THE HEATWAVE
Katerina Diamond

Copyright

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Katerina Diamond 2020

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Katerina Diamond asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008361808

Ebook Edition © June 2020 ISBN: 9780008361815

Version: 2020-05-05

Readers love The Heatwave

‘Absolutely top-notch. So many twists it makes me dizzy thinking about it’

Jo Jakeman, author of Safe House

‘Dark and twisted, but with sunshine and nostalgia to transport you’

SJI Holliday, author of Violet

‘Wow, wow, wow. Katerina Diamond has not disappointed!’

***** Reader Review

‘A brilliant whodunnit story with an incredible twist’

***** Reader Review

‘So many twists and turns and an excellent ending I didn’t see coming’

***** Reader Review

‘I was hooked straightaway … kept me guessing until its shocking ending’

***** Reader Review

Dedication

To my step-dad, Roger.

Thanks for taking care of my mum,

so I don’t have to.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Readers love The Heatwave

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Katerina Diamond

About the Publisher

Prologue

The gears stick as the car is changed into third. From the back seat she can hear the crunching with each gear shift. Outside the dusky sky darkens with each passing moment. She looks in the footwell of the seat next to her, where there is a bag full of water bottles.

‘Have one of those if you want,’ the driver says, their eyes connecting in the rear-view mirror.

‘Just up here, thanks,’ the girl says, opening a bottle and drinking thirstily.

The car keeps going, past the road her home is on. She taps on the window. ‘You can just drop me here. I can walk this last bit.’

The car keeps moving. The girl realises the driver has no intention of stopping. She tugs at the handle but the back door is locked, the mechanism snapped off. She slams her palm against the window, smacking repeatedly, hoping someone, anyone will walk past and hear.

The car speeds up and the girl starts to feel strange, a bitter taste in the back of her throat. She feels the cold water splash against her thighs as she drops the bottle, her grip too weak to hold on. She lolls in her seat, unable to stay upright. She slumps to the side, the feebleness in her hand spreading to the rest of her body. She knows she is in trouble. She struggles to stay awake, aware that once her eyes are closed, they may never open again. As her lids draw together she tries to speak, but all she hears is an unintelligible gargle.

‘You’re coming with me,’ the driver says.

Chapter One

Now

The bed next to me is empty when I wake, my eyes still puffy from crying myself to sleep while listening to the radio for comfort. Chris never came upstairs to bed. At his work event last night I drank too much and locked myself in the toilet. Social situations make me anxious and as understanding as he is, I always push him past his limit. I had promised to behave myself this time, but as usual my nerves got the better of me and I embarrassed him again, something I seem to do more and more these days. My head is throbbing, I know I haven’t slept well, the echo of my dreams still lingering. They’re indiscernible, but I have the uneasy feeling that comes after a nightmare.

I wander downstairs in my pyjamas and find Chris asleep on the sofa where I left him last night, an overturned wineglass on the rug and the TV on. I reach down and feel for wetness but there is nothing. At least he finished the wine before he dropped the glass. I pull the throw on the back of the sofa over him. I wonder how long he will keep up the silent treatment this time. It’s nothing less than I deserve.

‘What time is it?’ he mutters.

‘It’s still early – it’s seven – the kids aren’t even awake yet. Why don’t you go and get in bed for a couple of hours?’ I suggest, trying not to sound upset.

‘I wanted to go out on the bike this morning.’

‘Oh. I thought we were having a lazy weekend.’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘If you’re annoyed at me, will you just bloody say it? I can’t stand this tension between us.’ The tears start again.

‘Come here.’

I get on the sofa next to him and he pulls me into an embrace. Kissing my tears away, then kissing me on the lips. He gets like this the morning after he’s been drinking. His hands start to wander and I know he isn’t angry with me anymore.

‘Not here.’

‘Come on, you already said the kids were still asleep.’

‘They could wake up at any moment.’

‘We’ll hear them; you know they find it impossible to stay quiet.’ He kisses me again and I sink into the sofa – feeling him against me like this is always nice. I am half in the moment and half listening out for any movement in the house, not wanting to traumatise our children by having them walk in on us in flagrante on the couch.

As Chris kisses down my body the words from the television start to permeate my thoughts. It’s a news report about a missing girl last seen at a bus stop in a sleepy seaside town on the south coast … no clues as to what happened to her. I push against Chris to get him to move but he just keeps kissing me.

‘What is it?’ he says as he realises I’m not just offering friendly resistance.

‘The news, I need to hear it.’

‘Are you joking?’ He gets up and sits back with a petulant sigh.

I grab the remote and rewind the report. Images of a small town in Devon, quaint and picturesque. Just what you would imagine on a postcard from the south of England, lots of pebbles and red cliffs and hanging baskets full of pansies. The reporter standing at the bus stop is telling the story of a young girl, Mandy Green, who went missing just a few days earlier. The police believe it’s a possible kidnapping. The story ends with a sweeping view of the coastline, all the candy-coloured hotels along the shore. I stand.

‘I have to go,’ I say, knowing he will ask me questions. I don’t want to answer them right now; I don’t know how to. The news report is so familiar, it’s almost the same as one I saw many years ago, of the girl who went missing and was never seen again. Same town. I feel sick at the thought of history repeating itself in any way. I thought I had put a stop to all of that when I left.

‘Go where?’

‘Devon.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I know that place, Sidmouth, it’s where I grew up.’

‘There? That’s not what I expected. I thought you didn’t want to talk about your home because it was rough. That place looks like something out of a posh period drama.’

‘Not rough, just … not what it seems.’ How do I explain to him, with his perfectly open family and no understanding of what it feels like to be trapped inside someone else’s lies?

‘Well, I can’t take any time off right now, but after next Thursday we could all drive down. You could show us around some of your old haunts – I bet the kids would love it.’

‘No. No, I don’t want you to come. I need to go on my own.’

‘Today? It’s Saturday. We were going to take the kids to the cinema later. I don’t see why this can’t wait until Monday, at least.’

‘I’m sorry. I really need to go. You can manage without me for once,’ I say, as though he is being unreasonable to expect me to explain myself.

‘This is ridiculous. You can’t just keep a whole part of yourself cut off from us, we’re your family. Why do you think our teenage daughter only comes to me when she has a problem? Why do you think Lloyd won’t talk to us about what’s going on at school? You’re so closed off, Flick, you need to let us in. We’re your family. It’s supposed to be us against the world and it really doesn’t feel that way.’

‘I know, and I’m sorry. I need to go back though; I need to confront those demons or I will never be able to change. I can’t help the way I am.’

‘Well, you need to try, or you are going to lose those kids.’

‘I wasn’t always like this. Maybe finally going home will help me work through my issues – like you wanted me to.’ I don’t leave him any room to protest. ‘I’ll arrange for an after-school club for Lloyd and go down tonight. It’s the last couple of weeks of term anyway, it’s not like they do any proper classes. Daisy will be all right with him ’til you get home from work.’

‘It’s that important?’

‘I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t. Please, Chris, just let me do this. I promise when I get back I’ll tell you everything.’

‘Why now? What’s this about the missing girl? Do you know her?’

I hesitate. ‘No, but when I was at school a girl went missing. I was with her the night she disappeared.’

‘Jesus, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I find it hard to talk about the past, you know I do,’ I say.

‘Did the police ever find out what happened to her?’

‘No. She vanished without a trace.’

There’s a tiny part of me that hopes that I am wrong, a part of me that hopes there is no connection between the two disappearances. The news report has forced me to remember that summer when everything changed. I try not to think about that time and I have never spoken about it since, especially not to Chris. It’s a secret I have kept locked away. But there is no hiding from it anymore.

I have to go back.

Chapter Two

Then

Jasmine’s father pushed her bed so that it faced the feature wall. It was papered with a mural of a tropical beach at sunset. She would have preferred something a little simpler, more grown up, but didn’t want to say anything because her parents were so pleased. Jasmine’s mother Lisa helped her make the bed with brilliant white bedding and the Kantha quilt that she had coveted for years. It had been given to the Burgess family by the women from a village in Bangladesh they had visited a few years ago, and Lisa had given it to her daughter to mark her sixteenth birthday. It depicted vibrant parrots on a deep green background, with yellow stitching running all the way through the quilt.

‘Doesn’t this look perfect in here? I hope you look after it, Jazz. This is a one of a kind,’ Lisa said.

‘If you don’t trust me with it then keep it,’ Jasmine said, gripping the edge of the quilt, ready to hold on in case her mother changed her mind and decided to put it back in the cupboard.

‘Of course I trust you,’ Lisa said.

‘Is that everything then?’ Frank asked, tilting his head and looking at the curtain pole over the window, checking it was straight.

‘Yes. Everything is brilliant, now let me get settled please,’ Jasmine said impatiently, desperate for some time alone in her new room.

