Bone by Bone (22 page)

‘Autumn,' she shouted up the stairs. When her daughter didn't appear, she started searching for her and found her in her bedroom. ‘Sorry, love, we're going to have to go out again. There's no food in the house. We'll have to do a shop.'

‘No way, Mum. It was too embarrassing last time when the lady at the checkout wouldn't take your card.'

‘I'll put it on my credit card. Come on. It'll be fun. You can choose some nice things for dinner.'

Autumn shook her head. She looked utterly exhausted, her face was pinched and the circles beneath her eyes greenish. Laura hesitated. She didn't want to drag Autumn around the supermarket but, on the other hand, she was reluctant to leave her alone, even if it was only for a short time. And they literally had nothing to eat in the house.

‘Come on, sweetheart. I don't want you to stay here by yourself.'

‘I'll be fine. I really, really don't want to go, Mum.'

‘What if…' She paused, wondering if she was being extreme. ‘What if I put the alarm on? You know, like we did last night. You'd have to stay up here though, and not go downstairs to the kitchen or sitting room. Or answer the door. Not that you should answer the door if I'm not here.'

‘Yes,' said Autumn, her voice slurring with tiredness. ‘That's a good idea. I'll stay in my room.'

‘And I won't be long.'

‘Just go, Mum.'

Laura drove to Waitrose. Normally she shopped at Lidl – Waitrose was too expensive – but it was the nearest supermarket. She could do a quick shop and be home in half an hour.

She felt nervous, leaving Autumn by herself. She imagined what Vanessa would say, or rather, wouldn't say, merely arching an eyebrow in lieu of commenting. Vanessa had frequently left her on her own to
run errands
, as she put it, when she was as young as seven. No, that wasn't quite right, she corrected herself. Damian had been with her, the responsible nine-year-old, who would disappear into his room, shutting the door behind him, to work on his latest science project. Anything could have happened to her, Laura thought wildly. She'd felt frightened in their large London house, unable to even hear Damian, and so she wouldn't move from wherever her mother left her – usually curled up with a book by the radiator in the front room, watching out of the window for her mum to return.

Once she'd reached the supermarket, she scanned the Waitrose essentials range and bought the cheapest items she could find, enough to tide them over for a short while. They were out of all the basics: milk, bread, cereal, orange juice. At the last minute, she tossed in a large marbled bar of milk and white chocolate studded with raspberries because it reminded her of the birthday cake she'd once made Autumn, the photograph of it and her daughter blowing out the candles now irretrievably lost. At the checkout she handed the cashier her credit card.

The woman's brow furrowed. Laura stopped packing her bags.

The woman shook her head. ‘I'm very sorry. I've tried your card twice now and it's been declined.'

Laura put the bag she was filling down and walked out of the shop. In the car she buried her head in her hands and cried. She was exhausted. Her eyes felt raw.

There had to be a way to stop him.

There was a sharp rap on the car window. A woman stood outside with a baby balanced on her hip. Laura wiped her eyes and opened the window. It was Amy with her youngest, Tom.

‘Are you okay?' she asked in her high-pitched and oddly child-like voice.

Laura nodded. ‘Yes. Fine, thanks.'

Amy lifted Tom up and hitched him onto her other hip. ‘I saw you inside. At the till.'

Laura could feel a blush beginning to spread across her cheeks. She hated the sound of Amy's voice. It set her teeth on edge. She hadn't even changed and she was still in her mud-covered trousers. Amy, on the other hand, looked petite and perfect. She was wearing a diaphanous dress over thick woollen tights, with knee-high boots and a shearling aviator jacket. As if she'd stepped out of an advertisement.

Amy balanced her handbag in the crook of her arm and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She said, ‘I could pay for your shopping.'

‘What?' said Laura, turning back to her.

‘It's what credit cards are for. Come on. If we hurry, they won't have unpacked your bags yet.' She started walking towards the supermarket, leaving Laura no option but to jump out of the car and follow her.

‘Really, Amy, there's no need. I'm going to go to the bank tomorrow.'

‘Well, when you do, you can pay me back. Silly to waste a trip.'

