I’ll Never Tell

Chapter 1

Julia

NOW

The streetlights flash past: orange, black, orange, black, swinging low over the windscreen, over our faces.

It’s fine.

It’s not fine.

It’s fine.

But it’s not.

This car we’re in could skid off the road. Plough into a tree or oncoming traffic. I see us ripping through a crash barrier, causing a ten-car pile-up. I can see us being arrested; I see us breaking our necks.

These thoughts are wild; these thoughts are ridiculous. I’m in a car with my husband, travelling on the well-marked A40 back to Oxford, and we know where she is now: she’s at home, she’s quite safe. There’s nothing to go crazy about; there’s nothing to fear.

Chrissie’s violin case slides around on the back seat, despite the fact that we’ve strapped it in. She left with her rucksack and her coat, but not her instrument – the instrument she loves so much. Another small thing that doesn’t add up. Something she was trying to communicate to us? But what?

Chrissie, I think. Chrissie, Chrissie, Chrissie.

I’m still fumbling to grasp the details of what happened. We searched all over the London concert venue for her, after the fire crew gave us the all-clear. A false alarm, they eventually declared. We had been standing outside for forty-five minutes by then, but split up into different areas: audience on one side of the concert venue, and performers and staff on the other. How were we supposed to know that Chrissie wasn’t there? she timed things so well, making sure she’d been accounted for among the bodies gathered outside before she disappeared.

And she wasn’t back at the hotel either, the place where we’d dropped off our overnight bags earlier and the three of us took the chance to drink a half-cup of tea before the show. There was a big white double bed in that room, with crisp, clean sheets and a deep, comfy mattress. I wanted to climb right into that bed, curl up and sleep for a long time, but Chrissie was jittery – to be honest, we all were, and why wouldn’t we be? In a few hours, our teenage daughter would be standing centre stage, in front of the TV cameras and the live audience and the judges.

And then, after all that build-up, the night, her performance, ended with this?

The seatbelt strains like a garrotte across my neck as I lean forward, craning to see beyond the cats’ eyes and white lines zipping past. Paul, my husband, is in the driver’s seat. He is so reliable. So safe. How much I’ve depended on him over the years, rightly or wrongly. Ten years together, and who would ever have believed where we’re at now?

The seatbelt slides up, pressing where the skin of my jaw is still sensitive, only recently returned to its natural hue.

‘She played so well,’ I say, as though seeking reassurance, fighting to keep the dumb fear from my voice. ‘Didn’t she?’

Paul’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, as though they weren’t already gripping tightly enough. ‘She did, Julia. She was truly brilliant.’

So why this? I want to demand of him, as though he has any better answers than I do. As though he has secrets to reveal of his own. Why did she bolt from the venue when that fire alarm went off? Why do I suspect that she set it off herself? But it makes no sense that she would run off before the winners were announced, when she had every chance of being one of them. Why do that without telling us and without then bothering to answer her phone, but instead sending us and all the staff into such a panic, wasting everyone’s time in searching the Barbican and then the hotel? We had no idea where she was, until eventually Paul turned on the tracker app – the one he had installed on her phone and his after that time at the Botanical Gardens, the one I didn’t know about until tonight – and, lo and behold, turns out of all places she had gone back home. It seemed she just got herself on a train from London, Paddington to Oxford, and left.

So it’s fine, I tell myself. She’s fine. Those images of disaster are all of my own making: because of my own guilt, my own lies.

Black-orange. Paul’s face flashes again in the streetlamps overhead. ‘We’re going to talk to her,’ he says, ‘properly this time. We cannot have her acting like this.’

‘Yes. We will. Of course.’ My stomach instinctively roils at the thought of such a discussion, but if it comes down to it, I will. I’ll listen to everything she has to say. That’s over now, I remind myself. That’s done.

In my lap, my phone blips and I fumble to swipe the message open. Chrissie? But it isn’t her, of course, it’s one of the Young Musician coordinators. Let us know as soon as you’re with her. We’re so sorry about this. Please let us know absolutely anything we can do.

I text back quickly. Thank you. We will.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell my husband. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been there.’ Six words that are so incredibly loaded, and I’m saying them now – of all moments – as we speed along in the dark, our daughter having temporarily vanished. But still, I got them out.

