---

The house has been so silent this weekend, the atmosphere so cold, without Freya. I’ve missed her constant chatter, the way she can distract me from everything, the way that when I’m with her nothing else seems important. Without her here I’ve had too much time to focus on Alison and Dominic. And what happened to Zach.

But now it’s Monday morning, and before I pick up Freya I will visit Elaine Bradford, and hopefully get some answers. There must be something she can tell me to help me understand Dominic, and whether or not he can be trusted.

Her office is in Muswell Hill, a part of London I’m not familiar with, but my satnav gets me there in just under an hour. It’s in the completely opposite direction from Reading, but I should still make it in plenty of time to pick Freya up after lunch.

Bradford Estate Agents is a large office in a row of upmarket high street shops. I should have called ahead to check Elaine was actually in this morning, but I couldn’t think of any reason why I’d need to ask that. Still, I’m happy to take this chance. I have no clients scheduled in and at least it feels like I am doing something.

Before I step inside, I scan the faces sitting at desks, but see no sign of Elaine. I know from her website picture that she’s got dark hair, almost the same colour as Dominic’s, and it’s cut in a neat bob. She is definitely not in there.

But I walk through the doors anyway; it’s likely she’s out on a showing or something else work-related.

A tall young man, smartly dressed in a suit, comes to greet me, jangling some keys in his hand. ‘Hi, how can I help you?’

‘Um, I’m looking for Elaine, if she’s around.’

His smile fades a bit. He must have been hoping for my commission. ‘She’s in her office. I’m just on my way to a viewing, but it’s right over there.’ He points towards a glass door at the back, where I can just about make out a dark-haired woman sitting at her desk.

‘Thanks,’ I say, but he’s already disappeared.

As I walk towards her, the first thing I notice is how different Elaine Bradford is from Alison. Not everyone has a type – Zach and Will couldn’t be more different in looks – but the woman before me is so much more together, so much more confident than Alison. I can tell this within two seconds.

She smiles at me. ‘Hi, how can I help you?’ she says. Then she frowns. ‘Don’t I know you?’

It’s impossible. I’ve never seen her before and she wasn’t with Dominic at the funeral, so there’s no way, unless of course…

‘No, that’s it – you’re Zach Hamilton’s wife. Sorry, I recognise you from the Internet.’ She offers a half-smile. ‘Oh, I know how awful that must sound, but, well, there’s no point pretending it’s anything other than it is.’ Her smile widens and she holds out her hand to me. ‘Nice to meet you anyway. It’s a small world, isn’t it?’

I take her hand, puzzled that she recognised me so quickly. I look different now, I’ve made sure of that. I needed to shed the past, so my hair is now shorter and a chestnut colour, no longer the almost black that it was, and I iron out my natural waves with straighteners. But it hasn’t fooled Elaine – or others, probably.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I tell her, taking her hand. ‘And yes, I’m Mia.’

She offers a warm smile. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, it’s no reflection on you. I heard years ago that you had some trouble from people. I just wish everyone would mind their own business.’

As much as it’s painful to hear this woman talk of the abuse I received, allowing her to discuss it could be my way to bring up Dominic. ‘It was hard,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t even leave my house without someone confronting me. Most of the time they’d just scream and shout in my face, but sometimes it got even nastier than that.’ Memories flood my mind of smashed car windows, abusive words spray-painted onto my front door. It got so bad that I barely left the house for months.

Elaine shakes her head. ‘I can’t believe the nerve of people. It’s outrageous that you had to go through that. They claimed to be friends of that student, didn’t they? Although by all accounts she didn’t really have any close friends. Not surprising, given the way she carried on.’

‘No close friends apart from my husband,’ I say.

Elaine’s eyes widen and she stares at me for a moment, probably wondering just how far I will let this conversation go. ‘Yes, well, we don’t always choose right the first time round, do we?’ She snatches a glance at my left hand. ‘I certainly didn’t. You probably know my ex-husband, Dominic? He worked with Zach.’

‘Yes, we only met briefly at the funeral—’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t go, but Dominic and I had been having so many problems and I’d actually left him by then. Thank God!’

‘Don’t worry about that. You didn’t even know Zach so I wouldn’t have expected you to be there.’

‘Actually, I did meet him. Well, “meet” is probably the wrong word for it, but I saw him at the university once when I went to visit Dominic. He was… I’m sorry to say this now, but he was with that girl. They were just walking along the corridor and I remember he held the door open for me. Very polite man. I thought nothing of it at the time, but after what happened it stuck in my mind.’ She finally pauses for breath.

