Ellie is kicking her chair with the heel of a trainer, thudding it against the metal leg in an annoying, repetitive rhythm. Rachel, sitting at the Formica table beside her, reaches out and lays a hand on her daughter’s thigh. Although Rachel knows she’s full of bravado, trying hard to appear nonchalant, she can see the fear in her daughter’s eyes and the dark shadows beneath.
The night before, she’d woken to the sound of shouting, Ellie calling out in her sleep. Sarah’s name, echoing in the dark. Going to her room, she’d found Ellie sitting up in bed, dazed and white-faced in sweat-drenched pyjamas. The scene had reminded Rachel of the night terrors Ellie had suffered on occasion as a little girl. ‘What were you dreaming about?’
Ellie had shaken her head. ‘Just a bad dream. I thought I was in the woods.’
Rachel had smoothed the hair from Ellie’s clammy forehead. ‘I know it’s frightening, but they’ll catch whoever did this,’ she’d said, praying it was the truth. ‘Just tell the police everything and it will be OK.’
Ellie had looked as if she were going to cry, but when Rachel had tried to draw her close, she’d pushed her away. ‘I just want to sleep.’
Now they’re here, DC Maxwell across from them, a notebook and pen laid in front of her, a recording device whirring to one side. It’s a nightmarish repeat of yesterday, only this time they are confined to an interview room at the police station, and it’s her daughter sitting beside her, not one of her students.
She’d been flustered to receive the phone call from the duty officer, summoning her to the station. Rachel had presumed Ben would inform his colleagues about Ellie’s presence at the party and that Maxwell would find a moment to chat with Ellie at the school later that day, just as she’d conducted the other student interviews. Rachel had never dreamed she’d be notified that Ellie had been picked up from school and carted away in a police car, with the urgent demand that she attend the station, too. ‘Why the formality?’ she’d asked.
‘Sorry,’ the duty officer had apologised, ‘just following orders.’
Perhaps it was Ben? Perhaps he’d asked his colleagues to go a little harder on Ellie, to teach her a lesson? It seemed rather over the top, cruel even, and a waste of resources in the midst of their investigation, but of the two of them, Ben had always been the tougher parent. He’d always been the one to enforce clean plates, a tidy bedroom, screen-time restrictions and early bedtimes. Given Ellie’s deception this weekend, perhaps he was right to come down harder on her. Perhaps Ellie did need a wake-up call. Maybe Rachel had been too soft, too gullible. Perhaps this was one of the reasons that they were in this mess right now.
Still, sitting next to Ellie in the overheated grey interview room with its functional chrome wall clock ticking overhead and Fiona Maxwell leaning forward on her elbows, her owlish gaze fixed on her daughter, every one of Rachel’s maternal instincts scream in alarm. She wants to wrap Ellie in her arms and whisk her away from the interrogation she knows she is about to face.
‘Why didn’t you come forward on Monday morning with the rest of the students?’ Maxwell asks, her tone light. She waits, and when Ellie doesn’t answer, she tries again. ‘Why didn’t you alert us to the fact that you’d been in the woods with Sarah?’
Ellie casts a glance at her mother. Rachel nods. Go on, she urges. Tell her.
‘Because I didn’t want to get in trouble. I wasn’t supposed to be at the party. I’d lied to my parents about where I was.’
Maxwell frowns. ‘Given what happened to Sarah, did you not feel a responsibility to share your whereabouts?’
‘I didn’t know anything. I guess I didn’t think I could help.’
‘But your presence at the party couldn’t stay a secret for ever. It was bound to come out eventually?’
Ellie shrugs. ‘I assumed you’d have more important people to talk to. If you caught someone quickly, no one would need to know I was there. That’s what I hoped anyway.’ She hangs her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘More important people?’
‘Yeah.’
Maxwell leans in. ‘What do you mean?’
‘People who were closer to Sarah.’ Ellie shrugs again. ‘I didn’t know her that well.’
‘But Sarah was in your year at school, wasn’t she? I’ve been told there are only two hundred or so sixth-form students?’ Maxwell glances at Rachel and she nods, corroborating the figure. ‘That’s small for a secondary school. A warm, collegiate atmosphere is how your head teacher, Mrs Crowe, described the school to me. A place where “everyone knows everyone”.’
