Precious Thing (7 page)

‘Have you heard anything?’ I asked. This time, as if by some monumental effort, she lifted her head and stared at me, or through me, because that was how it felt. The shine from her hair, the way it clung to her head, told me it was due for a wash. Her make-up was a shade too dark for her skin. I concentrated on the patch of it that hadn’t been blended in. This Sarah was a different person from Friday-night tequila-and-laughter Sarah.

‘No,’ is all she offered. I could see dark circles under her eyes, escaping from underneath her heavy concealer.

I looked around. The place was almost empty, the coffee-and-croissant office people had been and gone. The only other person was a woman in her early twenties, dressed in wedges, a long skirt that brushed the floor and a sequinned top. She looked out of place with her purple cherry lipstick and pink nails on the end of her long, bony fingers. And she sat fingering her shiny phone. I imagined she was a model or an actress waiting for a call.

I turned back to Sarah, still leaning over the mug, as if it was the only thing keeping her from falling on to the table.

‘It’s all so screwed up. Why would Clara have come so late in the night, without calling me?’ There was a note of desperation in my voice. I couldn’t help it. I’d been running different scenarios through my head all morning, and still nothing made sense.

Sarah closed her eyes as if the effort of remembering Friday night was a source of pain. I could tell she was struggling too, so I fought the urge to grab her hand and look deep into her eyes and beg her to help me,
I am literally dying here, Sarah,
but instead I sat on my hands and waited for what seemed like an eternity, listening to her sigh, watching her wipe her tears away with her painted red fingernails, before, finally, she spoke.

‘Clara came to the bar just after you’d gone. I can’t remember the time.’

‘Late,’ I said. ‘I left at half eleven so it must have been after that.’ I pictured myself sitting eating chips on the pier, the cold biting into me and you so close by. If only I could rewind and go back in time, Clara. I’d stay for another drink, we’d meet and everything would be so different now. Tears of frustration pricked my eyes.

‘She was looking for you,’ Sarah said. Her tone made it sound like an accusation but I let it pass; we were both tired and emotional.

‘I was searching for her. I even went to her flat to see if she was OK.’

‘You went to see her?’ Her voice had quickened.

‘Of course I did, I was supposed to be staying with her and I was getting worried because she hadn’t answered any of my calls so I walked over to Brunswick Place but there was no answer so I booked myself into a hotel.’

‘Alone?’ Sarah said.

‘You saw me leave, was I with anyone?’ I didn’t mean my words to sting her. I watched another tear cut a trail through her make-up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘Why did you argue?’ Sarah asked suddenly. She was sitting upright now as if she’d sprung into action.

‘What?’

‘Clara said you’d had a proper falling-out. That’s what she told us when she came. What did you argue about?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said. It hit me then, the reason why there was no comfort from Sarah, no hugs, no kind words. Nothing had changed.

‘Shall I tell you what she said, then?’ Technically that was a question but I knew she didn’t need an answer. ‘She said that you’d had an argument over a bloke, the one she was seeing.’

There was something slipping in my head again. A shifting of realities. I turned and saw the model holding a slice of chocolate cake in her hand, sizing it up. Then closing her eyes she put it to her mouth and inhaled. She was inhaling the cake. I thought of days, weeks, months of strict diet, self-control. And now she was giving in, as we all do, to the urges we try to suppress.

‘Why didn’t she just ring me, Sarah? I had been trying to call her all bloody night.’

‘So there was an argument?’ Sarah said. The teaspoon was in her hand. Shaking.

‘No, for fuck’s sake. There was no argument. Listen to me,’ I leant forward, close to her face. ‘I came down on Friday to meet Clara. We didn’t fight, not about anything, certainly not about a bloke. I didn’t even know there was one.’

‘That’s not what you said.’ Sarah let her hair fall over her face so I couldn’t see her eyes, then she pushed it slowly back behind her ears. I trawled through the blur of Friday night to the conversation about who you were seeing. I remembered my bluff. Now it had a consequence.

‘That was nothing. Just some one-night stand she mentioned,’ I said.

‘She was different, Rachel. She looked frightened.’ Sarah wouldn’t give up. I sat back in my chair and looked at a slice of sunlight falling on the table. I could see the particles of dust floating, phosphorescent in the air.

