Things We Have in Common Page 11

  Then Mr Carter was at the door with the Head’s secretary. Usually no one reacts at all when he comes in. Everyone carries on talking, sitting on each other’s desks.

  Not that morning. Conversations vaporised as everyone turned.

  The secretary cleared her throat. ‘Katy Ellis,’ she said, smiling despite the atmosphere in the room, ‘could I borrow you for a few minutes?’

  Katy slid off the desk, glancing meaningfully at Sophie, and went to the door. I could hear the secretary’s heels clacking as she led Katy away up the corridor.

  Then Robert said, ‘Is it true, sir? Is Alice really missing?’

  Mr Carter put his small pile of books carefully on the desk and hung his bag over his chair before he answered. Then he looked around the class. ‘For the moment, it would seem so,’ he said. ‘Although I’m sure there’s a good explanation.’

  A murmur started up again. Even Sangeet, the Maths geek, was wide-eyed and twisting round in his chair, trying to get information out of anyone.

  ‘But while the police find the explanation,’ Mr Carter went on, his voice raised, ‘we continue as normal. So . . .’ He opened his textbook, told us the page number and started talking about Maths.

  I watched the clock.

  I tried to think about what could’ve happened and when. When had it happened? I thought about you standing in the hallway saying, ‘Actually, Sunday’d be alright . . .’ I thought about you coming out of your garage carrying that heavy tool bag and handing me Bea’s lead, your eyes avoiding mine as you said ‘’Bout nine.’ And how you’d looked when I brought Bea back – your hair wet like you’d had a shower and wearing that nice shirt.

  Then the classroom started to tilt away from me – slowly one way, then the other, like the ground under the floor wasn’t solid anymore – because I knew when. I knew exactly when . . .

  When I’d had Bea.

  I put my hands over my mouth to catch the whispers that were escaping. I saw Sangeet looking, frowning at me, but then he was moving, spinning round me, along with the rest of the room – like the night before, after I’d got home from yours and thrown away Alice’s Box, only nothing like the night before. The galaxy on my ceiling had turned in circles then, but slow circles that spiralled upwards, pulling me in. This was fast. This was frightening. I closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, everything was blurred. Everyone was looking at me. The secretary in the doorway was looking at me.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  She glanced at Mr Carter, then back at me. ‘Hurry up, please, Yasmin.’

  I stood up, scraping my chair, unprepared to have to do anything or talk to anyone – especially the police. Why did they want to talk to me? What did they know? Did they know?

  Katy was back in her seat and watching me as I got up, her face set hard like she was onto me. Then the secretary was marching me up the corridor too fast, saying, ‘The police have a lot of people to get through this morning.’ When we reached the Head’s Meeting Room, she said, ‘Are you feeling alright, Yasmin?’

  I shook my head because I wasn’t feeling alright at all, but I don’t think she even saw. She was already opening the door.

  I’d never been in there before. It was like the other classrooms, only with framed pictures by students all round the walls and a bunch of desks pushed together to make one big table in the middle. Miss Ward was sitting at one end with the officers I’d seen in the corridor. The man glanced up from the notepad on his knee and did the ‘Blimey-she’s-big’ double-take.

  The policewoman gestured for me to come and take a seat.

  Then Miss Ward leant forward. She gave me a tight smile. ‘Hello, Yasmin,’ she said. ‘The police are here today about a very serious matter. This is DI Burke’ – she indicated the woman, then the man – ‘and DC Hill.’ The man kept his eyes on his notebook this time and hidden behind his long wavy fringe, but DI Burke was watching me.

  I tried to look back at her, but it was difficult because Alice’s rotting fruit picture was right behind her in a white frame, the vivid oranges and browns bulging out like they were shouting at me to hurry up and tell them about you. I wondered if DI Burke knew that it was Alice’s picture behind her, if she’d sat in front of it on purpose, like it was some sort of police tactic.

  She cleared her throat. ‘Alice Taylor’s parents have reported her missing,’ she said. She spoke quietly and clearly even though she had an accent from up north somewhere.

