She stepped outside and closed the door, inhaling the early morning air. Then she strode to Waterloo Station. When she got there, she was quiet for a few moments, aware this was another pivotal moment in her life, another ending. There had been so many, one chapter to the next, another door closing. But she kept moving, kept running, because that’s all she knew.
No more running. It was time she faced her realities.
It was time she returned to Lillysands.
Thursday, 4 May
Estelle stared out of the window as a taxi drove her through Lillysands four hours later. She felt tears flood her eyes, her tummy tingling with nerves. She hated this jumble sale of feelings: trepidation and excitement, sadness and giddiness. She hadn’t felt that in such a long time. The past few years had been plain sailing, very clear, no confusing emotions. But now everything seemed to be unravelling … including her relationship with Seb. The fact she’d barely thought of him during the long train journey suggested she’d made the right decision. She’d instead tried to focus on looking through a copy of her book to find quotes to read out at her upcoming launch party. But it was impossible, her mind filled with Poppy, Poppy, Poppy.
And Aiden.
She needed to tell him face to face about the child they’d conceived. It felt unimaginably cruel for him to hear it second-hand from the police.
But this trip was more than that. She had a feeling all the answers to Poppy’s disappearance lay in Lillysands. The people who knew about Estelle giving birth all lived in Lillysands. Even her social worker hadn’t found out, she’d kept it so carefully concealed. But the information must have got out somehow and someone was using it against her. But why? And who? She didn’t have any enemies in Lillysands, not that she knew of anyway. But Lillysands was a strange place, close-knit and judgemental. She’d learnt that a long time ago.
The air inside the taxi felt close and stale. She powered down the window.
‘You all right, love?’ the taxi driver asked, a local man with greying dark hair.
‘Fine, thanks, just breathing in the seaside air.’
The air seemed to rush in at her a million miles an hour, bringing with it a montage of memories, like the first time she’d been driven to Lillysands by her social worker that freezing December day eighteen years ago. She hadn’t been delighted at the prospect of staying by the sea. The first seven years of her life had been spent in a grotty seaside town, sand in her sodden nappies, shoulders red raw from sunburn, the echo of screeching seagulls the backdrop to her stoned mother’s snoring. So the seaside just meant neglect and pain for her. But as her social worker’s car had rounded the corner and the whole town came into view, Estelle realised Lillysands was nothing like the rotting town of her childhood. Colourful houses dotted the cliff; sailboats gleamed under steel skies; people strolled by with smiles and expensive winter coats, faces pink from the cold sea breeze.
‘Lots of money here, Estelle,’ her social worker had explained. ‘Don’t mess things up, this place could be good for you.’
‘It’s Stel.’
Her social worker rolled her eyes. ‘Alright, Stel. But listen, this is the best placement we’ve had for you, even better than the first one. So behave.’
The first one. Her social worker always held that up as the holy grail, better than the care home and the other unsuccessful foster placements. But it hadn’t exactly been wonderful. A run-down house with a huge garden. Three dogs and two sneery teenage girls. And then Julie and Pete, friendly enough faces but clearly in desperate need of money. Even at seven, Estelle noticed the mounting bills and scuffed wallpaper; the overheard arguments between the couple about money, making it even more obvious. She’d been placed in a box room that had obviously been home to other kids like her, scrawled messages on the walls not very effectively hidden by carefully placed cushions. She remembered curling up on the bottom bunk bed that first night, yearning to be back home with her parents despite what they’d done to her. At least her filthy childhood flat was familiar. The new place seemed alien to her, scary with the angry teenagers and barking dogs. She was quickly removed from there a month in after the couple split up, and she ended up at a tiny house with an older couple who kept telling her to ‘talk for god’s sake, child’ when all she wanted to do was sleep and wait until she was back with her parents.
After that followed a succession of foster homes, some stints in care homes. She preferred the care homes at times, bumping into familiar faces, a semblance of independence. Just before she went to live with the Garlands, she fell in with a bad crowd at the care home: skipping school, drinking, kissing boys, the sorts of things a twelve-year-old shouldn’t be doing. Something inside her stopped her going too far though: placing that bottle down when her head swam too much; pushing the boy away when his fingers reached inside her waistband. It was like standing on the precipice and knowing that even though what greeted her at the bottom could be sweet oblivion, it would also mean no coming back. And there was an urge inside her to come back, instilled ironically by her dad’s boasts about what he could have been if he hadn’t injured himself as a young footballer. Every week in care would begin with Estelle wanting – needing – to do better. Head down at school, reading, writing, baking – she particularly liked baking. But then something would happen. A girl shoving her. A boy telling her she was a skank. A woman passing her on the street who looked like her mum. A missed visit by her parents. And she’d be at square one again. Bunking off school, drinking. In the end, the pool of foster parents willing to put up with her narrowed, especially when she accused one of abusing her – a stupid lie to get her placed elsewhere. So the time she spent in care homes in-between being with foster parents began to increase, and started to look like a permanent prospect.
The Garlands were her last chance. But she’d messed that up too in the end, falling pregnant too, giving her child up.
And what of that child? Had Poppy run away to give herself a chance at something; at finding her birth parents and maybe herself in the process? Estelle felt a pinch of guilt. There had been times over the years she’d considered tracking down the newborn she’d given up. But she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to search for her daughter until the girl turned eighteen. She hadn’t even known her name, for Christ’s sake. Autumn and Max had said giving her daughter a name might make Estelle form an attachment to her. She’d agreed numbly, just as she had to everything that day – too weak, too traumatised from what had happened to argue.
How naïve she’d been, to think something as simple as giving a name to a child was what caused attachment. Those first few months after, no matter how hard she’d tried to forget, it was a knowledge, a bond that curdled inside her. But time had made it fade. And while there were days, weeks, when her mind would be dominated by the baby she’d given away, she felt sure, even now, that she’d done the right thing. What sort of life could she have provided for the girl?
Estelle looked out of the window, shielding her eyes from the morning sun as she peered out at a Lillysands that had barely changed. She resisted the impulse to put her arm out of the window, just as she used to when Max would drive her up this very road in his bright red convertible.
The town was dominated by a huge white cliff face, the pastel-coloured houses lining it painted pretty blues and pinks, yellows and greens, perfect postcard fodder. Along the bottom of the cliff was the town’s famous white beach and pretty marina, a plethora of shops and buildings sitting on cobbled stones across from it. And overlooking it all, Lady Lillysands as the locals called it, a huge hourglass shape that curved in from the cliff face, created from