I Am Watching You / Я слежу за тобой (by Teresa Driscoll, 2017) - аудиокнига на английском

JULY 2015 CHAPTER 1 THE WITNESS I made a mistake. I know that now. The only reason I did what I did was what I heard on that train. And I ask you, in all truthfulness – how would you have felt? Until that moment, I had never considered myself prudish. Or naive. OK, OK, so I had a pretty conventional – some might say sheltered – upbringing but Heavens. Look at me now. I’ve lived a bit. Learned a lot. Pretty average, I would argue, on the Richter scale of moral behaviour, which is why what I heard so shook me. I thought they were nice girls, you see. Of course, I really shouldn’t listen in on other people’s conversations. But it’s impossible not to on public transport, don’t you find? So many barking into their mobile phones while everyone else ramps up the volume to compete. To be heard. On reflection, I would probably not have become so sucked in had my book been better, but to my eternal regret I bought the book for the same reason I bought the magazine with wind turbines on the cover. I read somewhere that by your forties you are supposed to care more about what you think of others than what they think of you – so why is it I am still waiting for this to kick in? If you want to buy Hello! magazine, just buy it, Ella. What does it matter what the bored student on the cash desk thinks? But no. I pick the obscure environmental magazine and the worthy biography, so that by the time the two young men get on with their black plastic bin bags at Exeter, I am bored to my very bones. A question for you now. What would you think if you saw two men board a train, each holding a black bin bag – contents unknown? For myself, the mother of a teenage son whose bedroom is subject to a health and safety order, I merely think, Typical. Couldn’t even find a holdall, lads? They are loud and boisterous, skylarking in the way that so many men in their twenties do – only just making the train, with the plumped-up platform guard blowing his whistle in furious disapproval. After messing about with the automatic door – open, shut, open, shut – which they inevitably find hilarious beyond the facts, they settle into the seats nearest the luggage racks. But then, apparently spotting the two girls from Cornwall, they glance knowingly at each other and head further down the carriage to the seats directly behind them. I smile to myself. See, I’m no killjoy. I was young once. I watch the girls go all quiet and shy, one widening her eyes at her friend – and yes, one of the men is especially striking, like a model or a member of a boy band. And it all reminds me of that very particular feeling in your tummy. You know. So I am not at all surprised or in the least bit disapproving when the men stand up and the good-looking one then leans over the top of the dividing seats, wondering if he might fetch the girls something from the buffet, ‘ seeing as I’m going?’ Next there are name swaps and quite a bit of giggling, and the dance begins. Two coffees and four lagers later, the young men have joined the girls – all seated near enough for me to follow the full conversation. I know, I know. I really shouldn’t be listening, but we’ve been over this. I’m bored, remember. They’re loud. So then. The girls repeat what I have already gleaned from their earlier gossiping. This trip to London is their first solo visit to the capital – a gift from their parents to celebrate the end of GCSEs. They are booked into a budget hotel, have tickets for Les Mis?rables and have never been this excited. ‘You kidding me? You really never been to London on your own before?’ Karl, the boy-band lookalike, is amazed. ‘Can be a tricky place, you know, girls. London. You need to watch yourselves. Taxi not tube when you get out of the theatre. You hear me?’ I am liking Karl now. He is recommending shops and market stalls – also a club where he says they will be safe if they fancy some decent music and dancing after the show. He is writing down the name on a piece of paper for them. Knows the bouncer. ‘Mention my name, OK?’ And then Anna, the taller of the two friends from Cornwall, is wondering about the black bags and I am secretly delighted that she has asked, for I am curious also, smiling in anticipation of the teasing. Boys. So disorganised. What are you like, eh? But no. The two young men have just got out of prison. The black bags contain their personal effects. I can actually hear myself swallowing then – a rush of fluid suddenly filling the back of my throat and my pulse now unwelcome percussion in my ear. The pause button is pressed, but not for long enough. Much too quickly, the girls are regrouping. ‘You having us on?’ No. The boys are not having them on. They have decided to be straight with people. Have made their mistakes and paid their dues but refuse to be ashamed. Cards on the table, girls? Karl has served a sentence at Exeter prison for assault; Antony for theft. Karl was merely sticking up for a friend, you understand, and – hand on heart – would do the same again. His friend was being picked on in a bar and he hates bullying. Me, I am struggling with the paradox – bullying versus assault, and do we really lock people up for minor altercations? – but the girls seem fascinated, and in their sweet and liberal naivety are saying that loyalty is a good thing and they had a bloke from prison who came into their school once and told them how he had completely turned his life around after serving time over drugs. Covered in tattoos, he was. Covered. ‘Wow. Jail. So what was that really like?’ It is at this point I consider my role. Privately I am picturing Anna’s mother toasting her bottom by her Aga, worrying with her husband if their little girl will be all right, and he is telling her not to fuss so. They are growing up fast. Sensible girls. They will be fine, love. And I am thinking that they are not fine at all. For Karl is now thinking that the safest thing for the girls would be to have someone who knows London well chaperoning them during their visit. Karl and Antony are going to stay with friends in Vauxhall and fancy a big night to celebrate their release. How about they meet the girls after the theatre and try the club together? This is when I decide that I need to phone the girls’ parents. They have named their hamlet. Anna lives on a farm. It’s not rocket science. I can phone the post office or local pub; how many farms can there be? But now Anna isn’t sure at all. No. They should probably have an early night so they can hit the shops tomorrow morning. They have this plan, see, to go to Liberty’s first thing because Sarah is determined to try on something by Stella McCartney and get a picture on her phone. Good girl, I am thinking. Sensible girl. Spare me the intervention, Anna. But there is a complication, for Sarah seems suddenly to have taken a shine to Antony. There is a second trip to the buffet and they swap seats on their return – Anna now sitting with Karl and Sarah with Antony, who is telling her about his regrets at stuffing up his life. He only turned to crime out of desperation, he says, because he couldn’t get a job. Couldn’t support his son. Son? It sweeps over me, then. The shadow from the thatched canopy of my chocolate-box life – me shrinking smaller and smaller into the shade as Antony explains that he is fighting his ex for access, telling Sarah that there is no way he is going to have his son growing up not knowing his dad. ‘Don’t you think that would be just terrible, Sarah? For him to grow up not knowing his dad?’ Sarah is the one who is surprising me now – there’s a catch in her throat as she says she thinks it’s really cool that he cares so very much, because many young men wouldn’t, would just walk away from the responsibility. ‘I feel really awful now. Us banging on about Stella McCartney.’ And the truth? At this point I have absolutely no idea about any of it anymore. What do I know? A woman whose son’s only access battle involved an 18-certificate film at the local cinema. An hour of whispering follows and I try very hard to read again, to take in the pluses of the quieter generation of wind turbines, but then Antony and Sarah are off to the buffet again. More lager, I am thinking. Big mistake, Sarah. And this is when I decide. Yes. I will head to the buffet myself on the pretext of needing coffee, and in the queue or passing in the corridor will feign trouble with my phone. I will ask Sarah for help – hoping to separate her from Antony for a quiet word – and give a little warning that she needs to step away from this nonsense or I will be phoning her parents. Immediately, you understand me, Sarah? I can find out their number. Our carriage is three away from the buffet. I stumble into seats passing through the second, bump-bump-bumping my thighs, and then feel for my phone in the pocket of my jacket as I pass through the automatic doors into the connecting space. And that’s when I hear them. No shame. No attempt even to keep themselves quiet about it. Making out, loud and proud, in the train toilet. Rutting in the cubicle like a pair of animals. I know it’s them from what he’s saying. How long it’s been. How grateful he is. ‘Sarah, oh Sarah’ And yes, I admit it. I am completely shocked to the core of my very being. Hot with humiliation. Furious. Winded and desperate, more than anything on this planet, to escape the noise. Also the shame of my naivety. My ridiculous assumptions. I stumble across the corridor to the next set of automatic doors and into the carriage, breathless and flustered in the scramble to put distance between myself and the evidence of my miscalculation. Nice girls? In the buffet queue, I am listening again to the pulse in my ear as I wonder if someone else will have heard them by now. Even reported them? And then I am thinking, Report them? Report them to whom, Ella? Will you just listen to yourself? Other people will do precisely what you should have done from the off. They will mind their own. At which point my emotions begin to change and I am wondering instead how I came to be this out of touch, this buttoned up. This woman who evidently has not the first clue about young people. Or anything much. Into my head now – a kaleidoscope of memories. Pictures torn around the edges. The magazines we found in our son’s room. That night after the cinema when we came home early to find Luke trying to override the Sky security to watch porn. So that on this wretched train, I find that I need very urgently to speak to my husband. To my Tony. To reset my compass. I need to ask him if the whole problem here is not with them but with me. Am I altogether ridiculous, Tony? No, really – I need you to be honest with me. When we had that row over the Sky channels and Luke’s magazines. Am I the most terrible prude? Am I? I do try to ring him, actually – that night from the hotel after the conference session. I want to tell him how I did the sensible thing and moved to the other end of the train. Minded my own. The girls clearly quite streetwise enough. But he is out and hasn’t taken his mobile, being one of the few who still thinks they give you brain cancer, and so I speak instead to Luke and find that it calms me to hear him describe supper – a tagine from a recipe he downloaded on a new app. He loves to cook, my Luke, and I am teasing him about the state of the kitchen, betting he has used every appliance and pan on the property. Then it is the morning in the hotel. I so hate this sensation – that out-of-body numbness born of air conditioning, a foreign bed and lack of discipline over the minibar. My hotel treat – a brandy or two after a long day. It is barely six thirty and I long for more sleep. Ten futile minutes and I give up, eyeing the sachets of sadness in the little bowl alongside the kettle. I always do this in hotel rooms. Kid myself that I will drink instant coffee just this once, only to pour it down the bathroom sink. I stare at the line of empty miniatures, wincing as a terrible thought flutters into the room. I glance at the phone by the bed and feel a punch of dread, the familiar frisson of fear that I have done something embarrassing, something I am going to regret. I turn back to the row of bottles and remember that after the second brandy last night, I decided to phone directory enquiries to track down the girls’ parents. I go cold momentarily at the thought of this, my memory still hazy. Did you actually ring? Think, Ella, think. I stare again at the phone and concentrate hard. Ah, yes. I am remembering now, my shoulders relaxing as I finally see it. I was holding the phone and then at the very point of dialling, I realised that I wasn’t thinking straight, and not just because of the brandy. My motivation was skewed. I wanted to phone not because I was worried for the girls, but as a punishment, because I was angry at how Sarah had made me feel. And so I did the sensible thing. I put the phone back down, I turned out the light and I went to sleep. Good. This is very good. The relief now so overwhelming that I decide by way of celebration that I will try the instant coffee after all. I flick on the kettle first and then the television. And that is when it comes. The single moment – suspended at first and then stretching, stretching, beyond this room, beyond this city. The moment in time in which I realise my life is never going to be the same again. Not ever. The sound is muted from the late-night film I watched with the subtitles on to spare disturbing the guests next door. But the picture is unmistakable. Beautiful. A photograph from her Facebook page. Her green eyes glowing and her blonde hair cascading down her back. She is at the beach; I recognise St Michael’s Mount behind her. And somehow my body has zoomed backwards – through the pillow and the bedstead and the wall – until I am watching the screen from much further away. This screen that is scrolling putrid, awful words: Missing Anna Missing Anna The kettle screaming angry clouds onto the mirror while I am planning the calls in my head all at once. A black and terrible jumble of excuses. None of them good enough. To the police. To Tony. You have to understand that I was going to phone CHAPTER 2 THE FATHER Henry Ballard sits in the conservatory, trying very hard to ignore the clattering in the kitchen. He knows that he should go to his wife – to help her, to console her – but he knows also that it will make no difference and so is putting it off. The truth? He wants just a little longer like this, looking out on the lawn. In this strange space, this addition to the house that has never really worked – always too hot or too cold, despite all the blinds and the big dust-magnet fan they had installed at ridiculous expense – he has managed somehow to drift into a state of semi-consciousness, a place in which his mind can roam beyond his body, beyond time, out into the garden where this very minute, in the early morning light, he is listening to them whispering in their den in the bushes. Anna and Jenny. It was their favourite place for a year, maybe two, when they were into that hideous pink phase. Pink duvets. Pink Barbies. Pink tent bought from some catalogue and filled with all manner of girly paraphernalia. He had always refused to go near the thing. Now he wanted more than anything in the world to forget the milking and the hay, the VAT forms and the bank, and to float out there and make a little fire to cook sausages for their breakfast. Proper camping, like he promised to do so many times, but never did. Now an almighty crash from the kitchen brings him back inside. She is picking up tins from the floor – a collection of bun and baking cases in all manner of sizes and shapes. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ ‘Plum slices.’ ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Barbara.’ Anna’s favourite. A sort of flapjack with spiced stewed plums through the middle. He can smell the cinnamon: the spice jar is tipped over on the kitchen surface, the pungent spill a neat tiny hill. Oh, Barbara. He watches her picking up all the tins, her hands trembling, and simply cannot bear it. And so, instead of helping and trying to be in any way kind or even decent, he goes into his study and sits by the phone so that five, maybe ten minutes later, he is the first to see the police car pull up again on the drive outside. Something terrible wrenches in his stomach then, and he actually thinks for a moment of barricading the door – a ridiculous image of all the hallway furniture piled up high so that they cannot come in. There are two of them this time. A man and a woman. The man in a suit and the woman in uniform. By the time he is in the hall, his wife is standing in the kitchen doorway in her apron, wiping her hands dry over and over and over. He turns to look at her for just a moment, and her eyes plead with him and with God and with justice. He opens the door – Anna and Jenny rushing in with their school bags and tennis rackets, chucking them all onto the floor. Relief. Relief. Relief. Then for real. Their faces say it. ‘Have you found her?’ The man in his creased high-street suit just shakes his head. ‘This is the family liaison officer. PC Cathy Bright. We talked about her on the phone?’ He can say nothing. Mute. ‘Is it all right if we come in, Mr Ballard?’ A nod. All he can muster. In the study they all sit and there is a strange shushing noise, flesh on flesh, as his wife rubs her palms together, and so he reaches out to take her hand. To stop the noise. ‘As we said before, the police in London – the Metropolitan team – they are doing everything they can. They’ve fast-tracked the case, given Anna’s age. The circumstances. They are in contact with us constantly.’ ‘I want to go to London. To help—’ ‘Mr Ballard. We discussed this. Your wife needs you here and there are things we need help with here, too. It is better for now, please, if we can concentrate on gathering all the information that we need. If there is any news – anything at all – I promise you that you will be told and we will arrange transport immediately.’ ‘So has Sarah remembered anything? Said anything more? We would like to speak to her. If we could just speak to her.’ ‘Sarah is still in shock. It’s understandable. There is a specialist team on hand and her parents are with her now. We are all trying to get what information we can. Officers in London are going over all the CCTV footage. From the club.’ ‘I still don’t get it. Club? What were they doing in a club? There was nothing in the plan about any club. They had tickets for Les Mis?rables. We expressly said that—’ ‘And there is a new development which may throw some light on that, Mr Ballard.’ The sound his throat makes as he tries to clear it seems too loud. Gutteral. Gross. ‘A witness has come forward. Someone who was on the train.’ Phlegm. In his throat. ‘Witness. What do you mean, witness? Witness to what? I’m not understanding.’ The two police officers exchange a look, and the woman moves to the chair next to Barbara. The detective does the talking. ‘A woman who was sitting near Anna and Sarah on the journey has phoned in after the police appeal. She says she overheard the two girls striking up an acquaintance with two men on the train.’ ‘What do you mean, acquaintance? What men? I’m not following you.’ His wife is now gripping his hand more tightly. ‘From what she heard, Mr and Mrs Ballard, it appears that Anna and Sarah may have become friendly with two men. Who are known to us.’ ‘Men? What men?’ ‘Men who had just got out of prison, Mr Ballard.’ ‘No. No. She must be mistaken There’s no way. Absolutely no way.’ ‘The police in London are going to try to speak to Sarah some more about this. Urgently. And to this witness. As I say, we just need to piece together as much detail as we can about what happened before Anna went missing.’ ‘It’s been hours and hours.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘They’re sensible girls, officer. You understand that? Good, sensible girls. Brought up right. We would never – never – have let them go on the trip if we didn’t—’ ‘Yes. Yes. Of course. And you must try very hard to stay positive. Like I say. We are doing everything we possibly can to find Anna, and we will keep you informed every step of the way. Cathy can stay with you. Answer any questions you may have. I’d just like to have another look at Anna’s room, if I may. We are hoping there may be a diary. Have a look at her computer. That sort of thing. Could you show me, Mr Ballard? While Cathy perhaps makes a cup of tea for your wife. Yes?’ He isn’t listening now. He is thinking that she didn’t want them to go. His wife. She said they were too young. It was too far. Too soon. He was the one who spoke up for the trip. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Barbara. You can’t baby them forever. The truth? He felt Anna needed to step away from the apron strings. Away from the plum slices. But it wasn’t only that. Dear God. What if they found out that it wasn’t only that? CHAPTER 3 THE FRIEND In a stuffy twin room of the inappropriately named Paradise Hotel in London, Sarah can hear her mother’s voice whispering her name and so keeps her eyes resolutely shut. It is a different room now. Identical but on a different floor. The one in which she unpacked with Anna remains off limits, though Sarah cannot understand why. Anna did not go back there. Did they not believe her? She did not come back here. OK? In this room there is still a horrid, ill-defined smell. Something that reminds her of the back of a cupboard. Hide-and-seek as a child. With her eyes closed, Sarah wishes she could play the game right now. Ignore the smell and the temperature, her mother and the police, and play hide-andseek. Yes. The time-slip version in which Anna is drying her hair around now – the tongs already hot for straightening afterwards – blabbing on above the drone of the motor about what they should do today. Which shop should they visit first? And was Sarah serious about trying on the Stella McCartney range because the assistant would be able to tell from their clothes that they weren’t actually going to buy anything. Anna. Sweet, infuriating Anna. Too skinny. Too beautiful. Too— ‘Are you awake, love? Can you hear me, darling?’ Sarah, facing away from her mother still, opens her eyes and winces at the light fighting through the chink in the curtains to shape a triangle on the wall. She had lain on the bed fully clothed, refusing to get under the covers, so sure there would be news by now. Any minute. They would find her any minute. ‘I’m glad you managed to drop off, love. Even just an hour. I’ve made us some tea.’ ‘I don’t want anything.’ ‘Just a sip. Two sugars. You need to get something inside you. Some sugar—’ ‘I said I can’t face it. All right?’ Her mother is in the same trousers as yesterday but a fresh blouse now, and Sarah is thinking it is both typical and somehow inappropriate that she thought to bring a clean blouse. ‘Your father’s arrived. He’s downstairs. He’s been with the police mostly. They want to speak to you again. When you feel—’ ‘I’ve told them everything I can remember already. Hours of it. And I don’t want to see my father. You shouldn’t have called him.’ Sarah and her mother lock eyes. ‘Look, I know it’s difficult, darling. You and your dad. But the thing is, he does care. And they’ve had some call, the police, that they want to talk to you about. After the coverage on the telly.’ ‘Call?’ ‘Yes. From some woman on the train.’ ‘Woman? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What woman?’ Sarah can feel the same gaping hole in her stomach that she felt in those first terrible hours, while she waited with the police for her mother. While she was still woozy from the booze. Disorientated. Where are you, Anna? Where the hell are you? Trying to give the officers just enough detail to make them take it all seriously but not enough to— She gets up quickly now, feeling the crumple of her linen shirt against her waist as she moves, fussing with the hairbrushes, make-up bags and other junk on the dressing table. ‘Have you got the remote? I need to see the news. What they’re saying. What are they saying?’ ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sarah. Drink your tea. I’ll tell your dad you’re awake. That they can come up now.’ ‘I’m not speaking to them again. Not yet.’ ‘Look, darling. I realise this is awful. For you. For all of us.’ Her mother is moving across the room now. ‘But they’ll find her, love. I’m sure they will. She probably went off to some party and is afraid she’s in trouble.’ She puts her arm around Sarah’s shoulders – the mugs of tea now positioned amid the chaos of the dressing table – but Sarah shrugs her off. ‘Are Anna’s parents here?’ ‘Not yet. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s been decided about that. The police wanted to check some things with them in Cornwall.’ ‘What things?’ ‘Computers or something. I don’t know. I don’t exactly remember, Sarah. It’s all been a blur. They just want to get all the information they can to help with this. With the search.’ ‘And you think I don’t? You think I don’t feel bad enough?’ ‘No one’s blaming you, love.’ ‘Blaming me? So why say blaming me if no one’s blaming me?’ ‘Sarah love. Don’t be like this. They’re going to find her. I know they are. I’ll ring downstairs.’ ‘No. I need you to leave me alone. All of you. I need you to just leave me alone now.’ Sarah’s mother takes her mobile from her pocket and is just feeling around for her glasses when there is a tap at the door. ‘That’ll probably be them now.’ It is the same detective as before, but with a different woman police officer this time and Sarah’s father alongside. ‘So, is there any news?’ Sarah’s mother begins to raise her body from the chair but slumps back down as their heads shake a ‘no’ in stereo. ‘Did you manage to rest, Sarah? Feel OK to talk some more now?’ It is the woman police officer. ‘I wasn’t drunk. When we spoke before. I wasn’t drunk.’ ‘No.’ The adults all look from one to the other. ‘We’ve had a look at the CCTV, Sarah. From the club.’ It is the detective’s voice now – firmer. ‘Some of the cameras weren’t working, unfortunately. But there are some things we’re not quite understanding, Sarah. Also, we’ve had a call from a witness.’ ‘A witness?’ ‘Yes. A woman on the train.’ She feels it instantly. The frisson. The giveaway. The cooling as the blood shifts. Draining from her face. ONE YEAR ON JULY 2016 CHAPTER 4 THE WITNESS I never deluded myself. I always knew what this week would be like. One part of me longing for it: the slim hope the anniversary coverage might kick-start things again for the investigation. But the other part: pure dread. People giving me that look again. That woman. Do you remember? The woman who didn’t say anything. On the train. Do you remember? When that girl disappeared? Christ – is it a year ago already? But I do still want it – the reconstruction on Crimecatchers, for the family. That poor mother. I just don’t want to be a part of it. You can understand that, can’t you? I mean, I didn’t mind them asking. Although Tony went ballistic when the police phoned up – surprised they had the gall. You leak her name. You let everyone judge her and you think she wants to be on your television programme He still insists it was a deliberate leak – the press getting my name. We have no proof and I have got to the point, to be frank, where I am not sure I care one way or the other; all I know is that I cannot bear the thought of everyone turning up all over again. Raking it up all over again. Judging me. Hating me. Even loyal customers in the shop giving me that slightly odd look. Deliberately not mentioning it. The official version from the police press office is that there was no leak; they merely mentioned to a few reporters that the witness on the train was ‘attending a conference’. But they must have said what kind of conference, otherwise how did the press know I was a florist? Whatever. Some of the press pack checked out the various floristry events, worked through the lists of delegates from Devon and Cornwall, and eventually landed at our door. I still go cold, thinking about it. Of course, if I’d been smarter they would have had no way of confirming it. If I had thought to say, I don’t know what you’re talking about, they would have had to leave it at that. But I didn’t. I know this is going to sound completely stupid but what I said in my complete disorientation on the doorstep was, Who gave you my name? Why the hell did you say that? was the first thing Tony asked. Jesus, Ella. You gave it to them on a plate. But I didn’t; not really. I didn’t let any of the reporters in. I didn’t give them any quotes, I swear, but they still took my picture, and they phoned and phoned and phoned until we had to change the number. ‘Harassment’, Tony called it. Hasn’t she been through enough? Bless him. My sweet, sweet man. And then things turned really nasty. Horrid stuff on social media. Until in the end we had to close down the shop for a bit. But here’s the thing. As horrid as it all was, I still don’t think I have been through enough. She’s still gone – that beautiful girl. Most probably dead – almost certainly dead – although from what I hear, her poor mother still clings to the hope that she’s alive. And can you blame her? I probably would, too. The police liaison officer for Crimecatchers told me that Mrs Ballard has given a really harrowing interview. I’m not even sure I can watch. Anna’s mother has spent the last year collecting all this information on missing girls who have eventually turned up years later. You know – held captive by some loon, brainwashed and then finally escaped. They had to cut all that out of the interview, apparently, as it’s not the police’s focus at all. They obviously think Anna is most probably dead. This is about finding a killer, not finding a loon with a girl in his basement. Out of sensitivity, they have kept all of Mrs Ballard’s stories about Anna as a little girl. All her hopes and her dreams. That’s apparently just the sort of thing that makes people phone in with new information. But it’s all about finding the two men. Finding the body, I suppose. Makes me go cold to think of that And this is where Tony gets really angry. His take is if the police hadn’t been so slow in putting out the appeal to trace Karl and Antony after I tipped them off, then maybe they would have stopped them doing a bunk. Most probably abroad. As far as I can tell, the delay was something to do with Sarah. The police are diplomatic but, putting two and two together, it seems at first she denied ever meeting them. The men on the train. Said I was a fantasist. It was only when they went over all the CCTV footage and finally found a couple of shots of them getting off the train together, and also outside the station, that the police even put their pictures out. Too late. But that, of course, is where it all goes wrong and it all comes back to me. If I had phoned in a warning in the first place. If I had stepped up. Stepped in. You are not to think like that. You can’t take the world on your shoulders. You did nothing wrong. Nothing, Ella. It was those men. Not you. You can’t go on blaming yourself. Can’t I, Tony? And I’m not the only one now. The first postcard came a few days ago. At first I was so shaken when I read it, I had to go straight to the bathroom. Vomited. I can’t explain why I felt so very scared. Shock, I suppose, because initially it seemed so threatening, so darned nasty. And then when I finally calmed down and thought it all through, I suddenly realised who’d sent it. And with that came a mixture of relief and crippling guilt. To be perfectly honest with you, I probably deserve it. It was just anger. Not a real threat; just lashing out. That first postcard was inside an envelope. A black card with letters cut out of a magazine. WHY DIDN’T YOU HELP HER? It was just like you see on a television drama, and not even very well done. Still sticky to the touch. I was stupid; I ripped it up and put it in the bin because I didn’t want Tony to see. I knew he would phone the police and I didn’t want that. Them round here. The press round here. All that craziness all over again. It took me a while to process it properly. To start with, I thought it was just another random nutter, but then I thought, Hang on a minute, the anniversary appeal hasn’t even been on the telly yet. The truth is the story has been forgotten. Until the programme tonight, no one else will have given it a second thought. That’s how it works – why it’s so difficult for the police. It’s all people talk about one minute, and then the next, everyone forgets. Then today another card arrived. Black again, with a nastier message. BITCH HOW DO YOU SLEEP? So that I see it even more clearly now. This is my fault. This is to pay me back, not just for what I didn’t do for Anna, but for going down there in the summer. I know exactly who the postcards are from now CHAPTER 5 THE FATHER Henry Ballard checks his watch and whistles for Sammy. In the distance, he can see smoke just emerging from one of the holiday lets – a former barn that was once his father’s destination at this same time of an evening. The final check of the livestock before supper. Henry still takes the same stroll each night himself, but with a quiet sorrow now. Anna’s voice haunting him as he walks. You disgust me, Dad Henry closes his eyes and waits for the voice to quieten. By the time he opens his eyes there is a stronger curl of smoke from the chimney ahead. It all made economic sense, of course. The conversions. It became Barbara’s favourite phrase, and the bank’s, too. Makes good economic sense, Henry. The agricultural success story that was Ladbrook Farm had been four generations in the making. It survived the rise and fall of local mining. It survived the changing tastes of the consumer market. It won rosettes for rare breeds. It even branched out into daffodils at one point. But the segue from full working farm to what his colleagues now dismiss as Still playing at it, H? took but a blink. Tourism is the business he is in now, not farming. And yes – it makes absolute sense financially. One set of barns was converted and sold to pay off all the outstanding loans more than a decade back. A second set is now rental properties, and that is more than enough income on top of the teashop and campsite – and certainly more regular profit than his father or his grandfather had dared hope for. The truth? They put in the slog, his ancestors. They paid off the bulk of the debts to the banks with blood, sweat and tears, too. And him? What has he done? He has reaped the rewards. There isn’t an evening that Henry Ballard has not felt wretched about that. So yes – he is still playing at it. Messing about on the fringe with his sheep – barely worth the feed – and his tiny rare-breed beef herd. He has taken this same walk with a heavy heart for years. And now, since Anna? Henry winces again at the memory of his daughter beside him in the car. You disgust me ‘So what’s left now?’ he says out loud as Sammy nuzzles his hand, amber eyes turned up to check his master’s. The dog still sits under Anna’s chair every night during supper. Unbearable. Henry pats Sammy’s head, then sets off for the farmhouse. He is dreading the evening ahead but has promised Barbara they will watch the anniversary appeal together, so he must not be late. They have talked at length about how to handle this, worrying about what is best for Jenny, who has perhaps coped the worst of all. The sister without a sister. Only eighteen months between the girls – so sweet and so close, especially when they were little. Oh sure, there were fights, too, the usual sibling rivalry, but they were always friends by bedtime, often choosing to share a room, even though there were bedrooms to spare. Henry thinks for a moment of how he used to peek through their door to check on them last thing at night, all arms and legs and pink pyjamas, curled up in a double bed. That punch to his gut again. Jenny is still not sleeping. Barbara is still not sleeping. He has no idea how they are all supposed to manage it, this TV appeal. The glare of the spotlight all over again. An invitation to the studios in London was declined as out of the question. Barbara would never have coped with a live interview. No. Henry put his foot down, not least because time around the police made him so very nervous. So all the filming had been done in advance at the house. They had dug out an old video, too, from when Anna was tiny. He pauses, clenching his fist at the memory of the camera in his hand; Barbara calling directions in the background. A gaggle of friends round for a birthday treat, all of them in fancy dress – cowboys and fairy costumes. A huge chocolate cake with candles. Get some shots of her blowing out the candles, Henry. Make sure you don’t miss a shot of the candles He thinks of that other version of his wife – Barbara beaming and bustling, at her happiest when the house was full of children and noise and chaos. Henry clears his throat and leans down to stroke Sammy’s head again, feeling the familiar wave of connection. Man to dog. Man and dog to land. So – yes. They agreed to release some of the birthday video, as the police said moving pictures tended to bring in more calls, which was, of course, the whole point. This first anniversary was a key opportunity, they were told, to resurrect interest in the case. To bring in new leads. To try to find the men from the train. But he and Barbara worry very much about the strain on Jenny. She is also in the clip chosen by the TV producers, smiling alongside her sister, and Barbara and Henry had sat down and made it absolutely clear that if Jenny were even the tiniest bit uncomfortable, they could say no and come up with something else, or ask if her image could be blanked out in some way. But what had broken Henry was how their elder daughter reacted. It was as if she suddenly saw this light go on, a window of opportunity in the wretched grind of guilt and helplessness. Suddenly her eyes were shining and she was saying that of course she didn’t mind people seeing her in a fairy costume with wings. Dear God. If it might help them find Anna. And then she was off to her room, shouting that he was to follow her. There were loads of old pictures in boxes in one of the cupboards. She would dig them out. And could he call the police? Right now, Daddy. Loads of really great pictures. Do you remember? When we used to fool about in those automatic booths. The gang. Me, Sarah and Anna and Paul and Tim. She found an example – the five of them pulling faces – and held it out to him. Henry sucks in the cold air as he remembers Anna in the centre of her friends, and closes his eyes. You disgust me He had guessed the police wouldn’t want the pictures. And they didn’t. They just wanted the film. And when he told poor Jenny that the police were very grateful – and he and Mummy were, too – for all the time she had put in, finding the other pictures, her eyes had changed right back to how they always looked now. Sort of only half there. ‘Come on then, Sammy. Time to do this.’ Taking his wellies off in the boot room, Henry can hear his wife calling up the stairs. ‘Now are you sure you won’t watch it with us, Jen? Down here? Daddy and I really don’t like the idea – Oh. Hang on. I can hear – Daddy’s back.’ He walks in his socks through to the kitchen. ‘Great. Good. Henry. I’ve set it ready on the right channel and it’s all set to record, too. The producer has been on from the studio and they’re going to ring us. To let us know about the number of calls.’ ‘Good. That’s good.’ ‘Jennifer is still saying that she wants to watch it in her room. I don’t feel at all happy about that, Henry. Will you try talking to her again?’ ‘If you like. But I spoke to her this morning, love, and—’ ‘The thing is she doesn’t have to watch it at all, if she doesn’t want to. I’ve told her that. But if she does, I don’t want her to be on her own. I don’t see why she won’t be with us. We should be together for this. Don’t you think we should be together? As a family. Watch it together.’ Henry wonders if he should say it. The obvious: that they are no longer a family. He examines his wife’s face very closely and lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘Jenny doesn’t want to have to see our faces, darling.’ He means hers. Barbara’s. ‘Our faces?’ Barbara’s expression changes as she turns the words over for a moment. She looks away to the mirror in the hall and then quickly back at him. ‘Is that what she said?’ ‘She didn’t have to, love.’ Henry continues to watch his wife very, very closely as she processes this properly. He makes himself look at her, right in the eye. He knows exactly why it is so difficult for Jenny to do this because he finds it so very difficult these days himself. To witness the depth of it all, written there, dark and dreadful at the very back of Barbara’s eyes. All day. Every day. No matter how hard she tries to dress it all up for Jenny with hope and smiles. With her scrapbook cuttings of the lost and found. And her endless baking. ‘But you’ll still talk to her? Before the programme?’ She is looking down at the floor now. Henry steps forward and kisses his wife on the forehead. It is a kiss of duty and he does not touch her at the same time, for he knows the rules. Their limits. Their physical life on hold; or maybe gone forever. ‘I’ll just wash my hands and then – yes. I’ll talk to her.’ Jenny is sitting on the floor of her room, surrounded by bits of paper. Magazines also, and old photo albums, too. ‘Mummy wanted me to have another word.’ Henry scans the albums. Lots more photographs of the two sisters growing up. Matching bridesmaid dresses in one. Their first day at big school together. Most of the recent pictures are stored digitally, of course, but Jenny printed off a lot of favourites after her laptop crashed one year and she lost the pictures from a whole summer. They’d already been wiped from the camera. Irretrievable. ‘It’s all right. I’ve asked Paul and Sarah and Tim to come over. Is that OK? I mean – Mum’s right. It might feel too upsetting to watch it on my own. But I can’t sit with Mummy. I just can’t.’ ‘Oh. Right. I’d better have a word. Goodness.’ He checks his watch. ‘It’s just that your mother might not feel comfortable with so many other people in the house this evening.’ ‘Oh, come on, Dad. These aren’t other people. They’re my friends.’ Henry presses his lips together. There is still an hour and a half until the programme is due to start. He takes a deep breath, trying to weigh up his own response before dealing with his wife’s. Barbara will cater. Sandwiches and cakes and the like. Fussing. Absent-mindedly he looks at his watch again. Who knows – maybe it will actually help Barbara to have something to fuss over. A distraction. He is surprised that Sarah’s mother Margaret does not want her at home to protect her. It has been hard for Sarah. A lot of unanswered questions. Still no one quite understands the story of how the friends became separated in London, and some people have been pointing fingers. Privately, Henry is not entirely disapproving. Better for people to be focusing on Sarah. . . Downstairs, Barbara loads the last of the dishes into the dishwasher as he explains the new turn of events. ‘Oh right. I see’ ‘So – what do you think? Are you OK with this? With a houseful, I mean. I realise Jenny should have discussed this with us first but I didn’t like to criticise. Not today.’ Barbara wipes her hands on her apron and undoes the bow at the back. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea, Henry. That’s my gut instinct. I mean, I know how close they all are – were.’ She draws herself up, sucking in a breath. Henry waits and they let the moment hang between them. No one knows what tense to use. ‘But everyone’s been so on edge lately.’ She is lifting the apron loop over her head. ‘Jenny included. I’m not sure it will be helpful. Not for Jenny. I don’t want anything kicking off. Not tonight.’ ‘It seems to be what Jenny wants.’ Henry is still staring at his wife. ‘I’m not sure she knows what she wants, any more than we do.’ She sighs. ‘Oh, stuff it. Say yes.’ Barbara suddenly throws the apron onto the kitchen work surface. ‘It’s going to be horrible, whoever is in the house.’ Their conversation is interrupted by a thud upstairs. Jenny’s footsteps stamping around her bedroom above the kitchen – all the time shouting into her mobile. Most of it incoherent until they hear, ‘God, no. Please no.’ Then a terrible noise of crashing and glass smashing as objects are apparently hurled around the room. CHAPTER 6 THE WITNESS ‘You need to take this straight to the police.’ ‘That’s out of the question.’ ‘I’m sorry?’ I’m thrown. I take the latest postcard back, all the while examining Matthew Hill very closely. I had not expected this reaction. I have wrapped this new card in a plastic wallet taken from Luke’s school folder. One of those very slippery plastic wallets with holes pre-punched. Dangerous things. I slipped on one left on the floor once and bashed my shoulder really badly. The latest message arrived like the others, in a plain dark envelope with a printed address label. But this one is even odder and just a little more threatening. Black background again, with the lettering stuck on. KARMA. YOU WILL PAY. To start with I thought it very strange – the link with Buddhism or yoga or whatever. Weren’t they about gentleness and kindness and forgiveness? But then I looked it up online and read about karma being interpreted by some people as a kind of natural justice or comeuppance – bad consequence for bad action – and I started to go a bit cold I have to make this stop. ‘I thought you investigated this kind of thing? That’s what private investigators do?’ I regret the mild sarcasm but I am tense, still staring Matthew Hill right in the eyes, just a little disorientated, too. His advert made it sound straightforward. Exeter-based PI. Ex-police. Neat. Simple. I had imagined I would say what I wanted. And he would do it. That this is how he earns his living. Like someone coming into my shop. Birthday bouquet, please. Certainly. ‘Look. I’ve been following the coverage. This is new evidence. The girl’s still missing, and when there is a live inquiry I have this rule that I don’t—’ ‘Trust me, Mr Hill, this is not evidence.’ ‘And you know this because ?’ I pause for a moment, not at all sure how much I should share. ‘Look. I know who this is from. It’s from the girl’s mother, Barbara Ballard. She’s very upset with me. No. That’s an understatement. She is beyond upset, and who can blame her. I certainly don’t. I brought this entirely on myself. When the first postcard arrived I admit I considered telling the police. For a moment it really shook me, frightened me. We had quite a lot of hassle after my name was leaked and I thought it was more of the same. But I realise now what this is really about. There have been three, and so I just need you to gently warn her off, please. To stop this. Otherwise my husband will find out and then he will insist we go to the police, which I don’t want for her. She’s got enough to deal with.’ ‘Well, I’m afraid I’m with your husband on this. You could well be wrong.’ ‘Look – she comes to my shop. Twice so far. Just watches me through the window. She doesn’t know that I know. Obviously’ ‘Right. So when did this start?’ His expression has changed. ‘We’re talking in confidence? Yes?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Good – because I am not reporting this, either. It really is my own fault. And I don’t just mean about the train. I went down there, you see. To Cornwall, last summer. To see the mother. My husband warned me not to and it turns out he was right. It was completely stupid of me. I see that now. Just one in a long line of mistakes I’ve made over this whole terrible business. The worst, as you will be well aware, was not phoning not warning that poor family in the first place.’ ‘You didn’t hurt the girl, Mrs Longfield. Weren’t there a couple of guys in the picture. Key suspects. Just out of Exeter?’ ‘Yes. But that makes me feel worse rather than better, Mr Hill.’ ‘Matthew. Please call me Matthew.’ ‘Matthew. My husband says the same thing over and over. That this is not my fault. But I’m afraid it doesn’t make me feel any better. And I can’t bear that they haven’t found her.’ There is a hissing noise suddenly from an adjoining room. I glance to the door across the office, which is ajar, and Matthew Hill stands suddenly, his expression softening. ‘I tell you what. Would you like a coffee, Mrs Longfield? I make a pretty good cappuccino.’ ‘Ella. And yes, please. It smells as if you know what you’re doing.’ I feel a smile, relaxing a little, my shoulders changing shape. ‘I am rather fond of good coffee.’ ‘Espresso machine. Imported beans – my own mix. It’s a weakness.’ ‘Mine too.’ I take a deep breath. ‘Sorry to be so spiky before. I was quite nervous, coming here.’ ‘Most people are.’ His voice trails off as he disappears into what I presume is a flat alongside the office. He is gone for quite some time, eventually reappearing with a tray bearing two coffees plus a jug of foaming milk. I nod to the offer of milk. ‘So, tell me some more about this mother. About your visit to Cornwall. All of it. No holding back on me.’ ‘All right. I don’t know how closely you’ve followed the case but there was an awful kerfuffle with the press when they found out that I was the witness on the train. The nationals got terribly excited. Sent all their feature writers down. Big-moral-dilemma headlines. “What would you have done?” and all that.’ ‘Yes. I saw the stories.’ He leans forward in his chair, sipping at the drink. ‘All very unpleasant. I have a flower shop. It was so awful we had to shut it for a month and close our social media accounts, too. I found I couldn’t face people. Friends were very understanding but some people were a bit odd. Even regular customers. You could tell from the way they looked at me.’ ‘I’m sorry. The fallout from cases is underestimated. People can be very unkind.’ ‘Yes, well. Tony, my husband, was completely furious. Like I say, he is very protective. A sweet man – and he was furious that my name got out.’ ‘And how exactly did that happen?’ ‘We were never entirely sure. I was at a floristry conference in South London. Training and business-modelling. Officially the police insist that the press just got lucky and put the jigsaw together by tracing me as one of only two people on the course from Devon. But Tony suspects a deliberate leak to boost press interest in the case.’ Matthew pulls a face. ‘So you do think that’s possible?’ I ask. ‘Wouldn’t like to say. It seems highly unlikely. They wouldn’t want to put you in danger.’ ‘Danger? So you really think I might be in danger now?’ ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s not as if you’re the only one who could identify these men. No. I really think it’s unlikely there would be a deliberate leak. An accidental one that’s a different matter.’ ‘Well – either way. Everyone knows now. I’m the woman on the train who did nothing.’ ‘Tough for you, then?’ ‘Yes. But nothing compared to what that family has been through.’ ‘So why on earth did you go down there? To Cornwall?’ I can feel the sigh leaving my body and put the coffee down for a moment, cradling my head in my palms. ‘Completely stupid of me, I know. But the thing is, when I saw her, Mrs Ballard, outside my shop, just watching me, I recognised her from the press coverage – it was in the local paper such a lot. Anyway. It gave me the creeps, and when I thought it over, I felt it would be better to try to talk to her. I got it into my head that if I told her in person how very, very sorry I was and that I accepted she had the right to be angry – that if she could see that I was a mother, too, and how terrible I felt about her pain’ Matthew’s face gives him away. ‘Yes. I know. Stupid of me.’ ‘And she reacted badly?’ ‘Understatement. She went completely berserk. Of course, I can see it now. I was being selfish. I had this fantasy in my head that if she could just see that I was a decent person and that I so badly regretted—’ ‘Was anyone else there?’ ‘No. Just the two of us. I took some flowers. A big posy of primroses, which I read were Anna’s favourites – which I can see now was probably the trigger. Made it so much worse. She became quite hysterical. Said she was sick of flowers and I had no place. No right. Floral tributes as if her daughter were dead. Which she doesn’t believe she is, incidentally.’ Matthew pours some more frothy milk into his coffee and offers me the same, but I put my hand over the cup. ‘Do you think it’s possible? That the girl is still alive?’ Matthew tightens his lips. ‘Possible, but statistically unlikely.’ ‘That’s what we think. Me and Tony.’ For a moment my voice falters. I wish that I could feel more hopeful. I think of a recent television drama in which missing girls were found years later. I try to picture Anna emerging from a basement or a hiding place with a police blanket around her shoulders, but I cannot shape the scene in my mind. I cough, looking away to the wall of filing cabinets and then back, picking up my coffee cup once more. ‘So anyway. It was pretty terrible in Cornwall. I tried to leave. Apologising for disturbing her. She rather lost it.’ ‘Physically?’ ‘She wasn’t herself.’ ‘Did she hurt you, Ella? I mean, if she hurt you, if she’s volatile, then you really ought to go to the police with this. They should know this.’ ‘She didn’t mean to. A tussle on the steps outside – an accident more than anything. Just a bit of bruising. On my arm.’ Matthew is now shaking his head. ‘Oh, for goodness sake; it was my own fault. She’s not a violent woman. It wasn’t deliberate and I should never have gone there. Provoked her. But the point is, it shook me up a bit. I mean – I knew that she blamed me and I wanted to try to redress that. But the extent of her hatred. Her eyes.’ ‘Which is why you think the postcards are from her.’ ‘Don’t you?’ He shrugs, tilting his head from side to side. ‘I wish you had kept them all.’ ‘Sorry. I didn’t want my husband to worry. He’s going for a promotion at work and has enough on his plate. Look, Mr Hill. Sorry – Matthew. If you won’t take this on for me, I will burn them. I’m not handing them in to the police, I can tell you that.’ Matthew examines my face very closely and shifts position. ‘I would like you to visit her, Matthew. You’re neutral and experienced at this kind of thing. I am hoping that you can put a stop to this without upsetting her further. Gently warn her off, but without involving the police and making it all worse for her.’ ‘And what if you have this all wrong and it isn’t her? This mother who seems to have a bit of a temper on her.’ ‘Well, then I will reconsider. And listen to your advice.’ ‘Good. So we have a deal here, Ella? I try one visit to Mrs Ballard to see what I make of the situation, and if I’m still uneasy, you consider passing all this on to the police?’ ‘You don’t seriously think this has anything to do with the investigation?’ ‘In all honesty – probably not. If it’s not the mother, it’s most likely some saddo. But the team ought to be told.’ ‘But my call?’ ‘OK. We regroup after I’ve been to Cornwall.’ And now he is frowning, narrowing his eyes as he stands. ‘I take it you’ve heard the new development, Ella? This morning.’ ‘I’m sorry?’ ‘On the local radio this morning. After the anniversary appeal.’ ‘No. What development? Has someone come forward? I missed it. What’s happened?’ Matthew winces. ‘They haven’t released a name, of course. But I’m assuming it’s the other girl. On the train. The friend.’ ‘Sarah. Her name is Sarah. What do you mean? What’s happened to Sarah?’ CHAPTER 7 THE FRIEND Again Sarah is pretending to be asleep, but this time it is more difficult. There are nurses to deal with, not just her mother. ‘Come on, Sarah. We need you to try to have a little drink. Yes?’ The nurse is gently tapping her hand. Go away. Go away. ‘Why can’t you just keep her on a drip?’ Her mother has been clucking and fussing and crying alongside the bed for most of the night. ‘She looks terrible. She can’t sit up.’ ‘Trust me. It’s better for Sarah if we can get her to stay alert and take a little drink herself.’ They are on a unit called HDU, which Sarah learns stands for ‘high dependency unit’. She has been conscious of the goings-on around her for several hours but has been feeling woozy and playing dumb. They want to know precisely how many tablets she took. They keep asking this. She has listened in on conversations between the medical staff and her mother. Tests are apparently under way to determine how many tablets, but they take time and it would be much easier, everyone explains, if Sarah would just tell them. The nurses have been trying to get her mother to take a nap in the family room and Sarah wishes so badly she would agree. She feels too tired and dazed and wretched to feel guilty. She is sick to her stomach of feeling guilty; she just wants everyone to leave her alone. Her mother is now telling the nurses that the last time they were in hospital was over an asthma attack when Sarah was in primary school. All the parents were allowed to bed down in the playroom next to the children’s ward. They slept on mattresses on the floor, though some got the luxury of proper fold-up beds. This time there is no mattress or bed. Margaret spent the night like some ghost, wandering here and there to stretch her legs every few hours, alternating between the green plastic armchair alongside Sarah’s bed on the unit and the closed cafeteria that offered filthy coffee and snacks from machines. Sarah is now vomiting less. Still determined to say nothing. How many tablets, Sarah. We need to know how many. ‘I don’t have many in the house. Paracetamol. Two packets tops.’ Sarah’s mother repeats this to the staff for the umpteenth time. The truth? Sarah doesn’t remember how many tablets she took. She bought some at the corner shop and some at the supermarket. They have stupid rules about how many you can buy in each place. It was the thought of the TV reconstruction. The push for new witnesses. That stupid bitch on the train. Over and over she had told the police and her parents that it was all vicious lies. Have sex in a toilet? With a complete stranger? What did they think she was? How dare they. But later Sarah had panicked. What if the TV show led to more witnesses? The whole case had gone quieter since the immediate aftermath of Anna’s disappearance. And of course she wanted people to help the police; of course she wanted Anna to be found. She just didn’t want anyone to find out the truth about her part in it all. Not that. Please not that ‘Do you think we had better get the doctor again? Maybe a consultant? See what he thinks?’ ‘I’m following the doctor’s very specific instructions. Please try not to worry. Sarah has stopped vomiting and it’s best we try to get her to take in some fluids herself. Trust me. It’s best for her. Then we can get a better idea of where we are.’ ‘And what does “where we are” mean?’ Sarah’s mother is all agitation. ‘Shut up.’ Sarah cannot help herself. Barely a whisper. ‘Just shut up, will you? All of you.’ ‘There we are. Good girl, Sarah. Come on, then. Let’s try opening your eyes and then we can see if we can sit you up a little bit, yes? We should have the test results back soon. Let you know how you’re doing. But it would be a great help—’ ‘I don’t know how many I took. Right? I just don’t know.’ ‘I think we should just leave her. Please.’ Sarah’s mother begins to cry, and Sarah can feel tears forming on her own face. She wishes Lily were here, but cannot say this to her mother. Yet another taboo subject. ‘I’m sorry’ ‘You have nothing to be sorry for, my darling. It’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. I promise you. Everyone sends their love. Anna’s parents. Jenny and Paul and Tim and everyone. They just want you to get well.’ Sarah closes her eyes. Not true, is it? Truth is, they blame her. They’d said as much. The night before the wretched TV programme they had all got together, supposedly for moral support, but it had all gone badly wrong. Spiralled down and down into this ugly place until there was a shouting match. The two boys really angry. Jenny crying. The thing was, they were all supposed to go to London. All five of them. Anna and Sarah to celebrate the end of GCSEs and school uniform, and the older ones for fun. But it was like everything they tried to do. People were so flaky. When they were little it was very different. The age gap never seemed to matter. Jenny and the two boys were two years ahead in school – but so what? Then in secondary school, when the older ones got part-time jobs, everything changed. They had more money suddenly. They wanted to do different things. And they started bailing on plans. Sarah hated all the change. She especially hated people flaking out on things, and she spat out her anger in the row. If you hadn’t all been so selfish. Made other plans. Maybe I wouldn’t have been trying to look after Anna in London on my own. Paul had caved on the trip first. Offer of a week in Greece. Villa with a pool with his parents. Tim bailed next. Mad keen on walking. He was offered a trekking week in Scotland and wanted to see the Loch Ness Monster museum. Also didn’t fancy being the only bloke on a girls’ trip. And then Jenny had the offer to see a band with her then boyfriend. And so it was only Sarah and Anna. You still should have looked after her The boys were both furious. We don’t understand how you got split up And then Jenny wondering why they didn’t have the usual pact. Watching each other’s back. I mean it was London, for God’s sake Sarah had wanted them all to shut the hell up. In any case, why was she the one who was expected to look after Anna? Why not the other way round, eh? Because Sarah was from the estate and supposed to be more streetwise? Because Anna could be a bit of a princess? Was that it? Of course they’d had a pact. It was Anna who broke it, she shouted at them. All of them. At Tim with his selfish trekking holiday. Paul with his fancy villa. Jenny with her gig. She spat the lie at them just as she had spat it over and over to the police. We said we would meet at the bar at 2 a.m. for a taxi to go home. She didn’t show Anna broke the pact. OK? Anna didn’t show I told you. I told you. I told you Her mother had tried to calm her about the TV programme. The woman on the train wouldn’t be allowed to make false claims. Not on television. It was libellous. She’s obviously some kind of weirdo But Sarah was petrified. What if other witnesses now came forward? From the train or from the club. She remembers her father’s reaction at the Paradise Hotel in London. At first she refused to talk to him. It had been years since he left the family, and she’d refused all contact. But her mother wanted him there with everything that was happening, and he went mental when the DI shared what the witness had said. You calling my daughter a slut? And so Sarah had sat at home before the television programme, terrified about what would come out. She was supposed to be going to Jenny’s. To the farmhouse. All of the friends together. But then all the images had started to flash through her mind. The club. That queasy feeling when she looked at her watch The row with Anna. Don’t be such a baby The trouble with not telling the whole truth to the police was, sometimes, a year on, she couldn’t remember exactly what she had said and what she hadn’t said. She was petrified that all this stirring it up would make her slip up and say the wrong thing. So she had taken the tablets into the bathroom and said she was having a bath. And it wasn’t as if she made this clear decision that she wanted to kill herself. Nothing that dramatic, nothing that black and white. She just wanted the panic to stop, the waiting for the TV programme. The not knowing how much they would find out. She just wanted all of it to stop Now, as the nurse helps her to sit, plumping pillows up behind her, someone new appears alongside the bed. Another nurse in a differentcoloured uniform. She is older, looks more senior and is talking to her mother. Ominous whispering. Something about the test ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump. It’s just the doctor would like a word.’ ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ ‘It’s best you come this way, please, Mrs Headley.’ CHAPTER 8 THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR On the drive down to Cornwall, Matthew phones home twice. ‘It’s just Braxton Hicks, Matt. I will ring if it changes. It’s fine. Braxton Hicks.’ ‘I can come back. Stay home if you’d prefer? If you’re at all worried?’ ‘I’m fine.’ Sally is eight months gone and insists practice contractions are nothing to be alarmed about. Perfectly normal. But Matthew is no longer doing normal. He has found everything alarmingly abnormal since the surreal experience of the childbirth classes. Dear God. Why had his friends not warned him? Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a caesarean, Sal? Some reckon they’re a lot safer, you know. And these days you can say. No shame in it. Getting frightened, Matt? Sorry. But I’m not too posh to push. And it’s a bit late to chicken out now. This whispered conversation had taken place with Sal sitting on a yoga mat in her grey sweatpants and a black T-shirt, with Matt following instructions on how to massage her back, thinking how very lovely but also slightly ridiculous she looked. From behind she looked her normal slim self just this huge balloon stuffed up her top. Sal was the envy of everyone in the class. How come you’ve not swollen up all over? The others displayed their puffed-up ankles and their puffed-up legs, pinched the fat padding around their backs and their arms. God knows. I’m eating like a horse. This was true. Matthew had never seen his wife pack away so much. Fish finger sandwiches late at night with mayonnaise and chopped gherkins. The stench of her farts these days was mind-boggling. Piss off, Matt. I don’t fart. I am a pregnant goddess. Matthew checks his phone one more time and smiles. Truth is, Sal even farts in her sleep now. The phone confirms a strong signal. No text. He could ring just one more time? No. Calm down, man. She was getting prickly, the second call. Everything is going to be just fine. Not long to go. Matthew checks the satnav – less than a quarter of a mile to the Ballards’ farm – and pulls into a lay-by. Mel should be in the office by now. Good. DS Melanie Sanders – hopefully soon to be DI Melanie Sanders – is Matthew’s dearest police pal from the old days. There was a time, a million years ago, when he had a bit of a crush on her; had hoped for something more. But that was history. He told Sal all about it. Came completely clean. No. That wasn’t one hundred per cent true. He had not told her that he still got this slightly weird feeling in his stomach when he spoke to Mel. Not desire. Not that anymore. Just a feeling that reminded him of a whole different time, a different version of himself. Three years out of the force, and Matthew hates to admit that he is still struggling to adjust. He presses the button that links his dashboard to his phone and listens to it dial and ring. ‘DS Melanie Sanders.’ ‘How many coffees have you had?’ ‘Matt?’ ‘I will ring off and ring back if you’ve not had your second caffeine hit.’ She laughs. ‘You’d better not be after another of your favours.’ ‘Of course I’m after a favour. But it’s two-way. I promise.’ ‘Oh, it’s always two-way, Matt. I help you. And then I help you again.’ Now he laughs. ‘Seriously. You up on the missing Ballard girl?’ ‘Just the family liaison gig. One of our team, Cathy, is assigned to the family. We get updates from London – when they can be bothered. Which isn’t often. The DI on the case is a right little sir, between us. Why?’ ‘So any of the family ever in the frame, as far as you know? Mum and dad in the clear?’ ‘And why ever would you want to know that?’ ‘No reason.’ ‘You’d better not be meddling in a live case again, Matt. We all know where—’ ‘Don’t worry. If I have anything for you, I promise, cross my heart and —’ ‘Fingers crossed behind your back.’ ‘You know me.’ They are both quiet for a moment. Every time they liaise like this, Melanie tries to persuade him to reconsider. To go back into the force. She still reckons it’s an option despite all the water and the bridges, and swears that once she is sufficiently senior she will fix it, twist his arm. But Matt always turns it into a joke until they hit this silent little impasse. An understanding. She thinks he’s wasting his talent. And he’s frightened to think about that one too much. ‘OK. You didn’t hear this from me, Matt, but word is the parents’ marriage is not too hot. Hardly surprising. But no. Family all have alibis. Our brief is just to keep an eye on them. The DI on the case – did I mention he’s a patronising prat? – anyway, his focus is still finding the two guys on the train. Between us, there has been the usual cock-up liaising with our European friends.’ ‘So – abroad then?’ ‘Almost certainly. Not a squeak here. No leads at all. No forensics and nothing useful from CCTV, either. The Met are a bit touchy. Bit slow putting the brakes on border controls. But the anniversary appeal brought in some calls, apparently. We’re not being told much but I shall push. Hope to know more soon. Why?’ ‘Nothing. Look, we must have coffee sometime soon. I’ll text you.’ ‘So you really are meddling in a live case again?’ ‘Moi?’ She laughs. ‘OK. And how’s Sal, before you ring off?’ ‘Farting gherkins. Trust me – pregnancy is a smelly business. Seriously, she’s great. Looks beautiful and serene as ever, but the gherkins are bad news. I’ll text you about that coffee very soon.’ She is still laughing as he ends the call, checking the time on the satnav again. The Ballards’ farmhouse is at the end of a half-mile, single-lane track. It’s like following the yellow brick road: the strange, concrete surface in a sandy colour is raised above the dirt on either side, which puts Matthew on edge wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do if he meets another vehicle coming the other way. There are just two passing places along the whole stretch. Matthew is rather fond of his car, and is imagining the damage if a wheel slips off the side of the concrete platform. Could be very nasty. So this is what people mean by living off the beaten track. At the end of the drive, finally, he comes to the house. It’s impressive: double-fronted with a fabulous climber – no doubt magnificent in season, though he is no gardener and does not recognise the species. The inadequate approach widens into a full drive at the front of the house, with a large turning circle, an impressive lawn to the side and a second track leading off towards barns in the distance. Matthew pulls up under a tree opposite the front door and puts his keys in his pocket. No need to lock up out here. Mrs Ballard answers the door herself, which is a relief. A clich? in her floral apron. Matthew immediately feels guilty – forced now to look into those eyes. ‘If you’re a reporter, we have nothing more to say until the vigil.’ ‘I’m not a reporter. Could we talk inside, Mrs Ballard?’ Sometimes it works. Confidence and the official tone. As if he has the right. ‘And you are ?’ Not always. ‘I’m a private investigator, Mrs Ballard, and I’m looking into matters relating to your daughter’s disappearance.’ Her face changes. From caution through surprise, to a new hope so misplaced that Matthew feels guilty again. ‘I don’t understand. A private detective So why are you involved?’ ‘It would be better if we could talk inside. Please?’ In the hallway, they stand awkwardly as Matthew glances towards the vases of flowers – at least four crowding a narrow table below a large mirror. ‘I wish people wouldn’t send them. Flowers. But they mean well. We’re having a candlelit vigil to mark the anniversary’ She clears her throat. Regroups. ‘So, I’m not quite understanding – Mr’ ‘Hill. Matthew Hill.’ ‘You’re investigating my daughter’s disappearance privately? But why on earth would that happen? There’s a whole team in London working on this. Did my husband call you?’ ‘No, Mrs Ballard. I was contacted by someone else touched by this inquiry, who is receiving unpleasant mail. And I am just trying to help put a stop to that, so that all resources can be directed where they need to be directed. To finding your daughter.’ ‘Unpleasant mail?’ ‘Would it be OK for us to sit down for a moment?’ She stills herself, apparently considering this, and finally leads him into the kitchen. Another clich?, with its huge blue Aga covered in drying socks. Mrs Ballard appears a little more nervous now, her hands fidgeting in her lap. She does not offer a drink. ‘You haven’t had any unpleasant mail yourself, I take it?’ ‘No. Not at all. Lots of nice letters actually, from complete strangers. A few weird ones, admittedly, but never a nuisance or a problem. We show them all to the family liaison officer – Cathy. She’s still regularly in touch. So who’s been getting unpleasant letters? Not Sarah, I hope. You know that she’s in hospital?’ ‘Your daughter’s friend from the trip?’ ‘Yes. I was there this morning. At the hospital. They’re waiting on tests. Terrible. Terrible. Her mother’s in bits. We all are. As if it wasn’t all bad enough already. So is that what this is? Nasty letters to Sarah?’ ‘No. Not her.’ Matthew looks Barbara Ballard directly in the eye and checks for discomfort. But no. She does not look away. Her eyes just contain the ache of the haunted. ‘I know this will be difficult for you, Mrs Ballard. But this mail – it’s been sent to the witness on the train. Ella Longfield.’ ‘Oh.’ Her demeanour changes immediately, along with her tone. ‘That woman.’ ‘Yes. I am aware from Mrs Longfield how you feel about her, and there is no intention, I assure you, of adding to your distress by bringing this up. But Ella is keen to try to put a stop to the mail without involving the police. She doesn’t want them distracted. From the main focus. Finding Anna.’ ‘Bit late for that now.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ She shrugs. Staring at him now. More defiant. ‘Look. I understand it must be very, very tough, Mrs Ballard. But I was in the force myself. There are good people doing their very best, I am sure of that. And the anniversary appeal. TV coverage normally helps to—’ She doesn’t take the bait. ‘Look. These letters – whatever they are. It’s probably better that you talk to my husband.’ She is standing up. ‘He doesn’t always hear his mobile and the signal isn’t always great, but I can try giving him a ring if you like?’ ‘There’s no need to disturb him. So you can’t think of anyone who might send unpleasant mail to Mrs Longfield? Anyone else in the circle who has been particularly upset about everything. Spoken up angrily. About her part—’ ‘Everyone’s upset, Mr Hill. My daughter is still missing. The vigil is tomorrow. And now, if you will excuse me.’ She is belatedly pulling herself together, overriding her manners as she realises, apparently, that she does not have to speak to him at all. Matthew knows from experience that this realisation normally morphs swiftly into anger. He holds out his card, which she takes, hesitating for just a moment before placing it in the pocket of her apron. ‘Have you told the police team about this hate mail?’ Mrs Ballard is still looking him very directly in the eye. ‘Why do you ask that?’ She does not reply. ‘Well. If you hear of anything which you think might be relevant – you will call? Yes?’ She nods. ‘The thing is, Mrs Longfield is going to have to take this to the police if the mail continues. And that’s not the way she wants to go. She thinks you all have enough to deal with.’ ‘Does she?’ Matthew tightens his lips and nods a farewell. Outside, he can feel Mrs Ballard watching him as he starts up the car and swings through a tight circle before pulling once more onto the impossibly narrow road. He checks the screen for his hands-free set-up. Nothing from Sal. He tells himself not to look back. To keep the upper hand. And then he continues, steering ever so carefully and trying very hard to erase the image of Barbara Ballard’s eyes. CHAPTER 9 THE FATHER Henry sees the car approach the house as he is checking the sheep in the farm’s highest and most exposed field. The wind is vicious up here, and he zips his coat right up to his chin, all the while watching the farmhouse below. This part of the farm has always been a problem logistically. Tricky to access except by quad bike, and Henry has always had a difficult relationship with the quad bike on the hills. He has nearly turned it over more times than he will admit to Barbara. Once on the steepest gradient, he seriously thought the stupid thing was going to topple right over at high speed. Two wheels left the ground and he could feel the whole weight shift. It was just how they tell you. A flash of imagining: wondering how they would all cope when he left them behind. He hears the echo in his head again. Anna’s voice. You disgust me That day with the quad bike had so frightened him that he went straight home and into the office alongside the boot room, and arranged online to increase his life insurance. Later, it caused the most terrible row with Barbara. We can’t afford more life insurance, Henry. What are you doing that for anyway? Don’t be so morbid. He promised he would cancel the extra premium while secretly wondering if he should reconsider the offer from a neighbouring farm to take on the awkward fields, which were a better match for their own livestock. But it was a question of pride. Still trying to pretend he was a proper farmer, not a tourist manager. He stands now watching the car leave, the driver clearly nervous of the access road. Taking it slowly. No, Henry has decided he will not lease out or sell off any more of the land that his father and grandfather worked so hard to acquire. So what if the tourist side makes more sense on paper? The holiday lets. The campsite. He is still a farmer in his heart. And so he is thinking of his few sheep and his cattle, and also the increased lifeinsurance premium still in place. He did not recognise the man who was just at the house. Tall and slim, but too far away to make out his face. For a moment Henry wonders if it was the police and experiences the familiar jolt of adrenaline. A year on and, unlike his wife, Henry is not waiting for their daughter to turn up alive. Henry watches Barbara emerge on the doorstep to make sure the visitor has gone. He is just thinking that he ought to head down there and find out what the hell is going on when there is a bleating behind him. He turns to see two of the ewes slipping on mud at the lower end of the field, sliding precariously close to the stream. Damn. He will have to go down there. Encourage them up to the higher and safer ground. This exercise, with the ground so sodden, takes longer than he would like. Stupid sheep. No brains. He calls Sammy, who has his tail between his legs. Even the dog hates this field, looking at him now as if he were mad. What are we doing up here? You normally bring the quad up here. Finally, with Sammy’s help he coaxes the two stray ewes and the rest of the flock back up onto the higher ground. From there he moves them further still, through the gate to the neighbouring field which, though poor on grass now, is a safer option for the night. He secures the gate, calls Sammy back to his side and finally heads along the adjoining lane, back towards the farmhouse. It is called Primrose Lane. Anna used to love it when she was little, because of the high hedges. Always keen to collect posies of wild flowers. Race you, Dad. Henry closes his eyes to this more welcome echo, and for a moment stands very still. He can picture her in her pink puffa jacket, with her pink bobble hat and her pink gloves. Come on, Dad. I’ll race you back. The posy of primroses in her hand. Only when he feels Sammy nuzzling at his leg does he open his eyes again. OK, boy. It’s OK. He strokes the dog’s head, takes a deep breath and marches back home. By the time he reaches the farmyard, Barbara has gone back inside. In the boot room he takes off his wellies, ordering the collie, covered in mud, to stay. ‘So, who was that earlier?’ Barbara’s face is ashen as she comes through from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘A private detective.’ ‘What the hell is a private detective doing here?’ ‘He says that Ella – that flower shop woman – has been getting hate mail.’ ‘So what’s new?’ ‘No. Not just stuff on social media. Actual letters or something. To her house. Nasty.’ ‘And this is our concern because ?’ ‘I think this private detective thought I might have sent them.’ ‘He accused you?’ ‘Not in so many words, but that was the implication. As if he was doing me a favour. Warning me off.’ Henry pauses, narrowing his eyes. ‘And before you ask – no, I didn’t send them. Though I can’t pretend I give a damn who did.’ ‘Well, I hope you told him not to come back. Do you think we should ring Cathy? Or the London team? Tell them about this?’ ‘No. No point. I’ve told him not to come back. He says he’s going to report it to the police himself.’ ‘And you didn’t say anything else? Anything silly, Barbara. About me.’ She looks at him very earnestly. Unblinkingly. Cold eyes. Henry can feel his pulse increasing. ‘No, Henry. I didn’t say anything silly about you.’ Henry sits on the old church pew which serves as their boot room bench. ‘Is Jenny home?’ ‘Not yet. She’s gone into town. She wants a new coat for the vigil. Says she wants something warm and smart.’ Henry has made his feelings about the vigil perfectly clear from the off. He is not a religious man. It was the local vicar’s idea. Prayers and candles to mark the one-year anniversary. It had originally been scheduled for Thursday a year to the day. But once the TV reconstruction was confirmed, they decided to put it back to the Saturday. More convenient for people, too – the weekend. Barbara lifts up her chin. ‘Sarah’s mother is saying that she hopes we can put the vigil back until Sarah is well enough to attend, but I said that wasn’t a good idea, that Sarah needs to concentrate on getting well. I think we should go ahead as planned.’ ‘And you still think this is a good idea? This vigil.’ ‘I have no idea, Henry. But people have been kind and they seem to want to do something. Also the press will take photographs, which helps to keep it in the public eye. Cathy says that’s good. To keep it in the public eye.’ ‘And what about Sarah? Is she still claiming it was an accident? The pills’ No one takes an overdose by accident, Henry is thinking. He tries to feel more sympathy for Sarah but finds that he cannot. CHAPTER 10 THE WITNESS ‘Why don’t you let me make the tea, love? Give yourself ten minutes for a change?’ I hear my husband’s voice but do not turn. From the top of the stairs, I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the mail on the doormat. In the sweep of bills and white envelopes I can see it, screaming at me. The familiar dark envelope. Printed address on a cream label this time. ‘I’m fine. Really. You know me, prefer to get going.’ I hurry down to grab the letters from the floor and bundle them into a pile, feeling the firm postcard inside the envelope and tucking it into the centre as Tony begins his own descent of the stairs. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Ella?’ ‘How about bacon butties? Tell Luke fifteen minutes, would you?’ I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and deliberately do not check my reflection in the hall mirror, not wanting to see the evidence. The flushed face. I really thought that by calling in Matthew, this would stop; I honestly thought that I could avoid worrying Tony, who has been through quite enough already over all this. In the kitchen, I rifle through the mail to hand Tony the circulars from the wine club and the bank. I know that I should tell him, and I have promised myself that I will soon. Very soon. Once I’ve spoken to Matthew. But he is going to be upset again and he’s snowed under right now, bidding for this promotion. I feel bad, because he expressly warned me not to go to Cornwall. Oh Lord. I had so hoped that Matthew would sort this. ‘Anything interesting?’ Tony is looking at the mail in my hand. ‘Insurance company. Multi-car deal.’ He pulls a face and turns away, as I switch on the oven and begin busying myself with the bread and the bacon, just as the phone goes. ‘I’ll get that,’ I say, wondering if it’s Matthew. I thought I asked him to ring me at the shop. ‘There’s something going on, Ella – isn’t there. Something you’re not telling me.’ ‘Not now, Tony. Please. I’m fine.’ Damn. If it’s not the mother in Cornwall, we have to hand the mail over to the police. Right. I will have to tell Tony then. With one hand opening a new pack of bacon, I pick up the phone, bracing myself to ask Matthew to ring back later, at the shop. ‘Is that Luke’s mother?’ ‘Yes. Ella Longfield here. Who’s this?’ ‘It’s Rebecca Hillier. Emily’s mother. I was hoping we could confirm arrangements. For the meeting.’ ‘The meeting? I’m afraid I don’t understand.’ There is a very long pause. ‘Has Luke not spoken to you?’ ‘No. Is something wrong?’ ‘Look – there’s no way I’m dealing with this on the phone. I made that very plain to Luke. So – are you free tomorrow or not?’ Tony is now mouthing questions. Who is it? What’s the matter? ‘Well – my husband is playing poker with friends, so’ ‘Let’s say 7.30 p.m. At ours. Luke has the address.’ And then she hangs up. ‘That’s very odd. Very rude, actually. Get Luke down here, would you?’ ‘What’s going on?’ ‘I wish I knew.’ I begin to lay half a dozen slices of bacon on the tray, placing each one slightly overlapping so they just fit. With Tony’s footsteps back on the stairs, I quickly open the dreaded envelope. WATCH YOURSELF. I DO ‘Ella! I think you’d better come up here.’ Dear God In Luke’s room, I know immediately that things are bad, the dread switching instantly from the card to my son. These last couple of weeks, he has been running later and later, for shifts at the shop and for school. There has been a letter from the school about missed lessons, too. The suggestion of a meeting with his tutor. I have been meaning to sort it out, but with so much happening ‘What the hell’s going on, Luke?’ Tony is at first more cross than worried. Luke is curled up under the covers, fully dressed in yesterday’s clothes. Jeans and a thick blue-green hoodie. Sweaty. Smelly. ‘You feeling cold? Going down with something?’ I try to keep my voice calm. Feeling guilty that my eye has been off the ball. ‘Start talking, Luke. What is all this about?’ Tony is opening the curtains. Luke, his eyes dark and hooded, does not reply. ‘I’ve just had Emily’s mother on the phone. Going on about some meeting. She was quite off with me. Seemed to think I would know. What meeting, Luke?’ I try not to sound angry. Still he says nothing. ‘What is it, Luke?’ And now I am panicking. I am thinking – drugs? Shoplifting? Trouble with the police? No. Not my Luke, surely. My straight-As Luke, who was supposed to be in with a chance of Oxbridge until all this nonsense just lately. A phase, Tony reckoned. A little rebellion because the AS year was so much tougher than anyone expected. Maybe he’s just sick of exams. Is that it? ‘Please, Luke. Tell us what’s going on. Maybe we can help.’ Tony has softened his voice. And then Luke takes us both by surprise and starts to cry. Great heaving waves of sobbing. Toddler tears, incongruous and dramatic and at the same time terrifying from this fully dressed six-foot-two boy wrapped in a blue striped Marks and Spencer duvet. I know two things immediately. That whatever has happened is very serious, and that I have been too distracted by the Anna Ballard case to even notice. CHAPTER 11 THE FATHER Henry is putting the tractor into reverse when Barbara appears on the doorstep. ‘What the hell are you doing, Henry?’ ‘I’m getting things ready for your vigil.’ ‘My vigil.’ ‘Well it certainly wasn’t my idea.’ There are a few minutes when she just watches him manoeuvre the tractor. Angry, jerky movements to and fro. He hopes she will go inside. Leave him to it. But no. ‘I still don’t understand what you’re doing.’ ‘Putting out some bales of straw. Seating.’ ‘People won’t want to sit down. They won’t be here for long, surely.’ ‘People always want to sit down. There will be some older people who need to sit down, Barb. We can’t put chairs out. I don’t want them to get too comfy or we’ll never get rid of them.’ ‘Oh, you’re being ridiculous.’ Henry is thinking that this is a fine time to call him ridiculous. He never wanted the stupid vigil. In bed last night they had another spitwhispered row about it. We could have it at the front of the house, Barbara had said when the vicar called by. Henry had quite explicitly said he would not support anything churchy – anything that would feel like a memorial service. But the vicar had said the idea of a vigil was exactly the opposite. That the community would like to show that they have not given up. That they continue to support the family. To pray for Anna’s safe return. Barbara was delighted and it was all agreed. A small event at the house. People would walk from the village, or park on the industrial estate and walk up the drive. ‘This was your idea, Barbara.’ ‘The vicar’s, actually. People just want to show support. That is what this is about.’ ‘This is ghoulish, Barb. That’s what this is.’ He moves the tractor across the yard again, depositing two more bales of straw alongside the others. ‘There. That should be enough.’ Henry looks across at his wife and is struck by the familiar contradiction. Wondering how on earth they got here. Not just since Anna disappeared, but across the twenty-two years of their marriage. He wonders if all marriages end up like this. Or if he is simply a bad man. For as Barbara sweeps her hair behind her ear and tilts up her chin, Henry can still see the full lips, perfect teeth and high cheekbones that once made him feel so very differently. It’s a pendulum that still confuses him, makes him wish he could rewind. To go back to the Young Farmers’ ball, when she smelled so divine and everything seemed so easy and hopeful. And he is wishing, yes, that he could go back and have another run. Make a better job of it. All of it. Then he closes his eyes. The echo again of Anna’s voice next to him in the car. You disgust me, Dad. He wants the voice to stop. To be quiet. Wants to rewind yet again. To when Anna was little and loved him, collected posies on Primrose Lane. To when he was her hero and she wanted to race him back to the house for tea. Barbara is now looking across the yard to the brazier. ‘You’re going to light a fire, Henry?’ ‘It will be cold. Yes.’ ‘Thank you. I’m doing soup in mugs, too.’ A pause then. ‘You really think this is a mistake, Henry? I didn’t realise it would upset you quite so much. I’m sorry.’ ‘It’s OK, Barbara. Let’s just make the best of it now.’ He slams the tractor into reverse and moves it out of the yard and back into its position inside the barn. There, in the semi-darkness, his heartbeat finally begins to settle and he sits very still on the tractor, needing the quiet, the stillness. It was their reserve position, to have the vigil under cover in this barn, if the weather was bad. But it has been a fine day. Cold but with a clear, bright sky, so they will stay out of doors. Yes. Henry rather hopes the cold will drive everyone home sooner, soup or no soup. And now he thinks he will sit here for a while longer, actually. Yes. It’s nice here alone in the barn. He finds he does not want to move at all. A full hour later, and Jenny turns up in the kitchen to check on her mother just as Henry finally takes off his wellies in the boot room. ‘You gonna be OK for this, Mum?’ Barbara is stirring two large stockpots of soup. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s just so difficult to know how many people will come.’ Henry stares at her back. ‘I’m sorry about earlier, love. I’m just a bit wound up.’ ‘It’s OK.’ She does not turn to look at him but reaches out her arm to touch Jenny’s shoulder for reassurance. ‘And how is Sarah doing?’ Jenny takes in a deep breath. ‘She still wishes she could come. Her mum says she feels bad about missing this. And she’s still saying it was an accident – the pills. But we all feel so terrible.’ There is something about her tone that unsettles Henry. ‘What do you mean, you all? It’s very sad, but it’s not your fault.’ Jenny turns to her father. ‘Well, maybe it is, actually.’ ‘What on earth do you mean?’ ‘We had a bit of a row with her, before the TV appeal.’ ‘Who’s we?’ ‘All of us. Me and Tim and Paul.’ Jenny’s voice is now breaking up. ‘We’ve just been all over the place, with the anniversary. And with you guys arguing all the time I don’t know. I went round with the others to see Sarah to talk about watching the appeal together. And it all got a bit heated. A bit out of hand.’ ‘Go on’ ‘I suppose we all feel bad for bailing on London. If we’d gone, there would have been more people to look out for Anna.’ ‘You can’t think like that,’ Henry says. ‘But the trouble is you do, don’t you? And so the boys were grilling Sarah again about why they didn’t stick together at the club. What exactly happened to split them up. Why she’s been so vague about it.’ And now Jenny starts crying properly. ‘We didn’t mean to make Sarah feel so bad. We just got carried away. I mean, I bailed on the trip because of John and the gig, and I’m not even going out with him anymore. I can’t believe I did that. Put a stupid boy ahead of my sister. We just all feel so guilty For not being there – in London – ourselves. But we shouldn’t have taken it out on Sarah’ ‘And this row happened when?’ ‘The night before the reconstruction on telly.’ Which is why she took the pills, Henry is thinking. Jesus. Barbara’s arms are now around Jenny. ‘Right. So this is a pickle, sweetheart,’ she says. ‘But we are all of us struggling to handle it. You’re not to blame yourself. What you need to do now is to talk this through with Sarah properly. Explain that you don’t blame her.’ ‘We don’t. Not really. We’re just’ ‘Upset. As are we all. I’ll speak to Sarah’s mum and see when you can visit her. Iron this all out. Now then. Dry those tears and get your new coat. People will be arriving soon. I’m going to help you sort this out, I promise. You’ll work this through with Sarah. OK? It’s going to be all right. We just need to be strong now, tonight, for Anna. Yes?’ Henry is looking at his wife and wondering how she ever learned this trick. Always knowing what to say with the girls. Girls? He winces at the plural. ‘This is for Anna, remember. To keep our chins up for when Anna comes home. Yes?’ Barbara is wiping Jenny’s face with a tissue as the doorbell goes. Henry shuffles through in his socks to find the vicar in a waxed jacket and wellingtons. ‘I won’t come in. Mud.’ He is smiling. ‘Nice idea to set up some seating, Henry. I just wanted to show you the little reading I’ve planned. Nothing too churchy, as we agreed. Just something uplifting and positive. And then I thought that perhaps you would like to say a few words, Barbara? You know, to thank everyone for their support and to ask the local press to keep up the appeal for witnesses. That any little thing may help.’ Barbara smiles, and Henry watches Jenny disappear upstairs to fetch her new coat before suddenly calling to them from the landing window. ‘Look. Look out of the window, guys. You have to see this Come up here.’ The vicar, stirred by her sudden excitement, removes his wellies after all and follows Henry and Barbara up the stairs, where there is a clear view of the narrow lane to the farmhouse. In the fading light, it is mesmerising. A thin line of all manner of lights weaving their way along the track: lanterns and candles and torches too, all glowing a trail in the shadows. Henry surprises himself. His lip is trembling. He watches the lights flickering and pictures Anna running ahead of him, pink gingham school dress beneath her coat, a posy in her hand. Cathy, the family liaison officer, will be here soon. And he realises that it has all gone on long enough. He is going to have to talk to the police. He is going to have to tell everyone the truth. CHAPTER 12 THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR Matthew is making little pyramids from sugar sachets as DS Melanie Sanders enters the coffee shop, checking her watch. He has never been able not to fidget. It drives Sal mad. Right now he has challenged himself to have three pyramids standing at any one time. As soon as one collapses, he must make a new one before he tries to repair the old one. The table has a bit of a wobble on, adding to the uncertainty, and he is enjoying himself so much that he feels a ridiculous, childish pang of disappointment as he realises he has to stop. ‘Sorry to trouble you at the weekend, Mel.’ He stands and kisses her on the cheek, trying not to watch as the pyramids collapse with the movement of the table. ‘It’s OK. I’m working, actually.’ She is staring at the sugar sachets. ‘Force suddenly flush on the overtime budget?’ Matthew gathers up his debris and places the sachets back in the stainless-steel stand at the centre of the shiny wipe-down surface. ‘No. We have DI Halfwit down from London on the case you’re so mysteriously interested in. I’m babysitting.’ She raises her arm for the waitress and glances behind the counter before ordering a cappuccino. ‘So you’ve warmed to him, then.’ Melanie pulls a face and pokes out her tongue. Matthew can feel his smile. It is so good to see Mel. She was one of the few coppers at training college who refused to drink instant coffee, too. Produced a little cafeti?re on the first day. They both got teased mercilessly. When they worked together, she had an app on her phone to identify the nearest caf?s with proper espresso machines. Their perfect breakfast was chip butties and good Italian coffee. Matthew stares at her and realises how much he misses it. Not just working with Mel. Working on the force. The sense of team, of collaboration. This. ‘OK, Matt. So are you going to tell me now what’s really going on,’cos I haven’t got much time.’ She is widening her eyes now. ‘The DI is down to speak to the Ballards again. Fresh stuff from the TV appeal, I’m assuming. They’re not telling me much yet, of course, but I’m taking the family liaison officer out there straight after this. What’s going on? I really need to know why you’re interested, Matt.’ Matthew glances around the coffee shop and then produces from his pocket an evidence bag containing a postcard and envelope. Melanie turns it over to read the message and frowns before glancing back at him for an explanation. ‘It was sent to Ella Longfield – the witness on the train. The flower shop woman. She called me in. There were two previous very similar cards that she threw away, unfortunately. Random postmarks. Liskeard. Somewhere in Dorset. And London.’ ‘And she didn’t think to come to us?’ ‘Trust me, I said the same, Mel, from the off. But she seemed convinced they were from Anna’s mother, Barbara Ballard. And she didn’t want her to get in trouble. Feels guilty.’ Melanie lets out a long sigh as the waitress brings over her coffee. ‘You don’t change. This should have been handed in straight away.’ ‘Don’t be unfair. This is what I do now, Mel. And you wouldn’t have this at all if I hadn’t persuaded Ella. Anyway. We both know it’s more likely to be a crank than any kind of lead.’ ‘Is that your gut, Matt? A crank? She had quite a bit of trouble on social media after her name got out.’ ‘Yeah – a bit of a cock-up, that.’ Matthew is checking Melanie’s face as she turns the evidence bag over to examine the back. ‘We really don’t know how it got out, Matt. Honestly. But there’s been a lot of noise upstairs about it. Press office furious. Anyway. We put quite a lot of time into investigating the hassle. To reassure her. Trying to make amends. But the feeling back then was it was likely just trolls or kids. Maybe Anna’s school friends. Unpleasant, but nothing significant or linked to the enquiry. Or the two guys on the train.’ ‘So you think this is the same? Just some nut trying to frighten her?’ ‘I don’t know. Quite a lot of effort put into this.’ She is examining the card more carefully. ‘Doubt we’ll get any prints now but we’ll try. Run it through the system. Probably just a random nutter. So – talk. Why does this Ella think it could be the mother?’ Matthew tells her about Ella visiting Cornwall. The fracas. ‘And she didn’t think to tell us about that either. Great.’ ‘I don’t think it’s the mother. I talked to her, Mel.’ ‘Jesus, Matt. This is a live investigation’ ‘And like I say, you wouldn’t have this handed in at all if it weren’t for me.’ Melanie dips her finger into the froth of her coffee. ‘I’m not looking forward to explaining this to DI Halfwit. You’re right, most likely another troll. But he won’t like not being told.’ ‘What’s his problem then, this DI? Doesn’t sound as if they’ve got very far.’ ‘He’s an arrogant pain. Looks about twelve. Wouldn’t mind that, if he were halfway competent, but he seems distracted by some new Soho murder case. Also, he seems to think I’m his personal chauffeur every time they’re down here. Which isn’t often.’ ‘So could you be vague when you hand this over? Help me out?’ ‘Keep your name out of it, you mean?’ Matthew tilts his head and feigns puppy eyes. ‘I know I’m a stuck record but you should have stayed in the force, Matthew. You know that, I know that, so you can stop with the butterwouldn’t-melt.’ Matthew does not reply. Melanie is one of the few people who knows why he really left the force. ‘Come on, then. Share. What did you make of the mother, Matt? The family liaison officer reckons she’s straight.’ ‘I agree. I don’t think she sent them. She didn’t slip up. I implied it was hate mail and she talked about them as letters, not postcards. But there’s something not right there, Mel.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘She pretended to want to call her husband. But I could tell from the body language that she didn’t really want him there at all. Bit odd’ Melanie narrows her eyes again. ‘So what’s the deal with the parents, Mel? Are they really both in the clear? And what’s come out of the TV appeal? Anything promising?’ ‘I tell you what. How about we talk about you becoming a dad instead. Much more interesting.’ CHAPTER 13 THE WITNESS I was so lucky with Luke as a baby, though I had no way of knowing this at first. No benchmark; no experience. To be frank, I was expecting it to be nigh impossible, trying to run the business with a baby. Everyone went so heavy on the dire warnings when I was in the last stage of pregnancy. Brace yourself, they all said. Lack of sleep is a form of torture, they said. You’ll have no time to yourself. No time even to take a bath in peace. Blah de blah. I got to the point where I seriously worried whether I would be able to keep the business going at all. When does it get easier? I remember asking a friend with three girls. That was about two weeks before Luke arrived, and I will never forget her reply. Oh, it never gets easier, Ella. Just wait until they’re teenagers I went home that day and cried and cried, catastrophising that the flower shop would have to be sold. But do you know what? It wasn’t nearly as difficult as they all predicted. Sure – I remember the panic outside the hospital when we couldn’t even strap him into the car seat, despite all our practising. I remember the sense of shock that they were actually going to allow us to take this tiny bundle home when we had not the foggiest what we were doing. I remember also waking in the night between feeds in those early weeks, convinced I had forgotten to put him back in his Moses basket and fearing he had fallen off the bed. Where’s the baby, Tony? Where did I put the baby? But it was a surprise how quickly it all settled down. Luke was this really placid, smiley baby, you see. An easy baby. My mum came to stay and I had to bring in help to keep the shop ticking over, but by week ten Luke was sleeping through the night. He was the kind of child who, once fed and clean, was happy to amuse himself. I could pop him on a mat with a mobile overhead and he would just smile and coo. You were never like this, my mother said. He must get it from his father. Luke’s placid nature meant I started back at the shop much sooner than planned. We put up a hook from the ceiling and bought him one of those bouncy contraptions. He would sit in his little bouncy sling for hours, just jiggling up and down, watching me putting orders together and gurgling at all the customers. Bounce. Gurgle. Bounce. Smile I have been sitting on the bed here for goodness knows how long, replaying all these pictures of Luke in my head. I smooth the fabric of my trousers. I have been worrying what to wear but I’m not changing. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, Ella. What you’re wearing won’t change this or fix it. What matters is that my son – my beautiful Luke – has been going through hell and I had no idea. None at all. I have been so distracted, thinking about Anna and her family in Cornwall and the blessed postcards, that I have not seen what is right here under my nose. That my poor son’s life is in meltdown. I was so shocked when he finally blurted it out. Again – so naive. I didn’t even realise they were having sex ‘You ready, love?’ Tony is standing in the doorway. ‘Luke’s downstairs.’ ‘Yeah. Sure.’ In the sitting room, I repeat to Luke what I have said so many times in the last twenty-four hours. That the time for regret and ‘if only’ is over, and we have to look this in the face now. All of us together. Reminding him that he is not on his own with this anymore. If she wants to go ahead and have this baby, we should support her. As a family. Luke should not feel that this has to involve them living as a couple. Or settling down. They are far too young for that. But he does have to offer to play a part in this child’s life. To be a support. To face up to what has happened here. And we will support him. Them. The baby. Luke’s face is white. Tony’s face is white. I wonder if I am the only one thinking how much more terrible it is for Emily’s parents. She is sixteen We drive in silence. Twenty minutes. Luke offers directions for the final mile. The fact that we do not even know where his girlfriend lives says everything about this situation. I gave him lifts to the cinema. They met in town. Took the bus. I wonder where exactly they have been having sex. This thought leads me back to the train. To Sarah and that man. Wondering how they could do that. In a train toilet. And no – the irony isn’t lost on me, remembering my shock. Me and my high horse. I put on the radio but Luke asks me if I will turn it off, please. Left at the postbox. Second right. There. It’s the detached house at the end of this cul-de-sac. That one. A nice house. Red brick with a climber around the porch. The windows look freshly painted and the front garden is immaculate. Neatly clipped lawn and beds of roses and lots of hardy geraniums. I don’t know why I take all of this in. Maybe it is because I don’t really want to get out of the car. ‘So. You ready, son?’ It is Tony who moves us forward. Opens his door first. Luke shrugs. I look at him and see that he is still in shock. He keeps saying that they used protection. We used a condom. I don’t understand. ‘Like I say, love. It is what it is. We’re here for you,’ I say. ‘Now – come on. Let’s go in.’ Emily’s parents introduce themselves but we don’t shake hands. None of us are going to pretend. Emily is sitting all hunched up in a wide armchair, cushion to her stomach, as white as Luke. ‘Emily didn’t want us to meet like this but we felt – given how young they are – that a joint meeting was important.’ Rebecca sounds as if she has rehearsed this. I notice that her husband has his eyes fixed on Luke. I can only imagine what may be going through his head, but I want to erase what he is thinking. He is a good lad, Luke. He has stuffed up, yes, but so has she. And I wish I had the courage to tell the father to stop looking at my son like that. ‘Emily and Luke have been talking a lot about the options, but we feel we should know where the two families stand. Going forward.’ Rebecca is looking at me. ‘Well, I think you’re right. It’s important for us to talk. And the first thing I want to say is how sorry we are, as you must be – devastated, actually – that they find themselves in this situation so very young.’ I can feel Tony’s eyes on me and he tilts his head, a tiny sign of encouragement before speaking up to help me. ‘My understanding is that they did try to be sensible. To be safe.’ Tony turns to Emily’s father but the response is a cold stare. ‘She’s sixteen.’ ‘Dad, please.’ Emily glances across at Luke who is still white, staring at the ground. ‘What we want to make clear’ – I glance at Tony again and then back at Emily’s parents – ‘is that as a family we will do whatever we can to support Emily.’ ‘Emily has decided against a termination. We want to be open about that. But she may want to consider adoption.’ I feel a punch of shock at this. Our grandchild Rebecca is looking her daughter in the eye. ‘We are still talking this through as a family. She has a lot to consider. A levels. University.’ Her voice breaks and I feel this terrible surge in the pit of my stomach. ‘Perhaps we can talk again about this?’ Tony clears his throat to continue. ‘We feel this should be Emily’s decision.’ Rebecca is now looking at her husband. ‘She will talk it through with Luke, of course. But we just wanted to check where we all stood. In terms of support.’ ‘I’ve already told Emily that I’ll support her.’ Luke is looking straight at her. ‘I’ve told her that.’ ‘Yes. Well maybe you should have thought about the consequences before you—’ ‘Dad. Please don’t. Please.’ Emily’s voice is almost unbearably quiet. ‘So – is there anything else in particular that you need to know from us today? Other than that Emily and Luke have our full support?’ I can feel my left fist clenching with the tension. ‘No.’ Rebecca tilts up her chin. ‘I We just wanted to make absolutely sure that everyone knows where we are.’ She stands, and I realise this is the cue for us to leave. That this was only ever about ensuring that Luke came clean with us. I hand a piece of paper with my personal email address to Rebecca. ‘Thank you.’ And then we part in silence. No handshakes. Nothing more to say. We drive back to the house in silence, too. It is real now. At seventeen years of age, Luke is about to become a father. I want to speak up – to say that I will bring up the baby. That they must not, under any circumstances, give the child away. Luke’s child And then as we pull into the drive there is another shock. Sticking through the letterbox is a new postcard. Half in. Half out. No envelope this time, and unmistakable. Black with bright lettering. It is eight o’clock in the evening. Which means that whoever is doing this has been to the house. I feel utterly overwhelmed as I stand outside the porch, imagining that other person standing in precisely the same spot. I am terrified of what this now means. For me – and for my family. I realise that I should have gone straight to the police. Told Tony. That I am properly afraid that everything is running away from me. I realise also that tonight shouldn’t be about me and Anna and whatever these postcards may or may not mean. Tonight should be about Luke. WATCHING 9 p.m. I like that she is not sure. That is why I like to watch people. Have to do this. I don’t even remember how it began anymore. Only that it has become important. You need to watch, you see, because it is extremely important – to work out the difference between how people behave when they know they are being watched and when they don’t. Some people, you see, are much the same whether they are being watched or not. But most people aren’t. You don’t get to find out for sure until you watch a lot. Sometimes, and this is also important, you don’t need to do anything very much. People will simply come to know. Give themselves away. Then the watching becomes more interesting because they will eventually turn. To a window. Or in exactly the right direction, and they will pull a blind or the curtains. Turn on a light. Or check a door. Other times I have to help them out a bit. Stir it up. Until I can see the look that I have come to understand and is probably the thing I like the very best. When someone feels they are being watched but is no longer absolutely sure CHAPTER 14 THE FRIEND Sarah is sitting up in bed, staring at the cold cup of tea on her locker. Why does her mother keep bringing her tea? She doesn’t like the hospital tea. It smells funny. Her arm is still sore from the drip. At first she didn’t understand why all of this fussing had to go on for so long. She thought she would get her stomach pumped. Puke a bit. Say sorry. Go home. But no. No one tells you the truth of this. But then – why would they? Anyone taking an overdose is supposed to want to die, so why would survival details matter? The problem, Sarah realises, still staring at the cold tea, is that she doesn’t ever remember thinking that she actually wanted to die. She no longer remembers precisely what she was thinking when she took the tablets. There was just all this panic about what would come out on the new TV appeal. That maybe everyone would find out about what happened on the train. What really happened in the club Yes. Just panic. Wanting everything to stop. But not a conscious choice to check out. Die. Not that, not really. And she certainly doesn’t want to die now. Which is why it is so frightening to have to face up to the details. The obsession with her liver. All the tests. The whispering. The consultant looking so terribly grave when examining her charts. Sarah can feel her hands trembling. When she looks down at them they are actually shaking, and she wishes that she had not looked it all up on the Internet. She wonders what dying really feels like. If it would really hurt. If you would know. For a moment this makes her think of Anna, but she shuts this down. No. Anna is going to be found. Anna has to be found. It is like this twisted wrenching through her whole body. So torn. Wanting Anna back, but not wanting to be found out In the meantime, Sarah’s mother is trying to play down the tests; she keeps using her sing-song voice, saying everything is going to be just fine. But everything is not fine. Her liver tests are still borderline. It is day four. Day four is apparently a very bad place to be. They have given her back her phone and so yes, she has looked it up. Loads of people die of liver failure on day four. Turns out surviving the paracetamol overdose doesn’t put you in the clear at all. Is my liver going to pack up, Mum? Stop it, Sarah. You’re going to be fine. Not true. Her results are so borderline, she might need a transplant; it could go either way. It’s hard to tell with livers, apparently. She’s had charcoal. And she’s had the drug by drip that’s supposed to help the liver cope with all this. But nothing is guaranteed. It’s a waiting game What Sarah wants more than anything is her sister. Lily. But her mum won’t talk about Lily, so all she has been able to do is message her on Facebook. But Lily hasn’t replied yet. Hasn’t updated her status for ages The last picture was at some weird yoga retreat. There is the sound of the curtain around her bed now. Her mother is back from the shop downstairs. ‘I bought you these.’ She has two magazines in her hand and the hospital clich? of grapes. Sarah looks at her mother and feels a familiar and confusing myriad of emotions. Love. Anger. Frustration. ‘I’d better phone your father. Tell him how you’re doing.’ ‘No. Don’t. I don’t want him here. I want Lily.’ ‘Now come on, Sarah. He has a right to know the latest and if he wants to come—’ ‘Don’t. I said I don’t want him here and I mean it. Why won’t you talk about Lily?’ ‘Lily made her own choices. Lily has her own life now. Your dad he’s been very worried.’ Sarah turns away. Bad enough that he had insisted on coming to the hotel in London. To talk with the police. Kept phoning. Checking up. Maybe he was worried what she might say to the police. Sarah looks at her mother, fussing with the grapes and the magazines. Moving the box of tissues and pouring cordial from a bottle. How many times has she tried to broach it? To talk to her mother. To take the pin out of the grenade. But it’s always like this. She is dismissed. Shut down. The pin is popped straight back in. The pretence remains that their family is just a standard broken family. All very straightforward. Sad but neat. Nothing out of the ordinary. Loads of people get divorced after all. Your father is gone. But we are going to be fine. It is all going to be civilised. We both love you very much still Occasionally, over the years, Sarah wondered about sharing the truth with Anna. But Anna had such a different life. Beautiful Anna. With her beautiful life. Sarah leans back into the plumped-up pillows and closes her eyes. ‘That’s it, love. You have yourself a nice little nap. I’ll read.’ They met in the third year of primary school, she and Anna. Back then, Sarah’s dad was a lorry driver and away a lot. Her mother had always wanted to live in the country, so they bought a little two-bed modern terrace on a small estate on the outskirts of the village. Sarah remembers how very shocked she was when Anna first invited her home to tea. The drive along the narrow lane to the huge farmhouse, with its chaos and its dogs and its line of wellingtons in the boot room which was bigger than her mother’s kitchen. Imagine, she told her family. A whole room just for boots and dogs. It’s nuts. That first night after visiting the farmhouse, Sarah lay in bed, overwhelmed. Tea at hers after school was tinned spaghetti on toast, or oven chips made into chip butties. Only at weekends was there more effort, and even then it was from packets and tins. At Anna’s it had been surreal. Her mother made this incredible stew – rich and delicious with herb dumplings on top – and apple crumble with homemade custard. It was a Wednesday, and Sarah had imagined it was a big and special fuss for her, but Anna said no, just a normal tea. Why? What do you like to eat? Anna’s father came in from the fields to eat with them and was charming and funny, telling jokes, sitting at the table in his thick woollen socks and asking Sarah if she would like to come with Anna to see some of the new lambs. Sarah looked around the table, watching Anna very closely, and it was like stepping back to watch from inside a strange bubble, realising that this really was their version of normal. Not a show put on for a visitor at all. Anna’s norm. Anna’s very different life. And it wasn’t exactly jealously she felt, but there was this awareness, a stirring inside that was uncomfortable because it was the first time she had had her own life thrown into such sharp relief. Anna was so different from her in other ways, too. Beautiful and kind and patient. She had been the first to befriend Sarah when she was standing awkwardly in the playground – the new girl. Anna had invited her to join in with a skipping game. And later to play two-ball against the wall, chanting rhymes as they each took a turn, moving in to juggle the balls without letting them drop. They were thrilled to discover it was a shared passion – the two-ball. They became known as the best in the school. That’s really how it all began. Anna and Sarah. Best friends forever. It was a long time before Sarah had the courage to return Anna’s invitations. She had probably had tea at the farmhouse dozens of times by then. Stews and pies, lasagne and all manner of delicious offerings – always with a pudding to follow. Anna’s favourite was this plum slice, like a flapjack with stewed fruit through the middle. It had a lovely smell, which Anna said was cinnamon. They would eat them cold as snacks some days when they played two-ball in the yard, and other times Anna’s mother would warm them for pudding to be served with clotted cream or custard. Often Jenny, Anna’s sister, would have friends for tea, too, and the table would be crowded and noisy, like a party. Tim and Paul were regulars; Sarah was pleased because Tim was from the council estate and she liked that she wasn’t the only one with a very different life. In fact, it made her feel better that Tim’s mother apparently never cooked at all. She pretty much left him to fend for himself, which was why Mrs Ballard loved to spoil him – and everyone else, too – with her open house, her hotpots and her upside-down cakes. Very quickly they became this little gang, with the farmhouse as their personal playground. They set up a camp in the bushes near the barns. On warm days, Mrs Ballard put a sprinkler on the front lawn so they could run in and out of the water in their swimming costumes before tea. Mr Ballard let them all ride in a trailer behind the quad bike, with the boys shouting faster, faster. That first summer, the farm became a second home to Sarah. She was so happy. And then suddenly, nearer Christmas, Anna asked outright. Could I not come to your house some time, do you think, Sarah? I suppose. Sarah had felt this twisted sense of nerves and shame and guilt, too, wanting to be proud of her family but worrying what Anna might think. She couldn’t understand why someone who had such a wonderful home herself would want to go anywhere else. But if Anna was surprised by their tiny house and the oven chips and the baked beans, she certainly didn’t show it. It’s so warm, she said as they snuggled up to watch television downstairs, under the throw her mother had offered them. Your house is so warm, Sarah. Ours is always freezing in the winter. They stayed best friends into secondary school, where Sarah discovered something special of her own – that she was actually a lot smarter than she realised. It had been difficult to tell in the small pond that was the village primary. She always came top in the spelling tests; her writing was always displayed on the wall and she always got an A for maths. But there was very little competition. Then, in secondary school, Sarah’s star suddenly shone more brightly. Top sets for everything – even maths, which Anna found a struggle. Sarah took on a new role in their friendship, which made her feel proud and valued and able to offer something important back to the family who had been so kind to her. She helped Anna with her maths homework. Her essays. Paul was bright, too, and it became a joke that he and Sarah were the ‘boffins’. Paul was the son of one of Mrs Ballard’s friends, and when he suddenly grew taller and quite handsome, Sarah looked forward to her visits to the farmhouse even more. Anna’s mum and dad continued with the opendoor policy even as the children grew. Eating more. Loudly chasing each other, climbing trees and playing hide-and-seek around the barns. Other parents complained about the noise and the food and the music and the mess, but Mrs Ballard never seemed to mind at all. For a spell, with Sarah and Paul helping the others with their homework over plates of pizza and cakes and scones, everything felt so beautifully balanced. Giving and taking. Happy and good. Yes. She remembered that golden period, during the first year of secondary school, as the happiest she had ever been. Until, that is, the very end of that year. Another summer term. Sarah was twelve, nudging thirteen. Her mother was away, visiting an old school friend, and out of the blue Sarah’s period started. Her sister Lily was around at a friend’s house for a sleepover and so Sarah began rummaging through her sister’s chest of drawers, desperate for some sanitary towels. Stick-on ones hopefully, ‘with wings’, which she had seen in adverts and looked pretty simple to use. But all she could find were tiny tampons in a box. She was horrified, opening out the instructions, trying to figure it out as her father came in. Very soon Sarah was in tears. Absolutely mortified while he was telling her not to be so silly. That it was nothing to be worried or embarrassed about. All perfectly normal. Of course it would feel a bit awkward. And he was so sorry that her mother was away for the night, but she was not to be afraid or upset. This was just a part of growing up. He put his arm around her shoulders and, for a moment, Sarah felt so very happy and relieved that she had the kind of father who wasn’t fazed by this, who could talk about this stuff without it being truly dreadful and awkward. And then he took the instructions from her hand – the leaflet about the tampons. And he said the problem was that these were really for older girls and probably not suitable just yet. Sarah was about to ask if he could take her to the chemist to buy some of the sticky-backed sanitary towels, when her father said the important thing was to check. So as not to do any damage. Sorry? Well if you let me have a look. See how grown up you are. You know. Down there. We can work out if you can try the tampon straight away. No. It’s fine. I’ll wait till Mum gets back. Don’t be silly. There is absolutely no need for you to be embarrassed about this. Periods are perfectly normal. Not dirty or anything to be ashamed about. Looking back, Sarah knows, as she knew deep down at the time, that this wasn’t OK at all. But she was in such complete shock. Had no time to process the situation. And so she did the most terrible thing and also the only thing. She let him look. She let him feel whether she was grown up enough. And then he said, No – probably not suitable for tampons. Not yet. That he would pop to the shops and get something else for her. No need to be embarrassed. She had sat on her bed with tissues stuffed in her pants to soak up the blood – frozen. Unable to move. Just sat there in this terrible silence. It was as if her whole life had shrunk suddenly into this tight, tight ball that hurt as much as the pain in her stomach. And the problem is, she still doesn’t know what to do or what even to think. She still hasn’t told her mother. Or anyone else. Not Anna. Not anyone. The pin is still in the grenade. When her parents separated very suddenly, she just refused to go and visit her father, which made both her parents very angry. ‘You didn’t drink your tea.’ Her mother is moving the cup on the locker to set out the grapes, removing the cellophane wrapping. Sarah looks at her. She looks at the cup of cold tea in her hand. And the worst thing now? She cannot get out of her head how her father was always saying how very beautiful Anna was. At school concerts. At parent evenings. Everyone said that, to be fair, but Sarah has been thinking, with all these hours stuck in the hospital with nothing to do but think, that her father said that a lot more than most. Certainly more than felt comfortable. She is very lovely. Your friend Anna. Very lovely girl. ‘Anna’s mother, Barbara, phoned to see how you’re doing. Everyone sends their love. Apparently the vigil went very well. It was on the local news. And the gang was wondering if they could come and visit? Cheer you up?’ ‘The gang?’ ‘Yes. Jenny and Tim and Paul. They’re very worried about you and would love to pop by.’ ‘No. I don’t want that. Not yet.’ ‘Right. Well. If you’re not feeling up to it. But it would probably be good for you. Barbara seemed very keen. You know how fond of you she is.’ ‘I said not yet. OK? When I’m home. Maybe when I’m home.’ Sarah cannot think about that now. She is suddenly thinking about a lot of other, more important and confusing things. How she hasn’t told the police the truth about what happened with Anna in the club. And she hasn’t told anyone about the text from her dad that night. CHAPTER 15 THE WITNESS Sometimes people ask me, Why flowers, Ella? The truth is I cannot remember when life, for me, wasn’t about flowers. Right from when I was tiny and I used to collect wild flowers on walks with my gran, mesmerised by the colours and the scents and the way you could make the whole impact and mood change by combining them in different ways. The simple, joyful sunburst of a huge fistful of primroses, then the softening and mellowing effect if you added in just a few bluebells for the surprise, the contrast. The hint of the Mediterranean, with the blue and the yellow together. I would so love it when my mother let me pick flowers from the supermarket to put in vases at home, experimenting with the way they fell. Learning how tulips only look right if you put them in precisely the right height of vase so they weep over the rim. Not too much. Not too little. I have never forgotten the joy of learning to revive roses with fresh water and cutting the stems super sharp at an angle. The miracle of them lifting up their heads again as if saying thank you. It was no surprise that when I was old enough for a Saturday job, I knew precisely where I would try first. There was a small florist in the town I grew up in. I passed it every day on my walk to school, always stopping to examine the buckets of daffodils outside in the spring, glancing at the window displays. It wasn’t especially inspirational, to be honest: standard bouquets, standard displays and too many carnations. But I have never been more proud than when I was offered my regular six-hour Saturday shift. Up early to help sort the new stock, breathing in the heavenly scent of it all. The shiny ribbon. The rustle of tissue and cellophane. I learned very quickly to respect the popular tastes – the horror of those carnations and the ugly ferns. I was careful not to offend, biting my tongue at first. But as my confidence and my knowledge grew, I started to make little suggestions to our regulars. How about sunflowers? Or lilies? Something a bit different for a change? And it wasn’t long before the manager, Sue, allowed me to order in new things, and to make up my own little set-price bouquets. You have a really good eye, Ella. You’re a natural You should do a course. So I did. A basic course for starters, then a second, more advanced course for wedding flowers, and a third for contemporary design. After that I entered a competition and made the local paper by winning a regional award. The prize was a week working with a top florist in London, visiting the flower markets at the crack of dawn. Scary. Exhausting. Exhilarating. Heaven And then the unimaginable. After I had finished A levels, I did a year at college: floristry and business studies. During that year, my grandmother died, leaving an unexpected legacy to be shared between her five grandchildren. Go travelling, said my friends. Blow it on a car. Or a world trip. No. Lying in bed at night, beaming, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I managed to negotiate the lease on this place. A shop of my own. Complete madness, my parents said. Do you have any idea how many small businesses fail in their first year? And yes – they were right, in a way. It took much longer to come good than I expected. In truth, it provided little more than the minimum wage after costs, in that first year, and let’s not talk about the hours I put in. But it didn’t fail – quite the opposite by the time I got into my stride, in the second and third years. I learned how to make the bread-and-butter earnings from weddings and seasonal holidays. Mother’s Day. Valentine’s Day. But the devil was definitely in the detail, I was sure of that. To compete with the supermarkets, I knew I had to offer something distinctive. My floral USP was an informal, shabby-chic style, with homemade touches that set us apart. My bouquets were hand-tied before this was common practice. I used unusual twine, and handmade labels decorated with pressed flowers from blooms that had gone over. I learned to waste nothing. Discounted posies when I’d over-ordered. Spent extra hours with the flower presses to ensure no waste. Soon I was selling little cards and labels, as well as using them on my bouquets. A very useful extra-income stream. And so this is where I am happiest. My shop. My creation. Here in the shop I do not worry so much what people think of me or what I say – whether I am old-fashioned or an old head on young shoulders, which is what everyone used to say when I set this place up. Here – where it is just 6 a.m. and the rest of the world is barely stirring – I am in my own little world, with orders to make up before we meet with the police back at the house. Back in the real world, where Anna is still missing and the postcards have started to frighten Tony as well as me. I work carefully. A birthday bouquet to be collected at noon. Six table decorations for a dinner at one of the local hotels. Two cups of coffee. Three. I work carefully, using my favourite secateurs. Bright red handles with the sharpest blade on the market. Superb. And then the strangest thing. At around six thirty, maybe six fortyfive, I leave the last of the table decorations on the counter, nearly finished, to use the loo, which is a tiny extension at the back of the unit. When I return to the bench, the secateurs are gone. There is the noise of a car right outside and, I admit it, I am spooked. Thrown by this. I am normally so very careful with the secateurs, you see, not just because they are dangerous but because they are extremely expensive. I don’t want them to drop on the floor. For the handles to crack. They are a bit like a chef’s favourite knife. A lucky charm. I have two spare sets in the drawers but I don’t feel comfortable using any others. They just don’t feel the same in my hand. I walk to the front door and stare out to the parking area outside. A single car has its headlights on full beam so I can’t see who is inside. I check the shop door. Unlocked. But then I don’t normally worry about this. Whenever I am here, I consider myself open for business. If anyone spots the lights on and calls in early, I want to sell. Will always take an order. But today, just this once, I put the latch across the top. I stand very still and find that my heart is pumping. I wait a while. Two minutes. Maybe more. Don’t be so silly, Ella. Don’t overthink this. And then the car finally pulls away and I feel my shoulders move, reminding myself that the neighbouring shops have flats above them and this is not so surprising. This early movement. Probably just someone off to work? So I return to the workbench area at the back of the shop and am totally confused. From this new angle through the archway to the serving area at the front, I can see the secateurs resting on the top of the till. I honestly don’t remember putting them there. Can’t ever remember putting them there before. There is a slight slope to the top of the till, and this doesn’t seem the kind of thing I would do at all. What if they were to slide off? I look around me in the way you look around the kitchen when you can’t find the ingredient you thought you had removed already from the fridge. I am tired. That’s it. You are tired and you are on edge. Overthinking and messing up, Ella. Tony was right you should have stayed home and done this later. Way too many thoughts pumping around my brain. I finish up the final decoration quickly and store everything in the cooler near the workbench – a sort of flower-fridge that keeps everything at the perfect temperature, all ready for my return. Back at the house, Tony is in the kitchen in his dressing gown. ‘You OK? I’ve been worried. You should have let me come with you.’ ‘It was fine. I wanted you here to speak to Luke. All done.’ His tone is just a little calmer now, but I can tell from the way he is standing, and also the dark shadows under his eyes, that he has not slept much either. He reacted just as I expected, more worried than cross. You should have told me, Ella. No more secrets Which makes me feel terrible. I showed him the most recent postcard. But I haven’t mentioned Matthew yet ‘I don’t know how I feel about you working at the shop on your own now. Early like this, I mean. Until we know precisely what is going on. What the police say. I wish you had listened to me. Stayed home. Or let me come with you.’ ‘I had to get the orders done, Tony. And anyway, it will just turn out to be some saddo. A spotty teenager with nothing better to do.’ I cannot make this sound entirely convincing, because I no longer know what I think. What I believe. How scared I really ought to be. ‘They called at the house, Ella. Whoever wrote that card called here. At the house.’ ‘Yes. And you’re right – it changes things, and I realise now that I should have told you right at the beginning and I’m very sorry about that. But I am happy to take advice now. The police are going to be here in half an hour. I’ll listen to whatever they say, Tony. The only reason I wasn’t worried before is I honestly thought it was the mother.’ ‘But can we rethink you working early on your own?’ ‘If it will make you happier, I can try to juggle a bit in the future.’ I look him in the face. ‘So did you speak to Luke?’ Last night in bed, Tony was the one to say it first. Would you think I was mad if I said we should offer to adopt the baby? I cried and hugged him tight, so relieved that he was thinking exactly the same thing as me. We agreed we are too old and it is probably completely insane, but there is no way we could let someone else bring up Luke’s child if Emily’s family can’t cope. ‘He says he’ll mention it to Emily later. She’s only ten weeks, so it’s a bit early for decisions.’ Tony puts his hand up to my cheek. ‘I think he was relieved, but it’s hard to tell. He’s still in shock.’ Tony goes on to say Luke would like to stop working at the shop down the line. He’s finding it too much with all the worrying. I completely understand, though I know it won’t be easy to find a replacement. The early starts put people off. But Luke must come first, so we will have to work something out. ‘OK. So let’s see what the police have to say, shall we? Talk again about Luke and the shop after that.’ I take his hand, still rested on my cheek, and kiss it. To be honest, I am surprised that we are to see the London DI. Apparently he is down for an update with the Ballards in Cornwall, so will be calling in here on the way back. Matthew has updated me. His police-contact friend handed over the earlier postcard. Nothing from forensics. No prints. But they want to see this new one, too. I have put it in a transparent freezer bag. Matthew says they will provide proper evidence bags and special gloves for me to use if any more postcards turn up. Better chance of getting prints, apparently. He has asked me not to mention him by name. To imply that I handed the postcards over to the police myself. Tony has now stepped away and is looking under the sink, I assume for fly spray; there’s a bluebottle buzzing at the kitchen window. Eventually he gives up on the cupboard and instead opens the window to shush the fly out with a piece of kitchen towel, before turning back to me and tilting his head. ‘You look really tired, Ella. You doing all right, love?’ ‘I’m fine. Just relieved you know about the postcards now.’ CHAPTER 16 THE FATHER Henry is sitting at a favourite spot on the stone wall, which has an overview of the higher, troublesome fields. There is just a little mist still hovering around the river below, but the sheep are safely across the other lane and Sammy is happy. Henry smooths the dog’s ears. It is moments like this, watching the early sun burning off the mist, that he feels the most calm. He is thinking that he would like to put in some more fencing lower down in the largest of these fields, to keep the sheep from the muddy slope down to the river. But fencing is expensive. And Barbara is not up for spending on the farm. New kitchens and new power showers for the holiday cottages? Bring it on. Paying some web designer to upgrade their search engine optimization, whatever that means? That apparently makes sense financially. But fencing? Feed? Tractor repairs? Henry looks down at the dog, whose tongue is lolling as he pants from the joy of checking the boundaries of this field. And the one next door. To Henry, this is what makes real sense still. A dog who happily races around the perimeter of every field he visits, returning to his master with a triumphant wag of the tail and meeting of the eyes to confirm that all boundaries have been checked. Henry glances at his watch. An hour to go. He ought to get back. Have a shower. Have another row with Barbara. Try one final time to calm things down before he faces the music proper. Come on then, boy. He deliberately takes the long way round. Cannot face Primrose Lane today. Back at the house he is still in the boot room, hanging up his wax jacket, when Barbara appears. ‘Where have you been? We need to talk some more, Henry. Before the police get here. I’m worried how much trouble I’ll be in. We need to think of Jenny.’ ‘I’ll come through.’ In the kitchen, she sits at the large scrubbed-pine table, drumming her fingers. He stares at the kettle alongside the Aga, wondering about a cup of tea, but thinks better of it. Looks back at his wife. ‘I could be in serious trouble, Henry. I knew I should never have let you persuade me to lie to the police.’ She is pulling at the sleeve of her jumper, stretching it and then turning back the cuff. ‘It will be all right, Barbara. We’re setting it all straight. They will understand.’ ‘Will they? Will they really?’ Henry closes his eyes. He is sorry that he has upset his wife. He is sorry that she is going through this on top of everything else. That he is a bad husband. But he is also very tired of having to say sorry a million times over, because it doesn’t help or change anything. ‘I’m sorry, Barbara.’ ‘Well, with respect, it’s a bit late for that now. It’s perjury, isn’t it, to lie to the police?’ ‘I think that’s just in court, love.’ Henry looks down at the floor. At his thick, grey woollen socks. You disgust me. Anna’s voice again. In his head. In his car. In the passenger seat, refusing to look him in the face. And in this moment he realises that there isn’t anything Barbara can say or the police can say to possibly make him feel worse than he already does. ‘I still don’t understand why we had to lie, anyway. I mean – do you have any idea, Henry, how it was for me that night, eh? Here on my own. Our daughter missing. Me here all on my own.’ Henry closes his eyes and says nothing. ‘And by the way, I want you to move out.’ ‘Oh, come on, Barbara. How is that going to help? Think of Jenny. And how am I going to keep the farm going if I move out?’ ‘There is no farm, Henry. There hasn’t been a farm for years.’ He opens his eyes and meets hers. ‘And you wonder why this isn’t working out, Barbara? You marry a farmer and then you decide that you don’t want to be married to a farmer.’ ‘That isn’t fair.’ ‘Isn’t it?’ They sit for several minutes, saying nothing at all. ‘Right. So we see them together – the police, Barbara. And I explain why I asked you to lie the night Anna went missing. It will be fine. We’ll iron it out. I’m sorry I have upset you, but if you really want me to move out, then with respect I think what I do after today stops being any of your business. For now, I am going to have a shower before they arrive.’ Upstairs, under the stream of water which he turns up too hot deliberately, Henry feels the relief of it for the first time. The letting go, finally. For years he has allowed himself the delusion that he can keep going like this. But now? Henry turns his face up into the stream of water and has to adjust the temperature as the jet burns the tender skin. And for a short time he does what he hasn’t done since his mother died. In the stream of the hot water that turns his flesh just a little bit too red, Henry Ballard cries. He cries for Anna, who will never be found. And who knows the worst of him. You disgust me, Dad Afterwards, Henry shaves for the second time that day, selects a blue checked shirt, a clean pair of jeans and a navy sweatshirt. He does all of this on automatic pilot. He is long past the stage of trying to work out some script in his head. It will be what it will be. When they arrive, there are three of them. A local DS called Melanie Sanders they have met a few times before and who seems quite nice; Cathy, their family liaison officer; and the tall, slim DI from London whom Henry has never liked. From the off, the mood is markedly different from previous encounters. Cathy accepts the offer of coffee, which Barbara brings to the table on a tray, but the DI declines. ‘I understand you want to speak to us, Mr Ballard?’ ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I feel very bad about this but I need to explain something about the night Anna went missing. I have something I want to clear up.’ The DI glances at the two women police officers and back at the Ballards. ‘Interesting – we must be telepathic, you and me, Mr Ballard. Because I came all the way down here to talk to you about precisely the same thing.’ He does not even try to disguise the sarcasm in his tone or the little twist of the knife. ‘You see, we had some very interesting calls after the anniversary appeal on television. Calls which we have found a little bit confusing.’ Henry looks at Barbara, whose expression is frozen. ‘So why don’t you go first, Mr Ballard.’ ‘OK. So this is embarrassing. But I lied about the night Anna went missing, and I asked Barbara to back me up because I was so embarrassed. And I didn’t want it to distract from your investigation.’ Henry can feel his wife’s stare burning into him. ‘This is completely my fault. Not my wife’s. I had a few too many to drink. I wasn’t at home.’ ‘Not at home?’ ‘No.’ ‘And you telling us this now, changing your story, wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you realise that we have new information?’ ‘No. Of course not. How would I even know that?’ ‘OK, Mr Ballard. So this new version of where you were the night your daughter went missing. Will it go any way to explaining how your car was seen near the railway station that evening?’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Because, Mr Ballard, I am here today to ask you how it is that your car was seen on the evening of Anna’s disappearance near Hexton railway station. Not here at the farm, as you and your wife both told us previously. But near a railway station with a fast train to London. So my question is this. Did you go to London the night your daughter disappeared, Mr Ballard? Is that what you really want to tell us?’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I didn’t. I was here the following morning. When we were liaising with the police. You know I was. That wouldn’t be possible. It’s too far. How could I possibly—’ ‘Do you know what, Mr Ballard? On reflection, I think it might be better if we continue this a little more formally. At the local police station. DS Melanie Sanders will give us access to one of her nice interview suites, I’m sure.’ Henry can feel a terrible panic rising within him. A sort of change of temperature which sweeps right through his body. His mind is in such turmoil that for a moment he cannot tell whether he feels too hot or too cold. Just somehow all wrong in the clothes he is wearing. The fabric too close to his skin. Clinging, as if he is still wet from the shower. In the midst of this panic he looks at his wife, but there is no support or comfort there. Only terrible and wild confusion in her eyes. ‘Shall we go then, Mr Ballard?’ Henry thinks that perhaps he should ask whether he has a choice. Whether this is an arrest—or a request. Whether he should get Barbara to phone their lawyer? Dig his heels in and actually refuse to go? But then he quickly regroups, thinking that he needs to be very, very careful. Saying the wrong thing or being uncooperative now could go very badly for him. Could be entirely misunderstood. And so Henry Ballard stands, and as they walk outside he tries to calm himself, and decides, for now at least, to say nothing more at all. CHAPTER 17 THE WITNESS I have been lying in bed thinking about karma. Silly, I know, but that postcard has really gotten under my skin. I keep having these mixed-up dreams. Anna on the train. The noise of Sarah and her bloke in that wretched toilet cubicle. And then the shock over Luke and his girlfriend. I’m not one for popcorn psychiatry normally, but you can’t miss the irony, can you. And it just feels – I don’t know – as if everything in my life is trying to teach me some terrible lesson and my brain just can’t cope. Some nights it gets so bad I get this tight feeling in my chest. Then I have to get up and make a cup of tea and then, of course, Tony gets up too – worried sick – which is the last thing I want. Spreading the guilt. What I try to do is go over it in my mind when I am on my own, playing rewind to think over and over and over about exactly how responsible I am for whatever happened to that poor girl. Wishing so much that I could go back and play it differently. And then? The problem is, hand on heart, I still cannot go back there in my mind’s eye and be anything other than appalled at the thought of that girl and that man having sex in that toilet so soon after they met. I wish that I could bounce this off people properly. Ask them openly what they would have done. Whether they would be shocked or upset to be confronted by what I heard. The problem is that the police have only ever released information that the ‘witness’ overheard the girls being chatted up by the guys just out of prison, and that the ‘witness’ was shocked at how quickly they became close. How quickly they made unwise plans together. Dangerous plans. I’ve been judged for that and that alone. For not stepping in because two country girls were being so clearly targeted by two guys with records. That’s what all the social media and tabloid press has been about. What would you have done? Would you have minded your own? Two sixteenyear-old girls. Two guys just out of prison. The police have never released the detail of the sex in the toilet, and asked me to keep it quiet for reasons of evidence, so I have only ever been able to tell Tony. He says I was right to be shocked – and that people would keep their noses out of it if they knew all the facts. We’ve talked it over again since this business with Luke and his girlfriend, and Tony says it’s very different – a young girl having sex with a virtual stranger in a public toilet, and Luke and Emily making a mistake in a caring relationship. I know he’s right, but I still feel a bit hypocritical now for judging Sarah so very harshly. He’s gone into work early today, my Tony. He’s in retail himself, but a very different sector – selling cereals to supermarkets. He’s acting regional manager and is up for the job permanently if his sales figures hit their target. I’m terribly proud of him, though it’s a lot of pressure and I wish he didn’t have to do so much travelling. For now, with him away so much, I have promised to juggle my working hours so that I am not alone at the shop out of hours too much. At least not until we hear from the police and feel a bit steadier. So this feels odd for me. A second cup of coffee in bed. It’s 8 a.m., which for a florist amounts to a lie-in. I am having a really good think. About karma. Also, whether I am a prude. I mean, I certainly hold my hands up to being a bit out of touch. Naive to imagine that my seventeen-year-old son wouldn’t be having sex yet. More and more I keep testing myself, worrying that I am a hypocrite over what happened on the train. Was my judgement about gender? Because my first thought was that Sarah clearly wasn’t as ‘nice’ a girl as I had imagined, which is why I stepped away from the whole situation. Yet if it had been Luke? No. On reflection, maybe not so hypocritical, because I would still be totally appalled and shocked if a son of mine, or any young man, had done that with someone they had just met. Maybe the truth is that I just like some boundaries. Because don’t get me wrong, this is not about sex, per se; Tony and I get along very well in that department ourselves, thank you very much. I just think it’s private. Sex. Not something casual; something to be talked about with strangers at dinner parties. And certainly not something to share with a complete stranger in a train toilet. As for karma But now my mobile is ringing – the display confirms it’s Matthew Hill. I check my watch. Ten past eight. ‘Hello, Matthew. I was going to ring you, actually. To let you know that the London DI has postponed; he’s coming round later now. Has had to stay on in Cornwall for a bit. Some development with the inquiry, he said, which I am hoping means progress.’ ‘Well, I hate to disillusion you, but I’m afraid you can hold that thought. I’ve just spoken to my contact down in Cornwall and apparently the investigation is suddenly all over the place. Going right up a blind alley, from what I hear. But never mind that. Big news. I just got the call. My wife’s gone into labour. I’m on my way to collect her right now. Feels a bit surreal, actually, but I just wanted to check in to let you know I may be out of the loop for a few days.’ ‘A few days?’ I laugh. ‘You may just have underestimated this, Matthew. But what lovely news. Please do let me know how it goes. Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?’ ‘No. Goodness. We don’t mind’ ‘OK. Good luck. Drive carefully and try to calm down.’ ‘I’ll be in touch.’ And then I put the phone down and find that I am stilled. Matthew Hill clearly does not have a clue what is coming, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Because once you become a parent, you learn that love can involve more fear than you had ever imagined, and you never quite look on the world in the same way again. Which is precisely why I cannot cope with my part in Anna’s disappearance. CHAPTER 18 THE FRIEND ‘So is it OK if I bring them through, love? Just for five or ten minutes? Might cheer you up. Nurse says she can make an exception so long as we keep it short.’ Sarah looks at her mother and knows that this is not really a question. Her mother has a very specific expression when she is shaping a recommendation as a question. She leans forward slightly, doesn’t blink and then raises her eyebrows, signalling that only the correct answer will actually be heard. Namely – yes. As a young child, Sarah would rail against this tactic, but she learned long ago that resistance is futile. And she has no energy for more lectures. ‘OK. But I’m feeling tired, so not for long.’ It’s day six, and Sarah has been reassured that her liver function is improving. The consultant is looking a good deal less concerned when he pops by the bed, and nurses now say that everything is going in the right direction. The psych team are finally off her back and there is even talk of her going home soon. Sarah is not sure how she feels about going home. She is still reeling from how quickly her emotions shift from hour to hour. How she has so swiftly moved on from fear of death to impatience with the hospital and her mother. And the other big bogey is back – worrying what will have come out of the television appeal. The friends troop into the room looking cowed. Sarah is now in a side room just off the general children’s ward. At seventeen, she does not qualify for an adult ward, so this provision is to make her feel less awkward. Away from the babies. The nurses have told her she is ‘lucky’ that this side room was free. Lucky? ‘We didn’t know what to bring so we decided on sugar. Your mum won’t approve, but hey.’ Tim is holding a little carton of biscuits and a box of fudge. Sarah decides she will punish them all for as long as possible, and refuses to look anyone in the eye. Just last night she dreamed about them all at the farm, a birthday party Mrs Ballard threw for Tim. He must have been ten, maybe eleven. Anna’s mum had been horrified when she discovered Tim’s mother didn’t bother with parties, and made this huge fuss – a big tea and a star-shaped chocolate cake with fresh cream. Tim and Paul brought a balloon-modelling kit and learned how to make sausage dogs, swords and hats. Walking along the narrow road from the farm to get her lift home after the party, she’d had a bright yellow sausage dog tucked under her arm. She had been so happy that day and so sad it was over. She had felt her expression changing; the two boys looking at her sideways. Always hard to go home, isn’t it? She can’t remember who said it, Tim or Paul, but she remembers exactly how she felt as she nodded – sad, but sort of guilty, too. She knew it was wrong to prefer Anna’s family to her own, but she just couldn’t help it. And now? Sarah finally looks up and glances from face to face. She wonders what on earth happened to them all. When exactly did they stop being who they were to each other back then? Jenny looks pale, and Sarah finds herself hoping she is remembering the horrible things she said during their row. It wasn’t just the two boys who were cruel. But then a picture of Anna in the club flashes into Sarah’s mind, and she closes her eyes and leans back on her many pillows. ‘Sorry. Are you feeling all right? Do we need to get a nurse?’ Jenny’s voice. ‘I’m fine. Just tired.’ ‘Right, yes. Of course. Look, we promised your mum we wouldn’t stay long but we just wanted’ Jenny’s voice trails off and she suddenly sucks in air. ‘Look, we came because we wanted to say sorry. For what we said.’ It is Tim who has stepped forward. Sarah opens her eyes and looks again from one to the other. Tim. Paul. Jenny. ‘We just felt so guilty. For swanning off to do other stuff. That’s the truth.’ Paul is fidgeting with his belt buckle. ‘We shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’ ‘You’re sorry you said it but you still think it’s my fault?’ Sarah keeps her gaze on the boys. They had been the most outspoken when they had the row. ‘It’s those men. If they could just find those men.’ Jenny again. Finally, Sarah takes a deep breath. ‘So – how did the TV appeal go? Many calls? I’ve got my phone back but not enough data to see it.’ The ice broken, they babble about how much the appeal helped. Loads of calls, apparently. Sarah lies again and says the pills really were an accident and they’re not to worry. ‘So you won’t do it again?’ Jenny’s tone is urgent. ‘No. I won’t. I promised my mum I would be more careful, and I couldn’t put her through that again. It was completely stupid. So tell me then. This TV appeal. What exactly did they show?’ Jenny says that she’s really pleased they used the lovely video of Anna, and also one of the photographs that she emailed the producer of the programme, but her mother was upset that her interview had been cut back so dramatically. ‘They edited out all the bits of her talking about other missing girls who have turned up and her saying that no one should give up hope – that any piece of information might be key to finding Anna alive.’ Everyone is silent for a moment. Sarah closes her eyes again. And then her mother is suddenly back in the room, ushering everyone out and saying that the staff have bent the rules and they don’t want to push their luck. They each say goodbye and sorry, yet again. After they have gone, Sarah’s mother sits on the chair next to the bed and fidgets. She smooths her skirt over and over. ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Yes, there is.’ Her mother pours some cordial into Sarah’s empty glass and tops it up with water from the plastic jug. She examines the box of fudge as if reading the description on the back. ‘OK. So the police have been in touch again, Sarah. And of course the doctors say you are too poorly to see them. I wanted to keep this from you. You’ve been through quite enough but apparently they do want another little chat with you once you’re home, so I thought you should know. Prepare yourself. So it doesn’t set you back.’ ‘What about? What do they want to talk to me about?’ ‘Apparently there have been some more witnesses from the club. After the TV appeal. That’s all I know.’ ‘But I’ve told them everything. Everything I know.’ ‘I know, love.’ ‘No. I don’t want to talk to them again.’ ‘OK, love. I understand. No need to upset yourself. I’ll try to explain to them that you need to rest.’ And now Sarah is leaning back on her pillows, closing her eyes and trying once again to block out the echo of Anna’s voice. The desperation on her face that night in the club. Please, Sarah. I don’t feel safe. I’m begging you. Please CHAPTER 19 THE WITNESS About that promise I made to Tony not to do any more early stints at the shop on my own until the new alarms are installed Well. You try getting a depressed teenage boy out of bed at the crack of dawn. It’s hard to be too cross. Luke promised he’d keep up the job until we find a replacement, but he wanders round like a zombie now. Always looks so tired. We’re letting him stay off school for a few more days while everyone adjusts to what’s going on with Emily. But it’s hard to know how to play it. This morning I banged on his door early, but no answer. I checked later and he just looked terrible. Bad headache, too – so I gave him some tablets and asked him to join me when he can. Tony is in Bristol so I have a dilemma. Duty to my customers versus safety and my promise to Tony. The only upside is the police have been pretty good. It’s probably guilt for letting my name get out. They’ve been sending a patrol car past the house and shop every so often just to bump up ‘presence’. They seem pretty sure it’s just a saddo, but we’re getting new alarms for the shop anyway, and I’m trying to tell myself it is all covered now. The bottom line is that I decide to pop in early on my own – just this once – and will keep pestering Luke. He passed his test recently and Tony got him a Mini, so he can zip down in that once he’s up to it. By the time I arrive at the shop, I’ve messaged Luke twice more but had no reply yet. To be honest, I’m sad he wants to give up the job. Luke has been helping out at weekends since he was about fourteen; he used to be so keen and he’s good with the customers. It made sense all round – it’s extra money for him and I feel it instils a bit of discipline. Plus understanding what it actually feels like to be paid by the hour – both the slog of it and also the satisfaction when the day is done. Tony’s trip to Bristol is important vis-?