Moth Girls (4 page)

Late Friday afternoon, when Mandy got in, she could hear Alison Pointer’s voice from the kitchen. She was talking to her mother. Dismayed, Mandy stood in the hallway and listened for a moment to see how the conversation sounded. She had bought some new clothes for Zoe’s party the following evening. Buying them had made her feel good, but now Alison was here she found herself looking at them with a feeling of guilt. Alison’s visits were never predictable. On some days she was upset, crying, pulling tissues from a box one after the other. Other times she was fine, brisk and business-like, outlining plans for some project she was involved in.

Mandy listened hard. Today Alison sounded upbeat. She relaxed.

‘Mandy, is that you?’ her mother called out.

‘It is. I’ll be there in a minute.’

She went upstairs and threw her bags into her room. Then she came back down to the kitchen. Alison was sitting at the kitchen table, looking smart in dark trousers and a cream jumper. On the floor, by her chair, was a large leather handbag. It sat up on the ground like a stiff case. A leather coat hung untidily over the back of an adjacent chair. Mandy could see that Alison’s nails had been painted dark red. She looked like she’d just come from a television interview. When Mandy first knew her she dressed like her own mum except on the days when she was a receptionist in the doctor’s. Now she was usually beautifully turned out.

Her mother was in jeans and a loose shirt. There were mixing bowls on the side and packets of flour. She was baking again. No doubt there would be a Victoria sponge or a Madeira cake for her to nibble at later.

‘Mandy! How are you?’ Alison said, smiling widely.

‘Hello, Alison,’ she said.

It had taken Mandy a long time to be able to call Mrs Pointer ‘Alison’
.
She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down.

‘Did you see the demolition? My neighbour tells me it’s all flat now.’

‘I was there for a while on Tuesday morning but I’ve not been past it since. I’ve been going to school a different way so I haven’t seen –’

‘I deliberately didn’t go,’ Alison said. ‘I couldn’t face it. I’ve walked past that house many times over the years and sometimes I found it a bit of a comfort, knowing that it was the last place Tina had been. I was afraid, you know, that I might try to stop them knocking it down. Which is ridiculous. If ever there’s a house I should loathe and hate it’s that one.’

‘I saw Jason Armstrong there just as they were starting on the demolition,’ Mandy said.

Alison’s face darkened. ‘What did he have to say?’

‘I spoke to him briefly,’ Mandy said, remembering his words and how they had upset her. ‘He looked rough.’

‘Living in a hostel, I heard, in East London somewhere. A complete loser.’

‘Maybe losing Petra …’

‘He was always a complete loser. Do you know, after the girls went missing I asked him to get involved with the campaign to help find them and he refused. Just point-blank said, “No thanks!” Can you believe that? In the last five years he never lifted a finger to help with the publicity or raising awareness. Oh, don’t get me started on Jason Armstrong!’

‘They did say that the family were “known to the social services”,’ her mum said.

‘I always knew that. We had their notes in the surgery. I didn’t look until after it happened but I knew he had his problems. Why do you think I never let my Tina stay round there? Why do you think all the sleepovers were at my place?’

‘And here,’ her mum said. ‘The girls stayed here once.’

‘Course! I was quite happy for Tina to stay here. I knew she was safe here.’

‘Alison’s had some amazing news,’ her mother said.

‘Oh?’

Alison always had lots of things to talk about. She was on committees that dealt with child protection and child safety issues. She’d also created a national website called Safe and Sound, which was a way of swapping information about missing children.

‘There have been some sightings of someone who looks a lot like Tina,’ Alison said quietly.

‘Sightings? Again?’

‘I know there’s been a number over the years but these have a real feeling of authenticity. In the last week I’ve been contacted by three people in an area of thirteen square kilometres, in France, outside a town called Bergerac. It’s very rural there. Here is the really exciting thing. One of them sent a photograph.’

‘A picture?’

Alison’s eyes were shining.

‘I’ll show you,’ she said and rummaged about in her bag. She pulled out an iPad and tapped the screen several times. ‘Here.’

Mandy took the iPad. Onscreen she saw a blurred picture of a teenage girl standing by a car on a garage forecourt. She was leaning on the roof of the car and staring into the distance. Beside it, slightly smaller, was a head-and-shoulder shot of a teenage girl. She had curly hair held back with pins and dimples in her cheeks. There was a similarity about the two girls.

‘The other picture is the computer-enhanced image of Tina. We have that done every six months. It’s a version of what she might look like now. Of course, we have one of Petra too. Actually we have updated pictures of over twenty children on the website. Hard to believe that there are so many missing. So many unhappy families.’

Mandy looked at her mother. She appeared uncomfortable, using her nail to scratch at something on the surface of the table. These conversations with Alison always led to heavy silences. Alison’s broken heart was there in the room with them; no one could say anything to make it any better.

