Bone by Bone E-Book

Sanjida Kay

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 440

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER. Laura loves her daughter more than anything in the world. But nine-year-old Autumn is being bullied. Laura feels helpless. When Autumn fails to return home from school one day, Laura goes looking for her. She finds a crowd of older children taunting her little girl. In the heat of the moment, Laura makes a terrible choice. A choice that will have devastating consequences for her and her daughter... This novel about the insidious nature of bullying escalates into a tale of violence, fear and suspense. - Daily Mail

Leseprobe

To Jasmine

Contents

Prologue

Friday 26 October

LAURA

AUTUMN

LAURA

AUTUMN

Saturday 27 October

LAURA

AUTUMN

LAURA

Sunday 28 October

LAURA

Monday 29 October

AUTUMN

LAURA

Tuesday 30 October

AUTUMN

LAURA

AUTUMN

LAURA

Wednesday 31 October

LAURA

AUTUMN

Thursday 1 November

AUTUMN

LAURA

AUTUMN

Friday 2 November

LAURA

AUTUMN

LAURA

Saturday 3 November

LAURA

Sunday 4 November

AUTUMN

Monday 5 November

AUTUMN

LAURA

Tuesday 6 November

AUTUMN

LAURA

Wednesday 7 November

AUTUMN

LAURA

Thursday 8 November

LAURA

AUTUMN

LAURA

AUTUMN

LAURA

Friday 9th November

LAURA

AUTUMN

LAURA

AUTUMN

LAURA

Epilogue

Thursday 10 May

LAURA

Acknowledgements

Prologue

It wasn’t until the train went past that she saw the small body lying in the long grass by the side of the wood.

She couldn’t tell how long she’d been searching for her daughter. It was dusk, but it had seemed darker as she ran through the wood, tripping on hooked tree roots, her feet crunching through crisp, curled ash leaves. Around a tight bend, she stopped. Blocking the path was a dog. It was looking directly at her, as if it had been waiting for her. The dog was built like a wolf, but white with uncanny blue eyes. In the twilight, its ghostly fur seemed to glow. A woman, all in black, with dreadlocks bound by silver coils, jerked its lead; the dog’s pink tongue lolled over its sharp teeth. She hauled the animal ungraciously out of Laura’s way.

At the edge of the wood, Laura paused, trying to catch her breath, wondering which way to go, where to look next. This part had once been an orchard and was now overrun by sycamore saplings with diseased leaves, but there were a couple of crooked apples left with a few remaining fruit on the uppermost branches, small and hard and a poisonous green. Out of the shelter of the trees she felt the rain, light and cold, sweep across her face; the wind rustled through the leaves. Somewhere overhead, a crow cawed.

She ran blindly across the meadow, through puddles of freezing mud. There were ranks of rosebay willowherb, the last seeds clinging to the desiccated stems, and clumps of hemlock, architectural against the clouded night sky. The white underbelly of wheeling seagulls reflected what little light was left.

She kept catching the image as if out of the corner of her eye: a small girl with a tan satchel and a red coat, running, running through the grass. Autumn had been missing since school had finished. No one had seen her nine-year-old daughter after she’d left the classroom.

At the meadow’s edge, she followed a concrete path that led across a bridge suspended over a railway. There were bars all the way around to prevent people falling onto the track. She was more exposed to the elements now: the wind and rain howled through the metal cage enclosing her. It seemed impossible that someone could fall or be shoved from the bridge. She forced herself to look down. She had to prepare for the worst.

There was no sign of her daughter, no sign of a small body crumpled by the railway. She pushed her damp hair out of her eyes and turned back towards the darkening expanse of grass, the skyline dominated by bare-knuckled branches, stark against the orange glow of the city. In her haste, she hadn’t thought to bring a torch. She turned her mobile on and used the frail light from the screen to comb the ground. After a few moments, the phone chirped. She hoped against hope that it was a text from Mrs Sibson to say that she’d found her, that Autumn was safe. There was an image of a red flashing battery. She turned her phone off. If she didn’t find her daughter soon, she would need enough charge to ring the police.

She ran up to the peak of Narroways’ one sharp hill. The tiny, urban nature reserve, bisected by three railway lines, spread below her, an unfolding of black shapes: choppy grass, thorny shrubs, spear-tipped metal fences, the dark bulk of the wood and, straight ahead of her, a chasm through the stone cliffs to the train tracks below.

The lines began to sing, a shrill, electric song, and then the cacophony of the train roared out of the darkness. The carriages were almost empty and painfully bright as they hurtled along the tracks to the heart of the city. In the fleeting light she saw the meadow, dotted with stunted hawthorns, their twisted limbs dense with red berries, and then a shape: achingly familiar, child-sized, shockingly still.

She ran down the hill. In the blackness of the night and in the rain and the wind, it felt as if she were falling, falling towards her daughter. She found the satchel first, in a thick clump of clover. And then there was Autumn, abandoned below a tangled briar. She was wearing the red coat her grandmother had bought her a week ago. Laura knelt next to her and cupped the child’s cold face in her hands and felt her hair, wet against her wrists.

She switched on her phone and, in the last few seconds before it died and the screen went blank, in that one moment lit by the eerie electronic light, she saw that she was kneeling in a circle of grass where every blade was coated with red. Autumn’s hair was sticky with it; her face and neck were bright red. Only one small, pale spot on her cheek was visible where her skin, free of blood, gleamed, as polished as bone.

