by Katie Lowe
I send another text to Darcy, while I’m lying on my daughter’s bed. Can you come over? She doesn’t reply.
Dread creeps through me. I wonder what she’s heard, what she’s read. I wonder what Will has said to her, on the call. I wonder what she’s said to him.
I open Twitter, and see my face staring back. Mouth open, eyes lit with fury, I am howling. I’m a woman who has lost control: a mother, screaming at her child. I see the back of Evie’s head, a little blurred but unmistakable, through the car window, the stop light reflected in the glass.
Look at her face, the tweet says. Imagine screaming at your child like that. That poor little girl.
The replies double down on the theme.
I knew it. I fucking knew it.
they should’ve arrested the bitch weeks ago!!!
When Evie Catton’s body washes up somewhere, the UK judicial system is going to have to take a long, hard look at itself – there’s blood on the hands of everyone involved in this case.
I click the screen off, and close my eyes.
Washes up somewhere.
I see the quarry sign: Think! I open my eyes again.
The sunlight angles through the windows, dust motes drifting, suspended in the air. Between the wooden floorboards, the light breaks through. It’s one of the things that I found strange about the cottage when we first moved in: the sense of the hollow underneath, the feeling of being suspended only by a layer of thin, uneven wood.
But there’s a break in the space below, beneath the boards. Something solid there. Something hidden: tucked away.
My phone vibrates. Darcy. Sorry. Been tied up all day – call you later??? I feel a twitch of relief. I fire off a reply, and sit up.
I don’t want to look at what Evie’s hidden – not after last time. I’ve broken her trust already, in a way I’m not sure can be repaired.
But then – there might be something there. Something that helps me get her back.
I lower myself to the floor. I feel as though I’m play-acting, pretending to be her, my little girl.
I slide my thumbs under the floorboard and it gives – too easily. Inside, there’s a notebook – not a dated diary, or a book with an ornate cover, like the ones the girls on the ward carry with something like pride. It’s just a plain, ruled pad. I’ve seen it on her desk, or in her hands, and thought nothing of it.
It’s so typical of her to keep her secrets in a thing she could hide in plain sight – at least until she realized I’d come snooping. Then, I suppose, her hand was forced.
I feel the same dull urge to pull away I feel from the news alerts that bear my name; from the death threats, the tweets. I know whatever’s written here, my daughter didn’t want me to read it; that the words inside are guaranteed to hurt.
But I look, of course. I always do. I open the book to a recent page, her handwriting neat, the l’s forming careful loops.
Lissa says he’s a catfish, but she’s just jealous.
Obviously I know how this sounds, because everyone on the TV show says the EXACT SAME THING, but … I know him. She knows him. They were Facebook friends before I was.
And OK, yes – it’s annoying that he doesn’t have FaceTime, because that would make it way easier to prove it, but I’ve done all the stuff they do on the show. I’ve reverse image searched his photos (no matches) and he sent me that picture of him holding a card with MY NAME on it. And love hearts, which is tacky, but … I liked it.
My stomach flips. I turn to another page, tracing the scrawl with my thumb. Around the page, she’s drawn a wisp of smoke; a pattern that dissolves to tiny points, like ash drifting softly on the air.
I don’t think she even means to do it. I know she’s going through a lot, with the whole Conviction thing. It cannot be easy for her, having to relive whatever happened the night Dad died.
Heat creeps up through my neck. She’s writing about me.
I even heard her talking to herself the other night, in the kitchen – and OK, she might’ve been on the phone, though I am 99 per cent certain she was not – which was … Oh, God, I feel bad even writing it. I just … Sometimes I’m scared of her.
I close my eyes. It’s too awful.
Sometimes I’m scared of her.
I blink the words away. I turn the page again, throat clenched and sick with fear.
Callum says I should go and stay with him. He said if I needed to, I could crash at his friend’s house for a bit while people look for me. I feel bad that he even thinks we would have to do that, but … I guess he’s read some of the stuff that’s out there, and – with all the attention – you know it’d be
The sentence stops, the pen-flick interrupted. I wonder what it was that made her stop and put the book away.
