Missing Abby Read online

  ‘Maybe sometime …’ I said, and then wanted to tie and gag myself.

  ‘Yeah, that's OK.’

  ‘I'll, um, ring you,’ I heard myself mutter.

  Her dark eyes met mine steadily. ‘Right.’ And it was obvious that she was saying, We both know you won't, so why bother lying about it?

  I let out a breath, looking away. How awkward could something get before you just died ?

  The next stop was mine. I leapt up like a Jack-in-the-box, grabbing my stuff. ‘Well, I've got to go … see you.’

  Abby propped a knee to her chest, looping her arms around it as she looked out the window. ‘Yeah, see you.’

  ‘Bye.’ I tried not to seem like I was in a hurry, but I stumbled as I made my way down the aisle, knocking my shopping bag against the other seats. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered to an old lady with blue-rinsed hair.

  ‘Hey, Emma …’ called Abby.

  What now? I winced and turned around. She smiled at me, but it didn't reach her eyes.

  ‘You know, you'd really love D&D … or at least, the old you would have.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. And I scarpered off the bus as fast as I could, bursting into the September sunshine like an escaped prisoner.

  I sat moulded to the kitchen chair while Jenny spoke to the police. ‘My stepdaughter, Emma Townsend … yes, that's right, she says she saw her Saturday afternoon, around one o'clock …’

  In the front room I could hear the TV going, and Nat murmuring to herself as she played some sort of game. It all sounded unreal, like noises beaming down from Jupiter.

  Finally, Jenny hung up the phone.

  ‘What did they say?’

  She turned the kettle on, looking a bit pale. ‘They're going to come talk to you at school this morning.’

  ‘At school? But—’ I bit off the rest of my protest as about a dozen different emotions swept over me. Fear of what had happened to Abby, anger at Abby for running away or whatever she had done, ruining my first day back – sudden terror that she had done it because of me, because I had hurt her feelings so badly on the bus …

  ‘Are you all right, Emma?’ Suddenly Jenny was at my side. She handed me a fresh cup of tea. ‘Here, drink this, love.’

  I looked at the clock. ‘I'm – I'm going to be late.’

  ‘I'll drive you. I have to take Natalie to school anyway.’

  I drank the tea, feeling cold, and wondered what Jo and Debbie would say when police officers turned up at school to talk to me.

  ‘Ems, look at your hair ! You look fantastic!’ cried Jo when I walked into school. She and Debbie were waiting for me by the trophy cases in the foyer, as usual. Jo was almost as tall as me, with sleek blond hair and a wide smile, and Debbie was just the opposite – small and dramatic-looking, with wavy dark hair and big eyes.

  I rushed over to them, and we all hugged. We had zapped texts and e-mails back and forth all summer, but it had been weeks since I had seen either of them. Jo had been visiting her aunt in Shropshire, and Debbie's family had been away on holiday.

  ‘It looks great!’ breathed Debbie, touching an auburn-tinted strand on my shoulder. ‘Ver y sultry. Did you get it done in Chicago?’

  ‘No, here.’

  ‘But I thought your dad—’

  I managed a grin. ‘Jenny and I ganged up on him, and he caved in eventually.’

  ‘You look so sophisticated … what kind of tints could I get done, do you reckon?’ Jo flipped up a strand of her own hair, grimacing at it.

  ‘Don't be daft, yours is perfect the way it is! Mine needed a lift – oh-so-boring brown isn't exactly a fashion statement.’

  Jo and Debbie laughed, and a feeling of confusion rushed over me. What was I doing, babbling away about fashion statements? I opened my mouth to tell them about Abby … and then shut it again. I didn't know where to start.

  The first bell split the air, saving me.

  ‘Right, where do we go, then?’ Jo fished her schedule out of her bag.

  ‘English block, room 12A,’ said Debbie, reading over her shoulder. ‘Mrs Conway – excellent!’

  We grabbed our bags and started heading towards our new form room, jostled in the stream of green uniforms.

  ‘Right, Ems, tell us about Chicago!’ Debbie walked like a dancer, light and bouncing on her toes. ‘You're so lucky. My family just went to France again – this completely lobotomised village where the most exciting thing is the bread van coming around twice a week.’

