‘Okay. Right, well don’t say it’s Billy’s truck to begin with. Describe it,’ Muriel coaxed.

‘Red truck, yellow stripe, doll’s head. Yes, mother, I’ve got it.’

‘Don’t snap at me, Bella.’

‘Well, I don’t want to do it, Mum.’ Fresh tears glistened on her cheeks.

‘I know, darling. But we need to. You understand, don’t you?’

Bella turned her head, her eyes finding Muriel’s and locking with them. ‘Yes. I understand. I just wish we could go back to before. I wish we’d never started playing that stupid game. I wish I …’

‘Enough, Bella. No point going over the what-ifs and the I wishes; there’s nothing we can do to change what’s happened. We can only try and fix it as best we can.’

‘There’s no fixing it, though, is there? Jonie’s gone.’ Her gaze left Muriel’s and returned to the sweeping countryside, her face expressionless.

‘But we can make it easier for Auntie Tina.’

Bella huffed. ‘You mean easier for you and Dad.’

Muriel drove on in silence, hoping and praying her ten-year-old daughter would come good once she was in the police station.

Their future depended on it.

Chapter Eighty-Eight

2019

Anna

Friday 19th July

The realisation hit Anna full force.

She hadn’t seen Jonie Hayes being taken by Billy Cawley.

Her younger self – little Bella Fisher – hadn’t even seen the truck where she said she had.

Everything she’d told the police had been a lie. A story her mother had tutored her to get right. A fleeting memory of rehearsing the story before going to the police station flashed through her mind.

That must have been why there’d been a delay in informing the police; why she hadn’t told them what she’d seen immediately.

Because it hadn’t happened.

And her mother had come up with a story that made Billy Cawley look guilty to get rid of him from the village. A story that would see her mother’s agenda come to fruition.

Anna wanted to vomit.

All eyes in the room were on her, waiting for an explanation she couldn’t – didn’t want to – give them. Her memories were still so jumbled, she didn’t trust herself to speak. Didn’t believe she would be able to give any kind of accurate account after all these years.

‘My memory … it’s … well, it’s hazy …’ she stuttered.

‘Yes, I’m sure it is. You were a kid, I get that,’ Lizzie said softly. ‘I’m the same. But there are things you do know, Anna. Things you remember; but maybe you’ve put those memories aside because they’re not ones you care to recall. They don’t fit the stories you’ve been told all your life. The people of Mapledon haven’t done us any favours, Anna. Both of us have suffered at their hands one way or another. We were both manipulated. You can see that now, can’t you?’

Anna’s breath was coming in ragged bursts. The room was closing in; the lies smothering her. Lizzie was right, there were things she remembered, and those memories were hers, not ones she’d formed over the years due to her mother retelling the story she’d wanted Anna to take as truth.