‘What?’
He shook his head. ‘I thought I knew everything about him,’ he said quietly. ‘I really thought we told each other everything. Obviously not.’
She stared out of the window at the passing countryside and thought about Luke at sixteen, how he’d been little more than a kid himself, how panicked and scared he must have been at the prospect of becoming a father. But if Amy was telling the truth – and she was certain that she was – there was no excuse for the way he’d behaved towards her. She realized that, for the first time since they’d met, she felt ashamed of him. She remembered Zoe saying how quickly and how deeply she had fallen for Luke, and it was true, but had her infatuation made her blind? If he was capable of behaving so badly towards Amy, who else might he have crossed? If Amy wasn’t responsible for Luke’s disappearance – and a gut feeling told her she wasn’t – then some other woman had sent the emails, stolen a van to take Luke off to God knows where. But who was she, and what had Luke done to provoke her?
When they finally joined the motorway she sighed and picked up her phone. After a moment’s thought she wrote her reply to Emily:
I need to know you are who you say you are. You sang a song with Luke when he was little, before he went to bed every night. Do you remember what it was?
She forced herself to put her phone away, telling herself that she needed to be patient; that Emily probably wouldn’t reply for ages. Her willpower lasted less than fifteen minutes, however, and to her surprise when she next looked there was already a message waiting for her.
Five Little Monkeys, it said. Where do you want to meet?
There’s a bar called The Octopus on Great Eastern Street, Clara wrote, her heart thudding with excitement. Would that suit you? I could meet tomorrow, any time.
The reply was instant:
I’ll be there at six. Please, Clara, it’s very important you don’t tell anyone. I’m trusting you.
Clara looked at Mac. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘We’re on!’
15
Cambridgeshire, 1989
After Doug told me to leave I ran blindly through the streets of our village, barely aware of my surroundings as I made my way towards Saint Dunstan’s Hill. When I got to the top I sat on a bench and looked out across the darkening fields. I don’t think I’d ever felt so desolate, so frightened. All I knew was that Hannah had pushed Toby. I knew she had.
I thought about her as a newborn, how tiny and beautiful she’d been. Doug and I had treated her as though she was made of the finest glass, we had barely been able to contain our happiness in those early weeks. We had waited so long for her, had been through so much, and now there she was, so utterly perfect, we could scarcely believe our luck. And then little by little, as the months and years had passed, the doubts had crept in.
I must have sat there for more than an hour, watching as the lights of the scattered villages grew gradually stronger as the darkness gathered. From a distant church I heard a bell toll nine. My thoughts chased each other. My rage towards Hannah had been instantaneous, the thought of her hurting Toby triggering something primal and instinctive within me. I didn’t know how we could continue now, how I could ever trust her around my little boy again.
At last, cold and exhausted, I turned back towards home. When I reached my street I hesitated at our gate and took a gulp of air to steady myself. There was nobody about; no sound from the other houses, an eerie stillness in the air. When I let myself in, the hall was in darkness. I stood and listened. Had Doug gone to bed? Suddenly I heard a faint sound coming from the kitchen. A creak of a chair, perhaps a sigh. I crept nearer and pushed open the door. There, sitting at the table, was Doug. The only light in the room was the one that glimmered dimly from the oven’s hood.
I whispered his name but he didn’t look up, so I edged a fraction closer. ‘Doug?’ Filled with a sudden, nameless fear I asked, ‘Has something happened? Is it Toby? Talk to me!’
He shook his head. ‘Toby’s asleep.’
Quietly I sat down next to him. I saw that he had been crying and instinctively I put my arms around him. I think it was the first time we’d touched in months.
At last he began to speak. ‘When you left the house, I looked around at Hannah and the expression on her face … she looked so … happy. She was smiling, Beth. Actually smiling. And when she caught me looking at her it was as though she flicked a switch.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘Toby told me, he told me that she’d pushed him.’
I noticed that his hands were trembling and I reached over and took one in my own. ‘He said she told him to go and find you, and when he got to the top of the stairs …’ He looked at me, his eyes full of horror. ‘She could have killed him.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘But why?’ he said desperately. ‘Why is she like this? Is it something we’ve done?’
I chose my words carefully. ‘From what I’ve read, people like Hannah have no empathy, no conscience. I don’t know why she is the way she is, but she’s dangerous, Doug.’
‘Then we need to get her the best psychiatrist we can find! We can turn this around, I know we can. She’s eight years old … we can get her help, can’t we? We should never have cancelled that psychiatrist. Can we get another appointment? Maybe we could go private, get seen sooner.’
I closed my eyes, knowing I had to tell him the truth. ‘Doug,’ I said. ‘We can’t do that. We can’t let her talk to a doctor.’
His eyes shot to my face in surprise. ‘Can’t? Why?’
I had no choice but to tell him. I could barely look at him as I described how I’d made the phone call behind his back all those months ago, how I’d discovered Hannah in the kitchen, how she’d overheard everything, knew everything. ‘I’m sorry,’ I cried when I saw his horrified expression. ‘Oh, Doug, don’t look at me like that! I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I was so frightened, I thought it would help, I needed to talk to someone.’
‘But, Beth, if Hannah tells anyone. If she tells … oh, Jesus, Beth, we’re in it up to our necks!’
I nodded. ‘I know.’
‘But what do we do?’ he asked.
‘We keep Toby with us at all times,’ I said. ‘We never, ever leave him alone with her. We’ll … just have to try to manage her, watch her …’
He sank back into his chair and we stared up at the ceiling, to where Hannah lay sleeping in the room above. Around us the night settled into the corners of the house, the darkness outside growing denser, the moon hidden now behind thick cloud. From somewhere in the fields beyond our street came the solitary scream of a fox, before it, too, lapsed back into silence.
The next day was a Saturday. When Hannah came down for breakfast Doug and I were already up and waiting for her. She froze in surprise to see us sitting at the table together. She turned to Doug. ‘I don’t want her here!’ she said. ‘She’s going to hurt me again! Don’t let her hurt me, Daddy.’
‘Hannah,’ Doug said, calmly. ‘Stop this. Stop right now. We know that you pushed Toby.’
Her eyes darted to me and then back to her father. She folded her arms. ‘No I didn’t!’
‘Yes, Hannah,’ he said. ‘You did, and I know you’ve hurt him before.’
She looked like the child she was at that moment. Thwarted. She stood, barely four feet tall in her Winnie the Pooh slippers, her hands balled into fists. She screamed, suddenly, running to him and pounding at his belly. ‘Stop it, Hannah,’ he said, holding her at arm’s length, his face red. ‘Stop it right now. I want you to tell me why you’ve done this. Why did you want to hurt Toby? Hurt us? We’re your mummy and daddy and we love you.’