LISA HALL loves words, reading and everything there is to love about books. She has dreamed of being a writer since she was a little girl and, after years of talking about it, was finally brave enough to put pen to paper (and let people actually read it). Lisa lives in a small village in Kent, surrounded by her towering TBR pile, a rather large brood of children, dogs, chickens and ponies and her long-suffering husband. She is also rather partial to eating cheese and drinking wine.

Readers can follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaHallAuthor

Also by Lisa Hall

Between You and Me

Tell Me No Lies

The Party

Have You Seen Her

Lisa Hall

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Lisa Hall 2019

Lisa Hall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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

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

Ebook Edition © MAY 2019 ISBN: 9780008215026

Version 2020-05-07

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Praise for Lisa Hall

‘This is an unrelenting and scarily plausible story weaved expertly around some very real characters. Good luck putting it down …’

Heat

‘Compelling, addictive … brilliant!’

B A Paris

‘A dark, compelling read that demands to be read in one sitting.’

Sam Carrington

‘An addictive read.’

Closer

‘This is a fast-paced book, and with twists up until the final page, you won’t regret investing in it.’

Woman Magazine

To Nat, Charch and Christie …

#solesisters

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Praise

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

Extract of The Perfect Couple

Acknowledgments

Excerpt

About the Publisher

Prologue

The fire crackles as the flames leap into the frigid November air, sending out showers of sparks. The wooden pallets that have been piled high by volunteering parents, eagerly giving up their Saturday afternoon, crumple and sag as they burn. The guy – the star of this cold, clear Bonfire Night – is long gone now, his newspaper-stuffed belly and papier mâché head only lasting a matter of seconds, the crowd cheering as his features catch alight, feeding the frenzy of the flames.

My breath steams out in front of me, thick plumes of white that match the smoke that rises from the bonfire, but I am not cold, my hands are warm and my cheeks flushed pink. The crowd of parents, teachers and children, five or six deep in some places, that gathers in the muddy field behind the school are transfixed as the first of the fireworks shoots into the sky, before sending a spectacular display of colours raining down through the night air. I watch as she keeps her gaze fixed onto the display, the heat of the bonfire casting an orange glow across her features, her hat pushed back on her head, so her view isn’t obstructed. For a moment I feel a tiny twinge of guilt – after all, none of this is really her fault – before I remember why I’m doing this, and I bat it away impatiently.

All I need to do now, is wait. Wait for the realisation to dawn on her face, for the fear to grip her heart and make her stomach flip over as she realises what has happened. For her to realise that Laurel is gone.

Chapter 1

‘Here.’ Fran thrusts a polystyrene cup of mulled wine into my hand, fragrant steam curling into the cold November air. I don’t drink – not even cheap mulled wine with the alcohol boiled out of it – something I’ve told her repeatedly for the past three years that I’ve worked for her as a nanny, but she never takes any notice.

‘Thanks.’ I cup my hands around the warm plastic and let the feeble heat attempt to thaw out my cold fingers. Another firework shoots into the air, blue and white sparks showering across the sky, and a gasp rises from the crowd. Fran sips at her wine, grimacing slightly, before pushing her hat back on her head so she can see properly. She fumbles in her pocket, drawing out a slightly melted chocolate bar. ‘I got this for Laurel,’ she says, the foil wrapper glinting in the reflected glow from the giant bonfire behind the cordon in front of us.

‘Laurel?’ I say, frowning slightly. Laurel is a nightmare to get to bed if she has sweets this late in the evening, Fran knows that. Although, it’ll be my job to tussle Laurel into bed all hyped up on sugar, not Fran’s. I glance down, expecting to see her tiny frame in front of us, in the position she’s held all evening. She dragged us to the very edge of the cordon as soon as we arrived at the field behind the school, determined that we wouldn’t miss a second of the Oxbury Primary School bonfire and fireworks display.

‘Yes, for Laurel – you know, my daughter,’ Fran says impatiently, thrusting the chocolate towards me. She follows my gaze, and frowns slightly, biting down on her lip, before she opens her mouth to speak. ‘Where is she?’

I turn, anxiously scanning the crowds behind us, the faces of parents, family members and teachers that have all come out in their droves to watch the display. Laurel isn’t there. She isn’t in front of me, in the tiny pocket of space she carved out for herself, and she isn’t behind me either. I turn back to Fran, trying to ignore the tiny flutter in my chest.

‘I thought she went with you?’ I say, the cup of mulled wine now cooling quickly in the chilly night air, a waft of cinnamon rising from the cup and making my stomach heave.

‘With me?’ Fran’s eyes are wide as she glances past me, searching for Laurel.

‘Yes, with you.’ I have to stop myself from snapping at her, worry nipping at my insides. ‘You said you were going to get us a drink and pop to the loo, and Laurel said, “Hang on, Mummy, I’m coming with you.”‘

‘She did? Are you sure?’

‘Well, reasonably sure,’ I say, a delicate twinge of frustration whispering at my breastbone. ‘I mean, I saw her follow after you, because I shouted out to her to keep hold of your hand.’ There are hundreds, if not thousands of people here tonight, the display well known in the small patch of Surrey that we live in. It’s a regular annual event arranged by the PTA, and it’s well attended every year.

‘She didn’t,’ Fran whispers, her eyes meeting mine as the blood drains from her face. ‘She didn’t hold my hand. She didn’t catch up with me at all.’

I feel sick at Fran’s words, her fingers gripping my forearm, digging in vice-like. Trying to crush the rising unease that makes my stomach do a tiny somersault, I take a deep breath, peeling Fran’s fingers from my arm and taking her hand in mine.

‘Don’t panic,’ I say, trying to keep my voice level and calm, ‘she must have just wandered off. There are people on the gate; no one would let her walk out on her own, she’s only little.’

Fran nods, her face a sickly shade of white. ‘We need to look for her, I need to find her. Surely, she can’t have gone too far?’ She drops my hand and starts to shove her way past the crowds of people hemming us in. I follow after her, ignoring the tuts and frowns from others. Finally, I break free of the crush and catch up to her, as she begins to run across the field towards the bank of portaloos, slipping and sliding in the mud that coats her designer wellies.

‘Wait, Fran,’ I gasp, ‘wait. We need to … to think for a minute. We need to think about this logically, about where she might be.’

‘She was following me to the loos, that’s what you told me,’ Fran says, her eyes frantically scanning the field behind me, ‘I’m going to look there, maybe she did follow me, maybe she’s got locked in one of them, maybe she’s banging on the door now and no one can hear her.’ Another burst of fireworks erupts in the sky with a popping noise, as she pulls her arm away from me, staggering slightly.

