After concluding the last interview for the day, a drained Rachel and DC Maxwell leave the administration building together. Darkness already cloaks the school grounds as Rachel walks with the officer to her vehicle. ‘Thank you,’ says Maxwell, meeting her eye over the hood of the police car. ‘I know it’s not been easy, but I’m glad you were there for the kids.’
‘I just hope you catch whoever did it.’
‘We will.’ Maxwell eyes her with concern. ‘Are you going to be all right?’
Rachel shrugs. ‘I think I need to go home and hug my daughter. Will you be OK? I know the stress you deal with. I’ve seen it up close. You police officers act tough,’ she adds, seeing Maxwell’s frown, ‘but it’s a lot.’
‘Me? Oh sure. That’s the joy of dating a hot chef. Steph will shower me with food and affection the moment I walk through the door. She’s the perfect antidote to all of this.’ She hesitates. ‘I owe you an apology, Rachel. I shouldn’t have shown you that photo earlier. I’m sorry – I messed up.’
Rachel swallows. She wishes she hadn’t seen it either. ‘I understand why you did.’
Maxwell’s car is pulling away down the drive when Rachel hears her name being called. She turns to see Margaret Crowe hovering by the building entrance, wrapped in a black shawl. She beckons to Rachel. ‘Do you have a minute? I wanted to ask how the interviews went.’
Rachel frowns. She’s almost certain she’s not allowed to share the details of what was spoken about, bound by confidentiality to both the police and the kids. ‘The students were troopers,’ she says, keeping her reply vague. ‘A credit to the school,’ she adds, hoping the praise will appease her boss.
‘Were the police satisfied?’
‘I… I don’t know. It was an information-gathering exercise. I’m not sure they’ll be satisfied until they’ve brought someone to justice.’
‘Of course,’ agrees Margaret. ‘I meant, were they satisfied that the school wasn’t involved? Nothing arose that might have… posed an issue for anyone? No one on the faculty, for example?’ She lets the question hang.
The way the light is falling from the building behind her makes it impossible to read Margaret’s expression. What is she asking her? Rachel clears her throat. ‘I think the police have various lines of enquiry to pursue. I’m not across their exact thinking.’
Margaret gives a small wave. ‘I’m sure you understand my concern. I have a duty as head teacher to protect the school. Reputation is everything for an institution such as ours.’
A girl has died. It doesn’t feel like quite the right time to be focusing on the school’s reputation.
‘Children can get so muddled,’ Margaret continues. ‘Whispers and rumours can be twisted and gather momentum. Students say things sometimes for attention, just to be part of something… well… exciting. You can’t always believe everything they say, can you? I’m sure you understand.’
Rachel’s not sure that she does.
As if sensing her confusion, Margaret adds, ‘All I’m saying is that if there was something troubling… something that you thought might affect the school, then I’d expect you to bring it to me. Do you understand? Above and beyond. Everyone playing their part. That’s what we stand for here.’
Rachel nods slowly.
‘Good.’ Seemingly satisfied, Margaret turns back to the building. ‘I hope you have a restful evening, Rachel. Goodnight.’
Relieved to escape Margaret’s interrogation, Rachel darts down the steps and scurries across the campus, seeking out the pools of light falling from lampposts, keen to avoid the shadows and the less well-lit pathways. Her senses are on high alert, conscious of every bush masquerading as a hiding place, startling at every twig crack and the distant hoot of an owl high up in the hills.
It’s not like her to feel so rattled, especially in a place that has always felt so safe and secure, but then she supposes the day’s not been like any other she’s experienced in her career. The corridors had echoed all day with the students’ whispers. Perhaps it was natural for Margaret to be concerned about what they might be saying. Perhaps the strange conversation was nothing more than a badly phrased request, coming from a place of pastoral concern, rather than anything more sinister or calculated. They were all hyper-vigilant, jumping at shadows, wary of the danger now looming over the school.
Rachel shivers and pulls her coat a little tighter, relieved when the cottage finally appears through the gloom, the light in Ellie’s bedroom window guiding her home.
