The Night They Vanished, page 8
“And that’s it?”
“Well. I might have mentioned it a couple more times?”
“But not to me.”
“I knew it wasn’t the right time for you. But I wanted to make sure he was still single when you were ready, so I was just… keeping him on the hook.”
“Nice.”
“But I was right, wasn’t I? You did like him.”
I shrug. “Problem is, now, with all this—whatever the hell this is—I think your hopes of a hat-buying happy-ever-after are seriously ruined.”
Dee frowns. “Well, that’s just… that’s just crap.”
Seb shakes his head, then looks at me. “What do you want to do now, Han? Come back to ours? Or we can stay here and—”
“I have to go home,” I say. I let out a sigh and the glitter from the hidden Christmas card floats up into the air between us. “Well, I guess it’s not home anymore, is it? But I have to go back there just to see, just to check… I can’t sit here waiting.”
Chapter 10
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Saturday 6 p.m.
“It feels so strange coming back here,” Dee says, echoing my own thoughts as we turn off the main road. She didn’t hesitate for a second when I asked her to come with me. Actually, I didn’t even need to ask; as soon as I looked at her, she’d said yes, of course she’d come.
It’s well over six months since I’ve been here—much longer for Dee, whose family moved away when she was at university. Dee used to live in Littledean itself, but I grew up a few miles outside, within the confines of the wrongly named West Dean Family Fun Park. Ha—the words family and fun did not go together in my experience.
The lane down to the holiday park twists and turns between high, overgrown hedgerows and trees that arch up and over us, dappling the road ahead with stripes of light and dark. It cuts off the noise of the main road, giving the impression we’re entering some secret land. Especially now, out of season, when we’re the only car on the road.
Dee laughs and shakes her head. “God—I used to be so jealous of you, living on a holiday camp—swimming pool, playgrounds, kids’ club…”
“None of which I was allowed to use.” I glance at her. “You probably used the pool and the playground more than I did.”
“Yeah—okay, that was weird. I never got why your dad actually took the job when he clearly hated the place. It seems such a weird choice for someone so…” She pauses and laughs again. “When I first met him, I thought he was a vicar. Did I ever tell you that? He wasn’t dressed like one, and I knew you all lived at the holiday camp and didn’t hang around church, but he had that vibe, you know? I remember telling Mum all about the vicar who ran the holiday park and she was very confused.”
“Ha, I’ll bet.”
“Vicar or cult leader, anyway.”
“All of the strictness but none of the religious forgiveness—and hell no to cult leader: certainly none of the charisma needed to attract cult members there.”
Dee’s smile fades. “Yeah, he was just a shit, really, wasn’t he? What did your mum and Jen ever see in him?”
“He mostly saved the horrible for me. And to be fair, he was at his worst after Mum had gone, when it was only me there to bear the brunt of it. He was almost amiable around Jen—and positively polite at work, despite his lip-curling contempt for everything about this place.”
“Which again, leaves me wondering why take the job?”
I shrug. “Live-in accommodation? Plus, the camp was only open May to October, the rest of the time he could concentrate on his academic stuff and just be a caretaker without all the hideous tourists he hated. Not that I ever saw him actually write or do anything academic… Mostly he just sat at his desk in the spare room he liked to call his office.”
I stop and shake my head. “I just realized I’m making him sound like Jack Torrance from The Shining, only without the alcoholism and supernatural shit.” I pause. “And now I’m scaring myself thinking of the camp as The Overlook.”
“Redrum, redrum?” Dee says, then winces. “Sorry, really bad taste in the circumstances.”
I nearly miss the turn, the sign for the holiday park half-hidden by brambles. I frown as we turn in. The gates are shut and padlocked. Although the holiday park is seasonal, they never normally padlock the gates. Dad used to close them at night and run the bolt across from the inside, but he rarely bothered padlocking them—we were there as security over the winter months. The worst trouble we ever had was teenagers trying to sneak in to drink and smoke at the playground, soon frightened off by the glare of the motion-sensitive security light and a shout from my dad.
