I went to the old station by myself the day before her sixteenth birthday, and I climbed up the ivy at the back. I could just peer over the windowsill, and I was surprised to see her inside. She was writing in her memory book. I knew instinctively that I shouldn’t make myself known, so I just watched. She was crying. After a while she put the book away, under one of the floorboards. I came back down and hid in the bushes until she left.
My mother asked me what was wrong when I came home, and I didn’t tell her. I thought if I kept it secret, then later on when I told Grace that I knew, and that I’d never told anyone, she would love me again. It was a way for me to prove to her that I was grown up too, and that I could be trusted.
The next night, she was dead. They all were.
I should have told my mother.
There are two trucks parked down the street. Both say “Lakeside Homes” on the side, in a nice big curly font. There’s already some tall temporary fencing down the road on the other side of the tracks, but by the look of things, they only just started. I’m just relieved there’s no one here right now. I’ll have to be quick.
The ivy is so thick and dense that even if I could climb it, I’d have to hack my way to the window. It doesn’t stop me from trying.
“What are you doing?” Jacob says. He’s leaning against the car, his arms crossed. His tone is still cold and dripping with suspicion.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I say, trying to get hold of a solid bit of ivy.
“I have no idea.”
“I’m trying to get to that window, can you come over and give me a hand please?”
“Why don’t you use the door? Just a thought.”
I rush around to the other side, the tracks side, and stare at the wide open door. Jacob has followed me, and I turn and grin at him, but he doesn’t grin back.
“You’re going to be long?”
“No, why?”
“I’m not parked legally, I have to move the car.”
“We’re in Whitbrook. No one gives a shit.”
But he leaves anyway, and seconds later I hear him drive off.
Inside it’s dusty and damp and the smell hits me like a punch in the face. I can almost feel her in here, right now. I want to put my arms around her and tell her that I’m sorry that I didn’t tell our mother, that I didn’t know any better.
The floor is hidden under half an inch of dust. I scrub it away with my foot, where I think the loose floorboard is. I try and pry it loose with the tips of my fingers, but it doesn’t budge. I feel the next one along, my fingers quickly blackened with grime, and I feel a jolt when that one moves. I hold my breath. Gently, slowly, I manage to loosen it. And there is it. The sight of it brings tears that immediately roll down my cheeks. The memory book. It’s mouldy and dusty, but otherwise intact.
I wipe my fingers on my jeans and I open it. The sight of her handwriting makes my heart ache. I brush a finger against the surface of the page. Then I turn to the last entry, the one I know she wrote the last time she was here.
I went to see Mr Hennessy this morning. I stood inside the hallway of his house and told him everything. I’m sorry, I said, but your son, he’s not well, Sir. He’s evil. He likes to hurt people. You have to do something, I said. Then I told him about the time he cut my thigh with his pen knife, but then later he said he was sorry, he would never hurt me again. Hugo says terrible things about me, then he cries and says that he loves me like he’s never loved anyone. He says he can’t live without me. I showed Mr Hennessy my bruises, and I told him that I never wanted to see Hugo again, but that he won’t let me go. I told Mr Hennessy that I broke it off with his son but he won’t listen. I told him Hugo threatened me. That he said he would kill me if I left him. I told Hugo I didn’t want him to come to my birthday party, and he said I would be sorry. I told Mr Hennessy that Hugo had sworn he would hurt us. Molly, mum and dad. He said he would never let me go. He’d watch me die first. He said—”
“Who the fuck are you?”
There’s a man behind me. I turn around. He’s wearing a hard hat and a high-visibility vest.
“I just came to have a look,” I say.
“I know who you are. You’re from the podcast, aren’t you? You nosy cow. You’ve got no business being here. You’re trespassing.”
I’m about to leave—I’m not going to argue—but he takes my arm and roughly pulls me towards the door.
I flinch my arm away. “Take your hands off me. I’m going.”
There’s a crackle on the handheld radio at his belt.
“We’ve got an unauthorised visitor at the station. She’s from the podcast,” he says into it.
“I’ll go, no need to call for backup,” I say, snarling, as he clips it back onto his belt.
“What’s this?” He points to the dusty memory book that I’ve wedged under my arm.
The two-way radio crackles again. “The boss is on his way,” it says.
“It’s mine,” I tell him.
“No, it’s not. I saw you, you took it from over there,” he points to the hole in the floor.
“Jacob?” I call out. I move towards the door, but in an instant the man has his hand on my shoulder. “Not so fast, lady.”
“I’m leaving. Let me go.”
“Give this back.” He reaches for the memory book and I kick him hard in the shin. He yelps in pain. I quickly move towards the door, but it’s blocked by a tall, dark shadow.
Edward Hennessy.
“I’ll take over from here,” Edward Hennessy says to high-vis man. “You can go.”
The man’s face is still distorted in pain. He limps out the door, shooting me an angry scowl in the process.
“Well well well, if it isn’t little Molly Forster.”