Her dad came over to ruffle her hair as though she were a child, and she shrugged him off instinctively.

‘Fine. Call if you need us,’ Lisa said as she reluctantly left the room.

Her parents went down the hall to finish their own unpacking.

The house was bigger than their old one, where Jasmine’s room had been a third the size of this one, and they’d had a courtyard rather than a garden. Jasmine had the feeling she was betraying her old self by living on this road, where the snobby kids lived, so she was determined not to become like them.

Jasmine’s bedroom window looked out over the overgrown garden, to where a small, painted brick, chalet-type guest house was tucked into the corner. Frank and Lisa planned to rent it out to fund their trips abroad.

She went down to the kitchen and grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl. They hadn’t had a chance to do a proper shop yet. As Jasmine made her way back to her room, she heard a knock on the front door. She looked in the mirror. She wasn’t properly dressed or showered, and her hair looked a little bedraggled, but no one else was coming down to answer.

She opened the door to see a man much younger than her father standing there with a holdall over his shoulder. He was looking at the ground so all she could really tell about him was that he had very dark blond hair, which was brushed back away from his face. When he peeked out from beneath his eyebrows he seemed surprised to see her and stood up straighter. His eyes slowly wandered over Jasmine and she crossed her arms across her front. She couldn’t quite read the look on his face, but it was as though he was reevaluating something.

‘I’m looking for Frank and Lisa Burgess,’ he said. His tone was unfriendly.

She suddenly wished she was wearing something other than shorts, and crossed one foot in front of the other in an attempt at modesty.

Jasmine turned to the stairwell and shouted, ‘Dad! There’s someone here for you.’

Moments later Frank appeared, peering around the corner at the top of the stairs. His face lit up when he saw their visitor and he rushed down, arm extended to shake the other man’s hand.

‘I’m not too early, am I? I can come back if you’re busy,’ the stranger said with a smile, much warmer than he had been a moment ago. He almost pushed Jasmine out of the way as he moved towards her father.

‘Lisa!’ Frank called up the stairs. ‘Tim’s here.’

Jasmine heard her mother’s excited exclamation and then before she knew it, Lisa was downstairs with her arms around Tim’s neck in a hug. When Lisa pulled away, Jasmine could see immediately that her mother was attracted to him; she looked flustered. As they talked about how unpleasant the blistering heat outside was, Jasmine took the time to look at their visitor. He was tall and, although she wouldn’t call him good looking, he wasn’t ugly; there was something interesting about his face. As he put his holdall on the floor, his shirt lifted up a little and she could see there was a tattoo across his hip, although she couldn’t see what it was. She noted he had an avocado-sized patch of sweat at the small of his back but other than that you wouldn’t know he had just been outside in this ungodly heat. His skin was tanned, as though he spent a lot of time outside in the sun, and he had tiny flecks of bright white paint on both his face and his muscular arms.

Lisa seemed to remember her daughter was there and turned to her. ‘Jasmine, I want you to meet Tim. Tim’s the man decorating the house for us; he did your bedroom.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, unsure what the proper response was and feeling even more uncomfortable knowing that he had been in her bedroom. That he’d put her new bed together, touched almost every surface.

Her father ushered Tim into the kitchen and her mother followed behind. For a moment she reminded Jasmine of the girls in school who would follow the boys around and hang on their every word. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

Jasmine gleaned from the conversation that Tim was going to be moving into the guest house in the garden, which made her feel uneasy. She also noticed that he seemed to know her mother better than her father; Lisa had worked with him before in some capacity. None of them addressed Jasmine as they talked, as if she wasn’t there. But as soon as her parents looked at each other, or were distracted, Tim threw quick glances towards Jasmine, as though he didn’t want her there. When his eyes met hers, she looked away. There was something so intense about him and she didn’t know why her parents couldn’t see it. They were kind and expected everyone else to be kind as well, always seeming so shocked when they read the papers or heard the news. Her mother wouldn’t listen to the radio because it upset her. They were always looking for ways to help other people, and Jasmine could see that Tim was just their latest project. They were determined to try to change the world one person at a time again.

Jasmine slipped out of the kitchen and went back to her room. She decided to shower, partly because she hadn’t already that day and partly to cool down. They were in the midst of a heatwave, which always filled her with a certain amount of excitement but also dread. Considering her family spent every summer south of the equator, the heat shouldn’t have been an issue. Maybe it wasn’t the heat that was getting to her after all, but the presence of a stranger in their house.

When her parents told her they were getting a lodger this wasn’t what she had expected. She wondered how long he planned to stay. There was something about him she didn’t trust.

Chapter Three

Over the next few days Jasmine settled in to her new home, the smell of fresh paint gradually replaced by the smell of the musky perfume her mother wore and the shampoos and soaps they used. It was starting to smell like home. Jasmine had tinkered with her room, putting up a Donnie Darko poster. She hadn’t seen the film, but her friend Felicity had given her the poster. She tacked it on the back of the door, where her parents wouldn’t see it. They weren’t controlling, but Frank and Lisa were such positive people that they really didn’t understand Jasmine’s fascination with morbid things. Lisa always said if you surrounded yourself with negativity then negative things would happen to you. Jasmine wasn’t sure the world worked like that.

Their first home-cooked meal together in the new house was Pabellón Criollo, after living off Chinese food from the takeaway around the corner for the first few days after moving. Lisa made the Venezuelan dish especially for Jasmine, knowing it was her favourite, and the aroma of spicy beef filled the house, invoking childhood memories.

The dining table in the kitchen still had flecks of paint and pen stains from Jasmine’s many school projects and artistic endeavours over the years, spending Sunday afternoons with Lisa painting by numbers or making quilled jewellery. Frank’s idea of father-daughter bonding was taking her on fishing weekends in Wales, making her watch as he caught, gutted and cooked fish from the River Dee. As Jasmine had grown, however, she and her parents had spent less and less time doing these things together.

As Jasmine finished off her second plate of Pabellón Criollo, Tim appeared at the doors to the guest house. She had her back to the outside but she noticed the expression on her mother’s face change to a smile, and her cheeks flush ever so slightly. Anyone who didn’t know her mother like Jasmine did wouldn’t think anything of it and it was clear Frank was oblivious as he carried on eating, totally focused on the food. She carefully turned her head to watch as Tim crossed the garden towards the house, then she turned and looked at her mother who quickly changed her expression when she caught Jasmine’s eye. It was too late, though. Jasmine knew that her mother liked him. The uneasiness Jasmine had been feeling since Tim’s arrival felt justified in that moment. It was Lisa who had convinced Frank that they needed a lodger, and it was Lisa who had suggested Tim.

‘Sorry to bother you while you’re having dinner. I just wondered if I could borrow a pan to heat some soup up in. I’ll go shopping in the morning and grab one of my own. I didn’t think about it earlier.’

‘Don’t be silly, why don’t you have dinner with us? Welcome you into the fold and all that. I’ve made some spicy South American food.’

‘I’m sure he just wants to settle in for now. Don’t badger him,’ Frank said.

‘Nonsense, we have plenty of food. Come and sit, Tim.’

‘It smells delicious, Lisa, thank you,’ Tim said.

Tim came and sat at the table at Lisa’s insistence, and she served him the last of the Pabellón Criollo, which Jasmine resented a little, even though she had already had seconds. Jasmine tried not to stare at him, but there really was something about him that set her teeth on edge. For the most part he continued to ignore her.

She couldn’t figure him out, but there was something very off about Tim. Jasmine felt as though he had engineered this, like he wanted to be here in this room with them. Like he was trying to get closer to them, to be part of the family. Jasmine knew her parents tried to think the best of everyone though – they often said that the world would be a better place if everyone just tried to make one person’s life better – but she sometimes wished they weren’t so trusting. She would keep an eye on Tim. She would have to – no one else was going to.

Chapter Four

Now

I push down on my suitcase, trying to zip it closed. I remember the last time I used it how annoying it was and I make a mental note to throw it away after this journey. I have made this same mental note several times in the past but as soon as I return home I put it away and forget about it.

I can’t stop thinking about the missing girl. I need to be there. I fear if I don’t go then she will never be found, like the girl who went missing when I was younger.

I hear Chris in the next room putting Lloyd to bed. I know I should do it as I am the one who is leaving but I just want to get on the road. I think this time apart will be good for us – for me, anyway. I need to be a better wife, a better mother. Maybe going back there will make me realise how far I have come. I can barely remember the person I used to be. It’s like I have been running for so long and trying to be different from my own mother that I have completely lost myself. It’s hard to be a good example when you barely feel like a person at all.

‘I don’t understand why you have to leave right now. At least wait ’til morning. We can have a nice breakfast. You can’t check in to your hotel until the afternoon anyway,’ Chris says.

