“I heard they’re behind on their rent.”
“He can’t afford to buy them clothes. She has to make them.”
“Yeah, well he knocks her six ways from Sunday every night.”
“Do the neighbours hear them fighting?”
“No. They’re quiet apparently.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s not doing it.”
“They don’t go out anymore. They stay inside all day with the curtains shut. He goes out to work and that’s it. Poor kid never sees sunlight.”
“Their lot don’t belong in Leacroft.”
A murmur of agreement rippled. Fran reached for her bag and walked away from them. She felt sick. She wanted to stand up for them and tell them they were wrong, that there were nuances, complications that none of them were seeing. But she’d been the one to call the police. She’d be the hypocrite if she stood there and defended a family she suspected of harming their daughter.
Fran had never been one to feel hate. Despite their flaws, her parents had taught her all about acceptance, tolerance and forgiveness. They told her to turn the other cheek when she was picked on for her large thighs in PE. They told her that everyone was holding onto their own pain. Some squeezed the pain so tightly that it spilled out, like toothpaste from the tube, until it stuck to everyone around them. Those people deserved forgiveness just as much as the rest. But Fran hated everything about this situation. She hated Elijah and his smug smile, his easiness with people, the way he talked about himself and pushed his wife. She hated the way society made her question herself and her choices. That it made her, as a middle-aged woman, feel invisible. Nothing more than an unhinged woman incapable of making objective reasonings. She hated that she felt it was necessary to call the police in the first place, because now she was tangled in a web that would leave its stain on her for a long time to come. Most of all she hated those toxic gossipers standing around in a circle trashing another human being, finding entertainment in the suffering of others, and allowing their prejudice to tumble out of their hateful mouths.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fran had decided that morning—after waking from a nightmare that shook her to the bone, one where Esther stood over Chloe, a cushion in her hands and a devilish grin on her face—that she would go for her run, sprain be damned. She lapped the village green with ease before heading towards the Whitaker’s road. She couldn’t help herself. It’d been a week since she’d called the police. Going out into the village for groceries or a drink had become almost as hellish as her nightmares. All she heard was gossip about the Whitakers. About how they rarely left the house, how many of the villagers were shunning them in case the father was hurting the daughter, and how Mary Whitaker had been seen once or twice, thin as a rail, pale as milk. Condemned to haunt Leacroft rather than live in it.
Guilt churned away at her, souring whatever she ate. She no longer noticed the beauty of the sunrise. The world could be entirely made up of different shades of grey for all she cared.
Since she’d called the police, she’d checked back with them for updates to find the investigation closed. Whether it had been passed on to social services, she didn’t know. But the police had obviously decided that they didn’t think Elijah was an abuser. Perhaps that meant Fran shouldn’t think that either, and neither should the village, but that wasn’t how the world worked. As Emily would say, mud sticks. The Whitakers were facing an old-fashioned form of retribution—trial by public opinion. Leacroft hated them.
There was no better evidence than what Fran saw that morning. She saw the red letters from halfway down the road and sped up to view them up close. LEAVE. That’s what it said. She stood gawping at the graffiti for at least thirty seconds. Then she felt as though she was being watched and allowed her gaze to travel up the front of the house to the windows on the upper floor. There, she saw Esther standing between her curtains, hair loose and tangled around her pale face. Esther didn’t smile or even move, she simply stood there.
It tugged at her heart. With her hair messy and her mouth pulled down, her eyebrows bunched, she seemed younger than ever. Nothing like the Esther from her nightmare. When the child backed away from the window so that Fran couldn’t see her any longer, she walked to the front porch and considered ringing the doorbell. It would be neighbourly to tell them about the graffiti, wouldn’t it? But then she checked the time on her phone, it was barely after 5:30. Even though Esther was awake, her parents were probably fast asleep. Fran moved away from the door, stared at Esther’s bedroom window one more time, and saw that the girl was gone.
She set off on her jog home. Her legs were unsteady, and after a few strides she slowed to a walk. When she cast one last glance over her shoulder, the house was still.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Adrian sighed when she told him. He rubbed her shoulder, still damp from the run, and spoke in a soft voice. “None of this is your fault. You’ve only ever been trying to help that family. What happened after you made the call is down to those unpleasant, petty people in the village.”
She got up from the bed and began peeling away her running clothes, still agitated, and still talking. “But I knew, didn’t I? At least, I should’ve known what would happen. Any half-intelligent person could see it a mile away. Emily couldn’t stop gossiping about them, there were rumours flying around the whole village, nasty rumours. And what did I do? I fuelled it. When I wanted to know more about Elijah and Mary, I started prying, sticking my nose in where it wasn’t wanted. I even called Emily because I couldn’t wait until choir to get the juicy information.” She threw her socks into the wash basket and stood there naked, skin red, stretch marks opalescent in the morning light. “This is as much on me as it is Emily. Then, I nailed the coffin shut. I called the police.”
Adrian raised his hands in exasperation. “Just like any good citizen would, given what you saw. Given what you know about that family.”
