C.L. TAYLOR is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Accident, The Lie, The Missing and The Escape. Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK and have been translated into twenty-one languages. She lives in Bristol with her partner and son.

By the C.L. Taylor

The Accident

The Lie

The Missing

The Escape

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

Copyright © C.L. Taylor 2017

C.L. Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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.

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008240578

Version: 2018-05-23

For my niece Sophie Taylor

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Acknowledgements

About the Publishers

Chapter One

They’re still following me. I can hear their footsteps. They think I can’t hear them because I put my headphones on the second I walked through the school gates. But they’re not plugged in. I heard every word they said as I walked down Somerset Road.

‘Why are you walking so fast, Drew? Don’t you want to talk to us?’

‘She can’t hear us.’

‘Yes she can.’

‘Oi, Drew. Andrew!’

Lacey and her gang of sheep think it winds me up, calling me Andrew, they think it’s funny. I don’t. My dad gave me my name because my hazel eyes and chubby cheeks reminded him of the child actress in the film E.T. He thought it was a pretty name, unusual too. Drew Finch. My name is all I’ve got to remember him by other than a folder of digital photographs on my computer.

Mum doesn’t talk about Dad any more – she hasn’t since she married Tony. Mason, my fifteen-year-old brother, refuses to talk about Dad too. Not that Mason’s here to chat to. He’s been sent to a school hundreds of miles away, hopefully to learn how to stop being so irritating. It’s weird, my brother not being at home. He was never much of a conversationalist but God was he noisy. He’d bang and crash his way into the house, kick his shoes off, stomp up the stairs and then slam his door. Then his music would start up. It’s eerie how quiet it is now. I can hear myself breathe. I think the silence unsettles Mum too. She’s always tapping on my door, asking if I’m OK. Or maybe she feels guilty about sending Mason away.

I speed up as I reach Jackson Road. It’s the quietest street on my walk home and if Lacey and the others have followed me this far it can only be because today’s the day they go through with her threat. Lacey’s been saying for weeks that they’re going to pin me down and pull up my shirt and skirt and take photos of me with their mobile phones. I’ve tried talking to her. I’ve tried ignoring her. I’ve spoken to my Head of Year and we’ve been to mediation, but she won’t leave me alone. She’s clever. She never says anything in front of any of the teachers. She hasn’t posted anything on social media. She hasn’t touched me. But the threat’s still there, hanging over me like a noose. Whenever I go into school I wonder if today’s the day she’ll go through it. It’s not about hurting me, or even about humiliating me (although there is a bit of that). It’s about fear and control. We were best friends in primary school and I was the one she opened up to when her parents were getting divorced. She’s the big ‘I am’ at school but I know where her vulnerabilities lie. And she hates that.

I slow down as I reach the High Street and my heart stops double thumping in my chest. I’m safe now. The street’s full of shoppers, drifting around aimlessly or else speed walking madly like they must get an avocado from the grocer’s before it closes or the world will end. Someone brushes past me and I tense, but it’s just some random man with a beanie and a swallow tattooed on his neck. I glance behind me, to check that Lacey and the sheep aren’t following me any more, then I reach into my pocket for my phone, select my favourite song and plug in my headphones. Just two terms of school left and I’m free. No more Lacey, no more lessons, no more –

My breath catches in my throat as my arms are pinned to my side and I’m half carried, half shoved into the side alley between Costa and WHSmith. A hand closes over my mouth as I’m bundled past a skip and forced to sit on a pile of bin bags. They’ve got me. They’ve finally made their move. But it’s not Lacey or one of her cronies who forces me to the ground as I thrash and squirm and try to escape.

‘It’s OK. Don’t be afraid.’

The woman keeps her hand tightly pressed to my mouth but her grip on my shoulder loosens, ever so slightly. Her pale blue eyes are wide and frantic and her long brown hair, pulled into a tight ponytail, is damp with sweat at the roots. There’s a deep crease between her eyebrows and fine lines on either side of her mouth. She’s probably as old as my mum but I’m too shocked to hit out at her. All I can do is stare.

‘Drew? It is Drew, isn’t it?’ She glances at her hand, still covering my mouth. ‘Promise me you won’t scream if I take it away.’

