The Hidden Girl (28 page)

‘He’s got kids, right? My girl’s little mate and her mum saw you. You come near him again and I’ll do you. You understand? And you, get your hands off me,’ she spat at Dax.

Bewildered, Hannah gestured helplessly to Will. ‘I have no idea why he’s saying this.’ She turned back to Dax. ‘Please. I told you we’re waiting to adopt. Why are you doing this? It’s not funny.’

‘Emotional, in’t she?’ Dax said to Will.

‘No, this is emotional, mate,’ Will said, pushing past Hannah again.

Dax laughed, squaring up to him. ‘What you going to do – sing me a nice song?’

Hannah shoved Will back again. ‘Will! Don’t do it. He’ll call the police, and we’ll lose her.’

Will ducked like a boxer out of her grasp. He kicked Dax’s gate, shot her a furious look, then jumped in the driver’s side of the car and slammed the door.

‘Will!’

Hannah tried to grab the door handle, but he drove off, ripping it from her fingers.

‘Will!’

Dax leant over the gate and lit a cigarette.

Hannah turned. ‘Why did you do that? Why would you do that to me?’

Dax blew out a relaxed puff of smoke.

‘He believes you! It’s not funny!’

‘Hmm,’ Dax said, appearing to mull something over. ‘Tell you what. Wait there a minute.’

He returned inside. The child watched her through the window. Why had he lied about having a family? Dax returned, thrust an envelope into her hand and disappeared back into his front door.

Hannah opened it, praying it was a note to say that it was all a stupid joke that had gone too far.

To Owner, Tornley Hall
, the note said.
Work completed 1 x day, @ £200 per day. Logs, £20. Glass plus installation, £50. Total: £270.00 plus 20% VAT
.

Will drove so fast out of Tornley that his wheels struggled to keep traction on the tarmac. He rammed the wheel down at the next bend, and the car bucked.

He wanted to smash that wanker’s face. The image of him having sex with Hannah in the truck seared into his mind. He took another bend, faster. As one hand fought to keep the wheel down, he used the other to turn the music up.

There was a bump. The back wheel hit a low kerb. The car swerved the opposite way.

He knew he’d fucked up, but right that minute he didn’t care.

Hannah.

Too late, Will saw a car turning into the junction thirty yards ahead.

His car hit a skid. He turned into it and came to a furious, screeching halt flat across the road.

The car in front slammed on its brakes too. Laurie jumped out.

‘What the hell are you doing! I’ve got kids, you arse.’

Her face was beetroot. She looked like Nan Riley when she had found a condom in his pocket, aged fifteen. He felt ashamed then, and he did so again now.

He opened the door. ‘Sorry, Lor.’

A 4x4 turned into the road behind Laurie. She held up a hand.

‘What’s happened?’

Will gripped the steering wheel. ‘She did it.’

‘Who?’

‘Hannah.’

Laurie’s shoulders slumped. ‘No.’

The 4x4 growled behind them.

‘Shit. Who told you?’

‘He did.’

‘Aw, Will.’ She waved a hand again at the driver. ‘OK. Come on, I’ll help you reverse.’

He did what she asked, even though what he wanted to do was ram the fucking car into a tree.

Hannah walked away from Dax’s cottage, gripping the invoice in trembling fingers.

The last hour had been a waking nightmare.

Will had never talked to her like that in eight years. How could he drive off and leave her, like that – now?

She wanted to press ‘Delete’ and start again. Make it all go away, but she knew it wouldn’t. It was happening again.

She was going to lose this child.

There was a gate ahead into the marshes. She gagged with the shock. Then she leant over and vomited into the long grass. The invoice fell from her hand and landed in it.

The photo of the little girl’s face entered her mind.

Her heart opened up and swallowed her. This could not be happening.

A car pulled up to her right. ‘Hannah!’ Laurie waved through the open window. ‘In.’

Robotically Hannah did as she asked, and sat shivering with shock in the front seat.

‘Will drove off really fast. I think he’s going to crash.’

Laurie drove towards Tornley Hall. ‘No, he’s not. I’ve just seen him. I told him to slow down. He’s gone on to ours. Ian’s waiting. His mum’s got the kids.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘I didn’t sleep with that man.’