Paul gives a nod. I choose to take it to mean, I know.

‘Almost home,’ he says, and the knowledge makes me feel weak with relief. We just have to navigate Oxford’s one-way system and we’ll arrive at our grand, sturdy house on Woodstock Road. For the dozenth time, I check the tracker app on Paul’s phone, seeking to reassure myself yet again. The little pulsing dot hasn’t moved on the map; it’s still hovering exactly over our house. I wish I could zoom so close in to our street, our home, that I could tell exactly which room she’s in. Is it her bedroom or her practice room, our big bright kitchen or our snug? I’d like to be able to zoom in on every square foot of whichever space, and sense exactly what she’s doing right now – lying in bed or fixing herself a snack or throwing herself into yet more practice … Although she couldn’t do that, because her violin is here, on the back seat of the car, with us.

In a moment though, we’ll know for sure.

Paul swings the car into our wide gravel drive. I can hear our dog Jackson barking fit to bust, before either of us even gets out.

Thank God. Thank God. There’s a light on upstairs: in Chrissie’s window, with her bedroom that stretches across one whole end of our house. Leaving the suitcase and her violin in the car for now, I find myself almost shaking with relief as I point up for Paul. ‘Look. She’s in there.’

She really is home. The adrenaline drains from my body, leaving my limbs weak. I wonder whether she walked back from Oxford train station or took a taxi. Either way, she’s probably been back for close to two hours.

Jackson’s barks continue to ricochet from the indoor hallway. I grab Paul’s arm as he puts his hand on the knob of our front door. ‘Calmly,’ I say. ‘We have to go in there calmly. No panic. No shouting at her. We’ll just let her know how worried we’ve been, that’s all.’

My head feels loose on my neck as I speak. Despite my anger and my lingering fear, I know we still have to get this right.

‘No panic,’ Paul echoes. ‘No yelling. You might want to tell that to Jackson, though.’

I give a weak smile and Paul grins back, his joke letting in further ripples of relief.

He puts an arm round me in a brief, forgiving hug as I turn the knob and give the door a shove.

It sticks.

No, it doesn’t stick; this door never sticks. Jackson’s barks escalate.

It’s locked.

‘Have you got your keys?’ I say, calmly, to Paul.

Silently he fishes them from his pocket and neatly slides the right one into the lock. When the door opens, Jackson is all over us.

‘Down, Jackson!’ Paul says to him. ‘Hey, down, boy.’

I fumble for the hallway light switch and click it on, as Paul works to calm Jackson down.

‘She could at least have fed him,’ he says, and I give him an eyebrow raise that reads, what did we just agree? And he holds a hand up to say, okay, I’m sorry, I got it.

‘Why don’t you go up first,’ I say quietly. ‘And I’ll … put the kettle on. I’ll come up in a moment with some tea for her. That way it might feel like less of an ambush.’

We follow Jackson into the kitchen and I switch the kettle on. I listen for any sound of Chrissie moving about upstairs, but our house is so big that noise doesn’t always travel and I can’t hear anything. Paul leaves Jackson with me and heads upstairs. I try to stay calm as I put some fresh biscuits down for him. He doesn’t seem very interested and instead sits on the tiled floor, looking up at me with his big brown eyes.

‘What a nightmare,’ I whisper, drolly crossing my eyes at him to make another joke, as though that might ease the tightness in my chest.

I can hear Paul’s footsteps now, lumbering about upstairs. The kettle’s really going for it now and I hunt in the cupboards for the box of tea, clicking my tongue because Paul’s moved it again in one of his tidy-ups.

The kettle clicks off.

‘Julia.’

I jump, spinning round to find Paul standing there. I didn’t hear him come back down, over the rumble of the water. ‘What is it?’

‘She isn’t here.’

‘What?’ I say. ‘She has to be.’

‘Come and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.’

I feel as though gravity’s pull has doubled as I follow my husband upstairs, Jackson trotting faithfully behind. The doors to all the rooms up here stand open; Paul must have looked in every single one. I follow him to the doorway of Chrissie’s bedroom.

Her light is on, but she isn’t in there.

I grasp Paul’s arm.

