Chapter Fifteen
‘We aren’t an Airbnb, James!’ I cry out, almost a yelp, like a frightened puppy.
I’m still holding onto the umbrella, and fling it about now, emphasising my irritation.
‘And look at this.’ I point down to the photograph, not wanting to pick it up.
‘She knocked it down by accident,’ he says, but a crease between his eyebrows forms as he studies the image.
‘She’s scratched me out of the picture, James!’ I whisper, feverish. Now, it’s undeniable. Now James has to see it. There is something seriously off about Raven. If that really is even her name.
He draws in a breath, and I guess he must decide it’s best not to respond at all because nothing comes out of his mouth.
‘I don’t want that girl roaming our hallways at night,’ I say, depositing the umbrella against a wall. It’s something I should’ve said long ago, put my foot down. Now, I wish I had sooner.
James brushes up the glass and I follow as he takes the dustpan to the recycling bin.
‘What do you suggest? Locking her in the guestroom at night?’ he asks, laughing as though it’s the most outlandish idea imaginable.
I don’t tell him I’m tempted to do just that, but he can tell when he glances up at me that I am.
‘We need to get some sleep,’ he says, flicking a switch that leaves us in darkness.
‘I know.’ I dip my head, exhaling into my chest. My eyes are heavy, itchy and irritated; they need to be closed.
But my mind is busy. There are things I need to do, to prove if my theory that Raven is Robin is correct .
. . and I can’t do that now. Not until she’s left.
I need to coax her, my husband and my daughter out of the house tomorrow without me, because I need access to the guest #room. I need to get this girl’s DNA.
For the next few hours, I don’t sleep. Not with her in the house. I can’t. She is the uninvited — and yet she is here, haunting me and my family.
The last of the summer’s humidity brews a rare thunderstorm for the southwest of England. It rumbles through the sky and rattles the house down to its core. I watch the flashes of lightning flicker through the bedroom as I lie awake in bed, revealing things in the shadows that set me on edge.
Only when the first crack of dawn slides through a gap in the curtains do I let myself shut my eyes and rest.
* * *
I dress slowly, slipping a silk ivory blouse over my head, the sleeves billowing at my wrists.
I’m going for chic, sophisticated, but I yawn.
Exhausted. I should’ve prioritised sleep more last night or requested a different meeting date that wasn’t the day after my fiftieth birthday party.
But if I’m being honest, I’m too excited about the chance of an interview to ask for any special favours.
I applied for the job in my maiden name, but I’m sure it won’t take long for them to realise who I am.
Grossly overqualified, I can only hope they give me a chance.
It’s my first interview in years. Financially, I don’t need a job, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting one.
I’ve often thought about working in a charity shop or something in a similar vein, but it’s too public.
I need something I can do behind a desk with limited interactions with other people.
All I want is a purpose, especially now Skyla is getting older.
After sixth-form college she’ll head off to university.
Oxford, hopefully, which suits me fine being less than an hour away.
Cambridge is another option, a little further away but not by much.
Thankfully it seems that, for now, she’s keeping close.
I don’t know what I’ll do the day she decides she wants to travel or move away, have some sort of a nervous breakdown, definitely — so this job interview is important to me.
I tuck the blouse into my high-waisted trousers.
Corduroy, wide leg, nothing I’d usually wear, but something I’d ordered especially for this interview from Mint Velvet.
The sort of thing I’d have looked at the price tag of in my thirties and scoffed at, walking away without a backwards glance.
But I have to admit, it feels nice being out of jeans and second-hand Vinted finds.
I feel, for the first time in a very long time, somewhat important.
Looking at my attire in the mirror, I’m reminded of who I used to be.
A nine-to-five office worker, a professional.
With my greys now covered from my hairdressing appointment, I even appear younger.
But I still look like Isabella Rushmore.
That is something that, despite my best efforts, I can’t change.
How soon will the employer realise? Will they proceed with the interview and get their no doubt pretty, young receptionist to send me a blunt email saying I’ve been unsuccessful shortly after leaving?
I sigh, smoothing down my outfit one last time as I wonder if I should even bother going — but I know I need to. I need to do this, for me.
