Page 71 of Darling Girls

Amy dropped the lion and dug into another box, this time pulling out a toy duck. ‘Kack kack,’ she said.

‘Quack quack.’ Jessica peered at the toys. She didn’t recognise them. Perhaps they were from Miss Fairchild’s own childhood.

Amy pulled out a knitted doll. It was bigger than the duck and the lion, almost as big as a newborn. Amy settled down and started to play with it, making adorable crying sounds and then patting it on the back, while Jessica listened for what was happening above.

They’d been down there about half an hour when a shaft of light finally broke into the space.

‘Jessica?’ It was Miss Fairchild. ‘You can come up now.’

‘Let’s go, Amy,’ Jessica said, eager to get out of there. As she took the doll from the girl to return it to the box, she noticed it had blonde curls, blue eyes, a blue dress, frilly socks and black Mary-Janes. Across its chest a name had been sewn in block letters.

Jessica blinked as she read it.

AMY.

33

JESSICA

‘Can you all hear me?’

It was the universal greeting of a Zoom call. Alicia, Jessica and Norah responded by saying yes, they could hear their lawyer, but unfortunately their microphone was on mute.

Alicia had called Meera after they left the police station. Meera had managed to find them a lawyer so quickly they didn’t even have time to get back to the city. Instead, they’d had to check back into Driftwood Cottages and meet with their legal counsel via Zoom. Now they sat in a row on the same couch, with Jessica’s laptop in front of them on the glass coffee table.

Their lawyer’s name was Anna Ross. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, with short grey hair and, somewhat unexpectedly, a small silver nose ring. She wore reading glasses, under which her piercing eyes had no eye shadow or mascara. The absence of make-up screamed,I have more important things to care about than my eyelashes!Jessica felt intimidated by her confidence, even though Anna was on her side.

‘All right,’ Anna said, once they’d unmuted themselves. ‘I think I’m up to speed on the particulars.’ She removed her glasses and looked straight into the camera lens. It was clear she was a commanding lawyer. ‘Tell me about the doll.’

Jessica shrugged. ‘What do you want to know? It had blonde curls, blue eyes andAmywritten across its chest.’

Anna pinned her with a make-up-free stare. ‘And you just stumbled across it in the basement?’

‘Yes,’ Jessica said. ‘It seemed old. Like it had been there a while.’

‘Bizarre,’ Anna said. ‘What did you make of it?’

‘We thought it was strange,’ she said. ‘But what were we supposed to do? It wasn’t like Miss Fairchild was going to give us any answers.’

‘But you must have wondered about it?’

‘At first. Then . . . I don’t know.’ Jessica looked at her sisters. ‘We kind of forgot about it.’

Anna raised her eyebrows. ‘Youforgot?’

Jessica had known this meeting was going to be intense, so she had taken two pills before they started, yet she could already feel their effect draining from her bloodstream. She started to stammer. ‘I – I know it seems strange. But we could only focus on so much. In the scheme of things, the doll just wasn’t very important.’

Anna nodded, replacing her glasses and looking at the file in front of her. ‘But according to my notes,’ she said, ‘the doll would later become very important indeed . . .’

34

ALICIA

BEFORE

‘The doll had the name Amy written on it?’

Alicia and Norah sat on their beds staring at Jessica. It was the first chance they’d had to talk alone since Sandi left, because her visit had put them behind with their chores. It wasn’t until bedtime that they were able to discuss what had happened.