So how was Alice supposed to resist? It was Mr Wilson’s fault anyway, not hers. He shouldn’t have read her English homework so suspiciously. Just because a few characters in a composition have a conversation about truth and secrets and best friends, it doesn’t mean that she was talking about her own truth, secrets and best friends. Doesn’t he know what fiction is? OK, so, in this case, it wasn’t totally fiction, but it was so out of order for him to report her to the headmistress. Mrs Wilson. That’s what she and Cara would have gigglingly called him if she’d been there, his voice was so high-pitched. But she wasn’t there, was she? That was the whole problem.
So Mrs Cavendish had called Alice into her study and talked in very airy-fairy terms about truth and how helping a friend isn’t always by doing what they ask you to do. Sometimes you have to tell people everything you know about a friend in order to be the best friend you can. Mrs Cavendish’s eyes did not stray from Alice’s for one syllable. By the end of the lecture, Alice was sure that Mrs Cavendish could hear her brain, and that there was little point in keeping the secret because Mrs Cavendish must already know it.
‘OK,’ said Alice, nodding bravely. ‘I’ll tell.’
Then in came Mr Belvoir with his questions. What had she seen? What had she heard, smelled, believed? What had Cara told her? Would she swear on that in court? Did she know where the man could be found?
All these questions, she’d understood. They reminded her of Monsieur Poirot and Mr Holmes, whose stories she’d listened to on Audible.com with her parents in the evening when homework was over. Non-police male detectives asked odd, detailed questions and achieved miraculous results, often changing the world with the results – reappearing the missing, making dead people live. But then there were questions that she didn’t understand at all, even in the Poirot/ Holmes world. Questions that left her a little uneasy. Questions about Cara’s mum. About Cara’s mum’s husband. Personal, private questions, about habits, ways of living, that left her feeling dirty. And perhaps Mrs Cavendish felt dirty too. Because, after a while, she asked Mr Belvoir if he was quite done, as she felt sure Alice must have classes to attend.
And so Alice left. Now, on the way to History, which was hopefully all about Francis Drake and the Armada, and not about best friends and cars and peculiar gentlemen, Alice thinks she might have made the wrong decision. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told. Although she didn’t quite tell, did she? Because she didn’t have the address. Of where to find the man Mr Belvoir seemed to be so keen to find. She just had the mental picture. From when Cara had taken her there. Because that was Cara. She shared everything. So Mr Belvoir can’t really use the information, because he doesn’t have Alice’s mental map. Although she thinks she described it pretty well.
This isn’t all Alice is thinking though. She also thinks something else. She thinks that on a second meeting this man, this Mr Belvoir, is very like the secret man that Cara had described to her. The man Cara used to meet. And who she’d gone to meet that day.
Dearest Cara
So, so wonderful to be communicating with you. Not in ideal conditions. I know. And I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. But such a relief, such a comfort, to know you are through there.
Yes, I am hoping Dad will come and rescue us. I’m hoping that even now there is a police sniper outside with the Captor in his sights.
But, in case not, we need a plan B. And I’ve got one. I don’t know about your room, but in mine there’s a small window. Don’t get your hopes up – I didn’t mean we can climb out of it. It’s high, locked, small and unsmashable. BUT there’s a girl who uses the grass outside to skip on. So it is possible that I might be seen. And so I’ve made a sign, telling the world that we’re in here. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
I put the pencil down. It’s so not much that it feels almost futile. I’m counting on a small girl (a) maintaining skipping as a hobby, and not discovering skating or TV or even books (b) keeping up the discipline to practise regularly (c) practising in the same spot (d) looking at her surroundings (e) caring about them (f) seeing the sign (g) distinguishing it enough from her own play world to think it worth telling her parents about it (h) not seeing a small pony or an ice-cream truck on the way home, which makes her forget about the sign entirely and (i) her parents believing and caring about what she said.
So yes. A lot to rely on. Or not. And a lot to ask Cara to put her faith in. So we probably need a plan C as well, at least. I force myself to continue writing.
How about you? Do you have any windows? Could you do a sign too? Or perhaps there is a chance of getting through your windows. If you have them. Tell me. And tell me if you have any other ideas too.
Please let her have ideas. Please let her be able to escape whether she can take me with her or not. But please let her not forget me when she leaves. I won’t be able to manage this without her.
I think he goes out occasionally, the Captor. So we can make use of that, maybe? I don’t know how?
I want to go over again how you got here. Anything we know about the Captor could be useful. You said you remember a car. Try getting your brain back to that place. The model of car even. Who was driving? Was it him?
It means nothing, asking these questions. Why play detective? How will it possibly get us out of here? But at the same time, it means everything. If we have knowledge, we have the tiniest bit of power. Power to analyse our adversary. Manipulate him maybe. Or at least we shake off that horrible ignorance of such a fundamental part of our lives.
But will I damage her? Cause her to revisit something her brain is saying should be firmly cordoned off? She can only be what she is, remember what she can. The pencil doesn’t have an eraser though. I would have to start again, which would waste precious paper, or I would have to cross out in thick strokes what I’d written, which would make me look indecisive. And Cara doesn’t need an indecisive parent right now. She needs someone strong and positive.
Like Paul. We both need Paul. I wonder what he is doing now. Thinking of me, for sure. And of Cara. How he can get us back. I wonder where he is. Outside, in a stake-out? Or on our sofa at home, wrapped under one of the grey fake-cashmere throws, exhausted and emotionally drained by his search, by his anger, by his staved-off grief, catching a compulsive hour of sleep? I shake my head. That would not be like Paul. Paul is strong, emotionally and physically. Strong, proactive and capable. Look at how he helped me bring up Cara. Always there in a crisis – not that there’ve been many – to keep us safe. Even though she’s someone else’s daughter.
Anyway, focus. Must finish the letter. Otherwise Cara might think she has been forsaken. That I don’t have a plan. That she should escape by herself – oh joy – and leave me still trapped – oh horror. I need to say something nice, something that will make her smile.
Remember when we went shopping that time, about a year ago, and for a joke we were trying on matching mother–daughter dresses? When we came out of the changing room to parade and after we’d twirled round in the mirror out front, you came face to face with that guy – Benny wasn’t it? You thought you wanted to hide behind the mirror – I was only too aware how muttony I must look to him compared with your dazzling youth! But we managed to escape back into the changing room. Even if your escape was short-lived and you ended up in a McDonald’s having a milkshake with him. But that ended well, you see, and we managed it together. We’ll manage this together too. You’ll see.
I sign off the letter with love and kisses, a nostalgic smile on my face. Tears in my eyes but not on my face. Because they’re happy tears. Tears of love for my daughter. Who I will see again soon.