The Quiet Girls: An absolutely addictive mystery thriller

by J. M. Hewitt

  ‘I just wanted to keep you in the loop, we’ve found out the address of the house where Kelly, Tanisha and Melanie were attacked. We’re going round there tonight, are you in?’

  Alice covered her eyes with her hand. ‘Jesus, Victoria, shouldn’t you tell the police?’

  ‘Tried that, I told you they weren’t interested. I just need to know if you’re in or out. Listen, it’s Irwell Road, number three. We’ll meet outside at seven o’clock.’ With that, Victoria hung up.

  Alice, still with her head in her hands, let her mobile fall to the table.

  With that awful woman off the line, Alice thought about Victoria’s call. Irwell Road, she knew that: it was over in Eccles, on an estate that neither she nor Harry would ever consider raising their child on. And what did Victoria mean when she said ‘we’re meeting there’. Who was ‘we’? Tanisha’s parents? A whole group of school mums and dads that she’d roped in, perhaps.

  Alice shuddered. She needed to get out of the house. Perhaps this was Harry’s problem; too little to do equated to too much time to think. Grabbing her keys, she pulled on her coat.

  At half past six, once all the shops had shut and after driving around aimlessly, Alice fully intended to return home. Instead, she found herself at the top of Irwell Road. She sat in the car, engine idling, the windscreen steaming up until she had to crack open the windows to clear it.

  Did she want to drive down to the bottom of the road when the clock hit seven? And what would she do when she got there, or, more to the point, what would she see?

  Alice leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Burning torches, women shouting, men hitting. Alice allowed herself a little smile. They were British; they didn’t do things like that.

  Or did they, when it came to their children?

  What if it had been Melanie, the one who actually came into contact with this monster, how would she feel then? A part of her didn’t need to think about it. She would want to kill him. But she was a lawyer, she believed in punishment and rehabilitation. Legal consequences. And just what had Melanie seen? A dirty, downtrodden house, a man with a disfigured face, and who hadn’t been wearing any trousers. A man who had grabbed Kelly. A man who had done… what?

  Alice pressed a hand to her lips. Horrid, awful things for young girls to experience. But could it be this man, whoever he was, was simply infuriated that his home had been broken into? Could he have been upstairs, sleeping, practically naked when he was bothered by pranksters?

  Alice came to a decision. Victoria didn’t know her car; Harry almost always had walked to and from the school run. The windows were steamed up, concealing her in case Victoria should be there. Putting the car into gear she drove slowly down to the end of the road.

  There were more of them than she’d expected. A mob, she thought, as she watched the dozen or so people circulate at the front of the house.

  And there was Victoria, arms waving, pointing at the house. No, Alice saw now, not just at the house, at the face scarcely concealed in the front window. And Victoria was at the window now, using her palms to bang on the glass. The face backed away, the window now empty.

  Tearing her eyes away from Victoria, Alice looked at the rest of the group. They milled around, seemingly uncertain, throwing hasty glances over their shoulders at the road and the houses next door. With the heater on, the misted windows began to defrost, leaving Alice visible should Victoria turn around. Alice put her head down and drove away.

  9

  Carrie and Hattie – 1998

  They walked out of the residential area where they lived and headed along the Ashworth Road. After half a mile Hattie began to whine.

  Carrie ignored her.

  ‘Caz, my legs ache.’

  Carrie walked faster.

  ‘Caz!’ A hitch in her childish voice, loud sniffing.

  ‘I know, I’m sorry, Hat.’ Carrie slowed to a stop. Maybe this was a silly idea; the park was further than she remembered. She sat down on the grass verge to think.

  ‘Ice-cream?’ asked Hattie, hopefully.

  Carrie looked away. ‘Don’t have no money,’ she replied glumly.

  Hattie fell silent and Carrie lay back in the grass. Even if she did have money, they were out of town now, heading into the green spaces where there would be no ice-cream vendors. She shivered as the sun went behind a cloud. The day was suddenly cooler, and she struggled to her feet. They could easily walk it if the sun wasn’t beating down on them.

