‘That psychic on Grace’s page on Facebook. I’m doing some research on her.’
‘Oh.’ I relax a little into the chair. ‘I didn’t know you knew your way around Facebook.’
‘Just because you don’t see me on the laptop at home, doesn’t mean I don’t use it all day at work.’
I should’ve realised – she’s on a computer all the time at the recruitment agency. She didn’t look at me when she spoke, but paranoia tells me that there was an undertone. What else has she been hiding from me?
‘I’ve got to keep an open mind about these things,’ she says.
‘I guess.’
She tuts. ‘My daughter is missing, Stephanie. Wouldn’t you consider every possibility if it were Jamie?’
‘Of course. I’d consider every possibility for Grace too.’
She glances at me and purses her lips. It’s her way of saying we’re friends again.
‘Bring your chair nearer to me. You can help me look.’
She clicks onto Deandra Divine’s Facebook page. I say nothing about the name. The profile photo is what I expected: a black and white shot of a woman in her fifties, black straight hair framing her face in a centre parting, her gaze off camera. Emma and I would have laughed at it any other time.
‘I’ve read about other missing person cases she’s given readings about, cases from years ago. She’s been right most of the time.’
If she were the real deal, surely she’d be right all of the time. It’s a thought I keep to myself.
‘I’ve emailed her, Steph. If I manage to get an appointment with her, will you come with me?’
I pause for a second. ‘Of course.’
I couldn’t relax until Jamie was back from school. I didn’t know how long it would take him to get here. At home he’s usually back at 3.45 p.m., but I booked him a taxi to pick him up – no doubt he was mortified in front of his friends – and he didn’t arrive until 3.55 p.m. In those ten minutes I experienced only a fraction of what Emma and Matt are going through. He’s upstairs in his usual place now, in the spare room.
Mum is still hovering over Emma. It’s her way of dealing with things beyond her control. I can tell that she’s been crying because she spent ten minutes in the bathroom and the rims of her eyes are still red. I don’t say anything. I never do. Once you start talking about feelings from the past, there’s no way of forgetting them again.
When Dad died four years ago, she baked and cooked for twelve hours solid until she collapsed on the sofa at three o’clock in the morning. She would never let us see her cry. She tried to hide the noise in their – her – bedroom by putting the television on loud. Emma and I would sit at her door, both too afraid to open it.
It had all happened so quickly. Emma and I had been at Mum and Dad’s house when the phone call came. ‘You need to come to the hospital,’ said the woman on the other end of the line to Mum. ‘It’s your husband. He’s been in an accident.’
‘What do you think it means?’ Mum asked in the car on the way there. ‘Why didn’t your dad speak to me himself?’
She wouldn’t stop talking.
Emma sat next to me in the passenger seat as I drove us there. While Mum spoke, Emma and I kept exchanging glances; I think we both knew what we were about to hear without us saying it aloud.
When I pulled up into the hospital car park I experienced a sense of doom – that I was walking into another life, another chapter. It was a feeling strangely familiar, like I’d been expecting it without realising.
The police officer was waiting for us in the relatives’ room. He already had his hat in his hands.
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said to Mum. ‘But your husband was taken ill this afternoon. He suffered a stroke while he was driving. There was no one else injured.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘I don’t understand. We’re going out for dinner tonight… just the four of us.’
She looked to Emma and me as though we had the answers.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s happened.’
‘But I only saw him at midday,’ she said. ‘It can’t have happened. He was fine.’ She grabbed hold of my hand. ‘He looked fine, didn’t he, Stephanie?’
‘I… I haven’t seen him since last week.’
She put her hand on her forehead. ‘Yes, yes. You two only came round an hour ago.’ She looked at the policeman. ‘Are you sure you have the right person?’ She reached into her handbag, took out her purse and flipped it open. ‘Is this the same person?’
The police officer nodded. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Mum buried her face in her hands. ‘It can’t be. It can’t be.’
The room was closing in on me; the door, the walls, the ceiling. The tears fell down my face – a stream that came from nowhere.
Emma looked at me – her eyes wide, her mouth open. She shook her head. ‘I… I… it’s not right,’ she said. ‘Not Dad.’
My dad, my lovely dad, had gone in an instant.
He was pronounced dead an hour before we’d got to the hospital – just as Emma and I had arrived at our parents’ house. For a whole sixty minutes, he’d been lying there, on his own. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him, dying alone. The suggestion that he’d have felt nothing was of little comfort.
I jump as Mum sets a platter of sandwiches on the coffee table. Being in this house now, with Mum and Emma, is making me think about the past too much. Emma is sitting in her chair, her eyes always locked on the window.
‘I know you won’t feel like eating it, love.’ Mum places a small plate on the arm of Emma’s chair, which contains half an egg sandwich, minus the crusts. ‘But you need to keep your strength up… for Grace. She’ll need you to be strong for when she gets home.’
It’s like watching a switch activate in Emma’s mind: she turns to the plate.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
She stares at the sandwich for a few seconds before breaking it into four, placing one tiny piece into her mouth.
When she gets home. I so hope she’s right – that Mum has more foresight than I have.
Emma’s on her second glass of wine in thirty minutes. Matt phoned the woman at the off-licence and they were all too happy to deliver. Probably wanted to have a good look at the family in turmoil.
‘At least she didn’t charge,’ I said.
‘And so she shouldn’t,’ said Mum. ‘Though I dare say they shouldn’t be getting drunk.’
At a time like this, she didn’t say. Six bottles of wine and two litres of vodka the shop had delivered. We shouldn’t be drinking at a time like this, is what I had thought, until I’d finished my first glass of wine.
It hadn’t taken Mum long to join us. Thirty-five minutes later and she’s swinging her left leg, banging it against the bottom of the armchair. I want to dive on her leg to stop it moving.
Emma gets up quickly, glass in hand, and sways slightly. She collapses in front of the television, landing on her knees.
Mum sits forward on her chair, but doesn’t get up.
‘Emma. Are you okay? Have you drunk too much?’
I look at Mum through narrow eyes. What goes on in her head? Emma can drink as much as she wants; she doesn’t need policing right now.
‘I’ve got to find that DVD,’ says Emma.
When I get up I feel dizzy. My glass clinks on the mantelpiece as I place it between the photographs of Dad and the one of Grace and Jamie last Christmas – their faces covered in pudding and cream after they’d pretended to be cats, eating from a saucer on the floor.
I kneel down next to Emma and flick through the DVD cases in the drawer under the television.
‘The one from last year,’ she says, but I know which one – it’s the only one they had transferred to DVD from Matt’s phone. We both have a copy. I thank God that Jamie is upstairs, so he doesn’t have to see everyone like this.