She finally found a space at the top of the path down to The Vicarage and turned off her engine. She put her head in her hands and took several deep breaths. After a sleepless night worrying about her father and Sienna, she had woken early. She had absolutely no idea how she was supposed to find Nell; she didn’t even know if she was still alive. But her father’s comments, accusing her of having met Nell, made her suspect that she was.

  But where was she? Obviously Bobby hadn’t been able to find her, so what hope did Willow have? She had phoned the local council when they opened in an effort to find out how to trace someone when you have virtually nothing to go on, except their childhood name and address. She had spoken to a woman named Claire who had said she was fairly new and had no idea but that she would ask a colleague her advice and call her back.

  Not wanting to go into work early, she had instead driven over to The Vicarage. She didn’t know why she wanted to go there, but somehow she felt that being near Bobby and Nell’s childhood home would make her feel closer to them and help her think more clearly.

  As she climbed out of the car, she was hit by the freezing temperature of the early-morning air. Her mobile started to ring and she looked down at it. Charlie’s name flashed on the screen, but she returned it to her pocket and let it go to voicemail. Her head was spinning, and after her father’s arrest, she knew Charlie would be full of questions she didn’t have the strength to answer. Her thoughts kept darting to Sienna, now missing for an entire night, in freezing temperatures she couldn’t have survived. She pulled on the walking boots she always kept in the back seat, buttoned up her coat and wrapped her scarf twice around her neck. Then she started down the ice-covered track, the hedgerow to her right hiding Yew Tree Manor. The sounds and smells of the countryside surrounded her, and she made herself breathe in the crisp morning air to try and calm herself down.

  When she reached the end of the hedgerow, she looked to the right and saw it: the majestic Georgian manor house two fields away, surrounded by police cars and removal lorries. The Hiltons’ land stretched as far as the eye could see, The Vicarage the only break in the estate. She took a deep breath, feeling as if she were about to see a long-lost friend, and as she cleared the hedgerow, The Vicarage came into view.

  She was surprised to see two diggers already poised by the little house, as if waiting with bated breath for the green light. Bright yellow demolition signs were attached to each wall in anticipation; Leo Hilton wasn’t wasting any time.

  She had been here only once before, on a site visit with Mike, and had made herself stay detached as they walked around it, working out the logistics of the demolition. She had not let herself think of it as her father’s childhood home. Nobody had lived in it since then, and it had gone to rack and ruin. Ivy was crawling up every wall, and there was no glass left in the windows.

  Now, after her talk with her dad, she turned and faced it full on, as if forcing herself to look at her father’s childhood home for the first time. It was smaller up close than it seemed looking at it from the edge of the Hiltons’ land, and despite its desperate state, it was still brimming with charm: a peaked porch roof, small windows with thick sills she could imagine adorned with flower boxes, and a veranda wrapping around the entire front of the house. It had been painted white at some point in time, but was now so covered in dirt it had turned almost black.

  Slowly Willow walked up to the heavy wooden door, which was hanging off its iron hinges. After several pushes, she managed to lift it open. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark, and turned on the torch on her mobile phone to look around, shining it into the corners as she stepped inside.

  There was no sign of the cosy home her father had occasionally spoken of; no hint of the life that had been lived here by Alfie and Bobby and Nell. Nothing but a damp, empty space, a stone floor that had crumbled over time and a hole in the wall where the fireplace had been. A large chunk of the roof was missing, and pigeons were nesting in what was left of it.

  She pictured her father here as a boy, possibly sitting at a table by the window, or by the fire with his sister. Willow recalled the photo of the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl she had found in her father’s flat and tried to picture her in the space where she stood now. She was still completely thrown by him accusing her of having met Nell; how was that going to happen without his help? Had Nell told him she’d been in touch with her? Had she missed an email or letter at her flat because she’d been so busy lately? He had been so adamant about it; it had seemed impossible to him that their paths hadn’t crossed. But how?

