Cambridgeshire, 1988
I made the phone call one afternoon while Doug was at work, my fingers shaking as I dialled the number. It began to ring and I felt such a rush of panic I almost hung up. Then I heard the click on the other end, the familiar voice saying, ‘Hello?’ and the words stuck in my throat. ‘Hello? Hello?’ a note of impatience now. ‘Who is this, please?’
So strange to hear that voice again after so many years, to know that its owner was standing in the house I’d once known so well. In my mind’s eye I saw the duck-egg blue wallpaper in the hall, the light falling across the floorboards in two vertical slants. For a moment I was back there again, smelling the familiar smell – a mixture of lavender furniture polish and fresh coffee, the bowl of potpourri on the windowsill – hearing the ticking of the clock above the stairs, looking into those familiar eyes that used to cry so much in those days. I swallowed hard and at last, in a whisper, I said, ‘This is Beth Jennings.’
There was absolute silence. ‘Please,’ I begged. ‘Please, please don’t hang up. I need to see you. I need to speak to you.’ And then I burst into tears. ‘Can we meet?’
The voice was ice cold, tinged with fear. ‘Absolutely not. We made a deal. You promised.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t call if I wasn’t desperate. I need to talk about what happened. I thought I could live with what we did, but I can’t. I just can’t. I think we need to put it right, I want to go to the police.’
‘No! No, Beth.’ There was a long silence, until finally it came. ‘All right I’ll meet you. But not here. You can’t come here. Give me your address.’
Surreal to see that face again, that familiar figure sitting at my kitchen table. Within minutes I was crying again, my words spilling out of me. I talked about everything – about what we did, how the guilt had never left me. I talked about Hannah, my marriage, how I felt I was losing my mind. I realized how desperate I’d been to have someone to confide in, how much I’d missed having a friend. ‘What do you think I should do?’ I asked desperately, when I’d finally run out of words.
But those eyes remained cold as they looked back at me. ‘If you tell the police, we will lose everything. You will lose everything. Don’t you understand that? What good can come from dragging it all up now?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’ I saw that it was useless. Nobody could help me; there was nothing to be done. I bowed my head and cried and cried. I didn’t even look up when I heard the chair scraping back, the front door opening and closing once more. It was over. It had all been for nothing.
It was a while before I got to my feet. I made myself take long slow breaths. Toby would be waking from his nap soon and I needed to pull myself together. Slowly I went to the sink and washed my face, then I made myself walk towards the stairs, intending to go up to check on my son, trying to plaster on the necessary smile. I was suddenly desperate to see him, to feel his little body, smell his delicious scent. As I passed the telephone in the hall I replaced the receiver in its cradle – I’d taken it off so we wouldn’t be disturbed – and almost as soon as I withdrew my hand it began to ring.
I picked it up. ‘Hello?’
‘This is West Elms Primary,’ the briskly efficient voice said. ‘Is Hannah with you, Mrs Jennings?’
‘Hannah?’ I asked in confusion. ‘No. Why would she be with … isn’t she at school?’
‘I’m afraid she’s run away again. She must have slipped out of the upper school’s gate after lunch. When we couldn’t reach you, we called the police. I believe they’re on their way to see you now.’
‘But …’ I felt the colour drain from my face. ‘How long has she been gone?’
‘About forty minutes. As I said, we did try to call you, but …’
I hung up and rushed back into the kitchen, my heart pounding. The last time Hannah ran away from school, I’d found her sitting in the back garden on the bench below our kitchen window. It was a warm day today and our kitchen had a stable door, the top part of which I’d left open. Nervously I went to it and looked out, terrified that I would find her there, that she had been there all along. But she wasn’t: the garden was empty and I exhaled, relief crashing over me.
And then I turned back to the kitchen and I screamed. Because there was Hannah, standing in the door of the little pantry room that adjoined our kitchen. She must have been hiding in there – must have been there all along. She would have heard everything. She knew everything.
My legs felt weak. ‘Hannah,’ I said. ‘Oh, Hannah.’
She held my gaze for what seemed like an eternity. I don’t think I breathed the whole time. And then she walked past me and up the stairs, while I stared after her, fear pounding through me.
The rest of the day was nothing less than torture. I knew I couldn’t tell Doug what had happened. He’d told me never to make contact, had been furious at the very idea and would never forgive me for going behind his back. And now this had happened. What if Hannah told Doug? What if she told a teacher what she’d overheard? I could lose everything. Hannah, my marriage, my home … maybe even Toby. And the thought of life without my little boy was like a knife to my heart.
During the hours that followed I scarcely took my eyes off my daughter, my heart clenched with panic as I waited to find out what she’d do. But the strange thing was she seemed entirely unaffected by what she’d heard. Maybe she hadn’t understood, I told myself desperately. But I went over and over what I’d said in the kitchen, and knew there was no way our conversation could have been misconstrued. How could it? The things she’d overheard were dreadful, horrifying; surely she would have been traumatized to discover what she did.
That night when I tucked her up in bed I lingered for a while on the pretext of tidying her room. I remembered how excited we’d been when we first moved to the house, how we’d looked forward to making our little girl’s room perfect for her. Glancing around now – at the walls we’d painted a cheerful yellow, the string of fairy lights draped over her mantelpiece, the large dolls house Doug had built, at all the other little touches we’d spent ages picking out for her but that had always been met with total indifference, I tried to find the words to begin. ‘Hannah,’ I said. ‘Darling?’
She looked at me and waited. At seven years old, she was small for her age still, yet she seemed in that moment to have changed, her face a touch less babyish than it was before; one of those moments you have with children, those startling flashes of realization that they are growing up and away from you right under your nose, that time passes so very quickly. Her hair fanned out across the white pillow, her watchful eyes were fixed on mine.
I made myself take a deep breath, my mouth horribly dry. ‘What you heard in the kitchen earlier, sweetheart, it must have sounded so crazy, so silly,’ I began, my smile so forced it hurt my face, my voice shrill. ‘We were just playing a silly game, that’s all! That was Mummy’s friend and we were pretending we were in a film or something!’ Hannah continued to watch me silently. I licked my lips. ‘The thing is, darling, it needs to be a secret. What you heard, what you heard Mummy and her friend saying, the game you overheard, you mustn’t mention it to anyone. Do you see? You mustn’t mention it to anyone at all, not even Daddy. Do you promise?’
Hannah blinked, her face without expression as she considered me. And then she turned over and closed her eyes, leaving me to stare silently down at her, cold with fear.
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