Laurie looked exasperated. ‘Well, he thinks you did. God, Hannah, why would they both say it?’

Hannah wound down the window, inexplicably hot. ‘I asked Dax for help and he turned on me. I can’t believe Will believes him.’

‘He said the guy said something convincing.’

Summat you’re not giving her at home?

‘No. That was a coincidence. That would wind anyone up.’ Hannah rested her head on the window, stunned. ‘What happened to Barbara?’

‘Nothing,’ Laurie said. ‘It was fine. She stayed twenty minutes. Kids behaved. Ian behaved. I told her what a fine, upstanding couple you are.’ She rolled her eyes.

Hannah rifled in a box for a tissue as they approached Tornley Hall. ‘Laurie, why would I do all this, then throw everything away – now?’

Laurie bit her lip.

‘What’s Will said?’

‘Nothing. I just get the feeling that things haven’t been right for a while.’

‘From me?’

‘From Will.’

A chill ran through Hannah.

Laurie turned into the drive. ‘He’s seems all over the place, to me. He used to look like that when he came here in the summer. He hates change. And you’re making him change everything. He can’t deal with it, Hannah.’ She parked.

Hannah felt her frustration rising. Why didn’t anyone ever understand?

Hannah turned to face her. ‘Laurie, listen – no offence, but you have no idea what it’s like. No one does. I mean, you got pregnant, what: three times? It just happened for you. It didn’t for us. This is it. Our only chance of becoming parents is if the social workers say we can. I’m just trying to make them choose us and . . .’ she laughed, ‘. . . it worked! Barbara loved the house! She likes you. She’s found us a child. And all we had to do was meet the child’s social workers and persuade them, and that would be it!’ She flung open the car door. ‘And then Will strops off like a sulky teenager because he believes that guy, over me.’ She put her legs out of the car. ‘You know, I’m starting to wonder if Will really wants to do this. Just last week he was talking about pulling out. I mean, he doesn’t
need
to do this. He could go out tomorrow and shag someone – not something Will’s ever found particularly difficult – and have a kid.’

She drew a long breath, then looked up at the huge house with nobody in it.

Laurie picked up a packet of kids’ sweets and offered her one. ‘OK, well, Will clearly does want to do it – he’s just freaked out. What I don’t understand is this woman, Elvie. What’s she got to do with everything?’

Hannah took a sweet. ‘Oh, I really don’t know. And I don’t know how I’ve got involved with it. I just know she needs help. Her parents are away, and she’s vulnerable.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘I don’t know. Her mother said she’d had a difficult birth. So brain damage, perhaps? Learning difficulties? That’s why it’s so bad. The farmer was hitting her. She must know that Elvie can’t – or won’t – tell anyone. I saw bruises. I mean, what would you do?’

‘Call the police?’

Hannah laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, that would be great, wouldn’t it. “Hi, Barbara, welcome to our house; here’s Elvie, she’s being beaten up by the nutter next door, who has a rifle, but honestly it’s a really safe place for you to bring a vulnerable foster child to.” She imitated Barbara’s voice. ‘“Er, OK. Well, let’s just give it another six months, until it’s sorted.” Or maybe never at all.’

Laurie ate her sweet. ‘Barbara doesn’t have a hotline to the Suffolk police.’

‘No, but if she found out later – say, if the case went to court and was in the papers – she might think we’d lied to her about our lives, and how we lived. You need to be completely transparent with social services. They’re trusting you with a child.’

Laurie shrugged. ‘Well then, maybe you should have just walked away from Elvie. Your kids have to be the priority. I’m not being funny, Hannah, but what is it with you, needing always to get involved in other people’s problems.’

Hannah bristled. She remembered Laurie telling her that she hadn’t voted because ‘politicans were all as bad as each other’. ‘I don’t know – if we all said that, Laurie, then nobody would help anyone.’

‘OK, but when it affects your own life this much, that’s when I don’t get it. Will used to get in a right state when you went off to those places for work.’

Hannah frowned. ‘No, he didn’t.’

‘He did!’ Laurie pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘That time when you couldn’t get home, because some soldiers had taken over the airport or something. He was going mental. I thought he was going to get on a plane over there.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘But why do you do it?’