But tonight, the security light doesn’t come on as I get out of the car and approach the gates and there are no other lights on inside. I can see what used to be our house—a crumbling coach house, all that remains of the old manor that used to be here.
I blink as I look beyond the house. Something is wrong. Lit by the headlights of the car, the field that should be full of static caravans is empty. The clubhouse is boarded up.
“Hanna—check this out.”
I turn away from the padlocked gates. Dee is out of the car, standing a few feet away and staring at a sign on the fence. I shield my eyes from the glare of the headlights and crunch through the undergrowth to join her.
Land acquired by Thomson Homes, the sign says. What?
“I guess this is why they moved, then,” Dee says.
Shit. All those un-listened-to messages Jen mentioned in the card, maybe Dad really did leave them. I’ve picked up voicemails from my dad in the past and deleted them without listening, saving my call-backs for when I know he won’t be able to answer. It’s possible he’s been trying to tell me for months that they were moving, that the park was closing, and I just didn’t listen. My throat tightens further as I remember the guarded message from Sasha way back before Christmas. She was telling me she’d got hold of a secret phone and must have waited and waited for me to text back, even just to acknowledge I’d received her message. Why didn’t I? I don’t mean answering Dad’s calls, but why didn’t I text Sasha back?
I turn in a circle, looking at the closed and locked-up camp, the sign on the fence. I don’t know what to do. I suppose I thought the camp would still be here, even if my family wasn’t. That even if the house was empty, it would be because the new caretaker family hadn’t moved in yet. I thought someone would be around, so I could go in and check everything out, try to find some answers. And there’s something else—something nagging at me…
Dee touches my arm. “Do you have the keys? For the gate—for the house?”
“What? Oh… yes. Yes, I do.” I brought them as my excuse, in case there was a security guard or something here. I was going to say I’d made the trip to return the keys in the hope that I might get some information in exchange. I fumble in my bag and yes, they’re all there—the gate, the house, the clubhouse. I had them from the days I’d help out with cleaning and maintenance, before I got the hell out of here, never looking back, and they’ve been gathering dust at the back of my junk drawer ever since.
“Then let’s go and check it out.”
I hesitate. Do I want to? We could get back in the car and drive home. We’d be there by eight, the roads quiet at this time. Back in time for a drink or dinner somewhere. Wait for the detective to call me, to tell me where my family has gone.
But. That website, the detail… The police said they’d found no evidence of a break-in, but whoever posted the listing has been to this house. Oh wait—that’s what’s nagging. I reach into my bag for a crumpled piece of paper—the printout of this house’s listing on Adam’s website.
“Look,” I say to Dee. “This photo—the one on the website. You can see caravans in the background. But the camp’s obviously been closed for months. This photo is old…”
“But what does that mean? Does it mean it’s been on the website for months? But Adam would have noticed, surely? He only built the thing a few months ago; it’s not like it’s been sitting dormant for years.”
“Or someone took the photo months ago and kept it until now…”
We look at each other. I’m afraid to use the keys to enter that creepy abandoned place—a place that holds nothing but bad memories for me. Is it irony that I stop to think how much Adam would love the possibility to explore here?
“Oh, sod it—let’s do this.” I unlock the main gate and struggle to push it open, managing to get it wide enough for me and Dee to squeeze through. The path to the house, without the camp lights on, is treacherous. Even leaving the car headlights on to light our way, we stumble up to the house, Dee cursing behind me. It’s potholed and littered with debris from the trees. It was always a sod treacherous path, even with Dad keeping the potholes under control. Now, it looks like it hasn’t been cleared or repaired in years. How long has the place been closed?
Unlike the clubhouse, the windows of my family home have not been boarded up, but it only takes a quick glance to see that behind the glass, the house has been emptied. But I knew that anyway, didn’t I? I grit my teeth and unlock the front door.
