42 pages • 1 hour read
Gilly MacmillanWhat She Knew
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Day 7: Saturday, October 27, 2012”
On the seventh day of the investigation, Emma arrives to give Rachel an update on the poison pen letter aimed at John. She joins Rachel in her studio. This is the first time Emma sees Rachel’s photography. Most of the shots are of Ben at various stages of growth. Rachel explains that she let Ben run ahead on the day he went missing because she wanted him to learn independence. This revelation touches Emma, and she expresses how sorry she is for Rachel’s suffering.
After Emma leaves, Rachel thumbs through Ben’s sketchbook from school. She finds many colorful drawings of their weekly routine with various comments inscribed by Ben’s teachers. When she sees a drawing of Ben on the rope swing in the woods, she realizes that somebody at the school may have abducted Ben because the boy’s routine could be inferred from his sketches.
Rachel immediately tries to call Emma and Jim but receives no answer. In desperation, she calls John, and the two go to police headquarters to show the authorities Ben’s sketchbook. When the police receptionist can’t immediately produce Emma or Jim, Rachel grows belligerent and causes a scene. Another detective named Bennett calms her down and assures both parents that he will take the sketchbook directly to Fraser.
John drives Rachel home, and they prepare dinner together. Just as they’re finishing their meal, someone throws a brick through the living room window. It bears the painted message, “Bad Mother.” John runs out of the house in pursuit of the vandal, and Rachel asks a neighbor to call for help while she runs after John. She finds him lying on a street corner, unconscious from a head injury. An officer is assigned to watch Rachel’s house, but she feels frightened despite the police protection. “Every noise I heard that night was laced with menace” (373).
The narrative switches to Jim’s point of view as he recounts his memories of the same day. He starts the morning by leading a raid on the house of the man who sent the poison pen letter about John. Once the police force their way inside, they realize that their suspect is dying of cancer. He couldn’t possibly have abducted Ben.
Later that morning, Emma confesses to Jim that she has been feeding confidential information to the vigilante blogger. Emma says that she wanted to punish Rachel for parental neglect but now realizes that Rachel loves her son and was only trying to give him a taste of independence.
Jim reacts harshly to Emma’s confession. “She’d betrayed the police force and the investigation, betrayed Benedict Finch, and betrayed me” (347). He won’t listen to Emma’s explanation and coldly refers her to Fraser. Jim also fears that Emma may have compromised his own career prospects.
After Emma confesses to Fraser, she’s led out of headquarters by two internal affairs officers. Fraser then calls Jim into her office to discuss the situation, but he feigns ignorance. She shows him Ben’s sketchbook and says he should focus his investigation on school staff. Ben’s teaching assistant, Lucas, may be a person of interest.
Jim discovers that Lucas’s alibi for the time of the abduction may not be airtight. His car was photographed in the vicinity of the woods where Ben disappeared. That night, Jim is tempted to call Emma and tell her what he’s discovered, but he stops himself. Instead, he falls into a troubled sleep until a memory from his own childhood wakes him.
Jim recalls being the same age as Ben when he witnesses an argument between his father and sister. His sister is accusing his father of forcing a girl into a car with a man. As his father threatens his sister, Jim creates a diversion by smashing a porcelain dog. His mother wakes up and intervenes just as his father grabs Jim. The memory ends at that point, but it keeps repeating in Jim’s mind all night. “And I knew what it was telling me. It was telling me that people aren’t always what they seem, and it was telling me to fear for Benedict” (377).
Chapter 8 Summary: “Day 8: Sunday, October 28, 2012”
On Day 8 of the investigation, Rachel takes a taxi to the hospital to check on John’s condition. She encounters Katrina, who explains that John is stable but still unconscious. Someone kicked him repeatedly in the head before Rachel found him, so there may be internal damage. Rachel also learns that Katrina is pregnant. Katrina confides that John hasn’t coped with the loss of Ben yet, so she doesn’t know how he’ll react to the news of a baby.
At home that evening, Rachel meets Detective Woodley. He’s been assigned to replace Emma as Rachel’s family liaison officer. Woodley informs her that the police are detaining Lucas. He wants her to give any information she can about the teaching assistant, but Rachel can barely remember him and offers little help. She is, however, relieved because her sister might not be Ben’s abductor.
