A series of images flood my mind. His pale, tear-stained face when he returned on Friday night. Our bedroom ceiling as I lay next to him in the near darkness, listening to the story of his traumatic night. The apologies. His black mood on Saturday. His distracting explanation of why Milla didn’t see Jess by the old train carriages.
But there’s no image of the badger who lost its life.
Because I never saw it; I only have Matt’s word.
Bile collects in my mouth, and I dry-heave.
The noise has stopped, and no one has appeared – a false alarm, thank God – but next time it won’t be. It’s seven o’clock and I know plenty of my colleagues who like to start early. I need to get out of here. I shove my laptop and the printouts into my bag, push my chair under the desk, and scurry back to the car park. I unlock my car door and sink into the fake leather seat. But it only gives me a few seconds’ reprieve before I realise that I could still bump into someone I know. I imagine the tap on my window, the small wave as they wait for me to join them. I push my key into the ignition and drive away, my tyres spinning with desperation.
I stir my cup of tea. I don’t take sugar so it’s a pointless endeavour, but I like watching the liquid swirl in a smooth circular motion. It’s calming. But then a drop spills, breaking the flow, and I reluctantly lift my gaze.
Despite the early hour, the small café is half-full. There’s a group of four men in dusty clothes and high-vis jackets eating bacon rolls and drinking fancy iced coffees. Another man is alone. Smartly dressed, drinking Lucozade from the bottle, and frowning at his phone. The rest of the clientele look to be students – their final pit stop after a night of partying on their way back to their tatty student houses. People always associate Oxford with its famous university – dreaming spires and cerebral students navigating cobbled streets on old-fashioned bicycles. But the reality is mostly different. Especially around here, where cheaply built post-war housing sits alongside 1960s tower blocks, and all of it is covered in a thin layer of grime from the factories that line the city’s ring road.
‘Mind if I wipe your table?’ A woman’s voice wafts into my brain. I look up, nod, then lift my mug as she smears a cloth across the laminate. ‘Ta,’ she says, then moves on to the next table, oblivious to my problems. Of course she is. That’s how the world works.
But I can’t deal with this on my own. It’s too much. Matt and I have been together since we were 18 years old. We’re a team – for better or worse, that’s what we said on that sticky August day with our friends and family watching on. Our marriage isn’t perfect, Matt isn’t perfect, but he’s still my soul mate. The only person I confide everything in. In the past, we’ve always talked through our problems, and I want to do that now. Go home, confront him. But what would I say?
Did you know Lucy was being bullied because of you?
Did you find out the truth about Jess Scott?
Did you follow her on Friday night, then hit her with your car?
Have you hidden her body?
But I know there are even more gruesome questions than that because this didn’t start with Jess. Amber was murdered a week before her sister went missing. Matt’s case wasn’t referenced in her file, but she was Jess’s sister, so she must have been close to it. Her file did mention the incident that led to the girls being moved. It was dated as May 2023, which was the same month that Jess pulled her statement. The file didn’t give a name, but the boy concerned was five years older than Amber and known to the police. It all points to him being Sean Russo – and the incident being linked to Jess’s change of heart.
If Amber was Sean’s friend, like Colleen said, Jess being the fake witness makes sense. Sean asks Amber to help him out, and because she’s devious and selfish, she gets her biddable sister to take the risk instead.
Except Jess changed her mind.
How would Amber have reacted to that?
Yes, Sean roughed her up. But maybe she cared less about her safety, and more about getting back into his good books. Perhaps she devised the plan to terrorise Lucy, punish Matt the only way she could, so that she could deliver what she’d failed to do when Jess pulled her statement.
And if Matt had come to the same conclusion – and then watched his own daughter suffer at Amber’s hands – would he see the younger girl as the real culprit and want to make her pay? He did seem anxious when he came back from searching for Lucy on that Friday night, and he was later home than I expected. But killing a child?
I push out of the chair, and there’s a screech as its metal feet slide across the tiled floor. Conversation halts around me; builders and students turn to stare. God, I can’t stay here either. I lunge for the door, and a few seconds later, I stumble onto the pavement.
I breathe in the early morning air and feel instantly calmer.
This is ridiculous. Matt can get angry – when the house is a mess, or if he feels undermined – but he’s calm, controlled, never violent. I can’t imagine him ever hitting another person. Except …
I blink.
Have I got this wrong from the start?
The police left a message for him yesterday. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with them finding the note – if Matt did something to Jess, he’d have destroyed it anyway – but while Amber’s file might not mention the court case, Jess’s does. Now that she’s gone missing, the investigation team will be combing through her history for clues. They might even be at our house now. Pounding on the door. Matt cowering in the kitchen refusing to let them in, making it worse for himself. But would that be because he’s guilty, or because he’s scared of being wrongly accused for the second time?
I need to find out the truth.
But Jess is missing, not dead, I remind myself. She might well have run away – like Matt said – now that she’s ten grand richer. And the boyfriend was arrested for Amber’s murder. Yes, the police have let him go for now, but that’s probably while they gather more evidence. I’m letting my mind go crazy, just like I did with the girls, blaming someone I love for an appalling crime just because I’ve found a hair’s breadth of a connection. Where’s my loyalty?
I need to prove that Matt is innocent. Milla and Lucy too. And that starts with establishing that Jess is fine – spending her new cash, not buried in the woods, or dumped in Kiln Lakes.
Colleen told me that Jess’s father had been contacted by the police, but she didn’t mention her old foster carers. The girls lived with Lou and Justin Trapnell for years, so they must have been close. Could Jess have gone there? Or at least contacted them? Littlemore is only a fifteen-minute drive from here. I climb into my car, check the printout of Jess’s file for the address, and set off.
AFTER
Monday 13th May
Milla
‘Milla!’ A sound burrows into Milla’s consciousness. She bats it away, rolls onto her side, pulls the duvet over her face.
‘MILLA!’
She groans. ‘What?’ she tries to shout, but it comes out as a croak. She fumbles for her phone and checks the time: 07.48. Does her dad not remember that she’s on study leave now? She rubs her eyes. But as she slowly wakes, the sinking feeling returns to her gut. Could he not have allowed her this one thing? The escapism of sleep? Being able to sink into oblivion and stay there all night – despite everything – has been the only thing that’s got her through the hell of the last ten days.
Her bedroom door flies open and her dad storms inside. ‘Your mum isn’t here!’ He stops, looks around, curls his lip into a grimace. ‘God, your room is a pigsty.’
Milla ignores his criticism – they have a deal after all – but she doesn’t understand why he’s so agitated. Her mum has always been work-obsessed and loves an early start on a Monday morning. ‘So?’
‘She left before I woke up; didn’t say goodbye. And she’d told me she was going to work from home today.’
Milla lengthens her arms, arches her back, and tries to stretch out the tension. It doesn’t work. ‘So call her then.’
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried that?’ her dad snaps, running his palm along his forehead.
