Lost Daughter

by Ali Mercer

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

‘ Gosh, this one pulls at the heartstrings! There were so many things that touched me in this book... My heart broke... had me tearing up at the end... I loved it.’ Suze Reviews You’ve lost everything you’ve ever loved, and it’s all your fault… isn’t it? Rachel’s life isn’t perfect, but she’s so happy. Her husband Mitch has stuck by her and he’s an amazing dad. Her daughter Becca makes her heart explode with love. And then, in the blink of an eye, there’s no longer a place for Rachel in her own family. Her heart has been broken: her right to see her beloved daughter has been taken away. Life goes on in Rachel’s home – family dinners, missing socks and evening baths – but she’s shut out from it. Becca may be tucked up in bed in Rose Cottage, but she is as lost to Rachel as if she had been snatched from under her nose. Rachel can never forgive herself for what happened that day, and the part she played in it. But she’s starting to realise that things aren’t how she thought they were, and her husband Mitch isn’t who she thought he was either. The truths she has been punishing herself for are built on sand. Has she lost sweet Becca forever, or could finding out what really happened finally bring her back? A heart-wrenchingly emotional drama for fans of Lisa Wingate, Kate Hewitt and Jodi Picoult. Readers absolutely adore Lost Daughter... ⭐⭐⭐⭐‘Wow. What an emotional roller coaster of a book this is… it was such a powerfully emotional story of loss, grief, regret and self-forgiveness… and I found myself completely wrapped up and invested in the characters and their lives… Lost Daughter is an incredibly raw and emotional story… Well worth a read.’ Cosy Books Blog ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘This was a really heartfelt and heartbreaking story… I was pulled into this book very quickly, it was very emotional but extremely well thought out and well written. I would totally read more by Ali Mercer.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐‘ When the publishers say this is heart wrenching, they aren’t kidding… oh my heart… heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. Wonderful writing by Ali Mercer.’ The Bookwormery ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘ This book totally hooked me and engrossed me. It’s so well written, the characters are so relatable and real, and the plot weaves its magic around the reader… A complex, poignant and captivating book, highly recommended.’ Sibzzreads ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘ A beautifully written domestic drama, sure to tug on your heartstrings and make you appreciate your relationships more. Will definitely read more book by this author.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐‘Set aside time to read this book because once you get involved in the story you aren't going to want to put it down. If you like a book to really make you think, this is a great read. I look forward to reading more from this author.’ Shelley’s Book Nook ⭐⭐⭐⭐‘This is a bit of a tear jerker… A beautifully poignant story about the bonds that tie women together… My heartstrings were tugged on… A book about women, for women.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐‘ Lost Daughter by Ali Mercer is an engrossing and heart-rending journey through motherhood, loss, and heartbreak… This is an emotive read that will surely tug on the heartstrings of anyone on either side of the mother/child relationship.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐‘ I loved this book… I couldn’t stop reading… The upheaval and sadness in this book are amazing… This book really hit home for me!’ Goodreads reviewer

Release date: May 14, 2019

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 356

Sample

The day of the loss

She waited for what seemed like forever before they came back. The daylight lost its brightness and the shadows lengthened, and still they weren’t home. She carried on sitting at the kitchen table staring at the birthday cake in its box in the corner where she’d left it that morning, several lifetimes ago.

She sent messages, but there was no reply. She couldn’t bring herself to call. Neither of them would want to hear from her.

There was plenty of time to think, and remember.

The broken glass… the scream… the blood.

So much blood.

I don’t want her to see…

You did this? How could you? I hate you!

You could have killed him. You stupid bitch.

She had been so sure. And she had been so wrong. But even if she had been right, there was no excuse and no justification for what she’d done.

Eventually she heard a car outside. A key turned in the door and she heard Mitch say to Becca: ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and get changed out of your school uniform?’

He must have decided it would be better if Becca was out of the way when he confronted her.

She couldn’t blame him for treating her as a risk.

He came into the kitchen. There were splashes of dark dried blood on his clothes. He stood there and gave her a long, hard stare.

