LIBBY CARPENTER
99 RED BALLOONS

Copyright

Published by Avon

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

The News Building

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017

Copyright © Elisabeth Carpenter 2017

Elisabeth Carpenter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008223519

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008223526

Version: 2019-03-01

Dedication

For Dad

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two: Stephanie

Chapter Three: Maggie

Chapter Four: Stephanie

Chapter Five

Chapter Six: Maggie

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight: Stephanie

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten: Maggie

Chapter Eleven: Stephanie

Chapter Twelve: Maggie

Chapter Thirteen: Stephanie

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen: Stephanie

Chapter Sixteen: Maggie

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen: Maggie

Chapter Nineteen: Stephanie

Chapter Twenty: Maggie

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two: Maggie

Chapter Twenty-Three: Stephanie

Chapter Twenty-Four: Maggie

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six: Stephanie

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Stephanie

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty: Stephanie

Chapter Thirty-One: Stephanie

Chapter Thirty-Two: Maggie

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four: Maggie

Chapter Thirty-Five: Stephanie

Chapter Thirty-Six: Maggie

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Stephanie

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty: Stephanie

Chapter Forty-One: Maggie

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three: Maggie

Chapter Forty-Four: Stephanie

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six: Maggie

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight: Stephanie

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty: Maggie

Chapter Fifty-One: Stephanie

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three: Stephanie

Chapter Fifty-Four: Maggie

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six: Maggie

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Stephanie

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Maggie

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Stephanie

Chapter Sixty: Maggie

Chapter Sixty-One: Stephanie

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

I squint at him. The sun’s in my eyes and he looks like a shadow monster.

‘I can’t,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got to get home. I’m only meant to be getting sweets from the paper shop, then straight back.’

He crouches in front of me. He’s wearing a woolly hat, which is funny as it’s really warm today.

‘But your mum asked me to fetch you.’ His eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles.

I fold my arms. When I tilt my head, his face blocks out the sun.

‘You might be lying,’ I say. ‘Mummy warned me about men with sweets and puppies.’

The man laughs, like Gramps does when he’s Father Christmas.

‘I know,’ he says. ‘What’s she like? She’s such a worrywart.’

He’s right: she is. I drop my arms to my sides.

‘Anyway,’ he says, holding out both of his hands, ‘I’ve no sweets and I’ve no puppies. My name’s George – she’s always talking about me, isn’t she? She’s waiting at the bus station, says she’s got a surprise for you, for being a good girl at school.’ He taps his nose. ‘And we all know what you’ve been asking for.’

‘Really?’ I try not to jump up and down. ‘They’ve got me a horse?’

He winks and puts his finger on his lips. I try to wink too, but it turns into a messy blink. He holds out his hand, and I take it.

I’m allowed to sit on the front seat, but I’m not allowed to tell Mummy. On the radio, a song plays that I know: ‘Ninety-Nine Red Balloons’. I’m warm inside because Mummy sings it a lot. She sings it in German sometimes: Noin and noinsick or something. It’s an old one, but I like it.

‘Are you feeling all right?’

He’s looking at me as though I’ve got spots all over my face.

‘I think so.’

Mummy’s always worrying about me. When I had a bad cough in the middle of the night three weeks ago, she ran a hot bath and called the ambulance, but it was a false alarm.

He stops the car at a mini car park on the side of the road, just as the song is ending. Without his hat on, he looks older than he did before. He puts his hand on my forehead.

‘You do feel a bit hot.’

As soon as he says it, I feel it. I’m burning up.

He turns to the back seat and grabs a plastic carrier bag. I can’t read the supermarket’s name, but I recognise the red and green. He gets out a flask and pours a drink.

‘Here,’ he says. ‘Your mum gave me this in case you got car sick.’

After I’ve drunk it, I give the plastic cup-lid back to him. I’m really tired. There are things I have to say to him, like, Mummy’s never mentioned anyone called George, and, I never get car sick, but I can’t because my mouth doesn’t work any more. I try to smile at him. I wouldn’t say those things to him anyway ’cos I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Has he turned the radio off? Everything’s quiet. I can’t stop my eyelids from shutting.

Chapter Two
Stephanie

Emma’s running up and down the street. Angie, her next-door neighbour, is standing at her gate in her dressing gown.

‘What’s happening, Mum?’ asks Jamie, sitting beside me in the passenger seat. ‘Why’s Aunt Emma outside shouting? I thought we were coming for tea.’

‘I don’t know, love. Wait in the car.’

I get out. Angie pulls her dressing gown tight around her middle, shivering, even though it’s not that cold yet.

‘She can’t find Grace,’ she says.

‘What do you mean she can’t find her? Where’s she left her?’

‘Nowhere. She hasn’t come home from school yet.’

It’s nearly half past four.

‘Shit.’

I run after Emma, following her into the newsagent’s a few doors down. She’s showing Mr Anderson a picture of Grace on her phone, even though he already knows what she looks like. He shakes his head.

‘I told you ten minutes ago,’ he says gently. ‘She came in, but she didn’t buy anything. She came in with her friends, and then they went. I thought they all left together. Assumed she was with them.’

‘Did you actually see her leave?’ Emma rushes to the door to the back room of the shop. ‘Could she have sneaked through here? Maybe she’s hiding from someone. Grace!’

The door to the storeroom squeaks as it opens.

‘I doubt it, but you’re welcome to look.’

‘Angie’s calling the police,’ I say.

Emma glances at me, seeing me for the first time. She grabs hold of my arm. It’s dim inside. I pat my hand along the wall for the light switch, flicking it on. Boxes of sweets, crisps, toilet rolls are stacked up in rows – the back room smells sweet, like Nice biscuits.

‘Grace! Grace, it’s me, Mummy. I’m not cross. Come out, love. No one’s angry at you for hiding.’

She moves every cardboard box away from the wall. Nothing. But then, Grace is not the type to play hide and seek, especially in a dark back room of a shop – she’s too sensible to do anything like that. Emma stands in the middle of the room, both hands on her head.

‘It’s not been long,’ I say. ‘Perhaps she’s gone to a friend’s.’

She wrinkles her nose – it’s her way of stopping tears falling from her eyes.

‘She’s usually home ages ago. I’ve phoned her friends – none of them have seen her.’

‘Did she arrange something at school and you’ve forgotten?’

‘I’ve driven to the school already – it’s locked, there weren’t any lights on.’

‘Who was the last to see her?’

‘Um.’ She shakes her head, her eyes flick left and right. ‘Angie’s daughter, Hannah.’

I grab her by the hand. ‘Thanks, Mr Anderson,’ I call to him before leading her out of the shop.

We run past Emma’s neighbours – they’re all standing on their doorsteps now.

‘Have you seen Grace?’ I shout, but they just shake their heads. Bloody useless people, staring at us.

‘It’ll be getting dark soon,’ says Emma, bending over to catch her breath. ‘She’s never home late, never. I need Mum here, can you ring her?’

‘Of course.’ I get my phone from my pocket. I dial Mum’s landline – cursing her that she still doesn’t have a mobile. There’s no reply. I leave a message for her to get here, but don’t tell her why – not over the phone. ‘Someone must have seen Grace – she can’t have just vanished off the street, not so close to home.’

It’s not only her I’m trying to convince.

When we get to Emma’s house, two police cars are parked either side of my car.

‘Shit – Jamie.’

How could I have left him when Grace has disappeared? He might be thirteen, but you never know what kind of maniac is out there. I run over and open the passenger door; the window is open.

‘Have you found Grace?’ he says, his eyes wide.

‘Not yet. Are you okay? Did anyone come to the car?’

He shakes his head.

The police are guiding Emma through her front door.

‘Come on, Jamie.’

I offer my hand to help him out of the car like I used to when he was little, and he takes it.

Two detectives arrived ten minutes after I did. DI Lee Hines is sitting with a notepad resting on his knees. He’s sweating in a long grey overcoat that’s grubby around the cuffs; his tie is loose around his collar. DS Rachel Berry is standing near the living room door; she’s wearing a trouser suit. She hasn’t spoken yet, but she’s looking at us as though we’ve done something wrong.

Emma’s rocking forwards and backwards; her arms wrapped around herself. My hand is resting on hers, but I don’t think she realises I’m here. Where the hell is Mum? She doesn’t usually go out on a Monday evening. Grace has been missing for nearly an hour. I’ve tried to get through to her at least three times. I get out my phone and dial her number. Her machine answers, again. She must be on her way.

‘Is there any chance Grace could have gone to meet a friend that you don’t know?’ asks Detective Hines. ‘Does she talk to anyone online?’

He’s perched on the edge of the armchair that Matt usually sits in. Instead, Matt’s standing up with his hands going crazy – in his pockets, out of his pockets, through his hair. He looks out of the window, but the house lamps inside are too bright against the darkening sky outside. All I can see is the room reflected back at us.

The sound of the police helicopter gets louder as it flies over the house. Police officers traipse in and out, up and down the stairs. They open and shut cupboard doors, look under the stairs, in the bath, behind the shower curtain. Others are opening the upstairs hatch, pulling down the ladder. Their heavy footsteps are loud on the loft floorboards, even from down here.

Emma stops rocking.

‘Chat online? Of course she doesn’t. She’s only eight. She wouldn’t know how to do things like that.’

‘Does she have a laptop? A computer in her bedroom?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘She uses the family laptop for homework.’

Everyone turns to the machine on the desk in the corner of the room as though it might tell us where she is. The two detectives look at each other. I know what they’re thinking: surely this kid will have gone onto chat sites, Facebook, Twitter. But Grace would rather talk to her friends face to face; she’s too young for social media. The police don’t know she’s not the kind to want a mobile phone. I wish now that she were.

Matt walks over to the desk and turns his back on it.

‘I don’t know why you’re asking questions like this. She’s out there.’ His eyes are wide as he points to the window. He’s trembling; there are beads of sweat around his hairline. ‘It’s getting late, for fuck’s sake, and we’re just going over the same fucking things.’

I wince, and hope Jamie doesn’t hear from the kitchen – that he’s too distracted with his homework, but I doubt it – he’s probably listening to every word. He’ll be worried. Jamie and Grace are so close; he treats her like a little sister – they spend hours playing Minecraft together.

Emma’s cry pierces the room. Her shoulders are shaking as she buries her face in her hands. I grab her closer to me and put my arms around her. Her hair is in my face and it blots my tears. Grace is their only child. I can’t believe she’s not here. She should be at home, having her tea with us, talking about school, doing her homework.

DI Hines shifts in his chair and glances at DS Berry.

‘We have everyone we can spare looking for Grace.’ He writes something in his notepad. ‘Can we just go over it one more time?’

Matt runs his hands through his hair. He’s done it so many times his hair’s stringy with sweat. He looks up to the ceiling. If you didn’t know him, you’d think him religious, looking for guidance, but he’s not.

‘She walks home from school,’ says Emma, her voice barely audible. ‘Sometimes with Hannah, sometimes with Amelia – there are three of them usually, but I’ve spoken to their mums. Amelia’s said Grace and another friend decided to stop at the shop for sweets. She’s usually home by quarter to four at the very latest.’

‘So Amelia didn’t wait for Grace?’ says Hines, narrowing his eyes. ‘She just walked away? Does Grace often walk to the shop on her own?’

‘Grace is eight; she’s not a baby. The school’s only down the road. We’ve been through this three times,’ says Matt. ‘We’re repeating ourselves.’