‘But
these
sightings have been of Tina,’ Alison said. ‘So I’m very excited. Three sightings in one week. The police are extremely interested and the French police are being helpful. I’m flying out there tomorrow.’

Mandy nodded her head positively. She had an image in her head of Alison sitting in an aisle seat, coupling the seat belt neatly across her middle and saying to the person next to her, ‘I’m going to find my daughter.’

‘It could be good news,’ Mandy said.

‘Yes,’ Alison said.

She picked up her iPad and stared at the picture. She raised her finger as if to slide it across the screen or tap to change the app. Instead she let it hover over the image of the girl on the garage forecourt, her ruby-coloured fingernail drooping as if it could actually touch the face.

‘This could be a breakthrough,’ she said, almost under her breath. ‘This could be something important. Not just for Tina but for Petra too.’

‘The police will follow it up,’ her mother said. ‘There’s loads of cooperation between police forces of different countries now.’

There had been a number of days like this when Alison had come into their house and shared news with them of a false dawn. The early sightings were many. The girls had been seen in Leicester, Durham, Glasgow. They’d been seen abroad: Portugal, France, Majorca, the Canary Islands. All those places that were brimming with English tourists who looked around and fixed their gaze on any pair of girls who might fit the description. They didn’t deliberately mislead; they wanted, more than anything, to be right. They wanted to find these two sweet girls and return them to their families. Lead after lead was followed up and each proved to be false. As the years passed by the leads diminished, the case wound down, the mystery deepened. What had become of them?

Mandy thought of the girls locked in the cellar in Cleveland, Ohio. She wondered what had gone through Alison’s mind when she’d read about that case.

‘I should go,’ Alison said. ‘Loads to do. I’ll let you both know about the France thing. Although,’ she said, her voice a little lower, ‘if it
is
Tina, well … I don’t know how I’ll be. On the other hand, if it’s not … I might be in a worse state.’

‘I’ll see you out,’ Mandy said.

Alison pushed her iPad into her bag and straightened her trouser creases. She picked up her coat from the back of the chair.

‘Keep your fingers crossed for me!’

‘We always do,’ her mother said.

Mandy walked out into the hall and opened the front door. The cold air slipped into the house.

Alison paused for a second to put her coat on. She did all the buttons up and tied the belt. Then she turned to the hall mirror and had a look at herself. When she’d finished she took a step towards the front door. She hesitated though, making an ‘Oh!’ sound as if she’d forgotten something. Mandy expected her to go back into the kitchen to pick up some item from the table or share some last-minute piece of gossip with her mother. Instead she stepped close to Mandy and clasped her arm with her hand. She spoke quietly in her ear as if she didn’t want her mother to hear.

‘And you know, Mandy, I don’t blame you any more,’ she said, squeezing her arm. ‘I may have said a few things all those years ago. I may have been unkind to you then. Said things I shouldn’t have said. You were a child though. It wasn’t your fault. I don’t hold you responsible any more. Not one bit.’

Mandy didn’t answer. She gave a weak smile and Alison went out of the house with a backwards wave. When Mandy shut the door she felt something heavy clamp across her shoulders. Her mother was always saying that. ‘It’s not your fault, Mandy.’

But Mandy blamed herself. She always had and she always would.

Later that evening, when her parents were watching television, Mandy went into her room and shut the door. Alison’s comments to her had been playing round her head all night. She hadn’t eaten much and had had to fend off questions about her lack of appetite from her mother. She helped with the dishes and then had a bath. In her room, she answered some texts on her phone, three from Tommy and a couple from some other girls. She put her new clothes onto a hanger – a red top and black jeans – and hooked it onto the outside of her wardrobe door so that she could look at it. She placed the shoes underneath. They were red like the top and had high heels. She turned them over, wondering if she’d made a good choice. After a while she tidied up her bead box, sorting out clasps and wires so that she could make a necklace. She was all fingers and thumbs though and it was hard to thread the beads so she shoved them back into the box and shut the lid with a bang. Then she tried to think about Zoe’s party the following evening. Tommy’s texts had been about making arrangements to go.

What time are you thinking of getting there?

Are you bringing booze?

Should we meet up?

But she couldn’t stop thinking about what Alison had said.

In the end she lay back on her bed and thought about her short friendship with Petra and Tina. It had lasted barely seven weeks and yet it seemed the defining thing about her teenage years.

She remembered the first day in secondary school and how she had ended up sitting alongside them. The class was full of small knots of children who were sticking by the kids they’d known in primary school. She was the odd one out. Miss Pearce made Petra and Tina move their bags off the adjacent seat so that Mandy could sit down. Tina was nice. Mandy’s family had moved into a house further down Tina’s street in the summer and her mum had become quite friendly with Tina’s mum. Petra was reserved though. She did a lot of shoulder shrugging and looking away across the room as if Mandy weren’t there.

