‘Fine. Take all the time you need. I guess I’ll be here when you decide to come home. When you decide you want to confide in your bloody husband.’

The line went dead.

Lizzie felt weak. Drained. The last thing she wanted was to mess up her marriage. She was being irresponsible. She owed her life to Dom; she shouldn’t be shutting him out. She certainly shouldn’t be prioritising her murdering father over him. What was it she’d told herself before coming to Mapledon? She wasn’t going to let the man who’d ruined her life thirty years ago do it again.

Yet here she was, allowing him just that opportunity.

Chapter Fifty-Four

1989

Mapledon Primary School

Monday 19th June – 1 month before

‘I’m going to play elastics with Amber – we need a third person, so you have to come and play,’ Jonie said as she dragged Bella by her upper arm into the playground. Bella spluttered a few words in dispute – she was about to go into the hall for lunch – but quickly realised she was wasting her breath. If Jonie had decided she was playing, she was. Food would have to wait.

‘I snapped mine. Do you have yours?’ Amber asked Jonie when they reached the area to the side of the field. They always played elastics there so the boys who were playing football on the grass could see them. That was Jonie’s idea too; Bella wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in the grubby, disgusting boys at their school.

‘Yeah,’ Jonie said, pulling the white length of elastic from her school bag. ‘I pinched it from my mother’s sewing basket last night. I think it’s long enough.’

The girls stretched it out, then knotted the ends together.

‘Perfect,’ Amber said. ‘Right, I’ll start; you two stand at each end.’

‘Get over!’ Jonie shouted. ‘It’s my elastic. I’ll say who goes first.’ She scowled at Amber. Bella lowered her head, not wishing to make eye contact with Amber, to see her embarrassment. Jonie was such a cow sometimes. Always having to be boss. But at least she wasn’t shouting demands at Bella. Yet.

‘Go on then,’ Amber said, stepping into the elastic and placing it around her ankles. Bella did the same.

‘Hope you’re ready to be beaten. You know I can get to necksies, don’t you?’ Jonie sounded so assured, it annoyed Bella. She found herself wishing, praying, for her to trip. Fail for once. But as they chanted: ‘England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, inside, outside, inside, on!’ at ankles, then kneesies, thighsies, waisties, then armpits … each stage getting more boring than the next for Bella and Amber, they realised Jonie wouldn’t fail. Of course she’d reach, and complete, necksies.

Jonie had her back to Bella as she began the song, her jumps high, her legs clearing the elastic – but as she was about to straddle the elastic, on the word outside – Bella sneakily pushed the elastic further out. Jonie’s right leg missed, her foot landing heavily on the inside of the elastic. She pivoted quickly, her angry stare fixing on Bella’s face.