  ‘Come on, up,’ said Carrie, pushing herself upright and crouching down. Her sister rarely got treats, neither of them did. Money was scarce and Mary worked all hours. Hattie deserved to see the horses and Carrie would give her a piggy-back if that was what it took. ‘Hop on,’ she said, grinning over her shoulder at her sister as Hattie clambered on her back.

  Half an hour later they didn’t seem to be any closer. Carrie staggered to a stop and lowered Hattie to the ground. It was much further than she remembered, Mandale Park. Which was strange because when she’d gone with the school it seemed to take no time at all. But then she remembered – they had been on a coach that time. Carrie had really enjoyed that day. Just like Hattie would enjoy the horses today. If they ever got there, that was.

  ‘We’ll be there soon, at the park. It’s a massive park, Hat, with slides and swings and this rope thing that you can play on, then we’ll see the horses. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  Hattie shrugged and dragged her feet. Carrie felt a surge of anger, but it was directed towards her mother. Why couldn’t her mum be like other mums, and take her daughters to the park, preferably in a car? It wasn’t fair she had to take care of her little sister, if her mum came along then Carrie wouldn’t be responsible for Hattie, and both girls would be able to have fun.

  And the anger helped, Carrie realised as she marched up the umpteenth hill. But Hattie wasn’t angry, Hattie was tired, and Hattie was drained.

  Carrie stopped and looked around. They were far off the beaten track now, far from home, far from people who knew them who might stop in their cars and give them a lift home. Carrie felt the stirrings of panic.

  ‘Hey, girls, you okay there?’

  Carrie snatched up Hattie’s hand and averted her eyes. Just drive on by, she thought.

  But the car engine thrummed as the vehicle stood still beside them, idling until the driver turned the engine off.

  ‘Where are you girls going?’

  Carrie chanced a look across at him. The fear vanished.

  ‘Mr Lacey!’

  ‘Young Carrie.’ Her school caretaker slung one arm over the driver’s door and smiled, showing gaps and yellowing, tombstone teeth. He looked down at Hattie who was hiding behind Carrie. ‘Who’s this, then?’

  ‘My little sister. I’m taking her to Mandale Park, but I didn’t realise just how far it was to walk.’

  Mr Lacey smiled even wider. Twisting in his seat he banged his fist on the rear passenger door. ‘Hop in, I’m going that way.’

  Carrie hesitated. Stranger Danger. The words drummed into her at home and school flooded her mind, making it hard to think. But Mr Lacey wasn’t a stranger, was he? He was the caretaker at her school, everyone knew him, even her own mother would greet him if they passed in the street or happened to be in the same shop.

  Hattie pulled on her hand. Carrie looked down at her.

  ‘My feet hurt,’ she whispered.

  Carrie looked back at Mr Lacey. He raised his eyebrows, nodded and thumped the car again.

  Taking a deep breath, Carrie herded Hattie towards the car.

  10

  ‘I think it’s about time we thought about a change of scenery.’

  Harry made the announcement over dinner. Alice and Melanie paused, forks halfway to their mouths, and exchanged a glance.

  Alice regarded Harry carefully. He had spoken no more about Melanie and the horrible situation that Victoria Prout had drawn them all into. Or was this his way of dealing with it, to get them away from Sal
ford and the dangers Harry saw? But if it meant a holiday, a fortnight on a sandy beach… She’d had the same idea herself. It would be good for all of them.

  ‘Well, yes, that would be wonderful.’ Alice’s face stretched in a smile. It felt unnatural, and only served to remind her how much she used to smile with Harry, and how long it had been since she had done so.

  ‘Where, Dad?’ Melanie asked. ‘Where are we going to go, and when?’

  Harry chased the last of his casserole around his plate with a thick chunk of buttered bread. Alice was pleased to see his empty plate. Along with the pleasure was the all-too-familiar guilt that she hadn’t noticed how much his appetite had decreased since the depression had come back. She put her fork down and gripped his hand, hoping to convey in that little touch without words just how much she loved him, and how happy she was that he was coming back to them. He looked down at her hand on his in surprise before blowing her a kiss. Alice erupted into a giggle in response.