-vis this promotion – they’re deciding if they should rebrand their cereals – and I’ve decided I won’t let him know about this. He’ll get upset and worry about me being on my tod here in the dark. So. Concentrate, Ella. I’m up against it. Six table decorations for a lunch at the town hall. It’s a good gig and quite a regular booking through a catering contact, so I don’t like to let them down. That’s the problem with repeat business: on the one hand, you’re grateful for it and flattered, but on the other, you’re always dreading that you might become dependent on it. Terrified to put a foot wrong in case the client goes somewhere else. I normally draw up sketches and a mood board and agree those via email with the catering manager Kate. She’s got a good eye herself and often posts pictures of my stuff on social media, which all helps these days. I’ve earned quite a reasonable reputation with her for doing something a bit different. So I don’t like to slip up or get complacent. Part of the whole drive to keep what I do looking fresh has been building up a good range of vases and props, so that I can really ring the changes. I just wish I had more storage space, though if I’m brutally honest, I probably spend too much on presentation. It’s a fine line with a business as small as mine, but I think investing in kit helps win repeat business, and it’s important to constantly surprise clients. It certainly leads to more photo shares on social media. For this job, I’m using small galvanised-steel buckets; we’ve agreed an ultra-modern but vibrant look. I’m going with red anthuriums, white roses and Eustoma, against really glossy green foliage. It will look very striking with the white tablecloths and neutral room. I’m always telling Tony that what you hope for with every order is that guests will ask, Who did the flowers? Kate is very loyal and always keeps my cards available. The only frustration for me is when conference delegates get in touch from far afield offering new work, as I can only cater within a certain radius. Goodness. Time’s going on and no word from Luke. It’s still quite dark and I’m thinking about another cup of coffee when I hear a car engine. I wonder if it’s Luke, but I’m not sure it sounds like his Mini. The car pulls up outside. It stops. I stop. Ridiculous. It’s just a car, Ella. Calm yourself. I stand very still, waiting for the car to move off, but it doesn’t. The headlights go out. I tell myself it is probably someone for one of the flats. I wait a minute or two and text Luke again. No answer. All is quiet now and so I turn back to the anthuriums. I tell myself to concentrate on the flowers. And then Oh my goodness. Someone is trying the door handle of the shop. It’s locked, of course. Christ. Luke has a key. It can’t be Luke. I pick up my mobile, ready to dial for help. I am thinking that if whoever’s there forces their way in, I will run through the back and dial the police as I do so. Even as this plan takes shape in my head, I feel both ridiculous and simultaneously afraid. There is more rattling of the door handle. I can’t see who’s there because of the blind drawn down over the glass section. I keep very still. The only lights on in the shop are in the rear workbench area. I’m not going to the door. No way. There is a part of me that wants to believe it is Luke – that he has forgotten his key. But he would call out to me, surely? Footsteps. Yes. Finally, I can hear someone walking away outside. Good. Good. Thank God. The car lights back on now. Driving off. I wonder if I should phone Tony but then remember I’m not meant to be here on my own. It is so odd that you can stand in a space – a place in which you normally feel so happy and safe – and then suddenly you can stand in precisely the same spot and feel like this completely different person. I don’t want to be this person. I hate this new person. I can actually feel tears coming now. And what I am thinking is, You stupid, stupid woman. Why didn’t you just do the right thing a year back? Give the parents a call when you were on that train and make this all their responsibility – their call – and not yours? Why, why, why? Why didn’t you do that one, simple thing, Ella? I don’t know how long I have been standing here, but a glance at the big clock on the wall tells me it’s too long. I am seriously up against it now. Then my mobile rings and I jump right out of my skin. Luke’s name. ‘Were you just at the door?’ ‘No. What do you mean? I’m ringing to say I’m just setting off. But why so spooked, Mum?’ ‘Nothing. Nothing. Look, will you just get down here as soon as you can. You promised your dad’ I hang up. And instantly regret my tone. Damn. I send a text to apologise. Sorry. Just tired. Coffee machine is on. And then I finally get back to the flowers and try to let myself soak up the brilliant colours and the scent. Concentrate on the work. For a moment, I wonder if I have made the wrong choice with the buckets. Should I have gone for the mirrored square containers instead? No – it’s too late anyway. I don’t have time to start again. This will be fine. It is light outside now, which is a huge relief as I can see the cars passing and parking more clearly without the blinding headlights. I no longer feel that ridiculous sense of being watched, as though I’m in a goldfish bowl. Nearly 7 a.m. and the door rattles again. This time a text from Luke to confirm it’s him. He really has forgotten his keys. ‘Why do you lock the door, Mum? I thought you liked it when you got some impromptu trade.’ ‘Dad said it was a good idea. With these stupid postcards someone’s sending.’ ‘I thought the police said it was probably some random saddo.’ ‘They did. And it probably is. But we just want to be a bit careful. You know, just to be on the safe side. How’s your headache?’ ‘Gone. So – will you have to see them again? The police?’ He looks worried, and I wish I had not said so much. ‘Don’t know. Probably not. It will all settle down again, I’m sure.’ ‘Well, if I find out who sent those postcards, I’ll sort them out.’ ‘Don’t say that, Luke. That’s no help – to say things like that. We need to let the police handle it now. Not us.’ ‘That’s not what Dad said.’ ‘Pardon?’ ‘Oh, nothing.’ He looks sheepish. ‘So you want another coffee, Mum? I’m starving, by the way. Got any food?’ CHAPTER 20 THE FATHER Henry first held a gun in his hand when he was nine. His father made him promise not to tell his mother. His uncle George was also there that day. They took him down to one of the lower fields, down by the river, to shoot rabbits. Vermin, his father explained. Seven rabbits could apparently eat as much as a sheep. Hence they were a nightmare for the crops – also the vegetable garden. And their digging caused terrible problems for the livestock, too. Henry’s father said that as a child himself he had once seen a calf with a terrible twisted leg after it lost its footing in a rabbit hole. It had to be shot, of course, but it had suffered horribly, crying out in pain, until the gun could be fetched from the locked cabinet. Wretched rabbits Much was made, that first shooting lesson, about the rules and about safety. The licence and the law. Henry was told that he would be allowed to have a shotgun himself when he was a lot bigger, but only when he had proved that he could take responsibility and follow every single rule to the letter. It was both within the law and essential to keep the rabbits under control, but they were not allowed to shoot badgers so it was terribly important to be careful. His dad and his uncle explained the safety sequence. No livestock. No public access. Only in daylight. Always check that there are no other shooters ahead of you. Make absolutely sure you know where everyone in the party is before you fire. Lying in the grass, his father set up the gun for him and taught him how it should be fired. He was warned that it would kick back a bit into his shoulder and he should brace himself for that. But he would soon get used to it. They would take him to a shooting range and to clay pigeon shooting, too, to help improve his aim. First shot and Henry was absolutely horrified. Complete fluke. Instant hit. The shock of seeing the rabbit sort of leap, then fall. His father’s amazement and immediate cock-a-hoop celebration were at complete odds with the feeling in Henry’s own stomach. He didn’t like to say, but a little bit of sick was suddenly in his mouth and he thought he might have to retch. Well done, son. Seriously well done. A natural. My God, George. You see that? He has a natural eye. These days the gun cabinet is in the small office alongside the boot room. It meets all the regulations, though Henry wishes he had opted for the model with a combination lock. His basic steel version has a key that he has to store separately. Technically he is not supposed to tell anyone where this is and he is supposed to change its location regularly. In practice, he has more than once forgotten its ‘new’ secret location, storming around the house and cursing at Barbara and the girls. So his current routine is to keep it in his sock drawer, inside an old pair of red rugby socks he never wears. Henry finds this easy to remember and tells himself a thief is unlikely to rummage through his socks. Just occasionally there is some drama on the news about a child getting hold of a gun and Henry gets himself in a panic, checking the red socks. Today, Henry rises early in the sparse sadness of the spare bedroom. Barbara insisted he moved out of their shared room the moment he got back from the police station. There was no formal arrest and the police are still checking out his new story, but with Barbara urging him to move out completely, Henry realises that he has made things worse, not better. So what did they say, the police? Why was your car near the railway station? I thought you said you were drunk. Slept in the pub car park? Why the hell won’t you tell me what’s going on, Henry He looks at his watch. 5.30 a.m. He checks the bedside table drawer for the key, which he took from the socks last night while Barbara was making supper. He throws on the same clothes from yesterday, discarded on a chair, and puts the key in his right pocket. Then he draws the curtains, wincing at a sky much too beautiful for this day. This mood. This plan. Henry listens to his breathing for a little while, staring out at the patterning of the clouds. Cirrostratus. His father taught him about clouds, too. Essential for a farmer to be able to read the clouds. Cirrostratus clouds are like thin, almost transparent sheets on a washing line. They mean rain is on its way, and he feels the familiar, involuntary pull inside. The need to crack on. Get going. Henry heads downstairs, being careful to be as quiet as possible, avoiding the third step from the bottom, which creaks the loudest. He walks through the kitchen to the boot room, where Sammy is all bright-eyed enthusiasm, wagging his tail. Henry feels a lurch in his stomach as he meets the familiar amber stare. He pets the dog’s head – stay – then heads through to the office, taking the key from his pocket. Henry chooses his oldest shotgun, takes ammunition from the back of the wooden filing cabinet in the corner (not strictly very safe but he has let things slip a little), relocks the steel cabinet and walks back through to the boot room, where Sammy still stands, head tilted, waiting for permission. ‘No. Not today, boy. You stay here.’ The dog looks bemused. Ears back. He stands proud and moves slightly. ‘I said stay – you hear? Back in your bed. Now.’ Their eyes meet again and Sammy slinks back into his bed where he sits all beady-eyed, staring and panting, tongue lolling, as Henry leaves the room. Outside it is cooler than he expected. Henry looks across to the little lawn opposite the drive, remembering once more the tents and the trampoline. The girls shrieking with laughter from a den in the bushes. He remembers how Anna loved to be swung around by her legs in the middle of the lawn when she was very small. How sad he felt when she became too tall for it to be safe anymore. You’re too tall. Oh, please, Daddy. You’ll bang your head. I can’t. He remembers the vigil, which had so surprised him. It was quite touching that so many people came. The candles. The singing. Barbara and Jenny standing with their arms linked together, too upset to join in. Their lips tight, so they would not cry. He looks back up at the house, the curtains all drawn upstairs still, and moves as quietly as he can on the gravel to the adjacent barn. He uses the small side door, leaving the large double doors for the tractor bolted at both top and bottom. He moves into the far corner to sit in the midst of the spare straw bales from the vigil. Henry places the gun on the ground and feels his heart rate increase. Is he afraid? No answer comes back. Instead, a whole album of images plays out in front of him. A pack of cards shuffled and spread. Barbara and him on their honeymoon. Such different people. The girls when they were tiny babies. Anna with her fair hair; Jenny so dark. Henry wonders if his subconscious is trawling the sentimental memories so that he can convince himself to bottle out. But – no. Very soon the police will find out he was not sleeping in the car because he was drunk. Very soon they, and Barbara, too, will find out the truth. And then a new thought. You idiot, Henry. They will hear the shot from the house. Damn. They will come and they will find him. And they will see. Maybe Jenny, first. Why on earth did he not think of this before? Henry takes his phone from his pocket, trying to work out a strategy. He could ring the police. Tell them to come. Yes. He could bolt the doors from the inside also, so the police will deal with it. Will this work? Or should he walk some distance from the house? Maybe up to the ridge? But then someone else will have to find him. Some other poor innocent. Only now does Henry truly realise that he has not thought this through at all. Quickly he feels in his pocket for a scrap of paper. A pen? He finds nothing but some old receipts, a small piece of wire and an empty chewing gum packet. He closes his eyes and feels the frown as he thinks of Anna’s friend Sarah and her pills. Did she think it through? Mean it? Did she write a note? How will he explain himself if he doesn’t leave a note? Henry’s heart is now beating so very fast that his chest is actually aching. He sets the gun ready – cocking it first with two hands – and then places it back on the floor, pointing at his neck. For some reason he is thinking of a television drama in which the make-up artist said they used liver to create the blood and the mess of a brain, to make it look realistic. He imagines that he has already pulled the trigger and wonders what it will be like. Nothingness? Or something else? Henry is not at all religious so he does not know what he expects. But he is surprised to find that he is worried about pain. Henry moves the shotgun slightly to face the ceiling of the barn, and makes a decision. No paper and no note, so he will have to ring. Yes. He takes the phone in his right hand again to make the call to the police. He has the number of DS Melanie Sanders programmed into the phone, and decides he will speak to her first. He likes her. She seems straight. Decent. So much nicer than the guy from the Met. He hears it ringing. One ring. Two. Three. He prays she will answer. Five. Six. His heart continues to pound as he closes his eyes tightly, praying it will not be some recorded message. CHAPTER 21 THE FRIEND Sarah says nothing in the car on the way home while her mother chatters and chatters. She is to stay off school. Take as long as she needs. Build up her strength. Her mother says she is glad Sarah has made up with her gang of friends, and that she must look to them for support now. No one is blaming anyone. There is to be no more nonsense. Why don’t they have a pizza night soon? Watch a film? Sarah is surprised to feel unsteady on her feet as they walk through the front garden. Probably all that time in bed. She looks at the three rose bushes below the sitting room window and notices the large number of blooms. When she was taken from the house in the ambulance she remembers lying on the stretcher and passing the flower bed by the front door. There were no blooms then. Now there are five. No. Six. It feels odd somehow, for this to have changed so quickly. ‘Come on then, love. I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.’ She doesn’t want tea but says nothing. Inside, she just stands in the sitting room in a kind of daze as her mother puts her small bag on the settee. Sarah looks at it. The tartan holdall. Inside is her make-up pouch, which she used so carefully in London. Eyeliner, mascara and her favourite lip gloss. She looks at herself in the mirror over the settee. No make-up today. Her eyes look small. Her lips dry. In the reflection she can see photos in a variety of frames on the pine shelving on the opposite wall. There is a shot of her sitting in a paddling pool and blowing bubbles. Both of her parents are sitting alongside, smiling. In another picture she is doing a handstand, her skirt flailing to show her white-and-pink spotted pants. She is frowning now, trying to remember who took the picture. And then she scans along the shelf to see the picture of her sister Lily sitting on a bench on a holiday in France. She looks sad. No – not sad, that’s not the right word. She looks sort of distant and disconnected. Sarah can hear the noise of the kettle through the archway that leads into the kitchen. ‘Why did Lily really leave?’ ‘Sorry. Can’t hear you over the kettle.’ Her mother moves back into the sitting room, standing and staring at her. Sarah keeps her eyes on the photograph of her sister. ‘Why did Lily really leave us?’ ‘I don’t think this is the time to be talking about all of that. You need to rest, love.’ Sarah tilts her head to the side and then turns to look her mother in the face. She can feel a prickle of tears coming and her bottom lip trembling. She knows how easy it will be for her mother to put the pin back in the grenade as she always does. As Sarah always lets her. ‘It was over Dad, wasn’t it? It’s why he left.’ The blood leaves her mother’s face. ‘Why do you say that? You know why your father left. We weren’t getting along and when things blew up with Lily, it all got a bit—’ ‘What things blew up?’ Sarah hasn’t seen her sister in three years. Sometimes Lily phones to check that Sarah is OK, but she hasn’t in a while. They are friends on Facebook, but when Sarah checks Lily’s page, she hardly recognises her. She is in some kind of hippy phase. Her hair dyed strange colours. Odd clothes. Living in Devon in some strange group set-up. Always posting stuff about crystals and healing. All yoga and candles. Reiki and spelt flour. Sarah still misses her; she cannot believe Lily has not been in touch lately with all this going on. Everything all over the news again. ‘I want to know the truth, Mum.’ ‘Truth? You’re making it all sound a bit melodramatic, love. You’ve been through a lot. You’re upset. Your father and me, we just stopped working. That’s all. You know that we both still love you.’ Sarah holds her mother’s stare and tries very hard to read it, to burn her own gaze deep into her mother’s, to trigger the reaction she needs. But the kettle announces it’s boiling and her mother looks away. ‘I don’t want a drink, thank you. I’m going to lie down.’ ‘How about a sandwich?’ ‘I said I’m fine.’ Sarah grabs the overnight bag from the sofa and marches upstairs, where she closes the bedroom door, leaning her back against it with her hand still on the cold ceramic doorknob. She remembers that Lily picked them out – new doorknobs for the whole house. It’s amazing how much difference small details can make. It was in the phase when Lily was still talking about going to art college and was forever fired up about some project or another. Their tiny utility room was turned over to all manner of schemes. Felt-making or silk-printing one week; hand-dying of cotton sheets for rag rugs the next. And then suddenly it all stopped. It was replaced by rows. Shouting and slamming of doors upstairs. Lily playing truant from school. Staying in bed all day. That sad look on her face from the photograph in France. Sarah checks her watch and moves over to her desk to switch on the lamp, adjusting its arm so that it lights her work area perfectly. She fires up her laptop, impatient as it takes time to load and settle. Her Facebook page is busy with new messages of support, wishing her well. Most of her friends seem to know she is home from hospital today. Word travels fast. She had to unfriend a lot of people who made unpleasant remarks when Anna first went missing. For a while she considered taking down her profile completely. She still gets the occasional nasty comment linked to a news report, but Sarah tries very hard to ignore them, banning anyone who oversteps the line. The truth is she can’t bear what some people say, but worries even more about what might be said behind her back. So she keeps the profile going. Sarah clicks through to her sister’s page, where there is an updated profile pic – the ends of Lily’s hair dip-dyed pink now. There’s also a new batch of photos of some place she does not recognise: orchards and fields and soft-focus shots of yoga outside at dawn. A large group of people, arms linked, their faces turned away from the camera. Sarah opens up a message to her sister and feels a lurch of sadness. The last time they chatted was not long after it all happened. She rereads all their messages. Lily had called a few times but Sarah was still in shock back then and had clammed up. Now she feels very differently. She twists her mouth to one side and types. I need to speak to you, Lily She is about to press send when she scans the message again, frowning and realising it is too vague; it’s not enough to provoke a response. She adds her new mobile number and then types some more It’s about Dad. I’m worried he had something to do with Anna She leaves her finger poised over the send button, her heart pounding. For a moment she is not sure that she can do it. She doesn’t know whether she has the courage to finally pull the pin from the grenade. She puts both hands up to her mouth momentarily. And then she lets out a huff of breath and presses send.