I nod tightly, but the second she lifts her palm a scream catches in the back of my throat.

‘Drew!’ She smothers the sound with her hand. ‘You mustn’t do that. I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to help Mason.’

I tense at the mention of my brother’s name. How the hell does she know who he is? He’s over two hundred miles away and we haven’t heard from him in over a month.

‘My name is Rebecca Cobey. Doctor Cobey,’ the woman says, shuffling closer on her knees. We’re completely hidden from view behind the skip but she keeps glancing nervously back towards the street as though she’s scared that someone will discover us. ‘I worked at the Residential Reform Academy. I was Mason’s psychologist. He gave me something to give to you.’

She lets go of me and reaches into the pocket of her jeans. There’s a loud bang from the street, like a car backfiring, and all the blood seems to drain from her face. I’ve never seen anyone look so scared. For several seconds she does nothing, she just listens, then she pulls her hand out of her pocket.

‘Here,’ she says in a low voice, as she thrusts a folded piece of paper at me. ‘I’ve got to go. I can’t talk. It was a risk just trying to find you.’ She scrabbles to her feet and pushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She glances towards the street then back at me. ‘I would have got him out if I could. I would have got them all out.’ The word catches in her throat and she presses a hand to her mouth. ‘I’ve said too much. I’m sorry.’

She darts out from behind the skip, sprints down the alley towards the street and turns right, disappearing from view.

I sit in stunned silence for one second, maybe two, surrounded by split bin bags and the smell of roasted coffee beans and then I launch myself up and onto my feet.

‘Wait!’ I shove the piece of paper into my pocket. ‘Doctor Cobey, wait!’

***

I can see her long, dark ponytail bobbing above her khaki jacket as she speeds down the street ahead of me, weaving her way through shoppers, briefly stepping into the road when there are too many people to overtake on the pavement.

‘Doctor Cobey!’ I shout as the distance between us decreases and a stitch gnaws at my side. ‘Wait!’

I am vaguely aware of people staring at me, of toddlers in buggies gesturing, of car drivers slowing to gawp, of cold air rushing against my face and my heart thudding in my ears. I don’t know why I’m chasing the woman who just grabbed me, smothered me and terrified me. I was lucky she didn’t hurt me, but I can’t shake the feeling that if I let her get away I’ll never see her again. She knows something about Mason. Something she was too afraid to tell me.

I see the car before she does. I hear the engine rev and the black flash of the bonnet as the lights change from green to amber at the crossing and Dr Cobey steps into the road. One second the car is a hundred metres away, the next it’s at the crossing. The engine roars and there is a sickening thump as Dr Cobey’s body flies into the air.

Chapter Two

‘He didn’t stop. I can’t believe he didn’t stop.’

‘Did anyone get the registration number?’

‘Don’t move her! She might have broken her back.’

Within seconds a crowd gathers around Dr Cobey’s body and I am shoved and pushed further and further away. I don’t push back. I don’t shout, cry or explain. Instead I stare at the back of the man standing in front of me. But it’s not his black woolly jumper I see. Imprinted on the back of my eyelids is Dr Cobey’s broken body; half on the pavement, half on the road, her legs twisted beneath her, her neck lolling to one side, her blue eyes wide and staring, a single line of blood reaching from the corner of her mouth to her jaw.

‘She’s not breathing.’

‘I can’t find a pulse.’

‘Can anyone do CPR?’

The driver of the car aimed straight for her. He revved the engine. He wanted to hit her.

‘She was scared. She thought someone was after her.’

‘What was that, love?’ A heavy-set woman in her fifties with wiry bleach-blonde hair and bright pink lipstick nudges me.

I glance at her in surprise. Did I just say that out loud?

The woman continues to stare at me but my lips feel as though they have been glued shut. She loses interest when the man on the other side of her starts shouting into his mobile phone.

‘The High Street. Near M&S. Road traffic accident. It was bad. I don’t know if she’s breathing or not. Someone’s doing CPR. He said he was a doctor.’

The crowd presses against me on all sides, gawping, commenting and speculating.

