The Vanishing Act: An unputdownable, darkly comic thriller packed with twists by Jo Jakeman

Author:Jo Jakeman [Jakeman, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2025-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

Eloise

Holly gasped. ‘Shut up! You were not!’

Eloise sank in her seat. Why did she keep telling Holly things that she really should keep to herself?

‘It was how I was going to get me and Debs off that estate. I was going to make a better life for us.’

‘Couldn’t you get a paper round?’

‘Obviously it doesn’t make much sense now, but I only planned to do it for a year, two at most. I was working at a club in Nottingham, so I met quite a few … clients that way. I never did drugs myself, but I needed the money, and I met this guy who offered me the opportunity to make cash quickly. It also messed up my life, so I wouldn’t recommend it.’

Holly looked at Eloise like she’d never seen her before. ‘Nah. I can’t picture it. You’re, like, the most strait-laced person I’ve ever met.’

Eloise considered this for a moment and found she was strangely offended. ‘I’ve barely put a foot wrong since then. I’ve been a model citizen, partly because life is so much easier this way, but mostly to make amends for things I did back then.’

‘This isn’t like offsetting your carbon footprint,’ said Holly. ‘Sell drugs, plant a tree. Cycle to work to make up for poisoning the water supply. Stolen someone’s wallet? No problem, just recycle your milk bottles.’

‘For the record, I’ve never stolen anything,’ said Eloise.

‘Unlike me?’

She sighed. ‘That wasn’t a dig at you. You took things we weren’t using so you could buy clothes for an interview. You were just being …’

‘Resourceful?’ Holly offered.

‘Resourceful,’ agreed Eloise. ‘I’m not proud of my past. That’s why I’ve lied about it. I don’t want to admit to being that person. When we were in the police station, it made me think about what I must have put my mum through. I doubt I was easy to live with. We didn’t get on, but I would have liked to get to know her as an adult. Maybe we could have learned something from each other. I wonder whether she sat in a police station like that one to report me missing. Maybe they fobbed her off too, because I was a kid from a bad family who had every reason to run away. We weren’t the kind of people the police bothered with. There wouldn’t have been anyone there to help her. I might’ve been too hard on her all these years. I was a nightmare. To be fair, so was she, but I wasn’t a good daughter.’

‘It’s hard to be a good daughter when you have to be the parent,’ Holly said.

‘I guess. I’ve tried to be a decent mother and not make the same mistakes as my mum. Never absent, never missing a carol concert, sports match or play. I’ve set boundaries, shown them love and tried to build their self-confidence. And do you know what I’ve got to show for it? Absolutely nothing. Meghan won’t return my calls. Edward does, but

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