Friday 26 October

LAURA

It sounded as if someone was trying to open the front door. Matt, she thought; he must have forgotten his keys. She frowned. That was something she was likely to do, not him. And then she remembered. It couldn’t be Matt, it wasn’t his weekend to look after Autumn. She rolled over and looked at her bedside clock. It was 4 a.m. The door shook in its frame again.

She rose, wide awake now, and flung on her dressing gown. Although her room was at the top of the house, she always slept with her bedroom door open so that she could hear if Autumn needed her in the night. Who could it be at this time? The house was old – at least Edwardian – and the floorboards seemed to wince under her weight even though she tried to walk quietly down them so she wouldn’t wake Autumn and Vanessa.

She hated how vulnerable she felt, a single woman in her early thirties with a young child and her mother asleep in the house. There was nothing secure about their front door – it opened straight from the hall onto the street; there was no spy hole and no chain on the inside. Like everything else in the house, it needed replacing. Now she’d reached the door, she could feel the draught stealing around the warped edges.

‘Who’s there?’ she said, but quietly, so that she wouldn’t disturb her family.

There was no answer. She looked through the narrow hall window but all she could see was her own reflection, sharp and bright, in her white dressing gown. She rested her forehead against the glass and cupped her hands around her eyes but she couldn’t make out anyone on the street and her view was obscured by the branches of the fig tree she’d planted in a pot and placed right in front of this sliver of a window. In any case, the angle was wrong to see who it was if he was standing right by the front door. She assumed it was a he. It always was, wasn’t it? She moved away, in case he could see her reflection, and stood directly in front of the door, listening for breathing, for the scrape of shoes against the pavement. Nothing.

She turned the key in the lock and opened the door a fraction, and then pulled it wide open. A blast of damp, icy air hit her. There was no one there. She leant out to look further into Wolferton Place. The trees in the small park opposite tossed in the wind, the branches of the old pines creaking, and the rain came in hard gusts. Her hair was instantly whipped into a tangle. The short cul-de-sac they lived on was deserted.

She closed the door softly and locked it. For a moment she stood there. Had she imagined the noise? Or had it been the wind? Their house in London had been modern and she wasn’t used to the sounds this one made, the way the wind moaned around the chimney and the odd groans and sighs and hisses as air sifted through the gap in the sash windows. Now that the adrenaline was starting to leave her, she became acutely aware of how cold her feet were. The thought of her bed, still vaguely warm, was appealing. She crept back up the stairs, hoping she hadn’t woken Vanessa or Autumn. She assumed Vanessa would go for a run if she was already awake. Her mother had no patience with lying in. Laura, on the other hand, felt drained.

She pushed open the door to Autumn’s bedroom and peered inside. After a moment her vision adjusted to the gloom. She was startled to see two large eyes staring at her, gleaming in the dark. Autumn was sitting up in bed, pale and still. She was wearing her white pyjamas, the ones with the rose pattern, the flowers now faded.

‘Autumn? Are you awake?’

Laura went over and sat on her bed. She folded her arms around her daughter, feeling the child’s thin arms and ribs, the chill of her limbs. She must have woken ages ago.

She’d been worried about Autumn for weeks – almost since the start of term. Her daughter had been miserable and not like her usual sunny, quirky self at all. At first, Laura thought she was missing her dad and finding it difficult to settle into a new school – Autumn had never had to change schools until this summer – but her daughter’s mood had only worsened over the past few weeks.

‘What is it, love? Did I wake you?’

Autumn shook her head.

‘Is there something bothering you?’

Her daughter’s shoulders shook and she felt hot tears drop onto her collar bone. She stroked her hair and hugged her.

‘What’s happened? You can tell me, sweetheart.’ She tried to peel her away – Autumn’s face was pressed tightly against her neck – and wiped her tears with a crumpled tissue from her dressing gown pocket.

Autumn sniffed. ‘It’s a boy. He’s been saying mean things to me.’ She dissolved into tears.

‘A boy in your class?’

Autumn shook her head. ‘He’s in the year above. He calls me names.’

An older boy in the final year of primary school: it somehow made it worse, a child of that age preying on her daughter at a time when children were still supposed to behave like children.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. How long has this been going on for?’

‘A bit after I started school.’

‘You mean, in September?’

Autumn nodded and blew her nose loudly.

‘But that’s ages ago, Autumn. Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I didn’t want you to worry. I thought he’d stop.’

She squeezed Autumn’s shoulders. ‘And has he done anything else to you? Apart from calling you names?’

Autumn dropped her head. She hiccupped as she tried to speak. ‘Slugs,’ she wailed and started to cry again.

It was hard to tell what she was saying, but Laura finally got it out of her. Autumn had opened her drawer in class and it had been full of the creatures, packed on top of a layer of rotten apples. Laura thought of those writhing, slimy bodies, the malice it would have taken to collect them all and press them onto her child’s books.

‘Try and get a little bit of sleep before we have to leave for school.’

Autumn reluctantly lay down and closed her eyes.

‘I’m going to talk to your teacher this morning,’ Laura said. Her feet were now really cold and she felt tired. She shunted Autumn over and slid into her narrow single bed alongside her. ‘It’s not acceptable, what that boy is doing. What’s his name again? Lenny?’

‘Levi,’ muttered Autumn, as if the word left a bad taste in her mouth.

