The Girl Who Never Came Back Read online

  "I'm so sorry," her mother whispered. "I'm such a terrible person. Poor Sophie."

  "Sophie?" Charlotte replied with tears in her eyes. "Poor Sophie? What about me? What about Charlotte? What about -" She paused for a moment, staring at her mother's frail, aged face, and finally she realized that there was no point directing her fury at this pathetic old woman. The whole thing just felt completely futile.

  "I'm so sorry," her mother said, her voice so quiet now that she could barely be heard. "Poor Sophie."

  "What about Sophie?" Charlotte asked eventually, looking over at Ruth. "Where is she?"

  "I -" Ruth started to say, but the words seemed to be sticking in her throat.

  "Ruth?" Charlotte continued, with a slow sense of realization starting to creep up through her body. "Where's Sophie?"

  "You wouldn't understand."

  "Where is she?" Charlotte asked again, more firmly this time.

  Ruth paused for a moment. "I think..." She paused again. "I think you'd better come with me," she said eventually. "I suppose... I've got something to show you."

  Twenty years ago

  "It's okay, Charlotte," the police officer said, smiling as she leaned closer. "I just want to get an idea of where you've been for the past year. Is that okay? Do you want to talk to me?"

  Charlotte stared at the woman for a moment, before glancing over at her mother, who responded with a brief nod. Turning back to the police office, Charlotte narrowed her eyes as she stared at the woman's face. "Okay," she said eventually, even though she would have preferred to have gone upstairs to play alone in her room. Still, her mother had promised her that the police officer's visit would be over soon, so she figured she should just be polite.

  "You were gone for a very long time," the officer continued. "Do you realize that? Your mother and your sister were very worried about you. Everyone was worried. We had people out looking for you. We even had divers in the river, in case you'd got into trouble while you were swimming."

  Charlotte waited for a question. So far, she felt that people were just talking to her, telling her things that she should already know.

  "So can you tell me where you were?" the officer asked. "I know it might be difficult, but everyone here wants to help you. It's just that when little girls go missing, even if they come back and everything seems okay, we like to make sure that they were okay while they were gone. Do you understand that?"

  Charlotte paused. "I don't know," she said eventually.

  "You don't know where you were?"

  Charlotte shook her head.

  The police officer looked over at Charlotte's mother, before turning back to Charlotte. "It's okay," she said after a moment. "You're not in any trouble. No-one thinks you've been naughty."

  "I know I'm not in trouble," Charlotte replied. "I just don't know where I was." She took a deep breath, aware that both the police officer and her mother were staring at her. She felt as if no-one believed her, even though she was doing her best to answer their questions.

  "What's the last thing you remember before today?"

  "I..." Charlotte paused again. "I don't know."

  "Do you remember being with anyone?"

  She shook her head.

  "You must have missed your family, though. Do you remember missing them?"

  She looked over at her mother.

  "It's okay," her mother said calmly. "Be honest."

  Turning back to face the police officer, Charlotte paused for a moment. "No," she said finally.

  "Do you remember anything at all? Even the slightest thing? We just need one memory, somewhere to start."

  "I remember walking along the tow-path this morning," Charlotte replied. She was trying to think back to an earlier moment, back to the time before today, but her memory was hazy. A few vague images and impressions loomed from the darkness, but nothing she could wrangle into clarity. It was as if a lock had been placed on her earlier memories, and although she tried to push her way past -

  "Perhaps Charlotte is tired," her mother said suddenly, breaking her train of thought. "She's had such a hard day."

  "I appreciate that," said the officer, "but I think -"

  "She doesn't remember," Charlotte's mother continued, crossing the room and putting a hand on Charlotte's shoulder as if, suddenly, she was taking charge of the situation. "Maybe she never will. We can try to push her, but I imagine that a child's mind is harder to unravel."

  "But still -"

  "I'll talk to her," her mother said firmly. "If she's going to open up to anyone, it'll be me."

  The officer was clearly a little concerned, glancing first at Charlotte and then back at her mother.

  "I really must stress the importance of having a trained professional talk to her," the officer said after a moment. "The sooner we get someone to talk to her, the more likely we are to be able to get to the truth."

  "Let me tell you something about my daughter," Charlotte's mother replied. "I know her. She's a delicate and sensitive young girl, and I can assure you, she won't respond well to having some stranger try to burrow his or her way into her mind. It's better if I'm left to talk to her. If anything's to come out, it'll be when she's talking to me, not to anyone else." She paused. "Do you intend to force the matter?"

  The officer paused. "I can't make you put Charlotte into therapy," she said after a moment, clearly choosing her words carefully, "but I really wish you'd reconsider. A trained psychiatrist has techniques that -"

  "A psychiatrist's training is no match for a mother's instinct," came the reply. "I'm her mother, and I know her best." With that, she gave Charlotte's shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

  "But -"

  "I think we're done here," Charlotte's mother added, as if to end the conversation. "There's no good that can possibly come from talking about this any further. We'll only end up disturbing the girl, and I feel that her future happiness and contentment are more important than delving into the past. You've already had her physically examined and determined that nothing untoward happened in that regard. It seems to me that there's no likelihood of some marauding monster being out there in the wilderness, preying on young girls, and I won't have my daughter's fragile psyche disturbed simply to satisfy your professional curiosity."

