The Missing Girl Read online

  In memory of my parents

  Joyce and Jack Quintana

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgements

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  PROLOGUE

  You disappeared in the autumn of 1982, when the leaves switched their wardrobe from green to burnished brown, and our mother made great pots of jam from the fruit we picked in the garden. I was twelve, with clumsy clothes and National Health glasses. You were fifteen, crazy-haired and willowy.

  I thought at first that you’d be back. I only had to wait, away in the woods where the birds were as silent as I was, as if they missed you too. I took to wearing your coat, my hands pushed deep in the pockets, playing with the bus tickets and the dust and the dried-up sweets I found there. Sometimes I thought I saw you, running ahead, weaving amongst the trees, but it was only sunlight glinting through the branches, or the wind brushing its fingers through the leaves. Other times I heard you laugh, but it was only water flowing over stones in the stream or birds suddenly finding their voices. It was as if you’d never existed, or else you’d disintegrated and scattered on the breeze.

  That was one of my theories: that you’d self-combusted. You’d burst into particles and not one trace could be found. Or you’d been lifted upwards, taken to a different place, to heaven, like they said at church. But when I looked at the vast, dark sky, I couldn’t contemplate you being lost there, so I came up with more elaborate ideas: you’d run away to be a dancer in Russia. You were hiding out in a nunnery. You were a scientist in Antarctica.

  I clung to each theory because it helped me reject what people said. You’d been abducted on your way home from school, raped and left for dead. You’d been decapitated, dismembered, bits of your body scattered across the countryside. Each day brought new horrors for me to dream of. Each dream made me wake sweating, screaming out your name. I wanted to tell these people to stop. You’d be back. You wouldn’t leave me on my own forever.

  But the rumours bubbled on, right through the community. Friends fell silent when I passed, though I heard their discarded words. I held my head high and kept my thoughts close, muttering them like incantations: you were in Spain, learning flamenco, falling in love with dark-eyed gypsy boys. Anything to avoid those creeping fears: a silent shadow swooping, gathering you up with its wings and bearing you away. Because if I thought about your potential captor, that was what I imagined happening to you: a cast-out devil tumbling from heaven, snatching his beautiful prize with indifferent arms, and keeping on going straight down to hell.

  1

  The train halted a hundred yards from the station. A voice announced a short delay. People around me were muttering, craning their necks at the window, wondering how long we’d be stuck there. Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply, distracting myself, flexing my fingers and blowing on my palms. They were sore and I realised I’d been balling my fists all the way from Paddington and the nails had made indentations in my skin.

  Outside were familiar landmarks: Victorian houses with chaotic extensions; a narrow piece of wasteland that swept alongside. Boys had played chicken there once; vandals had set fire to the banks. Now the line was fenced off. Plastic bags clung to hedges and empty bottles littered the grass. It was autumn, yet there were none of the signs: no trees, no copper leaves, no pale golds. The place was stark. Depressing and still.

  A few days before I’d been in Athens, drinking coffee in the October sun. My mobile had rung, a voice had spoken and I’d recognised Rita – my mother’s best friend. It was the way she’d said my name, Anna Flores; the way she’d rolled the ‘r’; the way she’d lowered her voice and explained how my mother had died. A stroke. When could I come home?

  Rita had discussed the funeral, asking for my opinion: egg and cress versus salmon and cucumber; ‘Lord of All Hopefulness’ or ‘Abide With Me’. Her talk had jarred with the smell of souvlaki drifting from a restaurant and the sound of a lone voice singing in a bar. Afterwards I’d sat for ages weeping and feeling as if the music was the most sorrowful in the world.

  The train lurched, crawling forwards. Passengers shifted with mumbles of relief. I pulled on my denim jacket, fiddled with my bag, checked that everything was where it should be: purse, phone, lipstick, bottle of Givenchy, photo of my mother. Photo of Gabriella. A man in a raincoat reached for his suitcase. I followed his lead and retrieved mine.