Autumn rolled onto her side, curling up and snuggling into the duvet. The child’s face relaxed and her breathing slowed. Laura’s feet started to tingle. The heating clicked and rumbled into life, the radiators gurgling as the water within them slowly warmed. It was still cold though. Laura knew she should get up but it was so rare to be able to watch her daughter fall asleep.

It felt as if hardly any time had passed since Autumn had been a baby and yet here she was, looking down at a nine year old whose long, thick, light-brown hair was spread across her pillow. When Autumn was born, it was as if she recognized her, as if she’d always known that it would be her, this little person who had come to live with her and reside permanently in her heart. It was a love unlike any other: fierce and powerful. It was a shock to Laura, who had never felt anything so all-consuming in her life.

She couldn’t bear the idea that Autumn was being teased.

‘There is nothing I would not do for you,’ she whispered to her daughter in the darkness as she stroked her hair one last time.

They’d moved from London to Bristol late that summer, once the divorce had been finalized and their house sold. Laura had chosen to live in Montpelier because the school was so good: Ashley Grove Junior had excellent Ofsted grades, the teachers seemed nice and they could walk there. Compared to Autumn’s school in Hammersmith, it was calmer and quieter – there were only two classes in each year.

When Autumn had first started at Ashley Grove in September, Laura had been as nervous as her daughter. She’d been worried about Autumn – if she’d make new friends, if she’d fit in – as well as for herself – would the other mothers like her? It had felt, as she’d walked to school that morning, her mouth dry and her stomach churning, as if it were her first day too. Autumn had gone to one school all her life and Laura – probably because of her peripatetic childhood, being shuttled between Namibia and London when her parents were working overseas – hated change.

School started at 9 a.m., but the pupils were expected to arrive five minutes early, so there were normally a lot of children and their parents milling around in the playground beforehand. For the first couple of days, a few of the other mothers openly stared at her and Autumn but no one spoke to them. It wasn’t until the third day that, to Laura’s eternal gratitude, Rebecca came across to talk to her. It didn’t take long for Rebecca’s friends – Amy, Lily and Rani – to follow. Rebecca was an alpha mother and being accepted by her had made Laura’s life a lot easier. It didn’t stop Laura feeling lonely and isolated though. Her own friends were in London but so far none of them – not even her best friend, Lucy – had had time to visit. She couldn’t remember a period in her life when she hadn’t been surrounded by a network of people: she’d stayed in touch with all the mothers and their children from her NCT group, and then there were the odd assortment of gardeners, whom she’d seen once a week at her allotment and often in the pub later, as well as the friends she’d made on her horticultural course. Still, she thought, it was just a matter of time. They hadn’t been here for long and it was absolutely the right decision to move to Bristol and make a fresh start.

Today Laura looked around for Rebecca’s black Range Rover and her two blonde, beautifully dressed little girls, Poppy and Tilly – Tilly was in Autumn’s class – but there was no sign of them. They were still a couple of minutes early, though.

As they were crossing the yard, Autumn moved closer to Laura so that she was pressed against her side.

‘He’s there,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Look.’

She pointed to a group of boys who were lounging around the climbing frame. A couple of them were hanging from the bars.

‘Which one?’ asked Laura.

‘By the swing,’ Autumn said, and half turned towards her mother so that she could no longer see the gang.

Laura didn’t know what she’d expected: a small podgy boy with mean eyes, if she’d been pushed to describe the image in her mind; a kid on free school meals and benefits with a tattooed father and his shirt tails hanging out. But not this boy.

‘He’s in the year above you?’ She couldn’t stop herself from saying it.

‘Don’t stare!’ said Autumn, her cheeks colouring.

‘Sorry.’

She started walking again and Autumn continued leaning against her, keeping time with her steps, her face resolutely turned away.

So that was Levi. She could hardly believe it. The most obvious thing about him was that he was beautiful. Stunningly good-looking, in fact. He was tall, at least as tall as Laura. He appeared older than ten, although she guessed he could be eleven already. And then there was the fact that he was black. Not dark or blue-black though, but a warm, golden-brown. His hair was in corn rows, ending just below his collar and his large, dark eyes were fringed with thick eyelashes. He had an aquiline nose and bow-shaped lips. He looked neat in his white shirt, blazer and black trousers. The uniform was quite relaxed at Ashley Grove but he’d chosen to wear the most formal clothes he could and they were spotless. Propped casually against the metal post of the swing, coolly regarding the antics of the other boys, he seemed older, wiser, superior. Laura found it hard to believe he’d even noticed Autumn. Levi looked like a teenager; you could see in his face the young man he would become. In comparison, Autumn looked like a child with her round cheeks and bony knees, her gap-toothed smile and her plaits.

‘Where are his parents?’ asked Laura, looking around the yard.

‘I don’t know. I’ve only seen him walking to school by himself,’ mumbled Autumn, stepping away from her.

Laura felt the sudden chill where Autumn’s warm body had been. Unable to help herself, she glanced over at Levi again. To her surprise he was staring directly at her, as if he were calmly appraising her. She ducked her head and hurried after Autumn.

She took a deep breath, walked into the school and knocked on the open door of the Year 4 classroom. Autumn trailed unhappily behind her.