‘There’s still no pulse!’ shouts someone near the road. ‘Where’s that ambulance?’

As I take a step to the side to try to force my way through the crowd someone grabs hold of my left hand. An elderly woman gazes up at me as I twist round. She’s so short I can see the pink scalp beneath her fine white hair.

‘My boy,’ she says, squeezing my hand tightly, ‘my boy was killed the same way. She will be OK, won’t she?’

I’m torn. I want to check on Dr Cobey but people have started to shout the word ‘dead’ and the old lady holding my hand is quivering like a leaf. She looks like she’s about to faint.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask.

She doesn’t shake her head. She doesn’t answer. She just keeps staring hopefully up at me, tears filling her milky eyes.

‘Is there someone I could call for you? A relative, or a friend?’

She continues to look at me blankly.

I don’t know how to deal with this. I glance to my right, to where the woman with the bleach-blonde hair and pink lipstick was standing but she’s disappeared, replaced by a couple of scary-looking builder types. What do adults do in this situation?

‘Would you … would you like to sit down somewhere and have a cup of tea?’

The old woman nods. Tea, the magic word.

***

I hear the wail of the ambulance sirens as the owner leads us to a table at the back of the café. The old lady is resting her weight on my elbow, telling me that I’m ‘kind, so kind’. I want to tell her that I’m not kind. That I’m selfish and ungrateful and lazy and all the other things Tony and Mum accuse me of being. I want to tell her that someone deliberately ran over Dr Cobey but I can’t, not when there’s a bit of colour in her cheeks and she’s stopped staring at me with that weird freaked-out expression.

I wait for her to drink half a cup of tea, my feet tap-tap-tapping on the wooden flooring, as she sips, rests, sips, rests and then, when she reaches for the slice of carrot cake the café owner brought her and takes the tiniest of nibbles, I excuse myself, saying I need to use the ladies’.

I slip into the single stall toilet at the back of the café. I hold it together long enough to close the door and lock it and then I rest my arms on the wall and burst into tears. I’m still crying when I sit down on the closed toilet lid and reach into my pocket. Tears roll down my cheeks as I pull out the note that Dr Cobey thrust into my hands. They plop onto the paper as I carefully unfold it. I read the words Mason has scribbled in blue biro. I read them once, twice, three times and the tears dry in my eyes.

I’m not sad and confused any more. I’m terrified.

Chapter Three

Help me, Drew! We’re not being reformed, we’re being brainwashed. Tell Mum and Tony to get me out of here. It’s my turn for the treatment soon and I’m scared. Please. Please help.

My hands shake as I reread the words my brother has written. Two weeks ago he was sent to the Residential Reform Academy in Northumberland after he was excluded from his third school in as many years. My brother is a gobby loudmouth, always out with his mates causing trouble, while I like being on my own with my books and music. He speaks up, I keep my head down. We couldn’t be more different. Tony, our stepdad, said the RRA was the best place for him. He said that, as well as lessons and a variety of activities, Mason would be given a course of therapeutic treatments to help him deal with his issues. He didn’t mention anything about brainwashing.

As soon as I read the note I rang Mum but the call went straight to voicemail. By the time I’d got myself together enough to leave the toilet cubicle the old lady’s friend had turned up at the café to take her home. She tried to offer me a tenner, to thank me for my help, but I said no and hurried out of the café, pressing my nails into my palms to try to stop myself from crying. I ran all the way home, only to find that the house was empty when I let myself in. It always is when I get back from school.

I put the note on my desk and run my hands back and forth over my face to try to wake myself up. I feel fuzzy-headed and tired after everything that’s happened but there’s no way I can sleep. I need to talk to someone about Mason, but who? There are a couple of girls at school that I sit with at lunch but I wouldn’t call them friends. Friends trust each other and share everything. Lacey taught me what a bad idea that is.

I pull my chair closer to my desk and open my laptop. I’ll talk to someone on the Internet.

