First One Missing (35 page)

‘Who?’

‘Leila Botsford. I saw her and Fiona in the café they went to after ballet and I just knew she’d be a good friend for Megan. I followed them home. Then after that I followed them a few more days until I knew where Leila went to school and what their routine was. It wasn’t hard to swipe Fiona’s phone from her bag in the organic shop. When you get to my age, you’re largely invisible. It comes in handy sometimes.

‘I didn’t hurt her though, Leanne. I would never have done anything to hurt any of them. It’s just that I didn’t want Megan to be lonely. And obviously it was nice for me not to be so lonely either. You don’t know what it’s like. People would say they understood how I was feeling, but they didn’t. There was never anyone who knew
exactly
how I felt. Not until Emma.’

‘You followed Tilly as well.’

‘No, no. I saw her walking to the shops on her own. It was fortuitous, that’s all.’

Fortuitous. Helen was mad. How had Leanne not noticed it before?

Except she had noticed it, she just hadn’t been able to process it. Because mothers of murdered children were expected to be mad, weren’t they? And how were you supposed to assess the correct form for that madness to take?

‘I’m taking you in to the station, Helen. You’ll have your rights read to you there and be formally questioned. You don’t have to say anything else now.’

‘But I want to. It’s a relief really. I know all the families will hate me but they must see that the girls are all together now. They have each other, just as we have each other. That’s why I couldn’t understand how Fiona and Mark could bear to move away. How could they even think about breaking up the group when we bring one another so much comfort? And I did take such great care of their girls. I really did. I do hope you’ll tell them that. When you think of all the awful ways they could have died – like my poor Megan did – to go peacefully off to sleep, with a new, sweet-smelling hankie pressed to the nose and no fear. It’s a kindness. I always told them I was a friend of their mum’s. I had little things belonging to Megan in the car so they’d know I was a mother too, and wouldn’t be afraid. I couldn’t have borne for them to be afraid. And afterwards I treated them like princesses. I brushed their hair.’

Now Leanne understood about the hair bands Emma had become so obsessed by. A normal killer wouldn’t pay attention if a hair elastic came loose when a body was being carried, but Helen had not only noticed but had cared and had replaced the missing band with one that presumably had once belonged to her own daughter.

‘Of course I didn’t like leaving them alone in the car boot overnight – sometimes more than one night – once they were peaceful—’

‘By peaceful, I’m guessing you mean dead.’

Helen winced, as if Leanne had said something obscene.

‘If you like. But even though they were, as you say, dead, I did my best to make it comfortable in there until it was safe for me to drive them somewhere quiet. It was padded with a duvet. Warm and cosy.’

‘And Simon never thought it was odd – you getting up in the middle of the night and going out?’

‘He sleeps like a log. Anyway, he’s used to me getting up at weird times since Megan died. Grief plays havoc with your sleep cycle.’

The two women sat in silence. There was really nothing more to say. In a moment, when she had recovered herself enough, Leanne would switch the engine back on and drive through the empty Sunday-afternoon streets to the station. She didn’t worry about Helen escaping. There was no fight left in her, she could tell. Besides, where would she go now? Leanne thought about the people she’d left behind at the Purvises’ house – the Reids, the Botsfords, Rory. So many lives ripped apart.

As if she could sense Leanne’s thoughts, Helen broke in. ‘Please tell them I looked after their girls as if they were my own, as if they were Megan. That’s why I took it so badly when Poppy was found in that state. You must catch him.’ She was looking straight at Leanne now with those intense eyes. ‘You must catch the monster who did that to her.’

Leanne looked at Helen and wondered how it would feel to be inside her head, to believe killing children was justified as long as they didn’t suffer.

‘I was so lonely after Megan died,’ Helen said again. ‘If it hadn’t been for Rory I would have gone to be with her but I couldn’t do that to him. You wouldn’t believe how much it helped to meet Emma and Guy and Fiona and Mark and now Susan Glover too. We’ve been such a support to each other. I hope they won’t forget that. It feels so wrong to have just left them all at home like that, so rude.’

Leanne turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the kerb. As they drove up the hill towards the police station, they passed two young girls, ten or eleven, eating ice creams and giggling. Helen turned her head and watched until the girls were out of sight.