  A few people got off with me. I watched them rushing up the steps and across the bridge, scrabbling with their tickets and their bags. Dropping my case, I pulled out the handle and paused to look around me. Nothing much had changed. The empty waiting room. The broken bench. The CCTV. How long had those cameras been there? Too late to spot Gabriella leaving, or to confirm the difference between sightings and lies.

  Three years. That was how long it had been. A pit-stop visit before I’d left for Greece, although I’d seen my mother since, when she’d made the journey to London, the day before I’d actually flown. Now, when I thought of that last meeting, in a cafe in Harrods, with my mother picking at her scone, my stomach wrenched with guilt. Three years. Only phone calls in between. Why had I assumed she’d go on forever? I should have known better than anyone how abruptly things changed.

  A guard emerged from a doorway on the other side of the track. He looked across, his glance assessing me. I gave a half-smile, flexing my fingers as if my suitcase was heavy and I’d stopped to take a rest. Straightening, I headed for the steps, trundling the shiny purple case behind me. I’d recognised him, although I’d pretended that I hadn’t. He’d worked at the station for years. Then, he’d worn tight trousers short enough to see his coloured socks; now his trousers reached all the way down to the tops of his shoes with modest precision. That was the thing about this village: people stayed – except for me. I wondered if he remembered who I was.

  Out on the street the sky looked damaged, bandaged with dark clouds. The trees wore bare branches like weapons, and the pavements were piled with leaves. Soon they’d be swept up by men in yellow jackets. Men like Tom. For a moment I held my breath and listened, half expecting to hear the trundle of his cart. On a day like this, he would have been out, head bent, focused on his task. Oblivious to the world.

  I blinked and shook my head. It wouldn’t do to think about the past. Instead, I concentrated on the walk, taking the back roads with their terraced houses and rows of parked cars, noticing a new takeaway, a pub with a name change, a building being renovated.

  The streets widened and there was my mother’s house, a rambling Victorian semi. I resisted the urge to stand still and absorb the moment, to pretend this visit was normal. Pushing on, I turned down the path, my stomach flipping at the creak of the gate. The door was black with peeling paint and a hairline crack across the glass. A peony sprawled against the wall and for an instant I remembered blood-red petals bursting from their buds; Gabriella, fixing a flower in my hair. I held the snapshot steady in my mind, until it blurred at the edges and faded, like a developing photo in reverse.

  The door opened before I found my key and Rita filled the space. ‘Anna,’ she said warmly. Part of me had tho
ught her beauty would have faded, that she’d resemble my mother: sparrow-like, with wispy hair and eyes clouded with cataracts. Instead she was buxom in a navy woollen dress, with light-coloured hair cut into a bob. Her face was lined, but she was still handsome, with high cheekbones and green wing-tipped glasses.

  She took my hand – her grip was strong, and in a moment I was over the threshold parking my suitcase. And then she was leading me through the hall apologising and welcoming, offering tea, as if it were me who was the stranger in the house. We paused outside the living room. ‘You mustn’t mind the old ladies,’ she whispered, leaning into me. ‘They turned up this morning specially to see you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For all that you’ve done. I couldn’t have managed without you.’

  ‘Of course you could,’ said Rita, squeezing my arm. ‘Chin up, and come on through.’

  The room, I noticed with a tightening of my chest, had hardly changed at all. My mother’s sewing box, her knitting bag resting on top; the set of irons my father used to stoke the fire; the hard-backed chair where Grandma Grace liked to sit.

  The old ladies, powdered and pressed, turned to look at me in one stiff movement. I smiled back, knowing I mustn’t cry: I didn’t want to embarrass these good people who’d come here for my mother. Straightening with the responsibility, I walked across the room, feeling uncomfortable in the black dress I’d dug out from my wardrobe and regretting my DMs. Perching on the edge of an armchair, I took off my jacket in compensation, trying to hide it away, bundling it into a ball behind my feet.