But which ‘me’ should I be? I’ve got four different names that I use. There’s LoneVoice, the name I chose when I was fourteen. It’s a crap name, totally emo, but there was a song in the charts with a similar name and it was going round and round my head. LoneVoice is sociable me. He/she chats on music forums about singers, songs in the charts, that sort of thing. XMsZaraFoxX is feistier. She’s the kick-ass main character in my favourite PS4 game Legend of Zara and she wades in if someone’s being out of order on the gaming site. RichardBrain is serious and academic. I log on as him if I want to talk about psychology. Then there’s Jake Stone. I invented him to mess with Lacey’s head. She thinks he’s nineteen and a model and she’s a little bit in love with him.

I never set out to be a catfish. I just wanted to be anonymous, you know? I wanted to be able to chat to people without them making assumptions about me based on how I look, how old I am, where I live and what my gender and sexuality are. The first time I joined a forum I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask any questions or join in with the chat. I lurked and worked out who the funny one was, who was controversial and who was a bit of a knob. I watched how they interacted with each other, just like I watched the kids in the canteen at lunchtime.

It was my dad who got me into people watching. If I got bored in a restaurant or train station he’d gesture towards people on a different table, or standing in a huddle on the platform, and he’d ask me to guess who liked who, who had a secret crush and who felt left out. He taught me about body language, micro expressions and verbal tics. He showed me how much people give away about themselves without realizing it. I didn’t realize at the time that he was teaching me psychology. That’s what he did for a living. He was … is … an educational psychologist. He’d probably have a field day if he knew about my different internet ‘personalities’.

I log onto the psychology site where I hang out as RichardBrain. If anyone can help me make sense of what just happened with Doctor Cobey it’ll be them.

Actually, no. They’ll ask me what I know about her which is precisely nothing.

Dr Rebecca Cobey

I type her name into Google and click enter. The first link is to a LinkedIn profile so I click on it and scan the page. She’s a psychologist … blah, blah, blah … she worked at the University of London as a Senior Lecturer … responsibilities blah, blah, blah and … I frown. It says she left three months ago but there’s no mention of where she went. No entry that says she worked at the RRA.

Were you lying to me, Dr Cobey? You had a note from Mason. How could you have got that if you weren’t at Norton House too?

I stare at her profile photo. She’s smiling into the camera, her brown hair long and glossy, her blue eyes sparkling. She looks so happy. So alive. And then she’s not. She’s lying crumpled and broken at the side of the road, staring unseeingly at the sky as blood dribbles from her mouth to her chin. I shut down the browser but the image of her lifeless face is burned into my brain. I have to find out if she’s still alive.

***

I ring the hospitals first, asking if they’ve admitted anyone by the name of Dr Rebecca Cobey. The first receptionist I speak to tells me she can only release patient information to next of kin. I wait a couple of minutes then I ring back, using a different voice, and say I’m Dr Cobey’s daughter. This time the receptionist tells me there’s no Rebecca Cobey listed. I try the other hospital in town but they claim they don’t have her either. Finally, I ring the police who confirm that there was a motor vehicle accident on the high street but they can’t tell me what happened to the victim.

‘I was there,’ I tell the female police officer. ‘The car sped up. It deliberately knocked her over.’

‘Can I ask how old you are?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘OK,’ she says and then pauses. This is the bit where she laughs at me or puts the phone down. But she doesn’t. Instead, she says, ‘What’s your name and address? I’ll need a contact number for your parents so I can arrange for someone to come to your home to interview you.’

‘Of course. My name is Drew Finch and I live at —’

‘Drew,’ Mum says from the doorway, making me jump. ‘Is everything OK?’

Chapter Four

Mum frowns as she reads Mason’s note. Tony, sitting beside her on the sofa, reads over her shoulder.

‘Who did you say gave this to you?’ Mum says, looking up.

‘I told you, a stranger.’

‘Did she tell you her name?’

‘Well, she …’ I tail off. I don’t like the weird way Tony’s looking at me. It’s like he’s too interested in what I’m saying.

Mum glances at Tony. I hate how she does that – deferring to him as though she’s incapable of making a decision without his opinion. She was never like that with Dad. She made all the decisions in our house back then. Dad used to joke that, ever since the motorbike accident where he lost his right leg from the knee down, Mum wore the trousers because they didn’t look right on him any more.