She said, ‘Are you OK?’

‘Not really.’

‘Mitch… I—’

‘It’s too late, Rachel.’

The car outside started again and was driven away into the distance.

Rachel whispered, ‘Did she bring you back?’

‘She did. She stayed with Becca in the waiting room. She helped me take some pictures, too. I thought I’d better keep a record of what you did. They might be useful evidence. In court. I don’t imagine that they would help your case if you were to apply for custody.’

Her face was wet. She looked up at him and he was distorted by tears, as if he was dissolving.

‘Oh, no, Mitch, please—’

‘Save your breath. This isn’t right, Rachel. I don’t want you here any more, and neither does Becca.’

The door opened and Becca came in. Mitch said, ‘It’s all right, Becca. She won’t be staying.’

Becca stepped closer to her father, as if being at his side would protect her. Her face was like a closed door.

Rachel said to her, ‘Is that what you want? For me to go?’

And Becca said, ‘I want to stay with Daddy.’ Her voice seemed to come from very far away as she added, ‘You should leave.’

Mitch said, ‘Are you going to respect our daughter’s wishes?’

Rachel took in the two of them, standing there side by side: the big, wounded, protective father, and the just-teenage girl, angry and defensive and loyal – to him. Becca folded her arms and lifted her chin in defiance, as if to challenge Rachel to deny her what she’d asked for. Her dear, familiar face was a hard little mask, but Rachel knew what she was thinking as clearly as if she’d said it: Please, just go, just go, just go…

Rachel had to be calm, to stop crying. To think. There was a right thing and a wrong thing to do here. She had to get it right.

But she couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. And so she said what she knew her daughter wanted to hear.

‘All right. If you want me to go, Becca, I’ll go.’

The first odd thing about the temp is that she’s waiting out front in the cold, instead of staying in the warm in the main reception for the business park. Perhaps she likes her own company, though she doesn’t seem to be enjoying it much today. She looks as if she’s worrying about something. Something big.

But as Leona approaches, her expression becomes a careful blank.

‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect you quite so early,’ Leona says. ‘I’m Leona Grey – I’ll be taking care of you while the boss is away.’

‘I’m Rachel Steele,’ Rachel says.

They shake gloved hands. Rachel returns Leona’s smile without conviction, and her eyes flicker away from Leona’s gaze. Well, that’s OK. It’s not necessarily evasive. Not everybody is confident in their body language.

Rachel is wearing a mask-like layer of foundation, through which it is still obvious that her nose is red with cold. The make-up doesn’t disguise the bags under her eyes, either. It wouldn’t be unfair to say she looks like death warmed up – but then, who looks their best first thing on a December morning?

‘Welcome to Fun-to-Learn,’ Leona says, punching in the key code that gives access to the office. ‘I should be here at nine tomorrow, but I’ll give you the code so you can come and go.’

She holds the door open for Rachel to go through. Rachel is wearing a plain navy-blue coat and high heels; she’s smart but inconspicuous, like a court scene extra in a legal drama. Clothes that don’t give a whole lot away. Her CV is probably in the boss’s desk drawer, shoved in there with other stray bits of paperwork before he went on holiday; Leona could have a rummage round later, find out a bit more about her. Or she could ask the temp agency to send it over again, though she probably won’t get round to it.

Rachel looks as if she’s a bit older than Leona, probably in her mid-thirties. Chances are she’s one of those former professional women who have spent several years away from office life, being run ragged by small children. This might be her first venture back into the workplace she’d abandoned for marriage, several versions of Microsoft Office and a recession later. Yes, that must be it. A stay-at-home mum who can’t afford to stay at home any longer.

Sooner or later she’ll put out a framed picture of her family on her desk, a reminder to herself and everyone else that her life doesn’t stop here.

‘It’ll warm up when the heating gets going,’ Leona says.

She flicks on the fluorescent lights, illuminating a bank of six white desks topped with slightly dusty computers; the boss’s desk has a separate spot in the corner, in a glass-walled cubicle. The surfaces are littered with the detritus of office life; files, a birthday card with flowers on it, a stray mug. A strand of purple tinsel has been taped along the top of the padded divider that splits the bank of desks into two separate sides. It isn’t quite long enough to reach.

