Page 22

CHAPTER 22

SALLY – D AY T WO

Sally is sitting on the end of the bed, staring at the framed Whistler postcard on the dressing table.

It’s getting late and she’s drained. She feels a shiver but can’t work out if she’s cold or just afraid. Fear is her default setting now; she can’t remember what it was to feel normal in her skin. She glances first to the hook on the back of the door and then to the chair beside the wardrobe but there’s no dressing gown. She tries to think but can’t remember where she left it. Finally, she stands and paces to the chair to put a cardigan over her T-shirt. She waits a moment but finds that she doesn’t feel any warmer. Just feels as she has since Amelie disappeared. Out of place in this space. In the world.

She just stands there until there’s a noise downstairs. The scraping of a chair. Some clicks. Matthew moving around. She pauses until it’s quiet, then sits once more on the bed to take in the picture on the dresser again.

It’s a postcard of a Whistler painting called Three Figures: Pink and Grey which she, Carol and Beth saw in the gift shop on a gallery visit when they were at boarding school together. She’s always felt this sweep of warmth when she looks at it. A happy memory. An emblem of a friendship still dear to her. But the postcard brings no warmth or comfort today. Today it makes her think of Carol being met by police at the airport and the worry of what might happen next. Matthew has warned that no way will the police just take Carol’s word that she was abroad when Amelie went missing. They’re going to check every detail.

Sally reaches out to take the frame into her hand and stares at it unblinking until her eyes start to water. At the gallery shop all those years ago, they became almost giddy when they first came across the picture.

They had this thing where Beth hated the grey blankets she’d been sent to school with (it was before the popularity of duvets) and Carol had swooped in to cheer her up by sharing her soft, pink blankets. They mixed them up – grey blankets underneath and the soft pink blankets on the top. So the Whistler, with the grey and pink colour scheme, seemed painted for them especially. Three young women with everything ahead of them.

In a youthful surge of joy, they bought three copies of the postcard and promised to always keep them close. Sally has kept hers on show ever since. Beth uses hers still as a bookmark – always in her handbag. As for Carol? Sally realises that she does not know where Carol keeps her Whistler or even if she still has it.

Sally stands again, the frame now pressed against her chest. How she wishes she could go back in time and undo it all. That youthful but terrible mistake they made.

The truth is she can only think of Carol as gentle. Damaged – yes – but kind to the core.

Though Matthew is right and that’s not how Mel will see it.

They have a daughter missing. And a dear friend who will now be misunderstood and questioned by the police.

Again.