‘They shouldn’t be out walking on their own,’ she said, and Leanne saw that the hands that rested on her lap were clenched tight. ‘Anything could happen.’

53

A year ago one life ended and a new one began. The life before had Poppy and it had innocence and it had joy. There’s still joy in this new one, but I’m not so careless with it now, I store it in a memory bank in case it should all be taken away. Because life, I now know, hangs always by a thread.

A year ago Helen Purvis (I can even say her name now) was free and walking the streets and parks and she came upon Poppy just as there was a commotion, a purse stolen, something meaningless and yet … The wrong place, the wrong time, that’s what the police said. We couldn’t have known.

And now Helen is in a secure psychiatric hospital and Rory lives with his dad. They moved to escape the publicity. Devon, I think, or Cornwall. Emma says Jemima keeps in touch with him. Rory’s taken up surfing, she says. He’s older but not broken. He will be OK. I’m so glad of that. Sometimes I close my eyes and send him goodwill – more often now I’m to have a son myself.

Emma was the first person I told about the pregnancy, before Oliver even. Funny how the group that Helen so arbitrarily put together has finally gelled in her absence. Even Fiona moving to Australia hasn’t made too much difference. The three of us chat on Skype. Emma and Guy celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary last week. They’re the couple Oliver and I look to whenever things get rocky, which they sometimes do. We say, if Emma and Guy can come through it …

A year ago the world changed but the sun is still out and it is the same sun, just like the jasmine growing on the back fence is the same jasmine, filling the air with the same heady, sweet smell, and the neighbour playing jazz loudly through the open window of the top-floor flat is the same neighbour.

And just for this moment, it is beautiful.

Acknowledgements

As ever, my thanks to the dynamic team at Curtis Brown, particularly Felicity Blunt, Emma Herdman, Vivienne Schuster, Alice Lutyens and Sophie Harris, and to Deborah Schneider in New York. Thanks also to the talented crew at Transworld – Jane Lawson, Marianne Velmans, Suzanne Bridson, Sarah Harwood, Elisabeth Merriman, Kate Samano, Claire Ward, Lynsey Dalladay, Laura Swainbank. And to Jeanette Slinger for her much-appreciated support.

I’m constantly amazed at the generosity of other writers. Thanks to all the writers I’ve met on Twitter and in real life who continue to help keep my neuroses (largely) at bay, particularly Louise Millar, Amanda Jennings, Lisa Jewell, Louise Douglas, Emma Kavanagh (and her very useful policeman husband) and the criminally clever Killer Women crime writers.

Thanks also to the bloggers, like Anne Cater, Liz Barnsley and Pan McIlroy, who spread the book love with such energy and passion. And to the indefatigable Tracy Fenton, founder of The Book Club on Facebook.

It takes a particularly dedicated kind of friend to be still cheerleading by the time book six comes around, so thanks to Rikki Finegold, Roma Cartwright, Juliet Brown, Fiona Godfrey, Renata Barcelos, Steve Griffiths, Sally Thompson, Ed Needham, Jo Lockwood, Helen Bates, Ben Clarke, Maria Trkulja, Mark Heholt, Jos Joures, Snai Patel, Mark Hindley.

Thanks to the Cohens – Gaynor, Sata, Simon, Emma; the Halls – Colin, Ed and Alfie; and the Fawcetts – Paul and Margaret. And lastly to Michael, Otis, Jake and Billie. Sorry for monopolizing the kichen table.

About the Author

Tammy Cohen
(who previously wrote under her formal name Tamar Cohen) has written several acclaimed novels about family fallout:
The Mistress’s Revenge
,
The War of the Wives
and
Someone Else’s Wedding
.
The Broken
was her first psychological thriller, followed by
Dying for Christmas
.

She lives in North London with her partner and three (nearly) grown children, plus one badly behaved dog. Chat with her on Twitter:
@MsTamarCohen
.

Also by Tammy Cohen

The Mistress’s Revenge

The War of the Wives

Someone Else’s Wedding

The Broken

Dying for Christmas

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First published in Great Britain by Bantam Press
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Copyright © Tammy Cohen 2015

Tammy Cohen has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473509580
ISBN 9780857522771

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