‘You’re here,’ Leona says, showing Rachel to her place and feeling a little bad for her, because it’s the worst desk in the office. Rachel will be in the middle of a row with her back to the door, at a distance from the nearest window, facing a whiteboard listing sales targets (decorated today with an additional sketch of slightly forlorn holly leaves), a clock and a pinboard. The chair is a killer: the one no one else wanted.

‘Hang up your coat if you like, though I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to keep it on,’ Leona says, indicating the wooden coat stand in the corner. Rachel complies. Leona moves round the office, pulls up the blind next to her desk; wintry sunlight streams in.

As Rachel settles into place opposite her Leona sees that her hands are ringless. No wedding ring. No engagement ring. Nothing.

Perhaps Leona has got her all wrong.

Leona takes off her own coat, a big mock-astrakhan number. She’s of the belief that coats should be fun, if possible. She hangs it up; her silver bangles chime, and the sleeves of her patchwork top fall back to reveal her wrists.

She turns just in time to catch Rachel staring at her, and it’s the first time their eyes have met.

The look on Rachel’s face is knowing, sharp with recognition, not sympathetic so much as battle-hardened. It says, I see you’re someone who knows a little something about pain: the kind you choose for yourself because it’s a distraction from the kind you can’t forget.

And she’s right. Leona doesn’t want to forget. She doesn’t deserve to forget. There’s no hope for her at all unless she remembers.

And Rachel clearly understands that. But how could Rachel possibly know about that kind of pain?

The lecture theatre, where they are spending the whole day listening to various awful talks, is exactly the kind of facility that had convinced her parents the fees for St Anne’s were worth it. Becca has to admit, the school is pretty impressive, as is the indoor swimming pool, the gleaming, state-of-the-art science and language labs, the large, hushed, well-stocked library, and the girls themselves. In their uniform of winter tartan and crested jerseys, they have an air of health and confidence that whispers what the whole school boasts: money.

But Becca has always been conscious of not quite matching up to the template of the ideal St Anne’s girl. If that was what her parents had hoped she’d become, their hard-earned cash has been wasted.

Her hair is thin and mousy, just curly enough to fluff up and not straight enough to shine; she’d been fair when she was little, then ended up an unremarkable shade of brown. She has only just graduated from a 32AA to a 32A, and she isn’t skinny, which would at least be some kind of excuse. She isn’t popular, or sporty, or outstandingly clever; she has never had a whole-class party for her birthday, she doesn’t have a pony (and has never ridden one), and she doesn’t live in a house with two staircases.

And she doesn’t have a mother in the way the others do.

Not that anyone really knows about that, except for Amelia Chadstone, whose inside knowledge makes her even more intimidating to Becca.

Becca has known Amelia for years. Back when they were little, Amelia had been cast as the Virgin Mary in the St Anne’s nursery school nativity play; Becca had been a sheep. Now Amelia is the ideal St Anne’s girl: hockey demon, top of the class, popular and blessed with a long, blonde, swishy mane of hair that she fiddles with almost constantly, as if to ensure that everybody keeps noticing it.

If Becca was pretty or funny or interesting it might be different, but she’s not one of those girls, like Amelia, who can command the attention of the class, both in lessons and outside them, and who is already beginning to boast about boys.

As if the whole concept of sex wasn’t completely disgusting! And as for love and marriage – why would anybody want all that, if they had even the faintest understanding of what it might lead to?

That morning’s speakers have been invited to talk to Becca’s class on the theme of ‘Keeping Calm and Carrying on – Resilience in the Teenage Years’. It’s embarrassing, on a par with sex education and the policeman who had come to warn them about drugs and the kind of men who might offer them lifts. Becca is not at all sure she’s in danger from the kind of threats the school keeps inviting people in to warn her about. What she’s learned, and the others seem not to have realised, is that the people who are closest to you are the ones to watch.

