He turned at the bottom and saw her through the kitchen doorway. She was bending over the table, setting out a couple of plates and some cutlery. Her short dressing gown had hitched up over her thighs. There were old, faded scars there that he’d failed to notice the night before and faint marks like old bruises that had never healed.
Marc felt like running, but he told himself not to be stupid, not to judge this woman before he even knew her.
She turned around and saw him, a smile appearing briefly on her face before it was swallowed by some other expression, one that he could not read. Was it regret? Dread? Terror?
“Morning.” He walked towards the kitchen doorway.
“Hi,” she said, turning away. “I made bacon and eggs. I hope you’re hungry.”
“Cheers,” he said, sitting down at the table. “That would be great.”
“Coffee?” She didn’t turn to look at him when she asked the question.
“Black, thanks. One sugar.”
She nodded, but still didn’t turn.
He watched her as she poured hot water into two mugs Her shoulders were narrow, her arms were thin. She was tiny, breakable. Like a porcelain doll. Last night she’d seemed more like a warrior.
“Here.” She turned and set down one of the mugs on the table. The handle of the spoon stuck up above the rim. He grabbed it and began to stir, slowly. “Food’s nearly ready.”
“Thanks.” He stopped stirring. “How do you feel this morning?”
She tensed. “What do you mean?”
“Well…” He wished he hadn’t started this; he should have just kept his mouth shut, or maybe talked about the weather. “You know. After we… what happened between us.”
“After we fucked, you mean?”
He was shocked, but what stunned him more was his reaction to her words. He’d expected her to be like this, so why did it have such an impact? “Yes,” he said. He took a sip of coffee.
“I feel fine. I’m used to it. You’ll probably hear this anyway, so I’ll tell you now.” She turned to face him. Her eyes were large, glaring. Her cheeks were tensed. “I’m a slag. I’ll fuck anyone, me. It’s what I do, just so I don’t feel so alone. It doesn’t make you anything special.”
Marc wasn’t sure what he was meant to say, so he went with a joke: “You say the nicest things.”
There was a pause, and then she smiled. Even her eyes lit up. “Thanks.” She turned back to the cooker and started serving up the bacon and scrambled egg. She’d made too much, but she piled it onto the plates anyway.
“This looks good.” He stared at the plate of food. He wasn’t lying. It looked fantastic. The bacon was well done, just the way he liked it, and the eggs weren’t too soft.
“Eat up, then,” she said.
He took one mouthful and his stomach began to ache. He answered this by shovelling in more food, unashamed at how ill-mannered he was coming across. He was starving. Ravenous. He’d never felt so hungry in his life.
“I like to see a man with a big appetite,” she said. She hadn’t touched her own food. Clearly she preferred to watch him eat.
Marc took a break halfway through, gasping for breath. He swigged his coffee like a navvy on a tea-break, enjoying the way he almost choked on the now lukewarm liquid. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, almost slobbering. “Jesus… you must think I’m a pig.”
Abby shook her head. “I worked you hard last night.” Beneath the table, he felt her bare foot touch his leg, rubbing along his shin bone. “You need to replace that energy.”
“About last night…” He shook his head when the cliché came out of his mouth. “Fuck, that sounds crap. I’m sorry. I’m trying to be original, I really am.”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’ve been here before, too many times. I know the script by heart. It was a one-night stand. You don’t want to see me again. Don’t even want my number.”
“No, wait…”
“It’s fine. Really, it is. I don’t want to give you my number anyway. I’m not after a boyfriend, or even a fuck buddy. I don’t need anybody permanent in my life.”
“Listen, that’s not what I meant.”
She stopped talking, started pushing the eggs around her plate with a fork.
“I meant the opposite, actually. I… I would like to see you again. I do want your number.”
She raised her eyes and stared directly into his face, as if examining him for facial scars. Her eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared.
“My daughter wasn’t the first one to go missing. She was the fourth. The final one.”
Marc said nothing. He didn’t want to break the spell. That’s exactly how it felt; as if some kind of magic was being weaved, some form of urban witchcraft.
“The Press called them the Gone Away Girls. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Like poetry, or a song lyric. They loved that fucking name, the reporters. They used it all the time…I think they were gutted when my Tessa was the last and they didn’t get to use it again, except whenever they resurrected the case to sell some extra copies.” She was rubbing her hands, as if soaping them at the sink, trying to scrub off the dirt.
Marc put down his knife and fork. “You don’t have to tell me any of this. It’s okay. I understand. It’s personal.”
She stood, carried her plate to the sink, and left it there. Then she sat back down at the table. “Tess’s father is still around. He lived in the area. Not in the Grove, not anymore, but nearby. He comes round here sometimes. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but he always wants to have sex. He cries when he comes. He weeps like a baby into my shoulder.”
Marc sat and stared as she spoke, unable to focus his thoughts. Was this a brush-off, or something else? The woman was maddening. She always made him feel as if he’d not quite understood what she’d said, or had missed the crucial point of the conversation.
“I think he wants to save me,” said Abby, looking down at the table, still wringing her hands. “But that’s the last thing I need. They always, always want to save me, and not once do they stop to even think that I might not want to be fucking saved.” Her eyes were shining. She blinked several times before continuing. “Just promise me one thing, Marc. Promise me that you won’t try to save me.”
He could not fight her. The will was too strong.
“I… I promise,” he said, not entirely sure what kind of promise he was making. It felt so much wider, deeper, than what she’d asked.
She nodded her head. “That’s the only thing I’ll ever ask of you, and if you break that promise I’ll ask you to leave and never come back again.” She stood and went to a cupboard, opened the door and took out a cardboard box file. “Every man I’ve ever met seems to think I want to be saved, when all I want is a nice fuck and a warm body next to me at night.”
She dropped the box file onto the table and stepped back, folding her arms across her tiny chest. “There they are. The Gone Away Girls.”
Marc reached out and opened the file. Inside was a sheaf of newspaper clippings, each one reporting the disappearance of a young girl. By the second one — Alice Jacobs — they were already using the collective title Gone Away Girls. Abby was right; they’d been in love with their own invention.
He flipped through the clippings, not reading them but skimming, noting the similar details of each case: a young girl, taken from a place that was considered safe, never seen again. He wondered why he’d never heard of this, especially since he was a journalist. But he’d been working freelance at the time of these abductions, and living in Birmingham for much of the time. Five years ago… where exactly had he been then? It was difficult to pinpoint because he’d moved around so much, chasing stories, looking for the big score that never came. Maybe he’d even been in London, on one of his regular trips to the city? He could never quite settle there, but he always stayed at least a month, sleeping in friends’ spare rooms or on their floors. But he always returned to the north; he always failed to find the big story, the one that would set him up for life…