We came to a stop at the top of the stairs outside the room I knew had been Marion’s father’s. She pushed the door open wide and turned the light on.
I couldn’t control my surprise.
The whole room was covered in bits of paper. She’d got rid of the bed, and in its place was a desk. I remembered what this room looked like only a little from years ago, but this was not what I’d been expecting.
“Are those…?”
“They’re his case notes,” Marion said. “He kept a load of stuff that I’m sure he shouldn’t have, notes that he photocopied or hand-wrote.” She turned to me, her eyes wide with what I assumed was pride. But when I stepped into the room I realised that actually it wasn’t pride. Couldn’t have been pride. It was something more like fascination. And fear.
“Marion,” I said quietly. “This is all Olive.”
“I know. I know. I’ve been through everything a hundred times. I’ve read over and over the stuff and it just – it just feels like it wasn’t… it wasn’t right. Not – not botched. But just…
“Because – because you guys were from out of town I think… I mean the case – Dad focused on…” She stopped and averted her gaze, as though she was trying to gain control of her words. “In most cases of abuse, it’s close to home.”
“It was your dad? Who went after mine?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Not like that. I don’t think he meant for it to get so out of hand. But by the time they moved onto Cordy Jones it was late in the day. And they never had hard evidence but most people in town were already convinced so…”
“So he let it go.”
I wrapped my arms around my chest, suddenly chilly.
Marion took a deep breath. I stepped closer to her, wanting to touch her, to reassure myself that this was real. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. All around me were pictures of Olive. Pictures I didn’t recognise, or pictures I’d never thought I’d see again. News articles, handwritten accounts of interviews, even a photograph from her birthday that year. Post-it notes, too, in different handwriting.
“Did he do this?”
“No,” Marion said. “I told you. I put it up.”
“No, I mean did he… did he keep it all because he felt like he’d not done enough?” I turned to her. Her shoulders sagged, and suddenly the energy went out of her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Both Olive and Bella were taken because they were alone but I think it was more than just chance. Dad had witnesses who thought they saw Olive leave the Circle. She wandered away from the crowd, and that was why nobody saw anything more. Yet there were loads of children alone that day – and only Olive was taken. Same goes for Bella. Loads of the kids were late to school because of the eclipse – dawdling in, that sort of thing. But he took Bella. Why?”
Marion might be right, but that meant something I didn’t want to think about. That if I’d been there – for Bella and Olive – if somebody had asked the right questions, then maybe they could have been saved.
What was it about these girls that had made him choose them? They were both smart, both friendly. Both older than their years. I felt a sickness settle inside me as I realised something.
He wanted what my gran had called “old-fashioned” children, ones who got on better with adults. From broken homes. Both Olive and Bella would likely have appreciated the affection of an older man – a father-figure.
I noticed one of the pieces of paper out of the corner of my eye. Then another. Photocopies of lined sheets filled with childish scrawl. My eyes prickled with tears. I stepped closer, saw the little doodles in the corner of the page, saw my own name. These were pages from the diary Olive had kept; the diary I had never been able to find.
I leaned in and read the page in silence. It referenced Bishop’s Green. I saw the words eclipse and Cassie and Chestnut Circle. Excited. Nothing about a man, nothing about a ring. But here, on this piece of paper, was a tiny part of my sister.
“Do you want to stay here for a while?” Marion asked suddenly. She moved closer and placed her hand on my lower back, unaware of the storm raging inside of me. I leaned into her touch, relishing the pressure of her arms around my stomach as she held me close. “Or do you want to go back to your house. To bed? With me?”
I turned in Marion’s arms, wrenching myself away from the ghost of my sister. For once I needed to put Marion first. I reached up, ran my fingers along the curve of her jaw, watched as her throat bobbed. Her raven hair was mussed, her blue eyes somehow both sad and mischievous.
“Bed,” I said hoarsely. “Take me to bed.”
39
30 August 2002
HE’D MISSED SOMETHING.
Finally, he’d missed something. For a second she was jubilant, until she realised what that meant. Realised the hardness inside of her. And then the jubilance faded to sickness.
She held the scrap of newspaper between her thumb and forefinger, tilting it towards the dim summer evening light. She’d spent the day finishing off the book Sandman had given her the night before. It was a dog-eared copy of Harry Potter. The fourth one. It was her favourite so far, and the biggest, and for ten blissful hours she’d been in another world. Another place.
Then she’d turned to the newspaper. A copy of the Bishop’s Green Chronicle. She liked to read the news, but she often felt unhappy afterwards. There was so much going on in the world – and a lot of it wasn’t very good. Today wasn’t much better.
There was a story partway through that must have been an update, although Olive hadn’t seen the earlier article. The bodies of two girls found in Suffolk by walkers.
Olive felt tears welling hot inside her eyelids. She couldn’t believe Sandman would let her see that by accident. After all, he must have edited her previous newspapers. They’d been found over a week ago.
She felt a worm of panic eat into her, but sucked it down. She knew Sandman better than that. It probably wasn’t a warning. Perhaps he was getting careless. She flicked through the rest of the paper, trying to ignore the faces of those two girls, their red football shirts blinking out at her. She’d smudged the pages with her tears and her fingers felt tacky with newsprint.
