Nicci French: Blue Monday

The first book in the Frieda Klein series, 2011

In this city there were many ghosts. She had to take care. She avoided the cracks between the paving stones, skipping and jumping, her feet in their scuffed lace-up shoes landing in the blank spaces. She was nimble at this hopscotch by now. She had done it every day on the way to school and back ever since she could remember, first holding on to her mother’s hand, dragging and jerking her as she leaped from one safe place to the next; then on her own. Don’t step on the cracks. Or what? She was probably too old for such a game now, already nine, and in a few weeks’ time she would be ten, just before the summer holidays began. Still she played it, mostly out of habit but also nervous about what might happen if she stopped.

This bit was tricky – the paving was broken up into a jagged mosaic. She got across it, one toe pressing into the little island between the lines. Her plaits swung against her hot cheek, her school bag bumped against her hip, heavy with books and her half-eaten packed lunch. Behind her, she could hear Joanna’s feet following in her steps. She didn’t turn. Her little sister was always trailing after her, always getting in her way. Now she heard her whimpering: ‘Rosie! Rosie, wait for me!’

‘Hurry up, then,’ she called over her shoulder. There were several people between them now, but she caught a glimpse of Joanna’s face, hot and red under her dark fringe. She looked anxious. The tip of her tongue was on her lip in concentration. Her foot landed on a crack and she wobbled, hitting another. She always did that. She was a clumsy child who spilled food and stubbed her toes and stepped in dog poo. ‘Hurry!’ Rosie repeated crossly, weaving her way past people.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon and the sky was a flat blue; the light flared on the pavement, hurting her eyes. She rounded the corner towards the shop and was suddenly in the shade where she slowed to a walk, for the danger was over. The paving stones were replaced by Tarmac. She passed the man with the pockmarked face who sat in the doorway with a tin beside him. There weren’t any laces in his boots. She tried not to look at him. She didn’t like the way he smiled without really smiling, like her father sometimes, when he was saying goodbye on a Sunday. Today was Monday: Monday was when she missed him most, waking up to the week and knowing he wasn’t there again. Where was Joanna? She waited, watching the other people flow past her – a flurry of youths, a woman with a scarf round her head and a large bag, a man with a stick – and then her sister emerged from the dazzle of light into the shadows, a skinny figure with an oversized bag, knobbly knees and grubby white ankle socks. Her hair was sticking to her forehead.

Rosie turned again and walked towards the sweetshop, considering what she would buy. Perhaps the Opal Fruits… or perhaps Maltesers, though it was so hot they would melt on the way home. Joanna would buy the strawberry laces and her mouth would be pink and smudged. Hayley from her class was already in there and they stood together at the counter, picking out sweets. The Opal Fruits, she decided, but she had to wait to pay until Joanna arrived. She glanced towards the door and for a moment she thought she saw something – a blur, a trick of the light, something different, like a shimmer in the hot air. But then it was gone. The doorway was empty. Nobody was there.

She tutted loudly, over a screech of brakes.

‘I always have to wait for my little sister.’

‘Poor you,’ said Hayley.

‘She’s such a cry-baby. It’s boring.’ She said this because it was something she felt she ought to say. You had to look down on your younger siblings, roll your eyes and sneer.

‘I bet,’ said Hayley, companionably.

‘Where is she?’ With a theatrical sigh, Rosie put down her packet of sweets and went to the entrance to look outside. Cars drove by. A woman wearing a sari walked past, all gold and pink and sweet-smelling, and then three boys from the secondary school up the road, jostling against each other with their sharp elbows.

‘Joanna! Joanna, where are you?’

She heard her voice, high and cross, and thought: I sound like my mum in one of her moods.

Hayley stood beside her, chewing noisily on her bubblegum. ‘Where’s she gone, then?’ A pink bubble appeared out of her mouth and she sucked it back in again.

‘She knows she’s supposed to stay with me.’

Rosie ran to the corner where she had last seen Joanna and stared around, squinting. She called again, though her voice was drowned by a lorry. Maybe she had crossed the road, had seen a friend on the other side. It wasn’t likely. She was an obedient little girl. Biddable, their mother called her.

‘Can’t find her?’ Hayley appeared at her side.

‘She’s probably gone home without me,’ said Rosie, aiming at nonchalance, hearing the panic in her tone.

‘See you, then.’

‘See you.’

She tried to walk normally, but it didn’t work. Her body wouldn’t let her be calm. She broke into a ragged run, her heart bumping in her chest and a nasty taste in her mouth. ‘Stupid idiot,’ she kept saying. And ‘I’ll kill her. When I see her, I’ll…’ Her legs felt unsteady. She imagined herself getting hold of Joanna by the bony shoulders and shaking her until her head wobbled.

Home. A blue front door and a hedge that hadn’t been cut since her father had left. She stopped, feeling a bit sick, the nauseous sensation she had when she was going to get into trouble for something. She banged the knocker hard because the bell didn’t work any more. Waited. Let her be there, let her be there, let her be there. The door opened and her mother appeared, still in her coat from work. Her eyes took in Rosie and then dropped to the space beside her.

‘Where’s Joanna?’ The words hung in the air between them. Rosie saw her mother’s face tighten. ‘Rosie? Where’s Joanna?’

She heard her own voice saying, ‘She was there. It’s not my fault. I thought she’d gone home on her own.’

She felt her hand grabbed and she and her mother were running back down the road the way she had come, along the street where they lived and up past the sweetshop where children hung around the door, past the man with the pockmarked face and the empty smile, and round the corner out of the shade and into the dazzle. Feet slamming and a stitch in her ribs, over the cracks without pausing.

All the while she could hear, above the banging of her heart and the asthmatic wheezing of her breath, her mother calling, ‘Joanna? Joanna? Where are you, Joanna?’

Deborah Vine pushed a tissue against her mouth as if to stop the words streaming out of her. Outside the back window, the police officer could see a slender dark-haired girl standing in the small garden quite still, her hands by her side and a school bag still hanging off her shoulder. Deborah Vine looked at him. He was waiting for her answer.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘About four o’clock. On her way home from school, Audley Road Primary. I would have collected her myself except it’s hard to get there on time from work – and anyway she was with Rosie and there are no roads to cross and I thought it was safe. Other mothers leave their children to go home alone and they have to learn, don’t they, learn to look after themselves, and Rosie promised to keep an eye on her.’