Autumn’s class teacher, Mrs Ellen Sibson, was tall, in her late fifties, with an angry rash across her chin and severely parted hair streaked with grey and dotted with a few flakes of dandruff. She wore an ankle-length pale-blue cord skirt and a long-sleeved top and cardigan in a matching colour. A necklace made of round green plastic beads hung across her bosom and rested on her stomach. Laura thought she was intimidating, not like the jovial George Wu, who’d taken Autumn’s class last year in London.

Laura found any kind of confrontation difficult and had been rehearsing what to say to Mrs Sibson all the way to school, so that their walk had been in near silence. She realized, with a fretful pang, that she hadn’t even tried to reassure Autumn.

‘Could I just have a quick word?’ she asked Mrs Sibson, who frowned and then attempted a smile.

Laura immediately felt at a disadvantage. Mrs Sibson was readying herself for her class and would hardly want to have an extended chat right now. But it was for Autumn’s sake; she had to do it. She pushed the door shut and clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms.

‘What can I do for you?’ Mrs Sibson asked.

‘It’s about Autumn. I’m not sure she’s settling in that well.’ She gave Mrs Sibson a small smile, trying to look friendly.

‘I think she’s doing remarkably well, considering how difficult it must have been for her, moving here and transferring to a new school.’

‘Well, it’s more than that. More than simply starting at a new school.’

‘She is quiet,’ said Mrs Sibson, glancing at Autumn, ‘but she’s been working hard, and she’s very gifted artistically. Our PE teacher is particularly impressed with her gymnastic ability.’

‘I’m not worried about her school work,’ said Laura.

‘We all think Autumn has been doing better than we’d anticipated by this stage in the term. But if you have any concerns, by all means come in when we have more time and we can discuss it further.’

‘I am concerned, Mrs Sibson, that’s why I’m here. Autumn is being bullied.’

‘Bullied?’

‘A boy – his name is Levi – is bullying Autumn. I’d like you to speak to him and make sure it stops. Yesterday—’

‘The slugs,’ interrupted Mrs Sibson. ‘I’m sorry Autumn found it distressing but it was just a prank.’

A prank? Laura looked at her in disbelief.

Mrs Sibson glanced down at Autumn as she leant against one of the desks and scuffed the linoleum with her toe, staring intently at the floor. Her cheeks flushed scarlet and she closed her eyes, an old childhood trait she’d developed when she was a year old if anyone apart from Laura or Matt spoke to her. Mrs Sibson looked rather pointedly at the clock on the wall.

‘I wouldn’t call stuffing a child’s drawer full of slugs a prank,’ said Laura.

‘I think it was a one-off,’ said Mrs Sibson. ‘I haven’t noticed any of the children in this class teasing Autumn or playing tricks on her before this occurred. And I cancelled the children’s Halloween treat because no one owned up.’

So as well as being bullied, her whole class would be annoyed with her, thought Laura.

‘Autumn says Levi was responsible,’ said Laura. ‘He’s been bullying her virtually since the start of term. She’s only just told me now or I would have come to see you earlier.’

Ignoring the charge of bullying, Mrs Sibson said, ‘Levi is in the year above.’ She turned to Autumn for the first time and asked, ‘How could he have done it?’

Autumn screwed her eyes closed even tighter and said nothing. Laura wanted to shout at Mrs Sibson to stop this child, this Levi, whoever he was, from speaking to Autumn ever again.

‘It’s not up to Autumn to work out how Levi could have got into the classroom!’

Both she and Autumn still had on their winter coats and the room was hot. She felt uncomfortable, a minor tremor running through her torso because of the heat, the awkwardness of the situation.

Mrs Sibson said, ‘I appreciate you coming to me about this matter. We don’t tolerate bullying in this school. Every child here is taught a respectful attitude to others.’ She added, ‘We adhere to our stringent, anti-bullying policy, Mrs Baron-Cohen, so we do take your concerns seriously. I can’t say I’ve noticed Levi speaking to her. But I will take it up with Mr Bradley, Levi’s class teacher. The teachers are generally not outside during the lunch break, so I will also talk to the dinner staff who monitor the playground. I do wish I had more time to discuss this with you, but I have a class to teach. I’ll let you know what Mr Bradley says and we’ll keep an eye on Levi, particularly at break-times. Perhaps you could make an appointment for next week,’ she said, looking at the clock again.

She’s saying she doesn’t believe Autumn, Laura thought.

Autumn opened her eyes and looked over at her, her face set in a hurt expression. She moved towards her daughter but, at that moment, the bell rang and Autumn’s classmates, who’d been pressed against the door, flooded noisily into the room. Autumn moved away so that Laura couldn’t kiss her goodbye in public and shrugged off her coat with her back to her. Laura forced herself not to help her. She stood in the doorway, jostled by the incoming children, and then made her way slowly out of the school.

As she walked across the playground, she saw Rebecca standing near the gate with a small group of parents. Rebecca, as usual, looked like a mother in a catalogue. She had long, wavy chestnut hair and was wearing white jeans and knee-length dark-brown boots, a grey cashmere coat and had an elegant scarf wrapped around her neck.

How can she wear white jeans in winter? Laura wondered.

She was talking to Amy, a petite woman who was half Vietnamese and was also always immaculate. She wore retro-chic dresses with cinched-in waists, emphasizing her tiny frame and her flat stomach, in spite of having had three children. Laura didn’t recognize the other two mothers or the man they were with.

