a TV and a games console. The walls were brightly coloured, with posters everywhere containing positive messages:
Dream Big
What if I fall? Oh, my darling, but what
if you FLY?
There was a huge doll’s house and heaps of cuddly toys and board games; colouring books and pens and art equipment; a chalk board and a dressing-up box overflowing with costumes.
‘Wow.’
She sat on the sofa, sinking into it. ‘This was Lily’s favourite room, even more than her bedroom.’
‘It’s amazing. My God, I wish I’d had something like this when I was a kid.’
Julia picked up a stuffed rabbit and stroked its ears. ‘That’s why we created it. We wanted Lily to have all the things we didn’t. Her den. Her private space. She used to come down here with Megan, or sometimes she’d bring Chesney down here and play with him. And the plan was, if we had another child . . .’
She trailed off, deep in a memory for a few seconds.
‘I like coming down here. It doesn’t make me feel sad like her bedroom. Sometimes I sit here for hours and think, and it makes me feel . . . peaceful. I know that might sound strange but . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Now, what did you want to talk to me about?’
I took a deep breath.
‘I don’t know how you’re going to react.’
‘Try me.’
‘Okay. Do you remember telling me you wished you could afford to hire a private investigator? Well . . .’
I told her everything, starting with hiring Zara. I told her how Zara was confident the police had done all they could. I recounted her meeting with Malcolm at the chess club and our subsequent conversation at the pub.
‘And then she vanished,’ I said, going on to tell her what had happened today. Along the way, I told her about Glynn Collins and the Historical Society and all the other fragments of information I’d uncovered but failed to piece together. I told her how my mum had told me about another girl going missing thirty-seven years ago, which Julia knew already (‘Several people mentioned that to me when Lily vanished, as if it would make me feel better’). I finished by telling her about what I’d found at the bed and breakfast. Shirley, dead.
‘That was why I was so shaken when I got home.’
She raised an eyebrow at my use of the word ‘home’. But apart from that, she seemed calm, apparently accepting what I was saying. She didn’t shout or get angry or act horrified. She listened and absorbed what I had to say, her legs tucked underneath her. A strand of hair kept falling over her left eye. She brushed it away, keeping her gaze focused on me throughout.
When I’d finished, she untucked her legs and sat forward.
‘I knew I should have thrown you out when I found out what you write.’
It hadn’t been calm acceptance. It was stunned disbelief.
‘Julia—’
‘Shut up.’
She got to her feet. I went to rise too, but she reached forward and pushed me back onto the sofa. She stood over me.
‘How could you?’ she yelled. ‘How could you hire someone, get them to poke into my business? How . . . ?’ She wanted to say more but was choked by anger.
‘I didn’t want to get your hopes up,’ I said.
‘Jesus Christ!’
‘Not unless I found something. Julia, you said you wished you could afford a detective. I was doing it for you. A favour.’
She had stalked off, a few feet away from me. ‘Really? Are you sure you were doing it for me?’
I needed to defend myself. If I sat there and tried to apologise, she would chuck me out, I was sure of it. I stood up.
‘Yes, Julia, I was doing it for you. For Lily. I wanted to check the police had done all they could. I saw how distraught you were and wanted to help you.’
‘The damsel in distress.’
‘Your gender has nothing to do with it.’
‘Huh. I bet.’
I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t, actually.’ But I didn’t sound very sure, even to myself. If it had been Julia who had drowned, would I have tried to help Michael in the same way? I wanted to believe that I would, but . . .
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. Like I said, I was only going to tell you if I got anywhere. And I think I have. I’ve stirred something up, and I’m certain it’s related to Lily.’
She stared at me, chest rising and falling. ‘But you haven’t really got anywhere, have you? It’s like . . . a conspiracy theory. A crazy conspiracy theory. You might as well have told me aliens came down and took Lily off in a spaceship.’
‘I know how it sounds, Julia. But Glynn Collins . . . Don’t you think it’s a massive coincidence that within a couple of weeks of my private detective starting to ask questions, two members of that group are dead? And the detective herself is missing?’
‘On holiday. And the other two deaths – it’s not coincidence, it’s a chain. Cause and effect. The visit from Zara caused Malcolm stress and made him have a heart attack. Then what’s-her-name, Shirley, died after getting drunk at his funeral.’
‘But why was Malcolm stressed?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he did know something about this girl who vanished in the eighties. Maybe Malcolm Jones was a paedophile. But that has nothing to do with Lily.’
I thought about it. I had been so focused on Glynn that it hadn’t crossed my mind that Malcolm might be guilty of anything more than not exposing Glynn’s crimes. Could Julia be right? Was Malcolm the bad guy here?