I read the words over again. If she’s with this boy – Callum, assuming he is who he says he is – Will and his team need to be looking for them both.
But if I show them the diary, they’ll see what else she’s said.
Sometimes I’m scared of her.
I stare at the pages a little longer.
And then, I reach for my phone.
‘Will – hi. I’ve found something here – something of Evie’s. Do you think you could come back?’
51
I follow the sound of voices, down into the kitchen.
When Dan looks over, his expression sends a chill through me. For the first time, I see a pure, unbridled anger in his eyes. Something curdling: love turned horribly to hate.
Behind him, I see Will, talking to a suited man with his back to me. The latter turns and smiles. I feel my knees weaken. I grip the bannister with both hands.
‘Good to see you again, Hannah,’ he says. He’s older now, no longer in uniform, an authoritative air about him. He extends a hand. ‘DCI Mark Stevens. I investigated your husband’s murder in 2008.’
I stare at his hand. I’m frozen, rooted in place. ‘I know who you are.’
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d remember.’
He’s mocking me.
‘DCI Stevens has come along to help out,’ Will says, breaking the silence.
‘Why?’
The three of them stare at me, none apparently willing to answer. Because it’s obvious. They’ve decided Evie’s disappearance is connected to Graham’s murder. It’s the simplest solution. The one that makes the most sense. And so, he’s here to question me, knowing just what to look for in my movements, my face: every tell he thinks he saw before.
Stevens doesn’t take his eyes off me. He gestures to the kitchen table. ‘Shall we?’
Nausea – fear – threatens to overtake me. I nod, and I sit. For a split second, I feel my daughter’s head upon my knee; I’m in the interview room, a decade ago, telling them that I don’t remember. That I don’t know.
I slide the book across the table. ‘I found this. In Evie’s room.’ Dan rises from his seat and follows the journal, pulled by an invisible thread. Will opens it; Stevens arches over to read it. ‘It was under the floorboards. She must’ve hidden it there, so …’ I see a doodled wisp curling, blue, around the page; I see her hunched over her desk, pen in hand. The missing deepens in my chest. I feel her absence as an ache.
‘She talks about the boy I mentioned. A lot,’ I say, as they scan the pages, silently. ‘She says they hadn’t actually met. But that he’d help her hide, if she needed to. So I thought … it might be like I said. She might be with him.’
Nobody speaks. Will’s eyes scan over the page I’d been afraid for them to read. Stevens gives a barely perceptible nod, and Will turns to the next. Finally, he slides the book across the table, flipping it shut. ‘Thanks, Hannah. We’ll take this back and have a good read through – if that’s OK?’
I nod. I feel an invisible hand at my throat; another on my shoulder.
I wait for them to stand. To leave. To take the lead I’ve handed them, and follow it.
But they don’t. ‘While we’re here …’ Will glances at Dan, then at me.
‘Would you mind if we went over a couple of things with you? Stevens is picking up from me on this, so …’
I feel their eyes on me, expectant. I nod again. I can’t speak.
Taking his cue, Stevens pulls a notebook from his pocket and clicks his pen. Will leans back in his chair. ‘All right,’ Stevens says, with the same cracked smile as before: one that’s dead in the eyes. ‘I appreciate this, Hannah. I know you’re under a lot of stress, so it’s good of you to take the time. I know it can feel a bit like Groundhog Day with these things, but … it has to be done, I’m afraid.’
He’s leading up to something, I know it. He’s trying to set me at ease, to make me more inclined to talk. I know this trick. He used it last time, too.
‘So – you said you and Evie had a … a disagreement. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you usually drive her to school?’
‘I do,’ Dan says, quickly. ‘Since the whole – you know, all this press attention … we’ve been concerned about her being approached by journalists, or … You know. Fans of the show. People looking for some kind of connection with it. So I’ve been dropping her off, and picking her up. But I was sick, so …’ He looks at me, the expression in his eyes unreadable. ‘Hannah offered to do it.’
