LITMIR.BIZ

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over her face and she was wearing no make-up. ‘I talked before about the Pale Child,’ she said. ‘And … well, I think I saw her.’

      So it was true: Violet had seen the Pale Child. I crossed my legs and leaned closer to the screen. Violet’s voice was quiet, and husky as if she had a cold or had been shouting. ‘On the moor in Gritton. A girl, thin and pale with blonde hair, wearing old-fashioned clothes and a creepy Victorian-doll mask. She turned as I was watching and I think she saw my face. By the time I got out my phone to take a photo, she’d gone.’

      In the video, Violet reached for a glass of water and took a sip. Her voice was less resolute than her words. She flicked her eyes down as she spoke. ‘You’re probably wondering if I’m worried now. Worried I’m going to die because of the Pale Child. Well, I’m not. I’m glad I saw the girl. And I’m going to find out who she is. Because I don’t believe in ghosts.’

      I sat back and studied the last frame of the video: a close-up of Violet’s face. I played the video again, pausing it now and then to look closely at her. I stared into her eyes. Behind the professional veneer, she was scared.

      I nipped upstairs to shower and dress, then remembered the phone call from Dad. It felt like a drunken dream, but I knew it had been real. He wanted to visit today, of all days. I stuck my head into the spare room. Dad had always been the tidy one – trailing round after me, Mum and Carrie, tutting and putting cereal boxes in cupboards, books on shelves. When Carrie got ill, she’d had a free pass. Cancer trumps having to tidy up. Cancer trumps everything. So his full irritation had been unleashed on me and Mum. The prospect of him staying in this room didn’t bear thinking about.

      At least I’d changed the sheets, and there was a path to the side of the bed. I frantically piled the books into higher towers, thus freeing more floor space, albeit at the risk of Dad becoming entombed in the night. While I worked, I thought about Violet and the Pale Child. Obviously the child wasn’t a ghost, but who was she? Was she the reason for all the fences? The sign about Village of the Damned?

      The vacuum cleaner enjoyed a largely untroubled life in the corner of the spare room. I plugged it in and shoved it halfheartedly over the areas of carpet not covered by books. It made quite an impact – one advantage of cleaning on an annual basis was that you could see the difference. I reminded myself that I was in my thirties and if I wanted to live in a house with books piled on the floor and cobwebs hanging from the beams, that was my decision. It wasn’t that I enjoyed living under layers of dust, surrounded by spiders, but getting the hoover out had never been a priority in my life. Besides, spiders had the right to a peaceful existence.

      I folded two towels and placed them on the bed, chucked a hotel shampoo bottle on top, and decided that would do. My eyes were drawn to a pile of framed photographs stacked in the corner. Photographs I’d not felt able to display. I fished one out and wiped the dust from it. Carrie and me on a beach, before she got ill. She was about eleven, squinting into the sun, blonde hair blowing into her eyes. I must have been around seven, although the way I was clutching a red bucket made me look younger. The colours were distorted, as if it was another world where greens were more yellow and reds more purple. I took the photograph and placed it gently on the bedside table. If Dad couldn’t cope with it, he could always put it away again.

      A noise drifted up the stairs. The cat flap in the kitchen banging open. I left the spare room, resisting the urge to flick my eyes to the ceiling, and headed downstairs. Hamlet came beetling through to the hallway, his little legs a blur. I gave him a cuddle and had a quick look around with the eyes of a parental visitor. Not great.

      I picked up a flyer for a pizza place that didn’t even deliver to my address, hearing Mum’s voice in my head. You need to stop trying to impress him. She certainly wasn’t trying to impress him with her recent antics. I felt a sharp stab of worry about her. I should visit but had no time. Nothing was more important right now than getting to work and finding Violet. If we didn’t find her today, we could virtually rule out finding her alive.

10

      Bex – August 1999

      Bex cradled a mug of tea. The kitchen was thick with the fug of wet coats and wet hair and wet dog, and she was sitting at a table with Kirsty, her dad, and the boy, plus a black Labrador who her dad had said was called Fenton. She’d tried to help them move the sandbags in the driving rain, and they were treating her as one of the heroic workers, but she knew she hadn’t been much use.

      Bex had imagined it so many times, being back in Gritton, that it didn’t feel real. Kirsty was different to when she’d seen her two years ago – her edges sharper, the addition of something adult to her, a complexity to her reactions. Their dad was older, damper, less vibrant than she remembered.

      Bex wanted to be nice, to get along with them, so they’d have no option but to embrace her into their lives. But she also wanted to scream at them, How could you? How could you send me away and visit me just three times in thirteen years? It wasn’t my fault!

      ‘You chose your moment to arrive in Gritton.’ Kirsty gave her what looked like a genuine, open smile. ‘An extra pair of hands was good.’

      Kirsty was acting as if everything was normal, as if she was oblivious to the chaos of emotions Bex was feeling. But then Bex caught her eye and what she saw in those sharp blue depths made her realise that Kirsty was acutely aware.

      Bex shrugged. ‘I was rubbish. Wrong clothes – I suppose I’m a townie.’ She thought of her lovely yellow coat, now sodden and smeared brown, her pretty shoes, ruined.

      Her dad couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘No, you were fine,’ he said.

      ‘The water got into the library.’ That was the boy. About eighteen or nineteen, like Kirsty. A dark, gentle-looking sort, except that he was gulping and slurping his tea, and dunking and devouring his biscuits, chewing with his mouth open. He caught Bex’s eye, and then quickly looked away.

      ‘It’s fine, Daniel.’ Kirsty spoke with an edge to her voice that seemed unwarranted, given the innocuous nature of his comment. ‘We shifted the books off the lower shelves, so not a problem.’

      Daniel looked up from his tea. ‘Not a problem? The library’s flooded. They’re beautiful old books in there. I can’t believe they were rescued from the reservoir and then you put them at risk here.’

      Kirsty shot him a piercing look. ‘The books are okay, Daniel. Why do you get so upset about a few books?’

      ‘But if you’d let me divert the water to the other side of the big field …’

      Bex’s dad spoke, his voice firm. ‘It’s fine, Daniel. Let it go.’

      Bex flicked her eyes from person to person, feeling for the undercurrents in the conversation. Kirsty saw her and dropped her shoulders and smiled. ‘The books were from the manor house,’ she said.

      ‘Oh.’ Bex knew all about the drowned house. Their ancestral home, lost under the waters when Ladybower Reservoir was created over fifty years ago.

      ‘Daniel’s helping out this summer,’ Kirsty added. ‘Sometimes he has his own ideas about how Dad should do things. Forgets he’s paid to do what Dad wants.’

      Daniel looked at Kirsty through narrow eyes, then took a breath and laughed. ‘Your dad’s put so much effort into making sure the pig barn doesn’t flood that the water ends up in the house. I just suggested we divert it.’

      ‘We’re not doing that,’ said Bex’s dad, placing his teacup down in a way that made it clear this was the end of the matter. ‘If the house were to flood we can always move upstairs or outside. Pigs don’t have those options. They mustn’t get flooded.’

      Kirsty said, ‘It’s sweet how much he cares for his pigs.’

      Daniel smiled awkwardly at Bex’s dad. ‘I’m surprised you don’t build a robot to move the sandbags automatically when it

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