‘But what if Malcolm was still . . . operating two years ago?’
‘With a thirty-five-year gap between crimes?’
I stood up, paced the room. At least Julia was engaging with me now and not marching me up the stairs and telling me to pack my bags. ‘There could be others we don’t know about,’ I said. ‘Other missing children. Maybe it was Malcolm, or Glynn, or . . .’
The lights went out.
And above our heads, in the belly of the house, a woman screamed.
Chapter 29
LILY – 2014
Mum stuck her head around Lily’s bedroom door.
‘Megan’s coming over. She’ll be here in fifteen minutes so you should get dressed and brush your hair.’
‘What? Why?’ It was Saturday morning and Lily was on her bed, still in her PJs, playing a game on her iPad.
‘Megan’s mum has been called into work and her stepdad is away on a stag weekend. Jake is coming too.’
Lily made the groaning uhhh sound her mum hated so much.
‘Just get dressed, okay? And be nice to Jake. He’s a lovely boy.’
Fifteen minutes later, tyres crunched on the gravel outside. Lily looked out of her window. Megan and Jake were getting out of a taxi along with the taxi driver, who escorted them to the front door. The bell rang.
By the time Lily got downstairs, Megan and Jake were standing in the hall and Mum was talking to the taxi man. It sounded like he was a neighbour and old friend of Megan’s mum’s, and he wasn’t supposed to be working today but he’d run the kids over as a favour. He had nothing else to do. He winked at Lily over her mum’s shoulder.
‘Why don’t you come in for a cup of tea, er . . . ?’
‘Olly. Yeah, thanks, that would be great.’
‘Follow me. Lily, why don’t you take Megan and Jake down to the playroom? I’ll bring you down some drinks and snacks in a bit.’
‘Okay.’ Lily hesitated. ‘Where’s Dad?’
Mum’s eyes shifted around in that way they did when she wasn’t sure what to say. ‘He’s having a lie-in.’
‘Lucky bloke,’ said Olly.
‘Isn’t he just?’ She sounded angry, though she was trying to hide it behind the smile she always wore when they had visitors.
Mum and the taxi driver went off to the kitchen and Lily ran down the stairs to the playroom, Megan at her heels, Jake trailing behind.
Megan turned around. ‘Hurry up, slowcoach.’
‘Sorry, Meg.’
He almost bumped his head on the low ceiling halfway down the stairs. He was growing a moustache. Bumfluff, Megan called it.
She rolled her eyes, and Lily, not for the first time, felt sorry for him. Althoug
h she often wished she had a brother or sister, she’d hate to be bossed around in the way Megan bossed Jake.
Megan headed straight for the Wii U. ‘Want a game of Mario Kart? Bet I can beat you this time.’
Last time Megan had come here she’d moaned that Lily didn’t have that Bloody Mary game. Luckily, it wasn’t available for the Wii U, so Lily had a good excuse.
As Megan set up the game, Lily turned her head to see what Jake was doing. He was staring at the art supplies. Lily remembered that he was really good at drawing and asked him if he wanted some paper and pens.
‘Thanks, Lily.’ He settled down on a beanbag with a pad and a pack of colouring pens.
Megan looked over her shoulder. ‘Hey, Jake, it’s Mum’s birthday next week. Make her a card from both of us.’
‘Yes, Meg.’
Lily and Megan played Mario Kart. Megan won the first race – thanks to a massively fluky blue shell right at the end – and Lily beat her in the second and third. They were about to start race four when the door at the top of the stairs opened.
‘All right, guys?’
It was the taxi driver, carrying a tray with smoothies in cartons and a plate of chocolate chip cookies.
‘Yay, snacks!’ Megan paused the game. ‘Thanks, Olly.’
He said to Lily, ‘Your mum asked me to bring these down. She had to take a phone call.’
‘Oh, right. Thanks.’
He looked around. ‘This is a pretty cool space. What are you playing . . . ? Oh, I love that game. Who’s your favourite character? I always play as Bowser. He’s heavy but when he gets going – whoosh!’ He laughed.
Lily stared at him. Was he like Jake? A little kid trapped in a big body?
‘I haven’t been to this house for years. My dad had a friend who lived here. Hey, you might have met my dad? He’s the town librarian.’
Lily looked at him blankly. She had never been to Beddmawr Library. Why would she need to, when her house was full of books, most of them awesomely boring. Lily liked the books Mum had illustrated, partly because they were all dedicated to her.
Olly crouched down next to Jake. ‘What are you drawing, mate?’