99 Red Balloons: A chillingly clever psychological thriller with a stomach-flipping twist
I look at Matt – he’s not listening. Every time I talk about Jamie, I feel like I’m rubbing his nose in the fact that my child is safe.
‘How many times have we rung?’ I say.
‘Three.’ She’s staring at the television now.
Three times? I can’t remember the first time. Thank God it’s Saturday tomorrow. When I escorted Jamie to the taxi this morning, there were flashes from the reporters’ cameras. I wish I’d had a blanket to cover his face. Then whoever has Grace won’t come for Jamie.
‘Get me a drink, will you, Steph?’
I stand up automatically and grab the cup at Matt’s feet.
‘Not tea. Something stronger.’
I glance at the clock on the mantelpiece – it’s twenty past one. I look to Mum. She raises her eyebrows and shrugs her shoulders. This from the woman who says drinking before six o’clock makes you either too rich or too common.
‘Do you think it’s wise at this time of day?’ I say. ‘What if …’
I don’t know what to say – no one is listening to me anyway.
‘There’s some vodka on top of the fridge,’ says Mum.
How does one person know where every single thing is in every house she visits?
I walk into the kitchen. My heart jolts when I see Emma at the kitchen table with Jamie’s laptop in front of her.
‘How did you guess the password?’ I say, grabbing the vodka off the top of the fridge.
‘I didn’t guess it, did I? How the hell would I guess that? Jamie gave it to me.’
I don’t even know his password. I stop my mouth before it opens and actually bite my tongue. I hate it when she goes behind my back like this, like she can do as she pleases, like she’s— shit, stop it, Stephanie. I want to slap myself. Grace is not here and I’m thinking about myself.
I get a tumbler and pour the vodka halfway.
‘What does Matt drink with his vodka?’ I say.
‘I wouldn’t know these days.’ Emma’s eyes don’t leave the screen. My heart beats faster at the thought of what she might be reading. ‘You’d know better than I do.’
I say nothing and stride into the sitting room, offering the glass to Matt.
‘Am I supposed to drink it neat? What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you not see the coke in the fridge?’
I just stand there. I can’t believe my hand isn’t shaking. I don’t know if I’m more upset than angry. I hear a noise behind me.
‘Don’t you ever, ever talk to my daughter like that!’
Mum is standing next to me and has her right fist held up. The tears well up in my eyes. Matt has never spoken to me like that; Mum has never stuck up for me like that. The air is charged for what feels like minutes. I look to Nadia; Mum’s looking at her too.
‘Perhaps now is not the time to get angry with your family, Matthew,’ she says.
I can see the venom in his eyes as he looks at me. When he shifts his gaze to Nadia, his expression softens.
I’m shaking as I walk back to the kitchen and sit at the table next to Emma.
‘What are you looking at?’ I say to her.
She glances at me as though I’m a nuisance. Did she hear what just happened? Her eyes are bloodshot and there are tiny red blisters under them.
‘That psychic on Grace’s page on Facebook. I’m doing some research on her.’
‘Oh.’ I relax a little into the chair. ‘I didn’t know you knew your way around Facebook.’
‘Just because you don’t see me on the laptop at home, doesn’t mean I don’t use it all day at work.’
I should’ve realised – she’s on a computer all the time at the recruitment agency. She didn’t look at me when she spoke, but paranoia tells me that there was an undertone. What else has she been hiding from me?
‘I’ve got to keep an open mind about these things,’ she says.
‘I guess.’
She tuts. ‘My daughter is missing, Stephanie. Wouldn’t you consider every possibility if it were Jamie?’
‘Of course. I’d consider every possibility for Grace too.’
She glances at me and purses her lips. It’s her way of saying we’re friends again.
‘Bring your chair nearer to me. You can help me look.’
She clicks onto Deandra Divine’s Facebook page. I say nothing about the name. The profile photo is what I expected: a black and white shot of a woman in her fifties, black straight hair framing her face in a centre parting, her gaze off camera. Emma and I would have laughed at it any other time.
‘I’ve read about other missing person cases she’s given readings about, cases from years ago. She’s been right most of the time.’
If she were the real deal, surely she’d be right all of the time. It’s a thought I keep to myself.
‘I’ve emailed her, Steph. If I manage to get an appointment with her, will you come with me?’
I pause for a second. ‘Of course.’
I couldn’t relax until Jamie was back from school. I didn’t know how long it would take him to get here. At home he’s usually back at 3.45 p.m., but I booked him a taxi to pick him up – no doubt he was mortified in front of his friends – and he didn’t arrive until 3.55 p.m. In those ten minutes I experienced only a fraction of what Emma and Matt are going through. He’s upstairs in his usual place now, in the spare room.
Mum is still hovering over Emma. It’s her way of dealing with things beyond her control. I can tell that she’s been crying because she spent ten minutes in the bathroom and the rims of her eyes are still red. I don’t say anything. I never do. Once you start talking about feelings from the past, there’s no way of forgetting them again.
When Dad died four years ago, she baked and cooked for twelve hours solid until she collapsed on the sofa at three o’clock in the morning. She would never let us see her cry. She tried to hide the noise in their – her – bedroom by putting the television on loud. Emma and I would sit at her door, both too afraid to open it.
It had all happened so quickly. Emma and I had been at Mum and Dad’s house when the phone call came. ‘You need to come to the hospital,’ said the woman on the other end of the line to Mum. ‘It’s your husband. He’s been in an accident.’
‘What do you think it means?’ Mum asked in the car on the way there. ‘Why didn’t your dad speak to me himself?’
She wouldn’t stop talking.
Emma sat next to me in the passenger seat as I drove us there. While Mum spoke, Emma and I kept exchanging glances; I think we both knew what we were about to hear without us saying it aloud.
When I pulled up into the hospital car park I experienced a sense of doom – that I was walking into another life, another chapter. It was a feeling strangely familiar, like I’d been expecting it without realising.
The police officer was waiting for us in the relatives’ room. He already had his hat in his hands.
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said to Mum. ‘But your husband was taken ill this afternoon. He suffered a stroke while he was driving. There was no one else injured.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘I don’t understand. We’re going out for dinner tonight … just the four of us.’
She