The Quiet Girls: An absolutely addictive mystery thriller Read online

  ‘I know where there’s a field with horses, do you want to go see if they’re there?’ she asked.

  Hattie jumped up and down. ‘Yeah!’ she cried, and, ‘Thanks, Caz!’

  Carrie tilted her head back and thought of the route. She’d seen them when she’d been on a school trip to the park, in the field opposite. Two of them, she recalled, one brown, one grey. Hattie would love them, she thought now, absently stroking her sister’s hair. It was Mandale Park, she remembered the name. In their home town of Rochdale. She thought for a moment; the Firgrove Playing Field was a lot closer, but there were no horses there.

  Carrie made a decision. Hattie deserved a treat. So did she.

  She slid her hand down, wrapped it around Hattie’s chubby fingers.

  Now, the only way was to work out how to get there.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, suddenly feeling positive that the day might not be such a write-off after all.

  4

  Melanie dragged her feet, hardly able to look at Kelly and Tanisha. Neither of the girls spoke; not to her, not to each other.

  What had possessed them to play such a dangerous game? What had been in that house? That man… his face…

  Melanie’s throat felt suddenly thick. She stopped, held her hand against the cold metal of a lamp post. Tanisha and Kelly walked on.

  Melanie got on the bus at Milton Street. Using her school saver card she went around and around Manchester. Huddled on the back seat she found she couldn’t stop shaking. In her short life, Melanie had been educated about the dangers of society by Harry. He had wanted to prepare her for the evils of the world, make sure she could take care of herself, and others.

  Well, she had done that today, but to what cost?

  Why had Harry never taught her how she would feel after?

  Melanie let out a little groan. She looked at her watch. Gone six o’clock. Wiping away the condensation on the window with her sleeve Melanie peered outside. It was dark, had been for ages. It was the one stipulation Harry gave her in exchange for the freedom she was allowed. She had to be back by nightfall, no matter what time of year it was.

  She abided by it always, had never let her father down.

  Until today.

  Melanie shivered again.

  Alice Wilson flung her bag to the floor, whipped off her coat and strode into the living room. She blinked into the darkness. Where was everyone? Annoyance simmered; Harry had got fed up of waiting for her and had taken Melanie out for dinner.

  ‘Shit,’ she whispered, flicking the lights on as she walked into the kitchen.

  She was disappointed, she had wanted to fill Harry in on the goings-on of the day. He would talk her down from her dread, reassure her that of course she wasn’t messing up in her job, that she was the hardest-working lawyer he knew, that she was of enormous value to the firm.

  Leaning against the worktop, she narrowed her eyes. When was the last time she had gone to him with her worries and concerns? She used to do it all the time. Her therapist, she called him. She eyed an unopened bottle of wine in the rack and snorted out a laugh as she grabbed it. A bottle was the remedy these days.

  She poured a hefty glass.

  Carrying it through to the lounge she turned the last light on.

  ‘OH JESUS!’ Her arm convulsed, red wine slopping over the edge of the glass, splattering the light switch, the wall and the floor. Alice put her hand on her neck. Her pulse thumped uncomfortably beneath her fingers.

  He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t reacted to the light, to her yell, to the red that was staining the beige carpet at her feet. She put the glass on the table, moved over to the sofa.

  ‘Harry?’ she whispered. There was a tremor in her voice. She cleared her throat, tried again. ‘Harry!’

  Slowly he turned his head to look at her. His eyes were a world of pain. Alice had seen that look before.

  Alice felt her underarms prickle with sudden heat.

  ‘Where’s Melanie?’ she asked.

  ‘I…I don’t know.’ Haltingly Harry spoke. Frowning he rubbed his arms. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly seven.’ She heard the panic in her voice, felt it in her very core. ‘Harry, where is she?’

  He attempted to stand up but faltered. Defeated, he slumped back in the chair. ‘I don’t…know.’

  His eyes met hers, fear in them now. He turned to face the window and with great effort he pulled back the curtains. ‘It’s… it’s dark.’

