Olivia Easton arrives just after two. She taps quietly on the door, her nervous gaze sweeping the office, before taking one of the armchairs Rachel indicates. ‘I thought we could sit here,’ Rachel says. ‘These old rooms are so draughty. It’s cosier by the fire.’
It’s not the first time Rachel has offered counselling to a grieving student. Over the duration of her career, she’s met with students dealing with all manner of loss. Divorce. Illness. The death of a family member. Only today feels different. Sitting opposite Olivia, studying her stricken face and rigid posture, Rachel would be the first to admit she feels daunted, perhaps even a little out of her depth. It’s one thing to try to help a child grieving a beloved family member, but it’s another thing entirely to counsel a student through the after-effects of a violent crime. The landscape they are about to navigate together feels charged and complex and, to make matters worse, Olivia looks less than happy to be sitting with her. She looks for all the world as if she would gladly burrow into the cushions and disappear.
Rachel clears her throat. ‘I know it wasn’t your idea to meet, Olivia, but Mrs Crowe thought this might be a good chance for us to talk about the support the school can offer you, and for you and I to have a little chat, if that would be helpful?’
Olivia’s face is downcast, her blonde hair pulled back into a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck, a few loose strands framing her pretty face, but there are signs of her distress, for anyone looking for them. Rachel sees them in the girl’s chewed fingernails, the ink-coloured shadows beneath her eyes, the restless foot tapping the floor.
‘We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,’ Rachel continues. ‘Think of this as a safe space, whenever you need it.’
Olivia purses her lips. Rachel waits, but the girl remains silent, the only sound the soft drumming of her foot against the floorboards. Rachel decides to start on safer ground. ‘How are you feeling about returning to school today?’
The girl shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I imagine it’s bringing up a lot of feelings for you?’
Olivia turns her face to the window. Outside, the day is flat and grey. A log spits in the hearth. Rachel wonders again if Mr Easton and Margaret Crowe have got it wrong; if it’s too soon for Olivia to be back. The girl is clearly still in shock. But after a long moment, she does speak.
‘I guess I feel numb. But I’d rather be here than sitting at home.’
‘How are things at home?’
Olivia turns back to meet Rachel’s gaze. ‘Lonely. Suffocating.’
Rachel nods, but leaves space for her to explain.
‘Diana’s crying all the time. Dad’s locked away in his study, stressed about the development and the protestors trying to stop it. Mum’s doing… well… what Mum does. And Sarah’s room just stands there. Exactly as she left it. I go in sometimes, just to check it’s real.’ She bites her lip. ‘That she’s really gone.’
She can feel Olivia’s loneliness as an almost tangible presence. It hangs over the girl like fine gauze. And that comment about her mother. She makes a note to circle back later. ‘You’re hoping school will be a distraction?’
Olivia’s brow creases. ‘Maybe. I mean, not really. It doesn’t matter where I am, does it? Sarah’s still… gone. And all these feelings I have, well…’ Her hands return to worry the necklace at her throat. ‘They’re a part of me, aren’t they?’ She closes her eyes, her jaw clenched, lips trembling. ‘The worst thing is that the person I felt closest to, the only one in the whole world I felt comfortable talking to has just… vanished.’ Olivia’s bottom lip trembles.
‘You miss her.’
Olivia’s head jerks up, and for a split second she looks confused, but then she softens. ‘I keep expecting to see her. To hear her laugh. To have her burst into my room and tell me it’s all a horrible joke.’ She swallows. ‘But it’s not, and nothing I do will bring her back.’
‘I know how close you two were.’ Rachel waits a moment. She can see Olivia is wrestling to control her tears. ‘What’s coming up for you as we sit here?’
The girl shakes her head.
‘It’s OK, Olivia. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to listen. To help, if I can.’
Olivia lets go of the pendant and burrows her hands into the sleeves of her school blazer. She lets out a long sigh. ‘I can’t talk to you. I can’t talk to anyone. It’s too hard.’
‘You say the person you felt closest to has gone. If you could talk to Sarah, what would you say?’
Olivia glances at Rachel and shakes her head.
Too much, Rachel senses. Back off. The girl is standing at a precipice, barely holding herself together. ‘Losing someone we love can feel cruel and unfair. Our grief manifests in all manner of ways. Anxiety. Fear. Anger. Guilt. We can feel robbed of everything that made us feel happy, safe and secure.’
Olivia shudders at this and Rachel wonders if she’s made a connection.
‘That’s exactly how it feels,’ says Olivia. ‘My life feels split in two now. There was the before, when I thought I understood everything, thought I saw how things were going to be. And now there’s the after, where Sarah’s dead and everything’s been stripped away. It feels as though everything that was good in my life died with her.’