‘OK,’ I nod, ‘good idea. You check the loos, I’ll go and ask at the barbecue area. See if they’ve seen her – she might have asked for you if she couldn’t find her way back to us in the crowd.’ Fran has hammered it home from the first day I began working with them, that if Laurel gets lost she must find a policeman, or security guard — someone in authority — and ask them to find her mummy. Laurel knows the rules. Fran gives a sharp nod, but I can see her mind is already on getting to the portaloos, and she turns and starts to run towards the row of green plastic cabins. I gaze after her for a moment, a whicker of fear making my pulse beat faster, making my feet stick to the ground for just a minute before I begin the walk over to the barbecue area. I hurry as fast as I can, but the field beneath my feet is a slurry of mud, thanks to three days of constant rain, and straw, laid to soak up the mud, which is now a thick, sludgy, slippery mess.

Heat, a thudding bass from the DJ system in the ‘bar’ area (a tent, with a trestle table full of wine and beer bottles), and the acrid scent of barbecue smoke assaults my senses as I approach the table, and I have to swallow hard before I can speak.

‘Hi.’ My voice is drowned out by the crappy music, and the pop of fireworks exploding over my head. ‘Hey!’ I shout.

‘Hello, darlin’, what can I get you? Burger? Sausage?’ The burly guy behind the table turns to me, hot dog roll in hand. It’s my second visit to Pete the Meat tonight, the local butcher (and local lothario, if the rumours are true).

‘No, no thank you.’ I shake my head, ‘I’m looking for a little girl – she’s got lost. Have you seen her?’

‘What’s she look like?’ There is a smear of tomato ketchup across the sleeve of his white coat, a slash that looks like blood against the clinical whiteness, and my mouth goes dry.

‘She’s four, um … about this high.’ I hold my hand at about waist height. ‘She’s got blonde hair, and she’s wearing a pink coat, pink wellies and a sparkly silver bobble hat.’

‘Can’t say that I have. Let me ask the others.’ He turns and shouts to the two teenagers that work behind him, slicing rolls and folding napkins, before turning back to me. ‘Sorry, darlin’, we haven’t seen her. We’ll keep an eye out though, yeah?’

‘OK. Thank you.’ I try and muster a smile, before turning back to the field. I scan across the crowds, my eyes seeking out that distinct glittery bobble hat in the dark but to no avail. Spying the admissions table, where three PTA mums sit all bundled up against the cold, I start to hurry towards them, cursing the mud for hampering my progress.

‘Hello, hi.’ I am breathless with the effort of trudging through the churned-up mud as I reach the table. ‘Can you help me? I’m looking for a little girl.’

‘Is she lost?’ A caramel blonde woman, wearing an expensive waxed jacket and perfect make-up speaks first, her eyes widening as her hand with its long, manicured nails flies to cover her mouth.

‘Yes, I think so … I mean, she followed her mum to the loo and … look, we can’t find her, her name is Laurel Jessop, she’s four …’

‘Laurel?’ One of the other women gasps, strands of her dark hair sticking to her lip gloss as she jumps to her feet. ‘I know Laurel, she’s a friend of my daughter, Daisy.’ As she says the words I recognise her as the woman my friend Jessika nannies for.

‘Yes, Laurel. Please, have you seen her? She’s going to be frightened if she’s wandered off and she can’t find us.’ My fingers knit together anxiously as I look from one to the other, my feet itching to get back to the field, to start looking for Laurel. The third woman, pale and mousy, who I recognise from the school gate but can’t match to a child looks up with wide eyes but says nothing, her fingers pausing briefly in their tidying of admission tickets.

‘We haven’t seen her,’ Caramel Blonde says, ‘and we wouldn’t let a little one out on their own. Oh my gosh, this is terrible.’ She turns to the dark-haired woman, Daisy’s mother, an accusatory tone creeping into her voice. ‘I told you we should have set up a lost children zone.’

‘Please …’ I say again, ‘are you absolutely sure she hasn’t been past here?’ Even as I say the words I know Laurel hasn’t – she would have stopped and asked Daisy’s mum to help her find us, as per Fran’s strict rules.

‘Absolutely sure,’ the woman says firmly, shouldering her way past Daisy’s mother to come and stand next to me, her eyes scanning the field. ‘Right. Where’s Mr Abbott? The head will need to know about this – we have a process to set in place when a child goes missing. You two,’ she turns to the women next to her, an officious air about her now, as though she’s used to taking charge, ‘you need to get this gate closed off before things finish and people start to leave.’

Daisy’s mother starts nodding frantically in agreement, twisting her hands together as she looks anxiously between the open gate and the hordes of people watching the fireworks burst over our heads, panic starting to creep across her features. The mousy woman tidying the tickets whispers something, but before I can ask her to repeat it, there is a huge cheer as the grand finale of the fireworks goes off, and to my horror I see people start to turn to depart, gathering up small children with their glow sticks, stumbling over discarded polystyrene cups and sweet wrappers as they make their way through the field back towards the still open gate and the darkened lane that leads out and away towards the main roads.

‘Anna!’ Fran careers across the field, her feet almost sliding out from under her, her hat pushed right back on her head. Her eyes are glittery, and her cheeks flushed, and I think at first that it’s all OK, that Laurel was just locked in the loo after all. ‘Did you find her?’

My heart sinks. Fran is flushed from her frantic searching, not because it’s all over.

‘Anna? Did you find her?’ Fran repeats, and I shake my head.

‘No. No one has seen her. I checked with Pete at the barbecue station, and I asked the PTA mums at the admissions table, but none of them have seen her.’

‘Fuck.’ Fran pulls her hat off and shoves her hand through her glossy black bob, her eyes combing the scene behind me, as people now flood towards the open gate. ‘LAUREL!’ she shouts, grabbing my hand and pulling me back into the field, back into the thick of the dispersing crowd. ‘LAUREL!’ We both take up the cry, and a thick knot of fear rises up in my chest as the thought skitters across the back of my mind that maybe, maybe Laurel hasn’t got lost.

‘Mrs Jessop? Mrs Smythe on the PTA tells me we have a missing child. Is that right?’ Mr Abbott, head teacher at Oxbury Primary appears in front of me as I struggle to keep up with Fran.

‘I’m not Mrs … yes, she’s missing. Laurel … her name is Laurel,’ I manage to stutter. ‘We can’t find her.’

‘Right, try not to panic, the chances are she’s just wandered off somewhere.’ His voice is calm, but his brow is creased with concern. ‘Where did you last see her?’ I ramble on about Fran getting drinks and using the bathroom, before impatiently pushing past him and catching up to Fran, who is yanking open the doors to the portaloos again.