Ellie shifts on her chair. ‘That didn’t make us friends.’
Rachel casts a sideways glance at Ellie. She wishes she would temper her tone a little. No doubt it’s nerve-racking answering questions in this formal environment, but fear is making Ellie sound defensive, hostile even. Rachel presses her lips together, fighting the urge to intervene.
‘Walk me through your Saturday night, Ellie. What time did you head to the woods?’
‘I was at Dad’s until around 7.30pm. I faked a text message from Mum asking me to go home, and Dad dropped me back at the cottage around 8-ish. I pretended to go inside, waited for Dad to drive away, then went to meet Jas at the Drama department. I know.’ She throws a guilty look in Rachel’s direction. ‘I shouldn’t have lied.’
‘That’s Jasmine Ware?’
Ellie nods.
‘You’d arranged to meet her?’
‘Yes. We didn’t have Halloween costumes, so Jas suggested we borrow something from the Drama department at school. We found masks at the back of a costume cupboard – weird Venetian things. Pretty creepy-looking. We took those.’
‘Can you describe the mask you wore?’
Ellie shrugs. ‘Sure. It was black with feathers. It had this long, curved beak. Jasmine’s was similar, but hers was white and gold.’
Maxwell eyes Ellie steadily. ‘Then what?’
‘We headed into the woods. Got there around 9.30pm, I think.’
‘What was happening at the party when you arrived?’
‘Nothing much, to be honest. Just a few people hanging around a bonfire drinking, listening to music. I didn’t think we’d stay long but then Jas got chatting to Saul. She likes him. She won’t admit it, but she does. There was a box of wine. I was bored. I drank a bit too much.’
Sensing another guilty glance from Ellie in her direction, Rachel is careful to maintain a neutral face.
‘And Sarah Lawson was there?’
‘Yeah. They started up with the Ouija board, so I stayed for a bit longer. To watch.’
‘To watch?’ Maxwell sounds puzzled. ‘You didn’t participate?’
To Rachel’s relief, Ellie shakes her head. ‘No, that was Sarah’s flex. I wasn’t going to play her games.’
‘Her flex?’
She nods. ‘Sarah’s one of those girls… used to the spotlight, you know? Pretty, popular. Likes to have the attention on them. She and Olivia would swan around the school like they were the centre of the universe, and the rest of us mere satellites, floating by.’
Rachel frowns. Ellie sounds angry, bitter even. She knew the girls moved in different social circles, two circles of a Venn diagram occasionally intersecting, but she hadn’t realised there was animosity. Had she missed something?
‘Sarah traded on being the new girl, at first. But then she set her sights on Danny. Started toying with him.’
‘Toying with him? Can you explain what you mean by that?’
Rachel runs her fingers around the neck of her sweater. It’s too warm in the interview room. She’s never understood how Ben could stand these dingy, soulless surroundings. She longs to fling open a window.
‘Danny’s a good guy. Genuine. Everyone likes Danny, and Danny… well, Danny liked Sarah.’
Maxwell doesn’t miss a beat. ‘That bothered you? Danny and Sarah?’
Ellie flushes pink. ‘He’s my friend. I don’t like seeing my friends being taken for mugs. Sarah blew hot and cold with him. Used him, when it suited. Pushed him away when it didn’t. She acted like she was too good for him. I thought Danny deserved better, to be honest,’ she adds, her voice lowering. ‘But he didn’t see it.’
A picture is building in Rachel’s head. Ellie had always seemed close to Danny. She’d assumed their friendship had been built on their mutual position within the school as scholarship kids, but perhaps it had been about something else. At least, on Ellie’s side. Had Ellie been jealous of Sarah’s romantic involvement with him?
‘Some of the other students reported that Sarah and Danny argued at the party. Did you witness any tension between them?’
Ellie nods.
‘What happened?’
‘It was Sarah’s fault. She dared Danny to do something she knew he never would, then played up to Connor in retaliation, flirting with him… kissing him.’ Ellie wrinkles her nose. ‘She knew what that would do to Danny. It was obvious he’d see red. I think she wanted them to fight over her. Another flex. Danny didn’t take it well, but you wouldn’t, would you? The girl you like snogging your dickhead brother right in front of you.’
‘Was Danny violent towards Sarah?’