  ‘I know,’ I said, my voice shaking. I put my hand in my pocket to hold China Bea and stared at DI Burke’s smooth brown skin and black scraped-back hair. Her brow was furrowed, her brown eyes serious. She looked like someone who never gives up till she finds the truth. No make-up. No nonsense. She said, ‘Your friend, Katy –’

  ‘She’s not my friend,’ I said.

  ‘Your classmate, then. She seems to think you’re fond of Alice.’

  I pulled a face. What did that even mean – fond of? ‘No.’

  ‘She said you were in town on Saturday and that you followed her and Alice and a few others to the cinema.’

  ‘No,’ I said again. ‘I was in town. I just saw them.’

  She rested her forearms on the table then, interlocking her fingers like she was prepared to be as patient as she had to be. ‘No one’s accusing you of anything, Yasmin,’ she said. She looked at me squarely, like she had when I’d seen her in the corridor. Her eyes were huge. It was like they could see more than other people’s, or that what they saw went straight to her no-nonsense brain that translated it all in a flash. ‘It’s important you know that,’ she said. ‘We’re just trying to gain as much information as we can. This is a very serious matter, and it may be that you can help.’ She licked her lips. ‘If there’s anything you remember, anything you saw there that day, no matter how small or trivial it seems, it could prove crucial in helping us to find her.’

  ‘What, in town?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, in town,’ DI Burke said. ‘Any time.’

  I remembered your milky-white face in the darkness of the cinema, staring ahead at the screen. I thought about how you’d bowed when you’d given me the rum and Coke in your kitchen, and the cuckoo clock going tock-took, tock-took . . . and I knew I should tell them. I knew. I said, Tell them! in my head, but I couldn’t, even though their faces were all looking at me, willing me to, and even though Alice’s rotting fruit was glaring at me – maybe even because of that. I was too confused. I needed to be on my own, in my room at home, away from their questions and their staring eyes. Somewhere I could think.

  ‘There was a boy there,’ I said, turning China Bea in my hand. She was warm now. ‘At the cinema.’ The man wrote that down, so I went on. ‘He came up the steps to where I was sitting. He told me he had a message from Alice.’

  I glanced at Miss Ward, who was sitting back in her chair, watching me. I suppose she thought I was making it up.

  ‘Was he with them, this boy? With Alice?’ DI Burke said.

  I nodded.

  ‘And what was the message?’

  ‘There wasn’t one. It was a trick. He grabbed my arm and threatened me.’ I let go of China Bea and held my arm to show her where. If she’d been interested, I could’ve shown her the yellowy bruise that was still there, but she wasn’t. She just pulled a folder that was on the table onto her lap and flipped through some sheets inside it, tilting her head to read something. ‘Was that Darren?’ she said. ‘Darren Travis?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know him. I saw him again last night, though.’

  The second her eyes flicked up to mine, I knew I’d said something stupid – unbelievably stupid because I’d had Bea with me when I saw Darren. I’d had Bea and he’d tell them, wouldn’t he? He’d say I was walking a dog. My face burned. They all saw it burn. Even the man looked up from his notepad and saw it.

  I looked away, down at my lap. I bit my cheek to stop from whispering.

  I could feel DI Burke starin
g at me – into me. ‘You saw Darren last night?’

  I nodded. I knew if they found out about Bea, I’d have to tell them about you. It wasn’t like I could say it was anyone else’s dog, and in any case, they’d find out and then they’d start asking all sorts of stuff about how I knew you till they knew it all.

  DI Burke put the folder back on the table and leant forward, interlocking her fingers again. ‘Where was that?’ she said.

  I made myself look up. I said, ‘By the chippy on Belmont Road,’ but the words caught in my throat and just made DI Burke stare at me even closer, her eyes moving between mine. I knew I should’ve told her about you right away when I’d first locked eyes with her in the corridor. Or the second I’d come into the room. But I hadn’t – and now because I still hadn’t, I knew I wasn’t going to. I’d missed my chance. It was too late. I said, ‘He was on his bike talking to some other boys.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. When DI Burke kept staring, I bit my lip and thought about what time it’d been. ‘Six?’ I said. ‘Maybe. Maybe six-thirty. I don’t really know.’