  Rita took the hard-backed chair, her backside spreading out like a cake that had risen and expanded over the edges. She folded her arms and commented on the weather and the likelihood of rain. The ladies responded with nods and smiles and so did I. And when we reverted to silence, I fixed my eyes on the motionless pendulum clock, the empty grate, on anything but the sympathetic faces of the people in the house.

  The doorbell rang and Rita leapt up before I had a chance to move. She came back with the vicar. Nicholas – a thin young man with a backpack and a motorbike helmet tucked under his arm. ‘You must be Anna,’ he said, leaning to take my hand. ‘I’m so sorry. Such a difficult time.’ I thanked him, aware my voice sounded choked. He settled at the end of the sofa as if he was accustomed to his place. And then he went on, speaking sincerely, openly. He hadn’t been in the parish long, but he’d got to know my mother. ‘She was kind, sociable, a popular member of the congregation,’ he said.

  Was that true? My mother was quiet. Withdrawn. Becoming more isolated as the years had gone on. At least that was how I’d seen it. I thought she’d stopped going to church years ago.

  ‘Esther was a great believer,’ said Rita, chiming in.

  Until she decided God had let her down.

  Nicholas looked at me earnestly. Had I said those words out loud? If I had, he didn’t respond. Instead, he felt around in his backpack and produced an order of service which he proceeded to take me through.

  While he spoke, Rita made tea in Mum’s best gold-rimmed cups. I took a lemon puff from the plate she offered and tasted childhood days. Sticky biscuits and cans of Lilt. Flashes of sunlight through autumn leaves. And there was Gabriella running ahead of me in the woods with her hair flying and her scarf catching as she weaved amongst the trees, leaping over broken branches and landing like a cat.

  ‘Is there something you’d like to add?’ said Nicholas, breaking into my thoughts. ‘To the service?’

  He leaned forward, his narrow face creased with concern. I shook my head and affected another smile. ‘Everything’s perfect. Thank you.’

  Rita cleared her throat and looked at me. ‘May I read a tribute?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. There was a pause, an air of expectation. ‘Although I’m not sure I . . .’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Nicholas, patting my knee. ‘Most people find it too hard.’

  After they’d gone, I wandered around the house, getting used to being back. The silence fell about me. I fiddled with the boiler in the kitchen and the heating spluttered into life. Going upstairs, I stopped at the first closed door. Gabriella’s bedroom. Touching the wood, I felt the pulse of memory. I didn’t go in, but I knew the room would be exactly as Gabriella had left it – ready for when she came home.

  Mum’s room was next and this time I opened the door. The bed was unmade. A pair of glasses rested on the bedside cabinet. A quilted dressing gown lay on a chair with maroon slippers on the carpet beneath. It looked as if she was coming back – to make her bed, to fetch her glasses, to slip into her nightclothes. I sat on the mattress. It wasn’t going to happen. It was never going to happen. My mother had gone, along with the rest of my family, and there was no one left but me.

  I breathed deeply to blot out self-pity and reached for the photo inside my bag. My mother: Esther. Grandma Grace had taken it all those years ago, on the day my parents met. 1966, when a summer storm had knocked off slates and dragged off branches; when Grace Button had looked at the adverts in the local newsagent’s, traced her finger across the cards and stopped at Albert Flores.

  In the photo, my mother was outside. Curls of fair hair blew across her face. She’d had a fragile beauty like Gabriella, but there was something more that was harder to identify, something lost in those wide, grey eyes. I spent time staring at the picture, searching the grainy image, wondering what it was my mother was missing, even then.

  There was a clock on the bedside cabinet. It was gold, inset with mother-of-pearl and with hands that halted at midnight. I wound the key gently and set the clock back, letting my fingertips drift across the cherry wood of the cabinet and down to the single drawer. I drew it open. Softly. Empty save for a book. It was a scrapbook, like those I’d filled with postcards on holidays in Wales. I looked inside, still smiling from the memory, and a girl stared back at me. I took a breath and the lost air inside me grew cold. Gabriella in her school uniform, her eyes hiding laughter. I absorbed each detail, the secret smile, the dimple on her chin. I traced her hair and cheeks, the curve of her neck. It was a newspaper article: the story of the missing girl.