Before the morning break they’d heard from a nervous lady in a purple dress, who had talked to them about mindfulness. Amelia had been scathing about purple-dress lady during the break, as a bunch of her friends listened and giggled and Becca hovered somewhere just outside the group with her water bottle.

‘If grown-ups have time to sit around thinking of nothing, that’s all very well for them,’ Amelia had said. ‘But the rest of us have things to do! Anyway, if anybody thought this was actually important, we’d be taking exams in staring into space.’

Becca had felt a bit sorry for the purple-dress lady, who must have been through something awful to need mindfulness so much, but she hadn’t said so. She had got used to keeping things to herself.

In a way, it is just as well that she is regarded as dull, because otherwise her classmates might be more curious about her family situation than they are. But as it is, her invisibility is a kind of shield.

Amelia has never acknowledged what she knows. But then, why would she? In the normal way of things, they barely speak. However, Amelia could have told other people, and Becca is pretty sure she hasn’t. That means Becca is indebted to her, which only makes her even more impossible to talk to.

She ends up just behind Amelia as they pile back into the lecture theatre after the break, and finds herself sitting next to her at the end of a row. Amelia pays her no attention, though; she’s busy talking to Millie Parker-Jones, a curly-headed girl who has the distinction of having briefly dated an older boy. Snogging but that’s it, as Millie had put it. That’s the kind of thing they know about each other. There are few secrets at St Anne’s. Apart from Becca’s. Which is Amelia’s, too.

Miss Finch, their class teacher, shushes them sharply before introducing the second and final speaker, a neat little blonde woman in a white shirt and dark-blue trousers.

‘Kind of boring, but at least she isn’t trying to be fit like the other one. It’s so tragic when older women get their legs out. Or their boobs,’ Amelia mutters to Millie.

And Becca thinks of her mother, as she had been in the old days – all sharp lines and edges in her red wool suit and boxy handbag, and the heels that clicked as she walked along – or trim and elegant in an emerald-green cocktail dress, smelling of glamour.

Miss Finch tells them all to be quiet once again, and the woman introduces herself as Sophie Elphick, a specialist in cognitive behavioural therapy who previously worked in the probation service. She says, ‘I know that today is all about wellness, but I’m here to talk to you about what happens when things go wrong.’

A projector clicks and a PowerPoint slide is displayed on the blank wall behind the nurse. A single word, in black type, in a circle: HARM.

The mood of the lecture theatre abruptly changes. It’s like when they were about to watch an ox’s heart being dissected in biology: the girls are all torn between apprehension and bravado, the instinct to recoil and the equally strong instinct to act indifferent, to shrug it all off.

‘We are all vulnerable, and we can all come to harm in many different ways,’ Sophie says. ‘We could be harmed by another person, or by something else – something such as disease or an accident of nature. We may even harm ourselves.’

A phrase appears, next to an arrow pointing to the circle: WHO OR WHAT CAUSED THE HARM?

‘Things don’t just happen; they happen for a reason. Even accidents have causes. When it’s a case of one person doing harm to another, and the outcome has been a crime, we describe this as a motive.’

A single word joins the others, forming the second point of a triangle around the central circle: WHY?

Sophie goes on, ‘All kinds of harm cause damage, and until there’s some kind of resolution – until the original harm is understood and forgiven – the damage will always live on. It might be hidden. It might be recreated in some form by the person who was damaged in the first place, in an attempt to regain control. Or it might be denied or distorted. It could be lied about. But it won’t go away.’

The final phrase, the third point of the triangle, appears: HOW IS IT REMEMBERED?

‘Now, we’re going to talk about the kinds of harm that are most commonly experienced by your age group,’ Sophie says.

The next slide is a list of problems. Bullying, loneliness, self-harm… difficult family relationships.

Becca feels herself beginning to sweat, and suddenly her heart is beating so loudly that she can hear the blood rushing and swooshing round inside her head.

Oh, no, this is the last thing she needs – not right here and now, in front of her classmates, Miss Finch, and Sophie Elphick.

