Dear Amy

3

It was Saturday morning, and only just dawn. The rehearsals for the school play over at St Hilda’s started at ten – we were putting on The Duchess of Malfi for Christmas, and we’d all taken to calling it, behind the head’s back, ‘The Anti-Nativity’. Estella, the drama teacher, managed our teenage actors and Lily, the art teacher and my comrade-in-arms during the interminable staff meetings the head held, was leading the costume and set design side of things. I was there more in the capacity of a runner than anything, but it was all good fun, and later Lily and I would have a late lunch and a gossip in town.

At the moment, it was a good thing to keep busy.

I was faintly hung-over – feeling seedy but not sufficiently so to justify any more time spent in bed. I threw the covers off, willing myself to get up, finding I didn’t quite have it in me.

Eddy, I thought to myself, with a sick lurch of guilt and regret.

I forced myself on to my feet anyway. I felt worn out. I had dreamed of Bethan Avery. Before climbing into bed, I had Googled her, and spent hours on a Wikipedia trail full of stolen children and their murderers, each link leading to a new page, before I had dropped the whole thing in disgust and headed for bed.

But the damage had been done, and I had tossed and turned all night long, rebuilding the dead girl in my dreams. All I remembered now was someone offering me a thighbone wrapped in silk. ‘Oh God,’ I’d replied, paralysed with dread. ‘Is that Katie’s? No, no, it’s Bethan’s. Definitely Bethan’s.’

I also remembered Eddy was crying on the couch but wouldn’t tell me why, keeping his face covered with his hands. It had shocked me. I found it nearly impossible to imagine Eddy crying over anything.

I shuffled downstairs to make a cup of tea. I shoved our wine glasses into the dishwasher, deliberately forcing myself not to remember the humiliating events of the previous evening. I sat down in my nightshirt at the kitchen table and shivered – the kitchen has always been a cold room.

Through the window I could see the violent rose-gold of a brilliant dawn. It was going to be a pretty day.

I forced myself into my run, driving out my ghosts with each step, and when I got back I made sourdough toast and tea while I considered the early papers. After an hour or so of letting my tea grow cold, I decided that I wouldn’t entirely fritter the morning away. I had the other ‘Dear Amy’ letters to answer. I emptied out the contents of my bag and immediately put the essays back inside it. No thank you.

The letters lay tumbled out in front of me. I picked up one with an expensive-looking watermarked envelope, directed in a light, sloping hand. It contained a short missive admonishing me for mentioning that adoption or abortion was a possibility for the fifteen-year-old in last week’s issue, who had grown great with child after a night of passion with a member of the local rugby club.

The next was from a woman who I was sure had written before about the same thing: a husband who beat her up for her child benefit, after pissing his own allowance away down the village pub – a woman who needed a dialogue, not the occasional one-off. I read it again, rubbing my temples, and once more considered tracking her down before dismissing the idea. It would be a gross breach of faith and confidentiality. Instead I listed the women’s organizations I knew, with a note that I used to volunteer for the nuns in a women’s refuge and could vouch for the work they carried out.

The third was the killer. A lonely old man wrote an heroic elegy to his dead wife, describing wandering through his Edithless house; touching her things, arranging her photographs, passing the flowers she had planted, dead in their boxes and tubs. His children were trying to persuade him to go into a home, and though he couldn’t blame them, he wasn’t going to move away from Edith’s house. He could never have borne it. Still, it was terribly lonely, all the same.

I wrote the standard reply, listing all the local help groups and social clubs, but it was plain to see that he didn’t want social clubs. He wanted Edith.

After that I packed it in for the day.

After rehearsals, Lily treated me to lunch at the Oak Bistro, and despite the oncoming winter the day was bright and crisp and even a little warm, as though it had wandered in lost from another season. Boldly, we decided to eat in the walled garden, in splendid isolation. I ordered the tiger prawn linguine; Lily, raging carnivore that she is, went for the chargrilled rib eye without comment or apology.

It’s one of the things I really love about her.

‘You should ask them for a sabbatical at that paper,’ said Lily as we waited for our food, crossing her legs before her and making her elaborate patent-leather high-heeled boots creak.

‘The Examiner? What? Why?’

‘Don’t you have enough on your plate?’

I shrugged and regarded the contents of my glass of Prosecco. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

‘It’s a divorce, Margot, not a particularly large gas bill.’

‘Both are common.’

‘Oh, don’t do this,’ she said, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. This month, it was white-blonde with lavender streaks and mint-green tips.

‘Do what?’

‘Minimize everything. It’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing. All it does is piss people off because they know it’s not true and then it will make you sick again… don’t look at me like that.’

I kept looking at her, in that way I was not supposed to be looking at her.

‘Margot, I’m warning you…’

‘I’m still not seeing what good whining about my woes to the world will do.’ I put the glass down. ‘Besides, he dumped me for someone richer and prettier…’

‘And older.’

I managed a rueful smile. ‘It’s just too embarrassing to discuss in public. Better educated, too, which is the thing that stings most.’