  Grief crept within me, rising to constrict my throat. I closed the book, turned and lay down, pushing my face into the pillow. Lily of the Valley. My mother’s scent. I thought of her cutting out pictures and stories, making a scrapbook of Gabriella. Scissors going around the edges. Pasting on the glue. Smoothing down the paper. I tried to dispel the images, but they wouldn’t go away. And the story came back, as I knew it would. As it always did. And the pain and the loss slid through my consciousness in waves.

  2

  1982

  When I heard that a man from Spain and his mad wife were moving to our village I was torn up with curiosity. They were buying Lemon Tree Cottage, a house near the woods, which had been empty for years. It was only a rumour that the wife was crazy, but the idea appealed to me. Mad wives belonged in books and now there’d be a real one on our doorstep.

  They were due to move in on Saturday and I was planning to sneak out and spy. Mum had other ideas. I woke to the sound of her voice shouting to Gabriella. It was going to be a hot day – perfect for working in the garden. Grabbing my specs, I arrived at Gabriella’s room in time to hear her protest. ‘Do we have to?’ she said, pulling the blankets over her head.

  ‘Yes, Gabriella,’ said Mum, sweeping back the curtains. ‘And then you can tidy your room. It looks like a bulldozer’s been in here.’

  ‘But I’ve got homework,’ moaned Gabriella. ‘I’ve got O levels.’ She emphasised the ‘O’ with a long, drawn-out groan.

  ‘That’s next year,’ said Mum. ‘Next year you’re excused. This year you work in the garden. You too, Anna.’ She left the room and we heard her tramping down the stairs.

  ‘Jesus Christ and God Almighty,’ said Gabriella, who had recently taken to blasphemy. ‘What have I done to deserve this?’

  I plonked down on the bed and crossed my arms, banging my chest wi
th the force of it. Gardening wasn’t my idea of fun either, and it had ruined my plans for the day. I surveyed the bulldozed room. The floor was a mass of clothes, make-up, ruined cassettes and records without their sleeves. Picking out a purple lipstick, I swivelled the tube and smeared it on my hand. With a glance at the bed, I closed my eyes and imagined wearing the lipstick. I was Kate Bush. Swirling in one of Gabriella’s dresses, doing a windmill dance on stage.

  ‘I know what you’re doing,’ said Gabriella through the covers. She sat up suddenly, eyes dark with yesterday’s make-up, hair fanning out in electric waves. I grinned back sheepishly and held out the lipstick. ‘Have it,’ she said, with an exaggerated flourish. ‘It’s all yours.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. In exchange for the next chore.’

  ‘Girls!’ Mum’s voice floated up the stairs. ‘Breakfast doesn’t make itself.’

  Gabriella winked, reached for her Walkman and snuggled back under the covers, while I sloped out of the room, lipstick in my hand.

  We spent the morning in the sunshine, yanking out weeds while Mum mowed the lawn. She wore a pink housecoat and a pair of Dad’s brown boots to do the job. ‘No sense risking toes,’ she said. I watched her small frame shoving the heavy machine back and forth, leaving trails of grass in her wake. There was a Flymo in the shed that Dad had bought six months before. He’d set it up in the garden and the three of us had watched as Mum walked around, sniffing and saying she preferred the one she had.

  Mum finished and disappeared inside, leaving us to rake the grass. We jumped up, glad to be away from the weeds and the worms, and took turns raking, collecting, covering each other in grass and shrieking with laughter before transporting the lot to the bonfire heap. Neither of us had dressed for the part: Gabriella in her boots and black dress with netted sleeves that captured the heat and caught on the brambles, and me in jeans and a thick yellow sweatshirt that Mum had bought at the jumble sale. Soon even laughing was too much effort as we scraped up the last bits of grass and shoved the mower into the shed hoping nobody would notice it hadn’t been cleaned.