“My name is Rachel Holloway,” I say. I can’t get out. He’s in the way. Again. I can feel the shortness of breath coming on. My legs start to give, but I lock my knees. I will not go down. I won’t be running. Not this time.
“I know who you are, Molly.”
“Let me go,” I say.
“Why are you here, little Molly?” he asks. “And what have you got there?”
I back away from him. I can hear my breath, thick and pained, pushing through my chest. I clutch the book in my arms.
“Get out of my way,” I say again, but I don’t feel so sure of myself anymore. In a flash, I’m a child and frightened and alone, and I am looking into the face of the only person who can help me. Chief Constable Hennessy.
I can see myself, a child, sobbing, as Edward Hennessy closed the door behind me.
“I’m so scared, he’s coming for me.” I had managed to say.
“There’s nothing to be scared about anymore, Molly. I’m here now.”
He sat me down in front of his big desk and told me that everything was going to be fine now because Dennis had been arrested and couldn’t hurt me anymore. Through desperate sobs I told him it wasn’t Dennis, it was Hugo. I saw him. I was there. I was hiding. It was Hugo and he ran after me but I got away.
He said he understood, and he was going to fix it, that I should wait right there, and he went out the side door into a different office. I got up and watched him from the doorway. He had his back to me. He was standing but huddled at the same time. At first, I couldn’t see what he was doing but then I saw his fingers gripping the phone, holding it tight against his ear.
“I told you. She’s here,” he whispered, “Come over now. Right now… No, I’m not going to take care of it, you can take care of it yourself. I’ve cleaned up enough of your shit, Hugo. You come here right now and find a way out of this, do you hear me?”
In the end, I never heard the rest of the conversation Edward Hennessy was having with Hugo. I just ran out the front door into the street and I’ve never stopped running.
The dark spots are dancing around the edges of my vision. I can feel the blood drain away. My back hits the brick wall. I shake my head to clear it. I’m not alone, not anymo
re. I’m not a child, I’m a mother. And I’m angry.
“Get out of my way,” I say to him now, with false bravado.
“Poor little Molly. What’s the matter, little girl? No one will feel sorry for you now, not after they hear what we have to say. I’m going to find reams of witness statements that will paint you as a sick, jealous, hateful, dangerous freak. By the time I’m done with you, they will be braying for your head. That will teach you to go after my son.”
White hot fury shoots through me at his words. I can feel the book in my arms. Slowly, I brush off the mould and dust from it. Under a clear plastic cover, there is a collage of photos, some of them from magazines, but there’s one photo of Grace and I, our cheeks touch, we are grinning at the camera. She has drawn a heart around it.
I think of my daughter, and how brave she is when she faces the world—just like her aunt. I draw strength from them both. I squeeze my eyes shut once, twice, then I open them and lift my head to look at Hennessy. He has his mobile in his hand and is tapping on the screen. I feel my breath on my top lip.
“She came to see you,” I say.
“What?”
“My sister, she came to see you, to tell you about Hugo. She told you that he was sick, that he was dangerous.”
He scoffs. “So what? She only had herself to blame. Your sister shouldn’t have seduced him like that. She made her bed, I didn’t see why she couldn’t lie in it, I told her as much.”
“You should have protected her, protected us.”
He bends down, his face is so close to mine I can smell his breath.
“Do you think I didn’t know Hugo had behavioural problems? We were working to help him, his mother and I. I said to your stupid sister, don’t break it off with him yet. I knew he might do something truly terrible if she did, and I was the Chief Constable of Whitbrook with my eye on being the Mayor. I couldn’t have my son be publicly ousted as a psychopath. I said to her, just do whatever he wants. Fuck him. Suck him. I don’t care. Do whatever it is that he wants from you, and eventually he’ll tire of you. He always does.”
“You’re as crazy as he is, you sick piece of shit.”
“Language, little Molly. You don’t get to talk to the grown-ups like that. Don’t get angry because your whore of a sister didn’t listen back then. She didn’t listen and look what happened. Hugo is better now. He has his issues under control. He has a family, a standing in the community. She should have listened and given him what he wanted.”
He lifts the phone to his ear.
“Yes, this is Edward Hennessy, I need assistance—”
I quickly push myself off the wall and take three steps forward. I position myself and pray that my small plan is going to work.
“She wrote it all down, you know. Right here.” I tap the book.
He snaps his phone shut and turns around to face me.
“Give me that,” he says, extending his arm. He steps forward and swears in pain as his foot becomes wedged into the space where I’ve pulled the floorboard, just as I’d hoped.
I bolt.
“Get back here!” His hand reaches out to grab the back of my parka, but his foot is stuck just long enough to give me clear path and I’m out the door.
I run around the corner and see that Jacob is sitting in his car, with his eyes closed.
I bang on the roof so hard it makes him jump.
“Go!” I scream. “Now!”
Forty-Nine
I turn to look at Jacob. He looks white. We left Edward Hennessy behind, his arms flaying.
