As I emerge onto the landing wearing my old dressing gown and carrying my empty plate and mug, the doorbell rings.
There’s a beat of inattention, and then Mum emerges from the kitchen with Grace in her arms. Grace is almost unnaturally still but she’s awake. I start for the stairs and both of them see me. Grace cries out and reaches upwards and Mum’s eyes widen.
‘Stay up there,’ she snaps.
But—’
‘Out of sight! I mean it.’ I stop moving, caught on the edges of Mum’s tone. She looks at me and I realise that she won’t open the door while I’m standing there. Why not? Is she trying to hide me or hide the person at the door from me? Is she ashamed of me? Ashamed of the way I am now?
As I step backwards she puts Grace down at her feet, takes a key from her pocket and turns it in the padlock. The doorbell rings again as she’s undoing the bolt.
She slides the key back into her pocket, picks Grace up and looks meaningfully up at me. I retreat towards my bedroom. Then I stop. My room overlooks the garden but the study is at the front of the house, right above the hall.
I open and shut my bedroom door loudly, then I tiptoe back along the carpet to slip into the study. I hear Mum open the door and race to the window, where I look out to see a car that I last saw driving away from my house. It’s the social worker, Moira.
Is this something to do with Grace?
I open the door so that I can hear.
‘Mrs Monahan.’ Moira’s voice drifts up the stairs and suddenly I’m terrified. What if she finds out I’m here and haven’t taken my pills?
My nails dig into my palms, I am barely able to hear above the roaring of blood in my ears. ‘… just a routine call to see how Grace is doing. May I come in?’
‘Of course,’ Mum replies and I hear footsteps in the hall.
If they go into the living room, I won’t be able to hear them. ‘Stay in the hall,’ I whisper. But then I wonder if Moira will want to see Grace’s bedroom; if she’ll spot me standing up here, by the open door. I look wildly around the study for a hiding place and end up standing by the desk, thinking that I can duck behind it if I hear footsteps on the stairs. Then I hear them go towards the kitchen with Mum offering a cup of tea.
Weak with relief, I thump into the desk chair which spins as I collapse, leaving me facing the bookshelves and boxes of Dad’s paperwork. The boxes are organised by year and I don’t know why – perhaps because I’m stuck in here until Moira leaves and I’ve been craving more connection with Dad – but I decide to get one of them down. The box for 1998 has an unevenness in the tape holding it closed and a rip in the cardboard, as if it’s been opened and closed more than once. That one then.
I use my nail to break the seal on the box and open it.
I find financial records. Kept because the taxman might one day request back-dated evidence. Invoices, receipts and, on top, a folder, with all the transactions laid out: incoming, outgoing, totals.
I flick through the folder, not because I expect to find anything, but because I can picture Dad typing all of this into an Excel spreadsheet, his spiky signature on each page and it feels, somehow, comforting. Then I spot an inconsistency.
Even with my mind on the distant sound of my daughter crying in the kitchen, once I find the first anomaly, I am on the lookout for more. The incoming and outgoing columns don’t make sense. They look like they should but they don’t. Expenses claims are doubled up, floats go out and never come back in, money is paid into operations that appear to have no equivalent entry for services rendered.
Was Dad a crook?
Before my world can crash around my ears, I open a drawer to find a notebook, with Mum’s passwords carefully listed inside the front cover. There’s a pencil beside it and I tear out a blank page to go over the figures again, fingers flying.
Twenty thousand pounds. In 1998, Dad took twenty thousand pounds from the business and hid it. It wasn’t difficult to find once you knew where to look, but if you were honest every other year and you were willing to take the risk, it might well slide past the inland revenue.
Desperate to know the extent of his criminality, I take down the boxes for 1997 and 1999. There are no irregularities. What would Dad have needed twenty thousand pounds for in 1998?
I try to think back, but I was six in that year and my memory is full of holes. There was no way I’d be able to remember a financial problem from back then, even if Mum and Dad had talked about it in front of me.
I go back to the box and search for a missing receipt or invoice. Anything to account for the twenty thousand.
Instead of an invoice, at the bottom of the box I find a book: it’s thin, only thirty or so pages long. There’s a picture of a flower on the front, in primary red and green and the title is I am the Seed. I slip it into the pocket of my dressing gown and forget about it immediately at the sight of an unsealed envelope tucked into the bottom flap. Is this the answer?
The envelope contains pictures.
At first, I simply don’t understand. The first one in the stack is a picture of a child sitting on a swing in the front garden of a house. It isn’t our house, but it is familiar. Then I realise why; I’ve been there. This is Grant Dobson’s garden. Grant Dobson’s house. This is a photograph of Frances Dobson.
I gasp and drop the pictures onto the desk.
I can’t take my eyes from hers. The little girl is obviously happy. Her face is turned towards the sun and her legs are straight out in front of her, hair fluttering out of its band. The photo has been taken from a distance, zoomed in, a little blurry.
I reach out with nerveless fingers, fanning out the haphazard heap to find more photographs of Frances. In one she’s walking down the street, holding Betsie Dobson’s hand. I know it’s her because she looks like me.
In another, taken through the window of the kitchen, Grant Dobson is obviously yelling. I pick through them, shock making me slow. There’s a picture of a lorry: Grant Dobson climbing out of the cab. A shot of Betsie weeding the front garden. Frances is colouring in beside her.
In some of the shots the weather is sunny, in others it’s overcast, gloomy. Frances is wearing a different outfit in each image. These photos weren’t taken in a single day but over days, weeks even. This family was watched.
I don’t know why Dad has these photos. What could he possibly have to do with Frances Dobson?
A tiny part of me screams that I know the answer but I thrust it away; make it howl into a void. With fingers that shake, I tuck the photos back in the envelope and put it into the pocket of my dressing gown with the book.
Moments later I hear voices in the hall and pad towards the door.
‘Grace seems to be doing well, Mrs Monahan. I am concerned about Bridget though. There is no answer at the flat and our office hasn’t been able to get in touch with her or Tom. We need to set up a child protection plan and ensure that the family is supported going forward.’ She sounds exasperated. She should be. Naomi had told me to call and I hadn’t.
‘I’ll let her know.’ Mum’s voice is tight.
‘Thank you very much. Goodbye, Mrs Monahan. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.’
The door closes and my heart pounds. I dump the financial records back into the box and shut the lid. Then I shove it back into its place on the shelf.
I’m not ready to confront Mum, not until I’ve had time to think about what this all means. I flee to my room, grateful for the muffling effect of the deep carpet. Then I stand in the doorway, waiting.