All she wants is for today to be over, to have got through it unscathed, without catastrophe, and to be home safe and alone in her bedroom with nobody bothering her and the door firmly shut. At least Dad knows when to leave her alone.

Sophie Elphick is talking about self-harm. God, is she ever going to stop? The last thing Becca wants to dwell on right now is blades and blood.

Amelia flips her long, shiny hair over one shoulder and turns to whisper something to Millie. Her shoulders shake with suppressed giggles.

Everyone else is perfectly fine. It’s just Becca who can’t bear it.

It’s then that it happens, and there’s absolutely nothing Becca can do about it.

It starts with a sound like the humming of telephone wires, quiet at first, which intensifies until it is singing like a sawed note, louder than an orchestra of violins in unison, drowning out the rush of her blood and the pumping of her heart.

The sound has a colour, only at the edge of her vision at first, then bright white like lightning but static and fuzzy. It accumulates, like a car windscreen in bad weather getting silted up with snow. And then the blizzard is a whiteout, and everything turns black.

It is three o’clock and the windows are already darkening when the sound of a phone ringing interrupts the trance-like state into which Rachel has fallen at her desk. So far, most of her time at Fun-to-Learn has been spent copying information from an old website to a new one, but the monotony doesn’t bother her; she’s not sure she would be up to anything more challenging.

It is so unusual for anyone to call her that she’s not at all quick to realise the ringing phone is hers.

And then she recognises it and comes to, and it’s as if a long-dormant part of her suddenly awakens. There’s only one person this call can be about, only one person who really matters.

She lunges for her handbag and fishes out the phone.

It’s him, as she had known it would be.

As she heads out of the office she has a fleeting impression of her colleagues’ faces turning towards her in surprise. Then she’s passing through the little entrance lobby and out into the privacy of the gathering gloom.

‘Mitch, what’s going on? Is Becca OK?’

‘Yes, no need to panic. She’s at home. She’s all right, more or less.’

From terror to relief in the space of a heartbeat – that’s the power Becca has, has always had. Some things don’t change.

‘More or less?’

‘She fainted. The school called me to come and pick her up.’

Rachel should have been the one to collect her – to hug her, to take her home in the car, to give her sweet tea, to tuck her up in bed. But she wasn’t. And here she is, alone and shivering in the dark, and the physical yearning is so intense it’s like a wave knocking her off her feet – the need to have Becca in her arms, to hold her and reassure her. To be there.

‘But she’s never fainted before. Did she hurt herself? Is she OK?’

‘More embarrassed than anything, I think. She was in the lecture theatre when it happened, and she seems to have just slumped onto the shoulder of the girl next to her. Which was Amelia, actually. Amelia Chadstone.’ As if Rachel was likely to forget who Amelia was. Or what she’d seen. ‘Amelia thought she’d fallen asleep, so she nudged her and Becca slid onto the floor, and that’s when she came to. Amelia felt pretty bad about it, I think. She was waiting with Becca when I got there.’

‘That was nice of her.’

Rachel would much rather never to have to think about any of the Chadstones again, but there it is, there’s no getting away from them.

Mitch sucks in his breath and says, ‘Look, Becca and Amelia are friends. It’s not fair on Becca if you have a problem with that. I thought you’d been working on all of that… stuff?’

‘I have. And I get that. It’s just… I’m worried about Becca. Can I speak to her?’

‘She’s fine, Rachel. There’s no need to make a fuss. Anyway, she’s having a nap right now, actually. I think she might have been overtired.’

‘Overtired? Why? Have you been making sure she gets to bed on time?’

‘Please don’t make out that this is somehow my fault, Rachel. It’s really not necessary. Or helpful.’

‘OK. I’m sorry. But… she did look a little pale last time I saw her. Maybe she needs an iron supplement.’

‘I spoke to the school nurse about it. She thinks it could be anxiety. A delayed reaction to stress.’

That gives Rachel pause. What Mitch is saying is that it’s her fault. And that’s what the school nurse meant, and that is no doubt what the Chadstones will agree on when they discuss what happened at dinner tonight. That’s what they all think.

