‘What’s going on here?’ he asked, ignoring her statement as he entered the lounge, his eyes squinting at Muriel and Bella huddled together on the sofa.

Muriel glanced up at him, shaking her head gently. ‘I don’t know, Eric. But it must be bad – she hasn’t spoken a word yet. She’s been in this state since she ran in an hour ago.’

‘Come on, love,’ Eric said, crouching down in front of them. ‘Tell Daddy what’s happened. Have you fallen out with Jonie again?’

Bella’s sobs started up again.

‘What’s she done this time?’ Eric bellowed. ‘Tell me, and I’ll go over there right now and sort it out.’

‘Eric! That’s not helpful,’ Muriel said, glowering at him. She turned her attention back to Bella. ‘Dad’s worried. I’m worried. You need to tell us what’s happened, darling.’

Bella pushed herself away from her mum and, with tears cascading down her still-red cheeks, took some deep breaths. She stared into her father’s eyes, searching them. Eric looked away.

Bella’s stomach hurt. Her limbs still burned from the running. She wanted to go to her room, dive under her duvet and never come out. But she knew she couldn’t. She had to say something.

‘He – he … chased … us,’ she stuttered. ‘Billy.’ A sob racked her body. ‘It’s … Jonie … I left her. It’s … my fault.’

Chapter Seventy-Nine

2019

Anna

Friday 19th July

A nervous, tight ball sat heavily in the pit of her stomach.

Today was the day. Exactly thirty years ago, Jonie Hayes went missing. Thirty years ago, to the day, Anna’s life changed. She stopped being Bella. She stopped being a child. Her memories of that Wednesday afternoon were still vague, the timeline hazy. The other night Pat Vern had told her she and Muriel hadn’t reported Jonie’s abduction to the police until the Friday, which she still found hard to comprehend. She would obviously have been suffering from shock, but since she realised there’d been a time lapse, Anna had wondered whether she’d deliberately held off telling anyone because she’d secretly wanted Jonie to get into trouble. Wanted her to suffer.

But those reasons seemed too incomprehensible to be true; the fact she was even considering it horrified her – ten-year-old Bella wouldn’t have been capable of that thinking. She’d been too young, too innocent. She’d seen her friend being taken by Creepy Cawley. That would’ve frightened her and the fact she’d done nothing for almost forty-eight hours must’ve been due to feeling numb with shock. It was the only feasible explanation. She just wished she could recall exactly what had happened to put her mind at rest.

Anna stared at her mother as she picked at a piece of cold toast. Muriel had always sliced toast into four, neat triangles. Anna remembered how her mother would pop the triangles into a shiny, silver toast rack, place a pot of butter and one of jam onto a plate and present it to Eric on the dining room table. That had been her father’s breakfast every day for the years he’d spent at home. For the ten years of Anna’s life he’d been around.