The Silent Ones: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller(52)

Tom sighs and touches my arm.

‘Give me the phone, Jules,’ he says, and holds out his hand.



* * *



When Tom has gone, I stand on my own for a few minutes in the corridor. One or two members of staff walk by and eye me cautiously. DS March strides past and stops to ask if I’m OK.

There’s nowhere to reflect here, nowhere to sit and gather my thoughts. Reluctantly I return to the family waiting room.

‘What was all that about?’ Chloe narrows her eyes as if she’s trying to get the measure of me. ‘What did Tom want to talk about?’

I take a breath. ‘There’s been a fire at the lock-up unit. We’ve lost everything.’

‘What?’ Chloe frowns. ‘Maybe you should remind Tom I’m a director in the business too. I don’t appreciate being cut out of that conversation.’

I feel too weak and worried to argue. ‘The fire officer said it’s looking like it might be arson.’

Chloe picks up her phone and taps on it.

‘There are online news reports coming through about it now,’ she murmurs. ‘Bessie’s death is trending on Twitter. People are being… vile. That’s the only word.’

She holds out her phone and I take it and look at the screen.

She has found a thread on Facebook from a woman called Marcia Parminter. I’ve never heard of her, but she posted a public status just two hours ago.

Beware: our village is not safe with these two little evil cows still in it.

She attached an unofficial online article reporting on Bessie’s death, and the comments of other people underneath the status are far from flattering.

I was at school with Juliet Fletcher. She’s snooty, thinks she’s better than everyone else.

The kids’ mothers are obsessed with their clothing business, have a lock-up storage place on Ashfield Industrial Park. Sounds like the kids had to sort themselves out a lot of the time.

Maddy Fletcher is the quiet one and they say that sort are the worst.

I heard Brianna Voce is sly.

I know Brianna’s mum, Chloe. Her husband dumped her while she was still pregnant.

Shame if Chloe gets tarred with the same brush as her stuck-up sister.

‘Dumped me while I was pregnant? I don’t remember that! Full of inaccuracies and lies.’ Chloe’s face is puce. ‘I’m not sitting back and letting them say stuff about me and Bree any longer. I’m sorry, Jules, but the press need to know Maddy has confessed.’ She looks at me. ‘It’s only right.’

The phone slips from my fingers and clatters to the floor.

‘Careful!’ Chloe tuts and scoots forward to retrieve the device before looking at me.

‘We shouldn’t dignify this crap by reacting,’ I remark, looking at them all in turn. ‘We need to keep a united front. Stick together.’

‘Course,’ Chloe says pointedly. ‘I’m sure you’d stick by us if it was Brianna who’d confessed.’

My blood feels like it’s boiling in my veins. ‘We are all in this together, whether you like it or not. Both our daughters were at Bessie Wilford’s house. We still don’t know exactly what happened there. It’s not enough that Brianna has accused Maddy.’

‘Things have changed now.’ Chloe’s voice assumes a cold edge. ‘Maddy has admitted to attacking Bessie. You can’t expect Brianna to take the rap for it.’

I glare at my parents. ‘Maddy is your granddaughter too, but I don’t hear either of you defending her. You know she’s not capable of doing anything bad.’

Mum and Chloe glance at each other, and then Chloe clears her throat.

‘Chloe…’ Dad says in a warning tone.

‘No, Dad! She needs to know. She thinks the sun shines out of that kid’s backside. It’s time she heard the truth.’ Chloe looks at me, her mouth a mean tight line. ‘You should know that last week Maddy stole some money from Mum’s purse.’

I pull in air. ‘What?’

‘She’s been acting differently for a few weeks, Juliet, you must’ve noticed that.’

‘Differently how?’

‘Just her general behaviour. I asked you if she was OK once or twice, but you just brushed it off, said she must be tired.’

I think about Maddy’s insomnia and her quiet spells when she seems to be deep in thought. Kids go through these phases, everyone knows that.

‘Tell me what happened with the money.’

‘I had a folded ten-pound note and a few coins in my purse,’ Mum says, picking at a thread on her skirt. ‘When the milkman came, I realised I’d calculated his bill wrong and needed a bit more cash. But when I went to my purse, the tenner had gone.’

‘And what’s that got to do with Maddy?’

‘Joan, love, we agreed. This is not the time.’ Dad’s cheeks flush with colour as fast as I feel the blood drain from my own.

‘Can you just stop talking around it and get to the point?’ I look at them both in turn.

The edges of Mum’s mouth droop downwards. ‘I asked the girls if either of them had taken it and they both said no, but Maddy went very quiet and I thought she looked guilty. When they were playing outside, I found it tucked in the front zip of her little rucksack.’