Page 39 of Good Bad Girl

She loves and hates this house. She has consistently loved it and cared for it longer than any of the people in her life. Clio hates the house for not being the home it once was, but she can’t ever sell it, could never leave for good, because she can’t leave her pain behind. Doesn’t deserve to. When the walls start closing in—the way they sometimes do if she doesn’t keep busy—Clio allows herself to escape to the cemetery. It’s a short walk, just one street away, andthat seems only right and fair. She thinks she deserves the memories that haunt her day and night, and to be constantly reminded of everything that she had and everything that she lost. It is a form of self-harm that holds the remaining pieces of her together.

Today, like so many days before, the small cemetery at the end of the street is empty. The only thing that feels different to Clio is the strange sensation of being watched. The feeling gives her goose bumps, but when she turns around there is nobody there. Loneliness likes to play tricks on people. So does guilt. Clio finds the tiny headstone and kneels down in front of it, for once not caring if her clothes get dirty. She wonders where her mother would like to be buried, and it feels wrong that she doesn’t know the answer.

Clio thinks that the girl who lived in the attic and worked in the care home probably knows. Maybe she knows all sorts of things about her mother that Clio doesn’t. Strangers tend to see a different version of the people we love. And Clio does still love her mother, but she is committed to hating her too. She doubts that the girl in the attic knows about all the bad things her mother has done, if she did she wouldn’t have been so keen to help. All anyone seems to see when they look at Edith Elliot now is a sweet old lady. Not everyone we meet in the present is the same person they were in the past.

Her elderly mother is missing but Clio doubts she is lost.

She thinks she knows where to find her but isn’t ready to look.

And Clio is glad that the care home manager is dead.

The detective was right to suspect Clio of doingsomethingwrong, but like her mother, Clio is very good at hiding her true self from the rest of the world. People are always too quick to judge other people based on their appearance, the way they speak, their job. A therapist is seen as someone kind, caring, and clever. Someone who people can be honest and open with. Someone they can trust. If people knew who she really was and what she was capable of they would never trust her again.

Clio kisses her fingers then touches the tiny headstone, knowing that there is nobody really there. She believes death is the end. She doesn’t believe in God, but Clio sometimes wishes that she did believe insomething. She feels jealous of people with faith, people who think there is something after we die. The loved ones Clio lost all those years ago are gone for good, and without them her life feels empty and pointless. Mother’s Day this year stirred up some unhappy memories and caused her mind to incorrectly fill in the blanks. Hope pretends to be kind but is often cruel.

She hears something again, the sound of a twig snapping, but when she turns around she still sees nothing. She is alone in the cemetery and Clio doesn’t believe in ghosts.

But she is haunted by her memories.

Sometimes she wishes she could run away, quit her life and start a new one. But she can’t. Nobody can. Not really. The people we were always eventually catch up with the people we are. So Clio does something she hasn’t done for years and lets herself cry.

Frankie

Frankie watches the woman in the pink house crouch down and sob in front of a tiny headstone, the variety that is only used when burying young children. She sees the way the woman’s shoulders shake as she weeps, and the way she stumbles when she rises, as though grief has made it too difficult for her to stand. Frankie has a curious urge to comfort her—she doesn’t like to see anyone in pain, even people who have hurt her—but she stays back, hiding behind a tree until she is sure the woman has gone.

Frankie followed her here and she’s glad that she did. She thought she knew everything about the woman in the pink house, but she didn’t know about this. She winds her way through moss covered graves, until she reaches the tiny headstone the woman was crying in front of. It still looks new. She reads the short inscription carved into the white marble:

ELEANOR KENNEDY

10 September 2002–30 March 2003

Forever loved

It is a child’s grave for a baby girl, less than one year old. She sees that the child was born in September and can’t help thinking about her own daughter. Frankie has so many happy memories of celebrating her daughter’s birthday every spring, always at that glorious time of year when leaves start appearing on the trees after a long, dark winter and flowers begin to blossom. This poor woman didn’t get to celebrate any birthdays with her daughter, not one. Knowing that the woman in the pink house has experienced the devastating pain of losing a child changes things. Frankie followed Clio, intending to confront her, but there is no longer any point. The woman does not know where Frankie’s daughter is, Frankie is sure of that now.

She checks her mobile phone again but there are no new calls or messages. Just the last one:

HELP ME MUM.

Frankie wants to but she needs to find her daughter first.

She knows the police won’t help her, but wonders if someone at the prison might be able to trace her daughter’s phone. It’s never a good idea to owe an inmate a favor but in this case it might be worth the risk. Yesterday, she didn’t think she would ever go back to the prison or her job, but things are different now. She has hope and a purpose again; her daughter still needs her. If Frankie can find her and fix what got broken, keeping her job so she can support them both is crucial. She’s several hours late for her shift, but she doubts anyone will notice if she gets there before today’s group session. As head librarian Frankie is free to come and go as she pleases most of the time. It isn’t as though she formally quit, she just wasn’t planning to turn up for work again. Perhaps there is a way for everything to go back to how it was and pretend that none of this happened. Maybe they could still be who they were before.

It takes an hour to drive across London to HMP Crossroads,and when she finally reaches the prison car park someone else has parked in her spot. Frankie doesn’t own the parking space—obviously—and the car park is used by visitors as well as staff, but the space is where shealwaysparks. This is not a good sign. She changes into her uniform in the van and hides her phone in her bra. Another risk, but one worth taking.

There should be seventy-three steps from the van to the prison gate, but because she couldn’t park where she wanted, it takes eighty-two. Frankie feels discombobulated again. She hesitates, wondering if this is another sign, but then she sees the transfer van approaching in the distance. Staff and prisoners all have to be processed through the same gate. If she doesn’t hurry there will be a queue and chaos, but chaos might be just what she needs. Frankie takes out her staff pass and heads inside.

She puts her bag in her locker, then silently counts the steps to the front desk. The guard on duty today is a small round man who is often off sick. It isn’t anything any doctor can help with, the man suffers from incurable laziness. He is short of patience as well as in stature, and she can’t help staring at his untamed curly white hair and matching eyebrows while he checks her security pass. He holds it too close to his face—as though he might need glasses—and he checks his screen twice, despite having worked with Frankie for almost ten years. He grunts and lets her through as though doing her a favor. The man reminds her of an unfriendly goat she and her daughter once saw at London Zoo.

There are twenty-eight steps from reception to the scanning room. Frankie puts her keys and anything metal on the conveyor belt as always, then walks through the body scanner, stopping when it beeps. She walks through a second time—as the rules state she must—and the machine beeps again, just as she knew it would. Frankie stands to the side with her legs slightly spread and her arms in the air, as is the protocol. She can already feel herself starting to sweat. The female member of staff now waving a metaldetecting wand around her body is only borderline friendly. Even less so when the wand buzzes. Twice.

“Sorry, I think it might be my new bra. It’s underwired,” Frankie says.

“Got a hot date later, have you?”

“Lukewarm at best.”

“Ha!”

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