‘Why are you doing this, Sarah, when we both want the same thing? Clara is out there somewhere. Surely we should be sticking together, not fighting each other.’

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘How long has it been?’ I asked.

‘What are you talking about?’ Her voice was defensive.

‘How long has it been since you and Clara have been friends? Seven, eight months? Has she really told you everything?’

‘She’s told me enough,’ Sarah said. It was clearly not the conversation she wanted to have.

‘So you’ll know where she was? You’ll know what happened to her in all that time she was away? Because if you don’t you can’t really understand her, not like I do.’

‘I don’t care what happened in the past. I want to know where she is now.’

‘It wasn’t my idea to come to Brighton, to meet up with you and Debbie,’ I said. Sarah laughed, a cynical laugh.

‘You surprise me.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I said. ‘She wanted us all to go out, she wanted to see me. And then she doesn’t turn up, appears after I’m gone and doesn’t even try to call me. You don’t think that’s just a little bit strange?’

‘Whatever you say?’

‘It’s the truth.’ My voice was louder than I wanted it to be, louder than it should have been in a public place. From frustration, because my words had no impact on her.

It was then I saw the look on her face that brought it all back. Fifth year. The two of us in front of the teacher, wet from the water, out of breath and crying. In the distance the sound of an ambulance siren getting closer and closer though we already knew it was too late for Lucy Redfern; the screams of Lucy’s twin James piercing the air. Sarah and I were on the bank shouting our version of events to Mr Payne the PE teacher and even though we weren’t listening to each other I knew her words didn’t fit mine and mine didn’t fit hers. We had blankets placed round us and were told to sip sugary tea which of course we couldn’t because we were shaking so violently. And all the time this look of horror, of disbelief, which didn’t leave Sarah’s face, not for hours, not until her mum came and drove her away in a maroon Ford Escort.

‘It was a long time ago, Sarah. An accident.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t play dumb. It wasn’t like that and you know it,’ I said.

‘Of course it wasn’t, Rachel.’ Her words were heavy with sarcasm.

I didn’t answer. There was nothing to say. She hadn’t forgotten the past. Does anyone? I tried to escape it too. But it kept on finding me.

Sarah took her coat from behind the chair and picked up her bag. I had finished my coffee but waited for her to leave. We didn’t have enough conversation to get us to the door.

‘Let’s keep in touch, you know, if we hear anything,’ I said and she nodded. ‘I’m sure they’ll find her soon.’ But my words were lost in the hum of the coffee machine. She was already walking to the door.

I went back on to the seafront and followed the road round to the pier. Against the sea, so dark and endless, I felt small and insignificant and wondered if I was making too much of the situation. Next week, when you’d reappeared, I would see this for what it was – an insignificant little drama. Clinging to that thought I carried on walking up towards the Old Steine, and then I saw it: the headline gracing the
Brighton Argus
billboard outside the newsagent’s – F
EARS FOR
M
ISSING
B
RIGHTON
W
OMAN.
You were nowhere and everywhere.

I ran and ran until I got to the bandstand where there were no shops and posters and no pictures of you. I took out my BlackBerry and dialled.

‘It’s Rachel at NNN,’ I said when he answered. There was a pause.

‘Rachel, sorry, my hands are tied on this one. And we don’t have much to go on. I promise you’ll be the first to know when we do.’

‘She’s a friend,’ I said and listened to a deep breath being sucked in through teeth.

‘Is she now?’ The emphasis was on the ‘now’. I thought he would be more surprised.

‘An old one,’ I replied.

‘When can you come in?’ he asked.

‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

Your face was hanging on the wall in the police station, your deep brown hair that fell down in waves, your tanned skin and those eyes, the sharpest, crystal blue. Everyone always said you should have had brown eyes with your colouring; the fact you didn’t made them all the more hypnotic. You looked as if you were peering down into the room and smiling in satisfaction at what you could see. Because in that airless office there must have been fifteen or twenty people, and every one of them was searching for you.

Underneath your photo, on a whiteboard, was a timeline with locations. Brunswick Place, Marine Parade, Cantina Latina, King’s Road. And then nothing. The point at which you had vanished into the cold night air.

