by Lisa Hall
I think back to when DS Wright and Kelly told us that Dominic has been arrested, that images of children had been discovered on his computer. I remember the way my stomach lurched, and my hands started to shake as the shock of adrenaline pulsed around my body, making my lips feel numb and the floor unsteady beneath my feet. Fran had seemed so calm, and I reasoned that that was her shock reaction – everyone reacts in different ways after all – but what if she seemed so calm because she wasn’t actually that shocked? Because, maybe, she already knew what they would find on Dominic’s computer. That maybe she was the one who had put them there. If your husband was accused of something so completely hideous, so wrong, would you simply accept it? Or would you defend him? The more I think about it, the more I feel uneasy about her reaction.
I sink into Dominic’s luxury leather chair, feeling the worn area made by the shape of his body, my head starting to throb at the temples as I pull open the drawers, rifling through all the bills and paper, nothing standing out to me. The papers spill out and I shove them back into the drawer, carelessly, telling myself that if Fran notices she’ll just think it’s a result of the police search. Leaving the office, I pull the door tight shut behind and head for Fran and Dominic’s bedroom, my feet heavy on the stairs as I make my way up there. I’m still telling myself this is ridiculous, that Fran wouldn’t ever do anything to harm Laurel, and she certainly wouldn’t see Dominic in prison for something he didn’t do, but Pamela’s words seem to shout even louder in my head – she’s not so innocent.
At their bedroom door I pause, still a healthy amount of respect for their privacy making me reluctant to enter their private domain. I give myself a shake and push the door open, slightly shocked at the mess that confronts me.
At first I think maybe the police didn’t tidy up after they searched the house last time, but I know that Fran would never have left it like this for so long, not unless she was leaving in a hurry, which it now seems like she did. It’s as though she threw some belongings into a bag and ran out, the minute I left the house before Christmas. Tights and underwear litter the blue and gold bedspread, and while her hairbrush and straighteners are missing from the top of the dressing table, her make-up still covers the top, the lid removed on a bottle of foundation, leading to a small, dried patch of porcelain etched into the wood.
Without thinking about things too hard, I yank open her drawers, pulling out T-shirts, knickers, scarves, shaking them out to make sure I don’t miss a thing. I find nothing, not even a hidden diary, until I reach under the mattress and my fingers brush against what feels like a slip of paper. Reaching further in, until my armpit is pressed up against the edge of the bed frame, I manage to snare the paper in my fingers and pull it out.
It’s a receipt, from a local supermarket for a large bar of milk chocolate and a pint of milk. Nothing exciting in that, but when I turn it over, there is ‘P’ scrawled across it in biro, with a postcode written underneath. P. Polly? Or Pamela? I turn the thin piece of paper over and over in my hands until it becomes damp.
Pulling out my phone, I type in the postcode and wait for the screen to load. It brings up a Google map, a red pin indicating the location of the postcode on the map. I zoom in, noting down the road name and the location. Norfolk. Exactly where Fran said Polly was staying. So, Fran must have always intended to go and stay with Polly, and by hiding this under the mattress, she didn’t want Dominic to know about it.
I don’t know what to think – was Fran planning on leaving Dominic, even though she seemed to be terrified that he would leave her? Or did this come about after Laurel’s disappearance? Although I now think I have found where Fran is staying, it still doesn’t tell me whether Pamela is right when she said Fran isn’t so innocent. And I still can’t shake off that feeling that something isn’t quite right – and that Fran hasn’t been entirely truthful.
I leave Fran and Dominic’s room and head back down the narrow flight of stairs to the landing, bypassing my own bedroom door and heading for Laurel’s. As I push the door open, I think I catch a faint whiff of her baby scent, and my stomach clenches with longing. Her dressing gown, pink and fluffy, hangs on the back of the door, and Bom, her stuffed tiger, sits next to her nightlight, almost as though she’s about to come running in from her bath, ready to go to bed.
Fighting back hot tears, I blink rapidly, and get back to the task in hand. I still have that itchy feeling at the back of my brain that tells me somebody said something, or I saw something, something that wasn’t quite right and that I can’t put my finger on. Something that could tell me once and for all whether I am barking up the wrong tree. Whether Dominic is innocent or guilty.
