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Why?’
    ‘Oh, nothing. Just me being stupid. Thanks for your help.
    Night, sweetie. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
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    Where the Memories Lie
    ‘Night.’
    So that was that, then. There was no missing girl called Georgia
    that Tom knew. It was completely crazy to ever think there would
    be. He’d just come across the same story I had and it had become
    distorted in his mind.
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Chapter Three
    The Portesham Doctor’s Surgery was in a purpose built
    modern and bright building in the village. When I dis-
    covered I was pregnant for the seventh time with Anna
    I’d given up my nursing job at Dorchester County Hospital in
    the A&E department. I’d passed my twelve-week danger time and
    wasn’t going to jeopardise the pregnancy in any way, not after all
    the miscarriages. I took it easy, ate healthy food, got plenty of rest.
    But when Anna started primary school and a practice nurse job
    had come up in the village, it was the ideal solution. Half a day was perfect for me.
    I sat in the nurses’ examination room with a cup of steaming
    coffee, scrolling through my appointments.
    Rose Quinn, the mother of my old friend Katie, was due
    in at 11.30 a.m. She was an alcoholic, rarely venturing out of the
    house unless it was to buy booze at the little village shop. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw her. Katie’s dad Jack, also an alcoholic, had died a couple of years ago from liver failure. Their drinking had been going on for a long time, since Katie and I were both kids,
    but even though we were best friends, she never really talked about her home life to me. She said it was depressing and embarrassing
    Where the Memories Lie
    having them as parents. Katie learned to cover up the fact that she looked after herself and the house single-handedly most of the time.
    A job no child should have to do. In fact, she was so good at hiding and covering things up I didn’t even realise what had been going on until much later.
    The morning passed in a flurry of new patient health checks,
    assessing and treating minor injuries and giving advice for the
    diabetic clinic. When Rose entered the room I realised just how
    much weight she’d lost since the last time I’d seen her. Her eyes
    were dark hollow sockets, her cheekbones sharp and jutting. She
    wore leggings with holes in them, her legs skinnier than Anna’s, and a big baggy dark green jumper, even though we were actually being
    treated to a full-blown summer this year − lucky us − and it was
    about twenty-eight degrees Celsius outside.
    I gave her a warm smile. ‘Hi, Rose. How are you?’
    She hesitated in the doorway for a moment before walking
    slowly into the room and sitting down gingerly, as if it was painful for her to move. The reek of alcohol came off her in overpowering waves, and I tried to breathe through my mouth. During her
    infrequent appointments over the years, the doctors and I had all
    tried to get her into an AA programme and give support to help
    her quit the drink, but she wasn’t interested. Unfortunately, some
    people you just can’t help. As a nurse, it’s a lesson that took me a long time to learn. I could patch her up and give her advice until
    I was blue in the face, the same as I would for anyone else, but I
    couldn’t really help her.
    ‘I’m here for a dressing change. I cut myself.’ Her voice was now
    raspy and hoarse. I didn’t remember that from childhood and was
    pretty sure it was a side effect of the booze. Or cigarettes.
    ‘OK, just pop yourself up onto the examination couch and
    let me take a look.’ I read her notes on the screen while she lay
    down and lifted up her jumper. She’d told Elaine originally she’d cut 33
    Sibel Hodge
    herself falling onto a glass coffee table a few weeks ago, which broke as she landed on it. Elaine had removed some embedded fragments
    of glass from a wound that stretched under her ribs and along her
    abdomen. Considering she would’ve been drunk at the time, she
    was lucky it hadn’t