Page 20 of Good Bad Girl

The benches in the pretty secret garden outside the church are all engraved with meaningful messages. I pass my favorite which says:Promise you won’t forget me. If I thought you would, I’d never leave.I think there are two kinds of people in the world: the ones who wish never to be forgotten, and the others who hope not to be noticed in the first place. I seem to be both, depending on my mood.

It feels colder inside the church than it did outside. My footsteps echo on the ancient stone floor and the place has an eerie feel to it. I spot the old pink leather suitcase exactly where I left it and feel a rush of relief.

“Did you remember to buy custard creams?” asks Edith, holding the suitcase in one hand and a dog lead in the other. Dickens wags his tail when he sees me.

“Yes, and the tea, a pint of milk, and a bottle of chardonnay. I’m sorry it took so long. I had to be sure the coast was clear and that it was safe to take you home.”

“Oh, I’m so excited! I haven’t had a glass of wine for monthsandI’m finally going home!” Edith replies. I don’t bother to correct her that it’smyhome we’re going to. She is still wearing my hoodie over her own clothes and it’s not a terrible disguise.

“I got you a treat too,” I tell Dickens and he wags his tail again. He’s been eyeing up the bowls of cat food in the church, left here for hungry strays. I’ve always found it strange how some people care more about lost animals than they do about lost humans.

Edith smiles. “Thank you for helping me escape, Ladybug.”

“You’re welcome,” I reply. It isn’t as though I had much of a choice. “I just hope we don’t get into too much trouble.”

“If you don’t go looking for trouble it won’t find you. Stop fretting. Everything will be all right in the end. If it isn’t, then it isn’t the end yet.”

Frankie

There is an intruder in Frankie’s home. She didn’t imagine the sound of the piano’s keys, but the overwhelming terror she felt before has been replaced with extreme irritation. Frankie does not like cats. Especially black ones who come onto her boat uninvited, let themselves inside her daughter’s bedroom, and jump all over the piano. Not to mention them being bad luck, which is something she has already had more than enough of.

“This boat is calledThe Black Sheep, notThe Black Cat,” she says, picking up the creature, holding it at arm’s length, and carrying it outside. The cat stares at her with big green eyes when she sets it down on the riverbank, then runs away, disappearing into the shadows.

It takes a while to clean her daughter’s bedroom. Frankie hoovers and dusts and polishes with Mr. Sheen until she is satisfied that there are no traces of the uninvited guest. She wants the room to beexactlyas it was—a bit of a mess but impeccably clean—just in case. She’s shocked when she checks her Mickey Mouse watchand sees how late it is. The watch is one of the only things Frankie still has from when she was a little girl—it was her mother’s—and she wonders if it might be time to get a new one, and to stop holding on to a past she can’t change.

Frankie was determined to create a better childhood for her own daughter. She tried to make sure her little girl knew she was loved, and created a home where she would always be safe and welcome. She was homeschooled and Frankie kept close tabs on who she spent time with. They moved around a lot, but her daughter was good at making new friends to replace old ones. The River Thames was home more often than not, but they’d spent time living on Grand Union and Regent’s Canal too. Frankie knew that leaving a place sometimes made her daughter feel sad, but it was important not to get complacent, or too fond of one location, in case they needed to move again. There had been no need to run away for years until her daughter did. Now Frankie is even more careful than she was before.

There are hardly any personal items belonging to Frankie on the boat, only small things she could easily grab if she needed to leave in a hurry. Like a precious photo album containing pictures of her daughter growing up. There are no letters, no bills, no paperwork. Frankie double-checks that the front door is locked, then switches off all of the lights, before heading to her bedroom at the other end of the boat. She lies down on the bed in the darkness and relives the last time she saw her little girl, replaying what they said to each other, just like she always does before she goes to sleep.

“You promised to tell me who my father was when I turned eighteen.”

“I can’t,” Frankie whispered then and now.

So her daughter left, to try to find him herself.

It was a story that was never going to have a happy ending.

Frankie did what she did to protect her daughter from the truth. She didn’t have a choice but it cost her everything. The worstparts of our history have a bad habit of repeating themselves. And then today—despite all of her planning—everything went wrong.

Probably because Frankie was so upset before her appointment at the pink house.

How was she supposed to know that popping into the care home to pay someone a quick visit would end the way did?

Clio

“A murder?” Clio says.

“Yes,” the detective replies. “I’m afraid you’ve stumbled into a crime scene so I’m going to need to find someone to interview you—”

“Who?”

“A junior detective. We have to interview everyone at the—”

“No, I mean who has been murdered?”

“I really can’t say until we’ve spoken to the next of kin.”

“But I received a phone call earlier, about my mother. They said she was missing...”

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