Later that night, while surfing the net on Ben’s computer for news of the arrest, Rachel stumbles across two team video games that Ben used to play. It appears he’s still signed into one of them. Rachel signs into the other. Thinking her son might be online, she tries to make contact with him, but his avatar quickly logs out.
The chapter now shifts to Jim’s point of view during the same day. Jim receives an email informing him that the vigilante blogger is being investigated. Without confidential information supplied by Emma, he may not be able to incite much more hatred toward Rachel or the police.
Jim and Bennett go to the teaching assistant’s home to question him. Lucas admits that his girlfriend gave a false alibi because he was out riding his bicycle in the woods during the time that Ben was taken. His mother says Lucas has been in and out of trouble, and she suspects he might be involved in the abduction. After the detectives haul Lucas to headquarters for questioning, Jim feels confident that they have the breakthrough they need.
Before Jim can pursue any more leads related to Lucas, Nicky’s husband, Simon, arrives and wants to speak to him. Simon tells Jim that Nicky has been living apart from their family for a while. She’s staying at the cottage that her aunt willed to her. The break-up occurred after a dispute about having another child. Simon knew that Nicky still wanted a boy, but her behavior with their four existing daughters indicated that she was already stretched to capacity. She overscheduled the activities of her children and her husband. No one could relax and just enjoy family time anymore. Simon thought she should rethink another child. Nicky became furious and quit the house abruptly, leaving her eldest daughter in charge. Rachel doesn’t know any of this.
After this conversation, Jim rushes to tell Fraser about Nicky’s suspicious behavior. While they’re conferring, Woodley informs them that Rachel just called about the online gamer who might be Ben. Fraser orders Woodley to pursue the gaming lead. She tells Jim to interview Nicky the following day.
That night, Jim receives an email from Emma explaining her behavior. When she was six, her father put her in charge of her two-year-old sister. Emma left the room for a few minutes to go to the toilet. She returned to find her sister wedged down the side of the bed and suffocated. Emma’s father blamed her for the accident.
Emma felt that her father was irresponsible for leaving a six-year-old in charge, and she thought that Rachel was guilty of the same kind of irresponsibility. Emma belatedly learned that Rachel wasn’t a neglectful parent, and she regrets using the vigilante blogger to punish her. Emma knows that her relationship with Jim is over. She apologizes and asks for his forgiveness. After Jim finishes reading the message, he finds a bottle of whiskey and drinks enough to pass out.
The narrative shifts to one of Manelli’s sessions in which she asks Jim about his father. Jim defends his father’s abusive behavior and says that all parents hit their children sometimes. When the psychologist probes deeper about his family dynamic, Jim grows angry and dismisses her questions as irrelevant. Manelli privately notes that she needs him to understand how important it is that he open up during their sessions. They’re running out of time.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
Other sections of the novel have explored the ways in which appearance can determine credibility. These chapters examine the degree to which appearances can be deceiving. We learn that many of the central characters are something other than what they seem. Emma’s perception of Rachel changes dramatically when she sees Rachels photographs of her son. Far from being a bad mother, Emma now sees Rachel as a caring parent.
Emma, in turn, reveals a side of herself that Jim never knew existed. Under her calm exterior, Emma harbors seething resentment against Rachel for her perceived neglect of Ben. Because of her own guilt and anger towards her father, Emma has been leaking information to the vigilante blogger to punish Rachel. This irrational action could compromise the whole investigation and has certainly destroyed her relationship with Jim.
The writer of the poison pen letter to John is a terminally ill cancer patient rather than the evil fiend who abducted Ben. Jim’s father, a model detective, may have been involved in some illegal activity and may have physically abused his son. Supermom Nicky doesn’t have the happy family everyone assumes she does. Jim learns that she’s temporarily abandoned her husband and daughters. Her desire to have a son borders on obsession.
Aside from the focus on appearances, this section uses the motif of Ben’s belongings to advance the plot. When Rachel looks through Ben’s sketchbook, she receives a vital clue to the identity of the abductor which she then shares with the police. Later, Rachel plays one of Ben’s video games and discovers that he’s playing online at the same time. Ben’s belongings literally connect him to his mother and help her to find him.
