Down to Earth. Melanie Rose

here a day – or was it six years – ago.

      After helping Calum hoist Abigail to her feet and over to the couch, where she watched me in shocked silence, I set to cleaning up the mess on the floor. Presumably because she’d already had her stomach forcibly emptied at the hospital, it didn’t take too long before the only evidence of her sickness was nothing more than a damp, rather brighter patch on the otherwise filthy carpet.

      Once I’d washed my hands in the kitchen sink, I went over to the girl and squeezed down beside her as she lay on the couch with her knees drawn up to her chest.

      ‘Abigail?’ I ventured.

      She turned her head away, ignoring me.

      ‘I want you to know that I didn’t mean to leave you,’ I tried. ‘I was happy living here with you and your father. I would never have done that to you on purpose …’

      With shaking hands she picked up the TV remote control, turned the box on and flicked through the daytime channels, cranking the volume up high.

      I sighed, realising that attempting to reason with her was a losing battle.

      ‘Abbey!’ Calum strode over to his daughter and tried to snatch the control out of her hand, but she evaded him deftly. He tried once more then turned to me defeated, and shrugged helplessly over the noise, ‘Shall we go to the kitchen?’

      I could see from that short exchange that Calum had definitely lost the battle to keep control of his daughter. Following Calum to the kitchen, I realised that my one-time family need no longer be my business. In the space of a day my mature hero-figure had turned into a stranger. His daughter, my one-time nemesis, was in the throes of killing herself. Pausing in the passage, I glanced towards the front door. All I had to do was walk through it to be out of their lives forever.

      Glancing back through the open living room door to where Abbey was slouched weakly on the sofa, I caught her watching me. As soon as she realised I’d seen her, her eyes flicked back to the television, but not before I’d seen the pool of stark despair in them.

      I thought of yesterday morning when I’d woken her up with a glass of orange juice and told her that her father would be taking her to school as I had to leave early for my journey down to Kent – and her shrug of feigned indifference as she’d turned over to go back to sleep. But minutes before I’d climbed into my jeep, she had appeared at my elbow in the driveway with her homework diary in her hand.

      ‘Will you sign it, Kaela?’

      I’d been nervous about the jump and a little short with her as I’d thrown my bag and fleece jacket onto the passenger seat. ‘Can’t your father do it?’

      She’d shrugged. ‘My friends’ mums all sign theirs.’

      I’d narrowed my eyes as I searched her face, which was fresh and innocent from sleep, hope filling my heart with her words. Had she accepted me at last? But time and the promise of adventure were pressing.

      I’d smiled at her as I’d scribbled my signature, thinking that maybe at last we had the foundations of something we could build on. ‘I’ll see you later, off you go and finish getting ready or you’ll be late for school.’

      She’d stood for a moment, watching my car creep down the long narrow drive, and then I was out into the traffic, forgetting everything but the adventure that lay ahead of me, never thinking that I would return anywhere but here to the two people I had intended to remain with for the rest of my life.

      It was unbelievable that Dad was gone and Mum was languishing in a nursing home somewhere. As soon as Calum and I had thrashed out whatever was left between us, I would go to see her, though what I would say, I didn’t know.

      As it happened I didn’t have the chance to continue where Calum and I had left off. I was halted in my tracks halfway across the passage by an urgent pounding on the front door. The noise even surpassed the racket Abbey was listening to in the room behind me. Rooted to the spot, I watched as Calum hurried past me and threw the door open to reveal two burly uniformed police officers standing, fists raised, on the front step.

      ‘Mr Calum Sinclair?’

      I watched as Calum took an involuntary step backwards. ‘Yes.’

      A slim blonde woman, wearing a plain grey skirt suit swept past the two officers, brandishing an identification card. ‘DI Sandra Smith,’ she announced. ‘We have reason to believe you are holding a young woman on the premises …’ She stopped in mid sentence and peered at me through the gloom of the hallway, a note of surprise creeping into her voice. ‘Michaela Anderson?’

      I nodded and the woman blinked behind a pair of rimless glasses as if having to reassess the situation. Frowning she held out her hands in a placating manner, palms down, neatly manicured fingers splayed. ‘Don’t be afraid, Michaela. We have come to help you.’

      ‘How did you know I was here?’

      ‘The Kent police received a tip off from a member of the public early this morning. Because your disappearance was originally handled jointly by both forces and is now considered a cold case, they handed this end of it to us.’

      I pictured the friendly barman waking up and suddenly realising where he’d seen me before.

      ‘It took us a while to authenticate the report and look up your file, but I personally decided that after all this time it might not be another hoax sighting.’ She lowered her voice, presumably to make it less intimidating. ‘You are safe now. We need you to come with us, Michaela.’

      The two uniformed officers stepped into the hall and confronted Calum, who was standing with his mouth slightly open. ‘We’d like you to accompany us to the station please, sir.’

      ‘What?’ Calum was spluttering and despite everything, I felt desperately sorry for him. The last six years had not been kind to him. It was obvious he’d had very little sleep the night before while Abbey had been in the hospital, then there had been the shock of my reappearance, and now it seemed he was under arrest.

      ‘He had nothing to do with this,’ I told the DI. I had no idea what ‘this’ was exactly, but I did know that I didn’t want Calum getting the blame. ‘I’ve only been here an hour. This has nothing to do with him.’

      ‘We’ll take your statement later, Michaela,’ the DI said, taking my arm. ‘Don’t worry about it now.’

      The DI guided me towards the door. The two police officers were already marching Calum out of the house.

      He was protesting, trying to twist free of the police officer’s grip. ‘Wait! I can’t leave Abbey – that’s my daughter. She’s only sixteen and she’s not well.’

      The sitting room door flew open and Abbey stood in the doorway, clutching the doorframe for support. ‘What’s going on?’

      The DI paused, taking in the girl’s pale face, multiple piercings and tattoos. ‘Who are you?’

      ‘I’m Abigail Sinclair. That’s my father! What are you doing to him?’

      ‘We need your father to help us with our enquiries into the disappearance of Miss Anderson,’ the DI said shortly. ‘We are taking him to the station for questioning.’

      Abbey turned wide beseeching eyes on her father. ‘Dad?’

      ‘It’ll be alright, Abbey,’ Calum said, although he certainly didn’t look too confident at that moment, his thin frame flanked by the two officers. ‘I’ll be back in no time at all.’

      ‘Is there anyone who can stay with Miss Sinclair?’ DI Smith asked of the captive Calum.

      ‘No there’s only her and me.’ He shot an accusing glance at me. ‘I’m all she’s got.’

      ‘Very well,’ The DI turned to Abbey. ‘You had better come with us.’

      A woman police constable was waiting outside by two police cars, which were parked