At home time Mandy walked along with them. They stayed together for a while until Petra had to go off down her street. Then Tina was more lively and chatty and told Mandy stuff about her dad who lived in South London with a beautician. When they got to Tina’s house she said, ‘See you tomorrow,’ in a friendly way.

The next day though Mandy got the cold shoulder from Petra and awkward half smiles from Tina. Even though she sat at their table and walked around with them to other classes she felt like she was hanging on. It wasn’t until lunchtime that they began to warm up. They were going to have a rehearsal for their girl group, The Red Roses, and asked Mandy if she would look after their stuff. Then she was allowed to sit in the gym and listen as they sang their songs, three of them. Petra was showing Tina some new dance moves and Mandy gave a clap after they finished their songs.

That night, on the way home, Petra said, loudly and clearly, ‘You can’t be in our band. It’s a duo. Just the two of us!’ But Mandy knew already that she couldn’t be in their band. Petra and Tina were skinny and could wear tight-fitting clothes, but Mandy was chunky and liked to wear heavy jumpers over loose jeans.

It was an unequal friendship, as if Petra and Tina were in a boat and Mandy was holding onto the side of it, just keeping her head above the waves. She didn’t mind the battering, she was just grateful that they let her stay there.

As the weeks went by, Mandy felt more at ease with both girls although she always liked Tina the best. Because she lived closer to Tina she was able to spend that bit more time with her. Petra wasn’t always around. She took days off school and she occasionally went to meet her dad’s girlfriend to go shopping. Some nights, after her tea, Mandy would wander along to Tina’s and ask her if she’d like to come over to her house. Sometimes she did, but she made Mandy promise never to tell Petra and Mandy kept her mouth shut. But as time went on Petra allowed her to do more with The Red Roses and she came to Mandy’s house for a sleepover. Mandy even tried to seem interested in Petra’s fascination for the rundown house that she was sure was haunted. Mandy had reluctantly followed Petra and Tina into the back garden of the house one day only to be chased out by an irate next-door neighbour. Sometimes she asked Tina why Petra was so awkward but Tina would never talk about her so Mandy left it.

In the half-term holidays Petra seemed to change. She lost her phone. She was jumpy and didn’t seem to care about The Red Roses as much. Her clothes were grotty and she was constantly patting her pocket for the phone that wasn’t there. During that half-term week she wore the same top three days running. She looked grubby. When Mandy went to call for Tina she heard her mother asking her, ‘What’s up with Petra? Is her dad playing up?’ And Mandy asked Tina what her mum had meant.

‘Petra’s dad is sick with alcohol,’ she’d said. Mandy had thought she’d meant that Petra’s dad had a hangover, but later she learnt that Petra’s dad had serious problems with alcohol, that he drank it all day long and sometimes couldn’t get out of bed. Petra’s mood worsened and she would stand gazing at the old house whenever they went into the newsagent’s.

Tina had her own problems during those weeks. Her mum wouldn’t allow her to go and stay with her dad and his beautician girlfriend at his South London flat. She had to depend on him visiting and sometimes he said he’d come but didn’t and blamed the traffic in the Blackwall Tunnel. Tina’s eyes would glisten with tears and Mandy tried to comfort her. She loved those times when it was just the two of them, her and Tina. At night, in bed, Mandy would fantasise that Petra had been run over by a car and killed and that she and Tina were best friends. When they first disappeared it’d made her feel uneasy. It was as if some evil fairy godmother had tuned into her wishes and punished her by getting rid of Petra
and
Tina.

On that Thursday they’d been in Tina’s house all afternoon. It was the last but one day of the half-term holidays. They were talking about what they were going to do for Halloween. Mandy’s mum and dad were having a party for their friends and had invited Tina and Petra to come and stay over. They were talking about it and deciding whether it would be a good idea if The Red Roses sang a couple of their songs.

Petra stood up suddenly. ‘I’m sick of all this, let’s go to the shop,’ she said, pulling some money out of her pocket.

They’d got to the shop in Princess Street and were about to go in when Petra’s attention was taken by the house opposite. Mandy had looked at it then. It was five thirty and it was dark. The house itself was gloomy except for a light in the front ground-floor room. Petra seemed to stare for a long time. Mandy expected her to repeat her usual comment about them going in one day but she put her money away in her pocket and said
,
‘I think we should go into the old house. We’ve been talking about it for weeks. There’s a key round the back on a hook by the door.’

This was news to Mandy. She’d never heard Petra talk about a
key
before.