‘I booked the hotel from today so I can check in as soon as I get there.’

‘I see. You just can’t wait to get out of here, can you?’

‘Don’t be like that. I wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.’

‘This again? You think you’re the only person who had a rotten childhood, but you aren’t.’

‘I’m not saying that, I never said that.’

‘Then tell me what the big deal is. Why can’t you just wait until Friday when I can come, too?’

‘I will tell you, just not now. Please just let me do this on my own.’

‘I don’t know why I even try sometimes. You are so immovable. You had better do some serious thinking while you’re gone. If this isn’t what you want, then cut us loose. I can’t do this anymore.’

I try not to think about what it is he is actually saying. I know he’s right. I know I can’t be like this and expect everyone else to just be OK with it, for everyone to just carry on around me as if it isn’t obvious I’m on the brink of falling apart. If he knew the truth about me, he might understand why I need to go back. I might be the best chance that girl has.

I go to Chris, his eyes glistening with emotion. I know I’m hurting him but I can’t think about that right now, not with what’s at stake. I kiss him and I can feel him exhale with relief, as if all he wanted was for me to tell him I still love him. Of course I do, that has never been in question. Not for me anyway.

‘Come with the kids on Friday, if I’m not back already. Please.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. I love you, I hope you know that.’

‘Sometimes I wonder.’

I pull away, not willing to play the guilt game anymore. I just need to get on the road. The sooner I leave the sooner I can get the answers I’m looking for. I feel the invisible thread as I am pulled back. My life so far has been in two parts, before and after, then and now. I think back to that summer. It feels like a lifetime ago, another world entirely. I put my case in the boot of the car. I never do this, I never drive far on my own, I never stay away from home without Chris or the kids. This will be the first time I have spent the night away from Lloyd. He’s only seven, I hope he understands, I hope Chris does too, eventually. I have no choice. The life of that missing girl may depend on it.

Chapter Five

As I leave the safety of our little town in The Lake District, close to the border with Scotland, and head south, I feel a familiar dread wash over me. My knuckles whiten as I grip the steering wheel, almost clinging on for my life. I want to turn back, to pretend I didn’t hear the news report, to carry on living inside my lies. I don’t work, not really. I was young when Daisy was born and Chris thought it was better if I stayed home and looked after her. I’ve been with Chris my entire adult life; I knew from the moment we met that I would be safe with him. I feel bad again for leaving him with the children, especially when he is at such a crucial point in building his start-up business. Chris is in the process of trying to secure funding to convert a load of freight containers into affordable carbon-neutral houses, at first in the Lakes and then, if the model works, to a wider market.

Leaving late has its advantages and the roads are mostly clear. There is a little rain but it’s not enough to break the humidity and not enough to make me pull over. I hate driving in the rain but it feels appropriate somehow. My thoughts focus on what awaits me in Devon. I realise then that I didn’t eat lunch or dinner today, too consumed with organising the family so I could get away and deal with this.

I pull over at a service station – it’s properly dark now – as I am so hungry I can barely concentrate. I grab a sandwich and take it to the seating area. The rain gets heavier outside and I pull my coat around me. It’s not cold but I feel strange being here by myself. A man sits at my table and smiles at me. There are plenty of empty seats so I don’t understand why he’s chosen that seat, or why he’s looking at me.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Thought you might be lonely sitting here.’

‘Well I’m not.’

I had forgotten about this, not going out much, not being part of the world but staying in my safe little village with my family and all the familiar faces of neighbours and acquaintances. I forgot that sometimes people – strangers – just come and speak to you. I feel the panic rising in me. I want him to go away but I don’t want to upset him as I don’t know what he might do. Of course he is probably just lonely, but that doesn’t give him the right to bother me. He opens his mouth but I stand and move to another table. I can hear Chris in my ear telling me not to be rude, not to be unfriendly. I finish my sandwich quickly and go and buy some cola to drink on the ride, full sugar to keep me awake.

As I make my way to the car, I look behind me to see the man from the café following me. I put my hand in my bag to find the keys, putting them between my fingers when I do. The service station is strangely quiet and I feel unsafe. The car is close now but somehow I feel like I’m getting further away. Behind me I hear the beep of a car alarm being turned off and the sound of a door opening. As I reach my own car I turn and see the man who was following me pulling out of a spot and driving towards the exit. I get in and lock the doors, feeling stupid. I wish I was at home with Chris and the kids, I wish I didn’t have to do this alone. I pull myself together and start the car before pulling back out onto the motorway. I’m on a collision course with the ghosts of my past and there is nothing I can do to stop it. This road somehow feels like the purgatory between my real life now – the one where I am safe and loved – and the mess I left behind.

I change the radio station regularly as I drive, with little tolerance for anything for a prolonged period of time. I finally reach a local Devonshire radio station and my blood runs cold – I’m getting closer. My head begins to throb. I open the glove box and root around for pills of some kind. I usually keep a packet or two in there. I find a pack with just two left and I knock them back with my Coke, even though I know they won’t take the thrumming in my temples away. Nothing will until I am out of this place, until I am on my way home. Inside I already feel like I am never going to get home, that I got lucky the last time I left this place, reluctantly released from its grip into the world with the proviso that I never return. I’m breaking a pact I made with myself sixteen years ago when I first got on that bus out of town. I promised I would never go back. I told the universe that if it just let me get away then I would be a good person, if that was even possible for someone like me.

The road signs become increasingly familiar as I approach my destination. I see houses and streets from my childhood. It’s like walking through that wardrobe and into Narnia – another world entirely, one I am not supposed to be in, one that’s not meant for me. It’s too late now. There is no turning back.

Chapter Six

Time has stopped here. I am glad that the world is sleeping when I finally drive through the winding valley and the crossroads that lead into the actual town. I have walked these pavements until my feet were sore in the past. I’m hit with a wave of nostalgia I wasn’t expecting. I left abruptly and have never made my peace with it, my mind writing the town and its inhabitants off the second I was a few miles away, desperate to forget all of the things that happened, good or bad. The memories come flooding in, something I was afraid of. I drive past a bus stop that I remember sitting in with school friends and a bottle of cider, a smile creeping across my face as I remember a part of my life that I have kept buried for the longest time. I see the turning for a road where we used to live and feel every muscle in my body tense, thankful that I don’t need to drive past the house to get to where I need to go.

Further into the town is the old cinema, just past my family’s dentist. I see the ghost of myself on every corner. I had forgotten how much of me was shaped in this town. The cinema looks the same, as do the shops surrounding it. How can so much time have passed outside this town and yet nothing has changed on the inside? To me the town is alive, a monster in my mind, dark and insidious, creeping and malevolent. I feel its fingers around me, gently pulling me in, leading me towards a place I am not sure I want to go. I have always thought that this town isn’t like anywhere else, that once it gets a hold of you, you can’t escape, almost as if some ancient pagan magic is at work. I know it makes no sense, but I think of it almost as if it were a person who had wronged me, someone I can never forgive, someone I am afraid to let into my heart again. So instead I just feel anger towards it. As if these buildings and streets are all complicit somehow.

I can feel the sea before I see it. Something always feels different about coastal towns, as if they are on the edge of the world somehow. There is no way to get lost as long as you can find the sea. I am glad I drove here at night. I didn’t tell Chris it was because I didn’t want to have to look at the people who live here as I drove past them, wondering if I knew them, wondering if they knew me. I just want to get inside the hotel and close the door, giving myself a few hours before I have to venture out again. Taking off was unusually selfish of me, but from the moment I saw that news report I knew there was nothing else I could do. I have to find out what happened. The locals will know things that aren’t in the news. I’ll find out who the missing girl is, why she was here and what happened to her. For some reason I think I’m the only one who can.

I pull into the hotel car park, the huge red brick building a monument to a different time. I could have chosen a less expensive hotel, but this is the one we used to look at and wonder what was inside, it always seemed so posh and decadent. Standing in front of it now, it seems much smaller than I remember, much less imposing. It’s still grand but it’s dated, and not in a good way. I feel like an imposter just stepping through the doors, as if I’m not actually allowed to be in this building, as if it knows who I am.

I approach the desk, studying the face of the woman behind the counter. It’s a small town and I half expect her to recognise me even though I don’t recognise her. That is, until she opens her mouth to speak.

‘Hello, Miss, how can I help you?’ she says. Her accent is French or Belgian, or something like that. I feel instant relief that she isn’t local.

‘I called ahead to say I would be arriving tonight. I’m a little later than I expected.’

‘Mrs Felicity Musgrave?’

‘Yes.’

