The Hidden Girl

by Louise Millar

  ‘Morning, Elvie,’ Hannah said brightly, hoping Elvie’s mood was not going to deteriorate again. ‘Are you hungry?’

  Elvie grasped the balustrade.

  Hannah recalled her tactic from yesterday. ‘OK. Come on. Into the kitchen, please.’

  Elvie followed meekly. Hannah laid out tea, cereal and toast.

  ‘Sit down and eat, please.’

  Elvie gobbled the food so fast that Hannah put on more toast. She patted Elvie’s shoulder and felt the solid muscles tense.

  ‘Elvie, do you have a mobile number for Frank and Tiggy?’

  Elvie chewed the toast, shaking her head. Her eyes were encrusted with sleep, and there was dried white dribble around her mouth.

  Hannah checked the clock. She was running out of time.

  ‘OK, Elvie, listen. This is what’s going to happen. I want you to stay here with me, till Frank and Tiggy get back later. In the meantime you mustn’t go outside, do you understand?’

  A message beeped and Hannah rushed to her phone – a text from Will.

  Back at 5 x.

  Damn. That was earlier than she was expecting.

  Elvie was staring at the bread packet in Hannah’s hand as if she wanted to eat it, plastic and all. Hannah put some fresh toast on her plate, and put on two more slices. Had Elvie even been able to feed herself this week?

  Hannah sipped her tea and picked up the strange glass with herbs on the table. Holding it to the light, she realized that five grapes from the fridge were inside it.

  ‘Elvie, what is that?’

  Elvie stopped chewing. ‘Pea-cockle. Off the marsh.’

  ‘Pea-cockle. What it’s for?’

  Elvie dropped her eyes, guiltily.

  Hannah looked back at the glass and suddenly knew. Elvie’s words from last night returned to her: ‘My house!’

  ‘Elvie, does it make people get a sore tummy?’

  A defeated expression appeared on Elvie’s face, reminiscent of the little donkey’s.

  Hannah picked her words carefully. ‘Elvie, have you been trying to make me and Will go away? Because this is your special place? Your house.’

  Elvie’s head dropped. Her shoulders shrank back, as if she was about to be beaten.

  Hannah’s mind flew to Will’s toppled vinyl shelves.

  Could Elvie have done that, when she returned from Spain and found them suddenly in Tornley Hall? Hannah recalled the fury in her eyes the day she’d cut the grass.

  She regarded the young woman, astonished.

  ‘Oh God, Elvie! You are upset, aren’t you? Listen, don’t worry. I’m not angry. But Will and I are going to be living here now. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m going to help you. You won’t need to hide here any more. And we’re going to be friends, so you can come and visit any time you want.’

  Elvie’s eyes flicked up, then back.

  ‘Listen. Tell me what work you do for Madeleine.’

  Elvie’s lips parted uncertainly, revealing uneven teeth coated in wet toast. Four were missing, and the rest were discoloured.

  ‘Taters.’

  ‘Taters … potatoes? What – you plant them? Pick them?’

  Elvie shook her head, wet crumbs falling on the table.

  ‘Grow them?’

  Elvie leapt up, knocking back the chair. Her big hands started to make circling motions, as if she were searching for a dropped object in a murky river.

  ‘You sort them?’

  Elvie’s eye had roved to the fruit bowl behind Hannah. Hannah broke off a banana, held it out and felt it tugged from her hand.

  ‘Is that what you’re carrying in those sacks?’

  Elvie shrugged.

  ‘OK. Well, Madeleine will have to manage without you today, until I’ve spoken to Tiggy. Now listen, I’ve got to clean the house for a visitor. Can you just sit here? Put the radio on if you like or …’

  Elvie was chewing the banana with an ecstatic look on her face, already eyeing up the bowl again. Hannah handed her a second. She turned on the digital radio, showed Elvie how to tune it, then took a bucket of bleach and hot water into the hall and started to mop the floor.

  Will would be home in five hours.

  She’d try Dax again in one hour.

  She prayed that he had called Frank and Tiggy, and that they were nearly here.

  Hannah was down on her knees, scrubbing the tiles, when she heard the radio come on in the kitchen. Fragments of words and tunes flew around as Elvie flicked through the stations. Then it stopped. A classical aria drifted through.

