Libby

Libby is the daughter Megan Hipwell lost before the events of the novel. Her accidental drowning and burial become the defining wound of Megan’s past: Libby is remembered as a beloved child, but also as the source of a grief and guilt that complicate Megan’s later pregnancy and her hope of loving another baby.

Identity and Background

Libby is Megan’s daughter with Mac. The book supplies little about her life before her death; she is principally present through her mother’s memories and through the consequences of her loss. By 2013, her death is described in a news report as having occurred ten years earlier. The report attributes to sources close to the investigation an allegation that Megan may have been involved in the unlawful killing of her child, and speculates that this could be connected to Megan’s murder. The claim is presented as an allegation, not as an established finding, and Detective Inspector Gaskill makes no comment.

The underlying story identifies Libby’s death as an accidental drowning, after which she was buried. The contrast between that account and the report’s more incriminating language matters: the public story reduces a private tragedy to an accusation and a possible motive, while the novel frames Libby chiefly through the enduring emotional consequences of her loss for Megan.

The Loss and Megan’s Later Pregnancy

Libby returns most powerfully when Megan discovers she is pregnant again. In a diary entry dated Friday, 12 July 2013, Megan describes being unable to hate the unborn child or to get rid of her, and wanting instead to love her. Yet the pregnancy also frightens her. Megan fears what might happen to the baby, what she herself might do, and whether the child’s father will accept them. The new pregnancy therefore does not erase the past: it brings the earlier loss into the present, making hope inseparable from apprehension.

When Megan calls Dr Kamal Abdic in distress, he reassures her that she has changed and encourages her to trust herself. His support does not make the fear disappear. Megan still recalls the loneliness of losing Libby and the expectation that Mac would return, a memory that leaves her afraid of being alone with another child. Libby’s absence thus shapes Megan’s decisions even when she is speaking about the future rather than the past.

Public Memory and Burial

Libby’s death becomes public after Megan disappears, when the press circulates the allegation about her child’s death. For Anna Watson, who had known Megan through childcare, the report gives a new and disturbing frame to Megan’s earlier presence in her home. But Anna’s reaction is not evidence about what happened to Libby; the report itself remains vague, and the investigating officer does not confirm it.

After Megan’s death, Rachel Watson visits the churchyard outside Holkham. Megan’s ashes have been buried beside Libby’s bones, bringing mother and daughter together in the same place. Libby’s small stone bears only her name. The grave gives her a modest public memorial, distinct from the uncertainty and controversy surrounding the circumstances of her death.

Narrative Significance

Libby’s story connects the novel’s different forms of maternal experience. Rachel’s longing for a child she could not have stands in painful contrast to Megan’s experience of motherhood marked by loss; the contrast does not make either woman’s experience simple or interchangeable. Libby is the absent child at the center of Megan’s grief, and the child whose memory makes a later pregnancy both wanted and frightening.

Her presence also changes how the reader understands the language of blame. The newspaper’s allegation turns a bereavement into a possible explanation for another woman’s murder, while the eventual shared gravesite restores attention to the relationship the accusation obscures: Megan was Libby’s mother, and Libby remains part of the life Megan carried forward. The child’s name on the stone is spare, but it makes the loss visible and gives Libby a place in the story beyond rumor.