Letting herself in through the front door, she just has time to kick off her shoes, sling her coat over the banister and start chaotic preparations for a scrambled together meal when Ben arrives, announcing himself with three sharp raps on the front door. She slings the tea towel she’s been using to waft smoke from the kitchen over her shoulder and pushes strands of damp hair from her face. ‘Come in,’ she says, flustered. ‘Sorry about the smell. I’m burning dinner.’
She steps back to let him into the narrow hallway and ushers him past Ellie’s skateboard, a stash of shoes and a muddy hockey stick. ‘You go first.’ She kicks an errant trainer out of the way before following him back into the kitchen.
She knows from the high set of his shoulders and the tension in his jaw that he’s readied for battle. It wasn’t so long ago that she felt she knew him inside out. When they’d said ‘I do’ in a small ceremony in front of their friends and family, when they’d vowed ‘for better or worse’, she’d thought they meant it. But all those years together had brought about a certain, undeniable malaise, both of them guilty of taking the other for granted. Towards the end, it had been as if she couldn’t see him clearly anymore.
This new distance between them, both geographical and emotional, is startling to her. It’s as if the lenses of a pair of glasses have been wiped clean, or a camera twisted back into sharp focus. Whenever she sees him now, she feels wrong-footed. He is her Ben, and yet he is not. This new version of him standing at the back of the school assembly or walking through her front door feels unknown to her. Other.
It’s not just the subtle changes in his appearance – the shaved head, which looks annoyingly good, emphasising his green eyes and his strong jaw; or the trimmer physique, also annoyingly attractive. It’s something in his eyes whenever they come face to face. A shuttered expression, a defence mechanism, perhaps, that forms a barrier between them, an unknowable terrain she can no longer step foot into. She wonders if he looks at her and feels the same. Wonders if he sees any changes in her. Wonders if he even considers her at all. Unlikely, she thinks, her sorrow shifting to something sharper, something hot and barbed as she remembers the baby news from the weekend and how badly he’s handled it.
‘You’ve made it nice,’ he says, breaking eye contact, his gaze sweeping around the cluttered, low-beamed room. ‘Cosy.’
Rachel, wrong-footed by the compliment, looks about in surprise, trying to see the space through his eyes. Margaret Crowe had offered Rachel the old worker’s cottage as part of her benefits package, in lieu of a raise after her first year of employment at the school. Ellie hadn’t been keen to live on the school grounds, but financially it had made sense for Rachel. Rent-free accommodation was more generous than any raise she could’ve asked for and far better for them emotionally than staying in the home she’d once shared with Ben, full of its memories and ghosts. Only Ellie hadn’t seen it that way.
‘It’s not much bigger than that first place you and I shared,’ Rachel says to Ben, gesturing half-heartedly at the space.
‘But you were always so good at making a place feel like a home.’ His praise hangs awkwardly between them, loaded with an emotion she doesn’t want to feel. Is this a peace offering? Or perhaps, she thinks, catching herself, it’s just guilt. A tactic to try to smooth things over after the way he’s handled his announcement.
Looking around at the room that comprises their kitchen, dining and living area, she supposes it has changed since that first week of moving chaos. She and Ellie have put their own creative stamp on it. Some of Rachel’s favourite pieces of Ellie’s art – abstract canvases of bold, layered colour, experimental pieces created out of splashes of oils and spray paint – line the walls. The rickety shelves over the fireplace are filled with tatty paperbacks and recipe books. A colourful woven rug she’d lugged home from a charity shop lies across the worn wooden floorboards, while the shabby fabric sofa she’d requisitioned from their old home is now angled towards the stone fireplace. When it’s just the two of them it doesn’t feel too cramped, but with Ben’s tall frame now filling the space, his head almost brushing the ceiling beams, the room feels tiny. ‘Cosy is probably the right word for it,’ she says. She waves a bottle of wine at him. ‘Would you like a glass?’
He looks as if he’s going to say no, but then relents. ‘I shouldn’t, but it’s been a hell of a day. Thanks.’