Tony runs his hands up and down his thighs as though he’s trying to iron out invisible creases in his suit trousers. ‘Have you spoken to the police about what you saw?’

‘I rang them earlier. They said they’d send someone round to take a statement from me.’

‘I see.’ He glances back at Mum but she’s looking at Mason’s note again. It quivers in her fingers like a pinned butterfly. She’s rereading the bit where Mason says how scared he is. I can just tell.

‘Jane.’ Tony places his hand over the note, blocking her view. ‘We talked about this. Remember? About Mason trying to avoid facing up to his responsibilities. We both know how manipulative he can be.’

‘He’s not manipulative!’ Mum shifts away from him so sharply his hand flops onto the sofa. ‘My son might be a lot of things but he’s not that.’

‘He’s a liar, Jane. And a thief. Or have you already forgotten that he stole from you.’

‘Tony!’ Mum glares at him. ‘Not in front of Drew. Please.’

It’s not like I don’t know all this already. They sent me upstairs when we got home from school but I didn’t go into my room. I sat cross-legged on the landing instead and listened to Mum lay into Mason about nicking twenty quid from her bag. She told him how disappointed she was. How Tony was at the end of his tether. How they knew Mason had been smoking weed out of his bedroom window. ‘And now you’re stealing!’ she cried. ‘From your own mother. What did I do to deserve that, Mason? What did I do wrong?’ She started crying then. I heard Mason try to comfort her but she wasn’t having any of it. She told him that he’d pushed her to the edge and she had no choice but to agree with Tony and send him to the Residential Reform Academy.

Mason wasn’t the only one who gasped. I did too. When Tony had first mentioned sending Mason away (another conversation I’d eavesdropped) Mum was really against the idea. I wasn’t. Mason might be my brother but he can also be a prize dick. He wasn’t always a dick. He was pretty cool when we were kids but he changed after Dad disappeared. He stopped watching TV in the living room with me and Mum and holed himself away in his room instead. And if he wasn’t in his room he was out with his mates on their bikes or skateboarding in the park. He started finding fault in everything – in me, in Mum, at school. He talked back to his teachers, he started fights and he smashed stuff up if he lost his temper. After he was excluded, I barely saw him. When I did he’d make snidey comments about me being the favourite and accuse me of sucking up to Tony.

‘You’ve got no personality,’ he’d shout at me. ‘That’s why Tony likes you.’

He really bloody hated Tony. He made no secret of that.

‘Drew,’ Tony says now. ‘If this woman told you her name you need to tell us what it is.’

‘I know but …’ I pause. Tony’s the National Head of Academies which means he knows the people who run the RRA. If he contacts them, Mason will get into trouble. He’s not supposed to have any contact with the outside world while he’s away. He wasn’t even allowed to take his phone or iPad with him. I shouldn’t have said anything about this in front of Tony but I was so freaked out by what had happened it all came spilling out before I knew what I was doing.

‘But what?’ He sits forward so he’s perched on the edge of the sofa. ‘Just tell us her name, Drew.’

‘I’m going to ring Norton House,’ Mum says, before I can reply. She reaches into her handbag for her phone and swipes at the screen.

‘Jane.’ Tony touches her arm. ‘Let me deal with this. If you get in touch, Mason will be getting exactly the reaction he was hoping for when he smuggled the note out. He –’

‘Yes, hello.’ Mum twists away from Tony. ‘I’m calling to enquire about my son, Mason Finch.’

‘Mum!’ I jump out of my seat. ‘Mum, please! Don’t tell them about –’

She waves me away.

‘Yes, that’s right. I just wanted to check that he’s OK.’ She covers the mouthpiece with her hand and gestures for me to sit back down. ‘They’re just going to find out how he’s doing.’

‘Honestly, Jane …’ Tony gets up from the sofa. He walks over the window and stares out into the street with his arms crossed over his chest. A bead of sweat trickles out of his hairline and runs down the side of his face. He swipes it away sharply, as though brushing away an annoying fly. The toe of his right shoe tap, tap, taps on the carpet as Mum continues to hold. I’ve never seen him look this unsettled before.

