Circle of Doubt

by Buchanan, Tracy

  PRAISE FOR TRACY BUCHANAN:

  ‘I was left absolutely traumatised in a totally brilliant way . . . Beautiful, heartbreaking, uplifting . . . Really worth a read.’

  —HELLO!

  ‘A pacy read . . . A great book to take to the beach!’

  —Daily Mail

  ‘I was entranced from the very first page and couldn’t put it down until I had all the answers. Tracy weaves a seamless tale while offering brilliant descriptions and raw emotions.’

  —Angela Marsons, author of Child’s Play

  ‘A must-read for fans of psychological suspense. Tightly plotted and intense, this novel will have you looking over your shoulder and peeking under your bed. Filled with twists and turns, it will keep you flying through the pages to the shocking end.’

  —Heather Gudenkauf, author of Before She Was Found

  Praise for Tracy’s last book, Wall of Silence:

  ‘Wall of Silence is wild, a “whodunnit” rollercoaster. The story launches with a bang with one of the most original openings I’ve read. Tracy Buchanan has crafted a novel where the plot literally thickens with every page turned and new secrets simmer as the reader is pulled deeper into her cast of characters’ web of lies and silence. I was captivated from page one, entertained throughout, and shocked over the final reveal. Loved it!’

  —Kerry Lonsdale, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestselling author

  ‘Secrets and lies abound in this complex and chilling mystery. I was totally shocked by the ending!’

  —Lesley Kara, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rumour

  ‘A darkly addictive read that draws you deep into the tangled web of secrets that lie at the heart of the Byatt family.’

  —Lucy Clarke, bestselling author of The Sea Sisters, a Richard and Judy Book Club choice

  ALSO BY TRACY BUCHANAN:

  The Atlas of Us

  My Sister’s Secret

  No Turning Back

  Her Last Breath

  The Lost Sister

  The Family Secret

  Wall of Silence

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Tracy Buchanan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542017527

  ISBN-10: 1542017521

  Cover design by Ghost Design

  Dedicated to my brave mum

  who continues to smile

  through even the toughest of times.

  And the man who helps her smile,

  my wonderful stepdad Vic.

  In memory of Grandad Archbold, a truly kind,

  generous and thoughtful gentleman.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter One

  Monday 14th September

  8.10 a.m.

  I don’t like the new blinds your fake parents have got, Isla. I can barely see you through them from my hiding place at the back of your garden. Just a flash of your small perfect hand as it twirls in the air; a quick glimpse of your dark locks as you bounce around the room in your school uniform.

  Now I understand why Garrett, my private investigator, has struggled to take sufficient photos and videos of you the past few weeks. I can’t tell you how frustrating it’s been to only be able to grasp at small pieces of you, when I ought to have you as a whole. Pain heaped upon pain. And then to be subjected to Garrett’s weekly reports, too, each one confirming the mediocrity of the people who call themselves your parents.

  But suddenly, there! The blinds go up briefly, and before me is an unfiltered view of you – my girl – as you sneak a look outside! The joy I feel makes it difficult to breathe for a moment.

  Are you looking at me? I think you are. Maybe you sense we have the same blood running through us?

  Maybe you sense we’ll be together soon?

  But as quickly as the blinds are opened, they are shut again. It takes every ounce of control I have to contain my rage.

  I peer behind me towards the angular red crane erupting from the treetops in the distance, the digger below it poised to begin work tearing up the bed of the forest.

  Not long, darling. Not long.

  Chapter Two

  Monday 14th September

  8.15 a.m.

  ‘That’s strange,’ Emma said as she looked out at the red crane jutting from the top of the woods like a metal giraffe.

  She was standing at her kitchen window, nursing a lukewarm cup of coffee as she waited for her daughter Isla to finish breakfast.

  Emma’s husband Dele grabbed a piece of burnt toast from the toaster, yelping in pain as it scorched his fingers. ‘Maybe a tree’s come down.’

  Emma laughed. ‘Do they use cranes for fallen trees?’

  ‘How would I know?’ Dele said as he gave her a quick peck on the cheek. ‘I sell books for a living, not trees. Right, better go. See you later.’

  He walked to the kitchen table where Isla was slurping up cereal as she watched her iPad. She peered up at her dad with a smile as he kissed the top of her dark hair and left the kitchen, blowing kisses at them before disappearing out of the house.

  Emma smiled to herself. It was good to see him happy.

  ‘Right,’ she said, peering at her watch. ‘Time to finish that or we’re going to be late.’

  ‘Again,’ Isla said, rolling her brown eyes.