The electricity is off when I try the light in the hall, so I open the torch app on my phone and hold it up. There’s nothing. No furniture, no carpet, just a layer of dust that shows up my footprints when I shine the light on the bare floorboards. No other footprints in the dust, though; no sign anyone else has been here for a long time. I stride through empty room after empty room, leaving a trail of footprints in the dust.
I’m tempted to grab Dee and go once I’ve gone through all the downstairs rooms, but I’m here, we’ve made the journey, so I force myself to go up the stairs, instinctively avoiding the creaky stairs in the dance I’d perfected by the age of fourteen.
The spare room and Dad and Jen’s rooms are as empty as downstairs, but I spot something the moment I enter my old room—or, more recently, Sasha’s room. On the windowsill, lit by the pale moonlight from outside, is a little stack of photographs. I go over and pick them up, my hand surprisingly steady. I use my phone to shine a light on them. I recognize these: snapshots of a teenage me and my friends, the old gang I haven’t seen in a very long time. Photos I used to keep hidden and left behind when I ran away. No photos of Jacob here, though. Those ones I did take with me.
Who found these and left them here? The movers? Dad? Sasha? My guess is my father. I think if Sasha found them, she would have kept them, reminders of a big sister who was never around for her. I used to feel so bad when I came back to visit. Sasha was such a quiet, shy girl, but it was always obvious she yearned to get to know me better, her attempts squashed and stifled all the time by my dad. Not that I ever reciprocated her efforts. Sasha was better off without me in her life. I believe that, no matter how many times Dee tries to persuade me otherwise.
“Shit—Hanna!” It’s Dee’s voice from downstairs, raised high in alarm.
I drop the photos and run back downstairs to the hall—someone is coming up to the house, a torch in their hand, blinding us and hiding whoever is holding it.
We’re very much alone out here. It was still daylight when we set out from Cardiff and we both rolled our eyes when Seb offered to come along just in case we needed “help.”
But now it’s dark and I’m very aware we’re a long way from the nearest inhabited house.
“Who’s there?” I call. “Dad?”
“It’s the police—come out where we can see you.”
Double shit.
“Okay, okay.” I walk out with my hands raised, one shielding my eyes from the glare of the torch.
“Hanna Carter?”
He lowers the torch and I recognize him. “Hey, Stephen.”
Stephen Hayes—I went to school with him. Not that we hung out in the same gang—you can hear that in the cold way he says my name. Ah, the familiarity of that small-town disgust—such fun. How I’ve missed it.
“Nice uniform—suits you.” The words don’t come out as light and casual as I intended. My voice is shaking. Dee steps up next to me and I see Stephen visibly relax. I was always trouble—or that was my reputation, anyway—but everyone liked Dee.
“What are you two doing here? We had reports of a break-in.”
That’s when I see a second, female officer behind him. I don’t recognize her, which is hardly surprising as I haven’t been back here for longer than a day in thirteen years, and my visits were always confined to the holiday park—I never went into the village.
“I didn’t think I was breaking in. I thought I was coming home.”
There’s a moment’s silence from Stephen. “Home? Your family moved out of here months ago.”
I look back at the empty house. “Yeah—I can see that.”
“Didn’t you know?” He glances at his colleague. “We were asked to do a welfare check on the place earlier. CID from Cardiff asking about them, where they were—we told them they’d gone, but they were really insistent we check the house.”
I keep my face blank, not wanting to give anything away. “I kind of lost touch with them—just wanted to check they were okay.”
“Okay…”
“So, as it’s obviously a misunderstanding, can we maybe forget this ever happened?”
Stephen looks at his fellow officer, who shrugs. He nods. “I guess so. Come on, we’ll escort you out.” He turns away, then stops. “Hang on,” he says. “How did you get in?”