‘I thought maybe I missed one,’ Fran sighs. ‘I thought she might have gone in there after I checked. Did you ask the people who were serving at the bar?’

I glance towards the bar area, where Mr Abbott is talking to the parents and helpers behind the table, gesturing across the field with one arm. Behind him I see the PTA mums gathered at the now closed gate, a crowd of people waiting to leave bottlenecking in front of them. ‘The head teacher, Mr Abbott, is talking to them now.’

‘The head? He’s looking for her too?’ Fran looks up at me, a look of blind panic behind her eyes. ‘Dominic!’ she shouts suddenly, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘Dominic was meant to be here … what if he turned up and saw her … maybe she was cold, and he took her home?’

‘Maybe,’ I say doubtfully, but Fran is already fumbling in her coat pocket, dragging out her mobile phone and dialling Dominic’s number. ‘He’s her dad after all,’ she says, phone clamped to her ear. ‘I mean, why wouldn’t he take her home … and he wouldn’t think to ring me, not that I would have heard it even if he had …’ she trails off before she hangs up without speaking. ‘Voicemail,’ she says, bitterly.

Mr Abbott appears by her side and gives us both a tight smile, as we hear the sound of Laurel’s name being called in an announcement over a loudhailer.

‘Mrs Jessop.’ I point at Fran and he turns to her. ‘I’ve spoken to a few of the parents over at the bar area, but none of them have seen Laurel. We have implemented the first stages of our missing child process. All exits have been closed for the moment, and several people have already volunteered to start searching the immediate area for any sign of Laurel. What time did you last see her?’

‘I don’t know … the display had started, I think. Anna?’ Fran turns slightly, throwing the question to me, her eyes already looking past me, still searching the field for any glimpse of Laurel.

I have no idea. I haven’t checked the time all evening, and my heart thuds in my chest, a frantic double beat that makes my breath stop in my throat for a moment.

‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘Just after the fireworks started?’ Mr Abbott flips his wrist and checks his watch.

‘So, she’s been missing for around half an hour now?’ He frowns, and I feel sick – I hadn’t realised how long it had been, it feels like seconds ago and a hundred years all at the same time since I last saw her. ‘OK, I think perhaps it’s time we made a phone call … I think we need to get the police involved.’

I turn to Fran, and see my own fear written all over her face.

‘I’ll do it.’ She gulps hard, and slowly pulls her mobile out from her pocket again, tapping in the numbers with shaking fingers, her face illuminated by the glow of the screen.

‘Police, please. It’s my daughter …’ Her eyes find mine and I watch as she blinks slowly, pushing a thick, heavy tear out and over her pale cheek. ‘She’s gone … I can’t find her. I think someone has taken her.’

Chapter 2

Pulses of blue light flash as the patrol cars pull up across the entrance gate to the field, illuminating the faces of the families still waiting to go home. There are three of them, parked haphazardly across the entrance to the field, blocking the way out. Just the sight of the blue lights, seeing the dark uniforms of the officers stepping out of the cars, is enough to make my nerves jitter and my hands shake. I’ve spent the last five years doing my best to avoid any interaction with the police, at all costs. I have no choice tonight, though. I watch as the taller of the first two officers leans down to listen as Caramel Blonde says something, pointing in our direction. While others have started searching the field for signs of Laurel, the head teacher has kept Fran and me here, not far from the bank of portaloos, up to our ankles in mud, telling us that we need to stay put to make it easier for the police to find us. And now, they are here.

‘Oh God.’ Fran lets out a little moan as two of the police officers make their way towards us, pressing her fingers up towards her mouth. ‘I didn’t think they’d actually come …’ She turns to me with a look of panic on her face. ‘I thought we’d find her – I thought we’d find her and there’d be no need for them.’

‘It’s OK,’ I say, wanting to reassure her but she’s usually so unapproachable that I find it hard to break the habit of keeping myself back a little.

‘Mrs Jessop?’

Fran says nothing, and I give her a little nudge.

‘Yes,’ she says finally, turning a tear-stained face to the police officer in front of us. ‘That’s me.’

‘I’m DS Wright. You rang us – said you couldn’t find your daughter. Do you want to tell us what happened?’

The woman’s voice is low, and I have to strain slightly to hear her. Fran starts to recount the evening, starting from when she arrived at the field. Laurel had been excited about the bonfire all week, it had been all she had talked about, and I’d ended up leaving the house with her half an hour before we’d needed to, arranging to meet Fran at the field so she could finish getting ready in peace. Laurel had tugged on my hand all the way along the lane to the entrance, not even stopping for Mr Snow’s house at the top of the pathway – an older gentleman, who was often in his garden in the afternoons, and Laurel liked to pause and chat to him for at least five minutes, seeing as he quite often had lollies in his pocket. I think about the way she rushed along the pavement, excitement making her squeeze my hand, before she pulled away, eager to be the first in the gate and I feel my heart constrict in my chest. What if she’d fallen? What if a car had come speeding round the corner and almost hit her? Would I have held her hand a bit tighter then? Would I have made sure she was in my eyeline for the entire evening, instead of assuming that she’d caught up with Fran?

‘… and she just wasn’t there, was she, Anna?’ I am shaken out of my thoughts by Fran’s voice speaking my name.

‘And you are?’

‘Anna.’ I look over at DS Wright’s colleague, a slight woman with short blonde hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose, who stands poised with a small black notebook, as Wright waits for my answer. ‘Anna Cox. I’m … I’m Laurel’s nanny.’

‘And you brought Laurel here, earlier this evening?’

‘Yes. I walked here with her while Fran was getting ready. Laurel was excited, she wanted to get here as early as possible.’

‘And then … what? Can you run me through exactly what happened – when you first realised that Laurel wasn’t where you expected her to be?’

I see Fran glance in my direction as I open my mouth to speak, to repeat exactly what she has just told them. ‘Fran was going to the loo, and to get us a drink. Laurel said she was going as well, and she ran off after Fran. But then Fran came back, and Laurel hadn’t caught up with her.’ Guilt lies heavily in my stomach. Why hadn’t I watched? Made sure she reached Fran, kept my eyes on her until she grabbed her hand?

‘Thank you, Anna.’ The police officer seems satisfied with my comments, scratching away jotting down my words in her notebook. ‘So, it sounds as though she’s wandered off, lost sight of Mum. We’ve got the exits closed now and we’re looking for her, OK? She can’t have got far – we’ll find her.’ She gives me a brisk smile, before walking away towards her colleagues, leaving Fran and me alone, the chilly night air taking on a sinister feel as Laurel’s name is shouted again and again into the dark.