  The damp of the cottage started making her feel sick again, but as she walked to the door to get out, she realised it had jammed shut. She pushed her shoulder against it, struggling to get it open, and felt her tears returning. Wherever she went, whoever she was with, however much she pretended she was all right, she always felt as she did now: cold, alone, pushing against life and never feeling any sense of peace. Eventually, after one final shove, the door gave way and she fell out into the winter morning. As the cold air rushed into her system, she began to hurry away, trying to get the sadness of the house out of her system.

  Soon she began to realise that she was walking, in reverse, the path Alice Hilton would have walked that night. As she headed in the direction of Yew Tree Manor, she pictured the girl in the red dress a little way in front of her, stomping through the snow looking for her puppy. Reaching the hedgerow at the end of the field, Willow found a break in the foliage and pushed her way through, the thick branches catching at her coat and scratching her hand. As she emerged onto the field at the end of Yew Tree Manor, she immediately saw the vast willow tree, her namesake, where she knew – from Nell’s note to Alice – that Nell had buried the tin box with the notebook in. But why did she have the notebook in the first place? thought Willow. And why did she bury it where nobody would find it?

  The willow tree dominated the landscape, a lone figure marking the end of The Vicarage land and the start of the Yew Tree estate. Its long arms seemed to stretch out and draw her in.

  As she listened to the sound of her own heavy breathing, something caught her eye at the bottom of the tree. A plastic tag, pushed down into the roots. She walked over to it and bent down, plucking it out of the ground. She recognised what it was immediately: a marker from the Earth Excavation Report with the company name ‘Pre-Contstruct Archaeology’ on it. She put it in her pocket; more proof if he tried to deny it.

  She pressed on through the woods towards the house, unsure what was drawing her in. The thought of little Sienna missing and the anguish Helen and Leo must be going through suddenly hit her hard as she reached the mouth of the woods and saw three police cars parked outside the house. She suddenly felt angry with herself for going to Yew Tree when the family were going through so much; she didn’t belong there, and it wasn’t her place. She turned back, retracing her steps until she reached her parked car, the events of the past twenty-four hours catching up with her as she scrambled to find her keys in her bag. It had been wrong to come here; she felt panicked and overwhelmed after her conversation with her dad. Finally she clambered into the safety of her car and, as she struggled to catch her breath, a police car roared past her with Helen Hilton in the back seat. Whenever they had met in the past, Helen had been eager to please, offering them tea, smiling, but always distant with Willow, disappearing as swiftly as she had appeared. Now, as she raced past, she looked entirely different: drawn and haunted.

  Willow’s phone suddenly rang, making her jump. It was a local number.

  ‘Hello? Willow James speaking.’

  ‘Hello, it’s Claire from Lewes Council; we spoke earlier.’

  ‘Yes, thank you for calling me back so quickly.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I don’t have much news for you. I spoke to my colleague, and apparently they’re not allowed to give out people’s married surnames – it’s due to the privacy laws.’

  ‘Well, can you find out if she was adopted or went into care after her father died? It’s my aunt, we’re family. I’ve got her maiden name.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. But if you have proof you’re family, you could apply to the court for access to her records.’

  ‘I don’t have time for that. I need to find her quickly. All I know is that she was sent away to a sanatorium in the late sixties. But I don’t know what happened to her after that.’

  ‘Well, I’m no expert, but could you try the sanatorium records? Sometimes they were converted into hospitals and still keep their old records on site. If you’re family, they may agree to let you see them, but you’d probably have to go there in person, with ID. Do you know where it is?’

  ‘Mayfield Sanatorium in Portsmouth, I think,’ said Willow, already trying to work out if it would be possible for her to take the day off. Mike had emailed to say that Leo had requested the planning meeting go ahead without him, and that she wouldn’t be needed, freeing up her whole morning.