Rachel pours him a glass and slides it across the counter. ‘The student interviews were intense. Fiona’s like a dog with a bone.’
‘She’s a good detective. Thorough.’
Rachel nods. ‘I like her, personally, but she’s not taking any prisoners with the kids.’
‘She’s got a job to do.’ He frowns. ‘Is Ellie here?’
‘Yeah. Shall I call her down?’
‘Not yet. We need to talk first.’
She can tell by the tone of his voice that he isn’t happy. Any last traces of adrenalin she’s carried through the day leach out of her. She’s drained, exhausted, ill-prepared for the conversation ahead. ‘What’s up?’
Ben leans against the kitchen worktop and folds his arms. ‘Changing our arrangements at the last minute, Rach. Whatever the reason, it’s disruptive and unfair on me… and Chrissie.’
Hostile words bubble up her throat, threatening to spill, but she catches herself. Let him speak, she tells herself. Just listen.
‘I think we need to be very careful about allowing Ellie to play us off against each other. I thought we’d agreed, as annoyed as she was to miss out on a party, that she was to spend Saturday night with me.’
Rachel frowns. She opens her mouth to speak, but he is still going.
‘I know our news this weekend was somewhat… challenging for Ellie. And I’m sure you have your own feelings about Chrissie and I… and the baby,’ he adds, dropping his gaze. ‘But what sort of a precedent are we setting, if Ellie thinks she can use you as an escape route whenever life gets a little uncomfortable? What lesson are we giving her if we capitulate and let her do whatever she wants whenever she wants, over existing family commitments? It’s not fair to play favourites with her.’
‘Wait.’ She can’t hold back any longer, her anger rising at his irritatingly calm, measured tone, patronising in the extreme. ‘I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t give Ellie “an escape route”. She was with you on Saturday night.’
Ben narrows his eyes. ‘She stayed for dinner, but then you sent that message calling her back, so we all had to jump to your tune.’
‘Wait. What message?’
‘I saw it. Your text demanding that she come back here. Urgently.’ He tuts. ‘If I’m honest, it felt disrespectful, as if you were trying to get one up on me.’
Get one up on him? What the hell? Rachel holds up a hand. ‘Hang on. Are you telling me that Ellie didn’t stay with you and Chrissie on Saturday night?’
‘I dropped her back here after dinner, just like you asked.’
Rachel’s eyes narrow. ‘I didn’t ask. I was here on Saturday night and Ellie didn’t come home.’ She stares at him. ‘You dropped her back? You actually saw her walk into the cottage?’
Ben’s expression shifts, but she still has no idea what he’s on about. ‘I’m telling you now,’ Rachel says firmly, ‘I didn’t send any message. And Ellie sure as hell didn’t come back here on Saturday night.’
Ben shakes his head. ‘Then she’s played us both.’
‘Sounds like it. But more importantly, if she wasn’t with you, and she wasn’t here with me… where the hell was she?’ Rachel is afraid she already knows the answer.
‘The woods,’ says Ben, his face grim.
Rachel reels. ‘The party in the quarry? Then she should’ve come forward today,’ she adds, her panic growing at the full implication of Ellie’s lies. ‘Maxwell should’ve interviewed her.’ And then she remembers: the chain of whispers in the assembly, stopping with Ellie. Danny’s awkward glances in her direction during his interview. Jasmine’s shifty look in the corridor. They knew. They’d all been covering for her. ‘I don’t understand. Why didn’t anyone mention her?’
Ben shifts on his chair. ‘Olivia Easton did.’
‘She did?’
He nods. ‘I wanted to be sure. I left her name off the interview list until I could confirm it.’
Rachel stares at Ben. ‘You what? You’re telling me that you already knew she’d been up there? You thought I was in on it, too, lying to you, so that she could go? Jesus, Ben. Give me some credit.’