I’m not sure how long it is before DS Wright walks back over to us, her face pensive. She stumbles over an uneven patch in the muddy ground, her sturdy black shoes sliding as she almost loses her footing. Righting herself, she brushes a splash of mud from her black trousers, before stopping in front of us.

‘What is it?’ Fran says, almost shoving me aside to get close to the police officer, her hand reaching out before falling to her hip. Her voice is hoarse from shouting Laurel’s name, and as I swallow I realise my throat is also raw. ‘Did you find something? Did you find Laurel?’

‘Mrs Jessop … Fran.’ DS Wright speaks slowly, calmly, before she turns her gaze to include me. ‘As yet, we haven’t found any sign of Laurel in the immediate area, but we are still carrying out a full, intensive search. In the meantime, there are just a few things that I would like to ask you about.’

Fran says nothing, her face pale, so I nod instead. ‘Yes, of course. We’ll answer any questions you have, won’t we, Fran?’

‘Great, thank you.’ DS Wright pulls out her notebook, rifling through the pages until she finds what she’s looking for. ‘So, Laurel went to catch up with her mother – with you, Fran – is that right?’

‘Yes.’ I nod again, as Fran crushes a tissue to her nose, tears spilling over and running down her cheeks. ‘But I didn’t actually see her catch up with Fran.’ Just saying the words makes me feel sick.

‘But you’re sure she went in that direction – towards the portaloos?’

‘Yes, yes I’m sure.’ I am sure – aren’t I? Guilt and worry converge to make me doubt myself, to doubt the picture I see in my mind’s eye of Laurel running towards the back of Fran’s coat, as she weaved her way slowly through the crowds.

‘And you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, either before or during the bonfire? Nobody hanging around that shouldn’t have been? No one who seemed overly interested in Laurel?’ Her eyes settle on my face and I feel a slight sweat break out across my forehead, despite the cold night air, as though it is me under investigation, me who has done something wrong.

‘No. No one. Although, there were people starting to arrive as we walked up the lane, so I don’t know that I’d …’ I was going to say, I don’t know that I’d have even noticed, but I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.

‘And what about Laurel’s father? Fran says that he was supposed to meet you all here this evening?’

‘He was,’ I say, frowning slightly, ‘he’s a surgeon – a heart surgeon at the hospital in South Oxbury – but he didn’t make it here, obviously.’

‘I tried to get hold of him,’ Fran says, a frown to match my own creasing her forehead. She pauses for a moment and blinks hard. ‘I called him a few times, but it just kept going to bloody voicemail.’ She presses her lips together and looks away, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

‘It was sort of a big deal, tonight …’ I say in a low voice, ‘he works really long hours, but he’d promised Laurel that he would make it.’

‘Can we try him again?’ The blonde officer who spoke to me earlier has arrived to stand next to her colleague, and she looks to DS Wright for confirmation.

‘I’ll do it,’ I say, glancing at Fran. She looks white, the blue lights still pulsing in the background giving her face a sickly sheen every time they pass over her features. ‘I’ll call him.’

I call his number, my fingers fumbling with the phone, but I don’t know if it’s through shock or simply the cold. Just as it did for Fran, the voicemail kicks in within a couple of rings.

‘Dominic? It’s Anna. Can you call me as soon as you get this?’ Fran is talking to DS Wright, so I step away slightly, hanging up the phone and scrolling down to the number I am only to call in strict emergencies. This counts, I think to myself, this definitely counts as an emergency. It starts to ring, and I press one finger into my ear in order to hear better, as I feel the blonde officer’s eyes on me – DC Barnes, I think Wright called her. I turn my back and wait for the call to be answered.

‘Theatre,’ a gruff voice barks into the receiver.

‘Oh, hello,’ I say, gripping the phone tightly as I try to keep my voice steady, ‘I need to speak with Mr Jessop, please, it’s rather urgent. Can you tell me if he’s in theatre, or is he available?’

‘Mr Jessop?’ There is a pause on the line and a murmur of voices faintly in the background, and I imagine the nurse glancing at the whiteboard, then asking her colleague, checking to see which theatre he might be in. ‘Sorry, he’s not on this evening. His list finished at five o’clock.’

Shit. Where the hell is he? He promised Laurel that he would be here tonight, and I assumed that he had got caught up with work – after all, that’s usually what happens with Dominic. I glance over to where Fran is holding a tissue to her nose, her other arm wrapped tightly around herself as if cold. DC Barnes takes a step towards me, and I hold up one finger as the phone in my hand buzzes, relieved when DS Wright calls her over and I don’t have to worry about her listening in.

‘Dominic?’ I pause. ‘You got my message? Fran’s been trying to get hold of you for ages.’

‘Oh, Jesus.’ I hear him exhale, a long, deep sigh, and imagine him sat in his car, his big, luxury Porsche Cayenne that neither Fran nor I are ever allowed to drive, or maybe at home, knowing he was going to be late and miss the bonfire, waiting for us to get back so he can put Laurel to bed. ‘Look, Anna, if she’s getting you to call me just so I answer and then she can take the phone and chew me out, I’m hanging up now, OK?’

‘No, Dominic, it’s not … it’s not that.’ My mouth is dry, and I wish I could take it back – I wish I had left it to Fran, or one of the police officers here to make the call.

‘What is it, then? I know I missed the fireworks, but … I’ll talk to Laurel tomorrow and make it up to her. It wasn’t my fault …’

‘Dominic, I called the hospital, looking for you.’ Whispering, I grip the phone tightly in my hand, feeling the skin stretch over my knuckles, and turn back to where Fran is waiting. I raise my voice again. ‘It’s Laurel. She’s gone missing.’

As I speak the words out loud to Dominic, I see Fran almost visibly stagger slightly, as if my words have cut her, her hands covering her mouth as if to hold in a scream. Mr Abbott appears at her side to clutch her by the elbow and keep her steady.

‘What? What’s happened? Where is she? Are you still at the field?’ Dominic fires questions at me, one after the other, barely giving me time to respond, before he tells me he’s on his way and hangs up on me abruptly. More police officers are arriving, and there is a sense of urgency now humming in the air. Mr Abbott has rounded up several more volunteers who are already beginning to search the field more thoroughly, and I hear Laurel’s name being cried repeatedly into the frosty night air.

‘She’ll be getting cold.’ Almost as though she read my mind, Fran comes close to me, her voice quiet. ‘And she’s not keen on the dark either. Remember that time the bulb went in the nightlight in the middle of the night and she woke up? We all thought she’d been …’ Her voice trails off and she gives a tiny huff of wheezy laughter, that catches in her throat. ‘Is Dominic coming?’