  ‘Dad, where are we going?’ Melanie asked again, impatient now, no time for her parents’ silliness.

  ‘Somewhere quiet,’ he replied, shoving the last of the bread in his mouth, ‘a place where it’s just us, a deserted island.’ He looked at them, expectancy clear on his face.

  Alice’s heart sank. When she went away, she enjoyed company, the buzz of crowded streets, nightlife, heaving markets and busy restaurants, the holidaymakers that Harry got friendly with. Singapore was a dream yet to be realised that they had discussed many times over the years. She pondered on this now: Harry’s latest idea for a deserted island holiday. Barring his depression, he was an incredibly outgoing and social man; without fail he would find someone at a bar to chat with through to the early hours. People were drawn to him, and Harry had all the time in the world for socialising. It was why he was so good at the school gates, she thought now, suppressing a smile.

  But what harm could a quiet holiday do?

  ‘Somewhere hot,’ she instructed, gazing out at the lawn still laden with frost.

  Harry began to collect the plates. ‘I’ve actually been looking at the Hebrides,’ he said as he carried the dinner things over to the kitchen worktop.

  ‘Scotland?’ Alice wrinkled her nose in distaste. She had been thinking Thailand, the hundreds of islands like where they filmed The Beach with Leonardo. Minimal clothes, fresh fish, warm seas, white sand.

  ‘The Outer Hebrides,’ said Harry as though Alice hadn’t spoken.

  ‘There are hundreds of islands in the Outer Hebrides,’ piped up Melanie, adding, ‘and thirty-six inhabited ones in the Inner Hebrides.’

  Alice blinked at her daughter. Harry planted a kiss on Melanie’s head as he walked past.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ he said softly.

  ‘It’ll be cold,’ said Alice.

  But Harry and Melanie had moved onto the sofa to pore over maps of the Hebrides that Harry had produced on the iPad. They didn’t answer her.

  Harry stayed up long after Alice and Melanie went to bed. He smiled as he put the iPad on the table where Alice’s work papers had been hours earlier. For a moment he stared blankly into space, wondering if he should feel guilty. Alice had misunderstood the logistics of his desert island idea. He snorted a little laugh, she had reacted just how he had expected her to. You didn’t spend all these years married to one woman without knowing exactly how she thought.

  He hadn’t corrected her misconception, either. Let her think it was a holiday, for now. He knew her well enough to know she was just so happy that he was ‘on the road to recovery’, as she put it, that she would do anything to keep him that way.

  As if hearing his thoughts, an alarm on his digital watch beeped, a reminder to take his pill. Letting the iPad screen fade to black, he swallowed the Fluoxetine. He stared outside into the darkness and thought about his girl, his daughter, his Melanie, the most important thing in the world, trapped in a stranger’s home with a potential paedophile. That was what they were saying. Paedophile. Victoria Prout and her clan of justice-seeking vigilantes. And Alice didn’t even want to call the police.

  He shuddered, and it wracked his entire body.

  The trouble with Alice was she dealt with criminals all day, every day. She had become hardened to the evil people in the world. To her, this man who’d cornered their daughter was simply another man. A bad man, yes, but not so bad that she felt the need to act like Harry did.

  Alice was immune. But Harry refused to accept that this was the way his child had to live. When he had found out about Melanie’s near miss, something sparked inside him. After the initial numbness of deadened horror had worn off it had been like an electric shock, fizzing through his veins. Senses previously dulled by the depression and the pills he took for it had come alive and the whole world was in Technicolor.

  The spark had turned to rage, primal with a need to protect. The depression had dulled now, no longer the thing that blanketed him. No, at the forefront of his mind now was a plan.

  Pushing the bottle aside, Harry grabbed his mobile and tapped out a quick text. He switched the phone off, sure that come tomorrow morning there would be a reply.