I try not to dwell on the outcome of the interview as I head downstairs to make a cup of coffee for the drive, though job interviews have always made me tense.
Even before the world came to know who I am, I was always a nervous wreck with them, so the apple I force down churns with the nerves in my stomach.
When I pull open the drawer to the bins to chuck away the apple core, I stare down at the broken glass at the top of our recycling. The shards shimmer under the pendant ceiling lights, their glint a threat. An unwelcome tremble scurries up the back of my neck.
The sooner I figure out the truth about Raven, the better. Luring the girls and James out of the house is going to have to wait, though. I need to get this interview over with first, and I need to put my all into it. It’s the first thing I’ve done for me in many, many years.
‘Morning, Mum,’ Skyla says as she enters the kitchen. ‘Wow. Don’t you look smart.’
As she checks me out, there’s an impressed quirk to her eyebrow. She’s being warm, friendly, her old self. It’s a wonderful surprise, although her moods are like playing Russian Roulette these days. You never know what you’re going to get.
‘Thanks.’ I grin, slamming the drawer to the recycling closed. She doesn’t need to see what Raven did with our photograph. I’ll buy a new frame and have the picture reprinted before she notices.
‘I’ve got a job interview,’ I tell Skyla, proudly, popping a teabag into her Friends mug.
Her eyebrow climbs. She knows how big this is for me, even if she doesn’t really understand why I want a job I don’t technically need given our financial situation.
‘Oh, you’re headed to town? Mind if I grab a lift?’ Raven asks from the doorway. She looks at me expectantly, eyes winged with black liner, arms folded across her chest.
I don’t want to say yes, not after last night and what she did to the photograph, but I’m also aware that me driving her into town would mean getting her out of the house — and I’d like to keep her out.
As soon as I get a moment alone with Skyla, I’m going to have to have a chat with her, tell her I don’t think guests are a good idea at the moment. I’ll come up with some excuse, feign an illness if I have to. Do people still quarantine if they have Covid? I’ll have to check.
‘I’m leaving in five minutes,’ I say coldly, turning my attention towards my travel mug.
I stir my latte sachet into the boiling water, grab my things and loiter out on the drive.
I tear my skin from my lips, drawing blood, but I suck it up and keep gnawing.
Having Raven alone in the car with me? I’m nervous.
Getting behind my steering wheel, I wait for her to climb in.
She sits in the passenger seat beside me, her black fingernails picking at a hole in her leggings.
I can’t stop imagining those fingers rummaging through my underwear drawer, through my things.
It makes me feel genuinely sick. Everything’s back in its rightful place now, after being put through the washing machine, but I don’t imagine I’ll be wearing any of that stuff again.
I can’t stop wondering why she wore them.
And what the hell was she doing with them in her room?
Her room . . . no. It’s my room. My family’s guestroom.
The strangest thing of all is that she didn’t even seem to acknowledge that I’d found my things squirrelled away with her, or that I’d taken them all back.
Her poker face is impressive to say the least. I think about asking her about my things now while we drive to town, but I find I can’t get the words out.
It’s too awkward and I don’t know how to broach the matter.
‘What were you doing with my underwear in your room?’ is the weirdest thing to ask a girl you hardly know.
My daughter’s friend. Someone I’m still trying to figure out.
Someone who could still very well be my missing child.
And so we drive in a surly silence, my thoughts flicking to the party last night and how she called me mummy, and the photograph she destroyed in the middle of the night.
These are weird things, unexplainable, and I feel like she’s doing them intentionally to wind me up.
But why? What is she hoping to achieve? What does she want from me?
It’s only as I’m parallel parking that I realise I spent the entire drive fretting about Raven rather than preparing for my interview.
A new flutter of nerves swarms my insides.
What am I going to say if they recognise me?
You’d think after all these years I’d have something drawn up in my head.
Some sort of script at the ready to handle this very situation. But I don’t.
Unbuckling the seatbelt, I pick up my travel mug and exit the car. I expect Raven to at least thank me before she starts to walk away, so when she doesn’t, I can’t quite bite my tongue.
