The Night They Vanished, page 31
“He had a knife.”
“That wasn’t found at the scene. And only you saw it: neither Sasha nor Adam saw him with a knife.”
I stare at her as the door opens and a nurse and doctor come in. I’m afraid if I look away, I’ll wake up for real and this time, they’ll all be dead. Or Ethan will be next to my bed, not Dee. Or Owen fucking King.
“They are all fine, I promise you,” Dee says. “And they will catch Ethan. And they’ll find a way to get Owen, too. You deserve a happy ending. It’s time to stop punishing yourself.”
That’s all very well, but when they do catch him—is he just going to stop? And Owen—Lee and Carrie, Stephen Hayes, even—were they all involved in this plan for some kind of revenge for what they believed I did to Jacob? Are they all just going to stop?
That bloody article and that stupid website—why did Adam have to come up with that idea?
Dad is sitting where Dee was the next time I wake up.
“Hey,” I whisper. It’s hard to resist the urge to sit up straight and check my hair is tidy. Even fourteen years after leaving home, one look from him makes me a kid all over again.
He doesn’t respond to my greeting. He just talks like we were in mid-conversation when all this happened. “I tried to explain, to Jen and to Sasha, why I did everything I did, but they won’t listen. Jen is talking about leaving me, taking Sasha.” He shakes his head. “They just need to look at you, though, to realize what I did was right. I need you to explain that to them.”
Explain what—that he was right to call the police, to kick me out, to make me feel I wasn’t capable of looking after my own child?
“You never showed any interest in Sasha when you visited. You never gave me any indication that you wanted to be more involved in her life. I took from that that the decisions I made were, in the end, the right ones.”
It’s always been hard to look at Sasha when I’ve visited because she looks so much like Jacob. Hard, as well, to get past the guilt of leaving her. But that doesn’t make what Dad did right. It doesn’t matter that I believed, and still believe, it was the best thing to do for Sasha at the time. I went on a very steep downward spiral after Jacob died, after Sasha was born. There was no way sixteen-year-old me was in any way capable of looking after a baby. But I could have been. If I’d been given the support I needed. If Dad had tried to help me rather than kick me out.
It’s funny—as I was getting myself together, clawing my way up from the pit in my twenties to a position where I had a stable job, a proper home, where I’d given up drinking and drugs, I always said I was doing it for Sasha, so I could be a proper mother to her, but every time I visited home, every time I saw her, I wanted to run away again. I never felt worthy, and that’s just crap, isn’t it? Sasha never wanted worthy—she probably didn’t even need me to be a proper mother, she had Jen for that. I should have been the sister everyone’s pretended I was.
And if my father had really done the right thing, that’s what would have happened.
“No,” I say. “You were not right. None of what you did was right. I should have stood up and said that a long time ago, but you destroyed my confidence and my self-worth. If Jen and Sasha are angry with you, then that is down to you to fix. I hope Jen does leave you. She and Sasha will be better off.”
“Don’t you dare—”
“No—don’t you dare. I do not have to listen to you anymore. You are not part of my life and I will not listen to your crap anymore. I will speak to Jen about seeing Sasha, and it will be on my terms and in my home.”
That look—the cold, disapproving anger—is taking over his face and I turn my head away. I will not let him do this to me anymore.
“I’d like you to leave,” I say.
Chapter 50
SASHA
I take a detour to the toilets before I go in and see Hanna. Mum had a go at sorting my hair out for me before we came to the hospital. There hasn’t been time to go to a proper hairdresser, but it looks almost normal now, more a choppy chin-length bob than an attacked-by-a-hedge-clipper mess. I kind of like it. I think it suits the new “kidnapped by a psychotic serial killer and lived to tell the tale” me.
I close my eyes for a moment. Oh God. Maybe I do like the new hair, but I can’t carry off cocky bravado. That will never be me. I don’t know how to feel. I had a complete meltdown when I was speaking to the police. I honestly thought I was going to pee myself when I was sitting in that police station. Even though Mum was with me, and they told me I wasn’t in trouble, the questions they asked… I sounded stupid. I sounded gullible and reckless and stupid. They got a really nice policewoman in to speak to me after I got full-on hysterical and she was brilliant at calming me down, but it didn’t make me feel less stupid. Or guilty. Doesn’t matter what they told me about how Ethan had all this planned, that it wasn’t my fault, I made it easy for him to do what he did. Hanna could have died. Her boyfriend could have died. At any point, he could have killed Mum or Dad or me or all of us. He’d already killed one woman.
I start shaking again. Crap. I need to pull myself together or Mum is going to come in looking for me and if she sees me all hysterical again, she won’t let me go and see Hanna. And I need to see Hanna. Now that I know the whole story, I need to see Hanna.
