The Silent Ones: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller(3)

We’d had to go abroad for the Van Dyke merchandise but we still chose to go ethical over the cheaper sweatshop options.

Chloe rolls her eyes and picks up her phone, the screen still lit up from a text notification. She dabs a fingertip on it and reads the message.

I try and read her expression and wonder idly if she’s seeing someone again. There’s been nobody really special since Jason walked out on her and my niece, Brianna, five years ago, but she does use online dating sites in fits and starts and occasionally tells me about her dates.

But Chloe’s face remains deadpan as she presses a button so her phone screen turns black again. She seems oddly distracted, still staring down at it when there’s nothing to see.

‘Do you want to have a proper conversation?’ I suggest.

‘About what?’ Her fingers begin to drum on her thigh as if she’s thinking about something else entirely.

She’s dressed in old jeans, which she’s paired with a faded blue T-shirt and a cropped cream cardigan. Her reddish-brown hair is pulled back into a smooth ponytail and she looks effortlessly groomed in a sort of laid-back way.

She is all sharp angles now, but for the wrong reasons. Her perfect nose, cheekbones and jawline used to match her toned body, with its wide shoulders, narrow hips and slim legs. But that was before she lost so much weight. Now her head looks a bit too large, out of proportion with the rest of her. There’s her bony clavicle, the protruding tendons in her neck and the once perfectly fitting skinny jeans that now bag a little around her bum and thighs.

In contrast, I am shorter and rounder, my features less distinctive. I do make the effort to tame my dark corkscrew curls before I leave the house each morning, usually by twisting my hair up in a messy bun, but bits of it constantly make a bid for freedom throughout the day.

Our daughters are similarly different physically too.

‘Chloe, do you want to talk about the reason why you can’t seem to focus on anything I’m saying?’

She hesitates and glances at me, and I think for just a moment that she’s actually going to open up to me, but then her eyes glaze over again.

‘Maybe, just not now.’ She blinks and picks up her phone again, scrolling unenthusiastically through her Facebook feed. ‘But you’re not the only one who gets to make decisions around here. Remember that.’

I sigh, stand up and brush bits of red cotton from my jeans.

‘I’ll add the new stock to the system in the back office while it’s fresh in my mind,’ I say, picking up the mood.

‘Put the kettle on while you’re in there, will you?’ Chloe calls just as her phone rings again.

I pop into the tiny kitchenette and wash the packing dust from my hands, drying them on the small hand towel. Then I reach into my handbag on the counter and pull out my phone.

Three missed calls, and they’re all logged as having no caller ID. Immediately I think of my ten-year-old daughter, Maddy. I hope there hasn’t been a problem at school and it’s the office trying to get in touch with me. I can’t think of anyone else whose number isn’t in my phone who would be so desperate to speak to me.

My eight-year-old son, Josh, is away on an overnight school trip to Hathersage in Derbyshire. But I know everything is OK with him, as the teacher sent a group text to parents after breakfast confirming they’d had a good night at the youth hostel. They were heading to an adventure survival centre before returning to the school for pick-up this afternoon.

Josh will be beside himself with excitement when Tom collects him later. He’ll be bubbling over with exaggerated stories of how brave he was in the forest survival tasks.

We have no worries about Josh, but Maddy… well, she’s a different story.

Her behaviour has been somewhat challenging at home lately. She seems to suddenly have a smart answer to everything, whether it’s a request to tidy her bedroom or a suggestion that she get her homework done before tea.

On top of that, she’s not been sleeping well for the last few weeks. I’ve been meaning to take her to the doctor, just for a general chat and check-up, although I wasn’t too concerned until the other night, when I heard her moving around in her bedroom past midnight. When I got up to see if she was OK, I found her bed empty. She was sitting downstairs in the living room, in the dark.

‘What’s wrong, sweetie?’ I sat on the arm of the chair and stroked her hair.

Usually she’d lean into me, talk about what might be bothering her, but not this time.

‘Nothing’s wrong, Mum,’ she told me in an irritated tone. ‘I just can’t sleep, that’s all.’

Tom didn’t think there was anything in it when we had a quick chat about it in the morning, but it was the main reason we agreed to spend some quality time together as a family this summer.

Now we’ve landed the big contract with Van Dyke’s, I can’t really take a full week off for a holiday abroad, as Tom initially suggested. But we’ve agreed to organise more days out to National Trust attractions, and we’re going to try and book a long weekend at the coast at the end of August.

Tom has been really busy in his new job, too, working extra hours voluntarily to get up to speed with the infrastructure at the vast distribution centre where he’s trying to make his mark.

Between his new career and my business, it hasn’t left a lot of time for us as a family or a couple. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had a night out, just the two of us.