‘Yes. He got held up.’ I don’t mention my call to the hospital. My hands are freezing now, and I shove them deep into my pockets, my fingers touching something cold and plasticky. I snare whatever it is between my fingertips and draw it out, only to see a tiny doll, like the little Polly Pocket dolls I used to have as a child. Mr Snow gave it to Laurel as we passed one morning on the way to school – it had blonde hair, and a pink jacket, and he told her it looked exactly like her – I assumed it must have belonged to one of his grandchildren. It certainly wasn’t new. Laurel must have sneaked it into my pocket without me noticing. I curl my fingers round it and feel the soft plastic stick slightly to my palms.

‘He’s always held up.’ Fran’s voice jolts me back to the present. ‘Maybe if he’d actually bothered to turn up this evening this never would have happened.’ She gives a little sob and presses the back of her hand to her mouth again, as her eyes comb over the field, watching the figures of volunteers sliding across the mud, all shouting Laurel’s name.

‘Fran? Anna?’ Someone else approaches now, a stranger, but I can tell immediately that he belongs to the police. There is something about his manner, the way he carries himself, that tells me he is important. He introduces himself to Fran, but I don’t catch his name, only the words, ‘… senior investigating officer.’ With a pang, I remember the last time I heard those words. It’s different this time, I think, I can’t be blamed this time.

‘We’re doing everything we can to find Laurel – due to the length of time she’s been missing now we’ve put in a request for a helicopter to join the search, but for the moment I think it’s best for yourself and Ms Cox to return to the house,’ he is saying, a hand on Fran’s elbow to guide her towards the waiting police vehicle.

‘What? No!’ Fran wrenches her arm away, sliding a little in her wellies. ‘Laurel is out here somewhere. Shouldn’t I be here? Waiting, in case they find her?’

‘Mrs Jessop,’ the officer’s voice is low and soothing, and Fran stops dead, biting back whatever she was going to say. ‘We’ve got our finest team out searching for Laurel – the best thing you can do is go home and wait.’

‘Fran, listen,’ I say, still slightly unnerved by Fran’s display of emotion this evening. I’m not used to it – she is usually reserved to the point of occasional rudeness, and to see her so open, so exposed, makes me feel uncomfortable. ‘I think it makes sense for us to go back to the house … what if Laurel has wandered off and she’s made her way home and you’re not there?’

‘Do you think so? DI Dove … do you think she might be at home?’ She turns to face DI Jayden Dove, hope written across her face.

‘It’s possible. We have already dispatched a team to the house just in case.’ He tries to force a smile, but it doesn’t sit right on his face. ‘DS Wright and DC Barnes will take you home.’ He’s lying, I think, the thought closing around my heart like a cold fist, he doesn’t think Laurel is at home at all. I try to force the thought away and tap Fran lightly on the arm.

‘Come on,’ I say, ‘if she is at home, she’s going to want a cuddle and a hot chocolate.’ And I lead her slowly towards the police car, trying to squash down the familiar feeling of dread that rises up, threatening to consume me.

Laurel isn’t there. Of course she isn’t, I knew deep down that she wouldn’t be and I think Fran knew that too. She is quiet as we step into the hall, DS Wright shadowing us as we enter the slightly chilly living room. The curtains are open, a shaft of moonlight slicing the room in two before I switch on the overhead light and slide my coat off. I take Fran’s coat and usher her into an armchair, before returning to the hallway to hang the coats. I slide the little doll from my coat pocket into the back pocket of my jeans. As I reach up to the coat pegs, the sound of the front door opening makes me jump and I gasp, dropping Fran’s Ralph Lauren jacket on the floor.

‘Dominic,’ I place my hand over my racing heart, ‘you made me jump.’ He looks terrible, his silver hair standing on end as though he has been pushing his hands through it, his face pale and eyes ringed with dark circles.

‘Is she here?’ His voice is desperate, and he grips my forearms tightly, eyes boring into mine. ‘Is Laurel back?’

‘No,’ I stammer, trying to pull away from him, ‘she’s not. The police are through there.’ He lets me go and I gesture towards the living room.

‘OK. OK.’ He shoves his hand through his hair again, before rubbing his palm across his mouth, twelve hours’ worth of stubble scratching his skin. ‘Anna, did you tell anyone I wasn’t at the hospital? Did you tell Fran?’

I frown, shaking my head. ‘No, I didn’t get a chance to. As soon as I hung up DI Dove told us we should come back here. Why?’

‘Nothing.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Just … don’t, will you? Don’t say anything just yet. I don’t think Fran would understand … I’ll tell her later, when things are … you know.’

‘Right.’ I don’t know how I feel about this and I waver for a moment, before I decide I have to let it go, for now anyway. Fran will be furious if she finds out, and I know the focus for all of us should be on Laurel and getting her home safely. I go to speak, to tell him that I’ll keep it quiet for now, but he’s already pushing past me, headed to where Fran sits in teary silence on the sofa.

‘Dominic.’ She gets to her feet as he enters, and at first I think she’s going to shout, or hit him, fury crossing her face before she crumples into his arms. ‘She’s gone, Dom. Laurel’s gone. Someone has taken our baby.’

Chapter 3

I wake with a jolt, without even realising that I have dozed off. It must have only been for a few minutes, as I had watched the sun rise a couple of hours ago and now its light inches its way through the open curtains to create a warm puddle of gold on the parquet flooring. I shift, stiff and uncomfortable from spending the night scrunched into an armchair in the front room, my eyes gritty and sore.

With a rush the events of the previous evening come back to me and I force my stiff body round, placing my freezing cold feet on the floor, the wood warm beneath my bare skin. We had all been questioned separately, but informally, over the course of the evening about what had happened and what we had seen, and it had left me feeling almost drunk with tiredness, reliving those terrifying first moments when I looked down and Laurel was gone. My head aches, and I wince as I sit forward, taking in the scene in front of me.

Everyone is pretty much in the same position as they were last night, when Fran told me roughly to go to bed, that there was nothing I could achieve by staying up. I had refused, wanting to be there if any news came in, wanting to know if Laurel was OK, but her voice had a familiar hard edge to it, one that she uses to remind me that she is the boss, that she is in charge, not me. Instead of doing as I usually would and hurrying away upstairs to my room, I had folded myself into the hard, uncomfortable armchair in the corner of the room, for once daring to disobey Fran. Dominic had given me a tiny smile of solidarity as he watched me tuck my feet up underneath me, making it quite clear that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I would stay awake all night. Obviously, exhaustion had overtaken me at some point, even if it had only been for a few minutes.

Now, my head throbbing so hard it makes me feel queasy, I look to the tableau in front of me. Fran still sits curled into the huge, squashy sofa, while Dominic stares out of the front window. As I follow his gaze I see DS Wright pacing outside the front of the house, mobile phone clamped to her ear. Both parents look exhausted and grey, with slight wrinkles that I’ve never noticed before appearing at the corners of Fran’s eyes.