  Isla was right. The first day of the new school year and it looked like they were already going to be breaking their promise to be on time every day this term. That would mean yet another sour look from the school’s stern head
teacher Mrs Gould and, of course, more raised brows from the mums at the school gates. It was hard enough fitting into a tight-knit community like Forest Grove as a newcomer – and yes, Emma still felt like a newcomer despite moving in seven months ago.

  ‘Hurry, darling,’ Emma said, clapping her hands as Isla slowly rose from her chair. ‘Go get your shoes on.’

  Isla backed away, one finger held up. ‘Just one minute, Mum. One teensy minute. I forgot the card I made for Tegan.’

  ‘No, get your shoes on now!’ Emma shouted, desperately looking at the time again.

  Isla paused, crossing her arms as she looked her mother up and down. ‘Count to five, Mum. Come on, do it with me. One-two-three-four-five.’

  Emma took a deep breath and did as her daughter asked, then realised she was allowing her ten-year-old daughter to give her anger-management therapy. She couldn’t help it – she burst out laughing, and Isla did the same.

  ‘What are you like?’ Emma said to her daughter. ‘Okay then, but be quick!’

  Isla darted upstairs to her room, her footsteps like a herd of baby elephants on the floorboards.

  As Emma was about to grab her bag from the side, the sound of shattering glass pierced the air.

  She let out a gasp.

  ‘Isla?’ she called up the stairs, heart thumping.

  Isla came running back down, the card she’d written for her friend in her hands. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘I heard glass breaking. Wait there.’

  Emma walked towards the living room. Had she heard it from there? She opened the door, then gasped again.

  The large window looking towards the garden was smashed, glass shattered on the carpet, the blinds covering the window tangled and broken. Lying among the glass was a boulder from the rockery outside.

  Somebody must have thrown it through the window!

  ‘What is it, Mum?’ she heard Isla ask from the end of the hallway.

  Emma quickly put her hand out to her to stop her walking forwards and seeing the window. ‘Wait.’

  She peered out at the garden. She couldn’t see anyone.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Isla asked.

  ‘The window’s broken.’

  Alarm registered on Isla’s pretty face.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Emma said with a shaky smile, trying to reassure her. ‘Something will have toppled over in the garden because of the wind. Run outside, see if Dad’s still there.’

  Isla nodded and darted to the front door.

  Alone, Emma stepped towards the window, wrapping her arms around herself. The window was the largest in the house and offered a nice view of the forest. That was why they’d been drawn to the house when they’d first viewed it the year before.

  ‘Jesus,’ she heard Dele say from behind her as he ran down the hallway.

  ‘I chased his car down the road,’ Isla said, out of breath, cheeks red, eyes sparkling with pride.

  ‘Darling, I didn’t mean for you to do that,’ Emma said, noting her daughter’s bare feet.

  Dele raked his fingers through his hair as he took in the mess. Then his eyes alighted on the boulder. Emma saw confusion, then anger, registering on his face. He went to open his mouth but she quickly shook her head, eyes darting towards Isla then back again.

  He looked out into the garden. ‘I’ll just go check there’s no damage outside,’ he said. ‘Let me deal with this. You take Isla to school, get to work. I’ll call you later.’

  Emma nodded, and turned to Isla. ‘Come on then, darling, shoes on!’

  Isla did as she was asked, her eyes on the stone boulder in the living room. She was a clever girl; she was no doubt figuring out that someone had thrown it through the window.

  As Dele walked through the kitchen and out into the garden, Emma shrugged her raincoat on, trying to puzzle over who would do this. She tried not to consider the possibility it might be a racially motivated attack. Sure, Dele and Isla might stand out a bit in a sea of white faces in the village, but there had never been a hint of racism.

  Emma fixed a smile on her face. ‘Right, let’s go,’ she said to Isla.

  They walked outside. In the distance, Emma saw a long line of cars crawling down their street towards the school and rolled her eyes. No chance they’d be on time now. Not to mention the fact that she hated driving as it was, always getting the same whir of nerves whenever she stepped into her car; nerves that were compounded by any traffic or bad weather.

  The village of Forest Grove was made up of several roads that wove around the woods. Their house was on the second road, so wasn’t too far from the school and the forest. It wasn’t ideal driving to school when they could walk there in under ten minutes through the forest. But after dropping off Isla, Emma needed to drive straight to work in Ashbridge, which was a twenty-minute drive away.