I cried when the detective told me what happened to Jacob. Ethan’s brother. Hanna’s old boyfriend. My real dad. I don’t know how to process all that yet. Or the fact that Mum’s not sure if we’re going to go home with Dad at all, that she’s finally having her “F*** the Patriarchy” moment. She’s not sure if she can forgive him for everything he’s done, even though he keeps saying he’s really, really sorry. I’m not sure if I can forgive him either and even if I did, I’m not sure I could ever forget how he let me down. I’m hoping Hanna will help with all that too.
I stand straighter, push my shoulders back.
Mum hovers behind me when I enter the room. Hanna looks at me and smiles, then her gaze flickers to Mum.
“I’m sorry,” Mum says to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more.”
Tears shine in Hanna’s eyes. “I’m sorry too,” she says. “For everything.”
I hear the click of the door as Mum leaves and I take a deep breath.
“I like your hair,” Hanna says.
I put a hand up and smooth my hair down. “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t have liked it if you’d seen it yesterday. Turns out Mum’s a bit of a genius with a pair of scissors.”
“It suits you like that—shorter.”
I stare at her. “Is this what we’re going to do? Talk about my hair and that’s it?”
She shakes her head. “No, I… I don’t know what to say. How do I say everything I should have said to you in the last fourteen years? If I start apologizing, I’ll never stop. I almost got you killed…” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “And I don’t know how to be a mother. I don’t know…”
“I don’t want you to be my mother,” I say. “I’ve already got a mother. What I’d like is for you to be my sister.”
She’s quiet for ages. “I can do that.”
“I’d like you to be there at the end of a phone when things are crap and I need someone to talk to.”
She nods but I keep talking before she can answer.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next, whether we’ll go back to West Wales with Dad or not. Mr. Garner called Mum. He’s thinking of moving to Spain full time and offered to rent us his cottage. He’s still trying to save us Carter women,” I add as I see tears come to her eyes.
“I’d like to come and stay with you. I’d like you to take me shopping and let me buy stuff that Dad would never let me wear in a million years. I’d like you to teach me how to do makeup. I’d like to stay in with you and watch crappy Netflix films. Everyone talks about Netflix and I’ve never seen anything.”
“I can do all of that. I can take you out with my friends and take you to the cinema. I’ll order all the takeaways because I remember how rare a decent takeaway was under Dad’s rule.”
“Pizza. Can we get pizza?”
“All the pizza.”
“And Adam. I’d like to get to know Adam. He saved your life. He’s a hero.”
“He is a bit, isn’t he? Him and Jen—heroes of the hour.”
I smile. “Does he have any friends as nice as him?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. You are not going to be hanging around with anymore men twice your age. Not on my watch.”
My smile gets bigger. “See—you’re getting the hang of this already. Before you know it, you’ll be encouraging me to eat healthily and lecturing me about the length of my skirts.”
She smiles back at me. “I think we’ll be fine. I think we’ll be better than fine.”
I sit on the chair next to her bed. I don’t mention the note that was waiting for me when I finally got home yesterday. The note that was in my bedroom, in the drawer of my desk. The note that just said:
Sorry
E x
I don’t mention it and I didn’t mention it then because it would have meant more police and Mum and Dad freaking out and searches and Hanna panicking and… maybe he really is sorry. He said he never committed the first crime, that it was Owen not him who ran over that woman. And the rest… I think Owen manipulated him. And I did like him. I thought he was my friend. And now it turns out he’s my uncle. The police will catch him, of course they will. I don’t have to tell them about the note, it won’t help.
Besides, me and Hanna… We only have an hour until Mum comes back for me and fourteen years to catch up on. Time to get started.
Chapter 51
HANNA
They let me out of bed the next day and I shuffle down the corridor to Adam’s room. It’ll be a few days before they let him up and about, but he looks remarkably well considering he was beaten half to death by a psychopath.
“So,” I say, my voice coming out a bit croaky with nerves, “what number date is this?” I cross my fingers behind my back.
He laughs, then winces. “Well, I’ve met your dad and your stepmother, I’ve met your daughter. We’ve been kidnapped, faced death together… I think we’ve skipped the dating stage and we’re actually five years into a long-term relationship.”
“Yeah.” I sigh, uncrossing my fingers and reaching for his hand. “Do you think, for our next date, we could just order pizza and watch a film on Netflix?”
He squeezes my hand and smiles. “Sounds like a good plan.”
“I don’t want you to think I always need saving,” I say, rushing the words out before I can overthink them. “That’s not who I am and not who I want to be.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve given up being a hero. Turns out it hurts.” He pauses. “Besides, it was you who saved me in the end. Have they caught him yet?”
