Page 87 of Darling Girls

Dirk started walking towards the station.

‘If she made you lie,’ Jessica called after him, ‘it’s not too late to say so.’

Dirk kept his head down and his stride swift. Alicia started to wonder if Jessica might be on to something . . .

*

They were climbing into the car when they heard someone calling their names.

‘Alicia! Jessica! Norah!’

Alicia sighed. Running into old acquaintances wherever they went was one thing about small towns that she would be glad to leave behind.

It was Zara. Her hair was braided in two plaits today, reminding Alicia of a Dutch milkmaid. It was a pretty colour – cool brown glinting blonde in the sunshine.

‘Oh, hey, Zara,’ the sisters muttered with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

All Alicia wanted was to get in the car with her sisters and call Meera. Not only did they need Meera’s help, Alicia needed her friend’s voice to soothe her, tell her everything was going to be okay.

‘Your turn to speak to the cops?’ Alicia asked.

Zara nodded, her gaze fixed on the door that Dirk had just walked through. ‘Who was that?’

‘Dirk,’ Norah said. ‘He used to look after the horses at Wild Meadows.’

‘Why’s he talking to the cops?’ Zara asked. ‘Is he a suspect?’

‘I’m not sure they have suspects yet,’ Alicia said, ‘since they haven’t identified a cause of death. Maybe it was natural?’

Zara raised an eyebrow. ‘A child buried in an unmarked grave under a foster home? Natural causes?’

Zara asked a lot of questions. Alicia started to wonder if she was an investigative journalist.

‘What’s Dirk’s last name?’ Zara wanted to know.

The sisters looked at each other.

‘Winter-something?’ Alicia said, pulling it from some part of her memory she hadn’t known existed. ‘Or maybe that’s wrong. I don’t know.’

Zara got out her phone and began to type something into it.

‘We need to go,’ Jessica said. ‘We’re back on with our lawyer in ten minutes. Good luck with the cops, Zara.’

Zara thanked them, still tapping away at her phone, and Alicia, Jessica and Norah piled back into the car with the dogs. But as they pulled onto the street, Alicia saw Zara getting back into her own car rather than going into the police station. Why had she lied? Alicia wondered. And who was she lyingfor?

43

JESSICA

‘Okay,’ Anna said when they resumed the Zoom meeting back at the cottage. ‘So what happened after you finished giving your statements to police? Did you go back to Wild Meadows?’

Jessica shook her head. ‘A social worker took us to a respite home.’

Anna wasn’t taking any notes now. Jessica started to feel self-conscious, worried that she wasn’t making sense. She’d taken another pill half an hour ago, after the interaction with Miss Fairchild, and she was now feeling floaty and relaxed.

‘We stayed there for three months, while they looked for a permanent home that would take all three of us. They couldn’t find one, and we refused to be separated, so we went to a group home, where we stayed until we aged out. Because of our “trauma”, we received ongoing weekly counselling until then.’ She smiled wryly at her sisters. ‘Norah and Alicia hated it, but I quite liked it. Having someone just listen to me like that, giving me their undivided attention? I’d never experienced that before.’

‘And Miss Fairchild wasn’t investigated further?’ Anna asked.