Elaine is right about that. The whole time I was with Zach I never heard him say a bad word, or even an angry word, to or about anyone. He was always so calm, able to keep level-headed about everything. It’s hard to understand how he could have snapped that night.

An awkward silence hangs between us for a moment until, to my relief, Elaine attempts to move the conversation on. ‘How are you doing anyway?’ she asks, as if we are suddenly close friends.

‘Time heals all wounds, doesn’t it?’ I say this to avoid directly answering her question.

She studies my face for too long. ‘Yes, but it must have changed you. Something as horrific as that is bound to have scarred you, you poor thing.’

There is no way I want to talk about all this to Elaine, even though I can tell she means well and her concern is genuine. But if I want her to open up then I’ve got to be prepared to do that myself. So I tell her that it has changed me, more than I can put into words. I used to be a sociable person, making time for my friends whenever I could, but afterwards I could barely bring myself to look anyone in the face, even those I knew wouldn’t make any judgements. Eventually, I cut myself off from the world, and the loneliness and isolation might have finished me off if it wasn’t for Freya. It was only three years later that Will’s kindness and warmth brought me out of myself.

Elaine nods as if she knows exactly what I’m talking about, as if she’s been through something similar herself, rather than being on the outside looking in at the spectacle that was my life five years ago. ‘I’m so glad you met someone special. What do you do now? You weren’t working at the time, were you?’

I start to feel on edge. This woman knows too much about me and I know nothing about her other than who she was married to. We are on unequal footing. This can never be a good thing. ‘No, I took some time off work to look after my young daughter, then when she started school I trained as a counsellor and now I have my own business. Like you.’

‘Well, that’s fantastic! Good for you. I know it’s not an easy thing to do. So what brings you to see me?’ she asks, changing the subject. ‘Did you say you were looking for a property?’

She must know full well I haven’t even had a chance to explain my visit. ‘I could be. My partner and I are considering moving in together and, to be honest, a move from Ealing might do me good.’

‘You still live there? In the same house?’

I’m not ashamed to admit it. It was my house too, and I can’t let what Zach did taint the memories it holds. I tell her this and she seems to understand.

‘I suppose I get that. I’ll tell you this much, though – after my divorce I couldn’t wait to sell up and move away. Even this side of London didn’t seem to put enough miles between me and that part of my life.’

This is perfect; she has referred to her divorce without me having to. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Her expression changes and her eyes seem to darken. ‘It’s a time of my life I’d rather forget. But then, a divorce is nothing compared to what you had to go through.’

‘Well, that doesn’t mean you haven’t suffered. Was it really acrimonious? It’s funny, Zach always spoke so well of Dominic.’ She won’t know that until the funeral I had no idea who her ex-husband was.

‘Well, that’s the trouble when people have two sides to them. Their colleagues only see the good – the kind, helpful man who will do anything to support them – while the wife gets the bitter, twisted and resentful part when he gets home. Perhaps all those hours of being nice get too much and they just have to let it out.’ She laughs but I can tell it is forced, that this is hard for her to speak about.

I recall talking with Dominic in the park. It really is hard to picture him being the man she is describing – the man Alison described, too – but then maybe she’s right about people having a side they keep from the world.

‘It was a totally loveless marriage,’ Elaine continues, seeming not to notice I haven’t responded. ‘Pretty much right from the start. Wasted years. I would have loved to have children but now it’s too late because I spent so much time with him.’ She looks around her. ‘Mind you, I might not have done all this if I’d had kids, so maybe things work out for the best. Anyway, I haven’t actually seen him for years and don’t even know what he’s doing or if he remarried or anything. It’s easier this way. Pretending he doesn’t exist.’

‘Maybe he’s changed?’ I say. ‘Become a better person?’

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t believe any of us are capable of changing. Not really. We’re still always who we are inside, no matter what we try to show to the world. Don’t you think?’

‘Perhaps.’ I think of Zach. Was he always capable of such betrayal? How did I not notice it? ‘That’s if we see it in the first place,’ I tell Elaine.

She offers her sympathetic smile again. ‘Don’t blame yourself for anything. I spent a long time wondering if I’d pushed Dominic away, or turned him into the uncaring person he became, and it was ages before I woke up and realised none of it was my fault. I gave all I could to that marriage and I’m sure you did too.’