  She ran to the lobby, yanked open the front door. ‘Of course it’s fucking dark, Harry! It’s late.’ Barefoot she stumbled outside, looked up and down the empty, dark cul-de-sac. A shuffle, Harry appeared behind her, moving foggily. She spun to face him. ‘Harry,’ she pushed her hair out of her face, stalling. But the question was unavoidable now. ‘Are you… ill again?’

  He seemed to crumple a little then.

  ‘Alice…’

  She stared at him. What? She wanted to snap the word at him. Wanted to grab his arms and rock him back and forth until the devil that was the depression rattled and rolled out of him. Instead she gritted her teeth. ‘We need to fucking find her. Can you help me do that, at least?’

  His eyes shone in the moonlight with unshed tears. Her words were harsh, cruel, she knew that. But Melanie was…

  ‘Melanie is everything.’ Alice took three steps backwards, lifted a finger and pointed it at Harry. ‘Find her. Phone her mobile, for Christ’s sake.’

  She didn’t stop to see if he was moving. She broke into a run, the gravelly road tearing her tights as she headed for the bottom of the road. At the junction she looked left, right. Pulled her hands through her hair. ‘Melanie,’ she called, but her voice was cracked, broken, a whisper.

  A bus rushed past, leaving her in a fug of exhaust fumes. It slowed a short way down the road, where the stop was. Through the steamed-up rear window she saw a figure moving and Alice ran towards the bus. She squinted into the night, heard her breath catch in a jagged inhalation as she spotted the brown leather jacket, the big, brown biker boots that she’d begged her mother for. Melanie. It was Melanie.

  Alice resisted the urge to drop to her knees. Instead she stormed towards her daughter. With each step the relief faded, anger in its place.

  ‘Jesus! Melanie!’ she cried when she reached her. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘Mum.’

  Was it her tone? That single word. Or the look in her eye? Alice, arm outstretched ready to grab her daughter and shake the living hell out of her instead slipped her hand into Melanie’s.

  ‘Melanie, are you okay?’

  Her daughter took a breath, eyes downcast.

  I can’t deal with anything else, not on top of Harry. Not on top of the job I keep screwing up.

  The thought was fleeting, but still Alice felt guilty. ‘Nothing’s wrong, is it, darling?’

  Melanie looked up, Alice saw the deep breath that shuddered through her daughter.

  ‘There was a man—’ she began, stopping abruptly.

  Alice stared, wide-eyed now, all thoughts of Harry and his mental state and her own career gone. Even the relief at seeing Melanie vanished.

  ‘What man?’ she asked, more sharply than she intended.

  ‘Can we just go home?’ pleaded Melanie. ‘It’s so cold out here, I just want to be at home, please, Mum.’

  Alice shivered as she pulled Melanie close. ‘Come on, your dad’s waiting, he’s been really worried.’

  It was a lie. Harry hadn’t even noticed Melanie wasn’t home.

  5

  Harry stood at the end of the driveway, frozen. His thoughts rolled over each other, confusing him.

  Was Melanie missing? What had happened today? He clutched at the collar of his shirt and pulled it away from his windpipe. When had he got dressed? Had he gone out today? Had he seen his daughter?

  And he hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t come home.

  He coughed gruffly to cover up the sob that threatened to erupt from him a
nd hurried along the pavement.

  And what had Alice just said to him? Harry, are you ill again? And there was something in her eyes, a plea for him to answer in the negative. To laugh, to look incredulously at her and tell her not to be ridiculous. At the end of the road he paused, rested against a lamp post. Was it too late? Could he tell her he’d been dozing, perhaps, and when she woke him so suddenly he was just confused, still half asleep?

  Now Melanie was… missing? Shock, sudden and hot rocked through Harry’s body, an awakening.

  MELANIE!

  He felt a cold sweat on his brow. Melanie was missing, Melanie hadn’t come home. As if emerging from a coma, he drew in a long breath of the ice-cold air. He looked left and right, saw a bus in the distance, two people walking his way.

  Alice. Alice and… Melanie!