I stood in the middle of the room waiting for DCI Gunn to finish his conversation with a youngish blond woman in jeans and a pink shirt. She must have been all of five foot next to his six foot five. I tried to eavesdrop, picking up enough to work out what she was doing; trawling the CCTV cameras on Friday night to see if you had made an appearance.

A phone ringing on the empty desk next to me disturbed my thoughts. I looked around to see if anyone was going to answer it. No one made a move. On and on it went. Each ring amplified in my head. Couldn’t they see it mattered? What if it was someone with information? Or you. And then it stopped.

Finally DCI Gunn led me to through the room to his office. Until now our meetings had taken place in an old boozer in Hove just off Church Road. I’d call him Roger and order him a pint of Poacher’s Choice and a Diet Coke for me. By the third pint, when his cheeks blushed from the alcohol, he would be more amenable to sharing information. Not that he was alone in that. How else do you think we got our stories? Coppers, criminals who liked to talk, there wasn’t a whole lot of difference in the way you wooed them. Flattery and booze (and the occasional backhander) and before you knew it the exclusives and the tip-offs would be coming your way. It was all part of the game we played to stay ahead of the pack. And getting the senior officers on side meant that when a big story came up you could bypass the press officers and the ‘no comment’ lines they peddled.

But this inner sanctum was unfamiliar territory for me. I realised my eye was twitching and my eye always twitched when I was nervous. And knowing that made my heart beat faster. I was out of breath by the time I reached his office.

‘Please,’ said DCI Gunn, pointing to a seat opposite his desk. His voice was starchy, formal. It was not going to be a ‘Roger’ kind of day.

I sat down and looked at the neat stacks of paper and files on his desk. On each side of his PC were two lines of yellow Post-it notes, almost flawless in their symmetry. The computer was on an angle, away from me, so I couldn’t see what was written on them. On his desk a Parker pen was positioned parallel to his keyboard; a stapler was on a right angle next to it. I was struck by the perfection of it.

It’s funny, isn’t it, what a desk can say about someone. Looking at the papers and the pen and the stapler I saw in DCI Gunn a man beaten by the vagaries, the randomness of his job, desperate to instil order wherever he could. Or maybe he was just tidy.

‘So,’ he said, making the word last longer than it should, ‘it must have come as a shock, yesterday.’ He let that hang in the air. My eye twitched again.

‘I … seeing her face, in that room …’ I let my sentence trail off and tried to compose myself. ‘I’m still waiting for someone to tell me it’s all a mistake.’

I’m not sure what I hoped to find in his face, Clara. Hope? Reassurance? I found neither.

He wasn’t even looking at me. His gaze was fixed on a red elastic band that he stretched out between his fingers which were thin and surprisingly feminine. He kept his nails long, too long for a man’s, and I saw they were thick and yellowing at the tip.

‘Good report last night,’ he said, finally looking up.

‘You saw it?’ I asked. I always assumed police had better things to do than watch themselves on the TV news.

‘I was around all day,’ he said. He took the elastic band from between his fingers and put it in a drawer in his desk. I had his full attention.

‘I wasn’t really thinking straight. Everything happened so quickly, after the press conference I was straight on air. I tried to tell them … I didn’t even know what I was saying.’ I paused. He was still staring at me. His stare would not let me go. I didn’t know where to put my eyes so I rummaged in my bag, pulled out my phone and handed it to him.

‘I was in Cantina Latina on Friday night. I didn’t want to go but Clara went on and on about meeting up with these girls we used to go to school with. Her new friends. Then she sent this.’ I pointed to the phone, which he still had in his hand. ‘And that was it.’

‘But she did turn up, didn’t she?’

He was leaning back in the chair, with his hands clasped behind his back, a pose that stretched his shirt more than seemed wise.
TIME TO CUT BACK ON THE POACHER’S CHOICE.

‘So you say, but I don’t understand. I tried to call her all night. Why didn’t she call me?’ I asked.

He made no attempt to answer.

‘Clara’s my oldest friend. The thought of something happening to her … We were always so close.’ My voice was quiet, thin.