She has the paperwork ready. I sign the card and she shares the Wi-Fi password. She explains that I am too late to order breakfast to my room in the morning, but I can eat in the dining room with the other guests, or I can order room service from a limited menu at any point during my stay. I am so tired I can barely decipher what she is saying and the speed at which she speaks doesn’t make things any easier. But I smile and nod at the correct intervals and she finally hands me the key. She gestures to a porter to come and take my bag. I follow him dutifully, embarrassed now that I booked this place, embarrassed that I am making someone carry my bag. I was proving a point to myself and no one else, that I’m a better person now than I was when I left. All the money in the world can’t wash away the things I did though.

My room overlooks the beach. I can see what they mean when they say it’s darkest just before dawn. The sea is a sheet of black. The room itself was probably considered very opulent a few years ago, but now it gives off the impression that lots of hotel rooms do; that lots of people have slept there. I know that within a few hours, though, this will be the only place in the whole town where I feel even remotely comfortable.

I pull out my phone to text Chris. It’s unusual for me to open my phone and not find a supportive message from him there, although in recent months I have noticed a change in the way he is with me. He’s been less tolerant of my idiosyncrasies lately and it’s as if I want to push him even further, to see how far I can before he stops loving me. I miss him. I can tell he is unhappy because I have no notifications at all. I just message the word ‘here’ along with a kiss and turn my phone off. For now I want to sleep.

I brush my teeth, desperate to get rid of the sugary coating from the Coke I had in the car. I look at my reflection for what feels like the first time in days and wipe the heavy black liner from my top lid and what remains of my red lipstick. It’s one of those lipsticks that lasts for hours. I’m not even sure why I put it on for the journey. Habit, I suppose. I don’t go anywhere without my war paint on. I pull my hair into a ponytail on top of my head and wash my face, then I moisturise. My little routines are often what get me through when my anxiety starts to creep to the surface – which is why social situations are so hard; I don’t have a routine for those.

The bed is huge, a super king I suspect, and just magnifies my loneliness as I climb in, sticking to the left hand side because that’s where I always sleep. I try to shuffle to the middle but it just feels wrong somehow. I put my phone on the bedside table even though it’s off and I lie down and count backwards from a hundred in my head. It’s a method I contrived to stop myself from thinking too much before I fall asleep, otherwise the night terrors come and those are something you never quite get accustomed to. In the back of my mind I can see faces from my past that I have tried to forget so I concentrate on the numbers.

Seventy-eight. Seventy-seven. Seventy-six. Seventy-five. I see hands claw at me for help but I pull away. Seventy-four. Seventy-three. Seventy-two. I watch helplessly as the sea swallows them. Seventy-one. Seventy. Sixty-nine. Sixty-eight. I stand for a moment at the cliff’s edge and watch for them to reappear, but it never happens. I close my eyes tighter and focus harder on the numbers. Sixty-seven. Sixty-six. Sixty-five. Stop thinking. Please stop thinking …

Chapter Seven

Then

It turned out that Jasmine’s parents knew Tim from when Lisa worked in the shelter last year. Tim was homeless and staying with the Burgesses for a while until he got back on his feet. He was going to work on the Burgess house in return for a reduced rent. Until then, Tim had painted elderly people’s homes in exchange for a hot meal. Since he’d started doing that, lots of people had paid him to do odd jobs for cash and he’d largely managed to turn his life around, though he’d been living out of his car until now.

Jasmine helped her father in the garage. They had both woken up at the crack of dawn, the sun already shining. They were putting all the boxes that didn’t need to be unpacked just yet in there. Considering they had moved from a smaller house it was amazing how much stuff they had brought with them.

‘Can Flick come over when you go away next weekend?’

‘She’s always welcome here, I hope she knows that.’

‘I suppose Tim will be around as well?’ she said, almost spitting his name.

‘I don’t know what you’ve got against him. Has he said anything to upset you?’

‘No, he hasn’t said anything. It’s not that. Don’t you think he’s weird?’

‘People say I’m weird, Jasmine, doesn’t make me a bad guy. No one besides you has a bad word to say about him. He’s done a lot of good things for people for no payment. He’s ex-military so I know we can trust him. This is no different to us helping the people when we go abroad. Charity begins at home, Jasmine.’

Jasmine handed her father another box to put on the shelf. She knew when her parents got it into their minds to help someone there was no deterring them. She just resented not being consulted on something that would impact her life just as much as theirs.

‘Why isn’t he doing this then if he’s so brilliant? I thought he was staying to help around the house.’

‘He’s not going to be our personal slave, Jasmine. You can’t spare twenty minutes away from the television to stack a couple of boxes?’

‘He’s just always there, you know? He’s not very approachable either.’

‘Sometimes when people are afraid or shy, they can appear a bit awkward. He’s been through a lot and it’s our duty to help him. You’re just projecting when you say things like that. I think you’re feeling guilty for being unfriendly. You’re being a bit selfish and unreasonable and I’m not sure I like this side of you. We didn’t bring you up like that. I’d suggest you make more of an effort because he’s staying and you need to get used to it.’

‘Fine.’

She knew better than to push the point with her father. He was a small man but he could be fierce when he wanted to.

‘Pass me the fishing rods and you can go back to whatever you were doing before I disturbed you. I’ve got to get off to work anyway.’

Jasmine found it hard to believe that the person her father was talking about was the man living in their guest house. There was no warmth about him at all. But her parents weren’t the kind of people who took risks, so they must have been pretty sure about Tim to let him live with them.

Jasmine’s room caught the sun for most of the day, and even with the curtains drawn the heat seeped in. She was tired that morning because she’d stayed up late reading a true crime book about women who killed. She found things like that fascinating, but her parents hated that she was into the macabre so she tried to read when they weren’t around. She wanted to read another chapter but it was just too warm in there and there probably wasn’t enough time before she went to school anyway.

Jasmine had just settled in the kitchen with a bowl of muesli and her summer art project – meant to build her portfolio for college – when Tim knocked on one of the French doors. She felt she had no choice but to nod that it was OK for him to come in, remembering that her father had told her to be nice to him. So far, Jasmine had no reason to question her father’s judgement of character and if he trusted Tim then she had to as well.

‘Your dad told me he wanted me to work on the lounge today. Do you mind if I get started now?’

‘Why would I mind?’ Jasmine asked, a little more aggressive than necessary.

‘I just don’t want to disturb anyone. Is your dad here?’

‘No, he left for work already. Mum’s still in bed,’ she replied, wondering if she shouldn’t have let him in after all.

Tim looked up as though he could see through the floor into her parents’ room. When there was no movement from upstairs, he relaxed a little, the deep furrow in his brow disappearing as he pulled a dining chair out and sat opposite Jasmine, almost reclining, his backside on the edge of the seat and one leg stretched out in front of him.

‘What you drawing?’

‘If you can’t tell then I’m doing it wrong,’ Jasmine said flippantly. She saw him smile and it was like looking at a different man; softer somehow, kinder.

He placed his palms on the table then stood and leaned over, tilting his head to look at the drawing. She couldn’t take his eyes off his forearms; they were strong and tan and still sported those tiny white flecks. From this distance she could hear him breathing.

‘Is it the fruit bowl?’ he asked, still leaning over, his face just inches from Jasmine’s. She made the mistake of looking up and their eyes locked. For the first time she noticed his eyes properly; they were grey with a deep blue ring around the outside. Her pulse quickened, but Tim broke eye contact first and slumped back in the seat, taking the apple from the top of the bowl, the one she was sketching. She was drawn to his mouth as he bit into the apple, his lips moistening with the juice. She snapped her eyes away and stood up. Jasmine left her soggy muesli on the table, grabbed her art homework and stuffed it into her bag, suddenly wanting to get out of the house. When she looked back he was smiling, a different kind of smile this time. He pulled her bowl of muesli over and started to eat it.

Chapter Eight

At dinner that night, Jasmine’s parents talked about the group they usually went away with for the summer holidays. Guyana had been picked as their destination this year. Jasmine had never been there before. It was never much of a holiday for her family, if she was honest, as they went to do charitable work in underprivileged communities. Both of her parents saved up their annual leave and they usually stayed for several weeks and helped with the completion of a charity project – they’d been every year since before Jasmine was born. This year they couldn’t go, though, because her father had had hip replacement surgery earlier that summer and the doctor had advised against a long-haul flight. Jasmine knew he was devastated to cause them to miss their trip. He had always been so active and full of energy that she felt sorry for him. He had spent several months in pain before finally conceding to going in for the operation and his posture hadn’t seemed to have recovered. It hadn’t helped that he had a fear of hospitals that they didn’t really talk about, something from his childhood that had left an emotional scar. This was the first time she had really considered his age; seen the way his stature had changed in just the last year. He wasn’t a tall man to begin with and he had lost a little weight so it seemed he’d almost shrunk somehow.

‘How’s your drama club going? What’s the big play that you’re doing this year?’ Frank said, asking the obligatory parental questions about her interests.

