‘A girl from work. Her name’s Sadie. I think she’s …’
On the ads team. Blond hair, legs to her armpits. Barely twenty. ‘Yeah, I know who she is.’ She felt strangely incapable of reaction, as if the information wouldn’t quite penetrate her brain. ‘How long?’
‘A few weeks, maybe a couple of months. But it finished ages ago. Listen, Clara—’
She cut across him, ‘A couple of months? And is he … does he love her?’
His reply was emphatic. ‘God, no! No, of course not. He loves you, Clara, I know he does.’
She gave a weak laugh. ‘Clearly.’
‘It was just … oh God, Clara, I’m so sorry.’
She stared at him. ‘But he asked me to move in with him! Why? Why do that if you’re shagging someone else?’
‘He knew Sadie was a huge mistake. He realized it was you he wanted.’
She nodded. ‘Great. Lucky me.’
A silence. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Mac?’ she asked him quietly. She realized she felt almost as betrayed by him as she did by Luke, almost as hurt by her friend’s deceit as by the man who was supposed to be in love with her. She thought of all the times she, Luke and Mac had spent together, when she’d been oblivious to the secret they shared, and her cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment.
‘I—’
She glanced at him, her voice suddenly hard. ‘Don’t tell me. Because you’re his best friend. Lads sticking together, right? Some stupid fucking boy code?’
His face was a picture of misery. ‘Clara, listen to me …’
She waved his words away. ‘Does everyone know?’ She thought of Luke’s large circle of friends – people they socialized with together, met up with at the pub, invited round for dinner, and her humiliation deepened. ‘All of you, all his mates?’
‘No! God, I don’t know. He felt awful about it. He didn’t know what to do, he was in absolute bits …’
It was then she remembered something. ‘That’s what you meant about him going away to clear his head,’ she said, and the flicker in Mac’s eyes confirmed it.
‘At first I thought maybe he was with her. But I called her and he wasn’t. Then I thought maybe he did go away somewhere to try and sort himself out, get his head straight, but … I don’t think so. It doesn’t add up – not telling work, his parents, me, not taking any of his stuff … and the thing with Sadie ended ages ago.’
From outside on the street Clara heard the jingling crash of crates of beers being delivered to the bar on the corner. They sat and listened to it, a sound she associated with summer, with sitting outside pubs on sunlit pavements with Luke, with being happy.
‘Clara? Are you OK? I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.’
She looked at his anxious face and suddenly felt so tired she could barely stand. She sank back on to the sofa. ‘Just go, Mac,’ she said quietly. ‘Just go the fuck home now, will you?’
7
Cambridgeshire, 1988
There was a local woman, a childminder named Kathy Philips, who occasionally took care of Hannah for me when I needed a break. She was, in hindsight, a bit slack; her home was haphazard, she had four children of her own, plus at least one other mindee whenever I dropped Hannah off. But she was a kind, no-nonsense sort, and, most importantly, she was willing – by then Hannah’s reputation had spread throughout our village; there weren’t a lot of people willing to look after her. I was desperate, I’ll admit.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that Hannah did what she did. She had told me that morning she didn’t want to go: ‘They’re stupid and boring and their house smells of wee,’ was I think how she put it. So this, I expect, was her way of punishing me.
I’ll never forget the fury in Kathy’s voice when she called. ‘Come and pick your daughter up right now,’ she spat, before slamming the phone back down. As I drove over there I mentally ran through the possibilities. Attacked one of the other kids? Stolen something? But no, it was far worse than either of those things. Kathy was waiting for me at her door when I pulled up and the expression on her face made my blood run cold. ‘She set fire to my son’s bedroom,’ she told me through gritted teeth.
There was no coming back from that. There was no sweeping that under the carpet – no pretending she’d grow out of it, that it was merely some dreadful phase. Hannah had taken some matches from Kathy’s handbag, sneaked upstairs and made a pile of Callum’s books, then set fire to them. Kathy, luckily, had smelt the smoke before it had spread too far – but not before she’d burned a large brown hole in the carpet. I hate to think what would have happened if it had been allowed to take hold.
‘Callum was being annoying,’ Hannah shrugged, when I asked her why she’d done it. By this time she was seven years old.
It was a small village. She had already bullied half the school by then and Kathy wasn’t the type to keep anything to herself. Soon everyone would know. Long ago, in my na?ve, pre-children days when I used to dream about my future family, I believed I would make friends with all the other local mothers. Our kids would play happily together in each other’s gardens; lasting friendships would be formed. Of course back then I believed we’d still be living in our old village, the one I myself had grown up in. But it wasn’t to be. Still, I’d hoped very much to be a part of this new community. It was to be a fresh start for us all. Yet here we were: my child was a pariah. She had no friends, was never invited anywhere to play. The other school mums would meet up regularly but never include me. And now this. I didn’t know how I’d be able to face going out in public again.
The next day, after dropping Hannah off at school, I drove to Peterborough library. I headed to the Psychology section and began to search. I scarcely knew what I was looking for until I found it, and when I did, I barely noticed my tears as they fell.
When Doug got home from work that night I was sitting on the sofa waiting for him. He’d got back late the night before so we hadn’t had a chance to talk properly about what Hannah had done and he looked at me warily as he came in.
‘I just want you to listen to me, OK?’ I said.
When he nodded and sat down next to me I handed him the wedge of photocopies I’d made that afternoon. He glanced at me, brow furrowed, before flicking through them. I held my breath.
Finally he looked up, his eyes wide. ‘Personality Disorders in Childhood?’ he said. ‘Early Warning Signs of Sociopathy? Are you serious?’
I leant towards him. ‘Doug, it’s time we faced facts. We can’t continue like this, Hannah set fire to Callum’s room, she hurt my eye so badly I had to go to A&E. She killed Lucy … then there’s the lying, the stealing, the bullying …’ I could hear my voice rising and I made myself stop and take a breath. ‘There’s something called Antisocial Personality Disorder and the books say there are certain red flags to look out for.’ Eagerly I took the printouts from him and flicked through until I found the one I wanted, reading aloud, ‘“Antisocial Personality Disorder and sociopathy can be traced back to childhood: desire to torture or kill animals; predilection for arson, manipulation of others. Lack of remorse, apparent absence of emotion …”’ I looked up at him. ‘Doug, there might as well be a picture of Hannah right next to this!’
‘Beth,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘Come on now …’
‘Why are you denying it?’ I asked. ‘We could get her help. We could get us help.’
‘So, what – you want her committed?’ he replied, his distress adding a harsh angry edge to his voice. ‘Locked up? Are you saying she’s – what? – some sort of future serial killer? Is that it?’
‘No! No of course I’m not saying that. I’m as scared as you are. I love Hannah! But I know there’s something badly wrong with our little girl, and we need to get her help as soon as possible. I know you’re frightened, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t love her. And what – what if she hurts Toby?’