The detective scratches his forehead with his pen. Perhaps he’s thinking that a few minutes ago Grace was too young for a computer, and now she’s old enough to walk home by herself. It feels as though Emma and Matt will be judged on the decisions they made for her.

‘Sometimes it’s the tiny details that are the most important.’

‘Why did we start letting her walk home from school?’ Emma says to Matt. She turns to the detective, wiping her face with the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘They only started coming back by themselves last week – she’d been begging me for ages to let her – they’ve only been in Year 4 for three weeks. We … the other mums and I … told them they had to stick together no matter what. Every day last week I waited across the street from the school gates, followed them until they got to the newsagent’s. Then I’d run home so I could be there when she got back. I should’ve done that today – I thought they’d be fine, like they were last week.’

A thought runs through my mind that plants a heavy feeling in my stomach: what if someone else was watching Grace walk home today?

She went into the newsagent’s and never came out. How is that even possible? The image of Mr Anderson’s face comes into my head. He might have owned the shop for a few years, but how well does anyone know him?

‘Have you questioned Mr Anderson?’ Everyone looks at me and my face burns. ‘The newsagent, I mean.’

Hines gives a brief nod. Did he just roll his eyes?

‘Yes, yes.’

He doesn’t elaborate – they don’t give much away. He makes me feel stupid – guilty even – just by looking at me.

‘Is there anyone you can think of who might have taken her?’ he says. ‘A relative? Someone with a grudge?’

‘No, of course not,’ says Matt. ‘This is real life, not some bloody soap opera. We’re normal people. We don’t go around making enemies.’

My ears tingle as he says it. No.

There is someone, I want to say. But it shouldn’t be me saying that. Has Emma forgotten?

‘Did she argue with you before she left this morning? About something mundane, trivial even?’

‘Grace isn’t like that,’ says Matt. ‘We don’t argue in the morning.’

‘What time did you leave for work today?’

‘Just before eight.’

‘Mrs Harper – Emma.’

She looks up.

‘Did you and Grace argue before she left for school this morning?’

She frowns and shakes her head. She looks to the mantelpiece at the many photos of Grace. One of them is the obligatory school picture. By the time Jamie has left school I’ll have twelve – one for every year. I can’t breathe when I think that photo of Grace might be her last.

Hines writes in his notepad again and looks to me.

‘So just to get everyone’s name right. You’re Stephanie Palmer – Grace’s aunt?’

‘Yes,’ I say, too loud probably.

No one reacts. And why should they?

But it feels like a lie when I say it to a stranger.

My stomach is churning. I stand, swaying slightly, and squeeze past DS Berry in the doorway before rushing up the stairs. I get to the bathroom just in time to empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet.

Chapter Three
Maggie

I don’t feel old enough for a shopping trolley, but I am. The handles on carrier bags these days cut my hands; they’re much too thin, too cheap. Monday means it’s meat and potato pie for tea, which means calling into the butcher’s, then the vegetable shop.

Everything aches, especially my knees. I’d spend all afternoon in the bath if I could, but I’m not sure I could get myself out of it. Besides, it’s my routine that keeps me from staring at the walls, the television, the photographs.

It’s raining – again. It’s always raining. Wearing my long raincoat and ridiculous matching hat I could be anyone. It’s like my invisible cloak.

‘Are you all right, Maggie?’

The voice makes me jump. I wish I were invisible. I look up, lifting the wide brim of my hat.

‘Oh, hello, Sandra. Didn’t see you there.’

She’s holding an enormous golfing umbrella that’s emblazoned with Benson & Hedges. Do they even sell those any more? A fat drip of rain from it lands on my hand and splats onto the top of my trolley.

‘I’m not surprised,’ she says, ‘with that thing you’re wearing.’ She regards my hat as though it smells of rotten eggs. She shouldn’t pull that expression; someone should tell her it makes her look even older. ‘And you didn’t hear me either. I’ve been shouting you for the past ten minutes.’

Sandra’s a big fan of hyperbole. I don’t reply; she doesn’t notice.

‘How are we this afternoon?’ she says, her head tilted to the side. ‘I said to my Peter, I know I’ll see Maggie this afternoon ’cos it’s Monday. And every Monday she—’

‘Got to run, Sandra.’ I pull the brim of my hat over my eyes and start walking. ‘I’ve got an important appointment later.’

I need a new routine. If I bump into her again I might actually scream in the street – or jump in front of a moving car.

After a few minutes of walking, I’ve left Sandra behind. She’s probably going to tell her Peter that I’m a miserable old crone, but I don’t care.

The rain pauses.

I hear Sarah’s voice.

I look up to see if the face matches the sound. From behind she has the same brown hair in a bob on her shoulders. I can’t stop myself. I walk faster until it’s a light jog. My shopping trolley trips over the cracks in the pavement. I haven’t run for at least ten years and it shows. I slow to a walk before my knees give up, and I’m only a few feet away from her.

She laughs.

It’s Sarah’s laugh. I can’t help myself, again.

‘Sarah,’ I shout.

A passing bus splashes a puddle that misses me by inches.

I tap her right shoulder.

She stops in front of me. She turns round slowly and I know before I see her face that it’s not her at all.

Her eyes meet mine; they’re blue. Sarah’s were brown.

‘Sorry. Wrong person,’ I say, before she says it for me, like others have before her. She looks at me kindly, whoever she is, and smiles. No doubt she sees me as the ridiculous old lady that I am.

‘That’s okay.’

She turns back round and crosses the road. Probably to get out of the path of the crazy woman. I might actually be crazy, I don’t know. Of course that wasn’t Sarah. It could never be Sarah, and I should know that by now. Sometimes I think I could die from this loneliness, but I carry on. It’s torture. It’s too hard being the only one left. Being happy seems such a faraway memory. Why did everyone leave me?

The rain starts again, which is a good job because I’ve reached the butcher’s. The water disguises my tears. It’ll never do to be crying in the street.

Chapter Four
Stephanie

The detectives have gone. PC Nadia Sharma, the Family Liaison Officer, is opening and closing cupboards in the kitchen, too polite or too considerate to ask where the cups are.

My eyes feel red raw and twice their normal size. Emma’s gripping my hand so hard it’s numb, but it doesn’t matter. Her eyes are glazed and fixed on the carpet. She hasn’t spoken for nearly half an hour. I can’t ask if she’s okay, because I know she isn’t. I can’t ask her if she wants a drink because her mind won’t care what her body needs. I release the hand she’s holding and put my arm around her shoulders.

‘They’ll find her soon, Em,’ I say. ‘She’ll walk back through the front door, you’ll see.’

It’s almost cruel to say it, but it feels like Grace will come home. Any minute now.

Where is she? She’s eight, but she’s not a street-smart eight. Perhaps she’s had an accident, fallen somewhere and can’t get up. She tries to be brave when she’s hurt, especially if she’s in front of Jamie. She fell off her bike last summer. Jamie helped her into the house, her knees and elbows grazed. I’d carried her up the stairs as Jamie watched from the hallway, biting his lip. As soon as we reached the bathroom, the tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘Mum should be here in a minute,’ I say. ‘But with me and Jamie being here, there might not be enough room for us all to stay the night.’

‘I want you here,’ she says, her eyes still focused on the carpet. ‘All of you.’

I reach into my bag and check my mobile. It’s been almost an hour since I managed to get hold of Mum. She said she’d been in the bath when I’d called. I had to tell her about Grace, otherwise she might not have come.

‘But I’ve already dressed for bed,’ she said. ‘She’ll have gone to a friend’s.’ She sighed when I told her that none of Grace’s friends had seen her since she went into the shop. ‘I’ll have to get some proper clothes on then and wait for a taxi. She’ll probably be back by the time I get there. You girls were always home late from school.’

‘But we weren’t eight,’ I said.

Mum only lives ten minutes away – traffic can’t be that bad. I don’t know how she stayed so calm. If it were my granddaughter, I’d run as fast as I could to get here.

Matt can’t keep still. He sits in his chair for only a few seconds before going to the window.

‘I shouldn’t be here doing fuck all. I should be out looking for her.’

‘I ought to know where she is.’ Emma’s voice makes me jump. ‘I’m her mother, I should be able to sense it. I keep trying to picture where she is, but I can’t.’ She turns to face me. ‘Why can’t I picture it?’

The tears betray me and trickle down my face.

‘I don’t know.’

I wish I knew.

‘She wanted French toast with Nutella for breakfast this morning,’ she says. ‘Don’t be silly, I said. That’s a weekend breakfast. Coco Pops I gave her.’ She starts rocking back and forth again. I’m rocking with her, my arm across her back. ‘Shit. Why didn’t I just make her the French toast? Fucking work. Rushing out of the door every morning to make it there on time. Why do I work? If I stayed at home, I would have made it for her. And then maybe she wouldn’t have gone for sweets after school.’

Matt strides over and crouches at her feet.

‘How can it be about that? How can she have vanished just because you work in a fucking office?’

He’s almost shouting. He stands while fresh tears pour down Emma’s face.

I wish he hadn’t snapped at her, but then who am I to monitor his behaviour when their child has just disappeared?

‘What is it?’ he says, to himself rather than us. ‘What are we missing? Perhaps she has met someone on the internet – maybe a friend from school told her which sites to go on.’

He looks around the room and walks towards the computer desk.

‘Where’s the laptop?’ he says.

Emma doesn’t move, just stares at the carpet.

‘Did you see them take it?’ he says to me.

I shake my head.

‘The police always take things like that, don’t they?’ I say.

‘How the hell should I know?’

Matt puts both hands on top of his head.

‘Shit.’

Emma said she was going to the bathroom, but she’s been upstairs for twenty minutes. I climb the stairs, but not so quietly that I startle her.

The bathroom door is open; she’s not in there. There’s a glow from underneath Grace’s bedroom door. There’s a sign on the door – one like Emma used to have on hers, only Grace’s is purple and has her name written in silver. I gently push it open.

‘It’s only me, Em.’

She doesn’t look up. She’s sitting on the edge of Grace’s bed. The quilt cover’s laid diagonally across it, and her giraffe teddy bear is near the pillow – she’s had it since she was a baby. Emma’s switched on the fairy lights, which twinkle on the headboard. Loom band bracelets are piled on her bedpost, untouched for months as the phase was replaced by another. I kneel on the floor, not wanting to disturb anything. Under the window is her dressing table, covered with pens, three jewellery boxes, and two mugs that she decorated herself. Above her headboard is a photo collage of her friends from school, and pictures of Emma, Matt, Jamie and me stuck to the wall with Blu-tack. Alongside them are posters of Little Mix and One Direction. One of the boy band members’ faces has been obliterated with a black marker.

Emma’s holding one of Grace’s books. She lifts it up: Everything You Need to Know About Horses.

‘We got it from the library two weeks ago,’ she says. ‘It’s due back on Friday. She’s decided she wants to be a vet. Last week she was going to be a hairdresser. Matt said he’d buy her a shop. At the time, I thought, Don’t be so silly, we can’t buy her a whole hairdresser’s.’ She places the book back on Grace’s bedside table. ‘When she gets back, I’ll get her anything she wants – anything.’

Emma looks around the room. Her eyes rest on a little shoebox that Grace made into a bed when it was her turn to look after the school teddy bear a few years ago.

‘I need to do Grace’s washing,’ says Emma. ‘I’m so crap.’ The white plastic laundry basket next to the desk is overflowing, the lid three feet away from it. ‘But what if I do that and she never comes back? I won’t be able to smell her any more.’ A tear runs down her cheek. ‘Where is she, Steph?’

