Mary-Jane Riley - After She Fell - A haunting psychological thriller with a shocking twist

‘I come and sleep in here sometimes,’ Cat’s voice was faint. Unbearably sad. ‘To be near her. I won’t let anyone wash the sheets. I can still smell her, just. I don’t want to lose that smell. Sometimes, if I don’t look at a photograph of her I feel as though I might lose what she looked like. Forget her face. The scar on her knee from where she fell off her bike trying to ride it without stabilizers for the first time. The birthmark on the inside of her wrist. The way one ear sticks out more than the other. Stuck out more than the other. Then I can’t stop crying.’ She looked up at Alex. ‘That’s the trouble. I can’t stop crying.’

‘I know. I understand.’ Alex nodded.

‘I know you do. You had to help Sasha through everything, despite what happened at the end. And you’ve got Gus. I know you would do anything to keep him safe. I couldn’t keep Elena safe, that’s why I’m begging you to help me. Please.’

There was no way, Alex knew, she was not going to help Cat now.

‘Would you mind if I took the laptop and phone away with me? To have a look, see what she was doing at school?’

For a moment her friend looked panicked. ‘I don’t know … I’m not sure …’

‘It might help me get a picture of her life, that’s all,’ said Alex gently, knowing the tremor in Cat’s voice was, after all she had said, due to the possibility of losing something of her daughter’s. ‘I won’t do any harm, or destroy anything, I promise.’

‘But her passwords?’

‘Leave that to me,’ said Alex.

‘She wanted to be an artist, you know. She was good enough too,’ said Cat, her face sad. ‘That’s one of hers. It’s Hallow’s Edge.’

She pointed to a painting on the wall. Oil. A landscape. A beach, the sea, white horses, groynes, all painted as if the artist was sitting on the beach. And in the corner, on the edge of the cliff … was that a tiny figure? Alex moved nearer to peer at it, but the picture dissolved into a mass of paint blobs. She moved away, further across the room, and the blobs morphed into a figure that seemed to be wearing a long coat and scarf. It could have been anybody.

‘She painted that in her last term; it was part of her Art A level. They let me bring it home. It’s lovely, isn’t it? I think it’s somewhere near the school, but—’ Catriona looked as though she was about to cry.

‘Who’s the figure in the top corner?’

Cat shook her head. ‘No idea.’ She got up and stood next to Alex. ‘I hadn’t noticed it. I didn’t look closely enough. I didn’t take enough interest. Not then.’ She gulped back a sob.

‘Cat …’ Alex hesitated, not wanting to appear intrusive. ‘Would you mind if I took a photograph of the painting?’

‘No. If you think it’ll help in some way, any way, then please do.’

Alex snapped the painting. ‘And do you have a recent picture of Elena? I’ll give it back to you, I promise.’

Catriona nodded and went out of Elena’s bedroom, coming back with a photo frame. ‘This is the most recent one I have of her.’ Her voice broke. ‘It was taken during the summer holidays. We managed a couple of days in Dorset. Lovely little village called Kimmeridge. She seemed relaxed for the first time in ages.’

Elena had been strikingly beautiful. Long blonde hair framing a heart-shaped face with angular cheekbones. Dark brown eyes. A slight smile curved a rosebud mouth.

‘That’s odd,’ said Cat, peering at the picture. ‘I hadn’t thought about that before.’

‘What’s that?’

She pointed at the photo. ‘See? The ring?’

Alex looked. Elena was holding one hand up to the camera. She might have been waving or telling her mother not to take the picture. On the fourth finger of her right hand was an oddly shaped silver ring. ‘Looks like one of those his and hers eternity rings. Seems as though there should be a partner to it, doesn’t it?’

‘That’s what I said to Elena when I saw it. I think she was given it by somebody for her birthday. She gave me one of her mysterious smiles so I backed off. Didn’t want to interfere. I wish I’d asked her more.’

Oh, Alex knew all about not interfering. Sometimes, though, you had to. ‘And?’

‘She was wearing it all summer holidays, wouldn’t take it off. And she kept stroking it when she thought I wasn’t looking. It was obviously very important to her. The thing is …’ she paused, ‘there was no sign of it in any of her stuff they gave back to me.’

‘Maybe she lost it.’ Or perhaps it had come off her finger as her body was battered by the sea.

‘Maybe.’ Cat was thoughtful. She traced the outline of her daughter’s face. ‘I had the impression it was something she would keep through thick and thin. As I say, something really important.’ She shrugged. ‘Oh well, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe she did lose it.’

The traffic was heavy now as she passed through some of The Broads villages before arriving at the real flatlands of Norfolk and she knew she wasn’t too far away from Hallow’s Edge. She could feel the lightness of air, the big sky above, the space around her, and she remembered why she loved East Anglia so.

After saying goodbye to Cat and Mark, Alex made a call and then went to Streatham, to an ordinary residential road. The house she was looking for was halfway up and part of a row of terraces with each tiny front garden having at least two wheelie bins. Number 102 had a decrepit armchair as a garden feature as well. A blanket hung across the ground floor window in place of curtains. She walked up the path and knocked.

A tall thin woman of about twenty-five whose pallor indicated she hardly ever saw daylight opened the door. She was wearing faded jeans and a tee-shirt with the dates of a long-gone music tour inscribed on it.

‘Hey, Honey,’ said Alex.

‘Yeah. It’s early, y’know?’

Alex grimaced. ‘Sorry, I do know. But I wanted to get it to you as soon as.’

Honey rubbed the top of her head making her ginger crop stand up in spikes. ‘Sure.’ She yawned, widely, showing two sets of perfect teeth. ‘I’ll do my best.’ She held out her hand. ‘Give it here.’

Alex handed over Elena’s laptop and phone. ‘I need them back in pristine condition, Honey,’ she warned.

‘Come on, Alex, you know me. No one will ever know I’ve been in there.’

Alex smiled. She really did trust this hacker who’d somehow almost managed to stay below the radar of the authorities since she was sixteen. The one (and seemingly only) time she’d come a cropper was when Alex had found her after a tip-off for a story she was doing at the time about cyber security, and she’d managed to get Honey off the hook with the coppers in return for information. Honey had been grateful ever since.

She was on the road that wound along the Norfolk coast, sometimes going near enough to the sea, most of the time winding through flat acres of fields. Eventually she saw a signpost for Hallow’s Edge and turned into the narrow road with hedges either side. For about half a mile there was nothing, then she spied a farm set back from the road, a couple of flint cottages and a modern bungalow. It really was as if she was entering a time warp. She drove slowly, praying she wouldn’t meet a tractor coming the other way, and stopped the car by a curved flint wall before getting out. The heat hit her like a sledgehammer.

There it was. The Drift. Elena’s school. A school for the privileged. Beautiful. It was at the end of a long gravel drive, lined with lime trees, that swept up to the front of the house. Two of the four brick and flint wings of the house made a graceful curve. Large wooden front door in the middle. Magnificent thatched roof. Heavy on the insurance. Alex knew there were two other wings curving at the back with beautiful views over the coastline and the sea. Shaped like a butterfly, it was built during the Arts and Craft movement. She knew all this because she’d looked it up online, and the pictures had been fantastic. She’d had to look up about the Arts and Craft movement, but, hey, that was what Wikipedia was for.