Chapter 24
Suzie turns onto Knox Row fifteen minutes later.
She doesn’t know Cathy’s address but she’s hoping if she knocks on enough doors, she’ll be able to find her.
The street is daytime quiet; there is the distant sound of a dog barking and the muffled thud of music coming from a house a little farther ahead, but there are no people, no little children playing.
Suzie is starting to think this is a bad idea.
Should have just taken the note to the police, instead of running off like that and leaving poor Teddy.
You’ll be in trouble if the area manager comes in.
Normally, this internal pressure would be enough to send Suzie scurrying back to work. Being spontaneous doesn’t come naturally, and being irresponsible is practically anathematic to her. Suzie realizes that she hasn’t slept right since she broke into that house.
Which house, Suzie?
She stops the car, ignoring the persistent, sly little voice.
Sometimes it sounds like her mother’s voice, sometimes her own.
To indulge it, she knows, will give her the equivalent of acid indigestion, only in her head instead of in her stomach.
Instead, she slides down the window and leans out, trying to catch the attention of a young boy walking past with a skateboard under his arm.
He wears a cap pushed back on his head and jeans so baggy Suzie thinks they could probably do double duty as a parachute.
“Excuse me! Hey! Are you Danny Maddon?”
The boy looks up and she knows it is him immediately.
Nothing is known of Danny’s father—even in a town this size, some secrets stay kept—but whoever he is, he barely registers on this boy’s face.
Danny is all Cathy: cheekbones like knife blades, prominent nose, hard jaw.
He even has her deep-set, serious eyes. Danny regards Suzie evenly, as if sizing her up.
“I’m looking for your mum. She lives along here, right?”
“Who’re you?” Danny pulls his earbuds out and takes a step off the curb, moving closer. He has a phone in his hand, and Suzie realizes with a sinking heart that he is filming her. “I haven’t seen you before.”
She forces what she hopes is a friendly smile. “I’m a friend of hers. We went to school together. Is she home?”
“How come you don’t know where she lives if you’re her friend?” He lowers the phone, but he’s still looking at her with suspicion.
You’re Cathy’s boy, all right, Suzie tells herself, but she feels sort of sorry for him too. He looks rattled, and he’s obviously trying to protect his mother—from what, Suzie isn’t sure. But he’s just a kid, really. It’s a lot to carry on his shoulders.
“I just need to give her something, Danny, that’s all.”
He hesitates, and she is sure he is about to turn around and walk away, maybe stick his middle finger up for good measure, but then he nods toward the end of the road and tells her, “Last house just before the turning place. It’s the only one with the bins outside because Mum never gets the day right. ”
“Thanks, Danny.” She is about to drive on, but Danny remains where he is a moment longer.
He is frowning, as if deep in thought. “Is this about my aunt Hazel?”
Suzie hesitates, unsure what to tell him.
Teddy always tells her she is good with children, but she thinks he means the young ones she can get on her knees with and build train tracks and Lego houses and dress up little plastic dolls.
She’s useless with teenagers, frightened of them almost. They’re abrasive, like carpet burns.
“Yes. It is.”
“Is she okay? Aunt Hazel was meant to meet us last week, but she never showed up. Mum said she always was a selfish bitch, but deep down I can tell it’s upset her.”
Suzie considers this. “I don’t know, Danny. That’s the truth. I hope Hazel is okay, and I’m sure she never meant to upset you or your mum. Sometimes things just happen that are outside our control.”
Danny shrugs. “I’m not bothered. I haven’t seen Hazel since I was a kid. I always thought she was pretty weird. One time she was babysitting and kept playing tricks on me.”
Suzie leans forward, interested. “What kind of tricks?”
“Dumb stuff. Like, she kept running past my bedroom doorway, but when I called out to her, she was in another part of the house. When she read me a bedtime story, her voice went all deep and it was like she had two voices and one was saying horrible things, but she couldn’t make it stop.
” He lifts his chin defiantly, as if daring Suzie to contradict him.
She doesn’t. She nods.
“So yeah, I don’t really care about Aunt Hazel one way or another, but I do care about my mum, so don’t go upsetting her. Okay?”
Suzie tells him she won’t, but it’s a lie. She thinks what she has to show Cathy is going to scare her quite a lot, but instead she gives Danny her biggest smile and tells him he’s been a great help.
