Where the Memories Lie

 

‘You’re right, though: what are we going to tell the kids?’

 

‘I don’t know.’ I leaned my head back on the headrest and let out a sigh. ‘How do you tell your daughter that the granddad who’s always doted on her is a murderer? That he killed a young woman and buried her in the garage of the house she’s been living in for the last four years?’

 

But as it turned out, something worse delayed me telling Anna about Katie.

 

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Chapter Eighteen

 

 

Nadia and I sat in the corner of a coffee shop in Dorchester high street, trying to process what had happened. We were still both in shock.

 

‘I just can’t believe it.’ Nadia took a sip of her espresso, her pale blue eyes looking grey against the pallor of her skin. ‘It’s . . . bloody hell.’ She balled her hands into fists.

 

‘Anna won’t want to live in the house anymore, will she? I don’t want to live there anymore! We’ll have to sell it.’

 

‘You can come and stay with us. We’ve got room.’ She blinked back tears.

 

My stomach rumbled, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten anything all day. ‘Maybe that would be best. For a while, at least. Anna’s going to have nightmares. Do you remember when she saw that story on the news about those Japanese fishermen in Taiji who hunt dolphins to either capture them for aquariums or slaughter them for food? She had nightmares after that for months. She kept waking up saying she was drowning in their blood. It was horrendous.

 

Actually, I couldn’t stop thinking about that afterwards, either. It’s horrific what humans do, isn’t it?’

 

‘She’s a lot stronger than you think.’

 

Sibel Hodge

 

‘She’s sensitive.’

 

‘What are we going to tell them, then?’ Her foot tapped an erratic beat against the table leg.

 

I stirred my spoon around in my cappuccino, staring down as if it hid all the answers. I held my breath. Finally, I exhaled and put the spoon on a napkin on the table. This was a parent’s worst nightmare. Your family was supposed to be a safe haven. Not capable of great cruelty and viciousness. Not capable of this. My thoughts wandered to Jack again. Was he Katie’s worst nightmare? Her home should’ve been a safe haven, too, but had he abused her? Had Rose turned a blind eye to it or was she too drunk to notice? Could I have prevented this somehow? Everything we do, every event in our lives has a domino effect. If Jack and Rose were sober, model parents, would Katie have grown up to have a normal life? If Jack was abusing her, was that the real reason she’d been running away?

 

If Chris hadn’t split up with her, would she still be alive? If I’d paid more attention, would it have come to this? We all had a part to play in how things had ended up.

 

‘Maybe we should just say there’s been an accident for now, not go into specifics.’ Nadia’s voice dragged me back to the table.

 

She patted her now wet cheeks with a napkin and took a long, hard breath. ‘Just that the police found some old bones but they don’t know who they belong to or what happened.’

 

‘You know as well as I do that as soon as the police start asking questions, people in the village are going to know what’s happened.

 

Everyone’s going to be talking and speculating. Do you remember when Jody Spencer was having an affair with Dave Potts?

 

The ridiculous stories people came out with then about how they were both into dogging and went out to a local playing field in the middle of the night to have sex with people? I mean, where the hell did they get that from? They must have some amazing imaginations to think up rubbish like that.’

 

160

 

Where the Memories Lie She sat upright, looking more like the in-control, calm, organ-ised Nadia I knew so well. ‘Yes, but we can deal with the gossip when it happens.’

 

I nodded, not really believing her, but anything to delay the inevitable sounded like the better option to me.