Hide and Seek

Andrea Mara

HIDE AND SEEK

About the Author

Andrea Mara is a Sunday Times and Irish Times Top Ten bestselling author, and has been shortlisted for a number of awards, including Irish Crime Novel of the Year. She lives in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband and three young children, and also runs multi-award-winning parent and lifestyle blog, OfficeMum.ie. Hide and Seek is her second thriller to be published in the UK and internationally.

Also by Andrea Mara

The Other Side of the Wall

One Click

The Sleeper Lies

All Her Fault

To Elaine, with love.

1

June 2018

TEN SECONDS.

That’s how long it takes for Sophie to disappear.

That’s how long it takes for me to realize that she’s not in our front garden. That she’s not behind the car and she’s not behind the gate and she’s not behind the pillar in the porch. That she’s not in any of her small selection of favourite hiding spots.

That Sophie’s not here at all.

‘Sophie? Sophie!’

I’m confused. I’m not worried. Not really. She knows not to leave the garden. I’m almost certain she knows not to leave the garden. Our rules for Hide and Seek are simple: I count to ten, she hides somewhere very nearby, and I search. Sometimes I have to pretend I can’t see her, to make the game last longer. Like when she huddles behind the cherry blossom: a tree whose trunk is far narrower than even three-year-old Sophie. And then I walk up and down past it, eyes straight ahead, calling her name, just as I’m calling it now.

Only she’s not behind the cherry blossom.

She’s not anywhere.

‘Sophie! You can come out now – the game’s over!’

This is why I don’t like Hide and Seek. This is why she’s not supposed to hide anywhere other than our own front garden. Could she have gone inside the house? I glance back, but the front door is closed, the key in the pocket of my shorts. The side passage maybe? The back garden? The shed? A lurch of worry takes hold. The shed is full of trouble – rakes and trimmers and hammers and weed killer. Did Mark lock it last night? Could Sophie have— ‘I think I’ve found something of yours.’

The voice comes from the garden next door. I look over to see a woman nodding pointedly at the dividing wall – at something on her side, out of sight from where I’m standing. Something, or someone.

‘Sophie?’ I’m at the waist-high wall in three strides, and there she is, crouched down in this stranger’s hydrangeas. ‘Sophie! Come out of there. You can’t just go into other people’s gardens.’

She looks up at me, all blue eyes and freckled nose and butter-wouldn’t-melt mouth.

‘Did I win Hide and Seek?’

‘No, because you left our garden without telling me, and you shouldn’t do that.’ It sounds sharp and I can feel the woman looking at me. ‘Now, say sorry to …’ I glance up at our neighbour.

‘Frances Burke. Fran.’

‘Say sorry to Fran for going into her garden.’

‘I don’t mind visitors,’ Fran says to Sophie, ‘but you must ask your mum first. OK?’

Sophie nods and walks across Fran’s lawn towards her gate. She doesn’t say sorry, but I’m choosing my battles this evening. I say it instead.

‘Sorry about that – I got a fright when I couldn’t find her.’ I laugh to show her I’m not the kind of mother who panics over losing sight of her child for half a minute. Even if that’s exactly who I am.

Fran nods. She’s in her early fifties, tall and solid, sweating in the evening sun, with wisps of fair hair escaping an untidy ponytail. She’s wearing an olive-green t-shirt and the kind of too-long boot-leg jeans I haven’t seen on anyone since 2008. Her feet are in brown leather sandals with thick buckled straps and she gives off an air of sensible practicality.

‘Of course. I don’t have children but I can imagine. Is it just the one you have?’ She nods towards Sophie, who is making her way slowly along the footpath from Fran’s front gate to ours.

‘No, two older ones as well – Emily is eleven, and Ben is nine. Both inside finishing homework.’ I realize I haven’t introduced myself. ‘Sorry, I’m Joanna, by the way.’

‘Lovely to meet you, and welcome to Rowanbrook.’ She nods towards our house. ‘They’re grand family homes. The previous owners did a nice job smartening up the outside to sell it.’

‘They sure did. It’s the inside that needs work … someone was clearly fond of a dark palette. But nothing we can’t fix over time.’

‘Exactly. And it’s a great neighbourhood, very friendly.’

‘Oh, that’s good to hear – we haven’t really met people yet.’

‘Well, now you’ve met me. The people on your other side are gone already to their place in Marbella, so you won’t meet them till September.’

‘Are you here long yourself?’

Sophie arrives beside me, slipping her hand into mine.

‘My whole life,’ Fran answers. ‘Apart from a brief escape to a flat in Harold’s Cross.’