I crawl to her and rest my head on her lap.

‘I don’t know.’

I try to picture Grace, like Emma tried before, but all I see is her cold and alone, the rain falling on her face as she lies in the dirt. It’s not even raining outside.

On the day she was born it had been snowing. I held her in my arms and looked out of the hospital window; the car park and the treetops were covered in a snow blanket. I hadn’t yet seen her open her eyes, but when I said, We’ll have to wrap you up warm when we take you home, little one, she gripped my finger a little tighter.

She didn’t have a name for the first week. Emma and Matt hadn’t wanted to know if she was a boy or a girl before the birth. They expected a boy, simply because Matt’s family were mainly men. ‘I must get her name right,’ Emma said. Every day they tried a different one for her: Jessica, Natasha, Lily are the few I remember. When Emma said Grace, I knew it was the perfect name for her.

‘You will stay here tonight, won’t you?’ says Emma, breaking the silence.

‘Of course, but—’

‘It’s fine that Jamie’s here. I need him here too. Will you both be all right in the spare room?’

‘We’ll be okay anywhere, don’t worry about it.’

There’s a growl of a diesel engine outside. We both jump to the window.

‘Oh.’

We say it at the same time.

It’s a black cab: Mum. She hasn’t driven since 1996, or whenever she had an experience with an HGV. I can’t remember her ever driving us anywhere before that though – it was always Dad.

Dad. What would he have been like in this nightmare? He’d have come straight over and taken control of everything. It’s been four years since he died. Sometimes it feels a lifetime ago; at other times it seems like yesterday.

I rush downstairs and open the front door, waiting while Mum pays the driver.

‘Where have you been?’

She rakes her fingers through her hair as she walks through the door. Her face, usually impeccably made-up, is red with broken veins on her cheeks. Her eyes are surrounded by puffy skin.

‘I had to get myself together. How’s Emma bearing up? Is she okay? And Matt?’

I narrow my eyes at her. Get herself together? Is she really going to be like this now?

‘Emma’s been asking for you. I rang you ages ago.’ I reach into my pocket for my phone. ‘It was five to six when I finally managed to talk to you after God knows how many times I rang – you said you were on your way. It’s gone seven o’clock.’

She frowns at me; her eyes are bloodshot.

‘It’s not the time to be pedantic, is it? I said I was sorry.’

No, she didn’t.

Jesus. My heart nearly pounds out of my jumper. I can’t think.

‘Where is she?’ she says.

For a moment I think she means Grace.

‘Upstairs.’

In the kitchen, Jamie’s sitting at the table, his face a hint of blue from the light of the laptop he takes with him everywhere.

‘Bedtime soon, love.’

‘It’s only early.’ He glances at me and nods. ‘Okay.’

‘Has there been anything on the internet about Grace?’

‘Not yet.’

How long does a child have to be missing to make it onto the news?

My phone vibrates three times in my pocket. It might be Karl. He and I have only been seeing each other a month, but we’ve worked together for years. This is the first time I’ve thought about him since Grace went missing; should it be like that? I take out my mobile.

It’s a message from Matt.

My heart flips. He’s sitting in the other room – he’s barely looked at me since I got here hours ago. I promised myself I wouldn’t think about him in that way any more. Grace is missing. What kind of person would that make me?

My hands are almost shaking as I click to open the message. Jamie’s standing at the doorway, waiting for me to show him to bed in a house where he seldom spends the night.

The message opens: I forgot to delete the emails.

Chapter Five

Before I open my eyes I feel that I’m rocking. Where was I before? With George, the man wearing the woolly hat. We were in his car. ‘Ninety-Nine Red Balloons’ was on the radio.

I open my eyelids just a little bit, so I can look around without him noticing I’m awake. It worked last week when Mummy came into my bedroom at night to put a coin under my pillow. She couldn’t tell that I waited up until she went to bed. I knew the tooth fairy wasn’t real anyway, so I wasn’t that sad.

I’m lying on an orange seat and there’s a table near my head. I can see his legs under it. He’s wearing the same trousers as before: grey with multi-coloured bits on them – like little dots of rainbow.

‘Ah, you’re awake, little one,’ he says.

I must have opened my eyes properly by accident. I pretend to yawn and sit up.

‘Where are we?’

‘Change of plan. Your mum is planning an even bigger surprise. We’re on the ferry.’

He looks around. I do too, but I can’t see Mummy. There’s hardly anyone here.

‘Are you hungry?’ he says. ‘I picked you up a few things from the café.’ He puts some food in front of me: a bread roll, Jacob’s crackers, and a Mars Bar. I shouldn’t eat the Mars Bar as I’ll get hyper. I’ve never eaten a whole one before – not this size.

I look around again. It’s the biggest café I’ve ever seen, but no one else is eating. I can see other people now, lying on the sofas under the tables like I was. They must be sleeping. I don’t think there are any bedrooms on this boat. Through the windows is blackness – the only thing I can see is the moon.

‘How did you get me here from the car? Did I sleepwalk?’

He laughs. ‘Well aren’t you a clever little thing – thinking about logistics.’

I don’t like him calling me a little thing. My teacher, Mrs Wilson, says that people can’t be things; only objects are things.

‘I pushed you in this.’

He reaches behind the pillar next to him and pulls out a buggy. It has red and white stripes like the one in my gran’s shed. My face feels hot. Everyone must think I’m a big baby. Mummy used to call me that when I couldn’t walk all the way home from the shops without whining.

‘But it doesn’t matter,’ he says, leaning closer. ‘I’ve seen at least four big girls in buggies. It’s night-time you see – how else are they meant to sleep?’

I shrug and swing my legs off the seat. I pull the Mars Bar closer. I slowly unwrap it, looking at George, wondering when he’s going to stop me.

He doesn’t.

He just shakes his head, smiles and goes back to reading the paper.

I take a bite of the chocolate bar and it’s delish – that’s what Mummy says.

There’ll be no sleeping for me tonight.

Chapter Six
Maggie

It’s not Thursday, but I head to the newsagent’s anyway. I used to get the job papers for Sarah on Thursdays. She never looked at them much, mind. I just thought they’d give her a little push back into the world. The habit of buying them has stuck with me. I always leaf through them, seeing what jobs she might have liked, and ones she would tut and roll her eyes at. ‘As if, Mum,’ she’d say on a happier day. Catering – that had always been her thing. She’d wanted to be a chef since she was eight years old. It never happened though.

Anyway, why do I think about these things? It’s not even jobs day. At least I know I won’t bump into Sandra today.

It’s nearly the end of September; we only had a week of sun this year and that was in June. Now, it seems to be either raining, or just about to rain. It’s as cold inside the paper shop as it is out. Mrs Sharples is standing behind the counter, clad in about three jumpers, a quilted body warmer and fingerless gloves. I’m surprised the magazines and newspapers don’t blow away with that back door open. ‘Keeps my blood pumping,’ she says when people complain about the arctic temperature. She’s the type who’s grateful for waking up in the morning.

‘Morning, Maggie.’

She’s using that tone – what is it? I haven’t heard it in a while.

Pity.

Something must have happened. I wonder if she comments on bad news pertinent to every customer or reserves that honour for me. I scan the array of front pages. There it is. The Lincolnshire Gazette. It’s the only copy next to the many local papers bulging from the shelf. ‘Have to give the people what they want,’ Mrs Sharples usually says. It’s only Mr Goodwin who reads the Lincolnshire Gazette – it’s probably days old.

My head is telling me not to buy it – don’t give her the satisfaction – save the paper for Mr Goodwin. But my hands betray me. Before I know it, they’ve reached for the copy. I tut at myself. Predictable as night and bloody day. Oh well. Mr Goodwin won’t miss it – he doesn’t know what year it is, never mind what week.

‘Ah, you saw it then,’ she says.

I try not to roll my eyes at her.

‘What’s that?’

I hold the paper with both hands and look at the front page. Why am I play-acting? Mother said I’d never work on the stage with my hammy expressions. Mrs Sharples knows I’m pretending. I’m hoping my ruddy cheeks hide the blushes.

‘Oh yes,’ I say, anyway.

‘I do hope she’ll be found.’

‘Yes.’

Of course we hope she’ll be bloody found, I want to say, but I just fake a smile. As well as I can.

‘Must be terribly difficult for you to read articles like that,’ she says.

‘It’s difficult for anybody to read.’

‘I mean … Oh, never mind.’

She probably thinks she’s caught me on a bad day, though I’m hardly the laughing kind on the best of days. She gives me my change, her hands like little claws peeking from her fingerless gloves.

‘Apparently, the grandmother grew up in Preston.’

I look up from my purse.

‘Excuse me?’

‘The grandmother … of the little girl in the paper. I suppose you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers. Can’t say I’ve heard the name. Preston’s a big place after all.’

Her light laugh fades to a hum. She’s always been one for stating the flaming obvious.

‘Right you are, Mrs Sharples.’

I fold the paper and put it under my arm. I reach the threshold just as she shouts, ‘I’ve told you, Maggie. You can call me Rose. We’ve known each other long—’

‘Will do,’ I shout back.

But I won’t. Nosy old bat.

I lay the newspaper across the kitchen table, straightening out any creases. Ronnie used to like his paper ironed – fancied himself as one of those posh types. I only did it for him on Sundays, and his birthday. ‘It’s not because I like it straight,’ he’d say. ‘It stops the ink running.’

‘Get away with you,’ I said.

I wish he were still here with me. I’d iron it every day.

Oh, stop it, you daft fool. I can hear his voice in my head. You know you’d only iron it ’til the novelty of me being back wore off – two days, tops.

I sit down at the table. I’m daft having these conversations with myself, but after forty-six years of marriage I usually knew what he was going to say before he did.

Grace. That’s the little girl’s name.

She’s wearing her school uniform in the picture – it’s on the front page. I can’t make out the name of the school from the badge on her jumper, though I’m not sure if that’s my eyes or the quality of the print.

She was last seen walking into a newsagent’s.

Newsagent’s.

I look up at the wall. How odd. I wonder if she was getting sweets, just like—

The phone rings.

‘Hang on,’ I shout.

I shuffle the chair back and rest my hands on the table to lever myself up. Damn legs.

‘Wait a minute.’

I walk as fast as I can to the phone table in the living room. People can be so impatient these days. Some folk only let it ring five or six times before they give up. Never enough time for me.

‘Hello?’ I say. Ron always used to tease me about my telephone voice. ‘Hello?’ I can’t have been too late, there’s no dial tone. ‘Is anyone there?’

I listen as hard as I can. Is my hearing getting worse? There’s traffic noise on the other end of the line. Are they calling from a mobile telephone or a big red box?

‘Can you speak louder? I can’t hear you.’

The click of the phone makes me jump. They’ve hung up, again. I replace the handset and wander back into the kitchen. Was that the fourth or fifth time this week?

What if it’s him? I can’t remember what he sounds like; I should remember his voice, shouldn’t I? It’s been too long. Every day I try not to think about how he broke my heart. I can’t even look at his photograph any more without it bringing back awful memories.

Tap, tap, tap.

The window rattles.

I still my breathing. My heart’s thumping.

I should get up and hide in the pantry, but I can’t move.

The handle turns – the back door opens slowly.

‘Morning, Mags.’

I breathe again.

‘For goodness’ sake, Jim. I wish you’d warn me before just waltzing in.’

He takes off his cap.