She reached the back half of the paper – the part she normally skipped on her first read through and saved for much later, when she was desperate between books. But something caught her eye.
And here was the real kicker. The thing that proved this wasn’t calculated. Proved that Sandman had missed something. The name that leapt out of the births and deaths page was one she recognised.
Peter Warren.
Olive’s father.
For a second her stomach lurched, but then she realised she was on the births. Births. Her eyes scanned the tiny paragraph, her tongue heavy and dry in her mouth. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
University Lecturer Peter Warren and his wife Carol welcome their daughter Hailey. Born: August 28, 2002. Weighing in at six and a half pounds. Welcome to the world, Hailey!
There was a picture of a balloon, and inside it was a baby’s face. Scrunched up and raw from the traumatic experience of birth. Olive felt her head spin, and she had to close her eyes.
Dad. Wife Carol. Carol wasn’t her mum’s name. Where was Cassie? Where was Mum? Olive wanted to be sick. She knew her parents were unhappy. She’d known this long before she’d been able to understand what that meant. And logically over the years she’d wondered what might have happened after she was gone.
But this…?
It was so sudden. So unexpected. Olive felt a surge of rage. She grabbed the newspaper in both hands, balled up the dense pages and started to throw them. Stopped. Changed her mind and started to rip them up. The glorious scrunch as the paper tore made her feel white-hot.
She screamed.
Her voice was foreign to her ears. Even more foreign than the usual songs and stories. She was used to her meek self, not this one. But the fury burnt hot and bright and then died.
Mome
nts later Olive was on the floor, surrounded by hundreds of tiny scraps of paper. Her whole body ached from the exertion, and she panted for a moment while her heartbeat returned to normal. Ink stained her fingers, her palms all smudged. She saw half the picture of the two murdered girls, and her hatred turned sour, sadness curdling there in her belly.
So Dad had remarried. They’d split up, finally. She guessed it was probably a good thing. Good for Cassie. Maybe Mum would find somebody else. Maybe this Carol woman was who he’d been with all those times when he wasn’t at work. Olive wondered if anybody else knew about that, about the trysts and the secret meetings that weren’t meetings. She’d known for ages, had known since she’d tried calling his office only to be told he was taking ‘family time’.
Probably everybody knew now. Maybe finally Cassie would be able to see it.
Olive pushed down the residual spark of anger, thinking of those poor murdered girls. They were younger than her. They had had worse things than divorcing parents to worry about. Than a man who brought them books and chocolates and kept them clothed and fed. By force of habit, Olive grabbed her favourite book off her bookshelf, hugged it close, and started the familiar list in her head:
I’m glad I’m warm. I’m glad I’m dry. I’m glad I’m healthy. At least I have books. At least I have paper. At least he doesn’t come every day.
In her mouth, she felt the words she could no longer think. At least he doesn’t hurt me. At least I’m not alone.
At least, she thought, I’m alive.
But what did that mean?
40
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
I WOKE IN MY bed before Marion’s alarm. The curtains were thin and let in a watery sort of light that spilled over the dark hair gloriously coiled on the pillow next to my head. I breathed in Marion’s familiar scent, barely resisting the urge to trail my finger down the creamy skin of her arm, flung carelessly across my chest. The sight of her in my bed was warming, and Marion’s suggestion – not mine – that she spend the night here instead of at her house because of my gran made me love her even more.
Her breathing was soft and steady. I marvelled at it, a warmth buzzing through me even as I felt the worry start to gnaw again. This wasn’t the old worry, the kind that crept in whenever Marion and I went days without speaking – that she had no time for me any more. No, this was more primal. Fear, even. No more of the anonymous text messages had come, no more threats, but I couldn’t shake the thought that this wasn’t safe. That being around me wasn’t safe.
Perhaps, I told myself, Gran’s accident was just that – an accident. The messages could have been from anybody. A journalist. Grace’s stepfather… They’d stopped once Bella was taken. Maybe they hadn’t been threats at all. Marion hadn’t told me if they’d found out who had sent them, but perhaps they weren’t worth their time.
Marion was safe here. Wasn’t she?
The alarm on her phone sent a shrill panic coursing through my veins before I figured out what the noise was. Marion yawned and stretched and smiled at me with cat-like warmth and my happiness unfurled a little more, pushing back the dark worry that bit further.
I sat with her at the kitchen table while she drank two cups of black coffee. I was still jumpy when her phone rang as she was buttering a slice of toast. She left the toast on the counter, still steaming in the dawn light. She made some muffled sounds, using the interruption of the call to shove her feet into her boots.
When she hung up her expression was one I hadn’t seen before.
“Everything okay?” I asked, nerves making my tongue dull.
“That was Matthew,” she said. “He had a voicemail from Darren Walker late last night. Said he sounded a bit drunk. Apparently Walker wants to talk to you. Won’t talk to anybody else.”
I felt a flutter of something. Hope? Panic?
“When?”