‘Wow, that’s a long time!’ I tell her, before realizing how it sounds. Fran doesn’t seem to mind.

‘It is. I came back to look after my mother – just for a few weeks until we figured out a long-term plan. That was twenty-five years ago.’

‘Wow,’ I say again, trying to gauge if this is a sad story or a happy story or most likely an it-is-what-it-is, perfectly fine story.

‘When my mother passed away, she left me the house, so here I am, still watering her rose bushes. Just me and him.’ She nods towards a huge black cat who’s watching from the porch. She laughs. ‘That sounds a bit maudlin, doesn’t it? Like I’m a lonely cat woman. I took voluntary redundancy from work a few months ago, so all this’ – she sweeps her hand around the garden – ‘is a relatively new pastime. What do you do yourself?’

‘I’m a psychotherapist. Was. Still am. Sorry, not yet used to my new status.’ Sophie lets go of my hand and wanders back towards the gate. ‘I’m a psychotherapist but my current contract just came to an end, so I’m taking some time out with the kids.’

‘Well, I hope you’ll be very happy here. It’s a grand place for kids.’

‘It does seem lovely. Speaking of kids, I’d better get Sophie in before she disappears again. Imagine losing your child in a game of Hide and Seek in your own front garden.’

‘It would be ironic, I suppose, after what happened here.’

‘After what happened here?’

‘To the other little girl.’ Fran jerks a thumb at our house.

‘Who?’

A funny look crosses her face. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. Forget I said it.’

‘Something happened to a little girl here?’ I prompt, curious, but suddenly uneasy too.

She purses her lips, then, decision apparently made, moves closer to the wall.

‘I suppose you’ll find out anyway if you google it. It happened back in the eighties – a whole heap of kids playing Hide and Seek one morning, down there on the green.’ She indicates with her hand. ‘Only one poor little thing hid somewhere and was never found.’

‘Wait. I’ve heard that story. Lily … Lily Murphy was the child’s name?’

‘Yep. Awful time. Everyone searched and searched, but she was never found.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Obviously after a point, they were looking for a body.’

‘Jesus.’

Fran nods. ‘Can you imagine? Mary and Robbie, those were her parents, living a perfectly normal happy life, all destroyed by a simple game of Hide and Seek. That’s why what you said about your daughter struck me as ironic. Same game, similar age, and same house too.’

‘The same house?’

‘Yes – the Murphys lived here in the house you’ve just bought.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘I take it the estate agent didn’t mention it …’

‘The estate agent didn’t say a word … That’s … Wow. I don’t know what Mark will think.’

‘Your husband?’

‘Yeah. Actually, you might know him – he grew up here in Rowanbrook. Mark Stedman?’

‘Mark Stedman,’ she repeats, and her expression changes but I can’t read it. Is it nostalgia? Surprise? Irritation? ‘No, I don’t remember the name.’

None of the above, then.

Fran tilts her head. ‘But if he’s from here, surely he must have been aware that you were buying Lily Murphy’s house?’

‘No. He’d have said. I’m sure he wouldn’t have bought it if he’d known.’

‘Right …’ Fran tails off, then smiles. ‘Too late now anyway,’ she says brightly, as though we’re talking about buying the wrong kind of cereal or full-fat milk. ‘So, we should swap numbers – are you in the Rowanbrook WhatsApp group?’

‘No, I didn’t realize there was one.’

‘Did you not – well, you got a mention there already, you know. You’re famous.’

‘Really?’

‘Ah, I’m exaggerating. When the house went up for sale, someone in the group shared an old article about Lily’s disappearance. I think people were curious to see who would buy the house. That’s all. I’ll send you an invite link to the group if you like, what’s your number?’

I call out my number and she keys it into her phone.

‘Grand, I’ll get that to you now.’

‘Thank you. I’d better head in to check on Emily and Ben. Actually, we’re having a small housewarming on Friday evening. Come along if you’re free? Around seven?’

A small hesitation. Then a half-smile. ‘Lovely. I’ll be there.’

‘Great! It was nice to meet you.’

‘You too,’ Fran says, turning back to her gardening.

As a general rule, I wait until the weekend to open wine, but when the sun is out that rule gets shapeshifty. You never know how long the heatwave will last. What if it rains for the month of July, and there are no more wine-in-the-garden nights? That’s how I explain it to Mark when I open the bottle of rosé that Wednesday evening, balancing glasses on our slightly rickety garden table. I don’t really need to explain it to him, he doesn’t overthink the way I do, and he’s happy to take the proffered drink without a dissertation on the rights and wrongs.