He reaches for his wine glass, a faint flush rising on his cheeks. ‘I’m sorry. I thought perhaps you were angry. Or… I guess I hoped there was a chance Olivia was muddled. She’s distraught – the poor girl’s had a lot to deal with these past few days.’ He shakes his head. ‘I needed to speak to you and Ellie, first. Get the full picture. But it’s not good whichever way you look at it, is it? Ellie’s lied to us. Put herself in potential danger.’
Rachel simmers silently, still trying to process Ben’s thinking. Did he really think her such a shitty parent, that she’d let Ellie duck out of her responsibilities to go to a party, then lie about it to the police?
Ben thumps the kitchen counter. ‘For God’s sake. She could’ve been hurt, and we would’ve had no idea where she was. What the hell was she thinking?’
‘I need to hear this from her.’ Rachel strides to the bottom of the stairs and yells Ellie’s name. It takes a moment, but eventually their daughter slinks down the staircase, a single white earbud still jammed in one ear. She takes in the scene with a nonchalant gaze. ‘This looks cosy,’ she says, nodding at the open bottle of wine. ‘What’s up?’
It’s obvious what’s up. She might be playing it cool, but Rachel can see she knows what’s coming, that she’s braced for their interrogation.
‘Take that thing out of your ear,’ snaps Ben. He waits for her to pocket the earbud before he continues, ‘You lied to us.’
Anger ripples through his voice and Rachel sees the shutter drawing down over their daughter’s face. Not a great start going straight in on the attack, she thinks. Certainly not a tactic she would’ve used. Classic Ben. Interrogating her like a police detective, rather than a father.
‘About what?’ Ellie doesn’t blink. She folds her arms across her chest, the mirror image of her father.
Rachel attempts to intervene. ‘Why don’t you start by telling us where you were on Saturday night?’
Ben nods. ‘Because you sure as hell weren’t at my place, and you weren’t here with your mother.’
‘Ben,’ Rachel warns. ‘Let Ellie speak.’
Ellie shrugs, still playing it cool, though a tell-tale flush has begun to scramble up her neck. She juts her chin. ‘I went to the Halloween party.’
‘You went to the quarry in the woods,’ adds Ben.
‘So what?’
‘So what? Seriously?’ Ben looks at Rachel in disbelief.
She throws him a pleading look. Stay calm.
‘You lied to us. Neither of us had any idea where you were all night. Don’t you see how irresponsible that was? How dangerous?’
Ellie studies her hands, picking dried flakes of paint off her fingers. ‘I’m OK, though, aren’t I?’
Ben and Rachel exchange another glance. ‘Ellie, Sarah Lawson didn’t come home that night,’ says Rachel, pointedly. ‘A friend of yours is dead.’
‘She wasn’t exactly my friend. But yeah, I know.’
Rachel is shocked at her tone. ‘Ellie, this is serious. Someone killed Sarah. Someone who’s still out there. Someone with god knows what motive. What if it had been you who’d been attacked?’ She can see from Ellie’s expression that her words have hit home. She wishes she hadn’t had to use such blunt delivery to make her mark. ‘Until we know what happened, we have to assume no one is safe. More kids could get hurt.’
Ellie looks chastened.
‘You were asked to come forward. Why didn’t you?’ Ben fixes her with his intense stare.
‘What is this? The full police interrogation now?’ Seeing her father’s face, Ellie pulls it back. ‘Maybe because I knew if you both found out I’d gone to the party, you’d go off like this. I didn’t want to get in trouble.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s not as if I had anything useful to tell the police.’
‘That may be true, but we still need to rule you out of the investigation, Ellie. The fact that you were there that night puts me in a difficult spot with the team. But most importantly,’ he adds, ‘your mum and I can’t have you wandering about at night, with us not knowing where you are. You’re seventeen. You live under our roofs. You abide by our rules.’
Ellie turns back to her dad, anger flaring in her eyes. ‘Your roofs? You live under Chrissie’s roof. Mum lives under Mrs Crowe’s thumb.’
‘That’s not fair—’
‘You and Chrissie expected me to sit there on Saturday night, listening to you both banging on about your new baby, acting like I should be thrilled about it.’ Ellie’s voice rises as she interjects over Ben. ‘What did you expect?’
