There was more laughter before she heard voices whispering: ‘Eliithaaa, Eee-liii-thaaa!’ She huffed and turned her back. They didn’t want to play, they just wanted to be mean. She might only be eight years old, but she knew when people were making fun of her.

‘Never mind,’ she called out. ‘I’m going in now.’

As she turned and began walking to the door, something hard smacked into her back. She screamed out in pain. Her back was stinging. She wanted to cry, but instead turned to face her attacker and shouted. ‘You shouldn’t hurt people. Not if you don’t want to be hurt back.’

Eliza heard the squeals as they disappeared into the distance. She swiped at the tears rolling down her face and kicked the stone they’d thrown at her. Why did they have to be mean to her? What had she ever done? Her dad was right: she didn’t have any friends.

She didn’t have anyone but him. It was him and Eliza against the world.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

2019

Anna

Monday 15th July

Anna’s third night in her childhood bed had been no better than the first. Her back was aching even more, and she felt as though she’d aged twenty years overnight. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she cupped her chin in her hands. She wasn’t ready to face the day yet. Or her mother. She’d only managed a few fitful hours of sleep in between dark dreams – disembodied heads floating helplessly, dolls’ mouths twisted and screaming, women wailing. Her mother in the middle of it all, calm and strong. Is that how she wished her mother was now? The calm, strong one? When she’d been a child, and when all of the stuff with Jonie was happening, as far as she remembered it was Muriel who held it all together. Muriel who’d guided Anna through the horrors. Muriel had been strong. Strong-minded, strong-willed – so much so, even Anna’s father hadn’t been able to live up to the impossible standard she’d set.

Years after her parents’ separation, Muriel had still stuck with the story that Eric had been traumatised and unable to come to terms with his little girl being so close to being the one taken and the after-effects had caused a rift in their marriage. She’d simply told Anna that her father had sought comfort in the arms of another, without much further explanation. Anna didn’t entirely believe that, though. She could understand the strain of it all – of course she could – but to leave his family, travel to the other end of the United Kingdom to live? It didn’t ring true. The explanation he was going to Scotland because that’s where his new partner and her family were from seemed a stretch. Anna later decided her father had wanted to get as far away from Muriel as was humanly possible and that’s why he chose Scotland. That made more sense.

But Anna had never forgiven him for leaving her like that. Just when she’d needed her daddy the most, he’d abandoned her. What was it with the menfolk of Mapledon? Were they all useless at being fathers, husbands? Jonie’s dad hadn’t played a huge role in her life if Auntie Tina was to be believed, and Billy Cawley’s daughter was so damaged and neglected that social services removed her from his care.