D. E. White - Remember Me

Ava reached for her iPad, quickly checking emails, grasping for the return of her cool efficiency. Work always did this to her. She was like a machine, her boss often said. There was nothing new on the handful of cases she was personally connected with, and no progress on her current job. There was a suggestion from Pete, her partner, that she might have to send someone in undercover to crack that particular drugs ring.

Her own drug-taking had stopped when she discovered she was pregnant, so teenage-Ava couldn’t have been all bad, she told herself. But those years had taken a vicious toll on her mental health, and being a young mum pushed her nearer the edge, until finally, she saw that the only thing to do was to run. When Stephen was nearly two years old, she had kissed him goodnight for last time, scrabbling to drag her backpack from the wardrobe. The devils that whispered in her ears told her to go, to go now or she might hurt her son. She had failed as a wife and mother, and they would be better off without her. Her son cried, and she soothed him back to sleep, driven by a teeth-chattering panic. Before Paul came back off the hills, she was gone, leaving nothing but a brief note. Paul’s dad was in his study, and she sometimes wondered afterwards if he heard her go. Good riddance would have been his attitude, she knew.

If the drugs hadn’t been so easily available throughout their early teens, she doubted any of them would have bothered. Aberdyth was a desolate village between two hills, and the nearest town was a bus ride away. Even then it was another ex-mining community, dragged down by lack of jobs, and lack of money.

Maybe she and her friends might have dabbled a little on rare nights out in the city, certainly they would have smoked and drunk. But to have pills handed out like bags of sweeties…

It was a joke really, she always thought, that so many of her current friends claimed to be in therapy for this and that, but her own monthly sessions really did keep her sane. Hell, after everything that had happened, she was allowed a little craziness, and in LA she fit right in.

She chucked her iPad back down on the bed. Combing out her long, wet hair, Ava blasted it with a dryer, and plaited it neatly out of her face. Her dark, shiny fringe was cut just above the arctic blue eyes and framed the determined face in the mirror. Her dad always said there was Native American blood in the family, and her darker skin colour, high cheekbones and full lips made her a dead ringer for her paternal grandmother. Maturity had added stubbornness to her square chin, and the year-round tan added warmth to her smile, but some darkness in her expression kept most people away – men included. Detective Ava Cole was tough, independent and athletic, and that was just how she liked it.

She yanked on her jeans and hill boots. The Birtleys were out and the house was quiet as she slipped out of the front door. A few battered trucks and a mud-plastered Land Rover decorated the track downhill. She turned the corner and marched briskly past the pub, ready to ignore anyone who challenged her. There was only a dog to watch her progress. It was a shabby, red-coated mongrel, and its half-hearted bark didn’t bring anyone running.

Breathing fast, eyes down, Ava reached the garden gate, and stopped. Her throat was tight and her eyes stung. She needed to get a grip.

Ellen’s place was the same as it always had been, up on the end of the row of houses, just above the wood. The garden, even in early spring, was well tended and neat. She smiled as she recognised the greenhouse, the garden gnome, and then pushed down the acidic swell of nausea as she also recognised the little wooden gate at the end of the vegetable patch. Ellen’s shortcut to the woods. Jackie and Peter had always been stricter than the other village parents about curfew, and to their knowledge Ellen had always been home and in bed by a certain time. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately enough for her friends when they had to cover up her death, Ellen would often wait until her bedroom door was closed, slip out of the window, and run down behind the trees into the East Wood.

The front door opened, and Ava clenched her hands in her woollen gloves, willing herself to walk up the path, pinning a smile on her face.

‘I knew you’d come. As soon as I heard that you were coming back, I knew you’d come down and see us.’ Jackie Smith reached out her arms. Ellen’s mum.

Her face was older than her fifty odd years, and her hair had gone white. But despite, or maybe because of, her lines and wrinkles, and her kind of grief-stricken serenity, Ava thought she was beautiful.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t stay in touch,’ she almost whispered, submitting to the warm, scented embrace.

‘ Cariad , we never expected you to. We knew why you went in the end. It wasn’t having a baby that messed you up, it was Ellen’s going, wasn’t it?’

Ava studied Ellen’s dad, Peter, carefully. He was bald now, which gave his dark eyes and beaky nose the look of a ferocious bird of prey. As always, she had been handed a cup of tea and some bara brith and settled down on the sofa. She could tell, just by looking around, that there would be no lodger, and the lights in Ellen’s room were still for her.

After a bit of chat Ava carefully sidled around the subject. ‘Do you think you’ll stay here? I mean, my mum and dad keep on about you moving out to live on the Keys with them… I wasn’t sure if that was just my dad being bossy as usual.’

Jackie and her husband exchanged glances, and she was the one who spoke. ‘Actually, we are moving. Not to Florida, but to England. I must tell you, cariad , we decided this when we heard you were coming back. The thing that keeps us – it sounds so stupid when I say it aloud – but we never believed that Ellen ran away. To have kept silent all these years. She just wouldn’t. Your parents agree that she would at least have contacted you, Ava. The two of you were like sisters. But the police never bothered to look too hard, did they, and we hoped for so many years she would just come back. Then, Jesse – you know he was killed in a motorbike accident?’

Ava nodded, heart pounding, and a trickle of sweat edging down her backbone and along her hairline.

‘Jesse was a nice boy, and he always liked Ellen, didn’t he?’ Peter looked at Ava with Ellen’s eyes. The almond shape, with long lashes, were almost too pretty for a man, but luckily the rest of his face was masculine enough. The eagle image persisted.

‘Yes… What… what did Jesse say?’

‘We were having a drink one night, and he brought the subject up himself. Actually, I tell you how it happened. He had been doing some course online, graphic design I think it was – wasn’t it, Peter?’

Her husband nodded, and carried on carefully sipping his tea, quietly observing both Ava and his wife.

‘Anyway, he had been offered a job in Glasgow, and we talked about leaving Aberdyth. I think I mentioned that we couldn’t leave until we found out what had happened to Ellen, and he took it very badly. Said he had the same trouble, but he was going to put it right, and then we could all leave.’

Peter turned to his wife. ‘And those were his exact words, weren’t they, Jackie? We didn’t know quite what to say to him after that, but of course we tried to question him when he had calmed down a little.’

She nodded, lips trembling a little. ‘He said that… he said that he had proof of where Ellen was, but he needed to check something…’

‘Wasn’t it he needed to check with someone? I’m sure that’s what he said,’ Peter put in suddenly, his voice sharp.

His wife waved his comment away. ‘Do you think so? Doesn’t matter, anyway, because it never happened. Of course, after he said it we questioned him a bit more, but he left straight away, practically ran right out into the darkness. Peter went after him, but he headed down to East Wood, and disappeared. Perhaps he had been drinking before he came to see us, because he seemed very unsteady on his feet. All I can remember clearly is him rushing out, shouting that he needed to do something, or check with someone, but he would tell us tomorrow.’