After She's Gone by Sheryl Browne

Author:Sheryl Browne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, contemporary, Suspense/Mystery/Spy Thriller
Publisher: Choc Lit
Published: 2017-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

He hadn’t found her. Ashley’s heart sank as she watched Matthew walk back towards the car. He looked exhausted, his face pale and drawn, like a man defeated: lost and lonely. Ashley knew how that felt.

It might be better if he doesn’t find her, Emily commented.

Ashley tried to ignore her, wishing to God she could stop the thoughts in her head.

Matthew would keep us even if he was on his own. He’s nice, Emily went on, despite Ashley’s determination not to hear her.

So is Becky, she replied silently.

Yes, but she’s having a baby. A brand new one. She won’t want us under her feet, will she? She’ll be tired and moody.

Ashley closed her eyes. Be quiet! she fumed, her mind immediately hurtling back to their last cold, dank flat and her mum’s constant mood swings. Where the curtains were always drawn and things crunched underfoot when she walked. An involuntary shudder shook through her as she remembered the cockroach. She’d hit it with the pan, at least five times, before it cracked. And then her mother had woken up and screamed at her. She was always pissed off with her whenever she got woken up in the afternoons, losing her temper if she got under her feet. Always losing it. Said it was because of her.

Ashley scrunched her eyes tighter, wishing she could blot out the memory of her mother screeching at her, her eyes demented and her hair wild. ‘Why can’t you be normal?’ she’d spat out the words. ‘Why can’t you be quiet, for God’s sake! You’re driving me mad!’

Once she’d stopped screaming, she’d taken her pills. Ashley recalled how her mother used to wash them down with the water, which didn’t taste like water and which Ashley knew full well wasn’t water. When she’d stirred again, finally, she’d put her song on. It was always the same one. And, as usual, her mum sang along, as she mascaraed her eyes and slicked on her lippy, like an angry red slash for a mouth. And then she’d gone out. ‘Going to the shops. Back soon,’ she’d said, banging the front door shut behind her.

It had been Ashley’s fifth birthday. Her mum had been in a good mood that morning, merry. She’d given her the locket with the photo they’d had taken at the post office in it. Remembering how she’d smiled, actually smiled at her when she’d hung it around her neck, Ashley reached for it, running her thumb over the smooth gold surface on the back of it.

She never did come back. Ashley had waited two whole school days. Sure she would come, she’d wanted to keep waiting, she remembered, but the policewoman wouldn’t let her.

‘Ashley?’ Matthew pulled the driver’s door open and sank into the seat beside her. ‘Everything all right?’

Ashley nodded quickly. ‘Uh-huh,’ she said, wiping her nose on her coat sleeve, something else her mother would have gone mental at her for. ‘Just thinking.’

Sighing expansively, Matthew nodded, pushed his key into the ignition,

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