HELEN PHIFER

      lives in a small town called Barrow-in-Furness with her husband and five children. She has lived in the same town since she was born. It gets some bad press but really is a lovely place to live, surrounded by coastline and not far from the Lake District, where she likes to spend at least one of her days off from work. She has always loved writing and reading and loves reading books that make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Unable to find enough scary stories to read, she decided to write her own.

      You can contact or follow Helen on her website at www.helenphifer.com and on Twitter: @helenphifer1.

Dedication

      This book is dedicated with much love to my adorable Gracie, Laurence, Donovan & Matilda xx

Prologue

       Summer 1950

      Twenty-year-old Gordy Marshall was in the stuffy attic of his parents’ semi-detached house admiring his reflection in the only full-length mirror. He’d found it hidden up here when he was a teenager. He had no idea why his dad hated mirrors. He had a thing about them and there were only two apart from this one in the whole house: one in the bathroom and one in the hall. He’d never been allowed one in his bedroom, which Gordy thought was just absurd.

      He’d found this one hidden under a sheet one day when he’d come up here looking for something to make a clown costume out of. He knew that his mother kept an old trunk up in the dark, dusty attic full of costumes that she’d worn when she was a dancer for the circus. He’d found the trunk and sat for hours, looking at the shiny silk and sparkling dresses. There had been a photograph album full of pictures of when his mother was in the circus. She had photos of herself next to the lions, elephants, trapeze artists and clowns.

      The clowns fascinated him the most. He was leaving to join the circus and become a clown. He couldn’t tell his mother of his dreams because she no longer seemed to have any of her own. She was a downtrodden, mean-spirited woman who did whatever her husband told her to. Gordy couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed or joked.

      He’d listened in awe to her tales of circus life when he was a kid. One day his dad had come home and heard her telling him all about the handsome trapeze artists and that had been it. The next morning his dad had taken him to school and when he’d come home his mother had been in the kitchen making tea while wearing a pair of dark glasses and a scarf around her neck – even though it was a warm autumn day.

      She had stopped laughing and joking after that day. She didn’t tuck Gordy in after that either, and the stories had stopped.

      Today he was admiring the costume that he’d made himself, holding it up and standing in front of the mirror. He picked up the old satin washbag his mother had thrown away a few months ago and took the white greasepaint out of it. Gordy took his time applying it to his face. It had to be just right. He finished the thick coat of white and took out the red, drawing on the big, false, red smile. He drew the thick lines around his eyes and smiled as he stood as close to the glass as he could.

      Turning his head left and then right he admired his skilful handiwork. He never heard the front door open; he was so fascinated seeing himself for the first time in full make-up. He stepped into the costume that he’d made out of some black and white stripy satin material he’d found in the bottom of the trunk. He pulled it up and smiled. There were three black pom-poms in the middle of his chest, which had taken him ages to make.

      He pulled out the big, black ruffle that was to be fastened around his neck and lifted it up. Once that was secure he took the wig out of the suitcase next to the trunk. It was a bright orange curly wig from the haberdashery shop, which didn’t look particularly spectacular until he cut away the curls, leaving just three tufts of bright orange hair sticking up. As he tugged it down onto his head he grinned at the reflection staring back at him. From now on he would be called Tufty the clown.

      A loud bang, then a high-pitched screech, made him jump. ‘Gorrrdy Marshall, what the hell have you got in here?’ He grimaced at the way his mother shouted his name. For God’s sake she needed to remember he wasn’t some snot-nosed brat any more. He was a grown man and the noise came from directly below him, which meant she was in his room. Going through his private stuff again. The last time she’d done that was under the pretence she was changing the bedding.

      Anger filled his chest and he turned to run downstairs to see what she was screeching about. He ran into his room the same time as his father came running up the stairs. She was holding his old sweet tin in her hands, staring down at the contents. He muttered, ‘Fuck.’ As she held the open tin towards him she screeched.

      ‘What the hell is in here? I feel sick. I don’t know if I want to know or not.’

      He shrugged at the selection of small bones from the animals that he’d killed over the years then kept in there as keepsakes. ‘Stuff, my stuff, that you have no right to be going through, you nosy cow.’

      His father walked in behind him and shouted at him, ‘Don’t you dare speak to your mother like that – and what the hell are you dressed like a circus freak for? Do you know how idiotic you look? What if the neighbours saw you?’

      Gordy felt the white-hot rage that he’d kept buried inside him since the day in the woods when he was twelve years old and had almost killed his friend Andrew. He had hit him across the head so hard with a tree branch that it had knocked him out cold. His anger erupted that day because Andrew had laughed when Gordy had confided in him that he wanted to be a circus clown.

      Luckily for Gordy, Andrew hadn’t seen the rage coming. He’d spent three weeks in a coma and when he woke up he had no idea what had happened, so Gordy had escaped any blame. Then there was his teacher when he was fifteen: Mrs Goldsmith, who had made it her purpose in school to make fun of him. She hadn’t thought it was as funny when he waited by her house one cold, dark January night. She had made him stay behind at school again and Gordy had known his father would go mad with him for being late.

      He had found a rusty old axe in the bushes in the park and had