  As Willow ended the call, a loud bang behind her made her jump and spin round. Dorothy, the woman she had met at the village hall meeting yesterday, was putting her rubbish out in front of her cottage at the end of the Yew Tree driveway. Willow got out of her car and waved.

  Dorothy frowned and looked at her.

  ‘It’s Willow, from the planning meeting yesterday.’

  ‘Oh yes, Willow, hello.’

  Willow crossed the road towards her. ‘I’m sorry to bother you. I was wondering if I could have a quick word?’ Dorothy looked very different today, she thought, tired and pale.

  ‘It’s not really a good time, I’m afraid. Peter’s not well.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it’s nothing serious?’ Willow asked.

  ‘No, just a migraine, but I’d best get back to him.’ Dorothy turned and walked away.

  ‘Isn’t it awful about Sienna?’ Willow called after her.

  ‘Yes, it is. Poor little thing, I hope she’s all right. Peter and I are worried sick.’ The woman shook her head and continued walking back towards the house.

  ‘Dorothy, can I ask you something, just quickly?’ Willow walked towards the house as Dorothy turned back, letting out a curt huff. ‘You mentioned at the meeting yesterday a graveyard next to The Vicarage. I started looking into it but I can’t find any evidence of it, but my father remembers it too.’

  ‘Your father?’ said Dorothy. ‘Is he a local man?’

  Willow felt her cheeks flush. She had never told anyone in Kingston who her father was, but it felt now like something she needed to share if she was to have any hope of finding Nell.

  ‘Yes, he used to live at The Vicarage; his name is Bobby James.’

  ‘Bobby James is your father?’ Dorothy stared at Willow wide-eyed and visibly shocked. ‘But you’ve been working for Leo, does he know?’

  Willow frowned, slightly taken aback. ‘No, he doesn’t.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think he’d be very happy if he did. You need to be careful, Willow.’

  ‘Careful? What do you mean?’ Willow felt uncomfortable suddenly.

  ‘Because of Bobby’s history with the family, there’s a lot of bad blood there. Vanessa still thinks he knows what happened to Alice.’ Dorothy stared at her intently.

  ‘But my father had nothing to do with Alice’s disappearance. Or Sienna’s, for that matter. If I can just find his sister, Nell, I think she may know something about the night Alice went missing.’

  ‘Nell? Nell doesn’t know anything,’ Dorothy snapped.

  ‘You sound very sure. Do you know Nell?’ said Willow, slightly taken aback. ‘Or do you have any idea how I can get hold of her?’

  Dorothy frowned at Willow. ‘What do you mean, how you can get hold of her?’

  ‘I need to track her down somehow, but I’ve got no idea where to start,’ said Willow, baffled by Dorothy’s question; the last twenty-four hours were playing havoc with her brain, she was exhausted. ‘I’ve found a letter Nell wrote when Alice disappeared, which makes me think she may have some information that could help my dad.’

  ‘I wouldn’t start digging up the past, Willow. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of that family. I should know.’

  Willow stared at the woman, shocked. ‘On the wrong side of the Hiltons, you mean? Dorothy, please talk to me. They’ve arrested Dad again.’ Willow felt her voice break and looked up to see Peter frowning down at her from the upstairs window.

  Dorothy shook her head. ‘I know, I’m sorry, love, he was a lovely lad. He had nothing to do with Alice’s disappearance. Vanessa blames everyone but herself for her little girl going missing. She let everyone in the village know that she asked me to stay that night and look after Alice and I refused. And they believed her, nobody ever questions a woman who has lost a child; she is untouchable.’

  Willow leaned in, intrigued, the freezing wind biting at her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Dorothy,’ she said quietly, ‘that must have been awful.’ Willow looked up again at the window, where Peter was still glaring down at them, and he started to walk down the stairs towards them.