‘OK,’ Stevens says, his eyes still on me. ‘So, that must’ve been pretty tense, I imagine. I’ve got a teenager myself, and I know when we fight … I’d go to great lengths not to be locked in a car with them, let’s put it that way.’
He pauses, waiting for a response. ‘Is that a question?’ I say. It’s a rupture, a flash of anger. I can’t help it. They’re wasting time.
He laughs. ‘No. You’re right. Try this.’ His tone sharpens. I feel the hairs on my skin rise in response. ‘What were you fighting about?’
I glance at Dan. He looks away. ‘It was just … everything that’s been going on. It’s been upsetting her, hearing all this stuff about her dad, and … It was basically exactly what you’d expect.’
Stevens taps his pen, once, on the notepad. ‘Did you apologize?’
‘What?’ He doesn’t repeat the question. He doesn’t need to. ‘I … Yeah.’
‘And did she accept it?’
I stare at him. There’s a satisfaction in his eyes as he removes his glasses. He wipes them, slowly, on the edge of his shirt. ‘No,’ I say, finally.
‘OK. So things escalated, and then – from my understanding of it – she climbed out of the car and ran away.’
‘Yes.’
‘And this happened where, exactly?’
‘Welford Lane. Near the quarry.’
He looks at Dan. ‘Is this the route you usually take?’
Dan is still, for a moment, his mouth slightly open. ‘No.’
‘I didn’t want—’ I begin. The shiver in my voice registers as shrill. I try to settle it. To stay calm. ‘I know – and I’m sure you know – people have been taking photos of me, and posting them on the internet. I feel like I’m being followed, all the time. I think there was someone in the woods, today, following me there. But I thought I’d … I thought if I took a different route, people might not …’
I see the way they’re looking at me, and I know exactly what they’re thinking. If you’re not doing anything wrong, why would you care? I’d have thought the same – before. But now, it doesn’t matter what I do. These strangers want to damn me, either way.
Stevens clears his throat. ‘All right. So Evie got out of the car, and you parked – and then followed?’
I swallow. I hear the footsteps in the leaves behind. ‘Yeah.’
‘And then what?’
‘I looked for her. For a while. I thought I heard … There was someone with me. A man. I felt him behind me.’
‘You felt him?’
‘His hand on my shoulder.’
He says nothing. I go on.
‘So I turned around, and I … He was gone. But I could still feel him watching me. So I ran.’
Stevens doesn’t need to say a word. I see the scepticism on his face, in the set of his jaw. He sees a woman using a trick that’s worked before: the anonymous man, the scapegoat for her evils.
But his memory’s unreliable, too. He’s convinced himself that I was the one who blamed Mike Philips for Graham’s murder. But when he interviewed me – he, and his partner, whose grudge apparently led to Philips’s arrest – I only told them that I didn’t know what had happened. I had no memory at all. And that only changed at trial, when I was presented with their ‘evidence’ against him.
He twirls the pen around in his hand. Will looks at me and smiles. I can feel them – all of them – waiting for me to speak. But I don’t. I’m all too aware that Stevens wants this conversation to go a certain way, just as I do, with my patients. He has a destination in mind: something he’s leading me to say.
‘OK,’ he says, at last. ‘So, later in the day – you went to get petrol. Is that right?’
I’m destabilized by the change of tack, the slip in time. ‘I went to Hawkwood House first—’
‘I want to talk about the petrol station, if you don’t mind. We’ll come back to that.’
I tense. I smile through gritted teeth. ‘Sure.’
‘So you went to the motorway services. That’s a bit of a way out, isn’t it? Although I get it – I’m a bargain hunter too, fuel prices being what they are. Cost me a small fortune getting here.’ He smiles, closed-mouthed, this time. The corners of his mouth barely move. Only a slight narrowing in his eyes suggests it’s there at all.
‘I … I didn’t want to be recogni—’ I catch myself. ‘I can’t go anywhere in Hawkwood without being stared at. The woman at the Texaco took my photo last time, so I—’
‘OK.’ He reaches in his pocket for his phone. ‘So this probably won’t come as a huge surprise.’