Fumbling through Laurel’s toy box, I try hard not to get distracted by the items I find, memories of pretend tea parties, building Lego houses, dressing dolls in radical outfits assaulting me from all sides, and making me only all too aware of my grief. There is nothing, so I move to the chest of drawers, the one Dominic brought home from Ikea and that Fran then decided to paint in Farrow and Ball – the one that I once caught Laurel about to stick stickers all over and had to rescue before Fran noticed. I dig in to the top drawer, scrabbling through vests, tiny pairs of pants and socks, before I see it, and I freeze, the hot, acid burn of bile scorching the back of my throat.
This is it – this is what I was looking for, the thing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. A tiny lemon yellow sock, with a white lace frill around the ankle.
I hold it between finger and thumb as I sit down on the edge of Laurel’s bed, swallowing hard to keep from being sick. The sock is slightly grubby at the toe, a thick smear of dark grey dust marring the seam. Almost as though it’s been hidden somewhere else for a while, out of sight, out of mind. Like, stuffed under a church pew somewhere?
The thought comes unbidden to mind, and I see Fran perched on the end of the church pew, Kelly’s voice saying she went there a lot for some peace. I run my fingers gently over the fabric, finally piecing together what it was that I couldn’t put my finger on.
I think back to that day, the day when DS Wright told us Dominic had been arrested. That they had found a tiny yellow sock in his car, hidden away. Fran saying that she had put the socks on Laurel that Saturday night . . . only, she didn’t. I was the one who got Laurel ready that evening – Fran was busy on the phone, and Laurel didn’t want to wait, she wanted to get to the field early, so she didn’t miss the start of the bonfire. I was the one who shoved Laurel’s feet into her boots, I was the one who bundled her up into her coat. There was no argument between Fran and Laurel over wearing sandals, not that I heard, and Fran was banking on me being so shocked by Dominic’s arrest that I couldn’t piece it together.
I bring the sock to my nose, hoping to inhale some of Laurel’s scent, but it doesn’t even smell of laundry soap anymore, it’s musty and stale. I think of Fran, coming back into the kitchen from the garage with a bottle of wine in her hand, a guilty look across her face. Was that when she did it? Was that when she planted Laurel’s sock in Dominic’s car in an attempt to prove him guilty of hurting Laurel?
A cold shiver runs down my spine as I realise exactly how calculating and clever Fran has been. A grieving, desperate mother on the surface, able to convince everyone, including the police that Dominic was guilty of the most heinous crime. But what has she done with Laurel? And how did she manage to pull this off, in a field full of people, when she only left me alone for a matter of minutes? More to the point, how can I make this right again?
Looking up, my eyes light on Bom, sitting serenely next to the night light. I know what I need to do. I tuck the sock into my pocket, pushing it deep down and then smoothing the pocket flat so there is no chance of it falling out, and snatch up the tiger. I check that I have the slip of paper bearing the postcode to Polly’s cottage and lug my suitcase out to my car. Returning to the house, I double lock the front door, and hurry back down the path to where my car is parked.
Turning on the ignition, I
wait for the sat nav to fire up before I enter the Norfolk postcode, the screen telling me it is 180 miles away, and will take me approximately three hours and thirty-seven minutes to reach my destination. I check my watch. I should be in Norfolk by nine o’clock this evening. I put the car in drive and pull out on to the main road, taking a deep breath as I do so. I’m going to do it. I’m going to confront Fran.
CHAPTER 27
It’s been years since I drove this far – I didn’t drive at all in Scotland, and I’ve only driven short distances or used public transport with Laurel since I started working for the Jessops, seeing as Fran didn’t like the idea of Laurel going out in my clapped-out old banger, and Dominic wasn’t likely to let me use his car. It’s dark before I’ve even hit the road, and by the time I am approaching the A140, the road that will lead me directly to Fran, I am battling a terrible headache, and my eyes are feeling the strain of concentrating for so long. Finally, the sat nav tells me to turn left, and that I am almost at my destination.