  The man was writing fast, like he was trying to keep up. I watched my words scrawling out the end of his pen and thought how Bea had been behind a car and how Darren might not’ve seen her from where he was, and even though I still couldn’t look at DI Burke, I felt a bit calmer.

  ‘And what were you doing there?’

  ‘Getting chips.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get chips,’ she said.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Why not?’ She was still watching me closely, but when I didn’t say anything she started to nod slowly, her eyebrows creasing together like she understood. ‘Because Darren was there,’ she said. ‘You were afraid.’

  I nodded.

  ‘So what did you do then?’

  ‘Went home.’

  ‘You went straight home without any chips?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  There was a silence while the man finished what he was writing and put a full stop.

  DI Burke was still staring intently at me, but I thought even though I’d gone red, maybe it was OK – maybe she thought that was because of remembering Darren.

  ‘Is there anything else you can think of that might help us here?’ she said. ‘Help Alice?’

  I shook my head slowly like I was thinking really hard about it.

  Then she said I could go. She said if I remembered anything at all, I should tell Miss Ward or a member of staff.

  When I got to the door, I turned back. DI Burke’s eyes were still on me. ‘When did she go missing?’ I said.

  ‘Yesterday,’ she said. ‘Her parents reported her missing shortly after seven. She didn’t come home from her singing lesson.’

  I felt dizzy as I walked back to class. The air round me seemed to be thick with a sickly smell like rotting fruit, but I kept going. I trailed my hand along the wall and listened to your voice in my head going ‘Steady . . . Steady . . .’

  Between classes I avoided everyone, ignoring Katy and Sophie’s looks and saying, ‘Nothing,’ when people asked me what the police had said. I Googled Alice on my phone – just to see her, really – to look at her face because it didn’t seem real that she’d gone. The first thing that came up was Help Find Alice Taylor, a Facebook link, and there she was in a picture I hadn’t seen before, looking at me with those same steady green eyes that’d watched me in English just a few days before. She was wearing the pale blue cardigan she’d had on in town, a strand of loose hair caught in the corner of her smile.

  This is Alice Taylor, it said underneath. She’s 15 years old and missing. She was last seen walking westbound along Rectory Road in the Watford area at 6.30 p.m. Sunday 2nd April. She was wearing mid-blue skinny jeans, a white T-shirt, khaki converse trainers and the pastel blue cardigan shown in the above photo. If you’ve seen her or know anything about her whereabouts, please contact us urgently. Then, in a new post: Please share this page with everyone you know. The more people that know about her, the more likely we are to find her. The police have been informed.

  I scrolled down. Katy’d posted a picture at 7.04 that morning – her and Alice together, pouting at the camera. Under it, she’d written Please please call me, A. I’m so worried. Call me.

  I scrolled back up to the photo of Alice at the top, expanded it till her face filled the screen, touching her cheek with my thumb. I couldn’t help smiling at her, reaching out in my imagination to unhook the hair caught on her lip. ‘What can I do?’ I whispered. I knew I had to do something, and that I had to do it quick, but I couldn’t get anything to sit still in my head. As soon as I got a thought, like, should I look for her or should I go back and tell DI Burke? it would skitter about while a new one arrived and did the same thing. By the end of morning lessons, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I put my bag in my locker and left.

  I had to stop myself from running to yours, because then I’d get an asthma attack and sore thighs again. I thought I’d catch a bus, but didn’t know which one and I couldn’t stop to think about buses or bus stops, so I kept going, sort of half-running and puffing on my inhaler every minute or so. I didn’t like the thought of going to yours – not now I knew you really had taken Alice – but I had to. She might be there, I kept thinking. She might be there.