And, no doubt, they’re right.

‘Will you take her to the doctor?’

‘I spoke to him earlier. He said she should be fine, but to keep an eye on her and bring her in if there are any ongoing issues.’

‘Such as?’

‘Dizziness, feeling disoriented, nausea, loss of appetite.’

‘So… when did all this happen?’

‘Oh, around eleven-ish? Just before lunchtime.’

‘This happened this morning, and you’re only just telling me now?’

‘Rachel, don’t shout at me. If you do, I’m going to end this call.’

She’s holding the phone with her right hand; she moves her left to touch the skin of her right wrist and pinches, hard, and keeps pinching. After a moment she’s able to speak quite calmly: ‘OK, I’m sorry. It’s just that I wish the school had let me know.’

‘We’ve been through this. I’m the primary contact. It’s not reasonable to expect them to notify us both.’

She pinches even harder. She’s going to have a bruise. ‘OK, OK, I’m sorry. Look, when do you think it would be all right for me to call Becca?’

‘Maybe after dinner? Seven-ish?’

‘Seven-thirty?’

‘I thought you were desperate to speak to her. What else can you possibly have to do that’s so important?’

Silence. Rachel pinches even harder. She says, ‘I have an appointment.’

‘Oh. OK then. Just try not to call too late. And, Rachel?’

‘Yes?’

‘I can’t guarantee she’ll want to talk to you,’ he says, and ends the call.

Rachel is suddenly aware of just how cold and dark it is. She lets go of her wrist, rubs it, and puts the phone away. Somehow she manages to remember the key code and make her way back into the office.

Leona looks up as she comes back in. She says, ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Yes, everything’s fine. I’ll stay late to make up the time.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Look, if there’s somewhere else you need to be, don’t feel you have to stay. There’s nothing you’re doing that can’t wait till tomorrow.’

Rachel sits down. ‘There’s nowhere else,’ she says.

She’s conscious of Leona watching her as she starts work again. The other woman is suspicious, that much is obvious. She smells a rat.

Sooner or later, Leona will see her chance and she’ll take it. She’ll start asking questions. She’ll want to know. And that’s when Rachel will start running out of options. Evasion will be off the table. She’ll have just two choices left: to tell an outright lie, or to reveal herself for who she is.

Digby Street is not neighbourly, which suits Rachel just fine. Most of the houses – boxy 1960s semis, slightly ramshackle and prone to leaks – have the look of homes into which as many residents have been crammed as possible. ‘For rent’ or ‘Recently let’ signs protrude from weedy lawns, and at weekends, curtains stay drawn across the windows of converted garages and living rooms used as bedrooms. People come and go without anybody else taking much notice, let alone attempting to talk to them.

Her usual spot has been taken by a familiar Ford Fiesta, carefully parked. It is already six-thirty, the appointed meeting time, and she hasn’t eaten since the cheese sandwich she’d brought in for lunch. She will have to get through what lies ahead with a rumbling stomach.

She finds a place to leave her car a little way down the road, in front of one of the few houses on the street that has children living in it; there is an abandoned, rain-sodden pushchair on the front lawn, its wheels facing the sky. Having manoeuvred into the space without disaster, she sprints back to the Ford Fiesta. Oh, God – she can’t even remember if she managed to make her bed before leaving for the office that morning.

The driver’s window slides down before she gets there.

‘So sorry – could you give me a minute?’

It’s fine. Of course it’s fine. Her heart is thumping, but there’s really no need to be afraid – it’s not like she hasn’t been through this before.

She hurries into the house. This is it, the safe ground she has created out of the rubble of her old life – such as it is. She steps round somebody’s bicycle that occupies most of the space in the entrance hall. The carpet, the walls – it’s all grimy, uncared for. But what does it matter? Nobody she really cares about is ever going to come here.

Upstairs, someone is showering. There is one bathroom between five of them, and it’s in almost constant use. Rachel lets herself into her room. A faint pulse of music, the kind that is meant to convey mindless euphoria, reverberates through the walls.

