Say You're sorry

16

There’s a note from Charlie written on hotel stationery.

Gone to a party. Won’t be late. Cxx

A party? No mention of where, when, who she’s with. What constitutes “late”? It’s only six o’clock. She’s allowed to have a social life. She’s sensible and mature for her age, but looking seventeen doesn’t change the fact that she’s only fifteen. Two years is a lot when you’re that age. Fifteen is more Britney than Barbie. Fifteen scares the hell out of me.

I try her mobile. She’s not answering. Maybe she’s ignoring me on purpose because I wouldn’t let her go to London on her own.

Four sealed boxes have been delivered in my absence-statements from the original investigation, along with timelines and phone wheels. Drury has written a note: “Knock yourself out.”

I pick up the first of the transcripts.

It’s dated Monday, September 1, 2008. Sarah Hadley, Piper’s mother, told police that she’d woken just after seven on Sunday morning and thought Piper had already gone to her riding lesson because she wasn’t in her room.

At nine o’clock she phoned the riding school and one of the instructors, Mrs. Clayton, told her that Piper hadn’t shown up. Piper’s mobile had been confiscated when she was grounded for an earlier indiscretion so there was no way for Mrs. Hadley to call her.

“I was angry at first,” she told police. “It was obvious Piper had snuck out of her room and stayed all night with that McBain girl, who is nothing but trouble. We told Piper she couldn’t go to the funfair, but she disobeyed us and went out anyway.

“Piper has a blind spot when it comes to Natasha McBain. I don’t like pointing the finger at particular people, but that girl is bad news. We tried to tell Piper, but what can you tell a teenager, eh? They never listen.”

I carry on reading statements, periodically glancing at the digital clock between the beds. At midnight Charlie still isn’t back. If I call Julianne she’ll panic. Blame me. I try Charlie’s number again, leaving another message, trying to take the strident tone out of my voice.

Where is this party? Charlie doesn’t know anyone in Oxford. She could have met them today, which isn’t reassuring. Then it dawns on me. How stupid! She’s not in Oxford; she’s in London.

I dial Julianne’s number, fortifying myself. She’s awake instantly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you have a number for Jacob?”

“Why?”

“I think Charlie is with him.”

“When did you last see her?”

“This morning.”

“Christ, Joe!”

There are so many things I know Julianne wants to say, but thankfully she holds back. I can picture her in her flannelette pajamas, fire-engine red, padding down the hall to Charlie’s bedroom, looking through Charlie’s desk, her corkboard, her address book.

“Why do you think she’s with Jacob?”

“She said she was going to be at a party and wouldn’t be late.”

“What party?”

“That’s just it-I think she went to London instead.”

“Where were you?”

“I’ve been busy today.”

It sounds like a lame excuse.

“I can’t find a number,” she says. “Her friends might know.”

“No. Wait. Look at the last mobile phone bill. Charlie’s calls will be listed.”

Julianne goes downstairs to the kitchen where we keep the household bills in a drawer with the checkbooks and our passports. I listen to her breathing, which sounds judgmental. Accusatory. I was supposed to settle this issue of the inappropriate boyfriend.

Julianne is looking down the list of numbers. She tells me one comes up more than any other. It must be Jacob.

“Do you want me to call him?” she asks.

“No, I’ll do it,” I say, jotting it down.

“Ring me back.”

“As soon as I know something.”

She won’t sleep now. She’ll lie awake worrying.

I try the number. The first attempt goes to Jacob’s voicemail. I try again. This time he answers, shouting to be heard above thumping music He’s at a party or a nightclub.

“Yeah.”

“I need to speak to Charlie.”

“What?”

“This is Charlie’s father. Where is she?”

He hesitates. “Charlie who?”

“I know she’s there, Jacob. Put her on.”

Another pause. I can picture him, lean and sharp-faced, with drooping trousers and a leather biker jacket. Blood surges into the top of my skull and I can feel my fingers working on the phone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. Wasted. Drunk. High.

“Listen, Jacob, up until now I haven’t had reason to hate you or want to hurt you. Charlie is fifteen. You’re an adult. There are laws.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Is that a licensed venue, Jacob? Is Charlie drinking? You’re corrupting a minor. There are laws about grooming underage girls.”

“Fuck off!”

“Did Charlie tell you about me? Did she mention that I work with the police? They’re tracking this mobile. They can pinpoint your location to within fifty yards. I’m giving you the opportunity to help yourself, Jacob. Let me speak to Charlie.”

He pauses. Tells me to hold on. I’m listening to whining synthesizers and thumping bass beats. Is it a dance track or a techno song? I’ve never known the difference.

Charlie picks up the phone.

“Hello.”

“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Where are you?”

“London.”

“Where in London?”

“Camden.”

She starts to explain, growing tearful.

“I meant to be back by now. I thought I could catch a train and you’d never know. Jacob wanted to go to this party and now he’s wasted… and my phone is dead… and it’s too late to get a train.”

I can picture her standing slightly pigeon-toed, pushing her fringe from her eyes. My mouth is clogged up and I can barely speak.

“It’s OK, Charlie.”

“You’re angry.”

“No.”

“Please don’t be angry.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“That means you’re really angry.”

“How much money do you have?”

“Eleven quid.”

“What’s the address of the party?”

“Are you going to call the police?”

“Someone else.”

Vincent Ruiz answers on the second ring. Insomnia replaced his third wife or maybe he just retired from sleeping when he quit the Met and handed back his badge.

Ruiz is a friend of mine, although we started off disliking each other when we first met eight years ago. That’s one of the intuitive things about life: meeting people that we seem destined to know. Ruiz is like that. Our initial mistrust grew into respect then admiration then genuine affection. Sacrifice comes last. Ruiz would give up a lot for me, perhaps even his own life, but he’d take a dozen people down with him because he doesn’t surrender without a fight.

