The Scarlet Dress by Louise Douglas

"The two women she had loved best were gone but they were close enough for her to call on if she needed them: distant enough not to disturb her equilibrium. But the past was like water. Once the tide turned, you couldn't hold it back."

"He had thought he was coming closer to Alice by returning to Severn Sands but all the time she had been moving away".

The Scarlet Dress by Louise Douglas is a compelling story of love and loss, family ties and loyalty, betrayal and human frailty. 

One hot summer day twenty five years ago Alice Lang disappeared. Her body hasn't been found. Alice's favourite scarlet dress was discovered at the side of the estuary, and it was presumed she has walked too far, underestimating the power of the currents, and been carried away by the tide. 

The tragic events of the long hot summer of 1995 still cast long shadows over people who never stopped thinking about Alice. She was just twenty two years old, and rented a caravan on the Channel View holiday park on the outskirts of the holiday resort of Severn Sands.

While staying in the caravan, Alice befriends Marnie, a lonely ten-year-old child who has recently lost her mother, and is neglected by her grieving father. 

Marnie's father is a caretaker for the holiday park, right next to the deVillarses' house, a Gothic villa Blackwater, known to all the residents of Severn Sands as the Big House. 

There is also Will Jones, whose mother runs the bar. He falls in love with Alice, and cannot stand seeing her with anyone else. His jealousy is totally out of proportion and ugly. His obsession is bordering on stalking. The tensions are running high on the evening when Alice goes missing. 

That evening Marnie witnesses a nasty argument.

"It was a day in late August, almost twenty-five years earlier. Marnie Morahan, aged ten years and two months was sick, and even if though she didn't know it yet, she was about to betray Alice. And she'd never have the chance to make it up to her, because this was the day that Alice Lang would disappear."

A quarter of a century later, the holiday park is sold off to the property developers, dismantled and churned up by the bulldozers. Severn Sands is fading now, it is a sad shadow of its own vibrant past. In her mind Marnie could see it as it used to be: full of people, colour and noise... 

Mr and Mrs deVillars are still living in the Big House, but the failing business has been passed to their son, Guy, who is quick to sell off the land for development. While clearing the land to prepare the area for the range of new executive homes, the builders find some bones buried in the old funfair area. Alice Lang's bones.

Will Jones, now a successful author of true crime, drifts through life, still obsessed by Alice. He comes back to his hometown.

"For two and a half decades he'd been powerless to do anything, but now he had a task: to make sure the man who had killed her was brought to justice." All these years Will suspected that Guy deVillars was responsible for Alice's disappearance.

Will's career and his passion for unsolved crime were rooted in his obsession with the mystery of Alice.

"There was no future, only the past, and Will owed it to Alice not to let her go. What else could he do for her? What else had he ever been able to do? He was to be the writer of her story; the gatekeeper to her memory".

Back in town, he comes across Marnie, who's built an emotional wall between herself and the world outside.

"Marnie loved all animals, even difficult ones... It was people she struggled with. It was a two-way street, Marnie didn't trust people and most people thought she was weird... Marnie knew people called her a misfit, and worse. It didn't hurt because she was used to it; she'd been the odd one out all her life."

Her daughter Lucy is very understanding, she appreciates that Marnie "could no more change than the sun could rise in the west: she didn't need to be close to people and people didn't need to be close to her". In fact, looking at how awkward in interactions with humans Marnie is, it's a mystery how she managed to have a child.

Marnie remembers herself as a young child. "She used to be proud of being her daddy's girl, that big, strong, handsome man who everyone respected. She never thought that maybe her mother felt left out".

The gruesome discovery brings back painful memories of Marnie's childhood and the complicated relationship between her parents. "They were two very different people: Denise, thoughtful, quiet, bookish; John, a practical man who spoke his mind"

Marnie became completely mute after Alice's disappearance. "...psychological trauma could do that to a sensitive child"

Alice is described via the memories of people who loved her, Marnie and Will. Her own personality remains a hazy mystery. We know she was adopted as a baby, and brought up by strict, old-fashioned couple who couldn't relate to her.

"She had lived a chaotic life. She was one of those young people who attracted trouble, choosing the wrong friends, making bad decisions, lurching from one difficult situation to the next. Her teachers, friends and colleagues at the numerous places where she'd worked said she was kind, loving and generous, but a drama queen. She flirted with danger..."

Alice is portrayed as a kind soul, who showers the neglected child with love and attention. Her relationship with Will is complex.

Will is not a likeable character. It is easy to blame all the mistakes of his later life on what's happened twenty five years earlier. He's self-absorbed, selfish and unpleasant. 

"Over the years, Will had had counselling, hypnotherapy, even psychotherapy to try to get Alice out of his head and heart. He knew his obsession with the young woman he'd loved for three weeks during his nineteenth summer was the darkness at the root of his tendency to drink too much, to work too hard, to be unfaithful, to stay up too late, to say things that shouldn't be said, to go too far because he never knew when to stop".

Both Marnie and Will have to confront their demons and pinpoint their memories in order to discover what has actually happened that hot summer day. The ugly secrets must be revealed, the lies uncovered, and the overpowering guilt they have been both carrying all these years has to be dissected bit by bit to find out who killed Alice and why.

The Scarlet Dress is the narrative driven by the character's emotional and psychological evolution, along the development of the plotline. Neither Marnie nor Will are able to move forward with their lives, and it seems, they need the outside trigger to change the pattern of their lives.

There are several themes going on, family and loyalty being one of them. Marnie's dysfunctional childhood stems from the fragile relationship with her parents. Her mother Denise who hides a secret past and tries to escape the reality of life in the books, and not paying much attention to her daughter. Her father is oblivious to the tragic circumstances where his wife finds herself, his loyal devotion to the park owners puts blinders on him. They both fail their vulnerable child. 

Marnie's muteness is a signifier of the deep psychological trauma. But it's not just Marnie who has difficulties communicating with the others. Her mother Denise is unable to disclose neither her tragic past, nor the defenceless position she finds herself later to her husband or anyone else.

Alice's adoptive parents, the Langs, are unable to show their love, being old-fashioned in their approach. 

The descriptions of nature are atmospheric and create a perfect setting for a mystery. The declining fortunes of Severn Sands present a bleak picture, the haunting winter landscapes - a psychological mirror of the desolation in the souls of the main protagonists.

The story is a slow burner, mystery unfolds at an unrushed pace, while the narrative is given over to different characters.

The Scarlet Dress is an unsettling, melancholic read, both heartbreaking and tacitly uplifting.

Louise Douglas is my discovery of 2021. I read and reviewed The Room in the Attic back in October, it was one of my favourite books of the year. Louise Douglas is definitely a name that I'd be looking out for.

P.S. If you have a Prime membership, The Scarlet Dress is currently free on Prime Reading.