  "You seem to have made your decision," the officer replied, starting to pack her notes away. "I think you're making a mistake, but -"

  "She's back," Charlotte's mother pointed out, leaning down and giving Charlotte a hug. "That's all the matters. I thought she was lost forever, but she came back. She seems to be okay, and that's the most important thing." She paused. "Charlotte, why don't you go upstairs and play with Ruth for a few minutes while I talk to the nice police officer?"

  Charlotte paused, feeling as if something was wrong. For a moment, she felt a memory trying to push through her mind; something about a market, and a woman scolding her for losing her gloves, and then she had an image of another woman leading her away, as if -

  "Charlotte," her mother said, a little more firmly this time, "I'd like you to go upstairs."

  Without replying, Charlotte turned and headed through to the hallway. She could hear her mother still talking to the police officer as they went to the front door, and as she made her way up the stairs, Charlotte couldn't help but think that something still felt very wrong. She knew she should be pleased to get back home, and she felt as if she was being ungrateful, but whole house seemed strangely unfamiliar, and she had no sense that she'd ever really met her mother or her sister before. Sitting on the top step, she listened to the distant voices of her mother as the police officer was herded out of the house. Finally, the front door slammed shut, and Charlotte realized that she was alone with these people. With a deep breath, she decided that the problem was entirely her fault, and that she'd just have to work hard to fit in with the rest of her family.

  She felt certain that she'd feel normal again one day, even if it took a little longer than expected.

  Today
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  "You knew," Charlotte said as she followed Ruth across the lawn, heading to the bottom of the garden. "You knew about it all, didn't you?"

  Ahead of her, Ruth said nothing. She just kept walking, leading her sister past the rundown old greenhouse and toward the tow-path.

  "Admit it," Charlotte said, her mind still racing as she tried to make sense of everything. She felt that she was on the verge of tears, except something was forcing her to stay strangely, preternaturally calm. "You knew. All this time, you knew and you never said anything."

  "I suspected," Ruth replied as they reached the tow-path and started walking along the side of the river. "I didn't know, but I suspected. There's a difference." She led Charlotte toward the cave, but finally they headed off through the forest until they came to the little shed that their father had used all those years ago. As she reached the door, Ruth stopped to get the keys from her pocket. "When you came back," she continued, "I knew that something was wrong. I looked at you, and I felt... It wasn't you. Everyone else accepted you so easily, but I could tell it wasn't really you. As I grew up, I became more and more convinced that the real Charlotte had never come back, that you were some kind of imposter, but I couldn't work out why. It wasn't until much later that it even occurred to me that our dear saint of a mother might actually be involved."

  Charlotte watched as Ruth unfastened the padlock and swung the door open. Seconds later, a young girl came running out of the shed and clasped her arms around Ruth's waist, hugging her tightly. After a year's absence, Sophie was finally back.

  "You kept her in here?" Charlotte asked, stunned by the thought that her own sister could be so cruel. "You kidnapped your own daughter?"

  "Hey, sweetheart," Ruth said as she crouched in front of Sophie and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Look, I brought your auntie Charlotte to see you."

  Running over, Sophie gave Charlotte a hug.

  "I missed you!" the little girl said, although she seemed happy enough. After a moment, she turned back to Ruth. "Does this mean we can go home now?" she asked. "I miss TV!"

  Ruth nodded.

  "I want to see Daddy," Sophie said.

  "Go on," Ruth replied. "Run ahead. Just remember what I told you to say, okay? Daddy's going to be very pleased to see you, you know. Just tell him what we rehearsed, and everything'll be fine."

  With a grin, Sophie turned and ran through the forest, making her way back toward the house.

  "You kept her in this place?" Charlotte asked, stepping past Charlotte and peering into the shed. It was immediately clear that Ruth had gone to great lengths to ensure that Sophie had been comfortable. There was a bed, and a little table with a lamp, and various toys and games, and even a games console. It was like some kind of perfect hidden den. "You kept your own daughter locked up for a year?" she continued, turning to Ruth. "For a whole year?"

  "She was happy down here," Ruth replied cautiously. "I made sure she had everything she could possibly want. I told Tony I was going for long walks, but in reality I was coming down here to spend time with Sophie. I told her that Tony was busy, and I was able to distract her enough that she didn't push too hard to go back to the house. She had trouble sleeping at night, at least at first, but eventually I was able to make her see that it was fun to be out here. She didn't have to go to school, she didn't have to eat her vegetables or do anything she didn't want to do. I turned it into a game, and she played along. She was very brave."

  "But the police must have searched the shed," Charlotte said after a moment. "They went over every inch of this place."

