Because close your eyes and you know in your bones: Sophie never came home. The questions you nursed – the wheres, the whys, the what-ifs – were never answered. It’s just you, alone, waiting. No change, no revelation, no daughter returned like something from a fairytale. Just more long years to endure …
And then I catch myself and realise that I am doing it again. Because if those dark years of absence came to an end, in a way they will never end for me. They showed me. They lifted the thin veil between the safe, normal world, the one most of us live in, and the world as I know it can be – a place of sharp edges and dangers, where bad people want to hurt my loved ones and me. So I hug my arms around myself, tight, and try not to think about that night in late summer, after the storm broke.
It’s easier to do than you might think. They have stopped asking questions now, the official statements done. There were some uncomfortable articles in the papers about the first police investigation, how they were hoodwinked by the notes, the postcards, the rest of it; whispers of an inquiry by the police watchdog into the lessons to be learned.
But weren’t we all deceived by Heath? That’s the question I ask, as I tell everyone that we, as a family, want to move on, that we will address it all once we’ve some distance from the past. Maybe. And everyone accepts it. It’s surprising what people will believe.
Most of them, anyway.
It was just something Ben said once, early on, when I still had to spend all that time at the station. I was sitting outside one of those little rooms, drinking sugary vending machine coffee. The duty lawyer who sat in with us had gone off to make a phone call, when he came by to say hello.
He asked how I was doing. ‘I’m fine,’ I said. It was true. ‘I can cope with all this.’ This, I didn’t need to say, this was a walk in the park after the last two years.
‘Of course you can.’ He stretched out his legs in front of him. ‘That was Heath’s mistake, really, wasn’t it. To underestimate you.’
‘What do you mean?’ I turned to look at him.
‘Just what I said,’ he said lightly. ‘To think that you would ever let her go. He didn’t understand, did he? That there’s nothing stronger than that tie. That there’s nothing that a mother wouldn’t do for her child. Her baby. Nothing at all.’
It was something in his eyes that told me. Not just sympathy, but – a question.
‘You’re right,’ I said. I couldn’t look away. ‘There isn’t.’
The officer, DS Hopper, came back then, and told me it was time to go back in to continue with the interview, if I was ready. So we stopped there. I don’t think we’ll talk about it again.
We didn’t plan it, Sophie and I. She wasn’t in any state for that. They just assumed, from the start. My clothes were soaking, covered in blood. And I … let them. She was so young, so vulnerable, so traumatised. Of course it was me.
And I told them everything, just as it happened, until the very end.
‘Then I saw the knife,’ I said, so many times in the days that followed, as we went over and over what had unfolded. ‘It felt like it wasn’t really happening. There was no other choice, I couldn’t stop him.’
Because that’s what he taught me. Hide the lie under a little bit of truth.
I’d known what I had to do from the moment I decided to go back inside, afterwards, to pick up the knife, wiping the blade on my jeans. I’d wiped the handle, too, before wrapping my fingers back around it, making sure my prints were all over it.
I tell myself that I did the right thing. That I had no choice, that I couldn’t fail my daughter. Not after what she did.
He was on me, his hands round my throat, when I got my hand free, scrabbling for something anything. A rock, anything. But there was nothing, just bare floor. Nothing.
And then I saw her: over his shoulder; the knife held awkwardly in one hand, still tied to the other with tape. She didn’t leave. She didn’t leave – she went to get it, I realised with dawning horror. I’d thrown it away, as far as I could, with no thought of using it, just to get it off him. I couldn’t believe it was happening, I felt almost like I was removed, just watching her from outside myself, and so afraid – he’ll notice, he’ll hear her – but he doesn’t, he’s lost it, completely, so she just comes up behind him, and quietly, delicately almost, she slides it in, between his ribs, before he knows it.
He groans. He’s heavy; his fingers are still at my throat, but easing now, weakening. And suddenly I can roll him off; I can scrabble up from under him.
His blue eyes are glazed with shock, as he looks up at us both, standing there, our faces mirroring each other’s horror. He slowly puts his hand on the wound, finally understanding what’s happened: who did this to him. What he missed.
His blood is dark on the floor, already soaking into the earth.
Because she came back.
EPILOGUE
Today
In the car park, the woman struggles to find a space. It’s one of those glorious autumn days, the crisp air smelling of leaves and smoke. Eventually she does, and pulls in gingerly. She’s very young, not much more than a girl really, although – there’s something about the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head – you wouldn’t call her a girl.
She’s still not that confident a driver, not yet, but she told her mother she wanted to do this on her own. After all, it wasn’t far. And she needs to do these things. She’s got a lot to catch up on.
‘Are you ready then?’ She unbuckles the toddler in the back and heaves him out.
‘Yes, Mumma.’ She takes his hand and they set off, her walking slowly, so he can keep up.
He’s growing so fast now, the bloom in his cheeks so bright it’s like he lights up from the inside. He’s already forgetting that they ever lived anywhere else but Oakhurst, with Nana and the cat.
Now he’s spotted what’s in her other hand. ‘Nana flowers?’
‘Not these flowers, Teddy.’
His brows lower, his bottom lip sticking out. ‘Nana flowers,’ he insists. ‘Nana like flowers.’ The terrible twos, she thinks, here they come. She knows his birthday is around this time of year.
‘That’s right, Nana does like flowers. But these are special flowers, for someone you don’t know. Someone who was called Nancy.’
‘Nan-cy,’ he says carefully. ‘We go see Nancy?’
‘Kind of,’ she says. ‘Nancy’s not here any more. We’re just going to leave them for her.’
It is not by the place itself, she’s glad to see, but in a pretty, shaded spot near the deer park entrance, at the foot of the first great oak tree off the path. Above the little pile of blooms and cellophane a lone balloon floats at half mast, its skin puckered.
‘Balloon!’ he says, now pulling her along.
It doesn’t take them long. When they get there, she takes a moment before deciding to set the roses down at the back of the pile, wild hothouse blooms, peach and pink and yellow and white, out of season but beautiful, with their heady scent. There’s no note: there’s nothing she wants to write down.
The little boy stays close to his mother, uncertain now. Something in her solemnity has touched him. ‘Can I ha’ balloon?’
‘Not this one. This one has to stay here. But we can go and get you a new one. Right now,’ she says. She shivers.
‘From supermarket?’ he says hopefully.
She laughs. It’s his favourite place: all the people, and sweeties, and the fifty-pence ride that bobs him up and down at a stately pace. ‘I think we could get you one from the supermarket. Are you ready?’
‘Yes!’
‘All right then. Let’s go.’
And they leave then to walk back to the car, the two little figures growing smaller and smaller, hand in hand, the sunset making the whole world glow before them. Neither of them look back.
Acknowledgements