Have You Seen Her by Lisa Hall

Author:Lisa Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

The following day, I text Jessika and arrange to meet her and Daisy at the park, needing a bit of space to clear my head after the psychic’s visit. I slip quietly out of the back gate and along the alley behind the houses – there are still a few press lurking at the bottom of the cul-de-sac, having moved on slightly after Kelly threatened to arrest them, but they won’t leave completely, not until something breaks.

‘Hey.’ Jess smiles at me, bundled up against the cold in a thick puffa jacket and bobble hat. ‘How are things?’ She pushes Daisy on the swing, the little girl squealing and laughing as her feet fly over the soft, spongy safety mat underneath.

‘Well, she’s still not home.’ Aware that I am snippy, I try and smile. ‘It’s awful. The atmosphere is just . . .’ I puff my fringe away from my face. ‘Fran got a psychic in, you know.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Jess slows the swing to a stop and Daisy jumps off, running towards the slide. ‘Everyone has been talking about it.’

‘Really?’ I frown in confusion. ‘How did they know? I mean, I expected everyone to be talking about George Snow, that was in the paper. But not this. Who told you?’

‘It was in the paper, though,’ Jess says, quietly. ‘Front page of The Oxbury Echo. “PARENTS CALL IN ACCLAIMED PSYCHIC.” That kind of thing.’

‘Shit.’ I sink down on to the damp, mossy bench on the edge of the playground. ‘Dominic will go crazy. He didn’t want her to come in in the first place. What did the article say?’

‘Just that the Jessops called in Margaret Lawler. She’s well-known, you know. Me and my mum went to see some stage show thing she did years ago. I suppose in psychic terms you could call her quite famous. She’s written books and stuff.’

‘I had no idea.’ I wonder whether Fran knew all of this when she took the phone call from Margaret Lawler. I’m certain Dominic didn’t – he never would have agreed to her visit in the first place and certainly not if he knew she was well-known.

‘People are starting to talk,’ Jess says suddenly, her cheeks flushing scarlet as she toes the mulchy leaves that surround the bench.

‘What do you mean, people are starting to talk?’ I feel my pulse flutter in my throat, heat making the back of my neck prickle.

‘Just . . . you know. Gossip.’ Jess looks over to where Daisy spins on the roundabout, making sure her charge is safe and in her eye line. ‘It’s like the McCanns . . . Fran and Dominic are successful, wealthy . . . they’re going to be judged. Dominic wasn’t where he said he would be that night . . . things like that. People like to have someone to blame, someone to pin things on. It makes life feel safer for themselves . . . like, if they have someone to blame, then bad things can’t happen to them.

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