  ‘Oh, can't we hear about that instead?’ Jo's mouth was solemn. ‘It sounds really educational.’

  ‘It's boring enough to be educational. Come on, Ems, entrance us.’

  ‘Yeah, let us live vicariously through you.’ Jo bumped me with her arm.

  ‘Um …’ My hand tightened on the strap of my bag. It felt like I was travelling further and further from being able to tell them about Abby. But – oh, so what? She was probably safe and sound at home by now! Probably the police wouldn't even turn up.

  We got to the English block, and leaned against the wall with the others while we waited for Mrs Conway to open the door.

  ‘Ems … ’ whined Debbie. ‘Talk. ’

  I shoved Abby away. ‘Well, it was completely amazing. Mum works at this gallery near the lake, and we went to all these really arty shops shops there – you know, places where you stare at everything and think yes, it's nice, but what is it? Then we did the tourist thing and went up the Sears Tower – it's wild; it's so high that you feel dizzy just going up the lift …’

  I didn't mention the other stuff that had struck me – like the way the lake looked like a cold, exotic sea, so that you could almost imagine a Viking ship cresting over the horizon, or the way the wind howled around the skyscrapers. I had learned a thing or two at Balden.

  ‘It sounds fantastic!’ breathed Jo. ‘All those shops!’

  I flipped my hair back. ‘I know! Oh, and then Paul, that's my stepfather, took us to a Cubs game. Baseball is completely mandatory in Chicago. Paul says if you don't go to the games, they tar and feather you and throw you over the border into Canada …’

  My voice faded away as I saw Mrs Gates from the office hustling towards us, plump and determined-looking.

  ‘Emma, you're to come to Mrs Ottawa's office immediately.’

  Mrs Gates kept giving me strange looks over her glasses as we walked down the empty corridor. Suddenly I realized that she thought the police were there for me. Like I had been stealing cars or something.

  A wild urge to giggle swept over me. But then we got to Mrs Ottawa's office, and the laugh died in my throat.

  Mrs Gates knocked, opening the door. ‘Here's Emma.’

  The headmistress stood up from behind her desk and came over to me, beckoning with her hand. ‘Emma, good. Come in, dear.’

  Mrs Gates shut the door behind her, giving me a final hard stare.

  I could see the police constables, a man and a woman, sitting in a pair of office chairs in a blaze of white and black. I swallowed, suddenly feeling as guilty as if I had been stealing cars.

  ‘Here, Emma, have a seat.’ Mrs Ottawa steered me to a chair. ‘This is PC Lavine and PC Morton. They just need to ask you some questions – nothing to be afraid of.’ She nodded encouragingly at me as she sat back down, her round face kind.

  ‘I'm PC Lavine, Emma,’ said the woman, smiling at me.

  I tried to smile back, shifting on the uncomfortable plastic seat. I was surprised at how pretty she was – she had soft milk-chocolate skin, and sleek blackhair. She even wore lipstick.

  ‘We understand that you saw Abby Ryzner on Saturday, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, um – we were on the bus together, coming home from town.’ I rubbed my palms on my skirt.

  ‘Are you sure it was Abby?’ asked PC Morton. He was about Dad's age, with receding blond hair and a bit of a paunch. He flipped open a notebook and scribbled something down, just like on TV.

  ‘Yes, I'm positive. We – used to be friends. I mean, we
used to go to school together … anyway, we sat together and talked. I'm totally positive.’

  ‘What time was this?’ asked PC Lavine. Beside her, PC Morton's pen was scratching away non-stop.

  I watched it move across the page like I was hypnotized. ‘About one o'clock.’

  ‘Which bus?’

  ‘The number 56 – the one that goes past Garemont Estate. That's where Abby and I both used to get off when I lived there, but now I get off before then, at Larkwood.’

  PC Morton looked up. ‘OK, Emma, I'd like you to just tell us everything that happened. What did Abby say when you spoke to her? Did she seem strange at all?’

  No stranger than usual popped into my mind.

  ‘Um … well, she was talking about Dungeons and Dragons, this game she was playing with her friends … and she said it had been sort of boring, the way they had been playing, and that she was going to start a new sort of game herself, or something … oh, and she mentioned this game that the – that the two of us used to play, called the Esmerelda game …’ I trailed off, twisting the sleeve of my blazer.