‘Drama is going well. I might even get a part in the college production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this year, what with us not going away. Lots of rehearsals going on over the summer.’

‘Oh, that’s exciting,’ her mother said in a way that made Jasmine think she wasn’t particularly excited at all. They loved travelling all over the globe and this would be the first summer that Jasmine could remember staying at home. She could tell both her parents were deeply disappointed about this.

‘Because I’m here for the rehearsals over the summer, Miss Cotterel said I should audition for the role of Titania, the fairy queen. I said I would happily help with the set design as well. The production isn’t until Christmas but because I already have a place on the drama A Level I can attend the auditions in August,’ Jasmine said, rubbing it in a little. Normally Jasmine’s interests came last. Not this time though; this time she could do all the summery things that had been denied to her in previous years. She knew her friend Felicity was jealous of all the places she had been and all the experiences she had had, yet she had prayed something would happen to stop them from travelling. She felt responsible for her father getting sick, as if his illness was somehow a manifestation of her resentful thoughts.

‘That’s wonderful, Jasmine, I’m proud,’ her mother said, and her father nodded his approval.

‘Is Felicity doing the play?’

‘Yes. Actually, I wanted to ask if you would mind giving her a lift to rehearsals with me and dropping her off.’

‘She still having problems at home?’

‘You know what her mum’s like.’

‘She’s back drinking then?’

‘She’s got a new boyfriend who is a complete nightmare apparently. Flick doesn’t like being there.’

‘Well, she is always welcome here as much as she wants over the summer. Poor girl.’

Jasmine smiled to herself at the thought of all the fun she and Felicity could have over the break. She couldn’t help but feel guilty for being glad to be home this year. She had met so many people with much less than her who were more than content with their lives, happy even. Jasmine thought of the tobacco ladies in the tiny village in Peru. They would get paid to sit all day in the blistering heat, threading tobacco leaves onto a long string which would then be hung to dry in large rickety wooden sheds. Her family had visited the village when she was nine years old and she had made friends with the girls from the local area. They often went to sit with the tobacco ladies and help thread the leaves onto the string. A full day’s work there was brutal, the big flat needle often cutting or stabbing your fingers. The seasoned workers had yellow calloused hands and the smell of fresh tobacco permeated every item of clothing Jasmine wore on those days. There were very young girls working there too, younger than her, day in day out, in August heat. Jasmine wondered if some of those little girls she saw threading tobacco with their grandmothers were still working there today.

‘Did you see what Tim’s done in the lounge?’ Lisa said to Frank.

‘No, is it good?’

‘It’s not finished yet, but it’s going to be. He’s built low level cupboards in the alcove.’

‘I always wanted to be a carpenter. Maybe I should get Tim to teach me,’ Frank said.

‘We should see if we can interest him in coming away with us next year. A man with his skills could cut the building time of our projects in half.’

‘We hardly know him,’ Jasmine said, concerned with how quickly her parents were incorporating Tim into every aspect of their lives. Her parents’ mention of ‘next year’ made it sound like they were planning on making him a permanent fixture. Even though they had travelled all over the world they could be quite naive sometimes about people and their intentions. Jasmine had seen them get hurt before when they trusted the wrong people. She hoped they weren’t wrong about Tim. For all of their sakes.

‘Well, we don’t want to put that kind of pressure on him anyway. Especially when he is doing us such a huge favour.’

‘How is he doing us a favour?’ Jasmine asked, trying to keep the snark out of her voice.

‘He’s going to fit our new kitchen for us – it’s costing us about a quarter of what it would if we used a professional kitchen fitter. The things we want done in the house would take years and years to save for, so Tim really is a godsend.’

‘But you’re letting him live here,’ Jasmine pointed out.

‘And he’s paying us.’

‘With the money you’re paying him. How does that make sense?’

‘When you have a house and children of your own, you will understand how much things cost. He’s also continuing his work with the charity in town and doing jobs for elderly people. We really want to help him out. Charity begins at home. I’m surprised at you, Jasmine,’ her mother said, her pride in Jasmine disappearing.

‘I’m sorry. I think I’m just really tired. School was a bit hectic today,’ Jasmine said sheepishly, trying to win her mother’s approval again. She hated disappointing either one of her parents. The older she got the more it seemed to happen.

‘What if Tim had heard you?’ Frank asked disapprovingly. Jasmine could see that she was outnumbered. ‘I want you to make an effort to be nice to him, he’s a good guy.’

‘Look, I know why you’re nervous – it’s because of what happened at school. Not all men are like that,’ Lisa said, reaching across the table to comfort Jasmine, but she pulled her hand away from her mother.

They just wouldn’t let her forget about the incident.

‘So, because of what happened last year I don’t know what I’m talking about? Don’t I deserve a little more credit than that? You want me to be more mature but then you treat me like a child.’

‘You can’t just go around being suspicious of everyone, Jasmine. He hasn’t done anything to warrant this attitude from you. He deserves a chance, at least.’

‘I guess my feelings matter less than the feelings of some stranger you’ve just let move in with us.’

‘That’s enough,’ Frank said in a voice that indicated he was done talking. He rarely snapped at Jasmine but she knew enough to know that she had lost this argument.

‘I’m tired, I’m going to bed,’ Jasmine told them and stood up quickly, the chair making the angry scream she wished she could.

‘Jasmine! Come back!’ her mother called after her, but she was already halfway up the stairs.

Chapter Nine

Now

I wake up confused, slightly panicked at my unfamiliar surroundings before I remember where I am. I am still on my side of the bed, still locked in my old routine. I look at the clock and see that it’s after lunch. Without the children or Chris to tend to I feel aimless. I go to the window and look out towards the seafront and see the people walking from the centre up towards Jacob’s Ladder. It’s weird being this side of the looking glass. I glance at my phone and see Chris hasn’t called. He’s still annoyed at me, but what can I do? I have spent more than a decade just being available, changing my plans to accommodate his deadlines, having nothing better to do. Well, for once I have something better to do.

After my shower I put on a grey summer dress that touches the floor when I walk. I feel very monochrome with my black hair and white sandals. I add my trademark red lipstick – I feel uncomfortable without it and it pulls the outfit together – and I take a small bottle of vodka from the minibar and drink it. I need some courage before I venture outside.

I completely missed breakfast and so my first task is to find some food. I decide to walk via The Triangle, where the main bus terminal for the town is located. That was the last place the missing girl was seen. There won’t be anything there but it’s as good a place as any to start. The closer I get to my destination the more my stomach turns. I walk up the road past the Bedford Hotel and The Triangle comes into view. Nothing has changed about it. It’s strange how you can spend so long away from a place but still know it so well. I sit on the wall opposite the actual terminal and watch the buses come and go, the drivers a mix of men and women. The drivers were all very familiar with us kids, going up to town and back hundreds of times a week. There was one old driver who would offer the girls free bus rides if they would touch his crotch. As far as I know, no one ever did, but that didn’t stop him from asking. We all referred to him as Pervy Pete and that was all there was to it. No big deal. The thought of my Daisy dealing with guys like that really makes my skin crawl but she is the same age as I was back then; it would be naive of me to think she lives in a bubble of innocence.

I keep my head down as I watch people gather at the stop, waiting for the next bus, all ignoring each other even though they probably get the same bus together day in, day out. The discomfort of proximity in a small town. I wonder what the people I used to know in school would look like now – would I even remember them? I hope they don’t remember me. I wasn’t what you would call popular and if the people I used to know are anything like me they will barely remember their friendship group, let alone anyone outside of it.

There are no cameras here at The Triangle and so it’s unlikely that there is any lead on who took the girl, what kind of vehicle, or exactly what time. Her name was Mandy Green and she was fifteen years old, the same age as my Daisy. Did she get in a car with someone she knew, or was it just an opportunistic drive-by kidnapping? I remembered reading on the local news website that one bus driver saw her there waiting for a bus, but when the next bus arrived she was gone. There are a few bunches of flowers tied to the railings, which I find odd. The girl wasn’t dead, or at least they hadn’t found a body. Who put the flowers on the railings? I am too scared to go and look at the flowers in case there is a note. There is one name I am scared of seeing. How much do the police actually know? The thought that he might be here again is too much to bear. Did he come back for me? No – it must be someone else, but why? And why is it so similar? Maybe I’m over-reacting; maybe the girl has just run away. Where the hell was Mandy? The voice in the back of my head tells me I did the right thing by coming here. I remember standing in this same spot all those years ago and wondering what had happened to the girl who disappeared, the girl who could have been me, could have been any of us. I have so many questions that I never dared ask, questions I never thought I would get answers for. I’m still too afraid to even think of what the answers might be.