I shake my head, a flutter of fear making me shiver. “Not yet. But they will.”
They haven’t caught Ethan yet, but I’ve told DC Norton to speak to Carrie. Owen and Lee won’t ever give Ethan up, because he’s Jacob’s brother, and the bond between the three of them back then… I always hated it, resented it. Selfish teenager that I was, I wanted Jacob all to myself. But he was never all mine. I don’t think I ever even came first. No, Carrie and I were always outside that little band of brothers.
And Carrie knows it too. Knows her husband would go to prison himself for lying to the police before he’d give up Ethan or Owen. But Carrie… I think she’ll tell. I think she’ll tell for the sake of her family.
There’s a long pause and I wonder if everything that’s happened has killed all the possibilities between me and Adam. Old Hanna would nod and accept that, expect that, and walk away.
I’m bored of old Hanna.
“I want you to take your website down.”
“Okay.” He says it without hesitation.
“I want you to completely delete it and I want you to take down that original article you wrote as well.” I pause to take a breath. “And I can’t… I can’t keep being with you if this dark tourism, or even the urban exploring, is something you still want to do. It’s not right. What you write, what you post—it exploits people. Ethan was right about that. You’re exploiting people’s misery.”
“Okay,” he says again. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just… No. I’m not going to offer excuses. I’ll just say yes, Hanna. The site will go. I swear.”
“Good. But first…” Another pause, another deep breath needed. I hold out two pieces of paper, covered both sides in my handwriting. “I need to make amends. You need to make amends. To Jacob’s friends, to the people who knew and loved him. I want you to publish this article, about the real Jacob.”
I watch as Adam takes the paper and starts to read. Maybe when it’s published, Ethan will stop running and Owen and the others will stop hating.
And maybe I can stop hating myself.
Want to know what really happened the night they vanished?
You do, don’t you?
Then Sign up here:
…
This is not what you came here to find. I know that. You wanted to know why, who, what happened… You wanted the secrets, the shocking truth, the true and terrible facts behind the headlines.
The thing is—I didn’t write that original listing. My site was hacked. That’s not an excuse, though. I didn’t write it, but I could have, because isn’t that what my site promises—an understanding of the darker side of life?
But the night they vanished is not where the story began, it’s not where the story ends and, more importantly, it’s not my story to tell and it’s not your story to hear.
There’s only one story left for me to tell and that’s why this one new listing is going to be the last listing on The Dark Tourist.
Welcome to The Dark Tourist:
The real story of the boy from the dark house,
Not a hero, a prince or a knight in shining armor,
Not a villain, a criminal or a bad influence,
But a nice boy, who deserved better, who deserved more.
Acknowledgments
I began writing The Night They Vanished in a pre-COVID time, and have chosen to allow my characters to remain in a COVID-free bubble for the duration of the story—it seemed cruel to put them through a global pandemic as well as everything else…
In such difficult times, the help and support I’ve received has been wonderful and I am incredibly grateful to so many people.
A massive thank-you to Juliet Mushens, best agent in the world, for her continued faith in me and her enthusiasm for this book. Thanks to all at Mushens Entertainment, Liza, Kiya, and Silé—you are a dream team to work with.
I want to thank the whole amazing team at Sphere and Little, Brown; from editorial manager Thalia through to everyone in sales, marketing, and publicity, with an extra-special thank-you to my wonderful editors, Rosanna Forte in the UK and Alex Logan at Grand Central Publishing in the U.S. Your enthusiasm for this book has made the publishing process a total joy!
Thanks to former DCI Stuart Gibbon of GIB Consultancy for the advice on police procedures—his books, The Crime Writer’s Casebook and Being A Detective, were also invaluable. Thanks to Savage and Gray Design Ltd. for the wonderful website and book trailers.
All the thanks to my fabulous writing friends, the Romaniacs and the Cowbridge Cursors.
And, of course, to all my family and friends for their continued and fantastic support with a special shout-out to the Thompsons, the Savages, the Griffith-Joneses, and the Ryder-Grays.
Discover Your Next Great Read
Get sneak peeks, book recommendations, and news about your favorite authors.
Tap here to learn more.
About the Author
Vanessa Savage is a graphic designer and illustrator and the author of two thrillers. She has twice been awarded a Writers’ Bursary by Literature Wales, most recently for her debut novel, The Woman in the Dark. She won the Myriad Editions First Crimes competition in 2016 and her work has been highly commended in the Yeovil International Fiction Prize, shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Prize, and the Caledonia Fiction Prize. She was on the longlist for the Bath Novel Award.
Vanessa lives by the sea in South Wales with her husband and two daughters.
Also by Vanessa Savage
The Woman in the Dark
The Woods
Vanessa Savage, The Night They Vanished