“I swear to you Rachel, Molly, whoever the fuck you are, if you lied to me and I get arrested–”
I’ve reached into the pocket of the parka I’m wearing, Jacob's parka, and I’m holding out the small black mic. “I turned it on. Did it work?”
He snaps his head around. There’s a small red light blinking on the box. “Yes, it’s on,” he says. “What just happened?”
I tell him. I show him the book. He listens to me, his hands gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles white. We’ve driven a couple of miles by now and he swerves off the road, stopping the car with a screech of tyres. He gets out, retrieves a small soft bag from the boot and pulls out the sound recorder. He puts headphones on and I watch the shock in his eyes as he hears the recording I just made.
“Jesus, Rachel, I mean Molly, I mean—shit, I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. That was insanely scary in there. I just couldn’t believe that—” then it must dawn on him where we are, because he throws everything back in and in seconds he’s behind the wheel again. “I’m taking you back to London,” he says.
I lean back in my seat and for the next hour I read Grace’s memory book, in silence. There’s so much about our lives that I had forgotten. I miss her so much. The sadness slices at my heart, but there’s relief too, that it’s almost over. I feel her so close to me right now.
I realise with a start that we’re halfway there already. “Can I have your phone?” I ask.
“You’re not going to take the SIM card out, are you?”
“I want to call Matt.”
I call my own mobile, the one I left behind at our flat. Matt answers.
“It’s me.”
“Rachel, where are you? Everyone’s looking for you!”
“I know. I’ll explain everything. I’m almost home.”
“Oh, Rach,” his voice breaks.
“It’s okay, love. It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it—”
“It’s Gracie,” he says, and my heart stops. Then with a sob, he adds, “She’s missing.”
“Gracie’s missing,” I tell Jacob. “Go faster! Please!”
He just nods and puts his foot on the accelerator. I don’t think he cares about the speed limit anymore.
I call Vivian.
“Give me his phone number,” I say the moment she answers.
“Rach, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” She wails.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she sobs.
“What happened?”
She tells me that after I disappeared from the hospital, Matt called her and asked her to look after Gracie. Vivian took Gracie back to her place, as she’s done before on a handful of occasions. But Peter was there, waiting outside her flat. They all went inside and that’s when he got the call, from his father.
“And then?” I am almost folded in half in the car seat. The phone is pressed hard against my ear.
“Oh Rach, he went completely crazy. I was so scared. He trashed my place. He was like a hurricane. He grabbed anything he could find and smashed it against the walls. Gracie was screaming. I begged him to go, to leave us. He punched me, in the face. He continued to smash things. I ran to the bedroom with Gracie and I put my hands on her ears. I called the cops. Oh, Rach—”
“Where is she now?”
“I braced myself against the door, trying to keep him from coming in, but it was no use. He kicked it and came into the bedroom and he looked at Gracie like he’d only just noticed she was there. He asked me if that was Grace. I screamed at him to leave, that I’d called the police, but he just ripped her out of my arms,” she crumbles into sobs.
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know,” she wails.
“Did he say anything at all?”
“No.”
“What’s his number?”
“I’m so sorry, Rach, I’m so, so sorry!” she sniffs, “The police are here. Where are you?”
“What’s his number Vivian? Give it to me now!”
“Hang on,” she sniffs again, there’s a pause then she reels it off.
I hang up.
“Where to?” Jacob asks. We’re just coming into London.
“I don’t know yet,” I say.
I punch in the number.
“Hello,” he says, almost in sing-song voice.
“Hugo, where’s my dau
ghter.”
“Well hello! Little Molly! I heard you escaped from the nuthouse.”
“Where is she?”
“Where is who?”
“That’s enough!” I yell. “Where is she?”
“You mean your brat? She’s right here. Say hello to mummy, Grace.”
There’s a moment where the phone moves away from him. I can hear voices, traffic. They’re outside somewhere, in a public place.
“Mummy?” I nearly faint in relief from the sound of her voice, but I clench my hands and focus.
“Oh my god, Gracie, my love, are you all right?”
“I—yes, are you coming, mummy?” Her voice is trembling, she’s hiccupping from tears.
“I’m coming for you right now, sweetie. Can you tell me where you are?”
“I—”
He’s snatched the phone away from her.
“Do you have the diary with you? Your stupid sister’s fucking diary?”
“Yes.”
“Bring it.”
“Where are you?”
“The Millennium Bridge,” he says, before hanging up.
I stand at the beginning of the bridge, on the St Paul side. Hugo is only a few metres away. He has Gracie sitting on the railing, facing out towards the river. His hands are on her waist. Passers-by are noticing. They don’t think it’s safe, and they’re giving him stern looks, though no one is interfering, yet.
Matt is standing next to me. I've never seen him like this. Not even when he thought I was in a psychotic breakdown. His face is white and drawn. He's as terrified as I am.
He grabs my hand. He can’t look at me. It’s all come down on him, on all of us, so fast. That I was telling the truth all along, that Peter really is Hugo, and now he has our daughter and he won’t hesitate to kill her if he thinks it will help him.
Missing Molly Page 24