Although Elaine is being more forthcoming than I could have hoped for, I still don’t know whether Dominic Bradford was physically abusive towards her. I make one last attempt to find out for sure. ‘Still, divorce is one of the most stressful things you can go through. It’s funny, people get divorced for so many reasons: infidelity, abuse—’

She starts to say something but we’re interrupted by a knock at her door. Through the glass I see a young couple standing together, their arms wrapped around each other. Elaine smiles and holds up her hand to signal them to wait. ‘Oh, that’s my appointment. I have to go and show them a property now.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Between you and me, they’re bloody time-wasters. I think this must be the thirtieth house they’ve viewed and none are anywhere near good enough.’ She stands up and holds out her hand. ‘Anyway, it was lovely to meet you, Mia. If you just leave your details with Tina, the lady sitting nearest the front door, I’ll give you a call and we can get started with your search.’

I thank her and leave her office. As I head to the front door I see the woman who must be Tina. I consider stopping to leave my details, to keep up the charade in the hope that I can get more information about Dominic from Elaine, but I decide it’s not fair to deceive her this way. Besides, she doesn’t know anything about Dominic now – and she won’t be able to tell me a thing about Alison – so I need to move on.

I glance back at Elaine’s office and see she is busy talking the ears off the loved-up couple, so I smile at Tina and head through the doors, out into the oppressive heat.

---

Freya was quiet when I picked her up from Graham and Pam’s, and although I asked her about her weekend, she only offered mumbled responses. I didn’t push her, but now we’re back at home and she still won’t talk much. This isn’t like her.

‘Sweetheart, are you okay?’

She shrugs. ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’

She’s half-heartedly doing a jigsaw on the living room floor, and I sit down next to her. ‘You don’t seem okay. Can you tell me what’s wrong?’

Again she gives a shrug, but then immediately starts talking. ‘My daddy was a nasty man, wasn’t he?’

Her question is such a shock that for a moment I think I must have misheard her. She has never said anything like this before. But then she repeats herself.

I reach across and hold her hand. ‘No, sweetheart, of course he wasn’t. Why do you say that?’

She pulls her hand away. ‘Mummy, you’re lying. I know he was. He was a bad man.’ She tries to crush a jigsaw piece in her palm but it’s too sturdy so she gives up and throws it down instead. My daughter never behaves like this, at least not since she was a toddler and could only express her frustration with tantrums.

‘Freya, you need to tell me why you’re saying this and then we can talk about it properly, okay?’ I put the jigsaw piece back with the others.

Seconds pass until she finally nods. ‘I read it. On Grandad’s iPad.’

My chest tightens. ‘Read what, Freya?’

There are tears in her eyes now so I pull her towards me and wrap my arms around her. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart, just tell me everything. What did you read?’

Through her sniffs and snorts, I have to strain to hear all her words. ‘Megan told me how to Google stuff on her iPad so I used it to look up my dad.’

I knew this time would come eventually, I just didn’t think it would be when Freya was only seven. There is no way I can expect her to understand what happened, so all I can do is try to control the damage. I urge her to carry on.

‘It said he did a bad thing to a girl he was teaching. Mummy, what did he do? I didn’t understand it all. But they said she must be dead and that’s why he… made himself dead.’

Her tears come faster now so I hold her even tighter. I have always been honest with Freya and told her Zach took his own life. There was no way I was going to lie to her only for her to find out the truth years later and question everything she’s ever known. But I have never mentioned the circumstances surrounding it, only telling her that he felt very sad.

‘Listen to me, sweetheart. Daddy loved you very much – more than anything – and don’t you ever forget that.’

She thinks about this for a moment, staring at me with glassy eyes and a trembling lip. ‘Okay. But it’s horrible, Mummy. Was he really nasty, like they’re saying?’

‘What you’ve got to remember, honey, is that he loved you.’

‘And you, Mummy.’

My chest tightens. ‘Yes, and me. He loved us both and that’s all that matters. Don’t listen to anything else. As you get older you might hear more things about him, but you’ve got to just ignore it. And just keep remembering what I’ve said. He loved us, and nothing else matters. Sometimes people make bad mistakes – it doesn’t always mean they’re bad people.’

The words stick in my throat, threatening to choke me.

---

Will is in good spirits this evening, bounding through the door with a box of chocolates for me and a pack of the Frozen stickers he knows Freya collects.

I half-heartedly cook us a meal while they watch television together and I can’t bring myself to speak much as we eat. Thankfully, Freya has perked up after our chat and is keeping Will busy enough not to question me.

The talk I had today with Elaine plays on my mind. She didn’t come out and say that Dominic was abusive, but I know she was about to tell me something when we were interrupted. But it’s too dangerous to make assumptions. The only thing I know for sure is that either Alison or Dominic is lying to me. Was Alison scared of him? Is that why she quickly retracted her statement and practically ran from my office? Or is Dominic right and she’s extremely troubled? I can’t ignore the fact that she’s chosen to focus on me: there’s a reason for that and I need to find out what it is.