‘That’s what the taps are for – they’re warning you I’m about to come through the door.’ He pulls out a chair. ‘Shall I whistle before I tap next time? A warning before the warning?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Anyway, it’s hardly the surprise of the century – I call round at least twice a week.’

I shake my head at him and flick the kettle on. He’s been coming round to check on me ever since Ron died. They’d been friends since they started working together over fifty years ago.

‘Though, Maggie, you looked as though you’d seen a ghost when I walked in.’ He looks around the kitchen. ‘I know you like to talk to yourself, but you haven’t actually seen anything, have you?’

I grab a tea towel off the kitchen counter and throw it at him. He holds out his hand and the towel drops into it.

‘You’d better watch yourself, Jim. One of these days it’ll land where it’s intended.’

‘I doubt that,’ he says, sinking slowly into the chair. ‘Bloody hell. My back’s getting worse. I can’t get comfortable these days.’

‘Watch your language.’

‘I’d rub my back if my arms could reach. Don’t suppose—’

‘Not on your life!’

‘Margaret,’ he says soberly. ‘If you’d care to let me finish. I don’t suppose you’ve got a hot water bottle handy?’

I ignore him. I’m not in the mood for tomfoolery. I turn my back on him as I make the tea. Do I tell him about the phone calls? He’d only worry if I did. They’re probably a wrong number anyway.

His ensuing silence must mean he’s seen the newspaper. He’s not even mentioned the leftover meat and potato pie on the kitchen counter. I can imagine what he’s thinking. Not again, Maggie.

I wait for it.

I place the pot of tea in the middle of the table and fetch over two cups, saucers, and the sugar bowl. He still hasn’t uttered a word.

‘Come on then,’ I say. ‘Out with it.’

He grabs three sugar cubes from the bowl with the tongs and drops them into his cup. Each one chimes as it rings against the porcelain.

‘I’m not saying a thing. Not after you got so upset last time.’

‘I wasn’t upset.’

‘Call it what you will, I offended you. I won’t be doing that again. Not on purpose at least.’

He turns the newspaper anti-clockwise. His eyes meet the little girl’s.

‘I hope they find her,’ he says, words I’ve heard for the second time today. I bet the parents have heard it a thousand times – if they’ve even ventured out of the house yet.

Maybe I should contact them, let them know they’re not alone – that I’ve felt like this, that I still feel like this? No. What comfort would that be? What hope would that offer if I still haven’t got Zoe back? I’ve sent a card to the parents of every missing child I’ve seen in the newspapers over the last three decades, giving my full name and address just in case they ever researched other cases. A simple Thinking of You card is usually fine. I never heard back from any of them though; I suppose they might’ve thought I was some sort of crank.

‘There’s always hope at the beginning,’ I say. ‘And she’s not been missing long.’

‘It’s the first twenty-four hours that are the most important, that’s what they say, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose.’

‘You know,’ he says. ‘I was thinking about what happened to our Vera. Remember I told you about her? She died in the Salford raids. She was only four years old.’

‘I remember.’

‘I didn’t hear about it from my mother of course. It was only after Mother died that my aunt Patricia told me about Vera. Fancy my mother and father keeping that to themselves all those years – just having to move on and get on with your life after your child dies.’

‘That’s what people did then, Jim. That’s what everyone did. It’s how everyone managed to get up in the morning. Death was all around us.’

‘It’s all different now,’ he says, looking down at the picture of the little girl.

‘And rightly so.’

The police didn’t even search the house when Zoe went missing – there certainly weren’t any helicopters.

Jim jumps slightly as the phone rings, but I don’t tease him about it.

‘Shall I get that for you?’ he says.

‘No. Let’s leave it. It’ll be a wrong number.’

Chapter Seven

I’m so tired. I can hardly keep my eyes open – even after having a glass of Coca-Cola. We’re back in George’s car. Everyone else is sitting in their cars too, ready to drive off the ferry. I wanted to sit in the front seat again, but he said they’re strict with things like this in Belgium. I’ve never been to Belgium so I didn’t know that.

I don’t dare ask about Mummy and Daddy again. ‘I’ve told you, they’re waiting for you,’ he said. I think he might be lying. I have to stop thinking about them or else I’m going to start crying again. George doesn’t like histrionics. I know that now.

I look out of my window. There’s another girl, probably older than me. I wave at her, but she just stares at me. She says something, but I don’t know how to lip-read. It’s probably to her mum because she looks at me too. She doesn’t smile either. She frowns and moves her head closer to the window. She looks at George and points.

‘Do you know that lady, George?’

His hands are gripping the steering wheel tight, like he’s scared we’re going to fall into the sea. He turns round and looks where I’m looking.

‘No.’ He hardly moves his lips. ‘For fuck’s sake, kid, what have you been doing?’

The woman is still looking at him; she looks at me again.

‘Smile and wave,’ says George, through his teeth.

He says it in a way that makes me think I really have to do as he says. Tears are coming to my eyes, but I smile my biggest smile – the one my gran always likes – and then I wave.

Slowly, the woman’s frown goes away and she smiles a small smile.

‘Thank fuck for that,’ says George.

I wish he’d stop saying naughty words.

The mummy looks at George. He rolls his eyes at her while smiling. She does the same. Adults can be copycats too.

A siren sounds; it makes me jump.

‘Right, kid,’ he says. ‘Doors are opening now. Make sure that seat belt is visible.’ He turns round again. ‘And don’t even think about looking at strangers again. There are some right nutters out there.’

It’s what my daddy says all the time.

Chapter Eight
Stephanie

It’s been forty-two hours. It feels like it’s getting darker in the mornings since she’s been gone, but I must be imagining it; the clocks don’t go back for another month. Grace will be back before then. She has to be.

The only person who’s slept longer than a few hours is Jamie and that’s because I made him. Even then he woke up upset, asking if Grace was back. The last helicopter patrol was last night. The sound of the propellers reminded us that Grace is out there somewhere. The police have searched the newsagent’s, playgrounds, car parks, her friends’ houses, neighbours’ houses, and places I didn’t know existed in town. It’s like she’s just vanished.

Between us, Mum and I have managed to straighten the house and get it looking as though it hasn’t been pulled apart. Unlike the initial search of the house, the police were more thorough yesterday. They tried, but didn’t put everything back as it was. We ran Emma a bath so she didn’t have to watch as we put things away.

People have been bringing round dishes of lasagne, sausage casseroles, pies, which cover almost every kitchen surface. We’ve only eaten the ones from the next-door neighbours. Mum said we shouldn’t trust any of the others as we don’t know where they’ve come from. I thought she was being picky, but when the Family Liaison Officer, Nadia, didn’t touch them either, they went in the bin.

There’s a knock at the door.

‘I’ll get it.’ Nadia gets up from her place in the kitchen. She sits near the doorway. We can’t see her, but she’s close enough to hear what’s being said in the sitting room. Perhaps she’s been told to listen to what we say in case one of us knows where Grace is. Whatever the reason for her being here is, at least we don’t have to answer the door any more.

‘Those bloody reporters,’ says Matt. ‘Can’t they leave us alone? If they’ve got nothing useful to tell us, they should just keep the hell away.’

He still won’t look at me for more than a few seconds. Should I have replied to his message the other night? What would I have said? Text messages are terrible when discussing something important, but we can’t talk properly here. There are too many people around us all the time.

‘It’s Detective Hines,’ says Nadia. She stands with her back to the fireplace and folds her arms.

‘Morning,’ he says. He looks as though he’s been wearing the same suit for days. His tie is about three inches from the top of his collar. There are bags under his eyes and stubble is beginning to shadow his face. ‘I want to make a television appeal.’

Emma’s sitting in the chair by the window, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. It takes her a few seconds to acknowledge that someone has spoken.

‘Pardon?’ Her voice is cracked; she hasn’t spoken for hours.

‘An appeal,’ says Matt. ‘They want us to go on television.’

‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,’ says Hines, ‘but it might help jog people’s memories if they’ve seen anything out of the ordinary.’

‘Of course,’ she says. She looks away from the detective and resumes gazing through the window. She’s waiting for Grace. Any minute now she might walk back home. Emma wants to be ready for her, to open the door. ‘If we do it,’ she says, ‘I want Stephanie to be with me.’

Hines writes in his notepad again. ‘And you’re Grace’s aunt?’

Why does he keep asking me that? I thought detectives remembered everything.

‘Yes,’ I say.

Matt and I are on either side of Emma in the back seat. It’s the first time I’ve been in the back of a police car, but it’s not a panda, it’s a BMW. You can only tell it belongs to a police officer from the oversized radio and the gadgets on the dashboard. DS Berry is driving; Hines is in the passenger seat. Voices continuously come through on the police radio, but the detectives ignore them, keeping their eyes on the road ahead. Being in this car is another part of this nightmare that doesn’t feel real.

Mum has stayed with Jamie. Of course, she said she wanted to come, but Emma said, ‘It’s more important that Steph’s with me.’ I have no idea why she said that. Maybe she does remember something after all. Or perhaps she didn’t want Mum losing it in front of all the cameras and journalists. Mum gave in easily though, which was surprising. I don’t want my picture all over the newspapers, she said. I’ve not had a blow-dry for days. As though her looking her best was more important than finding Grace.

It’s the first time in daylight that we’re able to see all the teddy bears and tea lights in glasses left outside the gate. There are yellow ribbons tied in bows along the fence, and handwritten messages on the ground with stones on top to keep them from blowing away.

‘Don’t people usually leave candles for dead people?’ says Emma.

‘They’re candles for hope,’ I say, immediately realising how trite it sounds.

Matt’s staring out of the car window. He doesn’t seem to see or hear what we’re talking about. He’s wearing his work suit and his hair has gone curly, still wet from the shower. His reading glasses help to camouflage his red eyes.

After five minutes, we pull up outside the community centre. It’s where they host youth club discos and table tennis tournaments. Emma’s eyes squint when the car door opens and the strong September sun hits them.

The detectives get out and a uniformed policewoman drives the car away. Matt steps in front of me, taking Emma by the hand. I feel a stab of – what? Jealousy? Resentment?

Stop it, Stephanie. Get a grip.

There are a few photographers outside and several camera crews. One of the cameras has Sky News on the side. How did they get here so quickly? It was only in the paper yesterday, but I suppose most news is instant these days – they probably got here just after the story broke.

Detective Hines leads Emma and Matt towards the side door and I’m left at the front entrance. What am I supposed to do? Everyone outside is huddled in groups and I feel like a spare part. No one’s here to tell me what I’m supposed to do.

Three journalists – well, I assume they’re journalists; I’ve never met one before – are smoking cigarettes near the doorway. One of them narrows her eyes at me. She inhales the smoke like she’s hissing and blows it out like a sigh.

‘Are you a relative?’ she asks.

The other two – a man and a woman – look up.

‘No,’ I say, and rush through the door.

Chapter Nine

‘Won’t be long now, kid,’ I say to her.

She just nods, doesn’t talk much. It could’ve been worse – she could have been a right mouthy little shit, but she seems to be keeping in line so far. I haven’t told her my real name, not that I suppose it matters in the end. We are judged by our actions, not by our monikers. That’s what the shrink said anyway. They say a man acquires more knowledge when he’s inside, but I didn’t just learn the bad stuff. I was guided towards the right path. All right – I did ask Tommy Deeks how things like this are supposed to be done. But that was serendipity. He was sent to me for a reason.

‘Routines,’ he’d said. ‘Once you know someone’s routine, then you can intercept them at any time you see fit. And I don’t mean watching them for a few hours or a few days – you have to watch them for fuckin’ weeks. Their lives should be more important than yours – you eat, shit, sleep and dream about them. Then, my friend, it’s easy as fuck.’