‘Look,’ he says, as though I can’t see already. Chrissie is a neat child, she always has been, so now this scene is wrong in a hundred different ways. Her bed is a state, the duvet half dragged off. Her wooden desk chair tipped over on its side. Her phone on the floor, the screen smashed.

Jackson barks again. A nightmare. A nightmare. My mind goes wild, a whole new ream of images cascading through it. A slap, a struggle, a scream, a fall. The crash of furniture, the crack of glass, the thud of limbs.

I stand in Chrissie’s room, lost in disbelief and fear because those images are all I can see.

A nightmare. A nightmare. Playing over and over and over again.

Chapter 2

Paul

EIGHT WEEKS BEFORE

‘Wake up.’ The voice was distant. ‘Wake up.’

Paul rolled over and pulled up the covers, but the voice was persistent.

‘Wake up, Dad.’

His daughter, Chrissie. He opened his eyes.

She was standing above him in a crop-top and leggings, her stomach on show. He sat up and looked at his alarm clock. Six fifteen. Friday morning. It was barely light. Instinctively, he wanted to roll back up in the warmth. But they had agreed on this, and what example would he be setting for her if he didn’t commit?

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m coming.’ Next to him, Julia continued sleeping soundly. His wife had come to bed late last night – after one. She worked late. So often, she had to work all hours.

Chrissie lifted her hands up behind her head, sweeping her dark hair up into a ponytail and snapping a bright band around it.

‘Go down and make coffee,’ he told her. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

Her silhouette flashed in the doorway as she slipped out of the room.

They had agreed yesterday that they would do this. He couldn’t entirely recall now who’d had the idea first. Perhaps him, perhaps Chrissie. At this level, the two of them had come to realize, it wasn’t just about talent, because everyone had talent. That alone wasn’t enough, not if she really wanted to make it. You had to look the part as well. Hence the early morning running, another thing that Paul would now help her with, along with the hours and hours of practice.

He glanced over again at his wife’s sleeping form and thought about the argument they’d had two nights before, and again yesterday morning. He laid a hand over the curve of her waist. He could feel the warmth of her through the blanket.

‘Want coffee?’ he murmured.

There was silence. No answer, though her ribcage continued to rise and fall. Well then, he would let her sleep. No doubt she needed it. The current project she was working on was running her ragged, and her own alarm would be going off soon enough.

He got up and got dressed. Clean T-shirt, a pair of black running shorts. He would shower afterwards, once they got back and Chrissie was changed and ready for school. Out on the landing, his daughter had already drawn back the long curtains on their tall arched window. The weather was grey and overcast, the flagstones of their back terrace darkened by last night’s rain. He thought he glimpsed something, a shadow, a flutter, dipping behind the hedges. But when he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, it was gone.

Downstairs in the kitchen, all the lights had come on. They were designed like that, set to flick on whenever anyone walked into the room. He appreciated the shining brightness that came from the spotlights; in the house he’d grown up in, he’d lost count of the times the electricity had been shut off because his father had blown the money on gambling and they’d fallen months behind on the bills. Worlds away from how he lived now. You could manually override these bright kitchen halogens – and sometimes Paul did – but this morning he felt glad of them. A clean, bright, indoor sunrise, chasing away childhood memories and fears.

‘You should put a top on,’ he said to Chrissie. She was leaning against the counter top, arms braced, stretching her hamstrings. He could see the muscles pulling taut in her back. ‘It’s a pretty rotten day.’

‘I’ll get warm running,’ she said. She ducked her head as she shifted, switching legs.

‘It’s cold,’ he told her as he set up their coffee maker. ‘And wet. Here – let me get you one from the utility.’

The smell of fresh laundry filled the neat room that adjoined the kitchen. He found her top – a grey zip-up thing – neatly folded on top of the most recent pile. When he returned, Chrissie was putting chopped fruit into a blender and any further comment of his was lost in the racket of the blades. Fresh fruit, healthy eating. She was keen on that too; so was he. It was good to include that as part of the package. Along with looks and talent. People appreciated a wholesome young star.

Chrissie switched the blender off and gave the frothy pink contents a shake. Yesterday, Julia had brought home strawberries. Strawberries in February. Wasn’t life amazing like that?