‘That must be hard. Disorientating.’
‘I feel like there’s a version of me on one side of that night. And a completely different person now standing on the other. All I want is for things to be how they were.’ She bows her head. ‘How I thought they were.’ She shrugs. ‘I have no idea who I’m supposed to be… what I’m supposed to do.’
‘Why don’t you tell me about Sarah?’
Olivia lets out a slow breath. ‘I hate being an only child. My parents are… busy. Distracted. It’s complicated.’
‘Tell me. It’s OK – this won’t go anywhere. Your mother,’ Rachel asks gently, ‘are the two of you close?’
Olivia shrugs. ‘Not really. It’s hard to get close to someone who isn’t really there most of the time.’
Rachel leans forward. ‘How do you mean?’
‘She used to be the life and soul. She was always out – with friends, with the horses, at riding shows, throwing parties. Dad used to call her his “secret weapon”, his “social butterfly”. But ever since the fall, she’s been different.’
‘The fall?’
‘She was competing at the Badminton Horse Trials when she was thrown by one of our horses.’ She glances up at Rachel. ‘It was bad. She was in hospital for weeks. Ever since, she’s had to take pills… for the pain. They space her out… help her to sleep.’ Olivia sighs. ‘Maybe I should try them.’
Rachel frowns. ‘I wouldn’t advise it. What about your dad? Can you talk to him?’
‘I used to. Dad’s always been focused on his work, but he’s even busier now. The housing development is all he can think about. He’s been working on it for months, and just when it looked like he’d got it over the line, a bunch of local protestors throw up a whole new set of problems for him. I know he’s devastated about Sarah, but he can’t seem to hold the two things in his mind. He locks himself away in his study, with his plans and his phone calls.’ Olivia’s eyes flash with anger. ‘These people are demanding his attention, right when we need him the most. When I need him,’ she adds quietly.
She thinks about what Olivia has just shared, and can’t help wondering if this is another reason why Mr Easton might’ve supported his daughter’s early return to school. ‘It sounds very lonely at home.’
‘It was. It is.’
‘Even more so without Sarah, I imagine?’
She nods. ‘I argued hard for Sarah to come and live with us. She hated her international school in Dubai. She’d fallen out with a bitchy crowd after her father died and I wanted her here with us. It seemed like a no-brainer. Living with Sarah was what I’d imagined having a sister would feel like. I didn’t feel so alone.’
Rachel nods. She doesn’t want to interrupt, not now Olivia is talking more freely.
‘And it was brilliant. She was a life force, you know? Full of ideas. Full of enthusiasm. Everything became so much more interesting after Sarah came to live with us.’ She manages a faint smile. ‘I felt… I felt different when she was around.’
‘Different how?’
‘More confident, I suppose. Having someone to share things with. She encouraged me to be bolder. To take risks. To go after what I wanted. It was good to have someone to bounce my problems off. She was always there. An ear to listen when I had problems… I talked to her about everything. School. Boys. My parents.’ Olivia frowns. ‘And now… now it’s all been ripped away. And now…’ The words tumbling from her mouth come to a sudden halt. She lifts her gaze and stares at Rachel with imploring eyes. ‘And now she’s… dead.’ Olivia’s lower lip trembles again, her eyes swimming, the force of her grief palpable in the small room. ‘I’m so angry with her,’ she says, her voice barely a whisper.
Rachel can see the girl’s bewilderment and pain. All normal grief responses. Without anyone yet identified to blame for Sarah’s murder, it’s understandable that Olivia might find herself raging at the person she trusted to be there for her, the one who left her. ‘This wasn’t Sarah’s fault. And it certainly wasn’t your fault, Olivia.’
Olivia shakes her head.
‘Trust me, anger is a part of grief.’
‘I took her to the party and I… I got so cross. I told her we should leave. She wouldn’t listen to me and I… I…’ Olivia’s voice cracks. She drops her gaze. ‘I left her there.’ Her voice wobbles with emotion. ‘It’s my fault.’
Rachel leans forward in her chair. ‘Do you remember what you just told me about Sarah?’ When Olivia doesn’t answer she continues, ‘You said Sarah was a life force. Was she often persuaded to do things she didn’t want to?’ She asks the question gently.
Olivia shakes her head, eyes still closed. ‘No.’
‘Did you ask her to leave with you that night? Did you remind her of the curfew?’
Olivia nods.
‘Did you force Sarah to do anything she didn’t want to do?’
Olivia is shaking her head again. ‘Sarah was in charge.’
