Grace Is Gone Read online

But Mum’s shaking her head.

  “I’m not giving in to emotional blackmail. You can’t be that worried about reporters, otherwise you wouldn’t be going to work, and besides, I need the car to ferry search volunteers. You know I don’t think you should be back at the pub so soon, but if you must go to work I’ll drop you off and pick you up after your shift.” Mum slumps back down at the kitchen table and, cupping her hand around her forehead, mutters, “I still haven’t written anything for the vigil tonight.”

  Part of me wants to sit down and help her, but a bigger, noisier part is too angry with her for standing in the way of my plan. I can’t afford a taxi all the way to Plymouth and the bus route is terrible. I’ll have to change buses twice, it’ll take hours and means I probably won’t be able to see Dr. Rossi and Charlie in the same day. Mum’s treating me like a kid, just like everyone else, telling me I have a disorder, that I’m traumatized. It’s like they want me to collapse, like they’d be happy to see me fall apart—just like they knew I would. If Mum had given me the chance, I’d have told her about the card and the photo. I was even going to suggest we go to Plymouth to meet Dr. Rossi and Charlie together. But not now. I shove my hands in my pockets as I walk out of the kitchen and brush my thumb against the smooth surface of Jon Katrin’s card. He’s going to Plymouth tomorrow . . .

  I squash the thought before it’s even taken shape. I can’t ask him for a lift. I sit on my bed, back against the headboard, and remember how he looked at me today. It was almost as though he recognized something in me. It was the first time in two days that I didn’t feel like I was playing the lead part in a tragedy written by everyone else except me. He didn’t patronize and he didn’t treat me like I was sick. He just wants to find out the truth. I pull my laptop onto my knees and type “Jon Katrin journalist” into the search bar. There are hundreds of references from Facebook and local forums about the Meg and Grace article, but I decide not to read them now. I want to know who he was before he came to Ashford, before that article. I read a piece he wrote about the MPs’ expenses scandal and another about Islamophobia. I’m impressed; his writing is left-wing, feels thoroughly researched and considered. He won a litany of awards and was well regarded before he left London and his career nosedived. I’m about to start a third article, about a Christian cult, when there’s a gentle knock and my door starts to open. Mum’s perfume arrives before her, the smell of chemically reproduced flowers. She’s fully made up, ready for the vigil and the cameras.

  She hands me an identical T-shirt and says, “Here, I thought you might want to wear this.”

  I take it from her. “Thanks, Mum,” I say, letting her stroke my hair a couple of times. It’s our code, our way of letting each other know we’re not angry anymore.

  I hold Mum’s hand as we walk out into the dusky pink early-evening light. They would have liked that, Meg and Grace, the pink light. The atmosphere is hushed, a little nervous. No one has done this before, gathered together to mourn but also to hope. People hold candles in jars, passing a flame to each other with sad, mild smiles—what else can they do? The candles dance, trapped and beautiful. Grace’s face is everywhere I look. She’s staring up, chin thrust forward, grinning into the camera. That’s how I remember her. Grace spent her life looking up. Unlike most girls her age, she never learnt how to pout. She always smiled with the abandonment of a toddler—chin raised high, cheeks puffed out like dough balls.

  I squeeze Mum’s hand and we walk towards the crowd.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Mum stops and takes a badge out of her pocket, the same photo of Grace printed on the front.

  “Maggie from the Wishmakers had them made up,” Mum says before pinning it with shaky hands just above my heart. I kiss Mum’s cheek, a camera flashes.

  There are more people here than I anticipated. They stand in small huddles, like sheep in a field when it rains. I spot Martin and Sylvia, of course, and Zara, who waves at me but is then nudged by the guy next to her to stop. A nurse, Lola, who used to visit Grace at home is standing next to an elderly gray-haired man I think might be Dr. Parker, Grace’s GP. Barry, who is as yellow and wrinkled as the roll-up cigarettes he likes to smoke, is standing with his wife, Marie, who smiles a small, wobbly smile at me. Barry and Marie lived next door to Granddad before he died. From a long line of tin miners, Barry was forced into early retirement when all the mines closed in the early nineties. There are many more faces I don’t recognize, some moved by tragedy, and others—I imagine—who are drawn to it. Could one of them know where Grace is? I don’t see Jon. The crowd opens, like a slow wave, parting to allow Mum to walk to the front.