Fran chewed on her bottom lip. “No. I don’t know.” She placed a palm on her forehead. “Maybe I saw more than what’s in front of me. Maybe I was looking for it because…” She trailed off, not wanting to admit it.
“What?”
“Because I’m just like Emily. I’m prejudiced. I saw this young, religious woman and her older husband and assumed the worst.” She sighed. “I’m going to have a shower. I need to wash all this away.”
“Franny.”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, Long John Silver.”
He laughed. Then his smile faded. “You’re not like them.”
She simply shrugged as she walked into the en-suite. She set the shower to scalding, hoping it might sear away an outer layer of skin. She imagined scales shedding, washed away down the drain. What had happened to her these past weeks?
After emerging from the shower a deep shade of vermillion, Adrian served her creamy eggs and handed over a strong cup of builder’s tea. “Feel any better?”
“No. No I still feel like a shitty human being.”
“Don’t talk to yourself like that,” he said. He brushed some damp hair away from Fran’s cheek. “Come on. Let’s have breakfast and go out for the day.”
“Where?”
“What about Chatsworth?”
Fran’s stomach flipped. “No, not there.”
“How about Castleton? We can buy some Blue John jewellery, walk along the footpaths through the valleys. You’ll have to walk slower than usual though. You know I’m an old fart.”
“That’s true,” she said with a smile. When she went to check her phone part way through eating her eggs, Adrian waggled his finger like a schoolteacher.
“There is going to be one rule today,” he said.
“Let me guess,” Fran said. “No phones.”
“Indeed. Now put it away, young lady, before I have to give you detention.” He said it with a grin and a wink.
She did put it away. And then she didn’t look at her phone once that day. They
went to Blue John Cavern and walked beneath a ceiling of pale, pastel blue. Fran bought earrings from the gift shop and they wandered the countryside, even coming across an ice cream van and stopping for a cone. It took a while, but eventually her mind settled down so that thoughts of Esther, Mary, even Chloe became little more than an anxious hum relegated to the back of her mind. She had been transported away from Leacroft and that ugly red lettering across the house of the rejected family. She was away from small minds and loose tongues. She could relax and be with her husband. She could stop checking her phone.
And she missed the message. The one that mattered.
Chapter Thirty
Come and see me. Please. There’s something I want to tell you. Things aren’t what they seem.
Fran typed furiously. I can come to your house tomorrow? Do we need to wait for Elijah to be at work?
She waited. They’d been home about an hour and Fran had finally succumbed to her curiosity when she picked up her phone and checked her social media accounts. That was when she saw the text message from Mary. It’d been sent at 9:00 a.m., around the same time they were leaving the house for their day trip. It was after 7:00 p.m. now and she wondered whether she ought to go to the Whitaker’s and check on them, just in case.
But was she concerned for Mary, or was she serving her own curiosity? The message didn’t say that it was urgent, but she’d sensed a somewhat desperate tone. Fran knew she was speculating, and she couldn’t be completely sure. She picked at some dry skin on her lip waiting for a response.
“Shiraz?”
“Sure.”
She took the stem of the glass as Adrian passed it to her. They’d ordered a Chinese takeaway and were waiting for it to arrive.
“Everything all right?” Adrian said.
Fran thought about keeping the message to herself, perhaps out of a sense of shame that she hadn’t been able to not look at her phone for a full day. Then she changed her mind and showed it to him.
“That is odd,” he agreed.
“Do you think she’s in danger?”
“I think she would have called the police if she was,” Adrian said. “Or called you even. It’s one message from hours ago.”
Something niggled at the back of Fran’s mind. It was a throwaway comment Mary had made about Esther not trusting the police. Did Mary not trust the police either? If her life was in danger would she rely on them for help? They’d called the police when Esther went missing, so perhaps Adrian was right. Still, she couldn’t shake her instinct to act.
“Do you think I should go over there?” She felt stupid asking, but she had to. She needed a second opinion, because yet again dread built up from her insides, seeping into every limb, every fingertip.
“No,” Adrian said. He took the glass of wine from her hands and held them with his own, thumbs running up and down along the backs. “Franny, I was too dismissive at first, and I’m sorry for that. Your concerns were valid then, and they are now. But this is becoming a burden on your mental health. They are adults and they need to make their own decisions. If something’s happened, they can call the police like anyone else would.”
“What if they don’t?”
“They will.” He dropped her hands. “If it was a matter of life or death, which I don’t think this is, they’d call the emergency services. None of them are stupid, not even the girl. She’s one of the most alarmingly bright children I’ve ever met. And I know you have your concerns about Elijah, but he doesn’t drink or do drugs. He’s a man in control.”
“In too much control.”
“Perhaps.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But—”
“What? She should leave him?”
“Well, yes,” he said, removing his fingers. “Yes, she should.”
“That’s not how abuse works,” Fran snapped. “It wears women down. Physically. Emotionally. It makes them think they’re nothing. That they can’t be saved, and certainly that they can’t save themselves. It makes them internalise every bad thought they’ve ever had about themselves, isolates them and forces them to be dependent on their abuser. No, she can’t just leave.” She stood, a rush of blood surging through her veins. His words had made up her mind. She was going to go to their house, and she didn’t care if it was socially impolite, or something a crazy person would do. She was convinced Mary needed her help, and she was going to give her that help whether she wanted it or not.