‘We can have these when we get back,’ said Chrissie. ‘I’ve done enough for Mum as well. I’ll leave it in the fridge.’

‘Perfect.’

Paul slid the top across the counter to her then set down some food for Jackson and fetched the coffees for them both. She took hers with milk and sugar – bad for her teeth, no doubt – and he took his bitter and black. He tried to remember when she’d started drinking coffee; for so long he’d associated her with orange squash and Ribena, carefully diluted. Now she drank coffee, and in two more years she’d be old enough to buy alcohol. Normal, inevitable, and yet the thought gave him a prickle of sweat.

They sat side by side at the breakfast bar, listening to the raindrops pattering outside. She swung a leg, her trainers already on, blowing on her coffee and drumming the ends of her fingers on the counter, shaping notes, musical runs. He reached out and took her hand, stilling it momentarily. ‘Your nails,’ he said. ‘You keep letting them grow long.’ Long enough to catch in the strings and disrupt her playing.

‘I’ll trim them later,’ she said, then added, ‘I didn’t mean to.’ He let her pull her hand away. Under the nail tips though, the calluses that she’d built up from years of pressing down on fine metal strings were as firm as ever.

‘So, we’ll practise the Alwyn Sonatina this evening, shall we?’ It was a modern piece, practically a film score, but it was also demanding, parts of it sitting right at the limit of her range.

Chrissie flexed her wrist. She had small, delicate wrists, but so strong. He knew that. ‘Can’t we work on the Bach? Something different? We’ve been doing nothing but the Alwyn for weeks.’

That wasn’t true, and Chrissie knew it: they mucked around with other stuff in between. But she was right that their main focus right now was the Alwyn. She still hadn’t nailed it. She knew that too.

‘Come on. Don’t cop out. You know you’ve almost got it.’

‘If you say so.’ She slid off her stool.

He grinned at her. ‘I do.’

He drained his coffee then reached for her mug too. ‘Have you finished with that?’ There was a mouthful left, but she let him scoop it up anyway.

‘Yep.’

‘Right then. Shall we go?’

At the front door, he laced up his own trainers then waited while she pulled on the grey top. A chill wind caught them as he tugged the door open. Last chance to back out, but he wouldn’t do that. Chrissie needed him; this was his responsibility.

They headed out together, into the rain.

She ran ahead of him almost the whole way. She was fitter than he’d expected – fitter than him, it seemed, even though she’d done no formal exercise for years. He pictured her doing secret star jumps in her room. He could feel a stitch starting up and a painful wheeze in his chest, but he didn’t want to let her see that. He set himself to her pace along the wet pavements, running close on her heels. It was early enough on a Friday morning that Oxford was quiet, and they had the smooth pavements, the carefully spaced trees, the shining puddles in the gutter all to themselves. They lived on Woodstock Road, in an upscale, wealthy part of the city. Handsome Victorian and Edwardian townhouses, generous square-footage, gardens to match. Their own house was worth well over two million – closer to three. He had Julia to thank for that.

Julia – and her generous parents.

Paul followed his daughter through one street and the next: Hayfield Road, Aristotle Lane and out to Port Meadow and Burgess Fields. She had presumably worked out their route in advance. He wondered how far she was planning to take them. Three kilometres, five? Maybe she’d run them all the way to Godstow. Good God, he hoped not.

There was mist across the meadow, mimicking one of those magical Oxford mornings. He imagined the rowing crews out on the Thames, starting even earlier than them. Dew seeped through his trainers and his shins hurt from the impact of each step. Chrissie’s movements were graceful, fluid. Just like the way she played, she and her violin moving as one. Ahead of him, the top he’d given her flapped loose, unzipped, giving glimpses of the navy crop-top underneath. Crop-top – was that what you called it? The wind was against them, but she ran harder, faster.

‘Chrissie!’ he called out to her. ‘Chrissie, hang on!’

‘What?’ She kept running.

He pushed himself and caught up with her, catching her sharp elbow. ‘Stop running a sec. Your lace is undone.’

She pulled up short, almost unbalancing him, so that he had to steady himself against her. She looked down at her trainer. One purple lace trailed in the wet.