  That was interesting.

  Another sound followed. Water pouring, and metal clanking.

  Hannah poked her head round the door. Elvie was filling a bucket. She had their vinegar on the draining board, and a newspaper that Will had read on the train. Elvie tipped some vinegar into the bucket and threw sheets of newspaper in after it. She squeezed them, then rubbed the wet vinegary ball on the kitchen window.

  ‘Oh God, no,’ Hannah said. ‘Elvie, sorry, can you …’

  Elvie hesitated. Hannah saw a streak of clean glass on the grubby window.

  ‘Oh, OK. That’s clever.’

  Elvie waited, hand on glass.

  ‘Well, OK, if you don’t mind, Elvie. That’s kind, thanks,’ Hannah said. It would certainly help today, and would keep Elvie busy.

  What was the harm?

  And then Elvie wouldn’t stop. She attacked the interior of Tornley Hall with the same zeal she’d demonstrated in the garden.

  As Hannah scrubbed the hall floor, relieved to see the black-and-white tiles emerge in reasonable condition from beneath the grime, Elvie made the kitchen windows shine with her vinegary solution, inside and out. When Hannah’s tiles were dry, Elvie started on the hall windows, while Hannah did the sitting-room ones with spray and kitchen roll.

  Just in time, she caught Elvie heading into the garden to clean the outside of the windows. ‘I’ll do those, thanks,’ she said. Madeleine could be roaming nearby.

  At one point she and Elvie washed the same pane of glass, inside and out, their wiping hands chasing each other.

  Hannah laughed.

  Elvie didn’t.

  By 2 p.m. they had cleaned all the downstairs windows, and had swept and mopped the rest of the wooden floors.

  Hannah was wiping the shutters, when Elvie went and stood at one end of the sofa and waited expectantly.

  ‘Oh. Do you mind? Thank you.’

  Elvie lifted her end of the sofa effortlessly towards the wall, waiting patiently for Hannah to copy her. They moved the second sofa opposite it, then the cupboard, the two armchairs and the side-tables into place, too. Without asking, Elvie swept and mopped the last section of exposed sitting-room floor, then wordlessly they shook out the rug and lifted the coffee table on top of it. Hannah plugged in some lamps around the room and stood back.

  The room wasn’t ever going to feature in an interiors magazine, but it was ten times better than it had been. ‘Wow, this looks great,’ she said. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  But Elvie was already heading out of the room. There was a clatter, then Hannah heard the growl of a vacuum cleaner. She found Elvie pushing the hose along the bottom stair.

  ‘Oh God, no. You don’t have to …’

  Elvie ignored her.

  Tiggy was right about one thing, at least. Elvie did look happier when she was busy. It gave a purpose to her slumped frame.

  A new opera started on the radio in the kitchen.

  Hannah slipped upstairs past Elvie, to start on the bedroom windows.

  By late afternoon the transformation of Tornley House was nearly complete. Sun shone through the sparkling Victorian picture windows onto a neat garden. The hall tiles were clean, the cracks mostly covered by an Ikea rug. Just the pictures to put up on the walls tonight and they’d made it.

  It looked good.

  Hannah allowed herself one moment of excitement. Tomorrow they’d find out Barbara’s ‘news’.

  S
he checked her watch. Ten to four. Bloody hell – where were Tiggy and Frank? Will would be here in an hour. If they didn’t come, she’d have to take Elvie home to the bungalow and just hope she kept out of Madeleine’s way.

  Upstairs, she checked on Elvie cleaning the bath, then slipped into the second bedroom.

  The denim elephant lay on the floor. Hannah placed it on the mantelpiece. This wasn’t tempting fate. This was being hopeful again about the future.

  For a second, she let herself imagine this bedroom with a child in it. Toys in the corner. Books on a shelf for bedtime stories.

  A screech of brakes and pounding music on the gravel shook her from her daydream.

  Hannah went to the window, praying it was Frank and Tiggy.

  Their own old grey estate was parked under the window. Will?

  ‘Oh shit – Elvie!’

  Will was early. Hannah ran to the bathroom.

  It was empty.