All I needed was a name. And it just so happens that children have their own little routines too. Even in this day and age, kids are still allowed to walk the streets on their own. Their fuckwit parents should know better. There are too many weirdos out there. She’s lucky it’s only me that took her – there were some right filthy perverts inside. Not that we got to see them. Most of them would be killed if they put them with the rest of us.

Anyway. I digress.

This is probably the biggest thing I’ve ever done. It will be my salvation.

And God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. For God was with him.

And if the ends justify the means …

She will be so pleased with me. It would be like none of all that bad stuff ever happened.

‘When will you take me to my mum?’

Her little voice almost made me shit myself. For a second I forgot she was there.

‘Not long now.’

There’s only so far I’m going to get away with that one. Another day or so, maybe. I’ve taken us the long way round, but we’ll be there soon. She’ll soon figure out that I’m not taking her to her mother. I look at her in the rear-view mirror – dressed in clothes I bought especially for her – her hair stuffed in a hat. Her cheeks look a bit red, but she’ll live. She looks just like her precious mummy. Although that bitch couldn’t even look me in the eye the last time I saw her.

She’ll have to soon enough though, won’t she?

Chapter Ten
Maggie

I’ve laid out all the cuttings from Zoe’s disappearance on the coffee table. There are only a few – there weren’t as many newspapers in 1986. Most papers used the photo of Zoe in her uniform – her first and last school photograph.

I try not to think about what she might have looked like if her picture had been taken every year after that. About how proud Sarah would have been of her. I try not to feel bitter every time I see her old school friends standing at the gates of the school down the road, adults now, waiting for children of their own. I simply let it stab me once, in the heart, before I bury it again. We used to talk about Zoe every day. I don’t get to talk about her any more. No one else knows her now.

I look at the clock. Jim’s late, but for once I don’t mind. It gives me time to look at all the different versions of her little face in the cuttings: small and grainy; black and white and brightly coloured, of which there’s only one. In the centre of them all I’ve placed the last photo of Sarah and Zoe together: my daughter and granddaughter.

I bury my face in my hands. It never gets any easier. It’s not the natural order. I’ve said that to myself a thousand times. I wish God would just take me to be with them. It’s too hard to be the only one left. Well, almost the only one.

Jim’s taps on the kitchen window halt the flow of my tears. I grab one of the cushions off the settee and soak up the wet from my face. This is why I hardly ever look at these pictures.

‘Where are you, Maggie?’

‘Where do you think I am? I’ve only two rooms.’

I place the cushion back next to me, but reversed.

Jim appears at the threshold and shakes off his coat.

‘You could’ve been in the lav,’ he says.

‘Well, you can’t ask where a lady is if you think she’s in the lav.’

‘It was just something to say,’ he says, ‘so you’d know I was here.’

He sighs and the settee sinks a little as he sits next to me. We don’t often sit like this together. I rub my right arm with my left hand to get rid of the tingling.

‘So this is what you’ve kept all these years,’ he says, looking at the pictures on the table.

He takes a folded newspaper from the inside pocket of his coat. The things he can carry in there. Last week he took out a tin of pease pudding because I’d never eaten it before. He should’ve kept it in there.

‘It’s today’s,’ he says. ‘She made the nationals.’

My intake of breath gives away my surprise.

‘Don’t look so shocked,’ he says. ‘I knew you’d want to read it.’

I take it from him.

‘I know. But don’t you think you’re indulging me? An old fool getting caught up in a story that’s nothing to do with her?’

He shakes his head. ‘You’re not the only one. They were all talking about it at the shop. And anyway, it’s not a story – it’s real life. You more than most know all about that. Stop being so ashamed about it.’

I feel myself flush. Am I ashamed? Ashamed we couldn’t find her? Guilty that she was taken in the first place? Or ashamed that I still think about her, that she might come back to me after everyone else has gone?

Jim picks up one of Zoe’s articles. ‘A sweet shop? Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Like where this girl, Grace Harper, was last seen.’

Zoe should’ve been in the paper straight away. Perhaps she’d have been on the news all day too – they have news channels playing twenty-four hours a day now.

‘Have you been watching Sky News?’ asks Jim.

He read my mind.

‘I don’t have Sky News. Why would I want Sky? All I watch is Countdown.’

That’s a lie. I watch so much rubbish I couldn’t say. Channel Five do a true-life film every day that I usually end up crying to. I’d never tell Jim about that.

He winces as he stands up. ‘You’re the only person I know who keeps their remote control next to the television. What’s the bloody point of that?’

‘Mind your language,’ I say.

I wonder if Grace’s mother is waiting at the window, like Sarah used to.

‘You’ll have Freeview,’ he says. ‘Everyone does now. News 24 – it’ll be on there.’

I leave him to play with the remote control. I place all of Zoe’s articles back in the folder, except for one. It was the one that broke us: Search called off for missing Zoe Pearson.

We heard it from the police first. Newspapers weren’t as quick off the mark as they are now.

‘Every lead has been exhausted, Sarah,’ Detective Jackson said. ‘If we receive any new information, we’ll carry on the investigation. It’s not closed, it’s still open.’

I feel a drip on my hand and realise it’s from my face.

Jim turns and glances at me.

‘There you go,’ he says, handing me the remote. ‘It should be repeated any minute, it’s nearly on the hour.’

He pretends not to notice, Lord love him. That’s what we’ve always done, people our age: ignore things. Sarah used to tell me off for it. ‘For fuck’s sake, Mother, this isn’t the 1950s. People talk about things now – important things.’

Thinking about it thumps me in the chest. I beat myself up about it every day: my hypocrisy. It was so hard to talk about Zoe then. But if Sarah were here now I’d be different. I’d talk about Zoe all the time.

‘She used to sit by the window, did our Sarah,’ I say. ‘Waiting and waiting, never leaving the house. I have to be here when she gets back, she said. Every day. For years.’

‘Aye,’ says Jim.

I’ve told him many times and he always listens as though it’s the first. He reaches over and pats my hand. I look into the little girl’s eyes in the newspaper he brought me. Grace Harper’s eyes.

‘This one’ll be different.’ I say to her, ‘They’ll find you, love. Just you see. It’s different nowadays. People have their cameras everywhere.’

Jim carefully picks up Zoe’s article from the coffee table. ‘Is it okay if I …?’

‘Of course.’

He takes his glasses, which are on a chain around his neck, and perches them on the end of his nose. He tuts several times, shaking his head. He removes his glasses and rests them on his chest.

‘These sightings of your Zoe,’ he says. ‘Where were they?’

‘Cyprus, France, Spain.’ I reel off the list.

‘Really? How could they have done that?’

‘Who knows – they might have hidden her.’

Jim smiles at me kindly, like most people used to when I dared to believe Zoe was still alive. He looks up at the television.

‘It’s the appeal.’

A policeman in a suit is reading from a piece of paper. Next to him are, I presume, Grace’s parents. The mother has her head in her hands; the father comforts her, his arm around her shoulders.

My heart beats too fast, I wrap my arms around myself – I’m so cold, I’m always cold.

‘They look young,’ says Jim.

‘People do these days. Must be in their early thirties, I imagine. Though I can’t see her face properly. My mother looked fifty when she was thirty.’ My mouth is talking without my mind thinking. ‘Those poor people.’

It cuts to a photograph of a school uniform laid out on a table.

‘These are the clothes Grace was wearing, although if someone has taken her, she might not be wearing the same ones.’

Jim tuts. ‘Course she wouldn’t be wearing the same clothes. But you know, Maggie, I know I shouldn’t say this, but what if someone’s taken her, and just killed the poor little mite?’

I sigh loudly in the hope it’ll shut him up. Even though I’ve thought the same thing myself.

The appeal must have been taped earlier as the news article cuts to a shot outside: a village hall or a community centre. I see the mother’s face for the first time – her friend, or perhaps her sister, holding her by the elbow.

I get up slowly and walk to the television. ‘She’s a bonny one, isn’t she?’

He doesn’t answer.

‘Would you pause it, Jim?’

He presses the button several times.

‘Come on!’

‘I’m bloody pressing it.’

He did it. The picture’s frozen. I get closer to the screen, bending down to look at her face. My knees go weak. I drop to the carpet.

I can’t breathe properly.

Jim’s at my side.

‘Have you had a turn? Shall I fetch the doctor?’

I take several breaths before I can speak and shake my head.

‘I’m fine. Pass me that picture.’ I point to the mantelpiece, but he picks up the one facing the wall – the one I rarely look at. ‘Not that one, the one on the right.’

He grabs it and hands it to me. I hold it next to the pretty face on the television.

‘Look.’

He squints.

‘Put the glasses on your face, man.’

As he does, he brings his head next to mine, just a few feet from the television.

‘Well, would you look at that,’ he says. ‘She’s the double of your Sarah. But that’s impossible, she’s—’

‘I know, I know. But it could be …’

Jim frowns. ‘What are the chances of that? It can’t be.’

My shoulders slump. ‘I know. But it might. It might be Zoe.’

Chapter Eleven
Stephanie

Grace has been gone for almost three days. If the police have any new information from the television appeal yesterday, then they haven’t updated us.

Mum has been making a fuss of Emma, though I don’t begrudge it of course, not now Grace is missing. She’s indulged her ever since she came to live with us. Emma arrived with only a little rucksack. I had just turned eleven and she was ten and three quarters. Her hair was straggly, like it hadn’t been washed for weeks, but it didn’t smell horrible – it was sweet, like sticking your nose in a bag of pick ’n’ mix from the cinema. Her knees were dirty though, and her skirt had food stains all over it. Mum had warned Dad and me that Emma might be in a right state because she’d been alone in the house for at least three days until her neighbours had noticed. ‘Her mother ran away with a man half her age,’ Mum said. ‘All she had left in the cupboards was a tin of Golden Syrup and a can of prunes, which she couldn’t even open.’

Emma and I didn’t speak for four days. I was a little scared of her, plus she was given my bed under the window. It had been my favourite place to be. I could pull back the curtains and watch the stars when I couldn’t sleep, imagining I was somewhere else. It was only after I heard her crying for the fifth night in a row that I tried to talk to her.

‘Do you miss your mum?’ I whispered.

I heard the pillow move. I took that as a nod.

‘Do you want me to turn the lamp on?’

‘Yes please,’ she said, as quiet as anything.

I flicked on the light and I’ll never forget her face. The skin around her eyes was so puffy I could barely see them. Her hair was stuck to her cheeks from the wetness of her tears.

I opened my covers. ‘Do you want to come in with me?’

She nodded and almost dived into my bed. Her head snuggled into my chest and she put her arms around me. I turned off the light, and put my arm around her shoulders. I looked to the window. The curtains were open and I could see the stars. Within minutes she was fast asleep.

The memory is so vivid, I almost forget where I am. I give myself a shake – now isn’t the time to get lost in the past. I go into the kitchen to check on Jamie. I’ve kept him off school and he’s been on his laptop all morning, reading what he can find about Grace.

‘They’ve created a Facebook page,’ he says.

‘Who has?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know the names. Do you?’

He points to the screen. I haven’t used Facebook for ages.

‘I’ve no idea. They sound Scottish. How can they even create a page when they don’t know us?’

‘Anyone can create a Facebook page.’

‘That’s a bit creepy.’

He shrugs. ‘It’s just what happens.’

