‘I already told you, it’s one that stayed with me. I was a kid too when it happened and I remember reading about it. It resonated and stayed with me. A neighbour, someone you should be able to trust, and a village where most people knew each other. It could have been any of us.’

He held her gaze, her green eyes studying him intently, seeming to reach inside of him, stabbing in his gut. It was partly with denied lust, though mostly he knew it was because he was lying to her. Why was that starting to sit so uncomfortably with him?

She seemed to buy what he was saying, nodding as she sat on the edge of the bed, fussing at Tank when he rested his head on her leg. ‘I guess we all feared monsters when we were kids. Finding out they were real was a shock. It stays with you.’

She was right. It did stay with you, though not quite in the way she thought.

Liam couldn’t tell her that. He was committed to this path, and the less she knew the better. If she found out the truth it could change everything, and he couldn’t take the risk of that happening.

Another week and he would have all he needed, then he would force himself to move on. It was easier that way.

40

It wasn’t just coming back to the village that Hannah found difficult. The worst bit was having to catch up with all of the neighbours she hadn’t seen since she was a kid. It was a tight-knit community and aside from a handful of people, most of the residents had lived there for years. She remembered when they had first learnt the truth about Mrs W and how shocked they had been. Most people had been kind, but there had also been gossip and staring, some crossing the road to avoid her, unsure how to treat her. She had felt like a freakshow.

She mostly kept her visits home brief and low-key. If she could get away with never returning to Hixton she would, but her mother would never stand for that, so instead there were three or four yearly trips down from Norfolk, where Hannah would have one eye on the front door, ready to escape as soon as she thought it was politely acceptable. On occasion, she would run into Joan and Fred, who lived next door, but mostly she saw no one else outside of the house.

This whole party scenario was one of her worst nightmares, with everyone gathered in the village hall and so many familiar, albeit older, faces, many of whom she could see were eyeing her with curiosity, some even being so blatant as to rudely whisper.

She knew they would be talking about Eileen Wickham and she hated that all these years later it was something she was still so closely associated with. At least locally.