  Dorothy nodded, seemingly relaxing for a moment. ‘Of course, what she didn’t tell anyone was that I had been there all day looking after the children, from seven in the morning until seven in the evening. I was exhausted, and I had to get home; I had my sister coming to dinner. It hadn’t occurred to her to invite me, of course. I worked for Vanessa for ten years – I knew Alice from the day she was born – and Peter had worked tirelessly for them as their gardener; nothing was too much trouble when it came to Richard. For a year I had to listen to nothing but preparations for the party: the house decorations, what they were eating, wearing, the invitations. Everyone was invited, the villagers, all their friends, all of Richard’s suppliers, everyone but Peter and I. We put up with so much from that family, and we thought they cared about us, but we weren’t good enough to be one of them, even for a single night.’

  She looked up, her eyes wide with anger at the memory of it. ‘Until the moment she realised how much she needed me. Just as the party was starting, the penny dropped. And I admit it, I was pleased as her panic set in. I was glad that me not being there was finally going to make an impact. But so help me God, I never thought anything would happen to Alice. I loved that little girl.’

  Suddenly the front door opened and Peter shouted out to his wife. ‘Darling? What are you doing out here?’

  Willow glanced up. He didn’t look very well, she thought. ‘Nothing, Willow was just leaving, Peter. Go home,’ said Dorothy, pulling her cardigan tight around herself and turning to walk back inside. ‘I know Bobby didn’t hurt Alice, or start the fire – they do anything to protect their own family – but you need to stay out of it; you can’t change the past. And you’re wrong about Nell. She doesn’t know what happened. You need to leave her in peace.’

  ‘Wait, you know about the fire? Please tell me where Nell is. Don’t go!’ said Willow desperately.

  Dorothy reached the door, and Peter glared at Willow as his wife walked inside. ‘Don’t come back here please, Willow,’ he said, before closing the door to Yew Tree Cottage.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Nell

  February 1970

  Nell stared at the door seeing a stream of visitors coming into the ward, as they did on the last Sunday of every month. It was the third time she had sat there hoping with every beat of her breaking heart that this would be the day Bobby or Dad would appear, smiling at her, with arms full of presents. She daydreamed about them sitting by her bed, holding her hand and telling her why it had taken them so long to get to her; why they had not written.

  She lay down, turned her back to the door and pulled the blankets over her head. She couldn’t bear to watch the other girls’ parents arriving any more, or the prying eyes staring at her as she looked down at her hands, trying not to cry. She had overheard one of the nurses talking about her when they thought she was asleep: ‘Poor little thing. It’s a long bus ride for some people and they just don’t have the money or can’t take the time off work. It’s all right for the adults, but for the children it’s terrible. A few of them just get dumped here by families who have twelve other children and can’t afford to keep them. No one ever visits them, or comes to collect them, even when they’re better. From here they go off to the children’s home.’

  Nell had started to hate the sanatorium. At first she’d seen it as a nice place to rest for a while until she got better, but it had started to feel like a prison from which she would never escape. She hated the sounds of the place: the trolley being wheeled round on the hard parquet floor with the medicine or the bed baths; the constant coughing of the other girls. The nights terrified her the most, because it was at night that the poorliest girls died. One day they would be there, and the next morning their bed would be empty and they would be gone. The nurses would lie to her to try and make her feel less frightened, and say the girl had gone home, but after a while she realised the truth.

  ‘Hello, Nell,’ said her friend Heather’s mother as she stood over her bed. She was always kind to Nell on visiting day, and brought her little presents too, but it made Nell feel almost worse that they pitied her. She could imagine them talking about her on their way home, about how cruel her parents were not to visit. She hated the idea of them thinking badly of Dad and Bobby.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Parks,’ said Nell.

  ‘Please call me Emma; we’re friends now, aren’t we?’ She put some sweets on the bed next to Nell before sitting down and stroking her hair. ‘Are you all right, Nell? Heather said you’d not been eating. You must eat, or you won’t get better.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ Nell said quietly, not wanting to look at the woman in case it made her cry. Emma was the loveliest lady in the world: kind, softly spoken and beautiful, just as she dreamed her own mother would have been.