Ellie’s head snaps up. She throws a fierce look at Maxwell. ‘No way! He’d never. Danny went for Connor. And Sarah could’ve stopped them fighting, but she just stood there, watching, this weird smile on her face. It was a power trip for her. A chance to show off how much Danny liked her.’
‘Did you get involved in the fight, Ellie?’
Ellie looks down at her lap. ‘Not really.’
Rachel studies Ellie, a feeling building in the pit of her stomach.
Maxwell waits.
‘It wasn’t my fault. Sarah shoved her phone at me so she could do her dare. “Hold this,” she goes, like I was her servant. I was still holding it when the fight broke out between the two boys. That’s when the message buzzed on her home screen. The evidence right there in my hand.’
‘What did you see?’ Maxwell is leaning forward.
Ellie twists the fabric of her school jumper in her fingers. ‘A message. From some random account. It said something like, “Missing you tonight. I wish we didn’t have to be a secret.” There were a couple of heart emojis, too.’ Ellie shakes her head. ‘It was obvious she was carrying on with someone behind Danny’s back.’
‘Who was the message from?’
‘I dunno. It looked dodgy. A few letters followed by 123. I mean, that’s suspicious in itself, right? Definitely a secret account.’
Maxwell doesn’t answer. Instead she counters with another question. ‘What did you do?’
‘I did what any good friend would do. I showed Danny. As I said, I’d had a bit to drink, and I was pissed off. He deserved to know what sort of girl Sarah was.’
‘How did Danny react?’
‘He wasn’t happy, obviously, but I think the fight with Connor had upset him the most.’
‘Do you remember what happened next?’
Ellie nods. ‘Danny confronted Sarah and when she wouldn’t say who it was from, he left with Saul. I wanted to go after him, but they were fast and I was… drunk. Dizzy. I couldn’t keep up. I lost them in the woods. Lost my way.’
A feeling rises up inside Rachel, fear at the thought of her daughter wandering alone through the woods at night. ‘Ellie,’ she says, unable to hold her silence. ‘What were you thinking?’
Maxwell shoots her a look, a gesture to refrain. ‘You were alone in the woods. You’d lost Danny. Lost sight of everyone. What happened next?’
Ellie glances down at her lap. ‘I didn’t feel well. All that wine… and I’d had a few puffs on something being passed around. I… I was sick. I puked and then I lay down for a bit. Just to let it pass.’
Rachel shakes her head, still horrified at the thought of her daughter alone and incapacitated with a violent killer roaming the woods. Where were her friends? Why wasn’t anyone looking out for her?
‘And then?’
Ellie shrugs. ‘I must’ve passed out, because next thing I remember is hauling myself up and realising I didn’t know where I was. I had to try and orient myself. I knew if I walked uphill, I’d eventually find the folly. From there, I’d be able to pick up one of the main trails leading down to the road.’
‘So, you walked up to the folly?’ Maxwell’s voice has taken on a slightly different pitch. For the first time, Rachel notices the camera set high into the corner of the room, a red light blinking at them. She realises they are being recorded, with police officers behind the scenes, perhaps watching every move. She’s never thought to ask Ben about the cameras; never thought she’d have need to understand the workings of an interview room, but now she wonders if it’s Ben out there, if he’s watching their daughter squirm and flounder in the interview chair and wishes he could put a stop to this. Wishes he would burst in and whisk Ellie away from these relentless questions.
Ellie is nodding. ‘I found the folly, found the trail I needed that would lead to the road and I walked back to the school campus. I knew I couldn’t go home so I woke Jasmine. I stayed in her dorm room and returned to Mum’s the next day.’ She shrugs. ‘End of story.’
Rachel eyes her daughter. A sensation of disquiet rises, an echo from the night before when she’d stood over Ellie’s bed and watched her sleeping daughter. The memory of Ellie’s nightmare, the sight of her pale and shaken in her bed. I thought I was in the woods. Something is off. Ellie is lying. She knows her daughter. She’s holding something back.
‘You mentioned the bird mask. What else were you wearing on Saturday night?’
Ellie frowns. ‘Just ordinary clothes.’
‘Can you describe them for me?’
Ellie gives the slightest eye-roll, which Rachel prays Fiona Maxwell hasn’t seen. She nudges her daughter’s foot gently under the table and throws her a warning look.
‘A grey hoodie. Cut-offs. Black tights. Converse.’