‘So, I met one of our neighbours tonight and discovered something about this house.’

‘Oh?’ He takes a sip of wine and reaches instinctively for his phone before remembering not to.

‘Do you know the name Lily Murphy?’

‘Yeah …?’

‘It’s their house. The Murphys lived here.’

‘What?’

‘Yes. You didn’t know? Even though you used to live in Rowanbrook?’

‘Well sure, but we lived three rows over. And we moved across to Oakbrook a bit before it happened, I think. God. Are you certain?’

‘Yep. The solicitor sent us details of all previous owners, but I hadn’t bothered to read it. I went back and checked after talking to Fran, the neighbour. The names are there in black and white. Mary and Robbie Murphy. You really didn’t know?’

‘No! I’d have said.’

‘You’d heard of Lily Murphy though, right?’

‘Yeah, of course … though it’s hard to remember now which bits I heard in real life and which bits I know from newspapers.’

‘But you’ve never mentioned it, in all our years together?’ I ignore the little voice saying I’m in no place to criticize.

‘I suppose it just never came up.’ He looks across the garden at the back of our new home. ‘It’s a bit weird though, knowing they lived here.’

‘Weird and sad. Three years old, never seen again. Same age as Sophie.’

I pick up my phone and type ‘Lily Murphy Missing Child’ into Google. The first search result is from Wikipedia and the second is a thirty-year-anniversary newspaper feature. Both are accompanied by thumbnail images and I zoom in now on the first photo. Little blonde curls, big blue eyes, snub nose, dimpled cheeks, startled smile.

Familiar smile.

Something lurches inside me. I blink and my mouth is suddenly dry.

‘God, yeah,’ Mark is saying. ‘Same age as Sophie. When you put it like that …’ He picks up his empty wine glass, stands and stretches. ‘I can’t believe they never found out what happened to her.’

I hardly hear him as I stare at the photo.

I don’t know how it’s possible, but I think I do know what happened to Lily Murphy.

I think I killed her.

2

June 2018

MY PHONE BURNS IN my hand, the screen glowing in the unfolding dusk; the photograph sucking me in, freezing me to the spot.

Lily Murphy. Three years old. Hide and Seek. Never seen again.

Sweet wrappers. Books and notebooks. Foil packets. Little vials. The turn of the key. And her age. My mind is whirring with memories I’ve been pushing away for years. I think I’m about to be sick.

‘I’m going to lock up now,’ Mark says. ‘Are you coming?’

Like a sleepwalker, I move across the cool, dark grass, into our new home. Forever home. Last known address of Lily Murphy.

In the living room, Mark puts on the TV and finds a football match as I open my Mac. My hands are shaking but he doesn’t notice. I need to tell him. But not yet. Not now. And it could be nothing.

A coincidence. My guilty conscience. Her ghost.

I google again, and click into Wikipedia:

Lily Murphy (born 5 May 1982) was a three-year-old Irish girl who disappeared in Rowanbrook, Edenvale, Co. Dublin on Monday 1 July 1985. Lily is presumed drowned but her body has never been recovered.

1985. When I was nine. When she was three. Oh God.

I swallow and keep reading.

Disappearance

Lily Murphy (fair hair, blue eyes, 95 cm) was last seen at approximately 11.30 a.m. on Monday 1 July 1985, near her home in Dublin. She had been playing with friends on a green near where she lived, in Edenvale, Co. Dublin. The children had started a game of ‘Hide and Seek’, moving from a wooded area at the back of the green into a nearby building site. The building site had been abandoned after the construction company, VB Holdings, went into receivership. The building site was only loosely secured and local children had been playing there for weeks (citation needed). Lily Murphy’s mother, Mary Murphy, was nearby, watching the children, along with some other women from the neighbourhood. At approximately midday, most of the children returned from the woods but Lily Murphy did not. A child who had been with Lily brought the group of adults to where they had been hiding, but Lily had disappeared. A search ensued, but the child wasn’t found. Gardaí (police) were called, and the search continued throughout the day, and on into the days and weeks that followed. Officials and locals believe Lily Murphy to have drowned in a shallow river that runs along the back of the woods, but no body has ever been rec—

‘Mum!’ The shout makes me jump as the living room door bursts open. Emily, red-faced and angry, hands on hips. ‘Mum, can you please tell Ben not to go into my room.’

Ben comes thundering down the stairs behind her. ‘I didn’t! But she went into mine and messed up my Minecraft figurines!’