  ‘Elvie?’

  Silence.

  Where the hell was she?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Will turned off the car engine and regarded Tornley House.

  Whatever Hannah had done since yesterday, for Barbara’s visit, seemed to have transformed it. It looked cleaner somehow.

  He didn’t want to think what would happen if all her efforts had all been for nothing.

  He headed to the front door, still buoyed up with his success today.

  ‘Carrie’ was finished, and the record company was happy. This afternoon a newly inspired Jeremiah had emailed over the bones of another song that sounded promising.

  Will pulled out his key.

  Strangely, returning to Suffolk had been OK today. For a start, he’d found a seat on the train and had time to listen to a young Parisian singer-songwriter he’d been approached about. He’d scribbled down a few ideas for her. In the car, too, it had felt surprisingly relaxing to turn off the busy A12 onto a country road, with a clear reach ahead. He’d have to work harder to keep up his London contacts when the studio was built, but being out here might give him more space in his head to write.

  It might yet all work.

  As long as Barbara found them a child. As long as Hannah forgave him for Clare.

  Will opened the front door, impressed at the sight of the revamped floor. Classical music was coming from the kitchen, which was odd for Hannah.

  There was a rush of footsteps and Hannah came tearing out of the dining room.

  ‘Hi. What’s up?’ he asked.

  Her eyes searched behind him. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘Nice to see you too,’ he said. ‘House looks good.’

  ‘Did you just come in the front door?’

  ‘No, I flew in a window.’

  ‘Did you see anyone?’

  Why was she so jumpy? ‘Like who?’

  Hannah headed into the kitchen. ‘Oh, nothing. Next door was helping out again – I just wondered if she’d finished.’

  He followed her in and changed the music on the radio. ‘So, they like “Carrie” – which means I’ll get paid soon.’

  ‘Great!’ Hannah said. He saw her check the back-door bolt.

  ‘What?’

  She scratched her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. Are you hungry?’

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll get something in a minute.’ He sat down.

  ‘Don’t get too comfortable.’ She nodded to a stack of twenty picture frames against the wall. ‘We need to put all these up tonight.’

  She seemed wired again.

  ‘Tell you what – this had better be bloody worth it,’ Will said, to make her smile. ‘Twins, at least.’

  But Hannah had gone to the scullery and was lifting and pushing the latch, frowning.

  She didn’t seem to have heard.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Hannah waited, biting her fingernails, until Will had eaten an early dinner and started putting up pictures with the drill in the sitting room. Then she continued her search for Elvie.

  This was ridiculous. One second Elvie had been in the bathroom, and the next she was gone. How had she done it? The back door was bolted, and Will had been outside the front. The scullery window was still on the latch, from when she’d closed it last night.

  Hannah rechecked wardrobes and behind doors, then tried the attic and even the paintings cupboard.

  What if Elvie was still here and appeared again, in the middle of the night, shouting?

  Should she just tell Will now? Take the risk?

  In the sitting room she found him measuring a drill hole, with a wall-plug in his mouth. She surveyed the frames. There must be twenty more. It would take him hours.

  No – no distractions. This house had to be ready tonight.

  Barbara was nearly here.

  She’d just have to assume Elvie had somehow left via the scullery window. When Will was busy, she’d pop next door and tell Elvie to stay in the bungalow till her parents returned.

  Hannah was washing her paintbrush in the bathroom at around seven o’clock that evening when she heard a familiar noise on the gravel and a sharp rap at the door.

  By the time she could reach the door, Will had opened it.

  Dax stood on the doorstep in the dark, a cigarette in his hand.

  ‘Aye-aye,’ he said to Will. ‘Your missus in?’

  ‘Hi, Dax,’ she called.

  Will’s shoulders jarred. ‘What can we do for you?’

  Dax looked past him to Hannah. ‘Bill rang Frank …’

  No! She had to stop him.

  ‘It’s fine. I’ll sort this,’ she said, walking in front of Will. ‘It’s about the people next door.’

  Will didn’t budge. She saw Dax’s eyes on them.

  ‘She’s the boss round here, in’t she?’ Dax said with a smirk.

  ‘No, there are no bosses here,’ Hannah said quickly.

