Page 7 of The Girl in the Woods

‘I got a photo.’ Hale grinned, holding his phone up so Leigh could see. ‘Let’s wait for Will, and then we’ll get the police here.’

Leigh could barely breathe. She’d heard all sorts about the families that lived at Ludbrook Grove. What if Will got beaten up? It seemed a lifetime before she saw Will’s car turn the corner.

‘I lost the bugger,’ he said. ‘He shot down an alleyway near Ludbrook Grove. I couldn’t get the car down there, but he’s from the estate. I’m phoning DS Beth Harper,’ he snarled, marching into the house.

‘You can’t phone her now, Will,’ protested Leigh, hurrying after him. ‘It’s one in the morning. Shouldn’t you phone the police station?’

‘What and be fobbed off again? I don’t see why she shouldn’t be awake too,’ argued Hale. ‘These yobs are harassing and tormenting us daily because they can get away with it. They’ve damaged my car as well.’

‘Stonesend station covers all the surrounding villages, not just sodding Stonesend,’ agreed Will. ‘I think we should phone Beth Harper, not some night sergeant.’

‘He saw your faces,’ Leigh said, the tremble evident in her voice.

‘Who gives a shit?’ said Hale arrogantly.

You don’t know what they’re like at Ludbrook Grove, thought Leigh. You’ve only lived here a few months.

‘What’s the point in the police if they do bugger all?’ said Will. ‘If you ask me, it’s time for the public to take the law into their own hands.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Hale.

‘You don’t have her number, Will,’ Leigh argued.

‘She’s on the village WhatsApp group.’ Will grinned.

Leigh didn’t see the point in arguing as Will was already tapping Beth’s phone number into his mobile.

CHAPTER SIX

LAURIE

Some might have said Laurie McDuff’s life was doomed from the moment she was born.

She was raised on a council estate by an alcoholic mother and so many daddies that she eventually lost count. Life was never going to be easy. Some of the dads stayed longer than others. The nice ones gave her sweets or toys, usually to get her out of the way. Even at seven, Laurie knew why they wanted her out of the way, but it didn’t bother her as long as she got the toys.

Brenda McDuff hadn’t been a bad mother; it was just that everything had been against her from the moment she had met Charlie McDuff.

‘I was dealt a bad hand of cards,’ she would tell anyone who would listen.

The truth, however, was that Brenda had known Charlie McDuff was trouble. He’d been in the nick twice for burglary. It had been the air of danger and excitement enshrouding him that had made him more attractive to Brenda.

Sometimes, she would wonder what life might have been like if she hadn’t married Charlie McDuff. But thinking about what could have been doesn’t pay the rent. Charlie had been the best-looking bloke on the estate. All the girls fancied him, but Charlie wanted Brenda with her natural curly locks and big bright blue eyes. Brenda had been flattered that it was her he’d chosen. She’d been seventeen when they started going out together. Charlie had been twenty, worldly, and knew, it seemed to Brenda, just about everyone and everything.

Within a year, Brenda was pregnant. It had never occurred to her to go on the pill. She’d just assumed Charlie would take care of that side of things.

Once they were married, Brenda quickly learned that her ideal boyfriend wasn’t such an ideal husband. He resented her for the pregnancy and claimed she had trapped him into marriage. Because of Brenda’s pregnancy, they got a small council house on the Moorgate Estate. Charlie had grand ideas, and the Moorgate Estate wasn’t one of them. He was disappointed and became even more resentful.

They couldn’t afford furniture, so Charlie brought home tatty sofas that someone had thrown in a skip. The curtains left by the previous tenants were threadbare and smelt of stale cigarette smoke, but Brenda consoled herself that at least they had curtains, unlike some of the other tenants.

On the second day in their new home, their neighbour, Anika, came by with some homemade samosas. Brenda immediately felt a kinship with this pretty Indian woman, who wore the most colourful sari.

But that night Charlie refused to eat the samosas. ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ he scoffed. ‘God knows what their house is like or if her hands were clean when she made them.’

‘Charlie,’ exclaimed Brenda, shocked.

‘I don’t want Indians in our house, got it? Or touching our baby.’

So Brenda would go to Anika’s house, which always smelt of the most fragrant spices. Together, they made new curtains for Brenda’s living room out of cheap material they’d bought at the market. Anika helped hang them when Charlie was out.

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