Two minutes down the road, Suzie reaches the turning space that Danny mentioned and pulls up to the last house on the row.
She is in front of a small gray house built much like all the other small gray houses.
It has a neat front garden and a poster in the window which reads BOLLOCKS TO brEXIT!
Outside it are two wheelie bins, one black, one green. Both are full.
As she walks up the front path, Suzie is thinking about the way those letters had surfaced on the paper, tarry brown, the color of nicotine. Just two words in block capitals, taking up most of the available space.
BELLE VUE.
Cathy must see her coming, because she is opening the door before Suzie is even halfway up the path.
She gives Suzie a weak smile, pushing her hair out of her face.
She looks tired, Suzie thinks, but that’s unfair.
She has two children, one of them still in nappies.
If what Suzie hears around town is right—and it usually is, if there’s one thing Idless knows how to do properly, it’s to talk and bitch about each other—Cathy has also been working multiple jobs.
On top of that, her sister has gone missing, so Suzie can forgive a little tiredness.
But it isn’t just tiredness, is it? It’s strain. Deep lines are carved into her skin, her eyes pouched and bruised looking. Suzie almost feels sorry for her, but not quite. She hasn’t forgotten the way Cathy had spoken to her at their last meeting.
“Any news?” Suzie asks, digging her hands into her pockets. You can taste the snow on the air, sharp and bright as polished coins.
Cathy shakes her head. “Nothing. It’s been four days now. I dreamed about her last night. I called her name, and when she turned round, she had no face. Isn’t that horrible?”
“Yes.” Suzie nods. Behind Cathy, Scout’s round, cheerful face appears, cheeks ruddy with cold.
“I saw the weather report this morning. They say snow is coming in overnight.” Cathy’s voice abruptly cracks, taking Suzie by surprise. “What if she’s lost out there, Suzie? She might have survived this long, but she’ll freeze to death if she doesn’t find shelter!”
Suzie watches as Cathy’s mouth draws down in agony and she begins to cry, black rivulets of mascara streaking her face.
Scout cries out in alarm and reaches up to his mother, who lifts him into her arms and kisses the side of his head tenderly.
“I’m okay, Mummy’s okay,” she tells him, over and over again.
“I don’t think Hazel’s outside,” Suzie tells her when she can trust her voice again. The sight of Cathy crying is shocking to her. The vulnerability is so raw and unexpected, it’s like catching her in her underwear. “You’d better let me in. I’ve got something you need to see.”
Inside Cathy’s kitchen, there is a stack of laundry on the counter and a radio playing loudly on the shelf above.
Cathy apologizes for the mess, sniffing and wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
She sits Scout in the lounge in front of the television and offers Suzie a cup of tea, but Suzie shakes her head, explaining she has to get back to the pharmacy.
“I came straight here,” she tells Cathy, putting her bag on the dining table and unzipping it. “I thought I’d better show you right away.”
Suzie recounts the story of Hazel visiting the pharmacy and buying the items listed on the receipt.
Then she tells Cathy about the tall man who had come in that morning and how he’d left the same receipt on the counter, only this one, Suzie points out, had the little smiley face drawn in the corner.
She explains about the secret messages passed between her and Hazel and Abigail back in school, but she doesn’t mention that Hazel had stolen one of Cathy’s letters to demonstrate the process.
Despite the tears and this feeling of a shared secret, delicate as a cat’s cradle spun between the two of them, there is still a part of her that is afraid of Cathy.
She remembers how it feels to be on the bad side of her.
By the time she is telling Cathy about heating it over the radiator, Cathy has moved to the window and opened it. She lights a cigarette and holds out her hand for the receipt, studying it under the overhead light for so long that Suzie starts to fidget in the draft.
“Belle Vue is a hospital, isn’t it? Down by Falmouth.”
Cathy nods, sucking in the smoke. “It’s not really a hospital. It’s a private treatment center.”
“What’s the difference?”
“About twenty-five grand.” She looks up at Suzie and laughs hollowly.
“Joe put Hazel in Belle Vue late last year. She was receiving treatment for what he called ‘violent delusions.’ There were lots of women in there like her, my mum said. Not mad enough to go into psychiatric wards but not quite sane enough to be anywhere else. I thought it sounded like one of those wanky health spas on steroids, but Mum said it did her a lot of good. Hazel got some pills and got some counseling, and everyone thought she’d got better. ”
“Maybe she’s gone back in there and this is how she’s telling us.”