‘OK,’ Mum says into the phone. ‘Right, OK. I understand. No, there’s nothing else. Thank you for your time.’ She removes the phone from her ear and ends the call. ‘He’s in pre-treatment and can’t be disturbed, but they’re going to WhatsApp me some video footage so I can see that he’s OK.’

Tony doesn’t react. He continues to stare out into the street. A new bead of sweat runs down the side of his face. He doesn’t swipe it away.

‘Mum,’ I say, but I’m interrupted by the sound of her phone pinging.

‘Here we go. They’ve sent the video.’ She taps the empty seat next to her, gesturing for me to join her on the sofa. Tony doesn’t move a muscle as I cross the living room.

Mum touches the screen as I sit down next to her. An image of Mason, sitting in a beanbag chair with a PS4 controller in his hands, jumps to life. There are two boys sitting either side of my brother, both on beanbags, both holding controllers. All three boys are laughing their heads off. They look like mates, kicking back in one of their bedrooms rather than three kids who’ve been sent away to overcome their ‘behavioural problems’.

‘Can I look at that for a second?’

Mum doesn’t resist as I take the phone from her hand and click on the video details.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

‘Checking the date the video was taken. They might have sent you footage of when he first arrived.’

‘And?’

I stare at it in disbelief. ‘It was taken today.’

‘There you go, then.’ Tony swivels around so he’s facing us. ‘And you still claim your son wasn’t trying to manipulate you, Jane?’

Mum sighs heavily and looks at me. ‘What do you think, Drew? He looks fine, in the video, doesn’t he?’

There’s desperation in her eyes. She wants me to tell her there’s nothing to worry about.

‘No one’s being brainwashed,’ Tony says. He’s not sweating any more and his foot has stopped pounding the carpet. If anything he looks ever so slightly smug. ‘All the kids get a couple of weeks to settle in followed by an intensive course of therapeutic treatment to help them overcome their behavioural issues. If Mason passed a note to someone – and I’m of the belief it was written before he left – it was done because he’s still resistant to the idea that he needs to make some positive changes in his life.’

Waffle, waffle, waffle. Tony might be convincing Mum with his pseudo psycho-babble but I’m not so sure.

‘What kind of therapeutic treatment?’ I ask.

‘Um.’ Tony runs a hand over his thinning hair. ‘It’s … er … cognitive behavioural therapy, modelled especially for adolescence.’

He’s right. Cognitive behavioural therapy isn’t brainwashing. It helps you change the way you think and behave. But if it’s all so innocent why has he started sweating again?

Chapter Five

Mum and Tony didn’t say a word when I left the living room, claiming I needed to do some homework, but I heard Mum hiss at Tony as I climbed the stairs to my room.

‘I won’t have you talk about Mason like that in front of Drew. Whatever he’s done he’s still her brother and, as soon as he’s completed his treatment, he’ll be coming back home.’

She might have bought Tony’s crap about CBT but I haven’t. Dr Cobey wouldn’t have risked her life to pass me Mason’s note if that was what was going on.

I open my laptop lid and type ‘RRA’ into Google. A bunch of links for architects, relative risk aversion and the Rahanweyn Resistance Army appear on the screen. That’s not what I’m after so I try again, entering Residential Reform Academy into the search box. This time, when I click return, a website for the school appears.

I’ve looked at it before. I checked it out after Mum and Tony told Mason that’s where they were sending him. On the first page it says it’s, a therapeutic boarding school for troubled adolescents that provides a safe, secure and structured environment to allow them to overcome their issues. Established four years ago, the RRA has seen a huge leap in student intake over the last twelve months due to strong support from the current Government, but there’s not much more information; a few photos of the huge mansion-sized building and a bit of history about it being a psychiatric hospital in the Eighties. And that’s it. Dr Rothwell is named as the director but there’s no staff list. No photos of the inside or the kids. No contact information. No directions. Nothing. A residential school in the heart of Northumberland, it says. That could be anywhere.

I try another search.

Residential Reform Academy review.

Nothing. I look on Facebook to see if it’s listed there. Nothing. No images on Instagram. No hashtags on Twitter. If the treatment only lasts two months surely some of the kids who’d left would have mentioned it on social media? But there’s nothing. Other than the website it’s as though it doesn’t exist.