‘Here, let me do it.’ His knee crunched as he knelt down. He remembered teaching her to tie her own laces, and her delight when she finally pulled the loops tight. Paul had only come into Chrissie’s life when she was six. She had been a shy, awkward child then, despite her background of privilege. She’d always stood back, as though hiding behind herself. He’d finally felt her relax that time when she’d sat next to him at the piano, listening to him play ‘Chopsticks’ or some other silly tune. Later, he’d shown her how to hold her violin and bow properly, actually take charge of the thing. She had begun to blossom then: he’d witnessed it. He supposed she had been blossoming ever since.

The purple lace was wet and muddy. He tugged at the loops that criss-crossed her foot arch; she’d left them so loose.

‘Ow, Dad. Not so tight.’

‘You don’t want them coming undone again.’

‘But – really. Not so tight.’ She leaned down, fingers plucking at the strings. He let her, returning to his feet and stepping back. Pick your battles, he reminded himself. It was only shoelaces. And look – she’d grown chilly now: she was zipping the top up again. The label stuck out: size small, petite, although these were adult sizes now, not children’s. She was sixteen, and yet still like a doll. She got that from Julia, of course. Julia had always been tiny too. Like mother, like daughter. The voice of Julia’s mother, Celina, in his head.

‘Right. Got your breath back?’ He grinned at her, encouraging. ‘Ready?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

They ran on. It wasn’t long before they found themselves back on Woodstock Road, busier now as the city woke up. A two-minute cool-down walk now, they agreed. He fought with himself to regain his breath.

‘Shall we do it again tomorrow?’ he said as they made their way up the sweep of their gravel drive and reached the porticoed front of their house. The bottles of milk and fresh orange juice had been delivered and he scooped them up from the doorstep.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘let’s.’ She was pulling her phone out as she answered – he didn’t even realize she’d brought it – and nodding as they stepped inside. This would be good for her. Good for them both. Music for the heart; running for the body. It was a good plan. A good strategy. He was always trying to steer her, coach her. Thinking what was best, trying to do his job well. And this was another winner: the exercise, the running.

In the front hallway, Chrissie steadied herself on the wall to shuck off her trainers, blue-cased phone still clutched in her hand. Paul’s heart rate was easing now, after their warm-down. It was slowing, returning to normal.

Until he saw the words that pinged across her screen.

Chapter 3

Paul

EIGHT WEEKS BEFORE

The words disappeared again almost immediately, so fast he could convince himself they hadn’t been there at all or that he had misread them.

Chrissie was holding her phone casually as she balanced herself against the wall; she didn’t appear to have even seen the message. Perhaps it was nothing. In all of this, he had to be reasonable. It was the only way to ensure that Chrissie listened to him and stuck to the rules. So in that moment, he said nothing. There would be other opportunities, other chances to check this out.

She had both shoes off, and she crouched down to place them neatly in the shoe rack. He had brought her up to be neat in that way and she did these things automatically now. He lined his own shoes up beside hers, calculating the hours until he could legitimately reassure himself, and the risks of letting it go until then. He was always on alert but he had to be strategic. He had to pick his moments; he couldn’t just react. Steadying his breathing, he followed her to the kitchen, his sports socks leaving large damp footprints on the tiled hallway floor.

Julia was pouring hot water from the kettle. She was up now, fully dressed, make-up on, although her short hair was still wet from her shower and sticking up in bird-like tufts. Her skirt cinched in tight at her waist, creating a perfect hourglass. A sensual body, anyone might say, though she never said that and neither did he, not any more.

He set down the milk and orange juice and went over to kiss her.

‘How was the run?’ she asked as Chrissie crashed the fridge door open.

‘Fine,’ said Paul. ‘Good. You could have come with us.’ Even though neither he nor Chrissie had asked.

Julia nodded and smiled, extracting her stewed teabag. ‘Maybe next time.’

‘Dad was slow,’ Chrissie said. She set out the jug of smoothie she had made earlier. ‘I had to keep stopping.’

Paul caught Julia’s eye and shook his head. He held up a finger. One time, he mouthed. Once. ‘Her lace came undone.’

‘I’m glad you had a good time,’ said Julia. ‘Even in the drizzle. I slept in. I’ve only just got up. We were working so late last night, it’ll hardly