  Smiling sadly, Ruth walked over to the far side of the room and reached down, before slowly lifting the edge of a floorboard. "I got Sophie to hide in the same place where Mum made you hide all those years ago, while she was persuading you to forget your old life and teaching you to be Charlotte. The power of suggestion, huh?" She paused. "I told Sophie it was part of the game. She had to be very quiet and very good." Pausing again, she lowered the loose floorboard. "I had to force the issue, Charlotte. If I hadn't done all of this, we'd have all had to carry on pretending that you came back when we both knew, deep down, that something was wrong."

  "But why?" Charlotte asked. "What possessed you to do something like this to your own daughter?"

  "I had to make that old bitch tell the truth," Ruth replied. "I'd pretty much managed to piece together what had happened, but I needed to force the truth out. At first, I thought that if Sophie disappeared for a few days, it'd force you to remember the truth. When that didn't happen, I realized that I needed to string things out a lot longer and force Mum to..." She paused. "I was willing to push Mum right over the edge, you know. All I cared about was the truth. I was convinced that Sophie's disappearance would eventually spur her to come clean, but the dementia complicated things. I was starting to think of ways to bring the whole thing to an end, and then..." She paused. "And then my sister's poor little body turned up, like a miracle."

  "Did you make that happen too?" Charlotte asked. "Did you find the body?"

  Ruth shook her head. "That was a coincidence."

  "And the little girl's silhouette the other night? Was that your doing as well?"

  "No," Ruth replied. "At first, I thought that Sophie had maybe left the shed and come back to the house. I was panicking, but it wasn't Sophie."

  "Then who was it?"

  Ruth shrugged. "A trick of the light? Shadows? A coincidence, I guess."

  "A coincidence that happened right before Charlotte's body just happened to break loose and float along the river?" Charlotte replied, trying to work out what, exactly, had happened. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was one final part of the puzzle left to fall into place. After all, it seemed too neat that she'd just spotted the body just a few hours after the whole family had seen a girl's silhouette in the darkness.

  "What Mum did," Ruth continued after a moment, "was illegal. She deserves to go to jail."

  "You're one to talk," Charlotte replied. "Did Tony know about all of this?"

  "Not a thing. I kept him completely out of everything."

  "So you let him believe that his daughter was missing?" Charlotte replied. "For a whole year?"

  "He'd never have gone along with it."

  "Of course he wouldn't. It's insane."

  "The truth isn't insane," she replied. "The truth is never a bad thing. Sure, I had to bend a few rules in order to tease it out, but we got there in the end. Sophie's not going to be damaged by all of this. She'll be fine. I made sure to home-school her while she was in the shed." She paused. "I'm certain that you'll understand my point of view eventually," she added after a moment. "When you get past your sense of shock and righteous indignation, you'll realize that this all had to happen."

  "You're out of your mind," Charlotte replied. "You crazy bitch, you're stone cold out of your fucking mind."

  Ruth smiled. "All I wanted was to force the truth to the surface. Was that so bad? We're the victims in all of this, Charlotte. Mum lied to me and made me believe you were my sister, and she took you away from your real family and forced you to be someone else." She paused. "So are you going to go and tell everyone the truth? Or are you going to accept that everything I did, I did in the name of family, and truth, and love?"

  Charlotte stared at her sister for a moment, unable to comprehend the insanity of everything she was hearing. The thought of Sophie being held in the shed for a whole year, regardless of how often Ruth visited and kept her entertained, was shocking, and Charlotte felt as if there was no end to the madness. Still, at the heart of the storm, there was the reality that a young girl had died. Charlotte Abernathy, eight years old, had been killed in a horrible accident in the cave, falling to her death and probably freezing to death in the darkness.

  "What are you going to do?" Ruth asked. "Are you going to report me for what I did?"

  "Report you?" Charlotte paused. "I... no."

  "You'd have every right to," Ruth continued. "I wasted police time
. I abducted my own daughter. I'm sure they'd be very interested to talk to me."

  "I'll make sure Tony knows," Charlotte replied. "As long as he gets Sophie away from you, that's enough for me."

  "Don't talk nonsense," Ruth replied.

  "We'll see."

  "And what about Mum?"

  Charlotte shook her head.

  "You're going to let her get away with it?"

  Charlotte stepped back out of the shed and stared at the forest, and at the distant tow-path. Everything seemed so complicated, but there was one option that made the whole mess just go away. She felt that she should stay and help to put things right, but at the same time she craved the freedom and sanity of a quick, easy end to the drama.

  "Charlotte?" Ruth continued after a moment. "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to go home," Charlotte replied, turning back to face her for the last time. "Back to London."

  Ruth nodded.

  "And I'm going to stay there," Charlotte continued. "I'm going to stay in London and I'm never going to come back here."

  "Don't over-react."

  "Oh, I think I'm under-reacting right now," Charlotte replied, with tears in her eyes as she forced herself to stay calm. "If I was over-reacting, you'd be missing some fucking teeth by now."

  "Tell me your news," Ruth replied, a hint of desperation creeping into her voice as she patted the makeshift bed that she'd provided for Sophie's captivity. "You said earlier that you had something exciting to tell me. Come on. Sit down and give me the gossip. What's happening? Have you met someone?"