I try more searches:

RRA experience

RRA story

RRA nightmare

RRA scared

RRA brainwashed

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

I slump back in my chair and stare at the ceiling. Why am I even doing this? Mason looked fine in the video. Tony’s probably right. The note was his attempt to guilt trip mum into coming to get him. But even if he was, that doesn’t explain the things Dr Cobey said to me. Why all the secrecy and fear about this place? What are they hiding?

I jolt forward in my seat and put my fingers back on the keyboard.

RRA conspiracy

Nothing.

RRA secrecy

Nothing.

RRA truth

Bingo!

On the second page there’s a link to a blog on Tumblr. I click on the mouse button and the site loads. But there’s barely anything written on the page. Just fourteen words.

If you want to know the truth about RRA message me on Snapchat. ZedGreen.

***

I snatch up my phone and click on the Snapchat icon. As I do the landing floorboards creak loudly. Someone’s creeping about outside my bedroom door.

‘Mum?’ I peer outside but it’s Tony’s shadow that disappears into the master bedroom. I hear the deep, bassy rumble of his voice then the door clicks closed. He’s making a call. Mum must be in the kitchen. I can hear plates and dishes clinking and clanking as though they’re being loaded into the dishwasher. I close my bedroom door and return to my desk. I swivel my chair round so I can see the door then I add ZedGreen as a friend on Snapchat. The request is immediately accepted so I tap out a message.

ME

My brother is at RRA and I’m worried about him. Can you help?

I have no idea who ZedGreen is. For all I know he could be someone at the academy, an ex-pupil, or even a teacher.

A message flashes up on the screen:

ZEDGREEN

Send me a photo.

I type back.

ME

Of what?

ZEDGREEN

You, holding a sign with today’s date written on it.

ME

Why?

ZEDGREEN

So I know you are who you say you are.

ME

But I don’t know who you are.

ZEDGREEN

You’re the one who came knocking on my door, not the other way round.

I stare at the screen. I don’t share photos. Not in real life and particularly not online.

I type back:

ME

I can’t do that. Sorry.

ZEDGREEN

Then we can’t talk. Goodbye.

ME

Wait! I need your help.

Thirty seconds pass. ZedGreen doesn’t reply. I tap my feet on the carpet. C’mon. C’mon. I put my phone down and do a search on Reddit using all the terms that led me to ZedGreen’s blog but there’s nothing. He’s the only person in the world who can help me and if I don’t do what he asks is not going to play ball. But if I show him a photo that means LoneVoice isn’t anonymous any more. I won’t be anonymous any more. If ZedGreen screenshotted my photo and put it online I wouldn’t be able to be me. I wouldn’t feel safe.

I snatch up my phone again.

ME

Please,

I tap out.

ME

My brother sent me a message telling me that he’s being brainwashed. I need to know if it’s true or not.

ZedGreen doesn’t reply.

ME

PLEASE!

I feel sick as he continues to ignore me. What if he only gave me one chance to respond and I’ve blown it? I’ll never find out the truth. If Dr Cobey was killed just for trying to help Mason, God knows what kind of danger he’s in. Mum and Tony are convinced that he’s fine. But what if he’s not? I could never forgive myself if something awful happened to him.

‘This had better not be a wind-up, Mase,’ I mutter, as I rip a page out of my journal and write today’s date on it. I hold it under my chin, reach out my arm and snap a scowling selfie.

A couple of seconds later and I’ve sent it to ZedGreen.

ME

There,

I type.

ME

Happy now?

The message is delivered but nothing happens. Zed doesn’t respond.

ME

Hello? Are you still there?

A sick feeling grips my stomach. Some random stranger has got my photo and I’m still no closer to finding out what’s going on with my brother.

Ping! My phone vibrates in my hand. A message from ZedGreen:

ZEDGREEN

If you want to discover the truth about the RRA you need to meet me. Grab a pen. I will send you details in my next message. Do not screengrab it. Do not tell anyone where you’re going. Meet me alone. If you break any of these rules I will vanish. Do we understand each other?

ME

Yes

I type back.

ME

Tell me where and when and I’ll be there.