He scrolls down the page, which is filled with well-meaning messages: I hope they find her. Praying she gets home safe. Amongst them are comments from her school friends: Missed you at school today, hunnie. They’re written as though Grace might actually read them. Who would let their eight-year-old child write on Facebook?

‘What’s that?’ I look closer at the screen.

‘Ah yeah. Just some random psychic woman.’

‘Doesn’t she realise how upsetting things like that are?’

‘Things like what?’ It’s Mum.

‘Don’t sneak up on us like that.’

‘What’s going on?’ she says. ‘Is that Facebook? You know what I’ve said about that.’

‘It’s just some attention-seeking woman, that’s all,’ I say. ‘Obviously on the sherry or something.’

‘Let me sit down, Jamie.’

‘Sure, Gran.’

He gets up silently. Why didn’t she choose another chair? There are two spare. I rub Jamie’s arm, but he flicks my hand away. Mum pulls the laptop closer and puts on her glasses.

‘I thought you said …’ I begin, but I shouldn’t start.

‘What?’ She says it dismissively, but I know she knows.

She said Facebook was dangerous, that no one in their right mind should ever look at it, or write on it. ‘You never know who’s watching.’ She’s the same with mobile phones; I’ve bought her two now but she leaves them in the cupboard, switched off.

‘Deandra,’ says Mum. ‘What kind of a name is that?’

‘One created by fairies,’ I say.

Mum gives me a sideways glance. In an instant her expression has said, How can you be flippant at a time like this?

Dad would have understood. Whenever something terrible happened, he would always cut through the darkness by saying something light. Three days after his own father died, Dad said, I owed him a fiver, you know. No one laughed, they just smiled. We could say anything to Dad. He’d know that it’s my defence mechanism to try to remain in the present. Otherwise I might fall apart, and I’d be no use to anyone then, would I?

‘I have tuned in to my spirit guides,’ says Mum, reading from the screen, ‘and requested their help. I believe that Grace is still alive, but she is being kept somewhere. I hear the sound of water …’ She puts her glasses on the top of her head. ‘Well, that’s utter bollocks.’

My eyes dart to Jamie. ‘Language, Mother!’

He rolls his eyes at me. ‘Mum, I’m thirteen, I’m hardly a child.’

In ordinary circumstances I would have laughed, teased him.

‘What’s going on?’ Emma stands at the doorway. Her brown hair is all over the place, her dressing gown is undone and her nightshirt buttons are done up wrong. She barely slept last night, but it looks like she hasn’t had any sleep today either.

Mum flips down the lid of the computer.

‘Nothing, love. How are you feeling?’

‘I’m not.’

Nadia comes back inside – the breeze travels through to the kitchen as she closes the front door. She goes out whenever she gets a phone call about the case – probably because we’d listen in and second-guess the news from her responses.

Emma’s hands are shaking. Mum stands and puts her arms around her. It’s hard to read Nadia’s expression – her demeanour has been measured and constant since she came to the house.

‘Well?’ says Mum.

‘We’ve had no sightings of Grace, but …’

Emma bends over, as though she’s been kicked in the stomach.

‘I … I … thought you’d found her then … I thought you were about to say …’

Mum guides her to the other side of the table, pulls out a chair, and sits her gently down as though she were made of glass. She stands behind her and smooths down her hair. Why can’t she just leave her alone? Emma raises her head and meets Nadia’s gaze. My sister’s jaw sets and she narrows her eyes.

‘What is it? What have you found out?’

‘We’ve had a big response to the appeal – a lot of people offering sympathy, many saying they’ve never trusted their neighbour—’

I clear my throat loudly. Why is she saying all of this – how long has she been doing this job?

‘Anyway, there are some pieces of information we are following up—’

‘But what if someone’s taken her out of the country?’ I say. ‘What then? How will you find her?’

‘We alerted all ports – air and ferry – as soon as we knew of Grace’s disappearance. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. We have an image from the CCTV camera outside the newsagent’s on Monday, which shows a man and what appears to be a young boy. We’re about to release the image to the press, but we wanted to show you first.’

She reaches into her rucksack and pulls out an iPad. She swipes it and places it on the kitchen table.

‘Do you recognise either of these people?’

I lean over, as do Mum and Emma; our heads touch as we look at the screen.

‘It’s really blurry,’ I say. ‘You’d think they’d have better quality images these days.’

Mum gives me one of her glances and sighs. I can’t say anything right.

‘It is rather fuzzy,’ she says, after a minute. ‘How are we meant to tell by looking at their backs? They could be anyone.’

‘Do you recognise any items of clothing on the child?’

‘But it’s a boy,’ says Mum, rubbing her temples.

Emma looks up at Nadia.

‘Do you think this child might be Grace?’

‘We’re not sure yet,’ says Nadia, always talking in the collective, as though she has no opinion of her own.

Emma picks up the iPad.

‘But I can’t see the legs. This child has trousers on. And that coat – it’s too big. Grace’s only little, she doesn’t eat much, you see. I try to get her interested, but she’s not at all. The most food she’ll eat is at breakfast. She’d rather listen to One Direction, or read books, or play on the console, or—’

She drops the tablet onto the table. My chair flips over as I rush over to her and pull her head into my arms.

‘Oh, Steph. What am I going to do? I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. If anything’s happened to her I won’t be able to go on. I can’t bear it.’

I stroke her hair and whisper in her ear. ‘You are strong. You can do this. I’m here for you.’

She wipes the tears from her face with the heels of her palms.

‘Where’s Matt?’ She pushes me aside as she gets up from the chair, and walks out of the kitchen.

Mum and I are still scrutinising the CCTV image when Matt walks in.

‘Let me see,’ he says, swiping it from under our heads.

Mum opens her mouth, but closes it again. Obviously she can bite her tongue when it’s someone else.

Matt looks like shit. He slept in the same jeans and T-shirt he’s worn for days, bar the press conference. He only went to bed in the early hours of the morning after drinking the best part of two bottles of wine.

‘Can’t see a fucking thing,’ he says. ‘Haven’t you got a clearer picture?’

I glance over at Jamie. Usually he smirks if an adult swears in front of him, but his lips are tight; he’s staring at the table. I don’t think he’s heard Matt swear before.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Nadia. ‘We don’t.’

Matt rubs his eyes with one hand, and looks again.

‘Jesus, it could be anybody. Do you think this bloke has dressed Grace up like this? Have you got any more pictures of them? Surely this can’t be the only one of these two from the cameras in town.’

‘We’re working on it.’

‘Are we?’ he snaps. ‘Well this is no bloody use to me.’ He throws the iPad onto the table. ‘Get back to me when you’ve got more than this shit.’

I sit down next to Jamie at the table.

‘You okay, love?’

He nods. ‘Do you think …?’

‘What?’ I say, but he’s looking down at the floor. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I know it’s Friday tomorrow, but do you think it would be okay if I went back to school?’

I’ve been selfish keeping him here – making sure I can see him, so I know where he is. I should’ve realised that being here would be uncomfortable for him. His dad texted last night saying Jamie could stay there, which might not be a bad idea – if Neil didn’t work all the time.

I put my hand over his. ‘Of course it is.’

Chapter Twelve
Maggie

I stand outside the bedroom door. I hardly ever open it, but I feel as though Sarah’s telling me to go inside, to remember. I almost don’t want to. The everyday thoughts are bad enough – those pangs I feel in my chest when it catches me by surprise, when I think I’ve buried it enough to go about my day. But it never goes away. I’m meant to be sad. Nothing will change that.

Sarah and Zoe moved in with Ron and me six weeks before Zoe went missing. Missing – it sounds so flippant. She was taken from us, murdered, vanished. They are the dramatic words that should belong to Zoe, because we don’t know what happened to her. No, they’re not the only words. She was kind, even at five years old, so kind. Yes, she could be challenging, but only because she was so bright – not that we said so at the time.

Sarah’s husband, David, had been made redundant, but they’d been arguing long before that. She and Zoe moved in with us to give Sarah some space to think. But Zoe missed her dad.

Pull yourself together, Margaret. My mother’s voice is tingling in my ears.

Easier said than done, Mother.

I turn the handle and push the door open. I always leave the curtains tied, so it’s never dark. There’s not as much dust in here this time. What is dust, anyway? I once heard that it was about seventy per cent human skin. No one comes in here, so there can’t be much. I wonder how many of the little particles left behind are from Sarah and Zoe. I want to gather them all up and bring them to life.

Next to Sarah’s single bed is Zoe’s little camp bed. Her three teddies are still on her pillow. One of them, her favourite pink elephant, Wellie (she couldn’t say Nellie when she first got it, and it just stuck), is almost standing upright. The clothes they arrived with are still in suitcases under the bed. I couldn’t bear to unpack, to look at them, to touch them, to smell them. Mother had a point when she said that some things are best left buried – it feels too painful to unearth them.

I still wonder if things would’ve been different if Sarah hadn’t left David. They lived over twenty minutes away, so Zoe would never have gone to the sweet shop on the corner. I used to blame David for driving Sarah away, but that has lessened. I haven’t seen him in over ten years.

I don’t want to look to the left; I know what I’ll see. The mahogany chest of drawers that Ron and I bought from a car boot sale in Blackpool. On top of it will be a twelve by seven photograph of Zoe in a beautiful carved frame; there’ll be a box that contains a lock of Zoe’s hair from her first trip to the hairdresser’s; the candle, burned only once from her christening. There will be angels made from porcelain, plastic, wood; a stone Zoe picked from St Anne’s beach; a jar of perfume she made with roses and Ron’s aftershave; the conker she pickled in vinegar and made me bake for seven hours.

I know all those things are there and I can’t look at them.

I stroke the cover of Sarah’s bed – the place where my beautiful daughter died, and back out of the room.

Chapter Thirteen
Stephanie

Our secret has been easy to keep from Emma, as we’d only communicated through email. Emma, famously to everyone who knows her, never uses email outside of work, or Facebook, or any of that – she seldom even texts. She says she prefers to hear a person’s voice.

Matt hasn’t mentioned it since the text the other day. We can’t talk about it here. It wouldn’t just betray Emma, it would hurt Mum too. Somehow, I’ve got to access Jamie’s laptop and delete whatever we put online. But I can’t now – I’m frozen on the sofa. Matt is watching every news report about Grace – as is Mum, who’s sitting in the armchair opposite me. Sky News has been running almost twenty-four-hour coverage since she went missing on Monday. It’s now Friday. How has it got to the end of the week without her being found? Grace’s face is everywhere; if someone saw her on the street, would they recognise her? Perhaps they’d ignore the feeling that they’ve seen her somewhere before.

I try not to imagine what that man in the CCTV image wants with her – even though it might not even be her in the picture. But if it is, and their picture is everywhere – on television, in the papers – then the man won’t go out with her in public, he’ll hide her away. We might never see her again.

There are reporters in town, and camera crews everywhere – interviewing the police spokesperson and the residents. It’s like it’s not real, that it’s happening to someone else in a different town.

‘I need to go and look for her,’ says Matt. ‘I should be out there, helping everyone else. They probably think I don’t care. If I could just see a picture of this man’s face – the man who was holding her hand … then I’ll find him, find her.’ He keeps saying the same things. He walks over to Nadia, who’s perched on a dining chair near the door leading to the kitchen. She’s been here every day, from early morning until late at night. ‘Please let me help.’

Nadia has that same look on her face, the same tilt of the head she always uses to address him. ‘Nearly the whole town is looking for her, Matthew. The whole town. We need you to be here in case we find her.’