  He tried to hurry towards them, but it was as though his feet were moving through mud. He puffed and panted, reached out for her before he was even within touching distance. ‘God, where were you?’

  Melanie lowered her head. ‘This man,’ she paused, swallowed and began again. This time her words came out in a rush. ‘This man grabbed Kelly, he had hold of her, he did… something, I don’t know what.’ Melanie began to cry.

  Harry’s heart began to beat at treble time. He glanced around, peering into the dusk as though the man his daughter spoke of was here.

  ‘Inside,’ he said, ushering Alice and Melanie into the house.

  It was Melanie’s dad’s area of expertise, dealing with a crisis. Normally he leapt into action, always had, everything from school bullying to an attempted theft on their car one time. Tonight though, to Melanie, he seemed frozen, staring at his daughter as though she were a stranger.

  Instead her mum took the lead. She sat down on the sofa, pulled Melanie close to her. Harry remained in the doorway, one hand on his chest, trying to quiet his breathing.

  ‘What happened today?’ asked Alice softly.

  Tears sprang to Melanie’s eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. We didn’t mean to…’ she tailed off. To what? To break in to a stranger’s house? That was a lie, Kelly had wanted to, had planned to.

  Premeditated. A word she had learned from her mother’s own work. A word she knew the meaning of. If you planned it, it was premeditated, and because of that you could – would – be punished.

  Alice took Melanie’s hand and whispered, ‘What did he do to you?’

  Melanie closed her eyes. Behind her lids she saw. The naked leg. The grubby T-shirt. The horrible, deformed face.

  ‘Melanie!’ Alice hissed her name. Harry leapt forward, placed a calming hand on her mum’s shoulder.

  ‘Let her talk,’ he murmured.

  ‘Nothing, not to me.’ To say the words was a struggle. She looked at them both, standing together, her dad’s hand around her mother now.

  ‘I don’t know if he did anything to Kelly; we heard her scream, I made her leave,’ Melanie finished and raised her eyes to meet her mum’s again. ‘I made both of them leave.’

  ‘Did you see him? Did he say anything to you?’

  Melanie shook her head. ‘He came around the corner upstairs, he was… undressed, I think. He didn’t have any trousers on. He had a hold of Kelly’s hair, I think he was angry because we were in his house.’ Melanie felt tears rising and she chewed on her lip to stop them escaping. ‘He had something wrong with his face, like he was burned, or something.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Harry said, his voice loud in Melanie’s ear. She flinched.

  ‘What were you doing in the house?’ Alice asked, high pitched, eyes round and disbelieving.

  ‘It was a dare.’ Melanie felt tears coming again, couldn’t stand to look at her dad, knowing he’d taught her better than that. But she was relieved when her dad pulled her close to him. She felt his hands run the length of her ponytail. Closing her eyes she saw the man, Kelly’s long hair in his grip. She snapped her eyes open, pulled out of her dad’s reach.

  ‘Stay in tomorrow, or call Chloe, maybe.’ Alice rose and turned to the window, straightened the curtains, her motions calm and soothing. ‘I don’t want you hanging around with those other girls.’

  ‘So, I’m not in trouble, for… going into his house?’

  Alice covered the floor space in two strides. She pulled Melanie close, jostled Harry out of the way, smothered her hair in kisses. ‘Jesus, no, baby. Just… just don’t ever go there again.’

  Melanie breathed a sigh of relief, turned her face to her dad, waiting for him to join in their embrace. Instead, Harry stayed standing, his arms wrapped around himself, his eyes wide with horror.

  The digital clock mocked Harry with its numbers. It was 3.08 a.m. A noise; a half-moan. Harry closed his eyes against the darkness, his heart beating treble time until he realised the sound had come from him. From deep inside.

  He thought back to what had happened earlier, to Melanie’s revelation. It made him feel sick all over again.

  A little angry, too. For this was his issue, the whole damn, rotten root of his depression: the fear that something was going to happen to the most important person in his life. Today it had.

