I shudder, try not to let him see. Sorrow’s Meadow runs across the back of Ashdon, surrounding us all, trapping us in. I used to take Sophie there sometimes, let her play in the flowers. I can’t imagine I’ll be doing that any more. And Nathan Warren – the name makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Everyone knows Nathan – he lives alone, in his mother’s old house, used to have a job as a caretaker up at the school. Apparently they let him go a few years ago after one of the mothers complained about him. Said he’d followed her daughter back from school. Nothing ever came of it though, as far as I know. It was all before our time. Hearsay. And hearsay can be dangerous, destructive.
I wonder if Ian and Rachel know about it, if the police have a record. Nausea runs through me, and for a horrible moment I panic that I am going to be sick, right on their doorstep. I imagine the vomit splashing onto Clare’s trainers.
‘Please,’ I say to Ian, ‘let me know if there’s anything I can do. For either of you. We’re just next door. We’re here for you.’
He nods, his mouth a tight line. A woman appears behind him – young, short brown hair. Not exactly pretty, but she has kind eyes.
‘This is Theresa,’ Ian says, ‘she’s our support officer.’
‘Family liaison,’ Theresa says, stretching out a hand for me to shake. ‘And you are?’
I don’t like her tone. ‘I’m Jane Goodwin,’ I say, ‘I live next door.’
She smiles at me, and immediately, I feel as though I’ve probably imagined the odd tone. ‘The Edwards are lucky to have good neighbours,’ she says to me in a low voice. ‘It’s times like this when communities can really pull together.’
‘Of course,’ I say to her, ‘my husband and I will do anything we can to help.’
I think of myself tucked up in bed last night, crossing my fingers for poor Clare. It was no good, of course. She was probably already dead.
The police haven’t spoken to us yet, though I imagine they’ll come knocking. The news spread like wildfire today – everyone was talking about it at the school pick-up. No one’s using the word murder, not yet, but no one thinks it was an accident either.
‘I heard it was Nathan Warren that found her,’ Tricia hissed at me this afternoon, as we stood by the school gates. ‘I wonder what the police make of that. D’you remember that fuss a few years back, when he lost his job at the school?’
I nod. I always felt a bit sorry for him; people said he’d had an accident a couple of years ago, that it had affected his mind a bit. He was painting the roof for his mother, Sandra had told me, fell off the ladder, hit his head on the stone. But other people insist he’s never been right, that there’s something more sinister about him. The way he looks at you, one of the mothers had said once, I wouldn’t want him alone with my daughter, put it that way.
I didn’t want to let the children out of my sight today, wanted to wrap my arms around them and never let go. But Jack said we had to carry on as normal, not panic until they release more information. I didn’t like the way he looked at me when he said it, like I was paranoid, overprotective.
Thank God it didn’t take long to find her, at least, I said to Jack when he got home this afternoon, but he didn’t reply. He said he’d had a hard day at the surgery. I told him it was okay, that I understood he was tired, that I knew he hadn’t meant what he said last night. I wondered if he’d forgotten, even, in all the drama over Clare.
Harry was horribly shocked at the news; I spoke to him as soon as he got in from school.
‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ I said to him, ‘I know this must be a dreadful shock, her being around your age. The police are doing everything they can.’ His face went completely white; I got him a chocolate biscuit from the cupboard, usually reserved for special occasions. The last thing I need is multiple trips to the dentist. I put a hand on his arm but he shrugged away from me, took himself off upstairs.
‘Let him be for a bit,’ Jack said to me, ‘he’ll come around.’
I stared after Harry, wondering. My son has become closed off to me these last few months; he mentions school friends, but never girls. It’s normal for teenage boys to be private, Tricia told me a few weeks ago, you probably wouldn’t want to know what goes on inside his mind anyway! She’d laughed, like it was a joke. But I do want to know. I want to know everything.
Jane
Tuesday 5th February
We sit at my friend Sandra’s kitchen table, all of us on our third glass of wine, red for them, white for me. Easier to clean. I’m considerate like that. She texted Tricia and I this evening, wanting an emergency wine night. I think we’re all in shock, her message said, come to mine for seven?
‘You’ll be good for Daddy, won’t you?’ I said to the children before leaving the house, hugging their little bodies tight to my chest. I didn’t want to leave them, but Jack told me to go, and something in his eyes made me put on my coat, grab my handbag, close the front door tightly behind me. My rib twinged a bit as I walked the ten minutes to Sandra’s house, a semi-detached place with lavender borders leading up to the front door. In the summer, the smell of them is lovely; now, they are sorrowful-looking husks, scentless and dead.
My hand is underneath Sandra’s; she grabbed it as she was talking, wanting the comfort even though I know part of her loves this gossip, despite the morbidity of what’s happened. Our wedding rings chink against each other. Tricia tops up our glasses, although we’ve had too much already. Everyone drinks more these days, even the PTA. It takes the edge off.
‘This used to be a safe place,’ Sandra is saying drunkenly, her lips blackened from the drink. Another reason I chose white. Moving her hand from mine, she clutches at her skinny chest, her palm smacking the centre, where people think their heart must be. They’re wrong, obviously, usually by a good few inches. That’s what Jack says, anyway.
‘My heart,’ she says, ‘it feels like it’s breaking for that little girl. Is that silly? But it really does.’
‘I know,’ I say. I thought this was a safe town, a nice place, a community of do-gooders. It’s how my husband sold it to me. A home for us, for our little family. You will love it here, he said, his lips curving into mine. A memory comes to me, of just before we moved: the steep drop of the staircase in our old house, the spirals in the ceiling above my head as I lay on my back, my rib broken and bruised. The way they looked at me in the hospital, before I smoothed it all away.
‘Tell us again how it happened, Mrs Goodwin,’ they’d said to me, and I watched as the nurses looked at my husband, their eyes slightly narrowed, their pens poised above my notes.
‘Perhaps you’d feel more comfortable without Mr Goodwin in the room?’ one of them had suggested to me, but Jack was standing by her side and so I shook my head no, told them I was fine.
‘I slipped,’ I said, ‘I slipped and fell as I was carrying the children’s washing upstairs. Roll on the day they can do their own laundry!’ The youngest nurse had laughed at that, smiled at me kindly, adjusted my pillows. I could almost sense the goodness radiating out from her, the purity. I wanted to be like that too. For just a brief moment when Jack went to the bathroom, I wanted to reach out to grab her arm, tell her the truth. But I thought of the children, their little eyes blinking up at me, and I didn’t.