Page 69 of Then She Vanished

‘Did you manage to get a look at him?’

‘Not really. Only from the shop. He was in a Ford Escort, so I couldn’t see well, but it was a man. Nice square jaw and hair thatfell like curtains. All the boys and young men had that cut back then, but it did cover his face. I told the police about him.’

‘Did he ever come into the café?’

She shook her head. ‘Have you even read the file?’

Gina didn’t want to discuss the fact that they were having trouble locating the original interviews. ‘As we are looking into the case again, we felt it would be better to speak to the original witnesses ourselves.’

‘You should stop fussing over that case. Girls like her go wrong and there’s nothing you can do for them. I said my bit and all she did was chew gum and roll her eyes. She knew what she was doing when she went off with the man in the silly red cap.’

‘Red cap?’ Gina knew for definite that the other person involved must be older than John Doe as John Doe would have been a child back then. But they both had a red cap, maybe the same red cap.

‘Yes, the man with the silly curtain haircut also put on a red baseball cap with some writing on the front.’ She let out a huff of a laugh. ‘My stupid husband was putting the rubbish out and he came back in saying that he wished we’d gone to Florida.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I asked him what was going through his head. He said nothing, just that the man’s cap had the word Florida written on the front. We told the police this at the time. Ford Escort, curtain haircut and red Florida cap.’

FORTY-FOUR

GIRL

As I lie on my back in the cold, I see stars. They twinkle and I wonder if I’m finally free. I place my hand over my empty stomach, knowing that I’d lost my baby boy. It was a boy. A mother knows. I felt our bond from the beginning.

I look up. Darkness envelops me, but the stars; they are so beautiful. Maybe that’s where my baby is now, twinkling in the sky and looking down on me.

If we’ve battled through all of time to be together and have the opportunity to be mother and father, our baby wouldn’t just vanish into nothing. He existed and his matter is out there. He is the star and I am the star catcher.

Reaching up, I try to hold the twinkle, but it vanishes and my hand brushes nothing.

I hear his words floating in the breeze, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. They’re warped.

Tears fill my eyes. If I carry on following the darkness, maybe I’ll be set free, but my freedom won’t be the beginning of another chapter, it will be the end.

Maybe I’m letting go of my life.

This is some kind of purgatory that I need to figure out. Is there any way back to my little bunker? I just want to startagain and I want to be close to him and love him. We can’t wait until the universe puts us together again. We might live ten lives before that happens. Ten wasted lives. I want this one. I’m not finished with it yet.

What is death like? This is something I’ve started to ponder more over the past few days, or is it weeks? My head is like cotton wool. I’ve tried really hard to remember what the in-between is like; that place between death and rebirth.

He can remember. He tells me that it’s beautiful, that all the colours are iridescent and a calming sound makes a person feel safe, like whale noises, but they are angels.

I’m his angel and he needs me.

I begin to hum a tune, one I made up, in the hope that he can hear me as I leave this life, then I feel a thump as my head hits my pillow.

I’m still here.

Water or sweat drips down my face, but I can’t see. The darkness was real, it’s all real, and the twinkling above is the camera as it watches me.

The raging heat inside me feels as though it’s about to escape. Am I cold, am I hot? I don’t know. I shiver uncontrollably until I throw up. The in-between is beckoning me, maybe I need to give up. Maybe it’s time. This pain is too much.

A flash of my past fills my mind. Meowdon. Mum, Dad. The game of chess we started playing that we never finished. I’d be so much better now. My mum and me lying on a yacht off the South of France where she prepped for a rich person’s dinner party. I had a life out there in the real world once. My drawings that filled my bedroom back then, I want it all back. I want my life and my baby back, but that’s not how life works.

I can never have these things back.

A murmur filters through my ear. It’s not him. It’s someone else.

If I had the strength to cover my clammy chest up, I would, but I’m dying. I can’t move and now, maybe, just maybe, this other man who whispers something I can’t quite make out is the new dreamer. Maybe his dreams are now my dreams.

I feel pressure on my chest and a faint light comes from one corner of the room. I prise my eyes open a little more, but the brightness sends a flash of pain through my head so I close them tightly.

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