Dr Barton sighed. ‘Well, they must have known that if you spilt the beans, they’d be charged over the deaths of Mabel and C.V., at the very least, to say nothing of coercing Elvie into free labour. I imagine they were panicking, and blaming each other. This type of group abuse can be incremental, of course. One person’s act is built upon another’s. The Horseborrows use a vulnerable teenager for free domestic help. The farmer next door gets suspicious, so they lend her to him to work during the harvest, to shut him up, and he enjoys the profit he gets from the free labour. Then the Mortrens move in, to start their flower business in the 1970s. They ask questions, and the girls are “lent” to them, too. If Mabel wants to leave Tornley with C.V., how does she do so? She’s illiterate, has no money, no way to communicate, no transport. Even if she could walk out of there, the Horseborrows tell her that she’s shamed her family and nobody wants her. She’ll end up on the streets. She’ll go to prison, for wasting police time searching for her. She can’t leave. Anyway she owes them now for all that food and accommodation, and there’s the baby, too. She’s better off at Tornley.’ He shook his head. ‘It really is astonishing. It could only happen in a closed community. Think about it. There are no outsiders to condemn the group behaviour. And it becomes worse. Mabel loses the will and confidence to leave. The abusive use of her labour becomes so entrenched within the community that nobody can remember who started it. When C.V. and later Elvie are born, it carries on.’
Hannah frowned. ‘But to cause a death – somebody must have been responsible for that. Surely one of them must have had less of a conscience than the others?’
Dr Barton nodded. ‘Quite possibly. It is certainly a serious development within the group.’
Hannah thought of Dax, and of those cold wolf-eyes. ‘I can guess who, too,’ she shuddered.
After her meeting with Dr Barton, Hannah visited Elvie. Elvie sat opposite a member of staff, who held up cards with pictures on. She regarded Hannah with the usual blank eyes.
She was clean and wore a bright-pink tracksuit, which the nurse said she’d chosen herself and would not be dissuaded from. Her black hair was brushed to the side, and on her feet she wore large, furry slippers.
‘Hi, Elvie,’ Hannah said, walking over. ‘You look lovely.’
Elvie smiled shyly.
Hannah took her big, rough hand, and Elvie let her. ‘Thank you for helping me the other night. You did a very brave thing.’
Elvie kept smiling.
The therapist kept her eyes trained on her. ‘Elvie’s been telling me one of the nursery rhymes her grandmother Mabel taught her and her mother, C.V.’
‘Wow, I’d like to hear that,’ Hannah said.
Elvie opened her mouth and started to speak. It was a shock to hear so many words come out in her deep, flat voice:
‘The apples fall down one by one
And with a crack they hit the ground
And with one chop, a head falls free
Under the rotten apple tree
The apples fall down two by two
And roll under my leather shoe
And with one chop, a head falls free
Under the rotten apple tree’
The nursery rhyme continued till Elvie reached verse ten.
‘Thank you, Elvie,’ the therapist said. ‘I wonder what that nursery rhyme is about?’
Hannah knew the woman was testing the responses from Elvie, but she couldn’t help herself. She squeezed Elvie’s hand in hers.
‘It’s about waiting, isn’t it, Elvie? Killing time,’ Hannah said. ‘Counting the days till something happens, even when you don’t know if it ever will.’
She thought of Will.
Back in London, Will finally turned over the photo of the little girl on his desk. Her eyes met his, from within the shadows.
He stared. She was amazing. She was everything he’d ever imagined. Her eyes seemed to be asking him what he was waiting for.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Three months later
The sun was out in London. It was July and the city appeared to have emptied out for the summer.
Even though it was half-past nine on a Monday morning the North Circular route around London was quiet. They turned off onto a road into east London, then took various turns, still following the satnav. For the second time this morning it lost its way, due to a new road layout.
‘No!’ Hannah cried. ‘It’s gone again.’
‘Why haven’t we updated it?’ Will said.
‘I don’t know. Why haven’t we updated it?’
‘Where’s the map?’
‘Why are you asking me? I’m not the bloody First Officer.’
And so it went on for two more minutes, until Hannah spotted the main road they were meant to turn right at, and shouted for Will to brake.
He reversed and they pulled into a long road of neat terraces.
‘OK, we’re five minutes early,’ Hannah said. ‘Where’s Barbara’s car?’
‘Can’t see it,’ Will said, turning off the engine.
Hannah sat back and stared at the house.
They were here.
A familiar white hatchback drew up and parked in front of them. Barbara climbed out and waved.
Will wound down the window.
‘Right. Give me a few minutes,’ Barbara said. ‘I’ll tell you when to come.’ She laughed. ‘I love this bit!’
She walked in through the gate of the house two doors along.
Hannah and Will fell into silence.
‘Oh my God! This is it,’ Hannah said. ‘What if, after all this, I’m crap at it? What if I’m a terrible mother?’
Will leant over and brushed a stray hair back from her face. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Barbara emerged from the house and waved them in.
They got out of the car and walked up the driveway towards the door, the photo in Hannah’s pocket, where it had been for the past three months, welded to her skin.
They walked through the doorway into a hall and saw a woman in shadow at the end, with a little figure held high in her solid, safe arms.
A flash of sunlight on red curls.
A finger in a mouth.
A child hoping that everyone was telling the truth, and knowing that she had no choice but to trust them.
Hannah walked in, Will walked in, and the child’s eyes flicked between them.
The front door closed.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Trisha Jackson and all the team at Pan Macmillan, and to Lizzy Kremer and everyone at David Higham Associates.
I spend a lot of time pestering nice people to help me with research, so a big thanks also to Nick Southwood and Tom D for showing me around a music studio; Roz Chandler at Field Gate Flowers; and to Sarah, Paul, Jo, Fin, Simon, Shirley, Flic, Chopper and Karen, whose insights and advice were invaluable throughout.
A special thanks, too, to Fiona and Andy for their brilliant support this year. Couldn’t have done it without you!
Also by Louise Millar
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‘I started reading and couldn’t stop … a must-read that will tap into every mother’s primal fears’
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‘Compelling psychological thriller’
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‘Taut, chilling, utterly brilliant; my thriller of the year’
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The Hidden Girl Page 31