‘She never wears a coat,’ adds Rachel. ‘No matter how many times I tell her she’ll be cold, she always refuses.’ She glances at Fiona, trying to lighten the mood, but Maxwell just nods and turns back to Ellie, reaching for an iPad. ‘I’m going to show you some photos. I’d like you to tell me if you recognise the items in the pictures.’
Ellie’s head snaps up, instantly wary. Maxwell scrolls until a photograph appears enlarged on the screen. She slides the device across the table. Rachel leans in to get a better look and sees a grey hoodie with a smear of rust-brown across its front. A pair of denim shorts, filthy with dirt. Black ripped tights.
‘Do you recognise these, Ellie?’ Maxwell asks.
Ellie glances at Rachel.
‘Are these the clothes you described to me a few moments ago, the ones you were wearing on Saturday night?’
Ellie shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’
Maxwell skips to the very last image, a close-up of the inside label of the hoodie, something scrawled there in indelible black Sharpie. E. Chase. Rachel recognises her own handwriting. She remembers the morning quite clearly, Ellie off on a school excursion to an art exhibition in London, Rachel worried that she’d lose her favourite sweatshirt.
‘E. Chase. Your name?’
Ellie nods.
‘Are these your clothes, Ellie?’
‘Yes.’ Ellie hangs her head.
‘Can you explain what the clothes you say you were wearing on Saturday night were doing inside a plastic bag hidden in a salt bin on Thorncombe Lane?’
Ellie stares blankly at Maxwell but her cheeks are glowing red.
‘Did you put them there, Ellie?’
Ellie seems to consider her options, before nodding slowly. Rachel is struggling to keep up. ‘You threw your clothes away?’
‘Why not put them in the wash? Or throw them into a bin at home?’ Maxwell’s stare is unflinching. ‘Why go to such lengths to dispose of them?’
Rachel gazes at the photos on the iPad. She can’t seem to shift her gaze from the horrifying arc of red-brown smeared across the front of Ellie’s hoodie that looks for all the world like dried blood.
Ellie clears her throat. ‘Look at them. They were ruined. I knew Mum would be furious if she saw the state of them.’
‘They certainly look rather… stained. I’m guessing they didn’t look like this when you set out for the party on Saturday night? They weren’t part of your costume?’
Ellie lowers her head. ‘No.’
‘So, can you tell me what happened?’ Maxwell points to the smear spread across the front of the hoodie. ‘What were you doing in the woods on Saturday night to end up with clothes looking like this?’
‘It was dirty. It’s just mud and, yeah, you know…’ Ellie trails off.
Maxwell leans back in her chair and regards Ellie for a long moment. ‘I have to tell you, Ellie, that right now, these clothes are being tested as a matter of urgency by our forensics team. We have technicians looking for any evidence that might link them to Sarah Lawson’s death.’
Ellie’s head snaps up, her gaze sliding to the door, as if desperately willing an escape route to open before her.
‘If there is anything incriminating on them, anything that you don’t tell me about now that you might want us to know about later… well, you and I both know it won’t be good for you.’
Rachel is staring at Maxwell. It’s as if a veil has fallen and she sees her clearly; no longer the sweet-faced DC, probing and pushing Ellie to confide her frightening experience in the woods. Behind her soft, northern burr, those warm hazel eyes and her pretty, freckled face lies a calculating, razor-sharp detective. Maxwell has led her daughter methodically through her statement to this singular point, fully aware the whole time of the evidence waiting on her iPad. Ben had said she was good at her job. But this is too much. What she’s implying is illogical. Impossible. Isn’t it?
‘You need to tell me what happened.’ Maxwell eyes Ellie steadily. ‘The truth.’
Ellie is rigid beside her, her face angled to her lap, her fingers twisting the sleeve of her top round and round. ‘Fine,’ she says at last, lifting her head. ‘It’s blood. All right?’
Rachel swallows.
‘Whose blood, Ellie?’
Rachel watches as her daughter appears to weigh her options. In this moment she wants nothing more than to scoop up Ellie and drag her from the room, to protect her from whatever she is about to say.
‘It’s Sarah’s blood,’ Ellie says at last, the words quiet but sure.
Rachel stares at Ellie in disbelief, even as something chimes in her mind, a tiny whisper that says, you knew. You knew she was lying.