Like a quirky student coming home after her first term at university. She paired it with another jumper of mine, a soft grey cashmere one. I found a loose green muslin skirt of Kate’s in a bag she’d clearly been intending for the charity shop. I found an old makeup bag of yours and she applied some mascara, rubbed some colour into her waxy cheeks. I ran her a bath and let her sit at the mirror in my bedroom to arrange her hair. Hear the sound of her mother’s voice, the sobs of joy and disbelief, hear the front door close behind her and know that she had been pulled back into the heart of her family. Go.’ Watch her disappear around the corner.
I wanted to unlock the doors of my car, reach across her, open her door and softly say, ‘go on then. In those moments I wanted it more than anything. I felt hugely, remarkably emotional at the prospect of taking her back, this poor caged creature. One of those curdled sobs that gets first sucked in and then expelled, halfway to a burst of laughter. She clutched her knees as she spoke, her hazel eyes wide with intent, with honesty. This came from her like a stream of consciousness. And I won’t, I swear, I won’t tell them about you or about Poppy. I’ll tell them that I’ve been lost and that now I’m found.
That the stress of my exams made me go mad for a while. ‘I can go home and I can tell my parents that I ran away and that I’ve been living in a squat. “When I brought Ellie her supper that evening, she was bristling with purpose. This is what Floyd (talking to Noelle) describes happening next: Then finally, after a few days, he agrees to take Ellie home. But he needs to be sure first that the police are not looking for Noelle and that no one suspects that he had anything to do with her disappearance. All the while Floyd is planning to return Ellie to her family. He feeds her good food and runs her hot baths and introduces her to Poppy as a niece of his. For a few days he keeps her in his study.
He cannot afford to get the emergency services involved. Ellie is close to death but instead of calling an ambulance, Floyd takes her home. In the original version of this book, the one I delivered to my editor in December 2016, Floyd discovers Ellie in Noelle’s basement when he goes to her house to collect Poppy’s things after killing Noelle in his kitchen.
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