“This better be important,” he barks down the phone.

“It’s Joe. I need your help. Charlie’s in trouble.”

I can hear him sitting up, swinging his legs out of bed. Cursing. Fully alert now.

“What’s wrong?”

“I stubbed my toe.”

He’s looking for a pen. I give him the address.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Pick her up. Put her to bed. I appreciate this. I’ll take an early train.”

“I’m on it.”

That’s what I like about Ruiz. He doesn’t need to rationalize or debate the pros and cons of a given situation. He goes with his gut and it rarely lets him down. Other people need to feel good about themselves, usually at the expense of others, or they keep a ledger of favors owed. Not Ruiz. When Julianne and I separated, he didn’t take sides or pass judgment. He stayed friends with both of us.

Before he hangs up: “Hey, Professor, did you hear they just brought out a new ‘Divorce Barbie’? She comes with all of Ken’s stuff.”

“Fetch my daughter.”

“Done.”

Julianne picks up on the half-ring.

“Charlie’s fine. Ruiz has gone to pick her up.”

“Where was she?”

“With Jacob.”

“Where?”

“He took her to a party and then got wasted instead of bringing her home. She’s pretty upset.”

“She should be.”

“I’m sorry-I should have been watching her.”

Julianne doesn’t respond. I know she’s angry. I had one job to do-look after Charlie-and I proved myself incapable. Useless. Feckless. Pointless. Aimless.

I wish she’d shout at me. Instead, she says goodnight.

I lie awake until Ruiz calls to say that Charlie is asleep in his guest room. It’s after three. I won’t sleep now. So I pack Charlie’s things and check out the train timetables. I’ll take the first available service to London and then drive Charlie home. We’ll work out a story in the car, polishing the script until we have something that Julianne accepts.

I miss this. I know that sounds bizarre, given what’s happened tonight, but I miss the daily dramas of being married, the ins and outs of everyday domestic life. We’ve been separated for three years, but whenever something goes wrong Julianne still calls me. In the event of an emergency, I’m still her go-to man, the number one person in her life.

There’s a downside, of course. She wants me to handle the bad stuff, not the good stuff.

I don’t hear him coming.

I don’t hear him move the furniture or open the trapdoor. It’s strange because normally I’m such a light sleeper.

When I do wake, I think it must be the police. Tash has brought help. They’ve found me. But then I hear his voice and my heart freezes and the cold reaches all the way to the ends of my fingers.

He’s already down the ladder. Standing over me. He grabs my hair and pulls me out of bed and throws me against the wall, bouncing my head off the bricks. He does it again, holding my hair, making syllables into words as my head hits the wall.

“YOU… THINK… YOU… ARE… SO… FUCK… ING… CLEV… ER!”

I crumple on the floor, trying to crawl away, but he grabs my leg and pulls me across the concrete. I can feel the skin being torn from my knees and elbows.

A forearm snakes around my neck. He pulls me back into his chest and wraps his fist in my hair.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“Tell me-what are you sorry for?”

“I don’t know.”

The blade of the knife is pressed under my left eye, digging into the skin.

“Do you remember how I cut her? Do you want that to happen to you?”

I shake my head.

“When are you going to learn?”

“I will.”

“I’m trying to save you,” he says, almost pleading with me now, still tightening his arm across my neck. “I’m trying to save you from yourself.”

I try to nod, but I can’t move my head.

“You smell!” he says, pushing me away. “Don’t you ever wash?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You keep saying that. You think I’m stupid?”

“No.”

“You think you’re clever helping her escape. She’s not coming back. She’s dead. You killed her. It’s your fault.”

I don’t believe him. He’s lying.

I’m lying on the floor. He kicks me before I can curl into a ball. I do it anyway, trying to protect myself, covering my head.

I hear him moving, but I don’t look up. I can hear water echoing against the metal sides of a bucket. He stands over me, pouring the water slowly over my head and my arms and legs. The cold takes my breath away. He fills the bucket again. I don’t move.

Here it comes again. He kicks me.

“On your back! Open your legs!”

I turn over. He pours the water on my groin and tosses me a scrubbing brush with hard bristles.

“Wash yourself.”

I don’t understand.

He kicks me again. “I said, wash yourself.”

I use the brush, rubbing it along my arms.

“Not there! There!”

He points. I put the brush between my thighs.

“Scrub!”

I hesitate.

“You do it, or I’ll do it for you. That’s it. Harder! Harder!”

I can’t see through the tears. I can barely hear him.

When he’s satisfied, he takes the brush away from me. Then he collects the remaining food in a plastic bag, my last can of beans. He carries it up the ladder and turns off the light.

“When you’re really sorry, we’ll talk again. Maybe then I’ll turn the lights on.”

The trapdoor shuts. The darkness comes to life, breathing into my ears, whispering, sighing.

On my hands and knees I crawl across the room to the sink. The vomit that comes out of me is bitter water. My clothes are soaked. The bunks. The bedding. I still have gas in the cooker.

I make myself a cup of tea, feeling my way around the basement. Then I sit with my head over the bedpan, wanting to be sick again. I’m not scared of the dark any more. I’m used to it now. The darkness used to be like death, now it’s like the womb.

He told me nobody wanted me. He told me they stopped looking because nobody cared. He said Tash was dead. I’m not going to believe his lies.

I shake the ladder. I shout at the trapdoor. “I need a dry blanket.”

Nobody comes.

“I need a dry blanket.”

Still nothing.

“I’m sorry.”