As I turn to go back inside, I notice a plastic bag wedged up against the porch door frame. And when I look inside, I find four huge cooking apples. A gift from Mrs Jones next door – she must have dropped them off when Matt and I were talking. A rush of fear runs through me as I think back to our conversation, what she could have overheard. But I’m being paranoid. The walls of this old cottage are too thick for level voices to travel.
Our porch is the one place in the house – other than the girls’ bedrooms since the agreement was reached a couple of years ago – that Matt isn’t neurotic about keeping tidy. As a result, it’s a mess, with mud-caked wellies, tennis rackets, old flip-flops and other odds and sods cast around. I wonder if I should tidy it up as a gesture of goodwill. But as I pause to consider the task, I spot the torch on top of a box of old newspapers. Milla must have dumped it there when she got home in the early hours of Saturday morning. I roll my eyes, pick it up, and slide it under my arm carrying the apples. I walk through to the kitchen, and it’s only when I drop the bag on the worktop that I notice the stains on my jumper.
‘Great,’ I mutter under my breath. The torch handle is filthy. Milla must have dropped it in some mud when she fell asleep. With a sigh, I run it under the hot tap, and leave it on the drainer to dry.
AFTER
Wednesday 8th May
Rachel
I’m supposed to be working from home this afternoon, and I’ve got half a dozen reports to review, but I can’t concentrate. With a sigh, I lean back in my chair and flip down the laptop screen.
Maybe I need some fresh air.
Decision made, I pull on my trainers and head outside. The temperature is fresh, but the sun’s shining and there’s a sense of spring in the air. I suck it in. Amber’s death is a profound tragedy, and my heart goes out to her sister, who’s already suffered so much loss. But I have no reason to feel guilty. Because her death has nothing to do with my family.
By the time I reach The Crown, I’m warm and thirsty. We’ve been coming to this pub, off and on, for seventeen years, so I know most of the bar staff, and especially Steve and Jade who’ve been running the place for even longer than we’ve lived here. I push open the door and head to the bar. It’s relatively quiet – just a couple of tables filled with people I don’t recognise – and Steve comes straight over. ‘Hey, Rachel, don’t normally see you in here at lunchtime?’
I climb onto a bar stool. ‘Working from home today, fancied a change of scenery.’ I was planning to order a Coke, but now I’m sitting opposite the gleaming draught pumps, I hear myself order half a Moretti instead. I watch Steve pour the drink, then raise the glass to him when I take my first sip.
‘Terrible business, isn’t it,’ he says, nodding his head in the vague direction of the Ridgeway. ‘A murder in Chinnor. Hard to believe.’
‘Mmm,’ I murmur, taking another sip. I left home to get away from thinking about Amber Walsh, but I should have known better.
‘They’re journalists over there,’ Steve continues when I don’t bite, gesturing towards one of the tables where two men and a woman are hunched over empty coffee cups and oversized iPhones. ‘The Bucks Herald, the Oxford Mail and the Bucks Free Press,’ Steve lists, counting them off on his fingers. ‘Apparently a couple of the nationals were sniffing around at the weekend, but as soon as they heard that the victim was a foster kid dealing drugs, they lost interest. Like it’s not really news if someone like her gets killed.’
‘God, that’s shit, isn’t it?’ While the last thing I want is for this case to get any more publicity, I hate the idea that lives have different values. If Amber was middle-class and played the violin, her picture would be on the front page of every newspaper. My eyes grow hot as that thought develops. If it had been Lucy up there on the Ridgeway, or Milla, they would be household names by now. Talked about in coffee shops and around family dinner tables up and down the country. But not so with Amber. She’s destined to be a statistic, an anonymised example of how the state is still failing our most vulnerable.
As a social worker, it’s my job to rail against this reality, to show the world that looked-after children deserve the same love and respect as their peers with stable homes, and that every backward step on that journey is a tragedy. But that’s not how I feel today. Right now, those statistics are my reassurance. A framework to hang my own children’s innocence on.
‘Have you heard anything?’ I ask. ‘About the police investigation?’
‘Well,’ Steve starts, pretending to sound reluctant, then leaning in. ‘Between you and me, I did hear that the police fancy someone for it.’ He shrugs. ‘If the girl was selling drugs, maybe he was her dealer.’
‘Really?’ It comes out as a squeak, so I take a sip of beer. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Do you know Julie and Keith?’ he asks, lowering his voice.
I shake my head, shrug my shoulders.
‘Yeah, you do. He’s a Formula One nut, always banging on about that TV show Drive to Survive. Anyway, he works at the tyre place in Thame. Which is next door to McCormick’s garage. Do you know where I mean?’