‘But what if it’s not her in that photograph – what if someone didn’t take her and she’s trapped somewhere? She’ll be waiting for me to come and get her. I’m letting her down just sitting here. What kind of fucking father am I, who just sits watching everyone else while they look for my daughter? It’s my job, I should be there. It’s been nearly four days. She’s going to be really cold.’ His voice is barely a whisper. Tears are streaming down his face. ‘It’s freezing at night.’

She guides him back to the sofa and I just watch, useless, an outsider looking in. It’s the first of October tomorrow; the temperature might start to fall. I can’t think about Grace being cold. I can’t think about her being scared. My fears and my hopes are intertwined: I hope someone has taken her, but that they’re looking after her, keeping her warm. It’s wishful thinking, but better than what my imagination is trying to show me: the worst possible things that don’t correspond with my lovely Grace. My thoughts trigger a rage I’ve never felt before. If anything happens to her, I will kill whoever did it with my bare hands.

The same thoughts go over and over in my head.

I sit up quickly.

Jamie.

Mum looks over at me.

‘He’s at school,’ she says. It must be the first time she’s ever read my mind. ‘Do you want me to ring the school again – check he’s okay?’

I look at Matt – he’s not listening. Every time I talk about Jamie, I feel like I’m rubbing his nose in the fact that my child is safe.

‘How many times have we rung?’ I say.

‘Three.’ She’s staring at the television now.

Three times? I can’t remember the first time. Thank God it’s Saturday tomorrow. When I escorted Jamie to the taxi this morning, there were flashes from the reporters’ cameras. I wish I’d had a blanket to cover his face. Then whoever has Grace won’t come for Jamie.

‘Get me a drink, will you, Steph?’

I stand up automatically and grab the cup at Matt’s feet.

‘Not tea. Something stronger.’

I glance at the clock on the mantelpiece – it’s twenty past one. I look to Mum. She raises her eyebrows and shrugs her shoulders. This from the woman who says drinking before six o’clock makes you either too rich or too common.

‘Do you think it’s wise at this time of day?’ I say. ‘What if …’

I don’t know what to say – no one is listening to me anyway.

‘There’s some vodka on top of the fridge,’ says Mum.

How does one person know where every single thing is in every house she visits?

I walk into the kitchen. My heart jolts when I see Emma at the kitchen table with Jamie’s laptop in front of her.

‘How did you guess the password?’ I say, grabbing the vodka off the top of the fridge.

‘I didn’t guess it, did I? How the hell would I guess that? Jamie gave it to me.’

I don’t even know his password. I stop my mouth before it opens and actually bite my tongue. I hate it when she goes behind my back like this, like she can do as she pleases, like she’s— shit, stop it, Stephanie. I want to slap myself. Grace is not here and I’m thinking about myself.

I get a tumbler and pour the vodka halfway.

‘What does Matt drink with his vodka?’ I say.

‘I wouldn’t know these days.’ Emma’s eyes don’t leave the screen. My heart beats faster at the thought of what she might be reading. ‘You’d know better than I do.’

I say nothing and stride into the sitting room, offering the glass to Matt.

‘Am I supposed to drink it neat? What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you not see the coke in the fridge?’

I just stand there. I can’t believe my hand isn’t shaking. I don’t know if I’m more upset than angry. I hear a noise behind me.

‘Don’t you ever, ever talk to my daughter like that!’

Mum is standing next to me and has her right fist held up. The tears well up in my eyes. Matt has never spoken to me like that; Mum has never stuck up for me like that. The air is charged for what feels like minutes. I look to Nadia; Mum’s looking at her too.

‘Perhaps now is not the time to get angry with your family, Matthew,’ she says.

I can see the venom in his eyes as he looks at me. When he shifts his gaze to Nadia, his expression softens.

I’m shaking as I walk back to the kitchen and sit at the table next to Emma.

‘What are you looking at?’ I say to her.

She glances at me as though I’m a nuisance. Did she hear what just happened? Her eyes are bloodshot and there are tiny red blisters under them.

‘That psychic on Grace’s page on Facebook. I’m doing some research on her.’

‘Oh.’ I relax a little into the chair. ‘I didn’t know you knew your way around Facebook.’

‘Just because you don’t see me on the laptop at home, doesn’t mean I don’t use it all day at work.’

I should’ve realised – she’s on a computer all the time at the recruitment agency. She didn’t look at me when she spoke, but paranoia tells me that there was an undertone. What else has she been hiding from me?

‘I’ve got to keep an open mind about these things,’ she says.

‘I guess.’

She tuts. ‘My daughter is missing, Stephanie. Wouldn’t you consider every possibility if it were Jamie?’

‘Of course. I’d consider every possibility for Grace too.’

She glances at me and purses her lips. It’s her way of saying we’re friends again.

‘Bring your chair nearer to me. You can help me look.’

She clicks onto Deandra Divine’s Facebook page. I say nothing about the name. The profile photo is what I expected: a black and white shot of a woman in her fifties, black straight hair framing her face in a centre parting, her gaze off camera. Emma and I would have laughed at it any other time.

‘I’ve read about other missing person cases she’s given readings about, cases from years ago. She’s been right most of the time.’

If she were the real deal, surely she’d be right all of the time. It’s a thought I keep to myself.

‘I’ve emailed her, Steph. If I manage to get an appointment with her, will you come with me?’

I pause for a second. ‘Of course.’

I couldn’t relax until Jamie was back from school. I didn’t know how long it would take him to get here. At home he’s usually back at 3.45 p.m., but I booked him a taxi to pick him up – no doubt he was mortified in front of his friends – and he didn’t arrive until 3.55 p.m. In those ten minutes I experienced only a fraction of what Emma and Matt are going through. He’s upstairs in his usual place now, in the spare room.

Mum is still hovering over Emma. It’s her way of dealing with things beyond her control. I can tell that she’s been crying because she spent ten minutes in the bathroom and the rims of her eyes are still red. I don’t say anything. I never do. Once you start talking about feelings from the past, there’s no way of forgetting them again.

When Dad died four years ago, she baked and cooked for twelve hours solid until she collapsed on the sofa at three o’clock in the morning. She would never let us see her cry. She tried to hide the noise in their – her – bedroom by putting the television on loud. Emma and I would sit at her door, both too afraid to open it.

It had all happened so quickly. Emma and I had been at Mum and Dad’s house when the phone call came. ‘You need to come to the hospital,’ said the woman on the other end of the line to Mum. ‘It’s your husband. He’s been in an accident.’

‘What do you think it means?’ Mum asked in the car on the way there. ‘Why didn’t your dad speak to me himself?’

She wouldn’t stop talking.

Emma sat next to me in the passenger seat as I drove us there. While Mum spoke, Emma and I kept exchanging glances; I think we both knew what we were about to hear without us saying it aloud.

When I pulled up into the hospital car park I experienced a sense of doom – that I was walking into another life, another chapter. It was a feeling strangely familiar, like I’d been expecting it without realising.

The police officer was waiting for us in the relatives’ room. He already had his hat in his hands.

‘I’m very sorry,’ he said to Mum. ‘But your husband was taken ill this afternoon. He suffered a stroke while he was driving. There was no one else injured.’

‘What?’ she said. ‘I don’t understand. We’re going out for dinner tonight … just the four of us.’

She looked to Emma and me as though we had the answers.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s happened.’

‘But I only saw him at midday,’ she said. ‘It can’t have happened. He was fine.’ She grabbed hold of my hand. ‘He looked fine, didn’t he, Stephanie?’

‘I … I haven’t seen him since last week.’

She put her hand on her forehead. ‘Yes, yes. You two only came round an hour ago.’ She looked at the policeman. ‘Are you sure you have the right person?’ She reached into her handbag, took out her purse and flipped it open. ‘Is this the same person?’

The police officer nodded. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Mum buried her face in her hands. ‘It can’t be. It can’t be.’

The room was closing in on me; the door, the walls, the ceiling. The tears fell down my face – a stream that came from nowhere.

Emma looked at me – her eyes wide, her mouth open. She shook her head. ‘I … I … it’s not right,’ she said. ‘Not Dad.’

My dad, my lovely dad, had gone in an instant.

He was pronounced dead an hour before we’d got to the hospital – just as Emma and I had arrived at our parents’ house. For a whole sixty minutes, he’d been lying there, on his own. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him, dying alone. The suggestion that he’d have felt nothing was of little comfort.

I jump as Mum sets a platter of sandwiches on the coffee table. Being in this house now, with Mum and Emma, is making me think about the past too much. Emma is sitting in her chair, her eyes always locked on the window.

‘I know you won’t feel like eating it, love.’ Mum places a small plate on the arm of Emma’s chair, which contains half an egg sandwich, minus the crusts. ‘But you need to keep your strength up … for Grace. She’ll need you to be strong for when she gets home.’

It’s like watching a switch activate in Emma’s mind: she turns to the plate.

‘Thanks, Mum.’

She stares at the sandwich for a few seconds before breaking it into four, placing one tiny piece into her mouth.

When she gets home. I so hope she’s right – that Mum has more foresight than I have.

Emma’s on her second glass of wine in thirty minutes. Matt phoned the woman at the off-licence and they were all too happy to deliver. Probably wanted to have a good look at the family in turmoil.

‘At least she didn’t charge,’ I said.

‘And so she shouldn’t,’ said Mum. ‘Though I dare say they shouldn’t be getting drunk.’

At a time like this, she didn’t say. Six bottles of wine and two litres of vodka the shop had delivered. We shouldn’t be drinking at a time like this, is what I had thought, until I’d finished my first glass of wine.

It hadn’t taken Mum long to join us. Thirty-five minutes later and she’s swinging her left leg, banging it against the bottom of the armchair. I want to dive on her leg to stop it moving.

Emma gets up quickly, glass in hand, and sways slightly. She collapses in front of the television, landing on her knees.

Mum sits forward on her chair, but doesn’t get up.

‘Emma. Are you okay? Have you drunk too much?’

I look at Mum through narrow eyes. What goes on in her head? Emma can drink as much as she wants; she doesn’t need policing right now.

‘I’ve got to find that DVD,’ says Emma.

When I get up I feel dizzy. My glass clinks on the mantelpiece as I place it between the photographs of Dad and the one of Grace and Jamie last Christmas – their faces covered in pudding and cream after they’d pretended to be cats, eating from a saucer on the floor.

I kneel down next to Emma and flick through the DVD cases in the drawer under the television.

‘The one from last year,’ she says, but I know which one – it’s the only one they had transferred to DVD from Matt’s phone. We both have a copy. I thank God that Jamie is upstairs, so he doesn’t have to see everyone like this.

‘What are you doing, Emma?’ Mum gets up and stands behind us. ‘You’re just torturing yourself.’

I can tell without looking that she’s got her hands on her hips. Three sighs later, she leaves the room and stomps upstairs.

‘Here it is.’

Emma wrestles the case open and opens the disc tray of Grace’s Xbox. She doesn’t move from the floor as the video of Christmas past takes over the television. The camera travels from the Christmas tree to the door to the hallway. Grace appears in her pyjamas, with strands of her shoulder-length hair in a golden halo around her head.

‘You haven’t started without me, have you?’ she says.

‘Course we haven’t, sleepyhead.’ Matt’s voice booms through the speakers.

Grace walks over to the tree, which has at least fifty presents underneath it. She stands with her back to the camera, putting both hands on her head.

‘He actually came!’ She turns round, her eyes glistening. ‘I told Hannah he was real and she didn’t believe me, Daddy.’

