Melissa

Melissa sits in the armchair in the corner of the kitchen she designed, with its ancient dresser and the saffron walls. The room is full of the people she loves but they won’t stay much longer, they will leave soon and return to their own homes, their own lives. She’s Izzy’s mother, after all, Paul’s wife. The kind of woman to be avoided from now on.

Izzy is in the ballroom at the front of the house being guarded by a policeman. Melissa has to restrain herself from getting up and going to find her; she wants to look into her daughter’s blue eyes and ask her why. Izzy’s angry, she might be in the mood for telling, although admittedly not to her mother. Izzy had stared at her with thwarted fury in the attic; she’d always gotten her own way, though no one, surely, could have guessed that would be murder.

Sorrel cuddles into her mother; she is holding a little blue woolen horse that Poppy bought her from the village shop last week. Poppy stands near her sister and Charley is on the floor by the stove, with Venus on her lap. Blake, looking dazed, sits next to Charley, his arm around Noah’s neck. Grace leans against the wall by the door while the policewoman settles her broad frame onto a stool next to Sorrel and Eve.

Eve holds Sorrel tightly as though she will never let her go. “You’re safe, my darling. You needn’t be scared.”

“I ran upstairs to hide, ’cause I was frightened.”

“I know, poppet.”

“Last time I hid no one came.”

“Last time?” Eve puts her cheek on Sorrel’s hair.

“Izzy made me go on a hide-and-seek adventure, just me and her; we walked along that railway line, well, we had to run.” Her voice wobbles. “She put me in this thing and she said everyone would come and find me but they didn’t and it was dark and I couldn’t move properly and . . .” The tears overflow.

Eve holds her close, murmuring into her hair

Melissa’s hands tighten on the arms of the chair. The car that was sliding over the road has hit the bank and overturned. Her life has smashed to pieces. It was Izzy, not Paul. Her daughter, not her husband. He’d tried to tell her. “Izzy’s ill,” he’d said. “You need to get her some sort of help.” How was she to know, after all his lies, that he was finally telling the truth and that it was Izzy who’d been lying all along?

“So you ran upstairs today because you were scared.” The policewoman’s tone is soothing. Sorrel stares at her with unblinking eyes. “I’m wondering if you can tell us what scared you so much?”

The kitchen is silent, though there are lots of little background noises. The humming of the fridge, the cat purring, the children shifting positions on the floor, the dog sighing, the comforting sounds of everyday life.

“When she fed the pony she put her hand over his nose; I thought he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Then I remembered she did the same thing to Ash and he couldn’t breathe.” She pushes into her mother, twisting the blue horse in her hands; her voice lowers to a whisper. “He went all still after a bit.”