It was too much of a coincidence for it not to mean anything, and Holly crept over to the wardrobe to take another look at the newspaper cutting. She eased the door open, scared that the hinges might squeak and wake her mum, then carefully lifted the tin box out and carried it back to her room.
She spread the cutting out on her bed and re-read it before typing the names of the murdered couple into a Google search. A stream of articles appeared on her phone screen and she quickly scrolled through them. Most pretty much mirrored the story in the cutting, with occasional updates on the progress – or lack of – in the search for Charlotte. The last article was dated three months after the original, and Holly’s heart sank when she read that the search had been called off. A piece of clothing, believed to belong to the missing child, had been recovered from the bottom of the Rochdale canal a mile away from the murder scene, and Charlotte was now presumed to be dead. In light of that, a police spokesperson had said, they were now focusing their efforts on finding her remains, which were believed to have been swept away during the recent floods in the area.
There was no further mention of the case and Holly assumed they had never found Charlotte’s body. It saddened her to think the police had given up on her so fast, and she hoped Charlotte hadn’t suffered too much – especially if there was a possibility that they had been related, as Suzie had suggested.
She scrolled back to one of the earlier articles which had contained an image of the murdered woman and her child, and enlarged the picture. It was grainy, and the facial features weren’t very clear, but she scrutinized it closely, looking for similarities between the woman and her mum. There didn’t seem to be any. Her mum’s hair was brown, but the woman’s was fair; and her mum’s eyes were dark blue, whereas the woman’s looked a lot lighter – although it was impossible to tell their actual colour since the photo was black and white. The shape of their faces was also quite different: her mum’s longer, her jaw more square than the woman’s.
It seemed pretty clear to Holly that her mum and the woman weren’t related, so she switched her gaze to the child instead, wondering if the link might be between her mum and the girl’s father. Charlotte’s hair looked almost white-blond and was tied up in pigtails secured by ribbons. She was really cute, with a heart-shaped face, a button nose and a wide, happy smile. The individual features revealed nothing significant, but there was something familiar in the image as a whole, something that stirred a hazy, distant memory and made Holly’s stomach feel funny.
She told herself to stop being ridiculous. This was wishful thinking, that was all. She was so desperate to know there was more to her life than her mother and this boring, claustrophobic flat, she was trying to force Charlotte and her mother into the blank family photo of her imagination, and it was pathetic.
Deflated, she closed her phone and refolded the article before putting it back into the box and sliding it under her bed. She was too tired to replace it in the wardrobe tonight, so she would do it tomorrow, she decided as she reached out to switch off the light.
27
Suzie felt bright and energized when she woke the next morning, so much so that she was shocked to see she had only slept a couple of hours when she glanced at the clock. She had been going through the motions for the last few weeks, each boring day an exact replica of the one before: waking up, pottering about, eating, drinking – so much drinking – then sleeping again . . . But, today, she felt like she’d broken out of the rut, and she smiled when she heard Rob whistling along to the music that was drifting up from the kitchen.
Last night, she had seen the man she fell in love with for the first time in a long time: the lovely, caring, easy-going Rob who could charm the birds out of the trees and turn her legs to water with one sexy smile. She wasn’t so stupid that she had forgotten the other side to him: the possessiveness, the irrational jealousy, the rages . . . But the anger-management course he’d taken during their separation certainly seemed to have had an impact, and she was glad they could be friends again.
And, who knew . . .? she mused. If he stayed like this, there might even be a possibility of them reuniting further down the line.
She’d been disappointed by the way things ended last night, but, in hindsight, she was glad that Rob hadn’t tried it on with her. She was also glad that he was heading off to Scotland today. Not because she wanted him gone, but because it would give them both time and space to think about what they wanted. If they decided they still loved each other, then they could make a go of it when he came home from the rigs. But if not, they would have been apart for so long by then that it wouldn’t really hurt either of them.
The smell of bacon drifted up to her now, and she climbed out of bed and pulled her dressing gown on over her pyjamas when her stomach rumbled. After nipping into the bathroom to use the loo, brush her teeth and wash off last night’s make-up, she headed downstairs.
‘Morning, gorgeous.’ Rob smiled when she entered the kitchen. ‘Hope you don’t mind me raiding the fridge, but I wanted to make breakfast for you before I left – to thank you for letting me stay.’
‘There was no need, but thanks,’ Suzie said, returning the smile as she took a seat at the table.