‘It’s a pleasure,’ I call after her sarcastically, and watch as she turns back towards me with a scowl hardening her features.
There’s a pulsing in my temple from the adrenalin.
Confrontation isn’t something I tend to enjoy, nor is it something I do often.
I glance down at my watch. Five minutes until my interview.
I don’t have time for this. I always used to like showing up fifteen minutes early, just for good measure, but now I’ll be lucky if I can reach the door to their office on time.
‘Did you ever actually want me?’ Raven’s voice is so soft I hardly hear it, yet those words cement in my brain. ‘Or did you get rid of me on purpose?’
My knees turn weak, my ankles buckling beneath me. ‘Stop saying things like that,’ I shout across the car park to her, and already people are turning to stare.
Tears prick at my eyes. I swipe at them in frustration. I can’t cry now, and I need to go. ‘I don’t know what it is you want,’ I spit. ‘But this needs to stop.’
I stride past her and keep walking until she says something so earth-shattering, the ground falls away from me.
‘I just want to come home, Mummy.’
My head turns in her direction, but I’m caught off guard.
She’s right beside me, and with one quick knock her shoulder connects sharply with my arm, ramming deep, down to the bone.
Pain flares as I suck in a breath through my teeth.
I don’t notice the burning sensation for a couple more seconds, but then it hits me.
Scalding hot coffee seeping in through my silk blouse, staining the material.
‘Oh my God,’ I cry, pulling at my clothing. My skin is screaming as my mind races. I don’t have a change of clothes, and I must have less than two minutes to be at my interview.
‘Oops,’ Raven says, just like she said last night when I found her with the photo frame on the floor. Her head tilts to the side, a smile playing on her lips as she looks down at my ruined outfit. ‘Good luck with your interview.’
Standing in the middle of the car park, drenched in coffee, I watch her walk away.
* * *
I decide to go to the interview regardless of the giant stain down my front.
In my head I think perhaps they’ll admire my tenacity, my courage to show up despite some pushbacks, but things go from bad to worse.
They don’t tell me they recognise me when I sit in front of them, but I can tell by the way their eyes widen when I smile that they do.
But it isn’t even that that completely throws me.
It’s the interview itself. Things have changed since I was in my mid-thirties.
The company sit me down and have me do a timed test on a slippery, scratched little iPad, which I fail miserably.
Without a calculator on hand I’m trying to do arithmetic calculations in my head, and I haven’t had to do any sort of maths for years.
I hand the iPad back dejectedly and they sigh as they see the results.
Something about their disappointment feels personal.
‘I’d be good at this job, you know. I know I would,’ I say as I gather up my things to leave.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ a tight-lipped woman with enough hairspray in her hair to set her on fire responds.
Every part of me wants to fight for this role, to beg them to give me the chance.
I need this, I want to say. Instead, I nod and slip out of their office, counting the minutes until the rejection arrives in my inbox — because what company would hire a woman who showed up late, covered in coffee, who just so happens to be the mother to a missing girl.
Cleared of being a suspect, but still having her name slandered daily.
Employing me would be bad for their company; they’d never say it, but I know it’s true.
I’d be a liability — and no one wants that.
I drag myself back to the car, wanting to be back home where I’m safe, unjudged, sometimes even wanted.
I want to be where I can open a bottle of wine and stew.
Raven sabotaged my interview. She purposefully bumped into me, making me spill my drink over myself.
And those things she was saying — once again making me believe she’s Robin.
Why would she do that to me? I need to find out if there’s any truth to what she’s saying, and I know just how to find out.
I climb into the car and scroll through the contacts on my phone.
I haven’t had to reach out to DCI Gary Quinn for a long time — but now I hover my thumb over his name.
Do I call him, tell him what’s happening?
I’ve wasted his time so often in the past, thinking girls are Robin.
He’s never been anything but wonderful to me, gentle, kind, empathetic in a way that makes me feel like I’m cuddling a pillow every time I speak to him.
But I can’t. Not yet. I don’t know if this girl really is Robin or not, but I need to find out before I get the police involved.
And I need to find out why she seems to hate me.