  Up till then, I’d only really thought about Alice and how she’d be when she was rescued. I’d never thought about the bit before when I wasn’t there – when you had her on your own. I mean, I’d thought about how you were a bad man that wanted to do bad things to her, but I hadn’t thought about what you’d actually do. I’d only ever imagined you looking at her, maybe giving her something to make her dozy so she’d let you. I’d thought about you stroking her pale skin till it goose-pimpled up, pushing your fingers through her hair and laying your head on her stomach to feel her warmth against your face. But now she was actually gone and I was stumbling towards your house across the park, I knew you wouldn’t just do those things. You’d do something much, much worse, and it was all my fault because I’d let you.

  I didn’t slow down till I turned onto your road. I puffed on my inhaler some more, trying to hold it in and count each time, but I was too out of breath. And every time I thought about what I was going to do when I got to you, my heart started banging, so I tried not to think, just to keep going.

  Your house looked the same. I know that sounds stupid, because why wouldn’t it, but for some reason it seemed weird. It was like it was a stage set or something. Bea started barking at the upstairs window before I even walked up the path.

  I made myself knock straight off so I didn’t have time to chicken out. Then I stood there, still trying to get my breath, with no idea at all what I was going to say when you opened the door. Bea went quiet for a few seconds, then started barking again, downstairs in the hallway this time. When you still didn’t come, I thought maybe you were out. I moved off the step and leant against the wall of the house. I waited till she was quiet, then waited a bit more to make sure you weren’t coming.

  Then I went down the driveway at the side, treading on the grassy bits so Bea wouldn’t hear. The garage was closed now, but in my head I saw you with that heavy tool bag again.

  When I got to the side door, I stopped and looked at the frosted glass, waiting for Bea to appear in the kitchen the other side. She didn’t, though. Nothing moved, and it was only a few more steps to the garage.

  I put my hand on the cold white metal, hardly breathing and listening for any sound – any muffled cries or struggling. ‘Hello?’ I said quietly, in a half whisper, then, ‘Alice?’

  I looked at the side door again, then went round the back of the house. It’d been so dark the night before I hadn’t been able to see the garden very well. It was long, the grass overgrown with a pathway trodden through it that led to a rusty barbeque and a pile of burnt wood at the bottom. Thick bushes and tr
ees overhung there, making it gloomy, even though it was a sunny day. I stepped onto the patio, avoiding some dried dog poo, and peered through the kitchen window. The tap was dripping into an overflowing pan in the sink, and through the kitchen door I could see the empty hallway.

  I stepped back and looked up at the window above. The curtains were closed – dark pink ones, pulled firmly together, so no chinks of light could get in – and a ringing sound started in my ears and I had to do the breathing out slowly through a straw thing because I was thinking, Alice, are you up there?

  Then I thought about throwing some stones up at the window like people do in films and I went back to the driveway to get some.

  ‘What you doing?’ you said.

  I stood up, stumbling I was so shocked, dropping the gravel and rubbing my palms down my skirt.

  You were in the side doorway. You looked at my hands. ‘What you playing at?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I was . . .’ I’m usually good at coming up with an explanation for whatever it is I’m doing that I’m not supposed to be, but I couldn’t think of a single reason why I’d have a handful of your gravel, other than for throwing at a window.

  Luckily Bea shot out of the door barking and jumping up at me.

  ‘I came to see if you were alright,’ I said, rubbing Bea’s sides. Your shirt was buttoned up wrong so it showed your chest and your hair was all messy. ‘If that neighbour came back. That’s all. Then I heard a cat.’ I pointed at the garage. ‘I think it’s in there.’

  You didn’t move. You kept looking at me.

  I bit my lip so I wouldn’t start whispering, because I could see you didn’t believe me.

  Then you turned and went back inside, leaving the door open like you did when you went to get money for me. My heart was thudding. I was thinking, you’re gonna come back with a kitchen knife or a hammer or something and you’re going to kill me . . .

  You came back with some keys in your hand and whistled for Bea. Then you shut her in the kitchen and walked past me to the garage door. ‘A cat,’ you said, looking through the keys for the right one, then twisting it into the handle.