  The discussion in hushed voices after Melanie had gone to bed; him wanting to call the police, get this poisonous, perverted person put behind bars. Alice, the voice of rationality, had gone into work mode and looked at it from all angles.

  ‘They broke into this man’s house, from the sounds of it he was sleeping. What if nothing actually happened? What if he was just angry, frightened even, at finding people in his home?’ she had reasoned.

  In a flash of unheard-of anger Harry banged his fist on the coffee table. ‘They’re little girls, Alice,’ he’d shouted.

  Alice pinched her lips, shook her head slowly. ‘They broke in, Harry.’

  Round and round they went, Harry going so far as to pick up the cordless phone and dial 999. Gently, Alice had taken it from him. She made her disagreement plain, for maybe the first time in their marriage.

  ‘If I’m right, if we tell the police about this and it turns out Kelly bloody Prout was dramatising the whole thing, then our daughter could be in trouble for breaking and entering.’

  She had changed the subject then, scrutinised him, her eyes narrow slits that made it seem she was looking right inside him. ‘I’m making a doctor’s appointment for you.’

  Uneasy, Harry had nodded, left the subject of Melanie’s near-abduction alone. For now.

  Alice didn’t stir when he scrambled from the bed and crept into the bathroom. The florescent light hummed a low thrum as Harry made his way to the cabinet next to the bath. For a moment he gazed at his reflection in the mirrored doors.

  Who was this man? Harry didn’t recognise him. Could find no familiarity in the jaw that sagged and the eyes that stared back at him, dark and filled with pain. A man who’d had no idea his daughter hadn’t come home. That was what frightened him the most; that he’d had no idea that his daughter had been at risk. Regardless of what Alice thought, there had been danger.

  He lowered his eyes as he opened the cabinet, only lifting them when he was sure there was no chance of looking at himself again.

  He spider-walked his fingers through the shelves, feeling blindly for a box of medication, nothing in particular, just anything that would either help him sleep or deaden the dread that had curled in a vice-like grip around his chest.

  Harry pulled out three boxes and squinted at them. Codeine – could work – hay fever remedies and, oh yes… bingo! Zopiclone, sleeping tablets from when Alice went through a bout of insomnia. How long ago was that now? Harry peered at the label; 2012. Seven years ago. And still they had not passed the expiration date.

  Harry popped two from the blister and swallowed them dry.

  Sleep was all he needed. Sleep was the healer of all ills, this he firmly believed. It was what his mother used to say.

  His mother.

  A fresh wave of misery smothered him.

  Forty years she�
��d been gone, along with his father. Quietly Harry closed the cabinet door and forced himself to look in the mirror.

  He couldn’t live like this. Melanie shouldn’t have to live like this. Things had to change; his depression, the state of the world they inhabited, the dangers and the destruction.

  Something must change, thought Harry desperately. Only what? How can I mend this? How can I keep my daughter safe?

  Back in the bedroom, the clock ticked on.

  6

  Carrie scooped another file off the ever-growing pile of old, cold cases and opened it up. The details inside, like all the others she’d looked at, sickened her.

  There had been another call from the mystery victim.

  The victim.

  It was how Carrie was thinking of her. Paul preferred to call her the perpetrator.

  ‘She obviously has reason to threaten him,’ she’d snapped to Paul the second time the call came.

  ‘But it’s not how the law works, is it?’ Paul had replied gently.

  And the case, not that it even was a case yet, but whatever it was kept Carrie awake at night. Something in the girl’s voice, some hurt, buried deep for maybe a long time but which was now bubbling to the surface. This girl, the caller, knew that what had happened to her was wrong. She was taking steps to fix it, to stop it. Carrie had longed to be able to do that for herself. She still craved the knowledge, rather than the blank space that filled her head and her memories.

  ‘I will find you, and I will find him,’ Carrie whispered to herself.

  ‘Carrie?’

  Carrie looked up to see Paul standing in the doorway. Long and lean, he seemed to fill the space, a thought she often had about him, though he never seemed overpowering or threatening. She blushed, wondering if he’d heard her talking to herself.