‘Better educated.’ Lily snorted, her red lips contorted into a scowl. ‘She’s a professor in metallurgy. How’s that meant to make you a better person? How do you hold together a truly riveting dinner party with your anecdotes about smelting and mass-scale lead production?’

I burst out laughing.

‘It’s indium tin production,’ I corrected her. ‘They use it for touch-screens.’

‘There, see? It was so utterly fascinating the first time you told me that it stuck in my memory.’ She topped up her glass and mine. ‘Honestly, Margot, you’re worth ten of her. Ten of him, if we’re getting down to brass tacks. Greedy fucking chancer that he is.’

‘Lily…’

‘Well… it’s true.’ She reached into her bag, her heavy bangles clattering against one another. ‘Never mind him now. I’ve something to show you, I finished it this morning in rehearsals.’

She pulled out her sketchpad and handed it to me. It was a picture of our latest staff meeting, in two panels. The first was entitled ‘How We See Him’, and it was a caricature of Ben, the headmaster, leaning over his desk, shouting at us. His face was dark with rage. He sported a judge’s wig and full academic gown, and was carrying a huge paddle. The three of us – Lily, Estella, and I, sat in chairs opposite, only we were tiny little girls in pigtails and school uniforms, clearly terrified.

The next panel was called ‘How He Sees Us’, and this time, Ben was the tiny boy in school uniform, cowering in front of us. The three of us relaxed before him on what looked like thrones carved out of bones – she’d drawn us all as female monsters out of antiquity. Estella the harpy flexed a pair of wings and her birds’ talons crossed over each other at the ankles; Lily’s long hair was a cloud of hissing, multi-coloured snakes, and I sat on the end, leathery bat wings sprouting from my back, curved fangs gnashing against my bottom lip as I leaned forward, glaring at Ben, caressing the razor-wire whip in my clawed hands.

She had, in her light quick pencil strokes, captured me as one of the Erinyes: a Fury, an ancient Greek goddess tasked with hounding sinners to madness and death.

I laughed out loud.

‘I love it!’ I said. ‘It’s my new favourite portrait of me. Makes me look so much more approachable than the picture on the school website.’

She smiled, proud and pleased.

‘I thought you’d like it,’ she said. ‘And that whole chaotic…’

‘Chthonic…’

‘… Underworld goddess of vengeance and rage thing suits you.’ She took the pad off me and peeled the sheet off. ‘If you’d kept up that look at home, Eddy would never have dared to go elsewhere.’

I snorted out another horrified laugh. ‘You’re such a cow!’

‘I know,’ she replied with a kind of smug pride. ‘And it’s nice to be appreciated. Here,’ she was writing something along the bottom of the picture. ‘Take this. I drew it for you.’

Along the bottom she had penned, ‘Stay mad! Love, Lily.’

I was touched, suddenly terribly moved, and I realized I was in danger of bursting into tears. Because she was right – it had been tough, horribly tough, and humiliating and isolating and all the rest.

‘I don’t know what to say.’ I wiped at my eyes. ‘Thank you.’

She grinned. ‘Don’t say anything. Look, the food’s here. Let’s eat.’

Lily had to get back to her kids, and rather than return to my empty home I took the long route through Coe Fen, alongside the river, to get back to the Corn Exchange.

I struck off along the path through the marshes. I love it around here, especially in the autumn, when the tourists have eased off and the mist and the bowing shapes of the willows are at their most magical. I crunched through the wet, dead leaves. The path turned towards the Mill pub, and I followed it, enjoying the way the rain had made the place smell, while the river lapped softly beside me with its flotillas of parked punts, and the ducks struggled and bickered with one another. Somewhere a long way off a bonfire was burning, and the scent whipped briefly past my nose. It would be Bonfire Night soon, which pleased me, since I love fireworks. This year we would invite… but of course, I recalled, with a bewildered and sinking disappointment, we wouldn’t invite anyone over for Bonfire Night because Eddy didn’t live in the house any more and we were getting divorced.

I would have to get some treacle toffee together before then, I told myself. I’m a dab hand at the treacle toffee, me. In fact, I quite fancied some right now.

I had to pass by the Examiner offices to get to the sweet shop, and after briefly weighing up my alternatives, I went in.

There was a letter for me.

Dear Amy,

No one has come. I know it’s not your fault and that you are doing your best. It’s just that I didn’t tell you enough about how to find me. It’s hard, though, because I don’t know very much. Not only that but the things he told me might be wrong, or lies. I’m frightened that if I tell you something that’s wrong then you’ll never find me. That’s the thing that scares me most.

I don’t know much about where I am except that it is a cellar in a big old house. There is this kind of foam stuff attached to the walls so no one can hear me, but if I put my ear to the pipes I can hear things. Like, there are dogs that bark at night sometimes, though they sound far away.

I tried to peel a corner of the foam up, just a little, hoping he wouldn’t see, but he spotted it and went absolutely mental. He nailed it back down and said that if I did it again he’d hammer the nails into me next.

I believe him.

I can’t tell you anything else about which house I’m in, because he put a bag over my head while I was still in the car and I’ve never seen the outside of it. I don’t know anything else about it.

