Friend Request Read online

  ‘You went,’ I say, stung by her words.

  ‘Yes, and I wish I hadn’t now. For starters I wouldn’t be mixed up in all this. And it would have meant that I was able to leave the past in the past, but I couldn’t. I can’t. I had to show everyone – look at me now with my great career and my husband and my children. How bloody stupid. I should have just put it all on Facebook like everyone else.’ Her hands tighten on the railings.

  ‘It’s not stupid, Esther. I didn’t find out about the reunion until months after it was organised. Nobody had thought to let me know, and I felt crushed. If anything’s bloody stupid, that is. Why should it even matter?’

  ‘It shouldn’t. But it does,’ Esther says. ‘It all matters. Part of me feels hurt that if she is still alive, she hasn’t let me know. We were close, you know, before she died. She talked to me about a lot of stuff. Do you know about what happened to her at her old school? Did she ever talk to you about it?’

  ‘She tried once, I think.’ Slatted wooden sunbeds in the dark, breath rising in the night air. Two little fingers, linked.

  ‘That boy that was obsessed with her – it was pretty bad. You’d call it stalking now, there’d be restraining orders and all sorts, but back then there wasn’t much they could do unless he physically hurt her.’

  She turns and we walk along the river in silence for a while.

  ‘What is it you want, Louise? Why did you call?’

  I want a night of untroubled sleep. I want to change the past. I want to stop looking over my shoulder on the tube platform, stop thinking about jumping or being pushed every time I cross a bridge.

  ‘I’m frightened, Esther. I just want to know what happened to Maria; what happened to Sophie.’ I want to know how much of it is my fault; if I’m next.

  ‘Shouldn’t you leave it to the police?’

  She doesn’t know I haven’t told the police about the friend request from Maria. There’s so much she doesn’t know that it overwhelms me. I realise I have no idea what I’m doing here.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right. Look, Esther, I’ve got to go, I need to get back to pick Henry up from school.’

  ‘Oh. Right, OK. I’ll see you sometime… maybe?’

  ‘Yes, that’d be lovely.’ I sound fake, as if I’m leaving a dinner party where I’ve had a really terrible time but am putting a brave face on it. ‘Bye then.’

  I turn back the way we’ve come and stride along, trying to look purposeful. The wind, which had been pushing us along from behind is now biting into my face, making my eyes water.

  I am thinking about Tim, at the top of the school drive. Tim, whose adolescence was rocked and the fabric of his life changed for ever by the disappearance of his sister; Tim, who must have worked so hard just to attain an ordinary life: a home, a wife, a plump-cheeked baby. How has he carried on? How do you get over something like that? Or has he never had to get over it? Has he been pretending to grieve for a sister who is alive and well, and living under a false identity? And if that is the case, then what has she told him? How much does he know?

  Chapter 27

  He may have saved her, but that doesn’t mean he has to keep on saving her. He tells her to stay quiet, not to rock the boat, live the life she’s got. But she’s not living, not really. She’s just existing, getting through one day, and then another. But eventually those days will run out and what will she have to show for them?

  Sometimes she wonders if maybe she could survive on her own. Throw off this dark, heavy cloak of secrecy that she has been wearing – just put it down and walk away, become the person she should have been all along.

  Could she let someone else in? He knows the truth, and maybe that should be enough for her; not to be alone with it. She never could have got through it without him, she knows that much. Her faithful companion. Her partner in crime, forever complicit in the events of the night that changed everything.

  She has lived her life in shadow, running and hiding. Yes, she can put a good face on it when she needs to, but inside she is still that girl. She’s torn between the gut-twisting fear of anybody knowing who she really is, and the contrasting desire to be truly seen. Isn’t that what we all want, really?

  She wants to step out into the light and live the life she should have lived. She wants to be heard. She wants to be known.

  Chapter 28

  2016

  The children who regularly get picked up by their stay-at-home parents at three o’clock are all lined up outside the classroom. Henry, of course, is not there and Mrs Hopkins looks at me in confusion.

  ‘I finished work early today,’ I lie. In fact I needed to see him, came straight from the South Bank to pick him up early. ‘Can I pop my head in…?’ I point at the classroom. There’s something about the way the after-school club children are sitting so neatly at their desks, coats on, bags on their tables in front of them, awaiting their next instruction, that pulls at my heartstrings. They’re so small and already they’ve had to learn to conform. Henry is conversing quietly and earnestly with the girl next to him. It’s the boy sitting on his other side that sees me first, Henry’s friend Jasper. He starts tapping Henry frantically on the arm.

  ‘Henry. Henry! Your mummy is here.’

  Henry turns and his entire face lights up, fireworks going off behind his eyes.

  ‘Mummy! What are you doing here?’ He clearly wants to run to me, but looks anxiously at Miss Jones, the new teaching assistant, for permission.

  ‘I finished work early today. Come on, shall we go to the park?’ Again he looks to Miss Jones who smiles.