Rebecca waved her over. ‘Now here’s someone you really must meet. He’s an absolute genius at sorting out computers – he does the IT at Ashley Grove and doesn’t charge us a penny.’ She flapped her hand between the two of them. ‘Aaron Jablonski. Laura Baron-Cohen.’

If Laura had been asked, she might have come up with some nebulous image of what a man who worked in IT might look like: pot-bellied, pale, sandy-haired with poor dress sense, perhaps. Nothing like this man. He was tall, handsome, with a straight jaw and chiselled features. He exuded masculinity in an understated kind of way, like a woodsman, a log-cutter, someone from the forests of North America. Beneath his coat he was wearing a white shirt and black waistcoat with jeans. A messenger bag was slung over his chest and the hand that held the strap had a silver charm on a woven leather strap around the wrist; no wedding ring.

‘Aaron,’ he said and held out his hand. His voice was deep.

Laura felt as if she was reaching out to grasp his hand in slow motion. He squeezed her hand firmly. She realized she’d been staring and blushed and stepped back.

‘Are you new to the area?’

She nodded. ‘We’ve just moved here. My daughter started school this term.’

‘I’ve just dropped my son off. I hardly ever have the chance. It’s my one small pleasure in life. But he’s at that age where he’s embarrassed to be seen with his dad so when we get within a few hundred metres of the school, he hares off so I won’t – God forbid – try and hug him in front of his mates.’ He smiled and Laura could see the other mothers leaning in, imperceptibly drawing nearer, hanging on his every word.

‘Oh, my daughter’s the same. She’s already told me I’m not allowed to hold her hand or kiss her in front of any of her school friends.’

‘A bit different from when we were growing up,’ he said, looking at her as if the two of them existed in some private universe that no one else had access to. ‘Our parents never bothered walking us and to and from school. Am I right?’

Laura nodded, feeling her cheeks begin to glow again.

He straightened and looked around at the small group breathlessly waiting for his attention. There were so few fathers at the school gates it was no wonder Aaron was attracting so much attention, she thought, and then, of course, he was ridiculously handsome…

‘Ladies, I must dash. Laura, if I may…?’ He took a small leather wallet from his pocket. ‘My card. Just in case. I do home visits.’

‘Oh, he’s a godsend,’ said Rebecca, ‘the amount of times Aaron has come over at a moment’s notice to fix my Mac.’

Laura took the card, still faintly warm from where it had been pressed against his thigh. The mothers watched Aaron stride away, his long, dark coat flaring behind him.

‘Is everything okay?’ asked Rebecca, turning to her. ‘I saw you talking to Mrs Sibson.’

Laura hesitated. She was still angry at being dismissed so summarily by the teacher, but she forced herself not to rant about it. She didn’t want to upset the fragile balance of her relationship with Rebecca.

‘Autumn is finding it a little difficult to settle in,’ she said.

Rebecca pursed her lips sympathetically and said, ‘That’s such a shame. The girls in her class are so sweet, though, I’m sure it won’t take long for her to make friends. Why don’t you come over for afternoon tea tomorrow? Poppy and Tilly would love a play date with Autumn, and we can have a gossip.’

Laura nodded gratefully and felt a surge of pleasure in spite of the circumstances. She’d gone for coffee with Rebecca and her coteries of mothers, but she’d never been to her house. She knew that Rebecca and the other women sometimes met for drinks, or for an afternoon in the park at the weekend, the one with a café that apparently sold amazing coffee, hand-roasted in Bristol, and gluten- and sugar-free cakes and cookies. Laura had not been invited so far and was not certain enough of Rebecca to ask if she could join them. Tilly had invited several girls, including Autumn, for a sleepover, but it wasn’t for another week and she knew Autumn would love the chance to have Tilly to herself for a short while.

‘That would be wonderful, thank you.’

She glanced down at herself. Next to Rebecca and Amy she looked dowdy and badly dressed. She was wearing her work clothes: mud-stained army trousers, cracked hiking boots, an ill-fitting fleece and a flannel shirt. Her hair was scraped back from her unmade-up face.

Rebecca smiled and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Three? At my house? I’m sure I’ll see you both before then.’ She gave a little wave as if dismissing her, and then bent to speak to Amy.

Laura crossed the road and headed down Briar Lane. That had gone badly, she thought. Autumn was upset and embarrassed, Mrs Sibson hadn’t taken her seriously and she hadn’t managed to put a stop to the bullying. She didn’t even know who Levi’s parents were – perhaps if Mrs Sibson did nothing about it, she could speak to them? She shivered at the thought of confronting them; she knew they’d be horribly defensive and angry. And, on top of that, she was going to be late for work. She half jogged, annoyed with herself for becoming so unfit.

The lane, which ran directly opposite the school behind the terrace of houses that lined the main road, led to a miniature nature reserve created between the intersection of three railway tracks. You reached Narroways nature reserve by crossing a thin bridge suspended over the lines. It had high corrugated metal barriers on either side that were scrawled with neon-bright graffiti, and it was encased by wire bars, so that the whole bridge was like a cage, preventing anyone from accidentally falling onto the train line.