Laura felt utterly mortified and also relieved. She wasn't sure what she would have done if Amy hadn't shown up. Amy stopped a woman in Customer Services and swiftly had Laura's shopping, which was just being unpacked, put back in a trolley. Tom gurgled and pointed at the shoppers, trailing a string of drool from his chubby fingers.

‘I can't thank you enough,' said Laura, as they walked back to the car.

‘It's no problem. I'm parked over here,' she said, gesturing to a Volkswagen three spaces away from Laura's battered Toyota.

Laura was thinking that not one of the other mothers would have stopped to help her. No one had even asked her if Autumn was all right. Not one of the other mothers had even questioned what had happened between her and Levi, preferring to believe Aaron and the gossip circulating the playground. She was about to say goodbye when Amy, as if guessing her thoughts, spoke.

‘I don't know if you know this already, but the police are just over halfway through interviewing the boys. You know, the witnesses to the incident between you and Levi? They've collected four, maybe five statements so far.'

A spot of rain landed on Laura's eyelashes and she blinked. She was thinking how tactful Amy's phrasing was when she continued.

‘I thought you should know – I heard a couple of the parents talking about it and it seems that all the statements so far back up your version of events.'

‘
My
version?'

Another spot of rain landed on her cheek and Laura squinted up at the grey sky. Amy gave a little shrug and jiggled Tom up and down. The child was starting to grow impatient. She glanced at Laura out of the corner of her eye. ‘Everyone has their own version, their own memories.'

Laura tried to stop herself from becoming annoyed by Amy's prim tone.

‘True,' she sighed. ‘But in this case, there can be no doubt. I did push him. And he did fall and cut his face. All those kids, including my own daughter, saw me do it.'

It was a relief to finally say it out loud to another adult. Amy's response was not what she was expecting though.

‘Yes. And that's what the boys are saying so far. I always thought that Aaron's version was unlikely.'

‘Aaron's version?'

It started to rain properly, a light patter of large drops. Tom's face crumpled. Amy pulled a dummy out of her handbag and popped it in his mouth before continuing.

‘I mean, I can imagine losing my temper. Especially if I thought my children were threatened. Levi is a big kid and the boys that were with him are intimidating – they're all from the local secondary school. I feel threatened by them. But I couldn't picture you beating Levi like that.' Amy turned to face her properly. ‘Apparently Aaron told the police you hit Levi several times, on his back and across his chest too. With a stick.' She fished her car keys out and held them in a tight fist.

Laura frowned.
Why would Aaron lie?
She was going to get into enough trouble as it was without him making it sound worse.

‘Thank you,' said Laura. ‘Thanks for letting me know.'

She opened the boot and started to put the groceries in. Amy ran, her head bowed, towards her car. A couple of minutes later, she gave Laura a tiny, stiff wave as she drove past, the baby waving his fat fists and howling in the back.

On the way home, Laura thought of the upmarket bar of chocolate. It felt like a long time since she'd treated herself, or even eaten decently.

On her front doorstep, she took a deep breath before unlocking the door. This was only the second time she'd had to switch the alarm off. The beeping, signalling that the alarm was about to trigger, frightened her. But it would be okay, she told herself, she'd done it before and she knew the code. She opened the door and rushed inside to turn the alarm off. Nothing happened. There was no sound. She looked at the security box, newly mounted on the wall by the front door. There were no lights on. The system was dead.

Her first thought was of Autumn. Could she have switched off the alarm? No, that would be impossible, she hadn't taught her the code. And even if she had somehow managed to silence the alarm, the system would still be active.

‘Autumn?' she called up the stairs. Her voice echoed in the stillness. She shouted her name again, louder.

There was no reply. Could Aaron have somehow hacked into the system and overridden it? What if he was inside the house now? Leaving the shopping bags where she'd set them down on the step, the door open, the car boot gaping wide, she raced up the stairs. She ran up two flights and burst into Autumn's room, her heart pounding. The bedroom was empty. She ran out and across the landing to the spare room. She wasn't there either.