My hand closes over the set of keys I’m still holding. Then I relax and open my hand. What’s the point of keeping hold of them? My family is gone—I have nothing left to tie me to this place.
Stephen sighs and takes the keys out of my hand. “You shouldn’t have used these.” He hesitates. “Listen—I’ll say I found you outside the gates, not on the property, okay? That you handed over the keys and left, end of story.”
“Thanks,” I mutter. It’s a very reluctant thanks—I do not want to feel grateful to Stephen Hayes for anything.
He laughs. “Don’t think I’m doing it as a favor. I just don’t want the hassle of taking you into the station.” He leads us back to my car, turning to go once we’ve both got in. His police car has us blocked in.
“Wait—Stephen?” I call, getting back out. “Who called about the break-in?” I look around—there are still no security cameras, no other houses in sight. We didn’t pass a single car after we turned off the main road.
“It was an anonymous call.”
Dee looks over at me, frowning. My flesh crawls. Was someone watching us as I unlocked the gate? Listening to our conversation? I’m suddenly glad the police car turned up.
Stephen is frowning at me. “We’ll escort you as far as the main road. And Hanna—it might be better if you’re not seen around here again. There’s nothing for you to come back for anymore and it’s a nice town, we don’t want any trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“You know what I mean,” he says in a low voice, and my shoulders stiffen.
Stephen’s partner, who never introduced herself, gets behind the wheel of the police car, but Stephen hovers, still looking at me. What, does he want me to pinky-swear not to be naughty in his lovely nice town?
“Funnily enough, Stephen, I don’t really remember it as a nice town, but I can assure you I won’t be visiting again.”
Ah, Stephen Hayes, standing there in his shiny police uniform, representing the ninety-nine percent of this shithole village who viewed me as a waste of space, a troublemaker, worthy of disgusted looks, shaking heads, laughed at, sneered at, followed round the village shop by the suspicious owner, because I was already a lost cause, had to be a shoplifter as well, right? And now here stood spotty, skinny little Stephen, all ready to chase me out of town with a pitchfork, in case what happened to Jacob is catching, like I’m a fucking contagious disease.
I grit my teeth and get in the car, slamming the door so hard the car rocks. This shitty place. I watch in the rearview mirror as Stephen’s colleague reverses and does a three-point turn, driving far enough to give us room to turn and then waiting. They really do intend to escort us out of town.
I wait until we’re on the motorway, well away from Stephen and the village before I start a rant that lasts twenty minutes. Dee sits in silence and lets me vent until I run out of steam. This is why I visited less and less—if Stephen Hayes could make me feel like this, a visit with my family always left me feeling a million times worse. And on those visits I never had Dee with me offering her unwavering support.
I’m exhausted. Today seems to have gone on for a year and frankly, at the moment, I don’t bloody care where my family is. They’re going to be fine—I’ll get a call tomorrow telling me the police have traced them and I’ll have gone through all this trauma for nothing.
I drop Dee off, turning down her offer to stay at hers. I just want to go home and sleep, forget today ever happened. I switch on the radio when the silence gets too loud and the local news comes on as I’m almost home.
“The body of a woman has been found in her home. Police say they are treating the death of Katie Bentley as suspicious and are appealing to the public to come forward with any information. This comes only months after her younger sister Gemma Bentley was killed in a hit-and-run in the city. The driver has not been found.”
The car swerves as the names register—Gemma and Katie Bentley, the women that detective asked me about. Oh God—what does this mean?
There’s someone outside my house again as I pull up. A man, head down, half hidden in darkness, sitting on the wall. He looks up as I get out of the car. It’s Adam.
Chapter 11
SASHA—November, three months earlier
I’m so glad I had my meltdown on a Friday. The thought of going back in the next day after making such a fool of myself… I swear the burn of embarrassment covers me from head to toe. If today were a school day instead of a Saturday, I would have had to fake an illness, lie right to Dad’s face. There’s no way I would have gone in.