Cathy frowns. “But she’d just pick up a phone, wouldn’t she? Why all this secrecy?”
“Because she’s having violent delusions?”
The two women look at each other across the table. Distantly, the Idless church bell tolls off the hour. The open window lets in cold air; the brisk scent of pine and deadfall rolling in from the hills.
“It’s two o’clock. I should head back.” Suzie picks up her bag.
“This man that came into the chemist, what did he look like?”
“Hard to say.” Suzie shrugs. “I felt like I knew him from around town, but I couldn’t tell you who he was.
He was older, maybe in his fifties. Had a cap on, and kept his hood up, like he was wary of being recognized.
He was a bit twitchy, couldn’t meet my eye.
I remember thinking at first that he was after the methadone clinic.
He smelled bad too. Like old clothes pulled out of a trunk. ”
Cathy nods.
“Oh! He disappeared.” Suzie looks up, suddenly animated. “I forgot that. He was asking me about the half-life of Leprazine, said they were for his fiancée who was waiting out in the car. He went to speak to her and never came back.”
“His fiancée? Do you think he meant Hazel?”
Suzie shakes her head. “No, he didn’t mention her by name. Listen, Cathy, I really have to go.”
Cathy tails her to the door. She asks if she can keep the receipt, Suzie tells her of course.
Outside, the sky is hard and gray, like washed stone.
Cathy opens the door and looks over her shoulder at Scout in the living room before saying softly, “Listen, Suzie, I’m sorry about the way I spoke to you the other day.
My head’s all over the place right now.”
“I understand.”
“So when can we go?”
Suzie frowns at her, uncomprehending. “Go?”
“To Belle Vue. I can ask the neighbor to babysit. We can be there by four.”
Suzie is speechless. She feels the wind scissoring her hair like cold, curious fingers. “Why don’t you just call them, Cathy?”
Cathy colors, her cheeks flushed with heat. “I’m blacklisted. When Joe had Hazel admitted, he put me on some restricted access list. I couldn’t call and I couldn’t visit. They said it would be detrimental to her recovery.”
“Why?”
Cathy takes another look at her son in the next room. She keeps her voice low. “Because we fell out. You must have known about it. I know what this fucking town’s like, Suzie, I know how people talk to each other. You saw the way Mr. Jenner was treating me, like I was some sort of criminal.”
Now it’s Suzie’s turn to blush. She nods. Of course she knows, everyone knows. Cathy had stolen the gifted money from Joe and Hazel’s wedding reception. Nearly four thousand pounds in cash, give or take. At least, that’s what people had been saying.
“I’m blacklisted,” Cathy says again, “but you’re not, sweetie. We just need to confirm she’s there. That’s all. Then maybe I can get some sleep.”
“I have to work, Cathy. I need to open the shop back up. Maybe afterward?” Teddy won’t like that, the mean little voice says, and Suzie can’t ignore it, because the voice is right.
“They don’t allow visitors in the evening. I tried back last November. Couldn’t get past the woman at the desk. That was before she knew who I was. After I told her my name, she threatened to call the police. Besides, it might be snowing later, and then we won’t have the choice.”
Suzie glances away, chewing her lower lip.
She’s late back to work, she’s angsty. Her heart is beating so fast she feels like it might punch right out through her chest. She knows Teddy will be pissed and he’ll know she’s keeping something from him.
The skin of her hands is burning, the compulsion to wash them like a pulse right in the center of her head. She digs them deeper into her pockets.
Hazel isn’t even her sister—she’s an old friend she hadn’t seen for twelve years until just the other day.
She tells herself she can say no. She can walk away.
But then an image comes to her, of Hazel standing outside the house on Beeker Street, her shadow long and crooked on the pavement.
Two shadows, the voice in her head reminds her, and one of them was monstrous.
“Okay.” Suzie nods briskly, pulling her bag tighter around her. “Go on and speak to your neighbor.”
“Thank you! Oh, thank you, Suzie. I’ll pay you back somehow, I promise you.” Cathy is already reaching for a pair of scuffed cowboy boots just inside the door. Her eyes are gleaming, and Suzie returns her smile, even though deep down her unease is twisting like a worm on a hook.