‘Sometimes, terrible things happen – things beyond our control. It’s hard to accept it when they do, but I want you to try to remember this conversation when you’re working through all these big emotions. It’s normal to feel responsible in some way, to question what we might have done differently, to feel angry, guilty even; but sometimes we have to accept that bad things happen to good people. It’s hard, but we have to treat ourselves with the compassion and care that we know our loved ones would wish for us.’
Olivia slumps back in the armchair, eyes closed. Her hands, Rachel notices, have returned to her throat, her fingers rubbing the broken heart pendant hanging there. When she opens her eyes, Rachel is disappointed to see that Olivia still doesn’t look convinced. ‘I can’t see the point of anything anymore. It’s my final year’ – she shrugs and glances up at Rachel – ‘but so what? I don’t care about the future now. It doesn’t feel like there is one. Not for me. Not now.’
Rachel doesn’t like to hear Olivia talking like this. ‘Do you have anyone else to talk to?’
Olivia looks teary-eyed at the suggestion.
‘Any other close friends?’ Rachel presses. ‘A boyfriend, perhaps?’ From Olivia’s flinch, she can see she’s touched a nerve. ‘What happened?’
‘He wasn’t the person I thought he was.’ She presses her lips together.
‘Has Sarah’s death scared him away? Sometimes people aren’t very good at handling grief. They worry they’re going to make things worse for you, so they retreat.’
Olivia shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’
The agony of young love. Rachel feels sorry for the girl. She can’t help thinking about Ellie, about her own isolation. ‘I’m sure there are lots of students who’d like to support you. It can sometimes look as though everyone else has their life sorted, but it’s not often the case. What do you think Sarah would say to you right now? What do you think she’d want you to do?’
Olivia gives a small shudder. ‘I have nightmares. I see her in the woods. Alone at the folly.’
Rachel kicks herself for her misstep, for conjuring a frightening image. She thinks of Ellie’s night terrors, how she’d found her in bed, dazed, shaken and sweaty. It would be the same for Olivia. They’re all frightened. All fearful of the possibility of a deranged killer on the loose. ‘I know it’s scary, Olivia, but the police are working hard. It may not be too much longer before they get a breakthrough in the case.’ Seeing the girl’s head swing up, she kicks herself. She shouldn’t have said that. ‘What I mean is that they’re doing all they can to find the person responsible. I hope you know that. In the meantime, my door is always open to you.’
Rachel watches the girl rise from the armchair, a listless energy seeming to trail her to the door. She looks so dejected, so alone. It’s the thought of her returning home to a huge, empty house with two parents who barely notice her that breaks Rachel’s heart. She wishes she could do more. ‘Olivia,’ she calls, beckoning her back. She goes to her desk and scribbles on a notepad, tearing off a sheet and holding it out to her. ‘I don’t usually do this, but here. This is my mobile number. If you start to feel overwhelmed… like you can’t see the point, please call me.’
Olivia manages a weak smile, her gaze drifting from Rachel to her cluttered desk. ‘Pretty,’ she says, with a nod of her head.
Rachel turns and sees what has caught Olivia’s attention: the white roses and the card still propped against the vase.
‘You were married to the detective, weren’t you? The one that came to our house. DS Chase?’ She swallows. ‘He seems nice.’
Rachel nods. ‘We’re not together anymore.’ She says it flatly, hoping that Olivia isn’t going to press for details of the investigation, but the girl’s curious gaze has already returned to the flowers.
Shit, thinks Rachel, realising Edward’s note, signed with his artistic flourish, is right there for the girl to see. She kicks herself. First Malcolm. Now Olivia. The gossip will be all the way round the school by tea. ‘Here,’ she says, waving her number, desperate to distract Olivia’s attention. ‘Call me if you need anything. We’re all here for you.’
Olivia tucks the note into her blazer pocket. ‘Not everyone,’ she says, her eyes welling suddenly. ‘Not the one person I most want to talk to.’ She turns as if to make for the door, then hesitates. ‘Is he good at his job?’
Rachel frowns, before realising Olivia is still talking about Ben, not Edward. ‘Very. One thing I can say about my ex-husband is that he’s a ferociously stubborn man. I know he’s doing his utmost to keep you all safe.’
Olivia nods, but she doesn’t look reassured. ‘Do you think he’ll catch whoever did this?’
Rachel nods. ‘He won’t stop until he does.’
She wishes that her reassurance could be enough, that she had made a difference, but as Olivia slips through the door, she can see the anxiety in the girl’s face and knows that their time together has barely scratched the surface of her emotions. She’s never felt so useless at her job in her life.