Drop it, Mia. You’ve fought hard to move on after what Zach did, and to build a life for yourself and Freya, so don’t step backwards now. That would be a huge mistake. But how can I forget Alison’s words, constantly whirring in my head?

---

Later, in bed, Will questions me about my reticence during dinner, just as I knew he would. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? Are you feeling ill again?’

Normally I don’t like to burden him – I try to solve problems on my own, and so far I’ve kept him out of anything to do with Zach, but tonight I’m exhausted, and just in this moment it feels right to share some things with him.

‘Oh, Will, something happened with Freya this afternoon and, well, it’s kind of thrown me. More than thrown me, actually.’

He sits up straighter, a frown on his face. ‘Tell me.’

I repeat what Freya said, trying to remember the words she used, but I know I won’t have them exactly right. I was too shocked to notice exactly how she put everything.

‘Oh shit,’ says Will, when I’ve finished. ‘That’s not good.’ He very rarely swears so I know this is a shock to him. ‘What did you tell her?’

‘The only thing I could. That Zach loved her and nothing else matters.’

He nods. ‘Hmmm. I’m guessing that was hard for you to say.’

When I first met Will I couldn’t bring myself to tell him exactly what had happened. I didn’t lie to him, but told him it was too difficult to talk about, and that I’d appreciate it if he didn’t push me. I didn’t know if he’d heard anything, from other people or from social media.

Will’s sister was a teacher at Freya’s school so I had no doubt people were gossiping about it when Freya first started, even though it was three years later at that point. So the more time went on, the more I realised I didn’t want his mind filled with anyone’s version of events but mine.

Of course I thought about moving, before Freya started school – that would have been the easier option – but I refused to be chased out of my home.

We were on our first date when I broached the subject with Will. I’d reluctantly agreed to have a coffee with him after brushing him off a few times – he’d never given up and had taken to giving his sister lifts to school, which she didn’t need or particularly want, just so he’d have an excuse to see me. He took my hand and told me he didn’t listen to other people and had no opinion about it either way. ‘I wasn’t there,’ he said, ‘so I’m not going to judge.’ But he added that when I was ready to talk about it, he would listen with an open mind.

And he was true to his word. ‘Life deals us horrendous blows sometimes,’ he’d said, ‘but never let it define you, Mia. Whatever Zach did had nothing to do with you.’

So now, as painful memories once again stir within me, I realise how blessed I am to have Will, and the second chance at life he has given me.

‘Do you know what makes all this harder?’ I say. ‘The fact they never found her body. It’s like there’s a permanent question mark hanging over me and Freya, and I just want it gone.’

‘I know this is hard to hear, but sometimes people are never found, even though everything points to them no longer being alive. Even if they do find her, it could be years before that happens, it might not even be in our lifetime.’

I don’t know if finding Josie Carpenter would be better or worse than how it already is, but at least the ghost of her would no longer haunt me – I could lay all this to rest.

Will grabs my hand. ‘Listen, I know this probably isn’t the best time… Actually, it’s the worst possible time, but I need to ask you something – again – and I need you to at least consider it. I love you and Freya – you know that, don’t you?’

I nod, already knowing where this conversation will go.

‘You both make me so happy, and I can’t… actually I don’t want to be without you.’ He must notice the panic on my face, and he smiles and squeezes my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Mia, I’m not proposing. But I am asking you again. Officially. Will you think about us living together?’

So many times he’s asked me this, but never quite in this way. And he’s right, his timing couldn’t be worse, but as I look at his face, full of hope, I know there is only one answer I can give. Maybe, after all, fate has him asking me right now for a reason. To show me everything will be okay.

I lift his hand and kiss it. ‘Yes, let’s do it. But I don’t think we should live here. It just wouldn’t feel right. Let’s buy somewhere new together, have a fresh start. It will be good for Freya too, especially after what she said today.’

Will grabs me and pulls me into him, letting out a huge cheer and punching the air. ‘Do you know how happy you’ve just made me? In fact, don’t answer that, let me just show you.’

And I let him, because I need to cleanse Zach away and focus on Will. On the future. And I won’t let Alison or Dominic or anyone else ruin it for us.

---

Later, when Will has snuck to the spare room and I’m beginning to drift off, my phone pings with an email alert. Something in my gut warns me not to check, but my hand still reaches for it. I need to stop being paranoid; it’s probably just junk mail, like it always seems to be at this time of night. I squint at the screen until the words come into focus.

I need to make another appointment to see you. It’s urgent. Please. I can come any time tomorrow.

It’s from Alison Cummings.