Then She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell Page 0,91

goes to another desk, one that sits by the back window overlooking the garden. Here the drawers are locked. She sighs and absentmindedly riffles through the piles of paper that sit on top of the desk. She is no longer looking for a fuse, she knows that. She’s looking for something to snap her out of the strange fug she’s been trapped in for the past few days.

And suddenly she has it in her hands. A pile of newspaper cuttings, all from around the time of the Crimewatch appeal on May 26. There’s her face, there’s Paul, and there’s Ellie. There’s the interview she did for the Guardian and the interview she and Paul did together in the local paper. She remembers Floyd in his kitchen coyly confessing to having googled her after their first date. Yet six months earlier, before he’d even met her, he’d been tearing out and collecting newspaper cuttings about Ellie’s disappearance. She slots the cuttings back into the pile of paperwork at the sound of a car door closing on the street outside and quickly leaves Floyd’s study.

Floyd and Poppy return a moment later. The have bought an eight-foot tree.

“Well,” says Floyd, his cheeks flushed pink with the effort of getting it into the house, balancing it on its stump briefly so that Laurel can appreciate its great height. “Will this fulfill the brief?”

“Wow,” says Laurel, pressing herself against the wall so that Floyd can negotiate it through the hallway and into the sitting room. “That is a tree and a half. We’re going to need more lights!”

“Ta-da!” Poppy appears behind him, clutching bags from a DIY store full of fairy lights.

“Brilliant,” says Laurel. “You thought of everything.”

The TV is still tuned into Christmas songs; “Stop the Cavalry” by Jona Lewie is playing.

Floyd cuts the netting around the tree and they all watch as the branches spring free. Floyd is strangely overexcited about the tree. “Hey,” he says, turning to Poppy and Laurel, “it’s a good one, huh? I got a good one?”

They both assure him that it is a good one. Then Poppy and Laurel begin to dress the tree while Floyd goes to the kitchen to prepare supper.

“So, you don’t normally bother with a tree?” Laurel asks.

“No,” says Poppy. “I don’t really know why. We’re just not a Christmassy kind of family, I guess.”

“But Sara-Jade and her mum? They do a tree?”

“Yes!” Poppy’s eyes light up. “Kate is mad about Christmas. Totally nuts about it. Their house looks like a Christmas card.” She catches herself. “It’s a bit much, really,” she finishes.

“Sounds lovely to me.”

Poppy smiles then and says, “Will there be a tree at Bonny’s house? On Christmas Eve?”

“Oh, God, yes. I’m sure there will be. Definitely. A big one probably.”

Poppy smiles broadly. “I can’t wait,” she says. “It’ll be nice to have a proper Christmas for a change.”

“What do you normally do on Christmas Day?”

“Nothing much, really. Have lunch. Swap presents. Watch a movie.”

“Just the two of you?”

Poppy nods.

“You don’t see family?”

“I haven’t got a family.”

“You’ve got SJ.”

“Yes, but she’s just one person. I mean like a whole big family. Like yours. I sometimes wish . . .” She glances toward the sitting-room door and then lowers her voice. “I love being with Dad. But I sometimes wish there was more.”

“More what?”

Poppy shrugs. “More people, I suppose. More noise.”

They take a step back from the tree a while later, just as “Fairytale of New York” comes on the TV. The tree is fully dressed and Laurel has switched on the fairy lights.

Floyd comes in and gasps. “Ladies,” he says, putting an arm around each of their shoulders, “that is a triumph. An absolute triumph.” He turns off the overhead lights and then turns back to the tree. “Wow! Just look at it!”

The three of them stand like that for a moment or two, the Pogues playing in the background, the lights on the tree flashing on and off; Floyd’s arm is heavy across Laurel’s shoulders and she feels him tremble slightly. She looks up at him and sees that he is crying. A single tear rolls down his cheek, a thousand tiny Christmas lights refracted through it. He wipes it away and then smiles down at Laurel.

“Thank you,” he said. “I didn’t know how much I wanted a Christmas tree this year.” He leans down and kisses the crown of her head. “You,” he said, “have made everything perfect. I love you, Laurel. I really do.”

She stares at him in surprise.