I lifted my head to meet his gaze. I’d been mistaken about Marston’s eyes being blue. They were the grey of cold stone. He wasn’t smiling.
‘What is it? Tell me.’
‘Come through to the kitchen. Let’s talk in there.’
He led me through and filled the kettle while I cleared a space on the kitchen table, shoving the junk mail and newspapers and food packets to one side. I was living off cereal and instant noodles. I was too jittery to sit down. I lit a cigarette and when I offered one to Tony he took it gratefully.
‘We’ve been up to your daughter’s school. Spoken with some of her teachers there. It seems Edie has had some problems engaging with her education.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Truancy. We know that, of course. The day she went missing she’d skipped school. Where did she go? We’re still looking into that. But according to our timeline she was with her friends that same Thursday evening at the youth centre at St Mary de Castro. We know that because she was seen with them as late as 7 p.m., when the caretaker was locking up. What we want to establish is, where had she been that day and what bearing does it have on her disappearance?’
He made strong tea for us both, brown and tarry, the milk slightly turned. He handed me the sugar bowl.
‘Stick a few spoonfuls of that in. It’ll taste better.’
We sat opposite each other at the table. The pouches beneath his eyes were dark purple, lined with veins.
‘We got the impression from Edie’s teachers that she has something of a history with the school. Aside from the truancy, there were episodes of bullying – quite severe, by the sounds of it.’
‘Edie never mentioned she was being bullied.’
‘No, no.’ He was talking softly. ‘Edie was the bully.’
There was a pain behind my eyes like an iron band squeezing and squeezing my skull. A warning carved of stillness. In 373 BC historians recorded that all the animals deserted the Greek city of Helice just days before it was destroyed by an earthquake, alerted by some strange telepathy. Rats, snakes, weasels, running in silence. I had that same feeling now. The calm that precedes devastation.
‘Edie wasn’t a bully. She was difficult, but she wouldn’t—’
‘Samantha. You must have known.’
You did know, a voice said. Remember that time you saw her coming in with bloodied knuckles? Or how about when she split her lip and she told you she fell over but you knew, didn’t you, Samantha? You knew. You just couldn’t confront her.
That’s not true.
It is true. Tell him. Tell him how much she frightened you. Her temper. Her rage.
I straightened in my seat, suddenly defensive of Edie, feeling disloyal. You are her mother: that same voice, calm, rational. You should have been in charge.
‘She got in with a bad crowd. They’re the ones you need to speak to. Those girls, the ones that look like witches. Speak to them. They’ve been poisoning her!’
‘It’s been going on a long time.’ Tony spoke as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘Little incidents, but they build up. Jumping people in cloakrooms and toilets, theft, fist fights—’
‘Fist fights?’
‘It’s all on her record.’
‘It’s not.’ I shook my head vehemently. ‘I would have known.’
‘You know who Katie Robinson is?’
‘Not Katie. Kate. I spoke with her the first night Edie didn’t come home. They’re old friends, have been since they were little. Why?’
He sighed, rubbing his temples. ‘Kate was pushed down a flight of stairs in school this year. Back in March. She said Edie had done it.’
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. If he just knew Edie, he wouldn’t have said these things. She had her faults, sure. But she wouldn’t do something like that. It was dangerous. She could have killed her.
‘Well, that’s bullshit.’
‘Kate suffered a fractured wrist and multiple bruising to her shoulders, ribs and legs. There were witnesses.’
I sat quietly, thinking back to the conversation with Kate when Edie had first gone missing. You won’t tell Edie you spoke with me, will you? she’d said quietly. I don’t want her to know you spoke with me. How frightened she’d sounded.
‘I know it’s hard to hear—’
‘It’s not.’ I shook my head so hard I saw stars for a moment. ‘It’s not hard at all because it’s not true. You’re blowing it out of proportion. She was a difficult girl, and she had a hard time growing up without her dad, me working all the time. The way she responds to things is sometimes . . . excessive. I think people forget how fucking hard it all was for her. And this girl, Kate – why are we just taking her word for it? Why is she going unchallenged and just allowed to blame my daughter?’
‘You think she threw herself down the stairs?’
‘I don’t know what I think. I wasn’t there! That’s the point. No one was.’
‘Edie was, Samantha. And like I said, we have witnesses.’
We stared at each other across the table. A grey pall hung in the air above us, hovering like a spirit. I glanced down at my cigarette and saw a long arc of ash, slightly drooping. I’d forgotten to smoke it. I stubbed it out.
‘The school said they’ve tried to make contact with you in the past.’
‘They have not!’
Haven’t they? There it was again, an internal voice, so calm, so unlike my own. I tried to think. I recalled a phone call once, on a rainy evening when I’d just got in from work, later than usual. The trains had been running behind, packed with damp, heavy breathers and wet clothes. The teacher had asked me to make an appointment to go and speak with the head. Edie had been misbehaving.
‘What kind of misbehaviour?’
‘I really think it’s better for you to come in and discuss it face to face.’
‘Well, that’s going to be difficult. I’m on my own, you see, and I work a lot. I’ll talk to her.’
I didn’t remember what had happened after that. I could