Actually, it doesn’t look too bad – no dirty cups or dishes lurking, and she’d folded away the sofa bed and stashed her bedding in the cupboard. This is intimate enough as it is: for one of them to have to perch on Rachel’s bargain-basement sheets would be an additional mortification that she could really do without.

She goes back out to the Ford Fiesta and Sophie emerges with her briefcase, presses her key fob to lock the car, then double-checks it. Rachel doesn’t blame her; Digby Street doesn’t bring out your trusting side. Neither of them says anything as Sophie follows her up the garden path and into the house.

They don’t bump into anyone in the corridor – not that anyone has ever asked who Sophie is, any more than they have ever shown any interest in Rachel herself.

Rachel says, ‘Can I get you anything? A glass of water?’

‘I’m fine. But do get something for yourself, if you’d like.’

‘I’m fine, too,’ Rachel says. She can hardly stop for something to eat now.

Sophie sets down her briefcase, takes off her coat and folds it over the back of one of the chairs next to the wobbly table. She’s dressed slightly more formally than usual, in a long-sleeved white shirt and dark trousers. Maybe she’s had an interview, or been in court. Rachel doesn’t ask. It is not her business to ask questions; this relationship is strictly one way.

She stuffs her own coat in the wardrobe, though the bedsit is cold enough for it to be tempting to keep it on. She really must have a clear-out. Once she’d moved into Digby Street Mitch had asked her to take all her clothes with her; most of them are too big for her now, and too bright, too look-at-me.

The music stops and starts again, to a slightly more insistent beat. Sophie’s non-judgemental face falters and gives way to a frown. She says, ‘Is that going to carry on, do you think?’

‘Probably, I’m afraid,’ Rachel says.

‘Never mind,’ Sophie says, non-judgemental face back as if it had never been away. ‘Do you mind if I sit?’

‘Please do.’

Sophie perches on the chair she’d chosen for her coat; Rachel takes the sofa. Sophie reaches into her briefcase and brings out the familiar clipboard with its sheaf of papers.

‘I should remind you that all being well, this is going to be our last meeting for a while,’ she says.

‘I know,’ Rachel tells her.

Rachel had thought this would be a relief, but actually, now it comes to it, it seems like another loss. Sophie has been her only visitor, and now there will be none. Also, the regularity of Sophie’s visits has been a way of marking time, like the progression of a school term towards the holidays, though with no expected release at the end of it.

A bruise has come up on her wrist; has Sophie noticed it? Rachel rests her other hand over it. She’d rather not have to explain. She has always tried to be honest with Sophie, up to a point. But she’s never told her everything, and there’s no point starting now.

Anyway, she can talk about the phone call without drawing attention to the bruise. Sophie will doubtless encourage Rachel to think of ways to handle conversations with Mitch more constructively in future. Rachel will mention how terrible the Chadstones make her feel, and Sophie will remind her of the techniques she has learned to calm herself: Breathe in as if you’re smelling a strawberry… and out like you’re blowing out a candle.

They won’t exactly avoid the sequence of events that led to Rachel moving out of the family home, but Sophie is all about solutions, and her approach is to divert Rachel from the past – from all of the past, not only the crisis of three months before.

Sophie doesn’t believe in guilt. Or obsession. Or rather, she does, but she thinks they’re a negative use of energy. She certainly won’t be drawn into a discussion about how, if Becca is vulnerable or under par, it’s because of her mother.

Rachel’s daughter, the baby she held in her arms, the toddler whose first steps she missed. Home is where the heart is, and home is somewhere else, and so is her child. And with the best will in the world, there is absolutely nothing that Sophie can do about that.

The notice is already in place when Rachel comes in on the first Monday of her second week. It isn’t immediately obvious, and Rachel doesn’t spot it until she’s hung up her coat, sat down and switched on her computer. And then there it is, the only thing that has changed about the view from her desk since she left on Friday evening, unavoidably in her line of vision beyond her PC screen.

It’s on the pinboard on the far side of t. . .