An image of a small, tired-looking unit on the industrial estate comes to me. Cracked alarm box and forest green hoarding. ‘I think so.’
‘Keith was on his lunch break yesterday when two detectives turned up and hauled off some young bloke from the garage. He asked around, and apparently it was in connection with the murder.’
‘Wow,’ I say, taking a bigger gulp of beer. A male mechanic. Strong enough to smash a girl’s face in. Of course it would be someone like that. ‘Did Keith say anything else?’
‘Only that the lad’s been in trouble before. McCormick was giving him a second chance. Oh, and that the police took some bits away with them, in those evidence bags.’
‘What bits?’
‘I dunno. Christ, I hope she wasn’t whacked with one of McCormick’s tools,’ he adds, grimacing. ‘Can you imagine how much damage a wrench or a hammer would do in the wrong hands?’
I force a murmur of assent, which turns into a cough, my eyes watering with the effort. Steve’s face drops. ‘Shit, sorry, Rachel. I forgot you found her. How are you? God, here’s me going on about the murder weapon when you saw it all with your own eyes.’
‘It wasn’t the best,’ I manage.
He nods, but his expression morphs into awkwardness. As though he’s worried that I’m going to start crying on him. ‘Another half?’ he says hopefully. ‘On the house?’ But I need to get back outside, find the sunshine again.
‘No. Thanks though. I’ll see you soon, Steve.’ I drain my drink, give him a quick wave, then slide off the bar stool. I focus my gaze on the polished wooden floor in case any of the journalists try to make eye contact, but they seem more bored than curious.
Clouds have come over while I’ve been inside, and the wind’s picked up, but I still feel better than I did before I left home. If Steve’s right, someone is going to be charged with the murder soon, and we can all start to move on. I need a few things for supper, and I’m in no hurry to go back to my empty house, so I turn left instead of right out of the pub, and head towards the Co-op, inside Chinnor’s only petrol station.
I push open the door and bump straight into Annie holding a basket. I expect her to launch into conversation, but she doesn’t say a word. I worry for a moment that it’s awkwardness, the secret I’ve forced her to keep about Milla without saying a word. But then she angles her head towards the next aisle along and gives me a hard stare. A stare that says, DON’T LOOK OVER THERE. I automatically shift my gaze to where I’m not supposed to. Then wish I hadn’t.
Jess Scott stares back at me, her face ashen. I think it’s grief at first, but then realise it’s white-hot rage.
I want to turn away, pretend I don’t recognise her, leave the shop. But I can tell she knows who I am, Lucy Rose’s mother, and the woman who found her sister. I need to be braver. ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘It’s Jess, isn’t it?’
She nods but doesn’t speak. Her red hair is loose on her shoulders and looks like it hasn’t been brushed in days. She’s tall, angular, and with a wildness about her that makes the shelves appear like the iron bars of a cage. She’s holding a bag of Skittles, but her grip is so strong, I worry that it’s going to burst.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I start. ‘About your sister. I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now …’ I trail off, and silence reigns once again, but Jess is staring so intently, that I don’t feel like I can break eye contact. I sense Annie backing away, and I’m both sad to lose her support, and grateful that she’s not witnessing this exchange.
‘Bill said you found her,’ Jess says suddenly, making me jump.
‘Um, yes, that’s right,’ I answer, nodding. ‘I go running up there.’
‘I know,’ she cuts in. ‘Amber used to watch you. With Lucy.’
I pull my bottom lip with my teeth. The thought of Amber watching us run causes a rush of nausea, even though she can’t hurt us now. But I shouldn’t take it out on her bereaved sister. Lucy always said that Amber was the real bully, Jess just her sidekick. ‘That’s right. We run together sometimes, but I was on my own on Saturday.’
‘So did Lucy tell you where to find her?’
My pulse rate ticks up. ‘Sorry?’
‘Where she left Amber’s body after she killed her?’
My heart is booming now. My skin fizzing. I’m aware this means my fight-or-flight mode has kicked in, but I don’t seem capable of either. ‘That’s, that’s not true,’ I stutter.
She takes a step towards me. She’s taller than me, but her face is still childlike. ‘Are you sure?’ she presses. Her eyes are blue, impossibly bright, and her face is covered in freckles. She’s beautiful, I realise. I hadn’t noticed at first.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ I whisper. I want to take a step back, but I’m already close to the shelves and I don’t want to knock anything off, give the other shoppers a reason to look over.
‘We’ll see about that,’ she says, then twists away from me and walks out of the shop.
AFTER
