The queue surged forwards and the women stopped talking as they were served. Anna’s saliva had dried, her mouth moistureless. The women could be talking about anyone. Twenty years of things Anna had no clue about had gone on in this village. The likelihood they were talking about that particular event was slim, she convinced herself.

Until she reached the till.

At the side of the counter was the newspaper rack. The same position it had always been. Her eyes were drawn to the headline of the Herald Express.

MAPLEDON MURDERER RELEASED.

The noises in the shop faded. All Anna could see was the newspaper, the bold capital letters boring into her brain.

‘Everyone’s up in arms about it. The whole village.’ A male voice finally penetrated her thoughts.

‘When?’ Anna’s single word was strangled with fear.

‘Four days ago,’ the man said, taking the items from Anna’s basket and scanning them. ‘No one’s spotted him, yet. Mind you, I guess no one knows what he looks like now. But he wouldn’t dare come back here. Mum said he’d be a fool to. She wouldn’t serve him, she said.’

Anna didn’t respond at first, her thoughts crashing against each other, tumbling in her head. She fumbled in her purse and paid for the shopping with her debit card. Looking properly at the man behind the counter, she realised he was Nell Andrews’ son, Robert – his hair had receded, and his face was thinner than she remembered.

‘Has your mum retired?’ Anna asked, not because she was interested, more because she wanted to take a minute or two to recover before attempting to walk out of the shop.

‘God, no. She’ll be here until the end of time. I’ve just been covering – she’s a bit under the weather at the moment. She’ll be back!’ The man gave a wide grin. Anna assumed he hadn’t recognised her and was grateful for this good fortune – a ‘wow, it’s been years’ conversation wasn’t one she wanted now. Or ever. She thanked him and left, his words echoing in her mind: ‘Four days ago. No one’s spotted him yet.’

Four days ago. The same period of time her mother hadn’t left the house.

The vision of Muriel’s front door swam in front of her eyes.

And the doll’s head hammered to it, its relevance now achingly obvious.

Chapter Eight

2019

Lizzie

All her good intentions of sitting Dom down, telling him about her past, went out of the window with one phone call. Now it would have to wait.

Lizzie shoved her hastily packed bag into the boot of her Vauxhall. She was due to upgrade her poor car, had saved for the last three years, but hadn’t quite been able to part ways with her trusty old friend yet. They’d done a lot of travelling together – she knew every inch of this car, knew how to handle it. Trusted it, despite its obvious failings: the driver’s side window didn’t go fully up or down, had been stuck in a halfway limbo for about a year; the wheel trims had long since been ripped off, and the bumper was practically held on with luck. Dom chided her, begged her to get it seen to, but it wasn’t high on her list of priorities – as far as she was concerned the faults were purely aesthetic. Knowing she was likely to change the car anyway, she’d said it was pointless spending money on it. Then she’d kept stalling on actually looking for a better one.