‘I take it there isn’t any news?’ I ask.

‘No.’ Fran shakes her head and dislodges a tear that runs slowly down her cheek. ‘Nothing.’ The door swings open and a tall, slim girl appears. She gives me a small smile, before asking if anyone would like some tea.

‘You remember DC Barnes, from last night,’ Fran says, her voice dull, as she leans down and picks up the mug of tea, now stone-cold, that I left by her feet an hour or two ago. ‘Apparently as well as a DC, she’s a “family liaison officer”.’ I can hear the quote marks she puts around the words.

‘Would you like a hand in the kitchen, DC Barnes?’ I ask, the atmosphere in the living room suffocating me in the few short minutes I’ve been awake again. She smiles her thanks and I follow her through into the huge, clinically clean kitchen where she looks around for the kettle, confused when she can’t seem to find it.

‘Here.’ I lean past her to the sink, turning on the boiling water tap. ‘No need for a kettle.’

‘Oh, fancy!’ She throws tea bags into the mugs laid out on the counter and starts to fill them. ‘Enough with the DC stuff for now,’ she says, raising her voice over the sound of rushing water. ‘Just call me Kelly. So, you’re Anna? Laurel’s nanny?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you worked for the Jessops for long?’

‘About three years,’ I say, thinking back to the day I got the job. I wasn’t sure if I’d even turn up for the interview, after what had happened before. I didn’t think I was cut out for nannying, not anymore, but working in a bar wasn’t for me as I had soon discovered, and a chance meeting with an ex-boyfriend, where he revealed that an old friend of his was looking for a nanny, meant that I decided to bite the bullet and take a chance. ‘Laurel was a year old when I started working here. It doesn’t seem like that long.’

‘And how is it?’ Kelly slides a hot mug of coffee towards me and leans against the counter, her blonde hair falling over one eye.

‘It’s OK. Good, I mean. I enjoy it.’ I sip at the coffee. ‘Laurel is a little sweetie. It wasn’t meant … It was only supposed to be temporary, a stopgap, you know? But … I liked it. So, I stayed.’ I’m more attached to Laurel than I ever thought I would get. I was conscious in the beginning that I shouldn’t let myself care for her too much, that it was bound to go wrong. Now look what has happened. I take another, bigger sip of coffee and let it scorch my tongue.

‘What about Fran and Dominic?’ Kelly asks, her eyes never leaving my face. ‘How are they to work for?’

‘Oh, you know,’ I shrug, but she gives a nod as if to say, go on. ‘Mostly fine. Fran is a bit … highly strung at times. She’s an actress, she’s always busy learning lines, meeting directors, that sort of thing, so things can get a little stressful for her. Dominic isn’t here a lot of the time. He’s always at the hospital.’

‘So, neither of them is about much?’

I think for a moment. ‘Not as much as they’d like, maybe. Fran loves being with Laurel, she just isn’t able to much of the time, not with auditions and meetings and things. And Dominic … well, he has to put his patients first quite often.’

‘And how are they together? Do they get along OK?’

‘Most of the time. Everyone has their ups and downs, don’t they?’

‘And what about you? Have you got a partner, boyfriend, significant other?’

‘No,’ I let out a little huff of laughter, ‘definitely not. I spend all my time with Laurel.’

‘So, did you live in the area before you started working here? Or did you move here especially?’

I snap my head up from where I am staring into my coffee and meet her gaze. I should have known that she wasn’t simply being friendly, I need to remember that she’s not my friend – she’s only here to do a job. I could kick myself for letting my guard down.

‘Am I being questioned?’

‘No,’ Kelly says, a faint blush rising in her cheeks, ‘nothing like that. I’m sorry. I just wanted to get a feel for how things are usually in the house. Obviously today it’s tense, and everyone is under a lot of strain. I don’t think Fran has taken too kindly to my being here.’

I let out a long sigh of relief. ‘She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s simply the way she is. Prickly.’ I let out a tiny huff of rueful laughter. Fran is unpredictable at the best of times, and I often find myself walking on eggshells around her in case I inadvertently do something to upset her. Frequently I find myself making the wrong decision – taking Laurel to the park for half an hour on Saturday mornings after Fran has come home late, in order to let her have a lie in, only to come home and find her pacing the kitchen, demanding to know why Laurel wasn’t there when she woke up, or all the times I’ve bathed Laurel and put her to bed, only for Fran to waltz in earlier than expected and then demand to know why Laurel wasn’t kept up to see her. You don’t always know which Fran you’re going to get.

‘Did you know them before you worked for them?’ Kelly asks, before looking away. ‘Sorry. I’m honestly not interrogating you. I just need to get a feel for things, it’s an important part of the investigation. You know we need to do everything we possibly can to find Laurel.’ She gives me a reassuring smile and I stare into my coffee cup, shaking my head.

‘No, I didn’t know them. I’d never even heard of Dominic, although apparently he’s top of his field and well known for what he does.’

‘But you grew up round here?’

‘No.’ I’m puzzled now. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Sorry.’ She gives me a proper smile now. ‘It’s just that you look familiar, and I thought maybe we went to school together or something. You must have one of those faces.’

‘That’ll be it.’ I manage to force the words out, the blood freezing in my veins. ‘We definitely don’t know each other.’ I slide off the stool the moment Dominic pokes his head around the doorframe, his face grave.

‘Anna? DS Wright wants to talk to us all. Can you come in?’

I nod, and follow him through into the living room, my heart starting to thunder in my chest. Has there been a development? Or has DS Wright found out what I so desperately wanted to keep a secret?

DI Dove is standing in front of the log burner, his hands clasped in front of him as I totter into the room on shaking legs. DS Wright looks small and frail next to his large frame. Fran still sits huddled up on the sofa, her face pale and drawn, already looking thinner, diminished somehow.

‘OK,’ DI Dove speaks, his voice a rumbling baritone that matches his dark, brooding looks. Italian, I think, or maybe Spanish. ‘I think we all know that now we are looking at the very real possibility that Laurel hasn’t simply wandered off. That someone else might be involved in her disappearance.’

There is a little squeak, and Fran presses her hands to her mouth, as Dominic sinks onto the cushion next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, trying to pull her in towards him. Sitting alone on the armchair opposite, I feel cold and sick, the headache I woke up with still pounding away at my temples.

‘We had people searching the field well into last night, and again since early this morning, and we have yet to uncover anything that might lead us to Laurel, or give us some idea about what might have happened to her. We still have a team of volunteers down at the site, all willing to continue the search and we have officers doing door-to-door questioning to see if anyone saw anything that might be of use.’