I dutifully follow the instructions, turning left on to an unlit track. The track is rutted and bumpy, full of potholes, and I flick on my full beam in order to be able to see more than a few metres in front of me. Doubt nags, and I wonder whether I punched in the wrong postcode, as now I have left the narrow country lanes behind there is nothing ahead of me, apart from more bushes, more trees, more shadows. Deciding that I must have made a mistake somewhere, taken a wrong turn perhaps, my mind full of Fran, Laurel, Dominic and the discovery of the yellow sock – something that makes my stomach flip every time I think about it – laid carefully next to me on the front seat, I decide to push on until I find a space to turn around when I see it.
Further ahead, a single light is visible through the trees. Maybe I didn’t put the postcode in wrong, after all. My heart beating a jumpy tattoo in my chest, I carry on along the rough track until the cottage comes into view. There is a dark-coloured car parked in front of the stone cottage, and for one brief, heart-stopping moment I think it is Dominic’s car, before I realise that it’s a slightly different shape, a Volkswagen badge gleaming on the back as my headlights flash across it. I pull up next to it, and tucking the sock into my jeans pocket, I snatch up Bom, Laurel’s stuffed tiger, and step out of the car.
It feels good to stretch after more than three hours hunched over the steering wheel, and the air is briskly cold against my face after the warmth of the car heater. There is the faint smell of the sea on the air, even though it feels as though I am tucked away in a forest, and I breathe deeply for a moment, trying to clear my head before I step forward, until I’m standing under a tiny porch light and raise my fist to knock on the door.
There is no answer, and I flick my wrist round to check the time on my watch. Ten past nine. I made good time, the hour of night meaning that I didn’t hit any traffic on the way up. It’s still early – Fran has always been a night owl, often out at events and shows in the evenings, not returning home till the early hours of the morning, then sleeping the day away, sometimes only waking just before Laurel came home from school. Maybe this isn’t the right place – maybe Fran isn’t here at all, and the postcode and the initial had nothing to do with Polly. No. There’s no such thing as coincidence. I raise my fist and bang on the door again, and this time I hear scuffling behind the door, a whispering, as though there is a debate as to whether the door should be opened or not. Just as I am wavering, sure that I have got the wrong place, the door creaks open and I see Fran peering out, lit by the soft lamplight behind her.
‘Anna!’ She steps forward, pulling the door closed behind her, one arm behind her back. ‘What . . .’ She frowns, a red flush creeping up her neck before she clears her throat. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I . . .’ I stutter, words not ready to come. I hadn’t thought about what I would say when I saw Fran, my thoughts jumbled and tangled and as I see her in front of me for the first time in weeks, I falter, not sure that she could ever have done the things I’ve been accusing her of in my mind on the journey here. ‘I went to the house today.’ It feels like days ago already. ‘I found this.’ Remembering that I am clutching Bom against my chest, I hold him out to her like some sort of offering.
‘Oh.’ Fran blinks. ‘I forgot all about Bom.’ She takes him from me, almost snatching him out of my hands.
‘Fran, listen . . . I need to talk to you, it’s important.’ The words burst out before I can stop them. I’ve come all this way, I need some answers.
‘Thank you, Anna, I appreciate you driving all this way just to hand over Bom, but you really didn’t need to. You should be heading back. It’s getting late.’ Fran’s voice is icy cold, and it’s as though I haven’t even spoken. She steps back, ready to push the front door closed.
‘What? Fran, I need to talk to you, it’s really, really important. You can’t make me leave.’ I step forward, planting my foot between the door and the frame.
‘Anna. Just go. Please. At least respect my privacy now Dominic is gone. For Laurel’s sake.’ Glancing behind her she moves back as though to slam the door. She’s not so innocent. The sound of Laurel’s name on her lips ignites a spark of rage deep down in my belly, and without thinking I throw out a hand and shove hard, sending Fran stumbling backwards into the dimly lit hallway.
I step inside, the warmth of the open fire in the room to the left reaching my cold cheeks and making them burn a bright pink. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Fran.’
