Moved away. For some reason, the words make my skin prickle.
‘It’d explain why Jenny Naismith didn’t recognise her,’ says Sian. ‘Jenny only started here in January.’
My heart is pounding. ‘Tell me about Amy’s family,’ I say, trying not to make it sound like an order. ‘The O’Haras too.’ Amy Oliver could well be the girl in the photograph, but Oonagh was the one mentioned in Geraldine’s diary, and there’s part of me that can’t allow anything to be neglected or overlooked. It’s the same part that won’t let me walk past a cupboard or drawer that Nick has left open and climb into bed, no matter how exhausted I am. ‘You’re too thorough,’ he regularly tells me. ‘It’s easy to fall asleep even if the bedroom’s a mess-look.’ Three seconds later he’s snoring.
Sian looks at her watch and sighs. ‘You didn’t get any of this from me, right? The O’Haras split up last year. Oonagh’s mum went off with another man.’ She rolls her eyes to indicate that she has no time for that sort of thing. Instantly, I feel defensive on behalf of Cordy O’Hara, a woman I’ve never met. ‘Amy’s parents…’ Sian shrugs. ‘We didn’t see much of them, to be honest. They both worked. It was always Amy’s nanny who dropped her off and picked her up. But I believe they’re separated too. I’m not sure, though. You know what schools are like for rumours. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d split up.’
‘Why?’
Sian rubs the strap of her watch, distracted by her need to be somewhere else. ‘I’ll walk with you to wherever you’re going,’ I say. ‘Please. You have no idea how much you’re helping me.’
A flush of pleasure spreads across her face, and I find myself hoping that Zoe is never so grateful for a snippet of praise from a stranger. If I could secure one thing for my children it would be confidence. The confidence to lie, cheat on their partners, skive off work and stick their noses in where they aren’t wanted? Yes, I say silently. If necessary, yes.
Sian and I leave the gym, head out into the maze of corridors. ‘Amy’s dad’s lovely but her mum’s a bit funny,’ she tells me, eager to talk now that we’re moving. ‘She used to make Amy write all sorts of strange things in her news-book that couldn’t possibly have come from Amy. The children are supposed to do it themselves from reception age onwards-’ She breaks off, seeing the question in my eyes. ‘Oh, it’s like a little notebook. All the children have one-the school provides them. Every weekend they’re supposed to fill them in. They bring them in on Monday morning and read them out to the class: what I did at the weekend, that type of thing.’
‘What kind of strange things?’ I ask.
Sian scrunches up her face. ‘Hard to describe, really. You’d have to see it for yourself.’
‘Can I? Is it here, at school, or did Amy take it with her when she left?’
‘I’m not sure…’
‘If it’s here, you’ve got to find it and send it to me.’ I stop, tear a page out of my notebook, write down Esther’s name and my address. Even though Sian is in a hurry, she waits beside me without complaining. I hand her the piece of paper.
Unbelievably, she thanks me. ‘If I do find Amy’s news-book, it didn’t come from me, okay?’
‘Of course.’
Sian pulls her ponytail loose and shakes out her hair. ‘For what it’s worth, I didn’t much like Amy’s mum. Worked for a bank, she did. In London,’ she adds, as if this detail makes it worse. I wonder if Sian was born and raised in Spilling. A lot of Spilling people seem to bear a grudge against London for being the capital when clearly their home town is more deserving of the honour. ‘Like Amy, she could get angry very easily, for no good reason.’
‘What made Amy angry?’ I ask.
Sian sways beside me, keen to get moving again. Suddenly, she stops. Opens her mouth, then closes it. ‘Lucy,’ she says. ‘Funny, that’s only just occurred to me. They were good friends, don’t get me wrong, but they could rub each other up the wrong way. Amy was a bit of a dreamer-imaginative and over-sensitive-and Lucy could be a bit… well, bossy, I suppose. Sometimes they clashed.’
‘Over what?’ A pulse has started to throb behind my left eyebrow.
‘Oh, you know, Amy’d say, “I’m a princess with magic powers,” and Lucy’d say, “No, you’re not, you’re just Amy.” Then Amy’d have the screaming abdabs and Lucy would pester us to tell Amy off for pretending to be a princess when she wasn’t. Look, I’ve seriously got to make a move,’ Sian says.
I nod reluctantly. If I keep her here for a million years, I still won’t get through all the questions I want to ask. ‘One more thing, quickly: when did Amy leave St Swithun’s?’
‘Um… end of May last year, I think. She didn’t come back after the half-term break.’
End of May last year. I was at Seddon Hall with a man who called himself Mark Bretherick from the second of June to the ninth. Can it be a coincidence?
Sian opens her grey bag and pulls out a large, old-fashioned brick of a mobile phone. She presses a few buttons. ‘Write this down,’ she says. ‘07968 563881. Amy’s old nanny runs our after-school club-that’s her number. She knows more than I do about the family, much more.’
While I’m writing, Sian takes the opportunity to escape. She stretches out an arm behind her to wave at me as she hurries away.
An hour later I’m no longer lost. I feel as if I know St Swithun’s as well as any teacher or pupil-I could draw a detailed map of the place and not miss out a single crevice or passageway. What I can’t seem to do is find Jenny Naismith. Everyone I’ve asked has ‘just seen her a minute ago’. I also can’t find the headmistress, Mrs Fitzgerald. I’m so angry with myself for letting go of those photographs that I can hardly breathe.
My throat is dry and my feet are starting to ache. I decide it can’t hurt to go back to the car, where I’m sure there’s an old bottle of water lying around in one of the footwells or wedged under a seat. At least three people have assured me that Jenny Naismith won’t leave until at least four o’clock, so I can afford to have a break.
Outside, I switch on my phone and listen to four messages, two from Esther and two from Natasha Prentice-Nash. I delete them all, then key in the number Sian gave me. A chirpy female voice with a Birmingham accent says, ‘Hi, I can’t take your call at the moment, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’ I swear under my breath and toss the phone back in my bag. I can’t bear to wait and do nothing. I need everything to happen now.
Sian ’s words buzz around my worn-out brain. I try and fail to make sense of everything I now know: bossy, literal-minded Lucy Bretherick with her perfect family, her adoring parents who wanted nothing but her happiness, who held hands all the way through parents’ evenings; and Lucy’s two friends, both from families that sound not quite so perfect… Yet Lucy is the one who ends up dead. Murdered by her mother. I think about envy, how it is fed by inequality.
Amy’s old nanny runs our after-school club. That was what Sian said. Old as in she’s no longer Amy’s nanny? Why not? If the Olivers moved away, why didn’t they take her with them? I’ve got friends and colleagues who would cut their own limbs off sooner than lose a trusted nanny.
I wish I’d thought to ask Amy’s mother’s name and the name of the bank she works for. Amy’s mum, Oonagh’s mum-did Sian mention any of them by name? It drove me mad after Zoe was born, the way I quickly became ‘Zoe’s mummy’, as if I had no identity of my own. To annoy the midwife and the health visitor I used to make a point of calling Zoe ‘Sally’s daughter’. They had no idea why I was doing it and looked at me as if I was insane.
Sian said ‘worked’, not ‘works’-Amy Oliver’s mother worked for a bank in London. That’s what you say when you haven’t seen someone for a while, when you’re describing what they did or how they were when you were last in touch with them. There’s nothing unusual about it. So why do I fear that the Oliver family has vanished off the face of the earth?