I get up and walk towards the church and then proceed down the uneven pavement on Church Hill into the market square. I see the butcher’s is still there and the baker’s, a chocolate shop I don’t remember and also a shop filled with luxury Christmas decorations. Only in a town like this would a business like that be viable in July. There was a lot of money among some of the older residents and Christmas was an inevitability that they looked forward to, often because it might be their last.

I thought as soon as I returned that people would be pointing at me and whispering, but that isn’t happening. It feels like most of the people walking around are just visiting for the day. If I didn’t know what I know, I would think it was a beautiful place, the kind of place I would aspire to live in one day.

I go to a small tea room and order a sandwich. It feels like a living room, the walls covered in a flocked wallpaper smattered with little photo frames and inspirational quotes on small tapestries. It’s not the sort of place I would have ventured into when I was a teenager.

‘Has this place been here long?’ I ask the proprietor when she puts my food in front of me.

‘We took it over about twelve years ago, but the previous owners were here for a long time before that. Before that I think it used to be a hairdresser’s. Where are you from then?’ She answers me with far more information than I expected and a question thrown in just to spike my anxiety.

‘Just visiting from The Lake District.’

‘Oh, I’d love to go there, it’s beautiful. You visiting family here?’

‘No, my family is all back in the Lakes, I just fancied a getaway,’ I lie, trying to appear like a person who would just take a holiday on their own for the experience, not like someone who gets an anxiety attack even having to leave the house to post a letter.

‘Oh, well, it’s lovely here, too. You staying local?’

‘Yes, at the Victoria.’ I feel a little embarrassed as I say it, as if I am showing off. I notice a slight change in her expression; I have a feeling she thinks less of me now. Maybe that’s what I wanted.

‘You here on your own then?’

‘My husband is joining me with the kids at the weekend,’ I say, kicking myself for giving anything about myself away. I change the subject quickly. ‘I heard about that girl that went missing.’

‘Oh gosh yes, that was awful. They haven’t found her yet. It’s been a few days so I doubt they will either.’

‘Did you know her?’

She shakes her head.

‘She wasn’t local then?’

‘She lived up Manston way and the family were a little weird. Just her and her mum, I think. They only moved back to the town a year or so ago, but I think the mum was originally from round this way.’

A year would be considered very new to the area. If people could say what age you were when you moved here, they’d hold it against you. I remembered a Polish boy who joined at the beginning of secondary and no one let him forget it. He was the ‘new kid’ until someone newer came along, which wasn’t until four years later.

I turn away from her and start to eat my sandwich. I didn’t think she’d have even this much information for me. The news made it sound like Mandy was a tourist, but she was local.

I can’t help but think of Daisy when I am here. I was her age when I lived here, when I left. The person I am now was moulded back then, from the events that I witnessed, the things I ran away from. I’m hit with fresh guilt over the kind of mother I am, over the fact that I left them to come here and chase ghosts. I promised I would be better than the mother I had, and I have been, but the bar was very low, underground even. When you have your own children it’s much easier to question your own parents’ choices and not just blindly follow them. You realise the precious life you are responsible for looks to you for guidance, for direction.

I realise if I want to get answers then I need to actually go and look for them. I only eat half of the food, my appetite gone, then put a ten-pound note on the table – which more than covers my bill – before leaving the tea room. I walk back to the bus stop and get on a bus, the driver a woman, something you didn’t see very often when I lived here. There is no one else on board and so I sit at the front. There are a few minutes to wait and the driver stands just outside the door having a cigarette.

‘Excuse me,’ I say, and she turns to me in surprise, as though no one has ever done this before.

‘I’ll take your money in a minute.’ She smiles awkwardly and continues to smoke.

‘Oh no, I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about that girl that went missing. They said she was last seen at this bus stop.’

‘Yeah, terrible business, poor girl.’

‘Did you know her?’

‘Seen her on the bus a few times, but no, I didn’t know her. She was a quiet little thing, very polite though, unlike some of the little scrotes round here.’

‘Do you know who saw her last?’

‘Yeah, it was Bill Hawkins, drives the Honiton bus. Said she was in the hut when he pulled off. Next bus to come along was one of these, the driver said she weren’t there then.’

‘Was there a long wait? Could she have decided to walk?’

‘Someone would have seen her on the road, unless she went up the back way I suppose. But the hotel on the road up there has CCTV pointed at their car park and it catches the pavement. The local paper said no one walked up that way.’

‘What was her surname again?’ I ask, trying to cover the fact that I have asked so many odd questions with something a little more obvious.

‘You’re not a reporter, are you? Asking all these questions?’ the woman said with a raised eyebrow, maybe teasing, maybe not.

‘Oh gosh no, just curious in case I know her family. Wouldn’t want to put my foot in it,’ I say, realising I must sound odd asking.

‘Her name is Mandy Green. Her mum Liz works up at the Spar shop on Temple Street, although I haven’t seen her there since it happened.’

I want to recognise the name, to justify my being here – but Mandy Green still means nothing to me. I try to think of anyone I might have known back then with that name, but I have done such a good job of suppressing my past that I draw a blank. Something tells me the girl is connected to me. I just don’t know how.

‘Thank you,’ I say as she puts the cigarette out and gets on the bus. I move back so she can get into her cab and put a five pound note on her tray. I can’t remember the last time I was on a bus for anything.

‘Where you off to?’

‘Just up to the fork please. Single,’ I say. It’s only a short walk from there to the Spar. Even though there’s a bus stop outside the shop I don’t want the driver to know I’m going straight there.

She prints out the ticket and gives me my change and I retreat to the back of the bus. It has leather seats and is much cleaner than I ever remember these buses being. Maybe I’m judging this town too harshly – maybe my whole view is tarnished by my own experiences. We go past several houses I remember visiting at one point or another, although I can’t remember who lived there. Before I know it, I am off the bus again. I stand at the fork in the road, very aware of how close I am to my old house. The Spar was my local newsagent for a while; my mother would send me there for milk and I would complain because it was uphill all the way home. I look at the houses that surround me, the faded pastel paint and mossy trails around the foundations as though they had been steeped in algae. The gardens were the real prize, bursts of coloured blooms and a multitude of greens, like something out of a fairy tale. They look exactly as I remember them, almost as if I’m looking at a photograph of the past. That’s the thing about these old towns, changes were hard won because no one wanted them.

I stand outside the shop and take a few deep breaths. Maybe Liz Green could shed some light on what happened to her daughter, her daughter who is just a few weeks older than mine. I try not to think about Daisy. I like to think she would have been safe if I had stayed here, but even that makes me feel guilty. Guilty that I was never a target.

I walk into the shop and browse the snacks, picking up several bags of chocolates and crisps to eat in the hotel room, enough for several weeks, theoretically. I tell myself I can give some to the kids when they come at the weekend, but I know they won’t last that long. I grab several cans of premixed gin and tonic; I don’t want Chris to be able to keep tabs on how much I drink in my room from the hotel minibar bill. They replenish it every day when the cleaners fix the room. I must try to stay away from it. I always have a bottle of something hidden at home, too, for the same reason. He worries about my anxieties and the way I deal with them, which makes me keep secrets from him. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure Chris even knows me at all – all he gets is what I give him, and I certainly don’t give him much. I don’t do it out of spite, I do it out of necessity, to survive. I can’t be without him and if he knew the real me he would run and never look back.

I approach the counter and see a woman with thick glasses and short dark hair. Her nametag says Liz so I know she’s the mother of the missing girl, but without that I wouldn’t recognise her, although there is something familiar about her. I try not to judge her for being at work while her daughter is missing; I know she probably has no choice. Knowing where Liz lives has already influenced what I think of her. I hate that that’s true, but it is. I am already imagining what kind of mother she is purely based on where she lives. Seeing her in person has only confirmed my prejudice. Liz looks hard, much older than she should, and as she removes my items from the basket and scans them I can see she’s a heavy smoker; her fingers are a deep yellow and there are grooves all around her lips from years of sucking on cigarettes. I know my prejudices come from hearing my own mother speak about the people who lived in this neighbourhood. My mother had a lot of hypocritical opinions for someone who lived the life that she did.

‘Are you the mother of the girl that went missing?’ I feel compelled to be at least partially honest with her about what brought me here, as she deserves that. I am confident she won’t remember me. She looks lost; she barely pays attention to my face at all.

‘I am,’ she says, staring past me, her eyes connecting with nothing.

‘I just wanted to say sorry and I hope you find her soon,’ I say as sincerely as I can, even though I don’t believe they will find her – gone is gone.

‘Thank you,’ she says, placing her hand on mine for a moment and squeezing, making me feel guilty for even coming here. I see her eyes brim over and she dashes out to the back of the shop. Her colleague who was restocking a shelf nearby comes to finish serving me.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset her.’

‘She shouldn’t be back at work really, been doing that all morning,’ the other lady says sympathetically. Her nametag says Charlotte.