  There is something a bit sacred about Mum tonight, like she rules in this weird new hierarchy. A few cameras click and, like fingers on piano keys, they seem to set the mood: tense, like we’re all holding our breath. A couple of photos of Grace and Meg are on easels at the front of the crowd, just where number 52’s lawn begins. The one of Meg is the photo all the news channels have been using. She’s younger than she was when she died, slimmer. It’s close up, but still a flattering photo. Her face is at an angle to the camera, smiling like she’s mid-laugh, her brown hair just brushing her shoulders, the freckle below her right eye visible. It was the one Mum gave them to use: she knew Meg liked it. But when I look at it now, Meg’s forehead starts to crack in on itself like a dropped egg, her eyes staring but empty. A camera flashes and I quickly look away.

  Mum and I make it to the front of the crowd. Standing next to the easels is an older, thin-faced man in a black fleece and black flat cap who moves towards us and kisses Mum on the cheek. He’s wearing a Find Grace badge. Someone puts an arm around me. I turn and see Molly, my old friend from school. She’s got her baby, Zack, in a stroller and is moving it gently back and forward. She’s heavily made up as always, false eyelashes, foundation, the works. Sometimes I think Mum wishes I was more like Molly.

  “Car, it’s so good to see you.” I feel her acrylic nails dig into me as she squeezes my shoulder. “How are you, after everything?”

  “Ummm.” I don’t know what to say. More cameras flash. Just in time, Molly tenses with a pose, sucks her tummy in, before she turns back to me.

  “Stupid question. You must feel completely fucking nuts. Look, can we go for a drink next week? You know, talk about it? I just want to make sure you’re OK.”

  That’s bollocks, of course, she doesn’t want to make sure I’m OK, she wants the gory details. She wants to hear how Meg’s blood was so dark it was almost black. But I can’t blame her, I’d have been the same, wouldn’t I? Molly’s boyfriend, Paul, is one of Chris’s oldest mates, it was how Chris and I met. But Molly hasn’t returned my calls since Chris and I broke up, since I said I didn’t want to live in Cornwall for the rest of my life, have three kids by the time I was twenty-five, and stay in a job I hated. Since I said that basically I didn’t want Molly’s life.

  Another camera flashes. Molly looks around to see where the photographer is, but then an older woman behind me hands me a jar with a candle lit inside and she nods towards the front lawn, where the man in the fleece is standing on a platform I didn’t notice before. He raises his hands towards the crowd, but he doesn’t need to wait for us to stop talking. We are already silent. Molly’s arm falls from my shoulder.

  “Thank you all for being here. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m David Raffin, CEO of the Wishmakers. It has been decided that a funeral will not be held for Megan until Grace has been found, so myself and Susan Dorman, along with other friends and community members, decided to organize this remembrance event this evening, for a period of loving reflection on the life of Megan Nichols. We are also here to ask you—whether you have a religious faith or not—to hold both Megan and her daughter, Grace, in the light, to send them your love and strength at this most difficult of times, and to pray that Grace will be found, safe and well, very soon.” There are a few shy claps of support from the crowd before David says, “Now I’m going to hand over to Su
san Dorman, Megan’s neighbor and closest friend.”

  Mum steps forward. David gives her a hand up to the platform. She unfolds a crumpled piece of paper, it flutters in her hand like a wing. She looks up at the crowd in front of her. We stand, candles raised, like devotees, and I see a flash of fear in her eyes. She looks quickly down at her notes again.

  She stammers on the first two words and, unlike David, keeps her head lowered, eyes fixed on the page in front of her as she speaks.

  “I met my . . . I met my friend Meg when we were both young single mums to gorgeous little girls. Neither of us thought we’d be on our own with small daughters, struggling to pay the bills. Meg moved next door with her daughter, Grace, to escape a violent and dangerous man. We became close immediately. Our girls loved playing together, they used to pretend they were sisters.”

