‘I need help, Rosie. Help for me and help for Eliza. She’s not right. And the more I do for her, the worse she seems to get. I’ve tried to be everything to her, told her she only needs me, not the vile kids in this place. I’m striving to make her stronger, you know? She has to be hardened in order to survive. The other kids are mean to her, but she doesn’t see it; she’s too innocent. She tries to be friends with them. I keep telling her she’s different to them; they’ll never accept her. She doesn’t help herself, what with the way she destroys those dolls. It’s unnerving. I caught her doing really … really, odd things to Polly, the doll you gave her – the only one she hasn’t de-limbed. She looked so guilty when she saw me watching her. And then today she seemed distant. I think it’s to do with those God Freaks.’

Billy involuntarily looked over his shoulder towards the church. ‘They are putting stuff into her head!’ he spat. He turned back to Rosie, lowering his voice. ‘When she came back from Sunday school earlier, she wouldn’t even look at me. Didn’t speak a word or come near me for hours. Just sat in the garden, pulling her dolls to bits. Then, when she did finally come in, I tried to put her in her nightie for bedtime and she smacked my hand away, like she was telling me off. She said, “It’s wrong to touch, Daddy.” And she told me to leave her room. She’s never done that before. They are saying things to her, I know it.’ Billy pushed himself up from his kneeling position.

‘I need to keep her away from them, Rosie. This village and its people are poison.’

Chapter Forty-Three

2019

Anna

Monday 15th July

They’d left the village hall not long after the revelation that Lizzie was Eliza, the daughter of murderer Billy Cawley. Lizzie offered them a lift home, which Anna accepted. She felt zapped of energy and didn’t relish the thought of the walk back anyway. The shock hadn’t abated; Anna still felt numbed by it. She wasn’t sure why, because none of what had happened had been Lizzie’s fault. She’d only been eight. Why would, or should, Anna feel so taken aback?

She couldn’t even remember much about Eliza Cawley: what she looked like, or what she did – but she did recall the rumours for some reason. Or maybe she’d grown up hearing about the day social services had taken her from the bungalow. Her only memories of Eliza were related to her and Jonie talking about Eliza – about what she used to do to her dolls and seeing the bits strewn haphazardly in the yard of the bungalow after the girl had gone. And what with a major piece of evidence having come from Anna herself about seeing Jonie getting into the truck with one of Eliza’s doll’s heads on it, she supposed that was the sum of what she knew.