Rachel shoots Ben an exasperated look. Had he really been so tone-deaf to Ellie’s feelings?
‘You faked a message from your mum, asking you to come home.’
Ellie shrugs. ‘It was Jasmine’s idea. I renamed her “Mum” in my contacts list, then she messaged me to say she needed me home. To be honest, I didn’t think it would work but when I showed you the message you just rolled your eyes and told me to gather my stuff. It was like you couldn’t wait to be rid of me.’
‘Ellie, we didn’t want you to leave.’
‘Didn’t you?’ She glares at him, her green eyes flashing.
Rachel intervenes. She has a more pressing question for their daughter. ‘You didn’t come home until lunchtime the next day,’ says Rachel quietly. ‘Where were you?’
‘I slept in Jas’s dorm room. Her roommate was away. I was fine. Totally safe.’ She throws up her hands. ‘I had no idea something bad had happened to Sarah. Can’t we just forget this?’
‘Forget it?’ says Ben, incredulous. ‘You can’t go wandering around, sleeping wherever you like, your mother and I not knowing where you are. Especially not now. Not with a murder investigation underway. You’ve broken our trust.’
‘But I’m fine. You guys are so dramatic. You always see everything through a twisted lens. It’s your jobs. You always expect the worst to happen. It’s stifling. I deserve a life.’
‘Ellie, the worst has happened – a girl was killed. Sarah lost her life on Saturday night.’
Something in Rachel’s plea seems to chime with Ellie. She bows her head, scraping at the flagstones with a socked foot. Rachel watches her through narrowed eyes. She knows Ellie. All this defensive bluster. Something isn’t right. ‘You could’ve been hurt. I don’t want to scare you, but it might still be dangerous. None of us know what happened. Until we do, we need you to be safe… and responsible.’
Ben sighs. ‘Tomorrow morning you’re going into school and you’re going to tell DC Maxwell that you were at the party in the quarry. She’ll have some questions for you. Answer them truthfully and that will be that. I’ll talk to Khan. I’ll tell him you lied to us about where you were. I’ll explain you were worried about getting into trouble.’ Ben hesitates. ‘That is why you didn’t come forward today, isn’t it?’
Ellie stares intently at the floor. Rachel feels that sensation in her chest again, a sense of wrongness.
‘It’s just us here, so I’m going to ask you outright, Ellie, is there anything else you want to tell us? Anything important about Saturday night you want to share, before this is out of our hands?’ Ben swallows. ‘We love you. We’re both here for you, no matter what. But we can’t help you if you aren’t honest with us.’
Rachel listens to Ben’s words and wonders if he shares her worry.
Ellie’s gaze remains fixed on the floor. ‘I went to the party. I slept over with Jas. That’s it.’ She lifts her gaze. ‘Honest.’ She waits a beat. ‘You don’t think I had something to do with Sarah, do you?’ She stares up at him.
‘Of course not.’
‘We just want honesty, Ellie,’ Rachel chips in.
Ellie doesn’t answer.
Rachel has a question nagging at her. The words dance on the tip of her tongue, impossible to hold in. ‘The dares… the stuff some of your friends were doing…’ Rachel hesitates. ‘Were you involved?’
Ellie shakes her head.
Rachel lets out a relieved sigh. ‘Good.’
‘I don’t understand why the police are so fixated on us. It could’ve been anyone.’
‘The police need to eliminate you all from the investigation.’
‘Did they check the woods?’
‘Yes.’ Ben narrows his eyes. ‘What makes you say that? Did you see something?’
Ellie eyes him then looks away. ‘No. I just think if someone hurt Sarah, it’s not going to be one of us. More likely to be a random weirdo, right? The woods are huge, the quarry, the caves… they’re good hiding places.’
Ben studies her for a long moment. ‘If there’s something you want to tell us, now is the time.’
She shakes her head, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
It’s a look that reminds Rachel of a much younger Ellie, the little girl they would swing in their arms and tuck into bed at night.