There are so many things I don’t know. I don’t even know what will happen to these letters, or if you are even reading them.

All I want is to get out of here and go home. Please, please tell the police or my nanna about this, because if they keep looking they are bound to find me.

Love,

Bethan Avery

P. S. Please help me soon.

I stood outside the offices, taking deep breaths. I felt cold and sick. I looked down at the smudged paper and the big, childish handwriting – so like the kind of handwriting I saw in class every day – and said, ‘This is a hoax, remember?’

It didn’t have the calming effect it was supposed to.

I examined the letter once more, minutely. It, like its predecessor, had been posted the day before I received it. It was written on plain white paper, which was certainly not seventeen years old.

It could not be from Bethan Avery.

And yet it was from someone.

I had an idea. I thrust the letter deep into my bulky bag and hefted it over my shoulder.

It was no use dwelling on these letters unless I had some grasp of who Bethan Avery was, and of what had happened to her – this dead girl who was now writing to me. I patted the bag paternally, feeling more in control.

I’d already done the Wikipedia Trail in search of information on Bethan Avery, and found only bits and pieces, hoarded in the corners of some very obscure websites. If I wanted to learn more, I’d need to up my game.

I walked to the Central Library in town, nestled in its sprawling complex of shops. I paused before the lifts for a moment, looking around for anyone who might know me, but I saw only strangers.

I couldn’t breathe, suddenly, and leaned my hand against the wall, trying to master myself.

No. I refuse to have another panic attack. I refuse.

As the lift inched down my heart was chilled and marble-heavy, and there was some sort of conspiracy afoot with my nerves, which didn’t want me to look into this any further. Determined to show them who was boss, I took a few deep breaths. I looked up, remembering what my therapist had told me – baby steps.

Just breathe.

The lift doors opened wide.

I balled my hands into fists, put one foot deliberately in front of the other, entered the lift and pressed the button.

These things will not conquer me.

The librarian, a tiny blonde twenty-something in a Riot grrrl T-shirt, looked up from her desk and smiled.

Don’t let anyone tell you that the gold standard of feeling old is when the police and doctors seem younger than you. It’s the librarians that will get you every time.

‘I’m looking for a book on Bethan Avery,’ I volunteered after a moment.

‘Who?’

‘She was a girl who went missing around here in the nineties. It was presumed she was murdered, but I don’t think they ever found a body. I had a look on the Internet, but couldn’t see any way to find out more.’

The girl frowned, a single line bisecting her white brow, and consulted her monitor, tapping the keyboard rapidly. ‘I’ve never heard of her. Hmm. She’s not coming up on the system. Would it be Local History, maybe?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so.’ This librarian would have been in primary school when it happened, no wonder she’d never heard of the affair. ‘I’d try True Crime.’

‘I’m not seeing anything,’ she said, ‘but we do have some true crime compendiums, maybe she’s mentioned in one of those… oh wait, I’ve got two copies of Snatched in Plain Sight: True Stories of Missing Children by Moore, Linda coming up here. And…’ She grinned in minor triumph. ‘You’re in luck. One of them’s in this branch and not on loan. You could try there.’

‘Thanks.’ I gazed about me. ‘Sorry, but where is True Crime? It’s not my usual sort of thing.’

‘Tucked away at the back on this floor. Follow me.’

She led me through the stacks towering over me on either side, redolent of paper and dust, but emptier than I remembered them being. From the opposite side of the shelf came the artificial cherry smell of cough sweets, and someone was murmuring into a mobile phone (‘tell him she’s just winding him up’).

‘I don’t want anything too sensational,’ I explained earnestly, my errand making me feel self-conscious and more than a little ghoulish. ‘I just want something with the facts.’

She made a rueful face, pulling out a large mouldy-looking hardback. ‘I think you might be out of luck there. This is it,’ she said. The book had a nasty, dated picture on the front, showing a doll leaking blood and a grainy black and white snapshot of a young dark-haired girl in a school uniform. Above this the title loomed threateningly, dripping Kensington Gore over the author’s name.

The librarian must have seen my scowl. ‘Yes, it’s a horrid cover, isn’t it?’

I thanked her and took the book with me to one of the study desks. My hands were trembling again. I had a doctor’s appointment on Monday night, where we would once again to-and-fro over blood tests and my paralysing fear of needles, and maybe when he made his ubiquitous offer of tranquillizers I’d take him up on it. He’d be thrilled.

I flicked through it, looking for an index. There wasn’t one, but there were plenty of badly reproduced photographs of smiling children, heartbreakingly oblivious to their coming fates; of the doors to red brick houses rendered sinister by their sheer innocuousness; of shifty men and gaunt women wearing the fashions of yesteryear; some in handcuffs and bracketed by policemen.

I opened the front of the book, thinking about abandoning the project, when suddenly something in the list of contents caught my eye: ‘Peggy’s Darling: the Tragic Case of Bethan Avery’.

The next time I looked up it was hours later and they were closing the library. I’d been reading, true, but mostly I’d been squinting, with increasing disbelief, at the photographs of Bethan’s diary included alongside the text.