The Child Upstairs by Lucy Lawrie

Author:Lucy Lawrie [Lawrie, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

The way Tom had talked about it – an ‘off-grid’ artists’ community – it had sounded almost like a strange cult. But what kind of cult had visiting hairdressers and farm shop deliveries?

There were monthly invoices covering a period of three or four years, all labelled ‘paid’ in Tom’s small, square handwriting.

I wondered if he was still paying for all this, even now. Maybe they’d moved over to email invoices, or some online system. If not, who was paying? Other family members, perhaps? Although Zara had said she’d grown up in care. Without Tom, she had no-one.

Back in bed, I couldn’t find anything on the internet about Selene House, or ‘Circle of Selene’. But a place called ‘Chesters’ came up in the second page of search results. Was it linked, somehow? I clicked onto a landing page showing a carousel of photos – an English manor house with glowing windows and red ivy climbing the walls, a view of sunlit lawns and a rose garden. A painter’s easel in a room full of morning light, and a tea tray by a crackling log fire. But it required you to log in to access the rest of the site.

I googled the address that had been printed at the top of the invoice: ‘The Old Coddenham Road’, and scoured the satellite map view. It looked like a rural road that ran for two or three miles, with a few properties situated along it. There were a couple of farms, by the look of it, and a sort of manor house with outbuildings.

Zooming out on the map, I saw that this Old Coddenham Road wasn’t far from Doncaster.

My heart leapt in my chest. I was completely free all weekend. I could get the train to Doncaster, jump in a taxi at the station and ask them to take me to The Old Coddenham Road. I could try and solve the mystery of what had become of Selene House. Maybe I could even find Adeline. She might still be there, busy and happy in her painting overalls. She could reassure me that Tom wasn’t a monster, that it just hadn’t worked out between them. I could tell her about Tilly and how fast she was growing up.

Tom couldn’t know, of course. I’d have to pretend I was at home, if he called. Or say I’d been sleeping, if I couldn’t answer. And I’d have to leave the house by the back door so he couldn’t see me on the doorbell camera. But it was possible.

Before I’d even made a conscious decision, my fingers moved on the keyboard, searching for train times. There was a train at seven in the morning. I could just about get there and back in a day. I still had the money I’d been going to use to pay Joy for the initial session, before she’d offered it free of charge. I could use that for my ticket. But I’d have to leave in just over an hour.

A shadow seemed to move again, in the corner by the chair with the clothes piled on it.

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