  She knew his remark would wind Will up.

  ‘Honestly, Will, it’s fine, I’ll sort it out.’ She knew it would anger Will that she’d said that to him in front of Dax, but right now she had no choice. She waited till he’d gone back upstairs.

  ‘What happened?’ Hannah whispered, ignoring Dax’s sly grin. ‘Did you find Frank and Tiggy?’

  ‘No, I spoke to Mad. Told her what you told me.’

  Hannah did a double-take. ‘Dax! I didn’t want you to do that.’

  He drew on his cigarette and squinted through the smoke. ‘Well, see, I thought you might be jumping the gun, and I was right. Mad said Elvie had a right hump on, yesterday. Shouting and swinging her arms around. Mad was trying to stop her, she said – restraining her, Tiggy calls it. That’s what her and Frank do.’

  How could he be that stupid? ‘No. Dax. That’s not true. Madeleine whacked her. I’ve got it on video.’

  Dax’s swagger dissolved in front of her. ‘You what?’

  ‘I filmed it – on my phone. I’ve filmed her twice actually. The first time she was yelling at someone else, then I filmed her kicking Elvie, and hitting her three times in the face. I’m not making this up. There’s no way you could call that self-defence, or restraining someone.’ She paused. ‘Oh, and I’ve also got photos of her leaving a donkey out in the snow all night. I don’t think that was self-defence, either.’

  Dax sucked in more smoke. ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Well, I do. And, Dax, I really wish you hadn’t told her about me. It’s put me in a difficult position.’ She sighed. ‘Listen, can you just text me Frank’s number, and I’ll ring him and Tiggy.’

  Dax threw down his cigarette.

  ‘All right – don’t get yer knickers in a twist. Tell you what, if you’re so sure, why don’t we ask Elvie. Where is she anyway? Mad said she weren’t around today.’

  Upstairs the drill stopped. Hannah motioned for Dax to be quiet. It started again.

  ‘She was here earlier, but she’s run off,’ Hannah owned up.

  He motioned at the bungalow. ‘You been round?’
/>   ‘Yes – I tried the intercom an hour ago. But she didn’t answer. I thought I heard her listening, though.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ Dax said, walking off.

  ‘Wait,’ Hannah called. She ran upstairs to the toolbox and found the torch, then tiptoed past their bedroom, where Will was drilling. When she returned, Dax was in the hall, examining her paintwork on the walls with a big, oily hand and an appalled expression.

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ she warned.

  She followed him round to the side-lawn and through the wall-gate. A ghostly light shone through the peacock window onto the damp, shorn grass.

  It was her first time in the smallholding. Mist hung in the air. It was interesting to see Tornley Hall from this angle. Its roof rose above the Victorian wall. She could see now how the walled garden was designed to complement the house’s setting.

  There was a faint smell of manure, and solar lights illuminated their path to the bungalow. Dax banged on the front door, as Hannah stood back.

  ‘You in there, girl?’ Dax called.

  It felt as if they were trespassing.

  Dax peered in the unlit window.

  Hannah leant in to check the other window. Just at that moment Dax stood back and they careered into each other. Her hand shot out to steady herself and she felt the hard muscle of his arm, and smelt cigarette smoke and the now-familiar diesel smell.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’

  ‘Aye-aye, five minutes on your own with me in the dark …’ Dax teased.

  ‘Han?’

  A new torch beam shone out of the dark. She banged her leg into the lion statue by the door, startled.

  It was Will. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing.’ The word came out too fast. ‘We’re just looking for Tiggy’s daughter. Dax is helping …’ Dax emerged from the shadows into Will’s beam, ‘… me to find her.’

  Will’s eyes moved to Dax, then back to Hannah. ‘And why’s this your problem?’

  ‘It’s not. It’s just that Tiggy’s away.’

  ‘And …’

  Dax folded his arms. ‘Ooh, you’re in trouble now, missy.’

  A look of menace appeared on Will’s face that Hannah knew all too well. On the rare occasions a drunken moron had kicked her seat in the cinema, or bumped her on the Tube, she’d seen that same expression appear. It was usually followed by a murmured word, tight in the ear of her assailant, and then an apology to her.