  ‘What was that?’ asked PC Morton.

  My skin prickled hotly. ‘Nothing! It was just … stupid. We pretended to be novice sorcerers, and we had to defeat this evil enchantress called Esmerelda. I mean, it was years ago; it was just a pretend game.’

  The questioning went on for ages, over an hour. They were really nice about it – especially PC Lavine, who had sympathetic dark eyes that seemed to understand everything I said – but it just went on and on. They asked practically everything you could imagine, and then asked it all again in slightly different ways, urging me to remember everything I could.

  It wasn't easy, since I had tried so hard not to listen to Abby at the time. Plus I was so nervous I could hardly remember my own name.

  Finally, at the end, I took a breath. ‘When I got off the bus, she was sort of – angry at me, I guess.’

  ‘Angry how?’ asked PC Lavine.

  ‘Well, she – she made a sort of snide comment about the “old me”. You don't think that she ran away because of that, do you? Because I wouldn't go with her that afternoon?’

  PC Morton glanced up sharply from his notepad. ‘Do you think she ran away, then? Did she say or do anything to give you that impression?’

  ‘No, but – well, what else could it be?’ I stared at him in bewilderment, and saw a small, sad smile cross his face. He flipped his notebook shut and stood up. PC Lavine did too, reaching for her hat.

  ‘Emma, thank you; you've been most helpful. Let us know if you remember anything else … we'll be back in touch if we have any other questions.’

  It's not ever y day that the police turn up at St Sebastian's. Jo and Debbie were agog when I slipped into Maths twenty minutes late, after missing English altogether. As I handed Mrs Bienvenuto my late pass, I saw that they had snagged a table near the back, and were saving a seat for me. Jo waved at me, motioning to the empty seat beside her.

  ‘I think your friends would like for you to sit with them,’ said Mrs Bienvenuto dryly, peering at them. Jo grinned back at her, unabashed. ‘Well, go on, then. We're all waiting.’

  I hurried to the table in the back, feeling everyone's stares on me.

  ‘You were gone hours !’ whispered Debbie when I sat down. Her small, vivid face was all eyes. ‘What happened? Was that police car here because of you?’

  ‘Um – yeah, I suppose.’ I fumbled through my textbook with cold fingers. All I wanted to do was put my head down on the desk and cry. Except that I was not someone who burst into tears during class any more.

  ‘Ems … what's going on?’ Jo's usually the calm one, but for once she looked as wound up as Debbie.

  Taking a breath, I glanced at the front of the room. ‘… So, if our imaginary firm's profits rose by fifteen percent to seventy-two thousand pounds …’ Mrs Bienvenuto was entranced with the figures on the whiteboard, not looking at us.

  I flipped to a fresh page in my notebook and wrote, This girl from my old school has gone missing, and I was the last person to see her on Saturday. We were on the bus together, coming home from town.

  ‘Oh, my god,’ whispered Debbie. ‘What's happened to her, do you think?’

  ‘I don't know,’ I whispered back. ‘She didn't seem like she was running away or anything—’

  I suddenly realized that the class had gone silent. Mrs Bienvenuto stood drumming her fingers on her desk. ‘If you're quite finished talking, Emma, may I continue with my lesson?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘You're sure, now?’ There were a few snickers.

  ‘Yes, completely.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ She turned back to the whiteboard.

  ‘Later, OK?’ whispered Debbie, and I nodded. Then I spent the rest of the lesson staring down at my textbook, trying to figure out how I could tell them about Abby without mentioning what had happened at Balden.

  After school that afternoon, I curled up on the settee watching the soaps. Nice safe pretend worlds. Pippin, our ancient ginger cat, jumped creakily into my lap and curled up. I stroked him, grateful for his warmth

  – even though he drools a bit, and leaves a blanketof orange hairs attached to everything he touches.

  ‘You're a good cat,’ I whispered, scratching him behind the ears. He kneaded my leg with his paws, humming deliriously to himself. At least someone was happy.

  Around six o'clock, I heard Dad come home, and low murmurs drifted out from the kitchen. Jenny, filling him in on what had happened. My muscles tightened as I strained to listen.