  Mum pauses. Her eyes trace the crowd; I think she might be looking for me. I stand on tiptoes, will her to see me but she doesn’t, so she looks down at her notes again.

  “I remember the first time I saw Grace have a seizure, years ago. It was shocking and I felt completely useless. But Meg knew exactly what to do. She calmly held Grace’s arms by her side so she wouldn’t hurt herself. She soothed Grace until the spasms ended. Afterwards, when Grace was in bed, I got upset. I’d never experienced anything like it, never seen firsthand what it means to care for a sick child twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And when I asked her how she coped on her own, she said simply, ‘To me, Grace is perfect just as she is. I will love her and care for her come what may.’”

  Mum pauses, closes her eyes to swallow. As she says the last few sentences, a dramatic crack runs through her voice; it sounds as if it’s running through her whole body: “That was Meg in a nutshell—she was all love and care for others. I have no doubt Meg protected Grace with her own life when she was brutally attacked two nights ago, and now we owe it to Meg to do the same. I promise my best friend, Meg, I will not rest until we find Grace. Come what may.”

  There are a few slow, self-conscious claps; people look around, unsure whether to join in or not. Mum’s crying again. David pats her shoulder and then hugs her. The cameras pop. David helps Mum off the makeshift stage. I move forward and take her hand, squeeze it because I can’t hug her now I’m holding a candle.

  “Was that OK?” Mum asks.

  “They would have loved it,” I say, meaning it, and Mum smiles. We both bow our heads as the local vicar moves to stand where Mum just stood. “Let us pray,” he says. And as I listen to his words about love and faith I close my eyes and see Grace laughing beneath a beanie hat, her cheeks pink with joy, and then the pink becomes blue from the lights of the ambulance that so often came to take her away, as though even the smallest sip of happiness would make Grace sick.

  After the vigil a few neighbors and friends came back to Mum’s for tea and cake. Zara suggested everyone chip in for wine, but Martin felt that was too celebratory. People needed to be somber tonight.

  When most people have left, I sit at the kitchen table, sipping tea with Sylvia and Zara. Sylvia tells us in a low voice, so Martin can’t hear, how she’d dreamt about Grace, saw her walking out of the sea. Zara, fondling her fake gold dangly earrings, nods along with Sylvia and says she felt Meg’s spirit the night before, heard her begging her to find Simon. I keep quiet as I get up to see if we have any biscuits. I think about what I’m going to do tomorrow, whether to text Jon and ask for a lift, or whether that’d make me as mad as everyone thinks I am. Once everyone’s left, I’m going to read his article about Meg and Grace and then I’ll read some of Grace’s diary again before I make up my mind whether to get in touch or not. It’s good to have a plan. Even such a short-term one distracts me temporarily from a recurring image of Grace on the floor of a dark basement, a blindfold over her eyes, her hands bound, alone but still crying for help.

  16th November 2018

  Something amazing happened today. Something so amazing I can hardly believe it.

  Mum was just about to give me my drugs through Peggy (that’s the PEG tube that runs into my stomach for food and drugs—Mum gave it a name to make me feel better, she always knows how to make me laugh)—when the phone rang. It was Maggie from the Wishmakers. Mum told me to ignore it, but I’d been waiting for this phone call for two weeks. I couldn’t let it ring out, lifesaving drugs or not. Sorry, Mum!

  “Hello, Maggie?”

  “Grace? Is that you?”

  “Have you decided, do you know who’s going?” My heart was thumping so hard I thought it might actually burst out of my chest, but then Cookie leapt up onto the bed, mewing for attention, and I twisted around too hard, trying to shoo her away, pulling the pink skin around the opening in my stomach. The shock of the pain made me shout and Mum took the phone from me.

  “Maggie, sorry, this isn’t really the best time.”

  “No, Mum, Mum, please just ask her about the Big Trip, please!” I gasped, pulling my pajama top down in case Peggy had started bleeding. I didn’t want Mum to see. I knew she’d hang up on Maggie immediately if she did.

  Mum looked back at me, nodded, and smiled. She put the plastic syringe full of mushed-up pills back into its sterile plastic container.

  “Actually, Maggie, Grace is driving me crazy. You’d better just tell me now whether she’s been accepted or not.”