She hadn't checked the bathroom, she thought. She ran back down the narrow stairs. She slipped and had to grab the banisters to stop herself from falling. The bathroom door was ajar. Autumn was not inside. She hurriedly searched the spare room. It was also empty. Standing outside her own office, still in the hall, she had a glimpse of the end of the garden. She couldn't have gone outside, Laura thought – she'd have triggered the alarm by even entering the hall, let alone the kitchen.

And then she realized that, of course, the alarm wasn't working. Autumn could be anywhere. But the child didn't know the alarm had been switched off, so Autumn wouldn't have tried to go outside or even down to the sitting room. Unless… Her mind was whirling in frantic circles… Unless someone had cancelled the alarm and broken into the house while Laura was out and forced her…

‘Autumn!' she screamed at the top of her voice.

There was no reply.

She ran back to the hall and grabbed her phone out of her handbag. She'd call the police. But first, she had to double-check that Autumn really was not in the house. She'd start at the top, she thought, and be methodical about it. As she was running up the stairs, she felt as if she was wasting time. If Autumn had already been taken…

When she reached the attic, she flung open the door of her bedroom. Autumn looked up at her in surprise. She was lying on the bed, listening to music on Laura's iPod. She pulled off her pink headphones.

‘Did you get any biscuits, Mum? I'm starving.' She sounded grouchy and tired.

Laura thought she was going to burst into tears. She rushed over and hugged her.

‘Mum, you've only been gone an hour,' said Autumn, wriggling out of her embrace. She slowly eased herself off the bed, casually tossing Laura's iPod behind her.

As Laura retrieved the shopping and locked the house, she realized why the alarm wasn't working. She hadn't been able to use her credit card in the supermarket – Aaron, presumably, had done something to it, just as he'd managed to cancel her bank card, the Internet, Skype, Netflix… The list seemed endless. While she was unpacking the shopping, she phoned the security company to check.

‘Mrs Baron-Cohen? I've been trying to reach you. I left a couple of messages on the landline,' said the man on the other end, when she'd introduced herself.

As she suspected, the payment had not gone through so the system had been deactivated.

‘We can have it up in a moment, as soon as the payment is processed,' he said.

Laura hung up.

‘Let's have some hot chocolate with our biscuits,' she said brightly to Autumn.

Autumn shrugged in response and listlessly sat down at the kitchen table.

Tomorrow Laura could visit the bank and reactivate her cards – she had no way of reinstating the burglar alarm otherwise. The money she earned from Bronze Beech all went straight into her current account; the only other cash she could get hold of would have been her payment from Ruth but Laura didn't have the heart to ask her for it.

First, though, she'd ring Jacob. She went into her office to call him so that Autumn wouldn't hear her. The grey light, filtering through the sheets of rain, made a watery pattern against the wall. Jacob didn't sound particularly happy to hear from her but he listened patiently.

‘It's got to be him. I mean, who else could it possibly have been?' she said, when she'd explained about the Facebook troll page.

‘What do the school say?' asked Jacob.

She hesitated. She didn't want to tell him that the head teacher had said he would speak to Aaron, because she knew Aaron would deny it and Mr George was bound to believe him.

‘I can give you his phone number. You could arrange to meet him on the pretext of having your laptop repaired,' she said.

‘And then do what?'

‘Just talk to him. He won't listen to me. Tell him to stop. To leave me alone. To leave
us
alone.'

There was a long pause. Laura could hear people talking, but their voices didn't sound hollow as they might if Jacob was in a café.

‘Where are you?' she asked finally.

‘On The Downs. I'm about to teach a class. Look, Laura, I'm really sorry about what happened. It must have been, well, frightening. But you're okay. Autumn is safe. You've taken her out of school. I've got to go, Laura.'

He hung up.

Sometime in the night she woke, suddenly and completely. Her first thought was of Autumn. Perhaps her daughter couldn't sleep and had risen and that was what had woken her. Laura sat up and listened. She couldn't hear anything but the house felt different. There was a thin wind that rattled the panes of glass and moaned around the gable wall. Something banged loudly, making her jump. It sounded as if it was coming from outside the back of the house. She climbed out of bed and wrapped her dressing gown around herself.