The Split - Sharon Bolton Page 0,91

home on the banks of the River Bourne. Ever since Delilah took a police driving course in her forties, he’s been reluctant to get into a vehicle with her at the wheel. On the other hand, maybe the queasiness, the threatening headache, the shaking limbs, aren’t entirely down to his mother’s habit of fast acceleration and dramatic braking. He’s been feeling unwell since Dora’s body was found. Since Felicity became prime suspect, he’s been tormented by visions of her, kneeling over the lifeless bodies of Dora, Bella, even Ezzy, with blood-stained hands and dead eyes. He doesn’t think he’s slept more than an hour or two in one stretch.

‘If we need to park illegally,’ Delilah pulls up on yellow lines, ‘it’s easier to do it in my car.’ She opens her door and nearly knocks a cyclist off his bike.

The residential home for the elderly is new, made of red brick with large windows and high gables. It sits on carefully tended lawns with neat flower beds.

‘We can’t be long,’ Delilah adds. ‘I want to be there if they find anything under Peterhouse.’

The excavation of the collapsed drain where Dora was found is due to begin today.

‘How did you find her?’ Joe asks, as they walk towards the main door. ‘Her’ is an elderly former social worker called Margaret Jennings.

‘Request to Salisbury social services,’ Delilah replies. ‘They found Felicity’s case notes in the archives. Nobody still working there remembers it, but Mrs Jennings is still alive, compos mentis and willing to see us. We’re not often this lucky.’

They are led to a room on the first floor. It might smell a little of urine, and a little more of disinfectant, but it is neat and bright and looks comfortable. The woman in the armchair is in her mid-eighties. She is tall, and robust still, but her hands shake with an uncontrollable tremor.

‘You’re here about Felicity Lloyd,’ the old lady says when they are both seated. They have already been warned that she is rather deaf. She is certainly rather loud.

‘We’re worried about her,’ Joe replies. ‘We think she may be at risk.’

His mother snorts quietly.

‘So, anything you can tell us would be very helpful.’ Joe glares at Delilah.

‘She was allocated to me in her mid-teens.’ Mrs Jennings puts a hand to her chest and holds the other up in a give-me-a-moment gesture.

Delilah checks her phone.

‘Her behaviour changed, almost overnight,’ Mrs Jennings says when she has got her breath back. ‘She went from being a normal, happy young girl’ – another pause, another chance to recover – ‘to someone who was, well, quite the opposite. Eventually she ran away. She missed a year of school.’

The old lady reaches a trembling hand towards a glass of water on the table by her side. ‘She’d been living on the streets,’ she adds. ‘In London, we think, although she never told us much about it.’

Joe thinks back to his first session with Felicity. She’d mentioned a friend, who’d been homeless.

‘Do you know what triggered the change?’ Joe asks.

Mrs Jennings nods for several seconds. ‘Her grandmother died, which would have been unsettling in itself. It left Felicity in the care of the local authority. The real problem though was that she got a letter from her father.’

Joe and Delilah exchange a look.

‘Her father is dead,’ Joe says. ‘He killed himself when she was tiny.’

Mrs Jennings pulls a face. ‘Did Felicity tell you that?’

‘She says he died when she was young. A neighbour told me he’d killed himself and his wife.’

‘Oh, that’s just nonsense invented by the people who sell ghost tours in Salisbury. Felicity’s mother was killed, and her father went after the men who did it. Killed all three of them in cold blood. He got life.’

Joe hears his mother breathe out a long, tired sigh as he thinks, The men who did it? The ‘bad men’?

‘So, he’s not dead?’

‘Who knows? It was a long time ago. He could have died in prison.’

Joe thinks back. Felicity definitely told him her father was dead.

‘Felicity was taken completely by surprise,’ Margaret Jennings says. ‘Her grandmother had told her nothing about what happened when she was so young, about her mother’s death, what her father did. I’m sure her father had written before and the grandmother kept the letters from her.’

‘So, the news came as a shock?’ Delilah asks. ‘To Felicity, I mean?’

Mrs Jennings takes her time. ‘She reacted badly,’ she says eventually. ‘Went off the rails. Started skipping school, hanging around with other troubled kids; under-age