The Child Upstairs

THE CHILD UPSTAIRS LUCY LAWRIE Copyright © 2023 by Lucy Lawrie www.lucylawrie.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, institutions and organisations are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Cover design by Emma Graves. ISBN: 978-1-9989981-3-5 For Jane and Lesley, my partners in crime. CONTENTS Prologue Part I 1. Steffi 2. Steffi 3. Steffi 4. Steffi 5. Joanne 6. Steffi 7. Steffi 8. Joanne 9. Steffi 10. Steffi 11. Steffi 12. Joanne 13. Steffi 14. Steffi 15. Steffi 16. Joanne 17. Steffi 18. Steffi 19. Steffi 20. Steffi 21. Joanne 22. Steffi 23. Joanne 24. Steffi 25. Steffi Part II 26. Angel 27. Steffi 28. Steffi 29. Steffi 30. Steffi 31. Angel 32. Steffi 33. Joanne 34. Steffi 35. Joanne 36. Angel 37. Joanne 38. Steffi 39. Steffi 40. Angel 41. Joanne 42. Joanne 43. Steffi 44. Steffi 45. Joanne 46. Steffi 47. Joanne 48. Angel 49. Angel 50. Steffi 51. Steffi 52. Steffi 53. Angel 54. Steffi 55. Joanne 56. Angel 57. Joanne 58. Angel 59. Joanne 60. Joanne 61. Angel 62. Steffi A note from Lucy Acknowledgments Also by Lucy Lawrie PROLOGUE ANGEL Yorkshire, Age 13 Daddy always came back, didn’t he? That was the main thing. Angel was supposed to be calculating the area of a hexagon. But instead, she was lying curled up in bed with the duvet pulled up to her chin, eyes fixed on the alarm clock on her bedside table. Waiting for Mickey Mouse’s white-gloved hand to inch up towards the hour. It was almost ten o’clock. Which meant Daddy had been gone for three full days. Mum had said earlier not to worry. She’d enfolded Angel in a big, soft hug and said that Daddy just needed to have his ‘wild days’, his bit of freedom, like all men did. He’d be back before they knew it. The Dallas theme tune drifted up from downstairs. Angel heard the hesitant thuds of Mum’s rubber-tipped walking sticks on the kitchen lino, the gush of water into the kettle. She sat up against her pillows and twisted her necklace – a gold-plated pendant in the shape of an ‘A’, threaded onto a fine chain. Proper grown-up jewellery, Daddy had said when he’d presented it to her on Christmas Day. She opened her bedside drawer and took out the small photograph she’d found in the pocket of Daddy’s leather jacket last night. The girl who gazed out from the glossy paper looked like a pretty, perfect princess. She sat with her chin tilted up, as if her posh school tie was tied too tightly around her neck. Her hair, the colour of tarnished gold, had been brushed into a ponytail, a few curls escaping at the sides. Angel’s stomach twisted. Perhaps her worst fear, the one she’d held inside for as long as she could remember, was finally coming true. Maybe Daddy had gone off to live with the others. His other girls. She could hardly bear to think of it. She examined the photo again. This was clearly the younger of the two, the pretty one, the ‘bobby dazzler’. The smug cow. The smug… bitch! Mum had told her off for saying that word, but it gave her a fizz of satisfaction even to think it. She flipped the photo over to read the pencil writing on the back. It said ‘Woodgrove’, underlined twice. And the name of a school – St Otterley’s. Mickey Mouse’s hands were now pointing to six minutes past ten. She knew she was too old for a clock like that. She’d had it since she was eight, and it would have to go in the cupboard if anyone from school came round. But sometimes she wished she could go back. That she could take some Alice in Wonderland potion and get smaller again, rather than bigger. Angel could hear Mum calling. She probably wanted Angel to carry her mug of tea through to the living room. She couldn’t do that herself any more, not on a two-stick day like today. Her rheumatics were definitely getting worse. Daddy had promised to arrange an appointment with a top specialist, who would finally give her the right medication. Then her aching joints would ease, and all that weight would just melt off. The sticks wouldn’t even be needed. But he’d promised that months ago and it hadn’t happened yet. ‘Coming!’ Angel tried to summon up the energy to move. She’d travelled to St Otterley’s today, while she was meant to be at school herself. It had taken three buses and a forty-minute walk to get there, including ten minutes just to walk up the long, tree-lined drive. It had been easy enough to hide behind a wall and watch the comings and goings from the main entrance. She’d heard the noise of instruments – trombones or something – floating out from a row of arched windows. She’d watched three boys in burgundy uniforms hurrying across the courtyard with cello cases. Another had followed behind, trundling something along that looked like a harp. All boys, though. No sign of her. The stuck-up bitch. She’d go back tomorrow. She’d go back every day if she needed to. She picked up her maths set and took out the compass, twisting it out of the plastic moulding that lined the tin. She had a sudden urge to score the sharp point across the face of the perfect princess. To erase her, to go back to a time before the others existed, even though that was further back than she could remember. But she knew she had to put the photo back in Daddy’s jacket. He’d want it when he got home. Headlights swept the bedroom wall – a wash of