“Today. Soon.” She shook her head in disbelief.
“And Fox is okay with that?” I asked. “After everything?”
“No,” she said. “But what choice do we have? Take him back in for questioning and he’ll clam up. Let him talk to you – maybe you can shake something loose. Get him to come to us. It might be nothing.”
“But you don’t think so?” I asked.
“No. The guy’s not smart enough to play the press, Cassie. If he wants to talk to you, he has something to say.”
I massaged the back of my hand, unable to process it. A little voice trilled in my ear: It might be about Olive. He knows something. I shook it off, shoving the hope down hard. But why else would he want to talk to me?
“What should I do?”
“Go and see him,” Marion said firmly. “But I’m going to get somebody to go with you. Might not be able to until lunchtime but he said he’ll be home today. Talk to him and pray he’s got something for us. I’ll call you when I can about an officer to come with you. And then you must let me know the minute you’ve spoken to him.”
Once she’d gone, I sat for a minute. Maybe this was it. The missing puzzle piece. Maybe Darren knew something about Bella. Or Olive.
* * *
Gran slept heavily and I didn’t wake her until Marion had gone. The effect of an uninterrupted night was miraculous – when I poked my head through the door she was smiling in her sleep. I brought her a cup of tea and then made breakfast so she could take more of her painkillers. I helped her to get washed and dressed, all the while waiting for Marion’s go-ahead for the meeting with Walker. Gran seemed brighter this morning. More comfortable. I tried to distract myself by being the best granddaughter I could be.
“What are you going to do today?” I asked. “Would you like me to find you something to watch?”
Gran scrunched up her nose. “I’ll probably read that book,” she said. “I’m really struggling to get into it. I thought I might go for a walk later—”
“Please don’t do that,” I said, trying to sound cheerful but dreading the thought of her wandering about alone. “Not without me or the nurse. How about we go for one around the block? Just you and me together.”
Until last year Gran had taken a walk every day without fail. It was her routine. Once Grandad died she’d stopped but I was aching to bring some sense of order back into her life. Once this was all over…
“Yes, I think I’d like to go now,” Gran said with a smile. “Walk off my breakfast. I’m getting a little chubby.”
She rubbed her non-existent belly absently, and I realised again just how skinny she was getting. I knew it tended to go either way with dementia: either you ate more because you forgot you’d eaten, or you’d eat less because you thought you already had. I wished Gran was the former. Or that I was around more to enforce a better meal routine.
No, I would be around more. Once this was over. When Bella was home…
“We’ll just go for a little walk,” I said in what I hoped was a firm voice. “I think you could do with resting a bit. If you do too much you might hurt yourself.”
“I won’t do any such thing.” Gran glanced down at her arm and noticed the sling. “Bulky thing, this. It’s getting in the way.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “You won’t have to wear it for ever.”
* * *
After we returned from our walk, which had been slow and surprisingly enjoyable in the brisk breeze, the nurse arrived. I’d arranged for a few hours a day over the next few days, despite the cost, so I could have some peace of mind. It didn’t do much to calm me though; I was skittish, my whole body aching with thrumming tension even as I left both of them settling down to a game of trivia from Gran’s youth.
In my car I turned the radio on, listening for any mention of Bella’s name, but there was no new information. Still, it was a distraction from thinking about Darren Walker and our meeting later. Marion hadn’t called yet and the thought was driving me crazy.
The radio droned on. The suspect had been released; police informed reporters that he was just a witness; searches
were continuing along Rosewood Avenue and up through Chestnut Circle. Blah, blah. All things I already knew. I tried to ignore the tense feeling making my whole body tight as I pulled up outside Ady’s shop, but still it took me several minutes to drag myself out of the car.
Inside, Ady was at his post as usual, his gaze glued to his phone. I thought that it was funny that he spent so much time staring at his when he wouldn’t let his daughter have one.
“Hey…” I began. “Uh, I just wanted to say I’m sorry I was a – a bit strange with you last night.”
I stood by the counter, pretending to browse the array of chocolate bars. Ady shrugged.
“It’s okay. People have bad days.” He smiled.
“Yeah.” I massaged the back of my neck. “I just have more than most. It’s all just getting to me a bit. What with Gran, and trying to pick up the writing again, and that missing girl…”
The bit about the writing was a lie. It wasn’t the idea of a job that made me feel so sick – but I didn’t want to tell Ady my theories about Olive and Bella.
Ady nodded sympathetically. “You’re working too hard. You need to stop writing and focus on what’s important. I was like that after my wife died because it was so unexpected.
“You learn to find pleasure in the little things. The stolen minutes of ‘me’ time. I had Tilly as a baby, which was hard, of course. But you find distractions.” This was the most Ady had ever said about his wife. Tilly was his whole life now, and he protected her.
“You do seem much better this morning,” he said then. “Cheerful, even. It’s nice.”
I thought of Marion, of last night in bed with her. The butterflies in my stomach tripled. Then I thought of my interview with Darren Walker. I couldn’t contain the hope that we were finally getting somewhere.
“Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good today actually.”
After the Eclipse Page 25