The Girls Who Disappeared(18)

She laughs mirthlessly. ‘And what happened to them, then? They were abducted by aliens, like some folk around ’ere like to think? What a load of tosh. That Olivia Rutherford knows exactly what happened, mark my words. She was in on it too. She’d be with them now, I reckon, if it hadn’t been for that accident. She plays the whole butter-wouldn’t-melt routine down to a T, that one. Just like her mother. Stuck up. Haven’t got time for the pair of them.’

It doesn’t sound like this woman has time for anyone. She’s obviously a gossip with no concrete information. Still, she might be good for the podcast. I ask her if she’d like to be interviewed but she looks horrified. ‘No, thank you. You’re wasting your time here anyway, if you want my opinion.’

‘Why do you think they ran away?’ I ask, to keep her talking.

‘Well, I can’t speak for the other two, but Tamzin Cole’s parents rowed like cats and dogs. Think the husband ran off with another woman before Tamzin went missing. Oh, but the shouting I used to hear coming through the walls. It turned the air blue, all their cursing. It wasn’t a particularly happy home. Maybe Tamzin wanted a new start, away from the lot of them.’

‘Do the Coles still live in Stafferbury?’

She shakes her head. ‘They moved away in the end. Don’t know where. Good riddance, I say. Anyway, got to get on. Can’t stand around here all day gossiping. My Stan’s waiting in the car and I still need to buy bread. Oh, my name’s Rita.’ She grimaces at me showing large front teeth, then seizes the handle of her trolley and wanders off towards the other end of the high street where there is a small Co-op on the corner.

Thunder rolls overhead and the rain falls even heavier as people dart into shops or quicken their step. I almost run to the car park, grateful when I get into my warm, dry Audi. I wonder if Rita’s opinion on the missing girls is widely shared in the community and make a mental note to ask around, conscious of Wesley’s comment about Olivia being ‘vilified’. I exit the car park, having to slam my brakes on as three teenage girls dart across my path, giggling and leaning on each other. One is wearing a Santa hat, the other has pink tinsel wrapped around her hair. They look college age. The same age as Tamzin, Sally and Katie were when they went missing. I watch them as they trip along the high street, arms interlinked, my heart heavy. And then I continue driving, my windscreen wipers swishing back and forth trying to keep up with the downpour. I can barely see as I drive along the Devil’s Corridor and have to slow right down so that I don’t miss my turn. When I pull up outside my cabin I turn off the ignition and sit for a while. The trees bend and stretch in the wind, their leaves rustling as though whispering secrets, the rain plopping into muddy puddles.

Reluctantly I get out of the car and scurry towards the front door, stopping briefly to extract my heel from the matting on the drive. As I reach the door I nearly slip on something. I look down at the step, slick and wet, recoiling when I see blood and flesh. It looks like a rat or some kind of rodent, or part of one. I kick it to the side and open the front door, my pulse quickening. Nausea washes over me. I close the door on the dead animal, hoping that a fox or cat has left it and it isn’t some kind of warning.





11



Olivia


It’s nearly 3 p.m. when Wesley’s midnight blue BMW pulls up outside the stables just as Olivia’s exiting the office shed. Apart from a quick chat earlier when she told him about Jenna’s visit and he went haring off after her, she hasn’t had the chance to ask him about where he disappeared to last night. He’s talking to her mum in the car park, their heads bent in conversation. It’s started raining again, the sky a deep charcoal behind them. They look up in unison when they hear her and she holds the gate open for them.

‘Well?’ she asks, letting it slam closed behind them. ‘Did you catch up with the journalist? You’ve been gone ages.’

‘I had to go back to work. I’ve got a job, you know. I managed to leave early, saying I had a stomach upset. Which,’ he says, holding on to his stomach and grimacing, ‘isn’t a lie. It hasn’t been right all day.’

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ her mother says, winking at Olivia as she strides past her into the office, and Olivia realizes that Wesley must have been filling her in already or she would have stayed to listen. Her mother always has an ear to the ground: she likes to know everything that’s going on in Stafferbury. After the accident Olivia asked if they should sell up and move away. Not far. Maybe to the next town so she could keep seeing Wesley. But her mum had been horrified. ‘I can’t possibly leave the stables. It’s a family business. Your grandparents would turn in their graves.’ So they had stayed, and Olivia had had to put up with the stares, the accusations and gossip, and then, by the time she felt well enough, strong enough even to consider moving away, her life was so interwoven with the fabric of the town that to leave seemed unthinkable.

‘So?’ she asks now. ‘Where did you run off to last night?’

‘Last night?’ Wesley shuffles his feet. He’s wearing a new pair of ugly platform trainers that wouldn’t look out of place on a guy half his age.

‘I woke up and you’d gone.’

‘Oh, that … yeah, I couldn’t sleep. I needed my own bed and you looked so peaceful I didn’t want to wake you.’