The camera turns to the floor while her little feet run to Matt and she jumps onto his lap. The screen goes black for a couple of seconds before Grace is pictured sitting cross-legged on the carpet, yanking open a present wrapped with too much Sellotape.

‘What is it?’ It’s Emma – the camera pans to her at the kitchen doorway, looking flushed and wearing an apron covered with smears of food.

‘Socks,’ shouts Grace off camera.

Emma rolls her eyes, turns round and walks into the kitchen.

The camera goes back to Grace, holding up the socks.

‘They’re Minions! I love them!’

She rips off the cardboard and puts them on. She stomps in a circle.

‘I’m trampling all over my Minions,’ she says, laughing.

Next to me, Emma grabs the Xbox controller and presses pause. It leaves Grace with one foot in mid-air and a huge smile on her lovely face. My hands are soaking wet and I realise that my tears have been dripping onto them.

Emma throws the controller onto the floor. I take the glass of wine from her hands just in time as she buries her face in them.

‘Why didn’t I watch her open her presents? I only saw her open the Xbox and that was it.’ She sobs into her sleeve. ‘I’m a terrible mother. I don’t deserve her.’

I rub her back. It doesn’t feel enough. I want to magic Grace from where she is now and back into this room. My heart hurts.

‘But you had the dinner to cook for everyone,’ I say. ‘She loves your roast potatoes.’

It’s such a shit thing to say. It makes her cry even more.

‘When she comes back,’ she says, ‘I’ll make them for her every day.’

Her cries are so loud and so heartbreaking. I pull her towards me and we cry together.

Mum is upstairs comforting Emma. Jamie went to sleep an hour ago and Matt’s sitting on the sofa, his head resting on the back, his eyes looking to the ceiling. I step over his outstretched legs and sit next to him. I lean back into the sofa, feeling a brief flutter of comfort from the soft cushions around me. It’s so quiet that the ticking clock is the only sound.

The times I have been here, when Grace has been watching the Disney channel, playing her dance game on the console or getting cross with Minecraft— stop, stop. Don’t think about it. I can’t go under too, not when they need me.

I wipe my face with both of my sleeves and try to muffle my sniffs with the tissues constantly balled up in my hand. I don’t know what to say to Matt. He brings his head down.

‘About that text,’ he says. ‘The emails …’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I don’t want you to think that that was all I thought about when the police took the laptop – that I wasn’t thinking about Grace. It’s just that I’d been at work and—’

‘I know. Don’t give it a second thought.’

‘I’m sorry about shouting at you before.’ He breathes in, and his chest rises. He turns his head towards mine. ‘We shouldn’t have started all of that anyway.’

I say nothing in return, but my face flushes.

‘I’d been at work,’ he repeats. ‘While Grace was being taken, or hurt, or God-knows-what – and for what? I work so hard for us, for our little family – and when it counted, I wasn’t even here for them.’

Emma and Matt’s lives are so far removed from mine. Jamie’s father sees him every Saturday night and Sunday, yet my son is never included in Neil and his new wife’s holidays. They put on expensive birthday parties that always put my homemade meal and birthday cake to shame. They invited Jamie for Chrismas the year before last and gave him at least thirty presents. I spent that Christmas with Mum. Jamie worried about me, but I couldn’t show how I really felt – I had to be happy for him being surrounded by Neil and Joanna’s families. It’s something Emma and I never had – a big family gathering. It’s something Jamie deserves.

Tears spring to my eyes again. Everything’s making me cry. I’m being over-sentimental. I wish I could be someone else sometimes.

Matt turns his head towards mine again. This time I turn and face him.

‘You’re always here, aren’t you?’ he says.

I frown.

‘I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, you’re always there for us. You work, you have Jamie. I don’t know how you do it on your own. You’re so strong.’ He reaches out his hand. With his index finger he strokes my cheek. ‘So strong.’

I sit there for a few seconds. Feeling the warmth of his hand near my face. What must it be like to have that all the time, to have someone close to you with affection at the flick of a finger?

I gently move his finger away with my hand.

‘I’m not as strong as you think.’

He brings his hand down and folds his arms.

‘Emma’s so cold.’

I don’t know where to look. My cheeks are on fire. Emma hasn’t mentioned any problems between them, but then she hasn’t said much about anything for the past few weeks.

‘Shit,’ says Matt. ‘I don’t mean now. I mean before. Before Grace.’ He leans forward and rests his forehead in his hands. ‘What the fuck am I talking about? I’m so sorry, Steph. You always bear the brunt of my shit. Why am I even thinking about it, let alone saying it?’

I’ve known Matt longer than I have my ex-husband. It’s only since last Christmas that I became nervous around him.

We were sitting next to each other at the table. Emma was flitting about, appearing busy when all the food was already laid out. I was wearing the red dress I’d worn to my work’s Christmas party, and had my hair cut shorter so it rested on my shoulders.

‘You’re looking great today, Steph,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘I think being single suits you.’

He’d never commented on my looks before. It was such a harmless remark, but it surprised me so much that I didn’t reply and my face burned. I was relieved when Emma finally sat down, but from that moment, whenever he talked to me, it was as though there was no one else in the room.

I don’t think Emma noticed – she always seemed so preoccupied with other things. I can barely glance at him now when others are around us, in case they guess how I feel.

When I first told Emma that Neil had left, she came round to my house straight away, dragging Matt with her. When she went upstairs to talk to Jamie, Matt sat on the chair by the window – the one Neil usually sat in.

Matt looked around the living room – at the bits and pieces Neil and I had bought over the years; the mantelpiece that gave the impression of a happy marriage – the wedding photograph, the candles, that stupid figurine of a couple dancing that Neil’s mother bought.

Matt clasped his hands together; he looked awkward, as though he didn’t know what to say to me. He hardly ever visited my house, I was always the one going there. He didn’t suit sitting in it.

‘I don’t know the details, Steph,’ he said. ‘But I’m so sorry.’

‘Did Neil say anything to you about it?’

‘God no! To be honest we don’t really talk outside of family gatherings. I don’t think he likes me that much.’

He was right. Neil never had anything good to say about Matt. ‘Full of himself; I’m sure he’s going a bit thin on top; putting on a bit of weight is our Matt.’ Neil could be a right bitch. I wrote it off as harmless jealousy at the time; he was nice to Matt’s face – overly so, to the point that it appeared a little obsequious. Neil hadn’t attended the last few family meals; he was always working on some important project. I should’ve noticed him quietly removing himself from my family.

‘I’m here for you, Steph,’ said Matt. ‘Anytime you need to talk.’

It was strange hearing him say I. Whenever Emma and Matt usually spoke it was as a collective: ‘We’re getting this for Grace’; ‘Are you coming round to ours?’ Neil and I never talked like that.

I lean forward and look at him now – this man I have known for as long as Emma has. When I think about it, Emma had been rather distracted – she does that sometimes when she’s having a hard time at work and doesn’t want to bother anyone with her troubles. ‘Everyone has better things to think about than my problems,’ she always says, but she doesn’t mean it. Perhaps she includes Matt in everyone.

My hand reaches over to him; it hovers for a few seconds before I pat his back. I can’t do anything else.

Chapter Fourteen

The only words I’ve said to George since the ferry are yes, no and thank you. And we’ve been driving for over a hundred hours or whatever it is. I’m usually a chatterbox in the car – Mummy would have told me to keep it zipped at least twenty times if she were driving me. My bum is burning I’ve been sitting on it for that long.

‘Come on, kid.’ He keeps trying to talk to me. ‘I’m getting bored driving, listening to bloody French radio stations. You’re not still mad at me, are you?’

He was mad at me, but I can’t say that. He’d tell me off again. He can just turn. I’ve seen grown-ups do that. I keep trying to guess to myself how old he is. He’s older than Daddy, but not as old as Gran. His hair is black, but it has loads of streaks of grey, and he’s either got a lot of hair gel in it, or it needs washing. That’s what Mummy says about Daddy’s, though he doesn’t wear hair gel much these days.

Tears come to my eyes when I think of Mummy and Daddy. They’ll be missing me by now. Are they really waiting for me in Belgium? George won’t let me talk to them on the phone. It would be good to hear their voices, then I won’t miss them as much.

I have to blink really fast to stop the tears. I daren’t ask George about Mummy any more. Every time I do, he shouts at me. For the fiftieth fucking time, stop talking about Mummy and Daddy. I’ll leave you in a field if you’re not careful. It was dark when he said that.

Out of the window, the land is flat. It’s like I can see for miles, but I can’t see England. We’re nowhere near the sea.

‘When are we stopping for food?’ It’s my tummy that told my mouth to talk. My brain didn’t want it to.

‘Ah, so it does speak.’ He reaches over to the passenger seat and puts a cap on his head. It’s not a nice cap like Abigail from school got from Disneyland, but a beige one – like a grandad would wear. ‘Once we cross the border, we’ll stop off somewhere. Promise. We just have to get past these bastards.’

He’s the only man I’ve ever met that would do swearing in front of a kid. My gran would have a coronary if she heard him.

In front of us, cars are lined up in rows. There are little houses in the middle of the road that everyone is stopping beside. George turns round.

‘Listen, kid. They might call you by a different name, but it’s just a game. We’re playing at pretend. If you win, and they don’t guess your real name, then I’ll buy you some sweets after your dinner. Deal?’

I nod. I just heard different name and sweets. I’m quite good at pretending. In my first school play, I was Mary – and I didn’t have to say anything. All the grown-ups believed I actually was Mary. ‘George’ might not even be his real name; I said it twice ten minutes ago and he didn’t reply. He was probably ignoring me again.

He can’t sit still in his seat. He must have ants in his pants. He turns round again.

‘Are you all right? Just be calm, everything will be okay.’

I am calm.

He wiggles his fingers on the steering wheel.

‘Come on, man. You can do it. Ten grand, ten grand. All the booze I can drink. Come on, man.’

He thinks he’s whispering, but he’s not doing it properly.

The car stops. George winds down the window, and says something. It’s not English.

He hands them some paper, but I can’t see what’s on it. He told me to look out of my side, so I can’t peek too much.

A face appears at the window. A man with a grey beard. He’s wearing a flat hat, like a policeman’s. He points at me and makes circle shapes with his hand. It makes me laugh.

‘He’s telling you to wind the window down.’ George doesn’t sound mad, or happy.

I grab the handle with two hands and wind it round until the window is halfway down. The man squints at me. He’s really close, but his nose doesn’t come through the window. Is he a policeman? Shall I tell him that I’ve lost my mummy? I wish I knew how to speak the way George does. I’m trying to smile but my eyes are watering.

He stands back up and walks slowly round the car. He bends down to talk to George.

‘Die Kind ist acht?’

He’s talking like they sing in that song. I wish I knew more words than ninety-nine red balloons.

‘Ja weiß ich,’ says George. ‘Wir hören dass die ganze Zeit. Das arme Kind ist klein für ihr Alter.’

The man in the uniform laughs, but I can’t hear what he says back. I wouldn’t be able to understand it anyway. The guard hits the top of the car twice and says, ‘Willkommen zurück nach Deutschland.’ And we drive away.

After three minutes, George flings off his cap. He bangs the steering wheel three times with his fists. ‘Get the hell in! We did it, kid. That was the worst one – they’re right tough sods, those German border bastards. We’ve only gone and fucking done it. We’re in Germany, little one!’

Germany? My mummy’s never been to Germany before. Why would she be here?

I look out of the window, and it’s raining.

So are my eyes.

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