‘Well, that will help, won’t it?’ Fran asks, a note of desperation creeping into her voice. ‘Someone must have seen something, surely? It’s not like Laurel could just vanish into thin air!’ Her voice rises to almost a shriek and she cuts off abruptly.

‘There isn’t any CCTV footage along the lanes that lead to the field, which is not ideal, but this is a fairly close-knit community and I’m hoping that someone will have seen something, and even if it seems insignificant, that they’ll report it to us.’

To me, this doesn’t sound terribly hopeful at all, and the mention of CCTV makes my heart sink. The field is well away from the main roads, surrounded on all sides by tiny country lanes that lead miles into the surrounding areas of Surrey. An abductor could have travelled for miles in any direction before being picked up on a CCTV camera. Laurel could be anywhere.

‘We’ll also need to have a team of officers search the house,’ Dove says, as Dominic gets to his feet.

‘What? Why?’ Dominic demands, as Fran stands, reaching out a hand to him. ‘She didn’t go missing from here, did she? Why would you need to search our house?’ He is bemused, looking between the two investigating officers, as Dove tries to explain that it’s all part of the process.

‘Dominic, please,’ Fran cries, ‘please sit down and let them do their job. Please.’ Her voice breaks, and Dominic sits back down next to her, pulling her tight, even though her shoulders are rigid. I say nothing, my mind working overtime at the thought of there being a search of the house.

‘Is there anybody I can call for you?’ Kelly has slipped quietly into the room. ‘Anybody who you might like to come and sit with you, your parents or …’

‘No,’ Fran says shortly, shaking her head. ‘I haven’t seen my father for years, and my mother lives in Dubai. There’s not a lot she can do from there.’ Despite her faded pallor, and the way she wrings her fingers together, there is a hint of the old Fran in her clipped tone.

‘What about Polly?’ Dominic asks.

‘Polly?’ Fran snaps back at him. ‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous!’

‘Sorry, can I ask … who is Polly?’ Kelly asks, as I look on in confusion. I have no idea who Polly is either.

‘Polly is Fran’s sister,’ Dominic sighs, scrubbing a hand over his eyes.

‘Yes, my sister, who Dominic can’t bear.’ Fran gets to her feet. ‘In fact, Dominic can’t bear her so much that I lost contact with Polly years ago – just to make Dominic happy.’

‘Oh, come on, Fran, that’s not strictly fair …’

‘Mr and Mrs Jessop.’ DS Wright’s voice cuts through the thick, tense atmosphere. ‘Please.’

Fran sits back down, on the edge of the armchair, out of Dominic’s reach. ‘The last I knew Polly was living somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, but that was ages ago. My mother keeps in contact with her, Polly regularly goes over to visit her.’

‘Right. Anna? Anyone you want to contact?’ DS Wright turns to me and I shake my head slowly, trying my hardest not to shrink away from her gaze. There is no one, not right now. ‘Seeing as we don’t have any leads so far, I wanted to ask you if there is anyone you can think of who might want to … who might have a grudge against you? Who might have taken Laurel. Anyone suspicious hanging around, anyone you may have felt uncertain about?’

‘No one that I can think of,’ Dominic says, a deep V appearing between his brows as he frowns. Dominic wouldn’t notice anyone hanging around though, I think, he’s never here. As the words float through my mind Fran speaks.

‘How would you know, Dom? I mean really, how would you know? You’re always at the hospital.’

‘There hasn’t been anyone hanging around,’ I butt in, before they start sniping at each other again. ‘I’m the one who spends most of my day here, at the house, or out and about with Laurel and I’m certain I haven’t seen anybody unusual or suspicious hanging around.’

‘Well, what about Pamela?’ Fran throws out, spitting the words at Dominic from across the room. The air between them is so thick you could cut it with a knife, and I hope that neither DI Dove or DS Wright thinks that the atmosphere here is always like this, even though sometimes, it can be.

‘Jesus Christ, Fran, you’re clutching at straws! Don’t be so … God.’ Dominic gets to his feet and starts pacing as the police officers say nothing, only watch.

‘Clutching at straws!’ Fran cries. ‘Of course I am, Dominic! My child is missing! My daughter is out there, somewhere, with God only knows who …’ Her voice cracks and she covers her face with her hands. Kelly moves towards her, and Fran stiffens as Kelly’s arm goes around her shoulders.

‘Sorry … who is Pamela?’ DI Dove asks quietly, clearly accepting the heightened emotion in the room as he seems completely unfazed.

‘No one,’ Dominic says, ‘no one important, or relevant. She’s an ex-girlfriend.’ He suddenly sounds very tired. ‘I went out with her before I met Fran. She’s nobody, I haven’t had anything to do with her for years. Look, I think I want to go down to the field, see if they need any help with the search.’

‘Mr Jessop, I’d really appreciate it if you could stay here at the house, just for …’

‘No! I’m sorry, but no. Am I under arrest? Can you legally stop me from leaving my house, right now?’

‘No, we can’t but you must understand …’

‘No, you must understand. You’ve torn my house apart, you’re asking us the same questions over and over … you should be out there looking for my daughter, not here, questioning me. So, if you’ll excuse me, I am going out there to search for Laurel, whether you people like it or not.’ He shoulders his way past DI Dove, who frowns but says nothing.

‘I’ll come with you,’ I say, jumping at the chance to get out of the house, to get away from the cloying, claustrophobic atmosphere that has swallowed up every fitting and all its inhabitants. Plus, I am eager to get out there, to be doing something constructive to help bring Laurel home.

Grabbing a coat from the rack and snatching up my mobile, I step out into the cold, fresh November morning, thinking as I do so that when I last left this house, Laurel was clinging tightly to my hand, bubbling over with excitement and now … well, now who knows where she can be? Fighting off the exhaustion that tugs at my bones, I fall into step with Dominic, who marches on towards the field in silence, and I inhale the crisp air, hoping to clear my head. I need to find Laurel, before it’s too late. I can’t let something awful happen again. It can’t happen again.

Chapter 4

My mobile buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to see seven text messages from Jessika, my nanny friend, three missed calls, and several texts from numbers that I don’t recognise. I shove it back in my pocket without opening them, realising I have fallen behind and Dom is now several paces in front of me. I consider asking him about the previous evening, asking him where he was when he wasn’t at the hospital, but he marches towards the fields at a brisk pace.

I take long strides in order to catch up. Finally, I draw level with him. His face is grim, his eyebrows knitted together and his mouth a harsh line scored into his face.

‘Dominic?’