The path from the bridge skirted a scrubby meadow that had been carpeted with wild flowers when she’d put the offer in on the new house in May; the sight had lifted her spirits, but it was now pock-marked with the burnt embers of fires and scattered with beer cans and crisp packets. It led to a peak, the highest point in the area with a startling view over the red-brick terraces of Easton and St Werburghs, and beyond to green fields and hedgerows in the distance. In spite of the upheaval coming here, Laura loved the fact that from her neighbourhood you could see the edge of the city. It was unfeasible to be near the centre of London and see where that vast metropolis neatly, clearly and sharply, ended. It was one of the reasons why, after she and Matt had split up, she’d wanted to move to Bristol. Now Autumn could grow up somewhere with fresh air and countryside nearby, but still have all the benefits a city could offer.

On one side of the meadow was a cliff of exposed red earth and gritty stone with stunted ash trees clinging to it that led down to a railway track. The path divided and you could either walk up and over the peak or around it and then down through a small wood. Laura, because she was in a hurry, chose the shorter route.

Her mobile rang. She looked at the screen and saw it was Matt.

‘Hello,’ she said, in the new, chirpy voice she’d taken to using when he called.

‘Laura. Just checking you haven’t forgotten about Nepal.’

Nepal? For a moment she was confused and then she remembered.

‘No, no, of course not, it’s today, isn’t it?’

There was a pause. She could tell he knew she’d forgotten and was weighing up whether to use it as an opportunity to have another dig at her.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’m at the airport now. I still want to speak to Autumn tomorrow night. I’ll Skype at the usual time, okay?’

‘Yes, that’s fine,’ she said.

‘I’ve emailed you a copy of my schedule. I’ll try and Skype the following Saturday as normal too – we should be back in a village that has Internet access by then. The satellite number is on the schedule if there’s an emergency. With Autumn,’ he added, in case she was not absolutely clear that any emergencies concerning her were no longer his responsibility.

Like her parents, Matt had trained as an anthropologist and originally specialized in making films about tribal peoples for the BBC and National Geographic. As audiences had grown accustomed to more light-weight entertainment, he’d turned his skills towards the reality-TV market. He was currently making a series featuring athletes competing against tribes in a traditional rite, such as a wrestling match or canoe race. This was his first trip for the series and he was heading to the flanks of the Himalayas to film an endurance race between a Buddhist tribe and a team of five female athletes.

Typical of Matt, she thought, to surround himself with toned, beautiful and sporty women in the guise of work. She wondered what Leah, his new girlfriend, felt about the trip and then realized that, since Leah was his researcher, she’d probably be with him.

Nothing to do with me, she reminded herself, taking a deep breath to steady herself. That was the trouble with being divorced and having a child – you could never truly get away from it all. Moving to Bristol had been her way of putting as much distance as possible between her, Matt and Leah. And even though Bristol wasn’t that far from London, Matt was still annoyed with her, as if she had done it deliberately so that he couldn’t see Autumn as much as he’d like to.

She wondered whether to tell Matt about Autumn being bullied and then decided not to. She could handle it by herself.

‘Talk to you on Saturday,’ she said breezily and hung up.

The wood was really an orchard that had gone wild, and Laura had been delighted to find apple, pear and plum trees. The plums had all been picked, but there were a few apples left, tight and shiny in the ragged branches. From the wood there was a path that led into the allotments, which bordered the lane at the bottom of their house. It meant that their day started off with an almost rural feel.

Fortunately, Bronze Beech, the landscaping company Laura was working for, was currently redesigning a garden in Montpelier, on the other side of the nature reserve, so Laura could walk to it after dropping Autumn off without being too late for work. Her boss, Barney McLoughlin, was a rugged, burly man with wind-burnt cheeks and an Oxbridge accent. He wore a singular combination of tweed jackets with elbow patches and combat trousers for work.

As well as Laura, Barney employed Ted, who had dreadlocks so bleached they were white – he even bleached his eyebrows. Throughout the early weeks of autumn Ted had taken his T-shirt off most days, exposing badly drawn Maori tattoos from an old trip to New Zealand, and beer-blurred muscles. Laura thought he was a particularly toxic combination of misogyny and sycophancy. Her agreed hours were 9.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. but Barney and, more often, Ted, frequently made comments about her arriving late and leaving early; today Barney would be furious because she actually was going to be late. She sighed. She was going to have to put Autumn in an after-school club so she could work for longer.

AUTUMN

It was why she hadn’t told her mum about Levi before. She didn’t want her mum to feel worried or upset. Because then she’d try to help and she wouldn’t be able to.

She squeezed her eyes shut and felt again the excruciating embarrassment as her mother had blurted out, Levi is bullying Autumn.

It had sounded… belligerent. She’d learnt it in Literacy. Her mum wasn’t normally belligerent, but she did get upset easily. It was her reaction – like a frightened mouse might bite because it doesn’t know what else to do. Or else she became quieter and quieter. Autumn knew the feeling – sometimes when Mr Wu, her old teacher, had called her out in front of the whole class, she literally couldn’t say a word, couldn’t even open her mouth or make a sound. As if she’d never known how to speak.

The name-calling had begun just after she’d started at the new school. Of course she’d noticed Levi before – who hadn’t? He was good-looking and all the boys in her class thought he was cool. Some of the girls said they fancied him – whatever that meant. She’d noticed him watching her a couple of times when her mum picked her up from school. And then it happened.

‘Autumn?’ he’d said, and she’d said, ‘Yes?’ in a tiny voice.

She couldn’t believe he was talking to her. But he wasn’t. He was talking about her.

‘Autumn. What kind of dumb name is that? Who’d call their kid that? It’s like saying, “Hey, November, come in for your tea.’’’