‘What do you mean?’ She looks at me warily, one hand to her throat.
‘We need to talk about Dominic. About what happened the night Laurel went missing. About all of it.’
‘Why? You know what happened, for God’s sake, Anna, Charlie . . . whatever you want to call yourself, you were there!’ She looks past me to the stairs before she lowers her voice. ‘You were there,’ she hisses, ‘there’s nothing to talk about.’
‘There is though, Fran,’ I say quietly, convinced now that Polly must be upstairs. I keep my voice down, not wanting her to come down and throw me out. ‘Things don’t add up.’
‘What do you mean?’ Her hand flutters up from her throat towards her mouth, but I am not fooled. I know that this is Fran, the actress, in front of me now. Not Fran, the concerned mother, who kept all of us fooled. Not Fran, the betrayed wife. I know better now – I know she’s lied. I dig in my pocket, my fingers closing around the fabric of the sock, and I pull it out, laying it flat on the palm of my hand.
‘I found this, Fran. Hidden in the back of one of Laurel’s drawers. You can see by the grey dust on it that it was hidden somewhere else before that. My money is on somewhere in the church, you know, the church that gave you such comfort while Laurel was gone. You couldn’t risk leaving it there once you decided to leave Oxbury.’
Fran’s face turns a chalky white. ‘Anna, I can explain . . .’
‘Really, Fran?’ I shake my head. ‘How can you talk this one away? What did you do? Hide it until the police had searched the house again, and then put it back?’
‘Look, Anna, you don’t understand. You don’t know what it was like for me, living with Dominic, how much of a brute he was to me . . .’ Fat tears form in her eyes, but all I can think is crocodile tears. ‘You were in your room every evening, and he was so careful to hide the kind of person he really was . . .’
‘What happened to Laurel, Fran? What do you really know about what went on that night? Because I know things didn’t happen as you’d have all of us believe. I’ll admit, I believed Dominic was guilty for a while – there was too much evidence against him. You made sure of that. But then . . .’ I trail off, distracted by something that has caught my eye through the open door of the living room behind Fran. ‘Wait a second . . .’ I push past her, knocking her hard against the wall, barely registering the satisfying thud her head makes as she knocks it hard against the plaster. The heat of the small room makes sweat prickle on the back of my neck, the open fire roaring as it engulfs l
ogs whole. I cross the room in two steps, my hands to my mouth as I realise that I really did see what I thought I did. I snatch up the item from the top of the bureau it rests on and turn to Fran.
‘She’s here, isn’t she? Laurel is here.’ And I squeeze the sparkly silver bobble hat tight between my fingers.
*
My ears roar as though I am underwater, the rushing filling my head and I think for a moment that I’m going to faint. Fran watches me from the doorway, without speaking.
‘She is here, isn’t she?’ I say again, my voice barely above a whisper.
‘Yes, she’s here,’ Fran says, and she is cool again, no trace of the fear that crossed her face when she realised it was me on the doorstep, although her fingers tremble slightly as she holds out a hand towards me. ‘I can explain everything.’
‘I hope so, because I really want to hear it.’ My voice is steady, and I manage to blink back the tears of relief that sting my eyes at the knowledge that Laurel is OK, that she wasn’t taken by strangers.
‘That night . . . the night of the bonfire,’ Fran says, meeting my eyes, ‘it was the perfect opportunity. I could get Laurel away and no one would ever suspect that I had anything to do with it. She’s OK, you know that, right? I wouldn’t have ever hurt her.’
‘How, though?’ I say, thinking back to that awful night. ‘How could you have possibly done this? And why? I don’t understand why you would even want to do something like this.’
‘It wasn’t so hard once I thought about it all.’ She sounds thoughtful. ‘I knew Dominic was having an affair. With Pamela, I suspect. I saw the texts on his phone. I knew what would happen once Pamela got her claws back into him – he always loved her, you know? I was always a poor second to his precious Pammy, and Lord knows if I hadn’t got pregnant with Laurel we never would have lasted.’ She gives a rueful laugh. ‘Thing is, I loved Dominic so much, until I started to hate him, that is.’