She realized Laurie was asking an honest question. ‘Well, why are any of us the way we are? I don’t know – because of my parents probably. They always took us on marches: CND, and the miners . . . Dad was a union rep. I don’t know – it’s just the way we are. My brothers are the same. One works for a medical charity in Johannesburg, the other one’s in politics.’

Laurie chewed her sweet thoughtfully. ‘So where do you think this woman is now?’

‘I don’t know. She keeps getting into the house, but then she disappears.’

Laurie nearly choked. ‘Getting into your house?’

Hannah nodded. ‘I don’t think she can feed herself, so she’s been stealing food. And I think she’s been using the house as a place to hide from the farmer. It’s sad – she’s obviously confused about why Will and I are here at all, in “her house”. She’s been trying to scare us away.’

‘Really? And the parents have just left her on her own?’

‘I think they’re in denial. They just want to keep her busy. I’m pretty sure Elvie could be doing more than working for that abusive old cow, though. She’s brilliant at gardening.’

‘And you definitely saw the farmer hitting her?’

‘I filmed it.’

Laurie threw her hands up. ‘You filmed it? For God’s sake. Hannah, why didn’t you say that – show Will!’

‘He ran off!’

Laurie flung open her own door. ‘Right. Enough of this. Let’s take the phone back and show him.’

Hannah let them into Tornley Hall with her key and went to fetch her phone from the hall table. Too late, she remembered searching for it this morning.

‘Oh, I forgot. It’s not here,’ she said uneasily.

This time she searched for it carefully. The drawer of the hall table was empty too, and nothing was plugged into any of the sockets they used to charge their phones. She widened her search to every room in the house: beside her bed, in her coat pocket, down the side of the sofa.

‘It’s really not here,’ Hannah said.

Laurie frowned. ‘Could Will have taken it?’

Hannah looked at the front door and her hand flew to her mouth.

‘Oh my God! No, but I found Dax in the hall last night. The phone was on the table.’

‘You think Dax took it?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Why?’

‘Maybe Madeleine told him to.’

‘Because . . . ?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hannah replied, having to stop herself shouting in frustration at Laurie.

Laurie glanced around the big, echoing hall and up the stairs to the dark upstairs landing. She wrapped her arms around her chest and shivered. ‘You know, Hannah, it’s just as well you’re brave. I’d get the creeps out here. I know my house is the size of a cereal box, but at least I’ve got my neighbours through the wall.’

‘Well, I wasn’t expecting to be out here without Will.’ The thought of her old neighbours in the London flat made her miss her old life more than she could bear. When everything was normal with Will. When they were happy. The prospect of another restless night in the shadows without him, with the creaking walls and floors of Tornley Hall for company, was unbearable right now. Especially after Barbara’s news.

A terror filled her that this had all been for nothing. That it had ruined everything it was supposed to fix.

‘OK, well, listen – I’ve got to get back to the kids,’ Laurie said, opening the front door. ‘I’ll get Ian to take Will to the pub and calm him down. Try and find the phone, then come over tomorrow and we’ll bang your heads together.’

Her eye fixed on the table in the kitchen. Hannah turned and saw the photo of the little girl.

‘That’s her.’ She went to fetch it and held it up.

‘Aw, don’t,’ Laurie said, following her. ‘You’ll make me cry. Oh, look at her. She looks like both of you – little pumpkin.’ She touched Hannah’s arm. ‘We’ll sort it out.’

She glanced around the kitchen.

‘What?’ Hannah asked.

‘Every time I come here I remember that night with Nan. Someone was definitely shouting, and Nan was cross.’ She returned to the hall and opened the door. ‘Right, leave it to me. Get some rest.’

Hannah said she would, but she didn’t.

She knew if she sat down or went to bed, her mind would fill with images too awful to contemplate.

So when Laurie left, she spent the rest of the evening checking in every box and drawer in the house for her phone.

She had to find those photos to show Will.

She needed him back. This was their child.

As Laurie suggested, Ian did take Will to the pub that night, and when he woke on Laurie’s sofa the following morning, his head was thick with a whisky fuzz. There was a heavy weight on his legs.

He prised his eyes open.

The image ploughed back into his head of Hannah and that tosser in the truck.

He tried to sit up and found Daniel sitting on his legs, playing a video game. The TV clock said 6.15 a.m.

‘What’s your score?’ Will croaked.