He’d turned his voice into a high-pitched falsetto and the group of boys that always hung around with him burst out laughing.

‘Oh, darling February, time to go to bed now.’

As he continued, calling her more random and ridiculous names, the boys in her own class started to laugh too, and some of the girls put their hands over their mouths and smirked.

Later on that day, Tilly tossed her long, blonde hair over her shoulder and said, ‘Come to think of it, it is a weird name. Why are you called that? I mean, it’s not like you’re some kind of celebrity or anything.’

A couple of the girls nearby sniggered and shouted out the names of stars’ children: Blue Ivy, Princess, Brooklyn, Harper Seven.

‘Hey, isn’t there some film star called, like, January?’ one of the girls said.

Molly put her hand on Autumn’s. Molly, like Tilly, was thinking about being her best friend. Her real best friend, Cleo, was in London.

Molly whispered, ‘I like your name.’

It had continued. Some days Levi didn’t seem to notice her, at other times he’d taunt her, whistling through his teeth at her, calling her bizarre things: Toilet Cleaner, Andrex, Equinox.

Recently he’d moved on to the gap in her front teeth and how ugly it made her. That was the first time she’d cried, by herself in the toilets. Because he was right. She was ugly. Her teeth stuck out, with a wider gap at the bottom than the top and she was missing two more teeth, where the baby ones had fallen out but the big ones hadn’t come through. If she didn’t smile, perhaps no one would notice. She started to keep her top lip over her teeth when she opened her mouth so other people couldn’t see them. Levi saw, though.

‘Look,’ he shouted, ‘that psycho kid, Canada, or whatever her name is, she’s doing a fish impersonation. She thinks we can’t tell she’s got wonky teeth.’

He started imitating and exaggerating her attempt at smiling and his friends held their stomachs, almost crying with laughter.

At break-times her hands would grow clammy and her mouth dry, her breathing became shallow. She wanted to stay indoors and it was only with the greatest reluctance that she followed the others outside. She wished she could hold Molly’s hand, as if Molly could protect her. She tried to make herself take deep breaths.

It’s going to be okay. I won’t always be the new girl.

She kept wondering what Levi would do when the name-calling was not enough. And then she found out.

Yesterday afternoon they had Art and Design, her favourite part of the week. There was still the sleepover with Tilly and some of the other girls to look forward to the following week. She was feeling upbeat, hopeful, safe: all the things she hadn’t felt for what seemed like a long time. She wasn’t prepared for it.

Mrs Sibson said that today’s project was going to be to draw some natural objects with an autumnal feel. She walked around the class putting conkers and scarlet maple leaves and hazelnuts on each table. She handed out large pieces of sugar paper and trays of pastels and coloured pencils. Autumn liked drawing the outlines first in black ink and then shading the picture in. She’d brought her special pen to school, the one her mum had given her, and she’d put it straight in her drawer at the start of the day. She’d checked it was there before and after break and again before she went for lunch.

She almost skipped over to her drawer and pulled it open. She recoiled and gave a little shriek, then clapped her hands over her mouth.

‘What is it, Autumn?’ asked Mrs Sibson, frowning at her.

The pupils fell silent as the teacher strode over to her. Autumn couldn’t move. She could feel the blush spreading across her cheeks and blazing up to her hairline. The odour seemed to creep like something living into her clothes, crawling across her skin. A few children came to see what she and Mrs Sibson were staring at, and within minutes, the class was in an uproar, children screaming and shouting, some of the girls pretending to gag, a few boys laughing.

The drawer was full of slugs. At least a hundred of the creatures writhed and twisted over each other; some were fat, others thin; there were tiny black ones, thick beige ones, a few the colour of stewed tea and two enormous beasts, pale and covered in jagged spots. This pair were in the process of devouring one of the smaller slugs; its entrails, pale as putty, oozed across Autumn’s Literacy notebook. The rest were voraciously consuming the bed of rotten apple that had been packed into the drawer, which stank of mould and sour cider. Released from their dark confinement, several of the slugs, eye stalks stretched to their limits and quivering, started to pour over the edge of the drawer and drop in a pulsating mass to the floor.

Mrs Sibson rested her hand on Autumn’s shoulder for a moment. Autumn realized she was trying to comfort her, but Mrs Sibson’s hand felt heavy, like a weight pressing down on her collar bone.

The art lesson was abandoned. When the mess was finally cleaned up and order restored to the classroom, Mrs Sibson declared Autumn’s books quite ruined. They were stained with decomposing apple and covered with slime. Autumn watched as the teacher dumped them all in the bin. Since no one owned up, Mrs Sibson said there would be no cupcakes for anyone on Halloween. There was a collective groan. Autumn was sent to the stationary cupboard with the school receptionist and given an entirely new set of exercise books. She was nearly crying as she returned to her silent, resentful class.

LAURA

There were ten of them stuck to the wall with Blu-tack. Each one a vibrant miniature, the outlines in fine black pen, coloured in with vivid inks. She’d used such a fine brush, thought Laura, remembering Autumn painting the first one. They were childish but charming – and Autumn was so proud of them. Laura particularly loved the one of a thin, spiky woman with a big smile, carrying a giant harebell that bobbed above her head like a lantern.

