‘What?’ Emilia spins around but nobody’s there, just darkness stretched between shadowy buildings and the green on their left.
‘I could sense someone behind us … and then I saw a man dart into that alleyway. We need to keep walking. Come on.’ She pulls Emilia’s arm firmly.
Emilia’s heart starts banging so hard that she feels sick. Who the hell is following them and why? Is it the person who is responsible for the seagull and the troll, or someone unrelated to them? She sneaks a glance at Louise, but her expression is serious, focused, her cheeks red. She almost has to run to keep up with her friend’s pace. She hears footsteps behind them. Louise is right, someone is following them.
And then, thankfully, they’re out on the main high street where there are people, and cars, and lights, and Emilia feels weak with relief.
‘Come on,’ says Louise, almost dragging her to where a taxi has pulled up and a young couple are getting out. It’s nearly ten thirty on a Wednesday but there are still people around, for which Emilia is suddenly grateful. Louise speaks to the driver while Emilia climbs into the back seat, scanning the street to see who was following them. Someone emerges from between two buildings – the way they had come – but turns in the opposite direction, towards Richmond Bridge. They have on a hooded coat and Emilia can’t see the face. She squints, trying to see more, but can’t, and curses her failing eyesight. She used to have 20:20 vision.
The taxi moves away from the kerb and they flop back in the seat.
‘They probably weren’t following us,’ says Louise, turning her head to look at Emilia, the light from the streetlamps sweeping over her fine cheekbones. She doesn’t sound convincing.
‘Why are we going this way? Your flat’s just up there, isn’t it?’ says Emilia, sitting up to look out of the window.
‘I’d rather see you home safely first.’
‘So, you do think we were being followed?’
Louise doesn’t answer. Instead she purses her lips, as if she’s trying to stop herself revealing her true thoughts.
Fifteen minutes later the taxi pulls up in front of Emilia’s house. Elliot must already be in bed. He’s left the light on for her, which she can see in the fan of glass above the front door. The rest of the house is in darkness.
Louise instructs the taxi driver to wait until Emilia is inside. ‘Promise me you’ll report all this to the police tomorrow,’ she says, in an urgent whisper. ‘And get yourself some security cameras. Pronto.’
11
Daisy,
2005
Daisy was nearly eleven when her mother was murdered.
She remembered the night like it was yesterday rather than eight years ago. She’d been in bed asleep when she’d heard a noise from downstairs: the sound of something smashing, a yelp, and then silence. Their house was small, a two-up-two-down terrace overlooking the sea in a quaint Devonshire village near Plymouth, and most sounds were hard to muffle, like her mum’s drunken giggles when she thought Daisy was fast asleep, which meant her boyfriend had turned up. Her mum wasn’t aware that Daisy knew about The Boyfriend because he was only ever invited around when Daisy was in bed. But she’d been aware of the evidence left behind the next morning: an extra wine glass, the doodles he made in the margins of the newspaper that was always abandoned on the arm of the chair, the empty cigarette packet that left a lingering smell of manure mixed with something she couldn’t quite place.
Sometimes she stayed awake on purpose so she could see him leaving, kissing her mother on the doorstep, briefly illuminated by the flickering of the porch light-bulb that needed replacing. He had sandy hair that stuck up slightly at the back in a double crown, and a broad neck that reminded her of the ham joint they’d sometimes have at her dad’s house.
Now, at the grand old age of eighteen, she wondered if all the secrecy surrounding her mum’s relationship was because her boyfriend had been married. Her parents had split up a few years before, so there had been no other reason why her mum had been so cagey.
It went on for months, the secret rendezvous with the mystery man. He came over at least two or three times a week, and she knew that when she spent Friday night and all day Saturday at her dad’s, her mum was making the most of it. Something about it unsettled Daisy, maybe that her mum wasn’t being honest. Not like Dad and his girlfriend, Shannon, who were all over each other, like a rash, in a way that made Daisy smile, secure that her dad was happy.
When she asked her mum about the mystery man she’d bat away her questions, telling her he was just a friend, someone she worked with, which was doubtful to Daisy as her mum cleaned people’s houses while she was at school.
She wished now that she’d been more insistent, more forceful with her mum, made her tell her the truth – tell her his name at any rate.
Because then maybe Daisy could have saved her.
12
The next morning, following Louise’s advice, Emilia contacts her local police station and logs the incidents with a bored-sounding constable. She waits until she’s dropped the kids at school as she doesn’t want to alarm them. Last year, Wilfie went through a spate of night terrors, his screams cutting through the silence of the night, making Emilia sit bolt upright in bed, her heart hammering, sweat clinging to her body. She’d go to his room and lie with him on his top bunk, comforting him until it had subsided. The experience had been frightening but mostly for her, as Wilfie wouldn’t remember much about it the next day. Elliot had said their son had taken after her with his vivid imagination. He seems to have grown out of the terrors, but Emilia lives on a knife’s edge, worrying that any little thing will cause them to come back.
Elliot is nursing a cup of coffee in the kitchen. He’s moved the lilies to the dining table and they fill the room with a sweet, cloying scent. She senses his eyes on her as she paces the length of the kitchen.
‘What did they say?’ he asks, after she ends the call. She stands opposite where he’s sitting at the island.
‘Just to let them know if anything else happens, but they couldn’t have sounded less interested.’ She sighs and lays her mobile on the hard stone surface.
He regards her for a few seconds over the rim of his mug. ‘What worries me is that you and Louise thought you were being followed last night. You didn’t mention that to them?’
She walks around the island, pulls out the stool next to him and sits down. ‘I don’t know if that was just a bit of hysteria because we were talking about it and riling each other up. We were both a bit tipsy.’
He frowns, clearly unconvinced, and pulls up the sleeves of his cable-knit jumper. ‘You’d think she’d know better, being a detective.’ He sounds annoyed.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She should have stayed calm. Maybe confronted the guy.’
‘She wasn’t on duty.’
He shrugs. ‘I thought detectives were always on duty. That’s what my dad used to say.’
She bites back her annoyance. ‘Louise wasn’t there in her role as a detective but as my friend. And we were tipsy, like I said.’
‘I just worry. You and the kids mean everything to me.’
She reaches for his hand and squeezes it in response. ‘Anyway, Louise suggested getting Ringcams. Front and back.’