  ‘Bye, Henry. See you tomorrow.’

  As we cross the playground a large woman looms aggressively over the teacher in the neighbouring classroom. I’ve seen this mother before with her clutch of overweight, unruly children. This time it’s the turn of the solitary boy amongst her brood, who stands beside her, belligerently kicking at his school bag on the ground next to him. She’s obviously had the dreaded ‘Can I have a word?’ from the teacher at pickup time. Of course in her eyes her little angel can do no wrong, so she’s not taking it too well, stabbing a finger towards the teacher’s face.

  At the park, Henry shouts with unabashed delight as I push him higher and higher on the swings. His joy is compounded by seeing his friend Dylan coming through the yellow gates with his mum, Olivia.

  ‘Dylaaaan! I’m on the swings!’

  Dylan comes running over. ‘Come and play on the climbing frame,’ he instructs.

  ‘No, come on the swings!’ Henry calls.

  ‘No,’ says Dylan sternly. ‘Climbing frame.’

  ‘OK. Stop me, Mummy,’ Henry says, so I slow the swing and they run off together.

  ‘Aw bless, they’re lovely little friends, aren’t they?’ says Olivia, watching them fondly. I was getting more of a dictator vibe from Dylan but I don’t burst her bubble.

  ‘Shall we get a cuppa?’ she continues.

  We walk over to the little kiosk and order two coffees. I don’t take my eyes off Henry as he runs around in the sand, every now and then falling to the ground. I realise Dylan is standing at the top of the climbing frame ‘shooting’ him.

  ‘Did you hear what happened in the playground at pickup today? With Angela Dickson?’

  ‘Who?’ I say. Because I’m not often at the school gate when everyone else is, I’m hazy on who’s who.

  ‘You know, Angela Dickson, the —’ she lowers her voice ‘— fat one. With all those kids.’

  ‘Oh yes, I know.’ I’m distracted by not being able to see Henry, but then he emerges from behind the toddler slide where he’s been hiding from enemy fire and I relax, keeping my eyes on him. ‘I saw her having a row with the teacher as we were leaving today.’

  ‘Not just a row,’ says Olivia. ‘She punched Mrs Smithson!’

  ‘Punched her?’ I spin and face her. ‘Oh my God! Did you actually see it?’

  ‘Yes, I was still there talking to Mrs Hopkins.’ Olivia is one of those
parents who always has some pressing issue she needs to discuss with the teacher. I’m friends with her on Facebook, and every week she’s airing some gripe with the school on there – sending home reading books that are not challenging enough for her genius child, that sort of thing. ‘She actually punched her in the face.’

  ‘Did they call the police?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she says. ‘I saw Mr Knowles coming over.’ Mr Knowles is one of the only male teachers at the school. ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t fancy his chances against Angela Dickson.’

  My eyes flick back to the climbing frame, but Henry and Dylan are not there. I look behind me, over towards the fort, but there’s no sign of them. It’s a big park with lots of equipment. They could be anywhere.

  ‘Can you see the boys?’ I ask Olivia.

  ‘Oh, they’ll be around somewhere. Let’s go and sit on that bench, you can see pretty much the whole park from there.’

  We walk over to the picnic bench and she sits down. I put my coffee on the table and scan the park anxiously. Olivia is still prattling on about the big school-gate news.

  ‘I can’t see them,’ I interrupt her.

  Olivia looks around casually, sipping her coffee.

  ‘They’re probably in the fort. Relax, Louise, they’ll be here somewhere. Look, there they are.’

  Dylan is running around and around a tree, making machine-gun noises, but I can’t see Henry. My breath catches in my throat, but I try to stay calm. He’s probably in the tree. That’s where I’ve found him before, climbing so high I had to press my lips together hard to stop myself from shouting at him to come down. I walk over, trying not to run, forcing myself to breathe evenly. The closer I get the less it looks as if there is anyone in the tree. In the summer it’s easy to hide in there, but at this time of year it’s leafless and bare, and before I reach it I can see that the branches are not hiding him. Henry is nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Dylan,’ I say, too loudly. ‘Where’s Henry?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘But you were with him just now, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But then he started talking to that lady.’

  Oh God. It’s like a blow to the head. For a moment I think I’m going to pass out, but I gather myself, forcing my mouth into the right shapes to form words.

  ‘What lady? Where?’ I kneel down in front of him, taking hold of his arms.

  ‘Don’t know. Over there.’ Dylan points in the direction of the fort, shakes my arms off and starts running round the tree again.

  I start to run, my breath coming in gasps, calling his name. I get to the fort and bend down to peer in through the door. Two small girls with a doll in a pram regard me suspiciously. They are the only children in there. I turn and gaze frantically around the park.