My blood turns to ice. ‘What?’
He slides the phone across the table, and I hear a woman screaming. I take the phone and watch the shaking screen, the figures unsteady, blurred. Still, I recognize the scene: one figure lurching forwards, another leaning back. The words are incomprehensible. The screaming woman sounds out of her mind. The caption underneath, in vivid text: #CONVICTION: HANNAH CATTON ATTACKS STRANGER IN PETROL STATION. Uploaded 14 hours ago. 180,000+ views.
I turn the screen off, and put the phone down. Dan stares down at his hands, his pallor sickly, almost grey. I wait for them to ask me something, and they wait for me to speak.
‘She wasn’t … I thought she was—’
‘Is this a habit? Thinking someone’s there, when they’re not?’
I feel the sense of a noose tightening. I’m being baited.
I say nothing. I close my eyes.
‘We’ve been trying to contact this friend of yours – Darcy Burke. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what’s your relationship with her, exactly?’
‘I was …’ I look at Dan. ‘We work together. She’s—’
Stevens cuts in before I can go on. ‘Can you call her for me, please?’
‘What?’
‘On your phone. We’ve been struggling to get hold of her, but she might answer for you.’ There’s a silence. ‘If you don’t mind?’
I stand, heavily, and walk to the counter. I unplug my phone, find Darcy’s number, and hit call.
There’s a beep, a hiss of static. And then, a dull, robotic voice. ‘The number you have dialled has not been recognized. Please hang up and try your call again.’
I stare at the phone. Dan stands, abruptly, and walks to the sink, his back to me. His hands grip the counter, as though he’ll fall if he lets go.
‘I can text her,’ I say. ‘We text all the time. I can—’ I flick to the messaging app. I scan for her name. But there’s nothing there.
In my emails, too, there’s nothing.
No sign she was ever there at all.
‘The fact is, Hannah, we can’t find anything to pro
ve this Darcy Burke exists. Or rather, that she’s ever been around here.’ Stevens swipes on his phone, and stands. He hands it to me, and I recognize the smiling girl instantly, though she’s older, now: still, she has the same frizzy hair, the same overlarge glasses and buck teeth. ‘We’ve spoken to Darcy Burke. She says she interned for you in 2008. But she lives out in Sydney. She hasn’t been in the UK since 2010.’
‘That isn’t her. That isn’t who I’ve been talking to.’
‘All right.’ He shrugs, and walks back to the table. ‘The question is, then, who have you been talking to?’
‘I don’t know. I—’
‘Or rather, have you been talking to anyone at all? Because your daughter certainly seemed to think you might be imagining things. And …’ He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a sheaf of papers, folded three times. He unfolds them, laying them out one by one. ‘Come on. Have a look. Tell me if you recognize any of this.’
I walk towards him. It feels like a death march. With every step, my legs threaten to give way.
‘Hawkwood House was never for sale,’ he says. ‘This is a fraudulent deed, signing the property over to …’ He presses a finger to the foot of the document. ‘Dr Hannah McLelland.’
He points to the next page. ‘And we have a number of loan agreements, here, all based on the Hawkwood House renovations. Big money. Almost a quarter of a million. And guess who’s applied for those?’
I can’t speak. I can’t move.
‘Hannah McLelland. And yet, in spite of all this cash coming in, the contractors engaged to put up the scaffolding say they’re yet to be paid for their hard work. And their agreement is with …?’
He taps the page, twice. ‘Let me guess,’ he says, softly. ‘Because I think I know how you’re going to explain all this.’
I look at him; and at Will; and at Dan, still turned terribly away. ‘I don’t remember—’
‘Bingo. Got it in one.’
I feel a jolt of realization. ‘Wait – wait. She gave me some papers.’ I stand and stagger to the cupboard. ‘From the Hawkwood archives. They were …’
I open the door. There’s nothing there. I turn to Will. ‘You saw them. You pulled them out of the drain.’