  Suddenly my attention jerked back to the TV set, and I sucked in my breath.

  Abby was on the news.

  I watched, sickly mesmerized, as they showed what looked like a recent home video of Abby and her two brothers messing around in the Ryzner's overgrown back garden.

  ‘… the Brookfield teenager, who has been missing since Saturday afternoon. Hampshire Police have launched an intensive investigation to find Abby …’

  On the video, there was a barbecue going, and Abby pointed at it dramatically, laughing. She had on her black combats again, and a T-shirt with an elaborate Celtic design.

  The home video vanished, and a newsreader gazed out solemnly from the screen. ‘Today an old school friend reported seeing Abby on a bus, just after one o'clock on Saturday. But the Hampshire teenager never reached home, although the bus stop was less than a five minute walk from her house.’

  Suddenly Mr and Mrs Ryzner were on the screen, perched on the beige settee in their living room. Shock rocked through me at the sight of Abby's mum. Mrs Ryzner was always so elegant – and now she just looked old and tired, with a sagging face and her hair scraped back in a ponytail.

  ‘Abby, if you've run away, please come home. We won't be angry, love, we promise.’

  Mr Ryzner's arm tightened around her shoulders. He had dark bruises under both eyes. ‘Please, Abby, if you're watching this – just come home, and whatever the problem is, we'll work it out.’

  The smooth-voiced newscaster came on again. ‘Police have not ruled out the possibility of foul play in Abby's disappearance, and are urgently appealing for any witnesses who –’

  Suddenly I couldn't take it any more, and I lunged for the remote, switching the TV off. Then I started as Dad sat down on the sofa beside me. I hadn't even known he was in the room.

  ‘Hang on, love—’ He switched the TV on again. But the news had gone on to something else by then, thank god. He turned the volume down, and put his arm around me.

  ‘Jenny told me what happened. Are you OK?’

  ‘Dad, do you think she's all right? I mean, they said – they said there might have been foul play.’ The words sounded grim, archaic.

  ‘I don't know, love. I wish I did.’

  I stared at him, and then looked quickly away, my fingers knotting together. I couldn't bear to think of it. I just couldn't.

  He let out a breath, rubbing his chin. ‘Jenny's goi
ng to ring her parents, see if there's anything we can do … I can't even imagine what they must be going through.’

  Jenny hardly knows the Ryzners – trust Dad to get out of doing that sort of thing! Actually, I realized suddenly, I should be the one to ring them, not Dad or Jenny.

  Except for one tiny problem: they probably hated me.

  Dad shook his head, pulling his tie free of his shirt and dropping it on the cushion beside him. His temples were frosted with grey, like someone had swiped a paintbrush over his dark hair. ‘It sounds terrible, but I have to say I'm glad you aren't friends with Abby any more.’

  I stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’

  He settled back against the sofa, frowning at the TV. ‘Well, who can say whether it was a factor or not, but she does seem to have gone off the rails a bit. Only ever wearing black, and all that spooky make-up. God only knows what sort of people she was hanging around with. They could have been into drugs, or worse.’

  Abby, doing drugs? She was completely manic on the subject; drugs were for losers and wasters.

  ‘You're wrong. She wouldn't do that.’ My voice shook.

  ‘Well, maybe not.’ Dad didn't look convinced.

  Nat had edged into the room at some point, watching us with wide, steady eyes. ‘Mummy said that you're very sad right now, and I'm not to disturb you,’ she announced.

  ‘Oh.’ My arms seemed to cross over my chest of their own accord. On TV, a woman was holding up a packet of loo roll like it was a gold trophy.

  Nat looked down, dragging an exaggerated toe across the carpet. She looked like a miniature sailor in her blue and white school uniform. ‘And she said I shouldn't remind you about playing with me today. Like you said we'd do.’

  I almost laughed. She was so obvious.

  ‘Not today, Nat,’ said Dad. ‘Maybe Emma will feel like playing with you tomorrow.’

  Nat's lower lip considered sulking, and then she changed her mind and came closer, leaning against the sofa and peering up into my face. ‘Why are you sad?’

  ‘Because …’ I shook my head.

  ‘She's worried about a friend of hers,’ said Dad. ‘But don't pester her about it, OK?’