Chapter 45

It’s early, not yet seven o’clock, but the morning is already un-seasonably warm. Jennie stands at the safety barrier, a couple of hundred metres back from the crumbling, derelict facade of the original White Cross Academy building. Waiting.

She’s not alone. Gradually over the past half an hour, a small crowd has gathered along the barrier. She recognises quite a few of the faces: Carl and Daisy Winkleman, both wearing black; a group of women whose names she doesn’t know but she remembers as being in the fifth year when she was upper sixth; Dr Fetz from White Cross Surgery; and Belinda, a career school dinner-lady who ruled the canteen back in Jennie’s day and, from what she’s heard, still does.

An older man and woman stand slightly away from the rest of the group; Paul and Shelly Jennings. Their focus is unwaveringly on the school building. Jennie can see the tension in the rigidity of their stance. She can imagine the conflicting emotions they must be feeling right now.

Outside the aged school building, three construction workers in orange high-vis overalls stand conferring over a clipboard. A pair of red kites wheel in the cloudless blue sky overhead. The trees of the Chiltern Forest stand sentry on the hillside stretching up from the old school site. Sunlight reflects off the chalk cross, as if drawing attention to something important that’s about to happen: X marks the spot.

In the distance, the clock in the town square strikes seven.

Jennie’s stomach flips.

It’s time.

A hush falls over the crowd. The high-vis construction workers stride quickly towards a Portakabin at the far side of the site. One enters the cabin, the other two stand to the side of it, looking up at the crumbling old mansion.

A loud siren sounds.

The security officers in yellow tabards move along the safety barrier telling people to stay back. Everyone does as they ask. All eyes are on the building. Anticipation from the gathered crowd seems to crackle in the air like electricity.

Jennie hears a low rumbling as the charges inside the school detonate. For a moment the centre of the stone building seems to wobble. Then it collapses to the ground, sending a huge cloud of dust ballooning into the air around it.

In less than thirty seconds, the original White Cross Academy is gone.

As the dust cloud starts to clear, she can just make out the rubble that is now heaped in the spot where the building once stood. Her eyes start to water, but it’s from the grit in the air rather than any emotional attachment to the building. With the secret it hid from her all these years, she’s happy never to see it again.

The crowd clap for a job well done, but the mood remains sombre. Jennie senses the town needed the building razed to the ground, too. With it gone, the site has been given a clean slate and the possibility of a new beginning.

‘Jennie?’

Recognising the voice, she turns to see Paul and Shelly Jennings approaching. Somehow Hannah’s dad looks smaller, frailer than he did the last time they met. Shelly has her arm through his, almost holding him up. The fire in Paul’s eyes as he shouted at her in the interview room is long gone, replaced by the subdued resignation of a grief-stricken father.

‘I wanted to thank you for finding who took my Hannah,’ says Mr Jennings. ‘I didn’t recognise you at first, but when I read the article in the paper saying how you’d been best friends with Hannah, I remembered. You came to the house once, but didn’t come in, I think?’

Jennie nods. ‘Yes, just the one time.’

Mr Jennings exhales hard. ‘I wasn’t a good dad. I loved Hannah, I really did, but I was angry at the world back then, and sometimes I … I took it out on her. I’m glad she had a good friend, not like those … those …’ As the emotion threatens to overwhelm him, Paul Jennings reaches into his jacket pocket. He removes something then reaches out, pressing it into Jennie’s hand. ‘She’d want you to have this.’

Jennie looks down at the heart-shaped gold pendant, now attached to a new chain, nestling in her palm. Hannah’s favourite necklace. Closing her fingers around the pendant, she feels incredibly moved. She meets Paul Jennings’ gaze. ‘Thank you.’

As Paul and Shelly Jennings move back into the crowd, Jennie lets out a long breath to steady herself. Her fingers tremble as she fastens the chain around her neck, but as the gold pendant rests against her skin, she feels a sudden sense of calm.

I’m ready now.

Hoisting her rucksack up onto her shoulder, Jennie sets off along the pavement. She takes a left at the end of the street onto the main road and continues on, past the Cross Keys pub, then over the zebra crossing outside Coffee Shack. She reaches the bus stop just as the number forty-eight bus is approaching, and raises her arm to hail it.

As the bus’s indicator flashes and it begins to slow, Jennie feels the adrenaline build within her. She’s solved the mystery of what happened to Hannah and she’s got her friend justice. She’s paid a company to clear the rest of the junk from her mum’s house and she’ll put it on the market as soon as the probate is through. She’s done all she can here. There’s nothing left to stay for. Nothing will bring Hannah back.

She’s spent too much of her life stuck in limbo, always trying to protect herself from hurt, from loss; never fully trusting anyone and never letting anyone get close. It’s time she pursued what she needs. It’s time she allowed herself to be happy, to be the person she always wanted to be, where she always wanted to be.

Pushing her hand under the top flap of her rucksack, Jennie double-checks her Nikon SLR is safe inside. Dad and Hannah both encouraged her to use her talent; now taking pictures is when she feels closest, most connected, to them. So what if she’s a bit older than the average student? That’s not going to stop her following her passion.

This is my chance.

Art College here I come.

The bus comes to a halt beside her and the door opens.

Jennie steps inside. She smiles at the driver as she touches the pendant around her neck. ‘A ticket to London, please. One way only.’

If you loved the twists and turns of The Reunion , you’ll devour Your Child Next , the latest pulse-pounding thriller from M.J. Arlidge and Andy Maslen that asks you how far you’d go to protect the ones.