  ‘Henry!’ I shout. I run the length of the park, looking behind every piece of play equipment, calling for him, louder and louder. Other mothers start to look around, wondering whether they ought to help me. There’s always someone in here calling for their child, but there’s a note of genuine desperation in my voice that is clearly worrying them. Olivia gets up and calls Dylan over, presumably to grill him further on where he saw Henry last.

  I am on the verge of getting my phone out to call the police, all thoughts of my own safety, or reputation, entirely forgotten, when I see him. He’s right at the far end of the park, standing with his back to me looking out over the gate that opens into the wider park. I come to a stop and emit something between a sob and a choke. Thank God. I carry on walking over to him, slowly now.

  ‘Henry,’ I call and he turns, smiling. ‘Where were you?’ I try to keep my voice light. ‘I couldn’t find you.’

  ‘In the park,’ he says.

  ‘Dylan said you were talking to a lady.’

  ‘Yes. She liked trains. She was asking me all about Thomas.’

  My heart rate slows. Maybe she was just a mother, or a granny who’d brought her grandchildren to the park.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She said she had to go. I was just waving to her.’ I look across the park. In the distance I can see a figure in a dark coat walking towards the main exit.

  ‘Did she not have any children with her?’

  ‘No, she was by herself.’

  ‘How old was she?’ I ask, knowing as I do so what a pointless question this is to ask a four-year-old.

  ‘Twenty?’ he says, but that could mean anything from a teenager up to an OAP. Including a woman of my own age.

  I am too shaken to stay any longer, and manage to persuade Henry to come home without a fuss by promising hot chocolate in front of the telly. As I strap him into the car, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it until I am in the driver’s seat, Henry safely stowed in the back. Praying for it to be a work email, I tap the screen to wake it. It’s Maria. As I read and re-read the Facebook message, the sound of Henry humming happily and tunelessly to himself in the back, full of pure joy at the thought of hot chocolate, feels like needles being driven into my ears.

  Henry seems like a nice little boy. I hope you watch him carefully. It’s so easily done, isn’t it? You turn your back for a second and they’re gone.

  Chapter 29

  2016

  I decide to drop Henry at school myself today, and after I watch him running across the playground and into the classroom, I walk round to the office, where gimlet-faced Mrs Harper sits as usual behind her glass screen. Her assistant Miss Wallis is nervously putting documents away in a huge filing cabinet at the other end of the office. I wait for the obligatory minute or two while Mrs Harper taps away furiously at her keyboard, attending to something infinitely more important than me. Eventually she swivels to face me.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m Louise, Henry Parker’s mum.’ I have to say this every time I come in here. I don’t know whether she genuinely doesn’t recognise me, or if she’s punishing me for something: not being a regular at the school gates, or having a different surname to my child. ‘I just wanted to double check the safety procedures around pickup.’

  ‘Yes?’ If she was wearing a lorgnette she would be lowering it. The temperature around us drops a few degrees; I have done the unthinkable and questioned the school’s competence.

  ‘It’s just, I have reason to be especially concerned at the moment, so I wanted to make sure that no one else apart from me can pick him up without my permission.’

  ‘But you don’t usually collect him yourself, do you?’ she asks, her tone hinting at her disdain for me. It’s all right for you, I think, with your nice little job in a school, working school hours only.

  ‘No, he goes to after-school club,’ I say, forcing my voice to remain neutral. ‘But obviously that’s a regular arrangement that the school knows about. I’m talking about other people picking him up.’

  I catch a glint in her eye at the hint of a scandal. ‘Do you mean his father?’ She lowers her voice. ‘Perhaps I should make an appointment for you to see the head…’ She turns to her screen, clicking on the appointments diary.

  ‘No! His father is fine.’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘I just mean anyone else.’

  She sighs. ‘Mrs Parker, I can assure you that we will not let —’ she pauses for an infinitesimal amount of time, just long enough for me to register that she can’t instantly call to mind which child belongs to me ‘— we will not let Henry go home with anyone other than a parent, childminder or usual carer without express permission from you.’

  Williams, I think as I always do, my name is Williams; it’s not the day for that particular battle though. I have no choice but to accept what she is saying, but I walk away with a heavy heart. I wish I could keep Henry with me all the time. When he’s away from me the anxiety is a physical pain that runs me through like a sword.

  However, there’s no avoiding today’s appointment in Norwich. I spent so long keeping away from this part of the world, building a new life for myself in London, and now it won’t leav
e me alone, exerting a magnetic pull that I am powerless to resist.

  Somewhere inside the glass-fronted building in front of me, DI Reynolds is waiting for me. What is she thinking? Is she wondering about me at all, or am I merely one of the many witnesses that she has to interview, the latest on a long list? Perhaps her training precludes her thinking like that. Maybe she has been drilled to always assume every witness knows something that could prove vital to the case. Or worse, maybe she has sensed something in me, a certain hesitation or guardedness. Is she going to grill me today, to come at me in some completely unexpected way? I have to be ready. I must be so utterly sure in my own mind of my story that she will not be able to trip me up.