  Alice was running late the next morning. She dashed around, trying to put into some sort of order the brief she’d been working on last night. Finally, she gave up, shoving it all in her briefcase and hoping the court hearing wasn’t scheduled first thing.

  I should know what time it is, she thought. There was once a time when I didn’t even need to write this shit down.

  As she pushed her feet into her shoes, she saw Harry dusting the fireplace. She stopped, one shoe on, the other dangling uselessly from her fingers.

  ‘Shit, what time it is?’ she asked. ‘I must be really fucking late if you’re up and cleaning already.’

  ‘Morning, lovely!’ he said, waving with his feather duster. ‘You’re not late, I’m just very early today. But,’ he gave a furtive glance around, ‘language, darling, please?’

  She raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Whatever. Anyway, thank God I’m not late. I have to go, though.’ She waggled her fingers in his direction, wedged the remaining shoe on and hurried to the door.

  ‘Alice?’ Harry called.

  Trying to restrain the sigh that threatened, she clung onto the doorframe and poked her head back into the room. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve invited the Hadleys over for dinner tonight.’

  Alice frowned. ‘Who?’

  ‘The Hadleys, Liz and Gabe and the twins. Their kids are a few years above Melanie in school.’

  Alice took a deep breath. ‘Right. Um, why?’

  ‘Because it’s been ages since we hosted a dinner party, and I thought it would be nice to be a little more social.’ Harry raised his eyebrows. ‘That okay with you?’

  Alice bit back a sharp retort. It was fine for Harry to be social, he had the next ten hours to prepare for a dinner party, put something in the slow cooker, start on the red wine early. While she had to go to work and to court and try to do a job that once upon a time was as easy as breathing but which now took every ounce of energy she had not to screw up.

  ‘Fine. See you tonight,’ she said crisply. She slammed the door behind her and rushed to her car before she was tempted to go back inside and tell Harry everything she’d been thinking.

  She had to be in court at 3 p.m. The relief was palpable and she spent the morning happily putting the papers she’d attempted to look over last night into order. With each sheet she read through carefully until she was confident she knew this case inside out. Granted, it was an easy one, but she felt a sense of accomplishment that had been missing for a while.

  Later, she gave her colleague, Maxine a smug wave as she exited the building and made her way to the court house.

  Judge Rackshaw peered down at her. His stare of disapproval was ten times worse than the looks Maxine had given her lately.

  ‘So you’re not ready to proceed, Ms Wilson?’ he asked.

  It was the second time he ha
d said that. Alice clenched her fists and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘No, Your Honour. As I explained I understood today to be the preliminary hearing, not to actually start this trial.’

  Judge Rackshaw exchanged a look with his clerk. He inserted his pencil underneath the lining of his wig and scratched at his scalp. Alice groped for something to say, anything to make it better.

  There was nothing. And this had been Alice’s last chance.

  She hurried from the court, threw the case load on the passenger seat and slumped behind the wheel.

  Last chance. Last Chance. Last chance. The thought echoed in her head and as the light faded to the darkness of evening Alice put her head in her hands.

  ‘Darling, where have you been? We’re just about to start, couldn’t keep it warm any longer without spoiling it.’

  As Alice kicked off her shoes and opened the door to the living area it was all she could do not to groan.

  Harry’s bloody dinner party. She’d clean forgotten in the mess that was her working day, and here they all were. The Hadleys and their brood; a family she didn’t know anything about, couldn’t remember ever meeting and she had no idea why Harry felt it necessary to invite them to her home. Why not their actual friends, rather than people who were practically strangers?

  She glanced at her slippers, big, fluffy black and white checked ones which she sometimes spent minutes of each day at work dreaming about getting home and slipping off the uncomfortable heels and putting on. A quick look at the woman who must be Liz Hadley told Alice she wasn’t wearing slippers, or trainers or even pumps. So, she pushed her sore feet back into her heels before walking into the room.

  ‘I’m sorry, horrid day at work,’ she said, unable to stop herself shooting a pointed look in Harry’s direction.