Page 65 of Good Bad Girl

“Where?”

“Scotland. Edinburgh, I think. He’s away a lot lately. I can’t remember the name of the hotel, but I can give you his number. He’s on his way back now. Obviously.”

The detective scribbles something else in her notebook and Clio imagines it saysMarriage on the rocks.

DCI May Chapman looks up. She rearranges her face into something resembling kind, then says something which is not. “The sad fact is that in the majority of cases of child abduction, child abuse, and child murder, it’s someone the child knows. I’m sorry for the next question, but where were you between ten and twelve this morning?”

Clio stares at her. “You think I stole my own baby?”

“I’m just asking the questions that need to be asked.”

Frankie

You can’t trustanyone, Frankie knows this.Peoplewill always let you down in the end, life taught her that lesson when she was young. She waits in the hospital car park because she is exhausted and has nowhere else to go until her shift starts in a few hours. Frankie must have dozed off for a while because night has turned into day; a beautiful sunrise now stretches over the city. She is about to leave when she sees DCI Charlotte Chapman walking toward the main entrance. She wonders why the detective would come to the hospital, it doesn’t make any sense, so Frankie heads inside to find out.

She starts to count her footsteps and it makes her think of her own mother. She is the reason Frankie needs to count things, just like she is the reason Frankie learned not to trustpeople. Rosamund Fletcher was a formidable character, one who knew her own mind and how to manipulate the adoption process. The care system wasn’t as careful about who children were entrusted toback then. The woman who became her mother was sometimes a monster. She had an inhospitable heart, one where love refused to live no matter how many times it had been invited.

Rosamund loved Frankie in her own very quiet way. The variety of love that isn’t spoken out loud or displayed—in publicorin private—but a love that was demonstrated by the things a persondoesn’tdo. When she loved her daughter she didn’t scream and shout at her. When she loved her daughter she didn’t lash out. Sometimes her mother just wanted to be alone. The older Frankie got, the more she understood. Her mother didn’t just crave solitude, she needed it.

“You run and hide, count to one hundred, and I’ll come and find you.”

That’s what her mother used to say when Frankie was little, but it was often a lie. Sometimes Frankie would count to two hundred before she realized that nobody was coming. Her mother frequently didn’t try to find her at all.

The worst time, when Frankie was seven years old, she knew that her mother must have seen her run and hide inside the cupboard hole below deck on the narrow boat. Because Frankie heard her creep up to it and lock her in. She wasn’t afraid of the dark until that day. And that night. And the day after. The hiding place was damp. It had a musty smell Frankie will never forget, and was so small she could barely turn around in it, even though she was still little herself. For almost two days Frankie was trapped in a tiny dark hole, with nothing to eat and nothing to drink, and only a keyhole to peek out of. All she could do was count.

Her mother never explained, never apologized for locking her away. She never told her where she went or why it took such a long time to come back. Counting her fingers and toes as the minutes and hours passed, in the dark with her eyes squeezed closed, was the only thing that made Frankie feel safe. When Rosamundfinally did let her out, she saw the dark circles beneath her mother’s eyes, and the bruises on her neck, arms, and legs. Frankie knew better than to ask where she had been.

Sometimes her mother had visitors to the narrow boat late at night. The visits often happened when the fridge was empty or they were running out of gas. Rosamund’s bedroom was right at the other end of the boat, but Frankie could still hear the visitors and the noises they made. She would cover her ears and count until the visitors went away. Storms always pass if you wait long enough; so do people. Counting helps Frankie to make sense of a world that has never made sense.

When Rosamund died, the news came as a shock. It was not long after Frankie had found out that she was adopted—a revelation that had put a strain on their already strained relationship. Frankie inherited the narrow boat, along with her mother’s desire for solitude. She wasn’t sure whether either were good for her, butThe Black Sheepwas the only place that had ever really been home. When her own daughter came along a little later, it felt like a chance to make it a happy one. She had missed the freedom of living on rivers she knew so well, having grown up navigating them. The boat didn’t just offer her a place to live, it offered her a place to hide.

Frankie sees a small café just inside the hospital and decides to get herself a coffee. She sits for a while—watching other people come and go, listening to their conversations—and when her first coffee is finished she buys herself another, along with a cinnamon swirl. She decided to loiter in the café because two uniformed police officers have now entered the hospital, and she doesn’t want to miss whatever is going to happen next. Ten minutes later, her curiosity and patience are rewarded when she sees Jude Kennedy being escorted from the building in handcuffs. Now Frankiehasto know what is going on. She thinks of something sad to makeherself cry—a trick her mother taught her, which has come in handy often over the years—then walks up to the reception desk.

“Can I help you?” asks the woman sitting behind it.

“I’m looking for Edith Elliot. She was brought here in an ambulance...”

The woman sees her tears, checks the screen, then tells Frankie where Edith was taken. Frankie is watchful as she heads in that direction. The last thing she needs is for the detective to catch her here as well as at the care home. There were things Frankie wanted to say to Edith the other day, but the dead care home manager meant she had to leave before she got the chance. Maybe she can say all the things she wanted to say now. She follows the signs down one corridor and along another, then takes the stairs toward the ward she is looking for. A few more corridors—and ninety-nine steps later—she is almost there when her phone makes an unfamiliar noise. The sound of a missed call.

Frankie thinks it is her daughter—who else could it be—and her hands are trembling as she dials her voice mail. But it isn’t her little girl.

“Miss Fletcher, it’s Liberty. I know I shouldn’t really be calling you, but I thought it best to tell you as soon as possible. I know where your daughter is.”

Clio

“I don’t understand,” Clio says as two uniformed officers lead her brother out of her mother’s hospital room. “Who is he supposed to have conspired to murder?” she asks DCI Chapman.

“Your mother,” the detective replies.

“Jude tried to kill Mum?”

“Nothing that hands-on. Joy Bonetta offered to do it, in exchange for some of his inheritance once she got the job done, and Jude said yes. They exchanged a series of texts that were highly incriminating and not too cryptic. But Bonetta didn’t get the job done—a dishonest, incompetent, and unreliable character by all accounts—and someone killedherinstead. You’ll be pleased to know you are no longer a suspect. Your mother told us what happened.”

“She did?” Clio says.

“Yes. Nice trainers, by the way.” Clio stares down at her red sneakers. It’s the second unwelcome compliment her footwear has received today. “And then there’s the bear.” The detective holds up the black-and-white bear she has been carrying. “I believe this wasa gift you sent to your mother?” Clio can’t find the right words, so nods. “Can you tell me what made you purchase an expensive spy camera disguised as a toy bear for an eighty-year-old woman?”

Clio looks over at Edith, lying so still and small in the hospital bed.

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