Laura suddenly had a vision of Autumn as a tiny child – about eighteen months old – sitting at a child-sized table with a set of felt tips. She neatly took the top off one, drew great arcs of pink across the paper, before replacing the lid, then chose another colour – red this time – and repeated the procedure. Orange was the last one she’d picked. She would always follow this pattern – three colours in the same tonal range, creating these stylish mini rainbows, putting the tops neatly back on the pens after she’d used each one. Autumn still loved drawing and painting and always had some form of self-generated project on the go. She was such a quiet, shy child; it was as if art was her way of communicating. No, that’s not right, thought Laura, Autumn was nothing if not articulate – it was her way of expressing how she felt.

Laura had spent the day wondering if Autumn was okay. She left Autumn’s room and went downstairs into her mother’s. That was how powerful her mother’s influence was, she thought; it was no longer the spare room, even though Vanessa had only slept in it for a night. She’d left Laura’s dad working in London and arrived the day before to give her daughter a bit of moral support, as she put it. The bed was neatly made and Vanessa’s clothes were folded and had been placed in a pile at the end, her shoes lined up beneath them. She’d gone out running.

Since they’d moved to Bristol, Autumn had started walking home by herself. Laura worried about it – particularly as the clocks would change on Sunday and it would be dark when she was on her way back. But it did give Laura an extra fifteen minutes to return home from wherever she was working with Bronze Beech. Laura checked her watch once more. It was three minutes to four. School finished at 3.30 and it only took twenty minutes to walk home through the nature reserve – fifteen if you were quick. Even allowing for Autumn leaving her classroom late and dawdling… Laura couldn’t bear it any more. She ran downstairs to the hall and pulled on her coat, wound a scarf around her neck and crammed a hat on her head. She grabbed her trainers and sat on the bottom step leading into the kitchen to put them on. Now that she’d decided to do something – go and meet Autumn on her way home – she was filled with urgency. Vanessa had taken a key so she could let herself in. She thought about leaving a note for her and then decided against it. She wouldn’t be long.

She flung open the kitchen door. Directly below her, crawling through the long, damp grass next to the path, was a large slug, five inches in length. Laura tried to push it away from the house with her toe but the slug only writhed a little, exposing its pale underbelly beneath an ominous orange-lined mantel. She shoved it again and this time it wound across her trainer, depositing a thick trail of slime. Laura shuddered as she finally knocked it off her foot and back into the grass.

It was still cold enough for her breath to freeze in clouds, and with a fine drizzle, the kind that falls so gently you barely notice but, in the end, chills you to the core.

Vanessa had sent her two texts complaining about the Internet today. The second one had said

Given up. Gone to a café with Wi-Fi.

Laura had immediately seen her mother’s comments as a criticism – she was failing to keep the house together and she lacked the right kind of mind to sort it out. She knew it was irrational and that her mother was probably only annoyed at the delay to her work. But her mother did have a point: she’d need to make sure the Internet was working properly so that Matt could speak to Autumn via Skype on Saturday – plus it was crucial for those nights she worked late, setting up her garden-design company and studying for her degree. Barney didn’t believe in taking long breaks and he also hated her making calls during work hours. She’d ignored his frown as she’d dug out Aaron Jablonski’s card and texted him. He’d replied almost immediately to say he was free this evening. She’d felt a slim tremor of excitement as she’d slipped her phone back in her pocket and resumed digging in a row of espaliered apple trees.

Now she locked the garden gate behind her using the key code and then walked down the lane towards the allotments. Autumn was a dreamer, an ambler, just like Laura. She could easily have stopped to pick a bunch of the last wild flowers of the season, or to examine an interesting seed pod. But still. Laura had a horrible feeling of foreboding. Her stomach felt as if small lead weights were being slowly dropped into it.

Laura loved the allotments: the quirkiness and individuality of each one, how some were wild, brambles and ragwort and Michaelmas daisies threatening to overrun them, and others were neat and orderly, the grass shaved, vegetables in raised beds – rows of leeks and onions were all that were still growing, their blue-green leaves glistening in the rain. The last allotment before the path turned sharply into the wood was like an extension of someone’s garden: a line of pink dahlias, their dying flowers decaying ball gowns, a slate-grey shed, an iron bench trailing tea-roses, several gnomes standing guard over the vegetables, and an iron stand with bird feeders dangling from it. There were no birds today. Laura normally felt wistful as she walked through the allotments, thinking of the productive plot she’d left behind and how long the waiting list in Bristol was. But today she hardly noticed them. She almost jogged into the wood. It was a steep hill and she panted as she walked quickly up it, sliding in the mud. It reminded her, yet again, of how unfit she was, and she thought of her mother, twenty-six years older than her, running effortlessly, gazelle-like, around the streets of Bristol.

She stopped briefly at the top, screened by the branches of a tree, trying to work out which way to go. If Autumn had reached the meadow with its mini peak in the nature reserve she could have returned home along either path.

I should have seen her by now.

Laura decided to take the lower path that skirted the hill and keep looking upwards in case Autumn had decided to go over the top.

A magpie alighted on the grass in front of her, bouncing on both feet, head cocked on one side to regard her.

One for sorrow…

She tried to remember what Autumn had been wearing today. She had a vision of her in white knee socks, already falling down – so she must have put a skirt on – and her black winter coat, which wasn’t waterproof. Plus the coat was last year’s, cheap and growing threadbare and too short for her. No hat, Laura remembered now, but there was a hood on the coat. She should have insisted Autumn change into trousers or wear tights. She felt guilty again.