  The words seemed to hang around me, suspended in the atmosphere.

  “Uh huh. OK. Okaaaay. Hawaii?”

  And that’s when I knew. I’ve thought about the Big Trip hundreds of times a day for two weeks since Maggie and I filled out the application and sent it to the Wishmakers head office in London. This was the last year I had a chance of being chosen, my last chance at going away to another country.

  My back groaned as I pulled myself to sit up in bed but I hardly noticed. I’d convinced myself it wasn’t going to happen because I wanted it too much. If I want something too much, I always jinx it.

  Mum was still talking into the phone.

  “OK, thank you, Maggie. Yes, yes, she’s delighted, we both are. Yes, I’ll chat with Grace and then, if she’s feeling up to it, we’ll come in on Tuesday as you suggest to talk through all the details. Thank you, Maggie.” She looked as startled as I felt when she hung up the phone. She stared at the receiver, blinking at it like she’d never seen one before.

  “Mum?” I said, banging the side of my bed to snap her out of it because she was just standing there in the middle of my room, blinking at the phone, and then she was shaking her head and smiling at the same time.

  “They’ve got a place for you, Gracie!” she said, and she came over to me in a rush and bent down towards me so her eyes could tell my eyes that this was real, this was really happening.

  “Oh, my darling, finally!” she said, her smile almost too big to let the words out. She kissed me all over my face then, making me laugh so much my glasses went wonky and then they fell off my face, which made us both laugh harder. But then Mum said this: “Oh, Mouse, what will I do without you for ten whole days! I’m going to miss you while you’re off swimming with dolphins and working on your tan.”

  She winked at me and I knew she was joking, but I felt myself go rigid. Who will make sure I’ve got the right meds? Who will check on me in the middle of the night? I think Mum saw that I was scared because she took my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed back twice, which means “I’m OK,” because there’s no code for “I wish you were coming to Hawaii with me.” I don’t want her to worry, she’s always worrying about me—it’s all she does. So I put on a big smile and pretended that I wasn’t scared to go without her. Another little secret.

  Lots of love, Grace xxx

  6

  Jon

  “Mind if I put the radio on?” Cara asks from the passenger seat as I turn onto the main road towards Plymouth.

  “Sure,” I say, and switch it on for her.

  I had doubted whether Cara would pick up the business card I left on the table outside the p
ub, let alone use it, so her text had come as a surprise. Apparently, she had something she wanted to give Dr. Rossi and she needed a lift. I had left it until this morning to answer, unsure about the wisdom of driving around with a young woman I barely knew. What if someone saw us in the car together, recognized us and posted something, a photo of the two of us, online? That would have Ruth running to the solicitors to file for divorce in no time. Not to mention that I hadn’t actually arranged a meeting with Dr. Rossi, strictly speaking. Still, the professional part of me was thrilled at this chance to get to know Cara, maybe find out a bit more about Grace and Meg.

  When I rung Dr. Rossi this morning I’d fully expected her to ignore the call—I don’t think either of us enjoyed our last meeting much. She’d ended the interview after five minutes, saying she couldn’t help me any further and that I was not, under any circumstances, to use her name or quote her in the article. My plan was to tell Cara that Dr. Rossi had canceled our meeting at the last minute, but that if she wanted to tell me anything about Grace and Meg I’d be happy to meet.

  But Dr. Rossi had answered the phone.

  “I have back-to-back patients for the next two weeks, Mr. Katrin, and frankly I don’t understand why you want to meet. I told you last time, Megan and I haven’t spoken in years.” Her voice was clipped, like she was in a hurry to get rid of me so she could begin her busy day.

  “It was actually Cara Dorman, Megan’s next-door neighbor, who wants to meet. She has something from Megan and Grace she wants to give you.”

  There was a pause at the end of the line, a breath held, and I knew that I had Dr. Rossi’s full attention.

  “What is it?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. But it must be something specific to you. She thought you’d be interested in whatever it is.” She was quiet for a moment, a busy kind of quiet, like she was trying to figure out what to do.

  “Fine. I can meet you in my lunch break, for ten minutes. I’ll be in the playground behind the office.”