‘OK.’ He turns to Rachel and she can read his look: not entirely convinced, but out of ideas. She shrugs. What more can they do?
‘Can I go back to my homework?’
Ben nods. ‘I’ll see you soon, OK?’ He holds out his arms and Ellie relents, crossing the kitchen and allowing him to hold her, briefly, in a stiff hug. ‘Bye,’ she says, the word muffled in his jacket sleeve. As she turns and leaves, Rachel sees Ben’s hurt at her curt dismissal.
‘It doesn’t get easier, does it?’ he asks, after she has gone. ‘This parenting thing.’
‘No. It doesn’t.’
‘It wasn’t that long ago I’d come home from work and she’d throw herself into my arms. Do you remember how she’d cling to my trouser legs, her little feet balanced on mine, as I danced her round the kitchen to Little Mix?’
‘She wouldn’t be caught dead listening to them now.’
He gives a wistful sigh. ‘She’s growing up so fast.’
The look on Ben’s face pierces her, until she remembers. ‘You’re all right. You’ve got another round to look forward to. Another chance to get it right.’ There’s a barb in her voice. She can’t help it. The thought of him and Chrissie launching into parenthood together after just a few months of dating cuts deep.
‘We didn’t plan…’ He falters. She waits, but he seems to have changed his mind and whatever he was going to say remains locked away. He changes tack. ‘Ellie seems so angry. Is it my fault?’
Rachel shrugs. She’s not sure what he expects her to say. ‘I guess we both hold some responsibility. If it helps, I think she’s as angry with me as she is with you.’
‘Has she said anything about the baby?’
Rachel stares at him. Really? ‘I’m too close to see all of this clearly, but I doubt it’s helped.’ Then seeing his crestfallen face, she adds, ‘She’s a teenager, Ben. She’s supposed to pull away. If we love them enough, do a good enough job, then they reward us with distance… by leaving. It’s healthy, but yeah’ – she shrugs – ‘it’s painful, and frightening, especially with everything going on right now,’ she adds. ‘Try not to blame yourself. You need to focus on the case. And on Chrissie,’ she says quietly.
He takes a sip of wine. ‘I don’t imagine I’ll be on the case for too much longer.’
‘Why not?’
‘Hopefully Ellie will answer a few questions and we’ll all move on.’ He twists the stem of his wine glass. ‘But there’s a chance my position could be considered a conflict of interest.’
She shakes her head. ‘It’s crazy. Things like this don’t happen round here.’
‘Things like this can happen anywhere. You know that, Rach.’
‘Do you have a suspect?’
‘We’re following some leads.’
‘Could it really be one of the students?’
‘We’re keeping an open mind.’
She throws him a look. ‘You’re giving me all the PR lines. Maxwell showed me a photo. I know,’ she adds, seeing Ben’s dismay, ‘I think she realised her mistake as soon as she’d done it. But I saw her, Ben. I saw what they’d done to Sarah. It looked crazed. Sadistic. Tell me, should I be worried for Ellie? Should we impose a curfew? At least until you’ve caught the person responsible?’
‘I’d love to, but you’ve seen what Ellie was like tonight. If we go too hard, I think we run the risk of alienating her completely. Hopefully she’s smart enough to recognise she’s had a lucky escape. To be careful and stay close to school and home, for now.’ Ben frowns. ‘We’ll catch whoever did it,’ he says. ‘We have to.’
He finishes his wine and Rachel asks if he’s eaten, if he wants to join her and Ellie, but he tells her he should go. Out on the doorstep, moths ghosting out of the dark towards the cottage lights, he turns back to her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I know our news must be upsetting for you.’
Rachel gives a small nod, acknowledging his apology.
‘I’d go back if I could, you know… do things differently. This isn’t exactly—’
‘Don’t, Ben.’ She doesn’t think she can bear what he might be about to say. ‘Everything changed after Gemma. It’s done now.’