‘Do they have any idea where her daughter might be?’

‘No. Someone I know who works at the Fort Hotel said they saw her getting into an old brown car but they couldn’t confirm it, could have been another kid or another day. It’s like she just up and vanished. Very strange business. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen around here. There are tons of rumours flying around about what happened.’

‘I heard it happened once before, about sixteen years ago.’ I try to keep eye contact, not shift my eyes or look suspicious in any way, as if we are talking about a movie we saw, not something that matters, not something I was part of.

‘What are the chances it’s the same person? That they would wait sixteen years to do it again? That will be twenty-four pounds and eighty seven pence,’ Liz’s colleague Charlotte said.

I pay with contactless. ‘I guess you’re right, sixteen years is a long time to wait.’

‘Was probably one of those fairground folk. I don’t trust them,’ Charlotte said.

‘Is the fair still in town?’

‘No, thank goodness. Packed up as soon as there was any sign of trouble. Shady bunch. Can I get you anything else?’

‘No. Thank you.’

After I leave the newsagent’s I decide to cut through to the park that leads towards town. There are lots of people out walking their dogs. No mutts in sight, all groomed and healthy-looking designer breeds like labradoodles and cockapoos. I feel torn between my contempt for the wealthy people in this town and my ingrained feeling of superiority over the people on the other side of that coin. I never did fit in here.

I think about the brown car that the woman mentioned. It couldn’t be the same car, could it? Brown wasn’t a particularly popular colour but what were the chances that it was his car? How could it be? And why now? Was he back? I should go to the police and tell them what I know, but the thought of it makes me feel sick. By doing so I could be taking a sledgehammer to the life I’ve constructed for myself. I would be pulled back into a world I only escaped by the skin of my teeth. Mandy can’t still be alive, so I would be hurting myself for no reason. I walk as briskly as I can back to the hotel, afraid with every passing moment that someone will recognise me and the world will find out the truth. I would die before that happened.

Chapter Ten

Then

Jasmine sat in her room listening to music. She had hooked her desk chair under the doorknob because she didn’t want to speak to her parents, and with her headphones on she wouldn’t hear them if they knocked on the door anyway. She was still cross with her mother for bringing up what had happened at school last year.

Jasmine’s English teacher Mr Morrell – who, for obvious reasons, no longer worked at the school – had tried to kiss Jasmine. He had kissed her. He had mistaken her general enthusiasm for the subject as something else.

Jasmine had joined all the after-school reading clubs and the debate club which James Morrell ran. He thought Jasmine was trying to get closer to him because she was somehow attracted to him, but she just loved books. She had been reading Jane Eyre – a book partly about a girl who was in love with a much older man – and Mr Morrell had misread the signs and took her love of the book as something else and made a career-ending mistake. Frank and Lisa had explained in their usual charitable way that he was young and had not long been a teacher, so had blurred the lines between her love of the subject and her possible love for him.

He explained later – in a letter he was permitted to send Jasmine as part of her therapy – that he had thought she was flirting with him, that it was his mistake and she wasn’t to blame for what he’d done. He’d apologised for any distress caused and said he hoped that she would get over it in time. Jasmine had felt betrayed – that he could think she was into him made the relationship she thought they had fake. He never really thought she had potential; his encouragement and support were a lie, a way to get to Jasmine. The most distressing part of that whole experience was what came after, though. Interviews and questions, counselling and sad puppy dog looks from everyone who treated Jasmine like some kind of victim. By the end of it she thought there was something wrong with her because she wasn’t completely traumatised by the incident. A part of her wondered if she had done something to lead him on but if she had, it was unintentional. Jasmine did feel bad that he had lost his job, but she knew it wasn’t her fault.

At the time, the incident had brought Jasmine closer to her parents, but since then they had babied her and been a little dismissive – anytime she was upset about something it was because of what happened with James Morrell. But were they right? Was Jasmine’s unease around their new lodger just a reaction to what had happened last year? Jasmine didn’t know if she could trust her own instincts, because she really hadn’t seen it coming when Morrell kissed her.

And yet, she found herself aware of Tim in a way she’d never been aware of her teacher and that scared her. Was her mind playing tricks on her or was he really a threat? She had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before she found out.

Chapter Eleven

Only two exams left before Jasmine finished school for the year. She hadn’t yet decided whether to go to the sixth form college instead of staying at her school – technically she had been accepted into both – as it all depended on Felicity. They had come to rely on each other since becoming friends, and moving to a new school without her didn’t feel like something Jasmine would ever want to do. They had agreed they both felt a bit limited in Sidmouth and it would be nice to get a bus into the city just for a change of scenery, a chance to meet different people instead of being stuck with the same people since primary school. The town was so small, dwarfed by the English Channel that ran alongside it and the Jurassic coastline that enveloped them.

After school Jasmine was going to walk into town with Felicity. A lot of the shops were independent and quirky, the council constantly fighting against the franchises that had swallowed every other town. As a result, the prices were less than ideal and so Jasmine and Felicity spent most of their pocket money buying clothes in the charity shops. The upside was that the clothes in the charity shops were often designer and much cheaper than the independent shops whose target audiences were women over fifty and people who owned boats. It wasn’t a town for young people.

Jasmine liked it in Sidmouth, but she didn’t feel she had a lot in common with anyone apart from Felicity and they barely had anything in common, not really. Felicity’s home life was a mess; her mother drank and had a revolving-door policy on boyfriends. Jasmine was both jealous of Felicity and fiercely protective of her; she was the only real friend she had. She wondered if that had something to do with her family’s summers abroad. She didn’t usually get to spend the holiday roaming the streets and discovering new hangouts or even hanging out in the old ones. The worst thing was missing the folk festival. Almost all of her school friends’ summer stories came from that one week in August. The town transformed into a hive of activity, people coming from all over the world to visit the sleepy little place. Jasmine had been there for one day of it before and it was like being in another place entirely. There were street performers and Morris dancers everywhere you looked. Extortionately expensive tie-dyed clothing and lots of multicultural and vegan food stalls dotted the streets. She was happy she was going to be around for it this year, and she felt guilty for that. For the first time, her summer would be normal.

Felicity came from another school entirely a few years ago and Jasmine had sort of adopted her. Everyone else had their own cliques formed from primary school but the two girls drifted between them. They weren’t an obvious choice for best friends but somehow it worked. Felicity loved to tell Jasmine all the things she had missed over the summer, all the boys she got off with. Jasmine thought in part she was jealous of her adventures, but Jasmine was so much more jealous of Felicity’s adventures at home.

Jasmine got along with everyone at school, but it was because no one really knew her, no one took the time. Maybe that was why she threw herself into books, maybe that was why Mr Morrell thought she was interested in him; because she spent time with him instead of friends. The truth was, she didn’t have any real friends aside from Felicity, who was heavily involved in lots of sports clubs, anything to keep her late at school, anything to keep her from going home.

When her geography exam was finally over – they had different exams as they took different subjects for their options – Felicity met Jasmine at the gate. As they walked into town it started to spit, the temperature cooling ever so slightly. They chatted as usual about the things Felicity wanted to talk about – arguments with her mother, why her father left, the bad behaviour of her mother’s current boyfriend. Jasmine couldn’t be sure, but she thought she could smell alcohol on Felicity’s breath. She knew Felicity liked to drink but it was getting more frequent; she never used to do it at school. As they neared the town Jasmine pulled Felicity into an alcove. She had spotted Tim talking to someone in the entrance to a side street car park a little further down the road.

‘What are you doing?’ Felicity asked.

‘Shhhh, be quiet, I don’t want to spook him.’

‘Spook who?’

‘See that guy over there? He’s our new lodger.’

‘You didn’t tell me he was hot,’ Felicity said, trying to get a good look at him.

‘Is that all you think about?’ Jasmine said.

‘Oh, like you haven’t thought of it? Do me a favour.’ Felicity pulled her red lipstick out of her bag and put it on using the reflection in the glass door as a mirror.

‘Can you hear what they’re saying?’

‘Do you think he would get us some booze if we gave him some money?’

‘Shut up, I’m trying to listen.’

Jasmine could hear fragments of the conversation. It wasn’t a friendly one. She peeked around the corner and saw Tim’s face; he looked intense and focused as his index finger jabbed the other man square in the centre of his chest. The stranger looked afraid.

‘I told you, I need that money back by Friday, and it’s Tuesday now. What do you suppose I should do with you?’ Tim barked.

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ the man was pleading, which surprised Jasmine. It sounded like a request made out of fear. Had Tim hurt this man?

‘I did you a favour and now you’re letting me down. If you can’t get me the money, then you had better consider what it is you can get for me. I’ll come back tomorrow. Don’t disappoint me.’

