Clouds were rolling across the sky, threatening rain, and the woods were dark under the canopy of branches as we followed the path that looped around the edge of the village. It took fifteen minutes for us to reach the house Hollie wanted me to see.

‘Where are we?’ I looked around for somewhere I recognised.

‘Your house is over there.’ Hollie pointed towards some trees.

Squinting, I followed her gaze, unable to see it, taking her word for it.

‘Stay here, Niamh. I won’t be a minute.’ She hurried around the front to check the drive before coming back.

‘No-one’s home.’

I followed her across the garden to a window and we peered through it, seeing a small room that looked like someone’s office, with photos on the desk. Photos of young girls. Then she told me what she’d been keeping from me and everyone else, and made me swear on my life never to tell anyone.

‘Everyone has secrets, Niamh. And now, mine is one of yours.’

*

Knowing, even now, I can’t go back on the promise I made her, I give the police a slightly looser version of the truth. ‘She made me walk a long way to this house that belonged to someone she didn’t know. But that was it.’ It seems an age ago that it happened, but that’s how it feels when someone dies. It’s the difference between life with and without; before and after.

‘Where was the house?’ DS May’s voice is sharp, her pen poised, ready to write it down.

I look at her blankly. ‘Through the woods somewhere.’

‘Was it Park House?’

‘Park House?’ I glance at my mother.

‘Up Greyfriars Lane, Niamh.’ My mother’s voice is quiet. ‘One of the bigger houses – where the Marinos live.’

I’ve seen that house – when I’ve been out with Hollie. I shake my head.

Then DS May asks, ‘Would you be able to take us the way you went with Hollie?’

Can I remember the twisting path Hollie took? ‘I’m not sure I could.’

‘It’s really important, Niamh. If I come with you, could we try to find it?’

Chapter Nineteen

Elise

Unfortunately, DS May hasn’t finished. She’s frowning as she fiddles with her pen. ‘Niamh, you told us before that Hollie used to go into other people’s properties.’

Niamh nods. ‘She didn’t do any harm. She just walked around.’

‘Did the two of you go anywhere else in the village?’

As Niamh’s pale cheeks tinge with pink, shock washes over me. After the forged email to the school, what else don’t I know about my daughter?