“Fran,” Adrian called. “Fran!”
She thought about ignoring him as she stormed out of the house. But something about his tone made her stop.
He sighed. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry, but she let him continue. “If you’re going over there, at least let me drive you.”
Chapter Thirty-One
When Adrian pulled up to the kerb, the first thing Fran noticed was the fact that Elijah’s car wasn’t there, which meant he might have gone to his part-time delivery job. But then she noticed that there were no lights on in the house despite the sunlight dwindling as night drew in. She unclipped her seatbelt and walked with Adrian to the porch. He tutted at the graffiti and shook his head. Seeing it again made Fran’s blood start pumping. Who did this to them? She exchanged a glance with Adrian before pressing the doorbell. The cheery bing bong sounded out, but there was no answer. She tried again. Nothing.
Finding that odd, she picked her way over the gravel coated front garden and peered in through the bay window. The curtains were still open despite the sun beginning to set, and inside she saw that their sitting room was empty. What’s more, it was tidy. Spotless in fact, with no dolls on the floor, no scraps of fabric slung over chairs. Surely that was a good sign. Mary had been keeping the house tidy after she and Fran cleaned it up. And yet, it didn’t feel good, it felt wrong, but she wasn’t sure why.
Fran pulled away from the window and walked back to Adrian. “I can’t see anyone inside.”
“Perhaps they’ve gone out for dinner,” he suggested. “Or taken Esther to the cinema.”
It didn’t feel right. Why would a family notorious for rarely leaving the house suddenly go out one evening? This absence, along with the strange message from Mary, put Fran’s nerves on edge. Where could they be? Unless they’d gone to stay with Elijah’s cousin in Derby, which would make sense given the nasty graffiti. But if they were planning to go to Derby, why did Mary send her the text message?
“I’m going to check the garden,” Fran said.
“I’ll come with you.”
She unhooked the latch on the garden gate and entered. Now it felt like they were trespassing, but she didn’t care. From here they could look into the kitchen, which was empty, and dark. There were a few plates piled up onto the draining board, a kettle and toaster in the same spot as before. It was tidy enough. There were no jars or tubs of butter on the kitchen side. The small table was empty. Even though everything was tidy, something felt out of place to Fran.
“Oh,” she said.
“What is it?”
“The artwork on the fridge. It’s gone.” She pressed a finger to the window, pointing in the direction of the fridge.
“What? Esther’s artwork?”
“Yep. A picture of a rainbow. I remember it clearly. Drawn in crayon. I think we need to talk to the neighbours.” Fran made her way back to the front of the house. She was absolutely sure now that the family had left. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the letters on the front of the house. LEAVE.
She vaguely knew the woman who lived on the left side of the Whitakers. A dermatologist she’d once seen for adult acne. Unfortunately, Fran couldn’t remember her name. Joan. Jean. Maybe Jenny? She rapped enthusiastically on the door and waited, fingers twitching against her hips. Adrian came to stand by her side.
“Hello,” said the dermatologist. “Mrs Cole, isn’t it?”
“Fran.”
The woman nodded. “That’s right.”
“Sorry to bother you at this time,” Fran said. She noticed the woman
looking at Adrian and added, “This is my husband, Adrian. Sorry, again. It’s just that I got a message from Mary earlier today and I was a bit worried about her. We came to make sure everything was okay and couldn’t help noticing that the house seemed empty. We just wondered if you’d seen anything?”
“You mean the Whitakers? Actually, yes,” she said. “They’re very quiet, you know. I hardly hear a peep out of them. But today there was some shouting.” She jutted her chin towards the graffiti. “I think it was because of that. Some unpleasant business and not called for if you ask me. Anyway, I heard Elijah yelling, but it didn’t last long. About two hours later I saw them packing travel bags into the car. It took them a while. There were suitcases, too. Then they left.” She shrugged. “They’ve either gone on holiday or they’ve moved out for good. I know they were renting but they didn’t take any appliances with them.”
“Right,” Fran said. “How did they seem when they got in the car?”
“Um.” She sighed, tilting her head back as though considering her question. “Stressed to be honest. I think Mary had been crying. But the little girl was happy.”
“She was?”
“Yes. She was smiling.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Once back in the car, Fran kept picturing Esther’s smile. She’d barely seen more than a smirk from Esther. There was no smile when they ordered her ice cream or a hot chocolate. No smile when Fran offered to buy her something from the gift shop. No smile when they walked past a puppy. Fran had never known such a serious child, but then she’d only ever known Esther in Leacroft, away from her home and possibly family too, although Mary tended to avoid talking about Arizona.
What if Esther had been a happier child in her hometown? She thought of the rainbow, a picture that had struck her as evoking a happier time. It was possible that there were layers to Esther that Fran had never seen. And it was possible that Esther was smiling because she finally got to go home.
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