In the end, Tina had gone with Petra. Of course she had, she was her best friend. Petra reached across and took Tina’s hand. ‘Me and Tina always do stuff together. We’ve been friends for six years. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, Mandy. I understand.’ And Tina allowed herself to be pulled away into the garden.

Mandy had watched them go with mounting frustration. What was it about that house? It was almost dark, cold; Tina was wearing her mum’s hoodie and she pulled the hood up. When the garden gate shut Mandy turned away and felt her temper rise. She was not going to stand around and wait for them! She walked towards home, a feeling of misery hardening inside her. Maybe she should find other friends. Make a new start on Monday, sit with some other kids. She didn’t need to be treated like an idiot. The Red Roses
was a stupid name for a girl group.

When the news came that neither Petra nor Tina had returned home that evening, Mandy went into a silent panic. ‘Do you know where they went?’ her mother had asked.

She shook her head vehemently. ‘We had a row outside the shop and I came home.’ How could she tell her mother that they had gone into the old house and that she may well have gone with them? How could she admit that they had talked about something like that? Then it would come out that they’d gone into the garden once, a couple of weeks before. They’d trespassed and been chased out by a neighbour. That would mean the end of the freedom she had won since going to secondary school. Being allowed to go to Tina’s on her own. Having the right to say, ‘I’m just going out with Tina and Petra for a while.’ Once she’d explained about the house in Princess Street that would all be finished. Then it wouldn’t matter that she had no friends because she wouldn’t be allowed to go out anyway.

The evening they had disappeared, she had sat on the armchair in the living room watching programmes, flicking the telly from channel to channel while listening to her mum on the phone to other people. One of them was Tina’s mum she was sure. There was a charge in the air, adult anxieties that could turn into anger at any moment. Why tell them what had happened when it was most likely that Tina and Petra had
gone on
somewhere. Maybe Petra had taken Tina off with her to do some shopping with her dad’s girlfriend? Maybe they had gone for a McDonald’s and just forgot to let anyone know. Maybe Tina or Petra had fallen over, twisted an ankle and they were sitting somewhere in A & E. Why mention the house and the reclusive old man who lived there?

But the hours went by and Mandy felt as if her story had pinned her to the spot. When eight o’clock came she couldn’t suddenly say, ‘Oh, actually, I do know where they went.’ Then she heard her mum tell her dad that Alison Pointer was going over to South London to check that Tina hadn’t gone on a forbidden visit to see her father and his beautician girlfriend.

Mandy relaxed for a while then because that seemed like a good explanation. Tina had certainly been miffed that she hadn’t seen her father over half-term. Maybe when they’d got fed up with the house in Princess Street Petra had said, ‘Let’s go and visit your dad!’ Possibly Tina had written a text to her mother to tell her where she was going without knowing that her phone had run out of power at that very moment and the message had never sent.

Later though Mandy found out that Tina’s phone was at home on charge. Neither Tina nor Petra had had a mobile phone with them.

The police came to her house and the television had to be turned off.

There was one question after another.

At eleven o’clock that night she told them the truth.

It suddenly came out. ‘I do know where they went,’
she said, amid sobs and told them. She watched her mum’s face screw up with amazement. The policeman’s expression changed instantly. He stood up and sat down again. He got out his phone and spoke into it rapidly, his words sliding together so that she could hardly make out what he was saying. Then he left and her mum and dad stayed on the sofa holding each other’s hands, looking at her as if she were a stranger.

Many people had asked Mandy afterwards why she’d not told them at first where the girls had gone. Officer Farraday had sat on the sofa in her front room, his eyes darkened with sadness, and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us straight away, Mandy? If we’d known they were in the house we could have gone there immediately. We might have saved them.’

Why hadn’t she told them?

Now Mandy picked up her laptop. She clicked on Google and looked up the Safe and Sound website. She opened it up and went on the page that said ‘Petra Armstrong’
.
On one side of the page was a photo of Petra when she was twelve. On the other was the computer-generated image of what Petra would look like if she was seventeen years old. The picture of the older girl was striking. The same long hair was there, the same secretive expression. The face was thinner though and the eyes seemed bigger, although looking closer Mandy thought she could see eye make-up there. The mouth was not quite so sulky, but it wasn’t smiling.

Petra Armstrong, almost certainly dead.

Mandy saw her clothes hanging on the wardrobe door. The black jeans hung slim and long from beneath the red top. The high heels sat on the carpet underneath. It wasn’t so different from the outfits that Petra and Tina had worn for their girl band. Mandy felt a moment’s hurt as she looked at the clothes waiting to be worn. She had never been allowed to join The Red Roses.

Mandy stood up and plucked the hanger from the outside of her wardrobe. She opened the door and slid it in between other garments. She picked the shoes up and placed them on the shelf below. Red was a good colour for her and there was no reason why she should feel bad about it.