Unless, of course, he was killing two birds with one stone on that front. Muriel and Anna in one hit. She didn’t really understand why he’d be concerned with Anna, though. She’d merely told the police what she’d seen. He was responsible for his actions, not her. An entire jury had decided his guilt. Not one young girl. Why should she suffer?

Muriel, she could understand.

The villagers had suggested, even speculated in the press, that Billy took Jonie as direct retaliation for Eliza being taken from him. So why did he take Jonie, and not Anna? Had she been lucky? Is that why Auntie Tina was so bitter? That would make sense. Tina suffered terribly from something Muriel had done. And Muriel’s daughter had escaped.

She’d be pissed too.

‘There’s more to come, then,’ Lizzie said, her fingertips pushing the bits of paper around the table.

‘I’d guess so. As I said earlier, I think we’re going to get the entire doll. Perhaps the idea is for us to put it back together again. Rebuild it.’

‘The reverse of what I used to do to them.’ Lizzie gave a sharp laugh.

Anna nodded. She’d almost written Lizzie off as the culprit, but now wondered if it was some kind of symbolism. Lizzie had been abused, felt as though she’d been taken apart, now she wanted to rebuild herself. And maybe to do that, and gain closure, she had to face her past, her abusive father, and put Polly back together. She may have been the only doll to have survived when Lizzie was in Mapledon, but what about when she’d been taken into care? Her life then must’ve been filled with upset and turmoil, with no understanding of what had happened to her or why. Maybe Polly, who’d once been her beloved doll – a final, parting present from her dying mother – had come to represent everything bad that had happened to her. All the evil.

It was a theory. Probably far out; too outlandish. And it was one that Anna was unable to share at this point in time. But she probably shouldn’t rule Lizzie out just yet.

There were a couple of people Anna would love to talk to about it all. She’d already decided to visit Pat Vern later. Now she added Robert and Nell Andrews to her list.

Chapter Sixty-Five

2019

Lizzie

Lizzie hadn’t asked for further details; she didn’t want to hear any more. The images conjured up by Muriel describing how her eight-year-old self used Polly to depict what Billy had done to her were enough. A sick ache crushed her insides. She was glad she couldn’t remember it. Any of it. The strange thing was that, during her time in care, she’d been told much of what had happened and knew she’d been taken from her father because he wasn’t looking after her properly, but mostly it had been focused on what her father had supposedly done to Jonie Hayes, not to her, his own daughter.