‘You and me, Rach, we’re the same. We do our jobs because we want to serve. We want to help people. Do you have any idea what it feels like when you can’t help someone you love? To see them suffering, knowing you can do nothing to help, nothing to save them?’
She knows he’s talking about the aftermath of Gemma’s accident, when his sister lay unresponsive in a hospital bed, dying slowly. She knows how hard it was for him, but she’d been there, right by his side. She’d been hurting, too, and he was gone. Locked away. Unreachable. He’d shut her out and his rejection, intentional or otherwise, had been painful. Rachel holds his stare. ‘I have some idea, yes.’
‘If you mean me, it’s not the same, Rach.’
‘I wanted to help. You wouldn’t let me in.’
There’s a twitch in his jaw, a flicker of emotion in his green eyes. She can see he wants to fight her, wants to argue his case, the destructive pattern of their relationship threatening to unfurl again, a noose encircling them on the doorstep. ‘There’s no point going over this. Not now,’ she sighs. ‘We are where we are.’
He nods and steps away. ‘If you get worried about Ellie, call me. We should present a united front.’
‘Bye, Ben.’
There is an ache in Rachel’s chest as she pulls the door shut and listens to the sound of his footsteps fading into the night. She leans her head against the cool wood of the door, the past seeming to rush at her, even as he walks away into his future.
The cracks had started with Gemma’s accident, the fissures in their relationship only widening after her death, his sister having succumbed to her injuries four weeks after she’d been airlifted to hospital. The whole thing had been so sudden, so shocking, the knock at the door telling them that Gemma had been in a road traffic collision. It hadn’t felt real. She’d only been with them earlier that day, laughing over Sunday lunch, playing Mario Kart with Ellie and singing along to the radio in the kitchen while they washed up pots and pans. She’d hugged them all on the doorstep and punched Ben on the arm and told him, ‘Smell you later, Benny Boy,’ before driving away in her little yellow Fiat. She’d made it three miles down the road, when her car had collided with a vehicle coming too wide on the wrong side of a sharp chicane, a nineteen-year-old kid, stoned at the wheel, texting on his phone. Sally in the Wood had claimed its latest victim, and all their lives had changed for ever.
It had hit each of them differently. Rachel had been heart-sick and emotional, Ellie alternating between distraught and confused, falling in and out of her grief like the child she was, jumping through puddles. But Ben had been unreachable, consumed with rage, utterly fixated on the court case and seeing the driver punished. Locked in his pain, every attempt she’d made to reach him was rebuffed, until it felt to Rachel as if that damn car had smashed through the safety barriers of their marriage. What remained had seemed to be nothing more than a daily polite dance around each other followed by a cold shoulder at bedtime, both of them more comfortable staring at their phone screens than facing their crumbling relationship.
Rachel grimaces as the memories race back at her. She doesn’t want this in her head. Not now. Sarah’s death is upsetting enough. She won’t let Ben upset her, too. She won’t rehash the pain. Peeling herself from the door, she turns and calls up the stairs. ‘Ellie,’ she yells. ‘Dinner.’
They eat in near silence, pushing their food around, the heavy atmosphere of the cottage punctuated by the scrape of cutlery against plates. Rachel eyes Ellie. ‘Do you want to talk about the baby?’ she asks, unable to stand the quiet any longer.
Ellie shakes her head.
‘How do you feel about it?’
Ellie lays her knife and fork down with a sigh. ‘How do you feel about it, Mum?’
Rachel frowns.
‘Stop trying to “therapy” me. I’m your daughter, not your job,’ she mutters.
Rachel eyes Ellie but decides to let it drop and when it comes time for bed, Ellie disappears with a curt ‘goodnight’.
Sitting alone, staring at the empty hearth, she wonders how she might reconnect with Ellie. She is so like Ben. When she pulls up her emotional drawbridge, she is unreachable, which in turn only makes Rachel feel more redundant and alone.
