Niamh
When I see the police car parked on the drive outside my house, I think about turning around and going somewhere else—anywhere else. Then I see my mother standing at the kitchen window. When she sees me, she raises a hand.
As I go inside, I see the two policewomen sitting at our kitchen table. I know they’re waiting for me—otherwise why else would they be here?
“They want to talk to you, Niamh.” My mother sounds jittery. “They say you were with Hollie on one of the days she was missing from school.”
“Yes.” I’m not going to lie. “But there’s a reason I didn’t tell you.” I glance at her. “Before, I mean.”
Shaking her head, she looks furious for a moment. Then she looks worried. In a flash, I get why. She thinks I know more than I’m saying about what happened to Hollie.
“I made Hollie a promise,” I tell DS May and Sergeant Collins. “Just because she’s dead, doesn’t mean a promise should be broken.”
DS May nods slightly. “So Hollie was upset that day. Upset enough that she persuaded you to take the day off school. Wasn’t there anyone else she went to when she needed to talk to someone?”
I shake my head. “She didn’t have anyone else. I was going to get on the bus, as usual, but she was desperate.”
“So what happened after you didn’t get on the bus?”
“We came back here. I got changed, and we went out again.”
“But first, you emailed your school, telling them you had a dental appointment.”
I nod.
“Niamh.” My mother sounds shocked.
“Of course, some of your teachers picked up that you weren’t in lessons.” DS May pauses. “So what did you and Hollie do after that?”
* * *
There are things you don’t tell your parents, that they don’t need to know or wouldn’t understand. I recall that day when Hollie was at the bus stop waiting for me.
“Can you not go to school today?” Her eyes were huge with dark circles under them, as though she hadn’t slept in days. “I’m going mad, Niamh. I need you.” The words broke out of her in a sob.
I thought about the classes I’d miss, the trouble I’d get into when my mother found out. “If I don’t go to registration, they’ll call my mother.”
Her eyes didn’t leave mine. “Can’t you tell them you have a dentist’s appointment? I’ll never ask you to do anything like this again.”
I paused, thinking of the online portal between the school and parents. I’d memorized the log-in details they sent my mother. “I suppose.” I paused. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.” Hollie always spoke theatrically. “Your bus is coming, Niamh. You have to decide. Please...”
As I heard the bus coming closer, the desperation in her voice swayed me. A day off school wouldn’t make any difference to anyone. “OK.”
“Is your mum at work?” As we walked away down the road, Hollie spoke hurriedly. When I nodded, she said, “Can we go back to yours? Shouldn’t you change?” She looked at my uniform anxiously. As the bus came into sight, Hollie grabbed my arm. “Quick. Before the driver sees us.”
By the time it reached the bus stop, we were out of sight. From the garden, I heard the bus slow down for a moment, then when the driver saw I wasn’t there, gradually accelerate and pull away. Running ahead of me across the garden toward the house, Hollie seemed more anxious than usual. “Hurry up, Niamh. You need to email the school, remember? Before they try to call your parents.”
Unlocking the back door, I closed it behind both of us, then got my laptop, logging in and sending the email to the school, before shutting it down again. I turned to Hollie. “What now?”
There was a strange look on her face. Then she said, “My dad’s done something.”
“What?” Before she could speak, I added, “I need to change, Hollie. Come upstairs.”
As I went upstairs, I tried to imagine what her dad might have done. But after all that, she didn’t tell me. While I changed, she was restless, flitting around my room. Then as I pulled on a sweater, she said, “I have to show you something.”
“What?”
But she was already going downstairs again. In the kitchen, she picked up my jacket and handed it to me.
“Where are we going?”
Shaking her head, she opened the back door, standing outside impatiently. “Come on, Niamh. It has to be now, or someone will see us.”
As the same urgency that gripped her filtered into me, I closed the door and hurried to catch up, jogging to keep pace with her quick steps. As we reached the lane, she glanced around, as if to make sure we weren’t being watched. When she broke into an easy run, I did the same, following her along the pavement, watching her unzipped jacket flapping behind her. “Hollie.” When she didn’t slow down, I shouted after her. “Hollie... Stop!”
There was a mystified look on her face as she turned round. For some reason, I was annoyed. “What are we doing out here? Someone will see me. I’m supposed to be at school, remember?”
Jogging back to me, she grabbed my hand, then stroked a strand of hair off my face. “It’ll be OK, Niamh. But I have to show you something. It’s important.”
I was relieved when no cars passed us. We carried on, more slowly. As we passed Ida Jones’s cottage, I glanced up at her windows, grateful when I saw they were dark. Then we passed Furze Lane and crossed the road, taking an unmarked path through the woods.
Clouds were rolling across the sky, lowering, threatening rain. Under the canopy of branches, the woods were dark. It took fifteen minutes for us to reach the house. Telling me to stay hidden, Hollie hurried around the front to check the drive.
“No one’s home.”
I followed her to a window she made me peer through, into a small room that looked like someone’s office, with photos on the desk. Photos of young girls. Then she told me what she’d been keeping from me; made me swear not to tell anyone else.
“Everyone has secrets, Niamh. But now my secret is your secret, too.”
* * *
Even now, I have to keep her secret. “She told me her dad had done something. It must have been quite bad. Then she made me go a long way to this house that belonged to someone she didn’t know. But that was it.” It seems an age ago it happened, but that’s how it feels when someone dies. It’s the difference between life with and without; before and after.
“Where was the house?” DS May’s pen is poised, ready to write it down.
I look at her blankly. “Through the woods somewhere.”
“Not Deeprose House?” When I shake my head, she adds, “Would you be able to take us there?”
Can I remember the twisting path Hollie took? “I’m not sure I could.”
“It’s really important, Niamh. If I go with you, could we try to find it?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
DS May is quiet for a moment. When she speaks, she sounds irritated. “She didn’t tell you any more than that, Niamh, about her father?”
I shake my head. “That was the trouble with Hollie. She’d tell you she’d discovered something, and how terrible it was, but then she wouldn’t actually tell you what it was.”