Tim stepped away and looked in the girls’ direction. They ducked back behind the wall. Jasmine’s heart was thumping. She looked to see if there was anywhere for them to go. What if he came past them? What if he confronted her? Instead, Jasmine saw him disappear into the side street that led to the car park. The charity shop they were headed for was just a few metres up the road. When the coast was clear Jasmine grabbed Felicity by the arm and pulled her quickly down the street. Once they were safely inside the shop, Felicity started laughing. Jasmine joined in, but in the back of her mind she couldn’t help thinking about what she had just witnessed. This wasn’t the man that she saw helping out around the house; there was something very sinister about the way he had been talking to that man. What had her parents brought into their home?

Chapter Twelve

Jasmine woke up early, with a couple of hours until her revision class at school. It was just too hot today; the relief from the bit of rain yesterday had been short-lived. She tried to go back to sleep but the heat was frustrating. Her sheets clung to her and she felt the anger building inside as she wrestled against them. She decided to give up and get out of bed. The thought of putting on her school shirt made her feel even hotter; the poor-quality fabric would cut into her armpits and make her sweat more. Her hair was wet at the temples and her face felt clammy to the touch. She could barely breathe and it wasn’t even six a.m. A cold shower was the only way she could think of to cool down. She was out in less than five minutes and she pulled out a white T-shirt and some shorts to dress in until the last possible moment before school. The lingering smell of paint inside her bedroom was doing nothing to make her feel refreshed and so she grabbed her Spanish homework and went downstairs.

She cut up a melon from the fridge and went to sit in the garden to eat it. It was early enough that the part of the garden where the sun loungers lived was still in the shade. Yesterday Tim had started painting the facing wall white at her parents’ instruction. It had a Mediterranean vibe about it. Jasmine’s mother loved geraniums and the bright oranges, reds and pinks looked almost neon against the white backdrop.

The guest house door opened and Tim came outside. He nodded his acknowledgement of Jasmine, glancing at her bare legs but looking away quickly. He pulled a dustsheet off of his painting equipment in the corner of the garden and started to work immediately. Did Jasmine imagine he had been messing with her at the breakfast table? Maybe she just didn’t understand social cues. A wave of self-doubt came over her and she thought back to what had happened at school last year. Did she just not have the ability to read other people at all?

Tim continued to paint the wall with almost complete indifference to her presence. She looked at the clock; she still had a good hour before she had to go to school.

‘Do you need any help?’ she offered, before she had even really thought about it. She remembered her father telling her to make more of an effort and she had realised that she didn’t like being ignored.

‘Thank you. Just grab any brush and start painting,’ Tim said, pointing to the box of brushes.

She chose one and started at the opposite end of the wall to him. It felt therapeutic to be turning this tired old dirty lemon wall into something fresh and new. The surface was rougher than an inside wall, taking a little more effort, so she began working the paint into the cracks and tiny holes. Tim had already filled in all the bigger ones, but her mother had insisted she didn’t want it to look too perfect or it would lose its charm.

As they painted, they got closer together and it wasn’t long before they were standing side by side. They had worked together in silence, which, when Jasmine thought about it, was a strange thing to do. Tim’s bare arm touched hers as they finally met in the middle.

‘Wow, guys, that looks amazing,’ Jasmine’s father called out across the garden, adding, ‘I hope she’s not giving you too much trouble.’

‘None at all.’

She felt annoyed at her father in that moment for saying such a dismissively ‘dad’ thing. He knew she was no trouble; he was just saying that for something to say, something he had seen some other dad say, on TV maybe. Frank did things like this sometimes, and she’d heard him repeat other people’s opinions and pass them off as his. She wasn’t entirely sure her father had any real opinions of his own. Most of the things he said were second hand, something her mother had said before, or something he had seen on TV.

‘We’re off to work now. Keep an eye on the time, Jasmine.’

Again, his words annoyed her. Treating her like a baby. She heard him go back inside and she relaxed again.

‘I had better go. Where should I put this?’ she asked Tim. As she looked at him a smile broke out on his face.

‘Come here.’

He reached up and slid his hand under her hair; she flinched backwards a little until he cradled her head in his hand. He licked his thumb and placed his other hand on her cheek, sweeping away what she assumed was paint. She felt slightly limp. He gently removed his hand from her neck, and she felt as though she could fall straight backwards. Instead, she went back inside and upstairs.

She peeked out of her bedroom window when she got back to her room. He seemed so completely different to the man she had seen in town threatening that stranger. Maybe the other man had been asking for it – she didn’t know the full story. Either way, Tim’s behaviour was confusing her; one minute he was sweet and kind and at other times he was almost sinister. Jasmine felt like she had no choice but to keep an eye on him for now. He didn’t make any sense.

Chapter Thirteen

Now

I’m so torn between needing to know the truth and being afraid of it that I can barely sleep. Despite being warm in the day there is a wind outside in the night and it whips at the sea. I hear the faintest sound of a tree branch gently thumping against some guttering, almost like a tap on a door. I am standing in the dark looking outside, a small bottle of whisky in my hand, the third and final one from the minibar. I have all the lights off so I can see the outside better and not just my own reflection, my outline against the glass like a ghost. This place is full of ghosts, including me.

The front is empty now, no stragglers or ramblers, no dog walkers, no bohemian travellers. Just the promenade, the pebble beach and the sea. I remember in the winter how angry the sea used to be. How the town would gather after a heavy storm and fix what the storm had destroyed. In the past, walls had been pulled down, lamp posts felled, hotels flooded, windows broken, and all by water. Unless you witnessed it, it was hard to imagine, the tide coming in, crashing against the concrete jetties. It was a game to stand close to the edge and wait for a wave before we all ran away screaming and laughing, some of us not quite getting away in time to avoid the splash of salty water. I don’t think anyone really appreciated how dangerous it was; it was just a way to pass the time, a break in the routine.

Now that I am back here, I find myself remembering good things I hadn’t allowed myself to think about for fear of remembering something bad. The moment I walked away I closed a part of me down, like an attic with a rotten floor. No matter what treasures lay inside, I had no desire to investigate and risk losing myself to the past. Finding Chris was what saved me; if I had never met him I don’t know who I would be now. I dread to think. His kindness was what pulled me in; I needed it. I still need it. He will be up now; he goes in to work early. I grab my mobile and call him. I hope he has forgiven me for walking away. I half expect him not to answer – just being here makes me wonder if my life away wasn’t all just a dream. Maybe I never left at all.

‘Flick?’ he answers, and I feel tears appear almost immediately. I missed him more than I realised.

‘Hey. I just wanted to say hi.’

‘How is it going there? Are you OK?’ he says, warm as ever and I wonder if I imagined him being annoyed. I know that sometimes my paranoia gets the best of me. It’s served me well in the past, though.

‘I’m good, it’s good to hear your voice.’

‘I wasn’t sure if you would call,’ he said.

‘Why wouldn’t I? I miss you guys,’ I say, sad that I even have to tell him that I miss them.

‘You were just acting really strange before you left. I was worried about you.’

‘Are you still coming down at the weekend? Would be good to see you.’ I feel like I might never see him again. This place has a way of keeping you here. It’s hard to get away.

‘We will be down as soon as we can. I love you. I have to get in to work now.’ I hear a thickness in his voice, as though he is holding back tears.

‘I love you, too,’ I say, but he has already gone. I hope he knows without hearing me say it.

I straighten my hair and my fringe, line my eyes and add the red lips. I want to be out when the shops are opening, before the town livens up. It’s a good opportunity to talk to local people, if I can even get up the nerve. I wear boots today, even though it’s warm, because I plan on being out for most of the day and I don’t want to give myself any excuse to retreat back to the hotel like a coward.

I walk onto the promenade and along the front. I remember we used to sit in the shelter and shout at passers-by. Entertainment was what you made of it in a place like this. The shelter has had a couple of layers of paint added since I lived here, but it’s the same one. I remember when they installed it. I sit on the bench inside and run my fingers along the wooden slats. The first time we got drunk was in this little hut. We sneaked bottles of Vermouth and got one of the older boys in town to buy us cider. We drank the Vermouth straight and in too short a space of time. Afterwards we walked to the cemetery and jumped out at each other from behind gravestones. I still feel bad for throwing up on a grave, even though it was well over a hundred years old and clearly hadn’t been visited anytime recently. I had forgotten about that night until just now. I remember getting home and pretending I was sober and my mother playing along, or perhaps she was too blind to reality to notice, even though I could tell she knew I had been drinking.

I look up and down the promenade to check for anyone else, but there is no one apart from the occasional car on the adjacent road and so I lie on the concrete walkway. I have lain here before. I carved our initials in the wood under the bench. I wondered if it was preserved. It was; faded but the same and still recognisably in my handwriting. F & J forever. Except nothing lasts forever, not even in this picture-perfect little town.

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