  It had been a big step, taking the new job. Before moving to Forest Grove, she’d been quite happy freelancing from home in a small pretty house on the outskirts of North London. But after a schoolboy was stabbed a few streets down from them, it just rammed home to Emma that maybe it wasn’t the best place to bring up Isla. Then Dele got made redundant from his editing job at a large publishing firm and it seemed like a good time to move. In an ideal world, Emma would have continued to freelance. She liked working on her own, setting her own pace, not having to endure the ‘how was your weekend?’ office small talk. But her freelance jobs didn’t pull in enough money to cover them, even now that Dele had found a new job managing a bookshop in Ashbridge.

  Emma’s current job at Pink Elephant, a boutique social media agency, was one of the first she saw. She liked the idea of ‘boutique’. If she had to endure being based in an office, then at least it would be a small one.

  When she applied for the job, she just assumed she wouldn’t even get an interview. Though she’d been working in digital marketing ever since she first moved to London with her sister seventeen years before, she didn’t have some of the qualifications they seemed keen on. But she must have done something right, because she got an interview and they offered her the job the very next day.

  She’d hesitated before accepting the offer. It would mean moving away from London, her home since she was twenty-one, their family home ever since Isla had come into their lives nine years before. Would it be a mistake to yank Isla out of her large city primary school and away from the friends she’d carried through from nursery? And what about Emma’s friends? She’d struggled to make them, and yet she’d managed to build up a lovely circle of friends during Isla’s nursery days, her usual shyness rubbed away by the sheer exhaustion of looking after a toddler.

  But then, while showing Dele where Ashbridge was on Google Maps, she’d happened upon the green blooms of Forest Grove nearby. Something made her look up the village. Welcome to Forest Grove, Utopia of the Woods, the introductory text of the community’s website had read, Home to Strong Branches and Deep Roots.

  The more Emma read about the village, the more she felt its pull. It was just the place where she could imagine raising Isla, plus one of the two houses up for sale was perfect for them.

  It felt like fate, and Emma very much believed in fate, because it was surely fate that had brought them their beautiful daughter after years of struggling with infertility. Fate that meant Isla was born at the right time in the right place to become theirs. The moment the photo of a beautiful eighteen-month-old girl had been placed before her by their social worker, Emma remembered, she had thought to herself: This is meant to be.

  ‘Why do you look like you’re going to cry, Mum?’ Isla asked, looking half horrified, half morbidly fascinated by the sight of her mother getting emotional on a school morning.

  ‘I love you, that’s all.’

  Isla’s cheeks flushed pink, then she smiled. ‘Love you too, Mum.’

  They gave each other a hug, Emma stroking Isla’s fuzz of dark hair. Then she started the engine, taking a deep breath.
‘Right, Forest Grove Primary, here we come.’

  Isla’s school sat on the edge of the woods. Parking was minimal in a tiny gravelled area to the side of it, a physical embodiment of the head teacher’s disapproval of any parents feeling the need to drive in. Forest Grove was, after all, a small village that prided itself on being eco-friendly, encouraging children to walk to school each day. But even if Emma didn’t have to drop Isla off on the way to work, she wasn’t sure she’d be happy about her walking to school alone along the road and through the forest like some of the other ten-year-olds in her class.

  She had to confess, she could be a little overprotective of Isla. It was probably because of what she knew of Isla’s first year of life, living in a tumultuous household with her young drug-addicted birth mother. If that overprotectiveness meant waiting until Isla started secondary school to let her walk to school with friends, so be it . . . even if it meant the daily struggle to find a parking space!

  Surprise, surprise, when Emma arrived at the car park, she found it was full.

  ‘Great,’ she muttered under her breath.

  She did an awkward seven-point turn to get back out and drove down the nearest street. Yes, she knew it wasn’t the done thing to park on any of the residential streets near the school, but what choice did she have? At least she wasn’t doing what the Range Rover in front of her was doing, parking up on a resident’s actual drive!

  Instead, Emma found a secret little spot she’d used before in a line of garages, parking in a way that would ensure any cars looking to get in and out wouldn’t be blocked. She quickly bundled Isla out of the car and they jogged towards the school, Emma checking her watch as they did. Just a few more minutes and they’d be late, meaning they’d have to sign in at reception. At least if they were late, she’d avoid the awkwardness of standing in the playground with the other mums.

  When Emma had first walked into the school playground back in February, she instantly felt out of place. She was used to a lot of the mums back in London being working mums, but here it seemed to be a rarity. Emma’s spike-heeled boots and red woollen coat stood out in direct contrast to the Forest Grove mum ‘uniform’ of Joules or Boden raincoats and Hunter wellies over leggings. Emma understood why they wore them as she’d picked the leaves off her coat and scraped the mud off her heels that first time, all from just a walk through the car park.