Her phone beeps and perhaps, because she’s been thinking of him, she expects to see Ben’s name on the screen. She’s surprised to see a Facebook notification instead: a friend request from Edward Morgan. She hesitates, her finger hovering over ‘accept’ as she remembers the concern in his eyes at the back of the assembly hall, the reassuring press of his hand on her arm. Social media isn’t really her thing. She tries to grapple with it, tries to stay abreast of the various apps her students are glued to, but it’s like whack-a-mole, a new one replacing the old before she’s figured each variant out. Facebook is the only one she’s even vaguely maintained – old school – definitely more her style than all these reels and disappearing Snaps, but she’s not often on it.
She studies Edward’s name on her screen, those two words beside it: Friend request. There’s really no reason why she shouldn’t accept. He was more than a colleague; certainly the closest she’s got to a friend at the school. She presses accept and almost immediately, her phone pings with another notification.
Hi.
Just one word, next to the circular profile picture of Edward’s face, a photo she recognises from the school website, clean-shaven in a shirt and tie, his dark hair pushed back off his forehead, a half-smile making him look thoughtful and approachable. She stares at his expressive brown eyes and his full lips, something warm rising inside her. Then another message, in quick succession.
Are you ok?
Such a simple question. She is surprised by her sudden rush of emotion. I’ve had easier days, she replies. You?
Same, and I didn’t have half the day that you did. Those interviews can’t have been easy.
She hesitates, a finger poised over her keyboard, the echo of her earlier conversation with Margaret returning. She supposes everyone’s curious, seeking answers. There’s really no harm in sharing her own perspective. It was tough. I feel for the kids. There’s a lot of pain and fear right now.
Typing dots, then another message. And a lot of wild theories circulating! I tried to squash the chatter in class today, but the kids are going to talk.
Rachel knows it’s true. Danny had said as much in his interview, and so had Margaret, earlier that evening. Let’s hope the police have some answers soon.
Yes. You take care. Try to get some sleep.
Thanks. You too.
She switches her phone to silent and after she’s showered and changed into pyjamas, she goes to Ellie’s door and opens it a crack. It’s dark inside, the steady rhythm of Ellie’s breathing a sure sign she is already asleep.
Rachel creeps forward, careful to avoid the creakiest floor-boards and the artwork fanned out on the floor near the bed. She can just make out vivid paint scrawls and cut-out shards of cardboard littering the carpet. A gap in the curtains allows a sliver of moonlight to fall onto Ellie’s pillow, illuminating her pale face. Rachel stands for a moment, studying her conundrum of a daughter, noting the familiar curves and contours she has gazed upon for seventeen years, the slope of her nose, the short, tufty hair and scattered freckles. Somehow, in sleep, all the hardness and resistance has fallen away. Beneath her cool teenage exterior, the traces of the little girl she once was linger and pull at her heart. The child who’d refused plasters and Savlon when she fell and grazed a knee, who’d resisted every bedtime, who’d stood in every toddler seat in the supermarket shopping trolleys and insisted on going up every slide at the playground, rather than taking the stairs. The girl who’d generally insisted on doing everything the hard way.
It really wasn’t so long ago that she’d sit on the bed with Ellie curled into the crook of her arm and read her favourite books to her. Stories of adventure, mystery and monsters, Ellie screaming with delight as wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth. It pains her to remember how quick she’d been to reassure Ellie that there was no such thing as monsters. Nothing under the bed or hiding in the forests. But now, with Sarah dead and the shocking photograph of her poor body imprinted on her mind, Rachel isn’t so sure. Standing there in the darkness of Ellie’s room, with the wind outside whispering through the dark trees, Rachel feels a rush of fear. There are monsters out there – monsters doing awful, inexplicable things – and she has no idea how to protect the ones she loves.
What was it Ben had said to Ellie earlier in the kitchen? If there’s something you want to tell us, now is the time. Ellie hadn’t answered and Rachel can’t help wondering – was it simply a mother’s paranoia rising in her gut, sending prickles of fear through her? Or was it her training, her professional instincts making her suspicious? Because in that moment, she’d known it as clear as day: Ellie was hiding something, and the knowledge makes Rachel feel inordinately afraid.