Page 61 of Worse Than Murder

‘Yes. She could see us from there.’

‘But she didn’t notice anything was amiss until she shouted you in for your lunch,’ I say, almost to myself. ‘How long was it after your saw Celia and Jennifer in the back of the car before your mum called you in?’

Alison shakes her head. ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t think I had a concept of time back then.’

‘But you played on your own?’

‘Yes. I had this sausage dog on a string. I took him everywhere with me.’

‘You were on your own for a while?’

Alison screws up her face as she thinks. ‘I think so. I remember being hungry. I was asking for my dinner and Mum was in a flap about Celia and Jennifer.’ She wipes a tear away. ‘I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.’

I look across the field. ‘Was there a gap in the hedgerow back then?’

‘Yes. It’s not there now. The hedges have overgrown, but there was a gap you could cut through to the road. Mum said we weren’t allowed to go on our own because there’s a blind corner. You can’t always see cars coming from the right.’

‘So, why did you go through the hedge?’

‘I heard a car.’

‘But you must have heard cars all the time while you were playing. What made you go through that particular time?’

Alison shakes her head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you hear anything else?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘So, you went out onto the road. You looked left and right, and you saw the car driving away?’

‘Yes.’

‘Left or right?’

‘Left.’

‘You’re sure? In the interview you gave with the specialised police officers, you said you couldn’t remember which direction.’

She thinks again. ‘No. It was left. I’m absolutely positive. I looked left and Jennifer and Celia were in the back of the car, and it was driving away as if towards the main village.’

‘You waved?’

‘Jennifer waved first. I waved back.’

‘They weren’t crying or anything?’

‘No. They… they looked how they always did. Relaxed. Happy.’

I want to ask her about the colour and make of the car or if she saw someone in the front, but I know Alison had undergone extensive interviewing as a child to try to get her to remember and it hadn’t worked. I also know that Alison will have spent the past twenty-nine years beating herself up to try to force herself to remember the colour of the car at least. Any memory now can’t be trusted.

‘When you were back in the house and your mum realised your sisters were missing, what did she do? Who did she call first?’

Alison sucks in her lips. She looks up as she searches her memory. ‘She rang around a lot of people. I remember her being on the phone a lot.’

‘Who was the first person to come to the house?’

‘Uncle Iain.’