‘What?’ He turns back to me, that angry, desperate look still etched into his features. His face softens. ‘Sorry, was I going too fast for you? I just … I just want to get there, you know? I should have been there last night.’

‘That’s what I wanted to ask you – about last night.’ I slow right down, a stitch in my side making me wince. ‘Where were you? You said you’d be here … and you weren’t at the hospital. And you asked me not to say anything to Fran.’

He stops abruptly, before turning to face me. ‘That is none of your business, Anna.’ His voice is cold, and it sends icy shivers down my spine. Dominic has never spoken to me this way before. Clearly, I have overstepped the mark, but he carries on before I can apologise. ‘Wherever I was last night had nothing to do with Laurel, do you hear me?’ He takes a step towards me, grabbing me by the upper arms, and I draw in my breath in a hiss of pain as his fingers dig tightly into my flesh through my jacket. ‘Are we clear on that? I’ve told the police where I was, and that’s the end of it. I don’t want to hear another word, OK?’ He lets me go, and I rub at the tops of my arms before I give a slow nod.

‘OK. I’m sorry.’ I swallow, fear making my throat dry. ‘I never meant anything by it. I’ll forget about it.’

‘Thank you.’ Dominic strides off again, not even attempting to temper his pace so that I can keep up this time. I watch him for a second, as he hurries past Mr Snow’s house, onwards towards the school, his head bent, and I run his words over in my mind again before I start to follow him. I’ll forget about it. I’ll try, but it will be difficult to forget the way his eyes flicked up and to the right, as he said he’d told the police where he was last night: up and to the right – a classic sign that someone is lying.

As we approach the field, a police officer directs us towards the school hall, that backs on to the fields a little further along from where the bonfire was held. There are people everywhere, and I hear Laurel’s name as groups gather together, some prepared with bottles of water and backpacks, as if in for the long haul. There is a sense of urgency in the air, underwritten by something else, something that if I had to name it, I would say was panic. Things like this don’t happen in places like Oxbury.

I lose Dominic as he forges ahead, which I think is probably for the best – I don’t think I can cope with the now strained atmosphere between us – and as I step into the hall I pause for a moment. The familiar smell of school dinners – cabbage, with an underlying, vanilla-y hint of lumpy custard – assaults my senses, and there is a rousing babble of chatter that dies momentarily as people notice me enter the room.

‘Anna!’ The caramel blonde woman from the PTA rushes towards me, her arms outstretched. The other mother from the PTA admission stand last night hangs back, hesitant, as though she wants to come over but daren’t.

‘What’s going on?’ I look around, puzzled by the sheer number of people in the hall and on the field outside. Quite a few had hung around last night to help search, and while I’d thought it would be similar today, this has the air of … organisation.

‘We’ve set up a search station … well, I have.’ She fusses at her hair, smiling with perfect white teeth on display. ‘The police are sending volunteers to us, and then we are directing them to start their part of the search, as arranged by the officers in charge. I’ve got someone making up posters and we’re even having T-shirts made up with Laurel’s face on … you know, Have You Seen Her? et cetera, et cetera.’

‘Right,’ I say, my eyes still roaming the room. I can’t see Dominic anywhere, and I wonder for a brief moment how he feels about all of this. I know that I feel overwhelmed by it all. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name?’

‘Lola’s mum. Cheryl.’ She looks a bit put out, and I smile to soften the blow. ‘Is Fran here?’ She cranes over my shoulder, looking towards the door. ‘I thought she might like to see what we’re doing, the effort the community is making.’ She gestures around the room, and I see a man with a large camera around his neck talking to one of the other parents. I shrink back, sure that he must be with the local press.

‘No, she’s not. She’s stayed home,’ I say, spying Jessika on the other side of the room, ‘will you excuse me?’ I push past, ignoring her as she calls something after me, and make my way across the crowded hall, keeping my head lowered as I pass the man with the camera. It’s started to empty out slightly, people moving towards the double doors with polystyrene cups of coffee in one hand, crumpled posters bearing Laurel’s face in the other.

‘Jess!’ I call out, before she can join the hoards leaving the hall. Jessika Lewis is the one friend I have in Oxbury. She is nanny to Laurel’s best friend, Daisy, and we met in the park one warm summer’s day when the girls were tiny. She turns to face me, biting her lower lip.

‘Oh God, Anna. Are you OK? I’ve texted you like, a million times.’ Her arms reach around my skinny frame and pull me tightly towards her in a hug.

‘Sorry, I only just saw the messages … what are you doing here?’ I say. ‘Where’s Daisy?’

‘Technically it’s my day off, so I thought I’d come along and see if I can do anything to help find Laurel. But then Claire turned up here anyway, and brought Daisy along with her, so I’m pretty sure I’ve only got an hour or so before Madam calls me over to take Daisy back to the house.’ She gives a little jerk of her head behind her, and I see Daisy sitting at a low table, colouring in, while Claire buzzes around behind her, posters in hand. ‘Cheryl Smythe somehow organised all of this, overnight, single-handedly.’ She points, and I realise that she’s talking about the caramel blonde woman. ‘It doesn’t take long for word to spread around here, you know that, and everybody wants to be involved.’

Somehow this doesn’t surprise me – Fran and Dominic are the closest Oxbury gets to a celebrity couple. Thanks to Dominic’s success as a surgeon and Fran’s bit parts in a couple of BBC historical dramas everyone knows who they are.

Jess must see something in my face, as she says, ‘I meant help. Everybody wants to help, not be involved. Come on,’ she takes a look over her shoulder to make sure Claire is still otherwise occupied, ‘I’ve been assigned the far end of the field – I’m sure no one will mind if I have an extra pair of hands.’

As we turn to leave the mousy woman from the PTA, the one whose face I can’t put a name to, is standing close behind me, and I almost step on her foot as I swivel round.

‘Oh God, sorry.’ Holding up my hands I go to move past her, but she lays a hand on my arm. Her nails are bitten down to the quick, her fingers thick and rough looking.

‘How is Fran?’ There is a slight West Country twang to her voice. ‘Is she OK? Is there anything I can do for her? I haven’t seen her for a while, but you know … I want to let her know I’m here if she needs me. Tell her, won’t you? Tell her Ruth, from the PTA, is here if she needs her.’

‘Um … OK. I’ll let her know.’ I have no idea if Fran knows this woman – Fran rarely does the school run, so I’d be surprised if she would recognise her, and anyway, even though I know her from the PTA I still can’t think which child belongs to her.

‘Anna, come on, we have to get started.’ Jess tugs on my arm and we walk out of the stifling hot hall, the cold air outside hitting me like a slap in the face.

As we cross the path and step onto the wet straw that marks the entrance to the field, the area where last night the PTA stood guard to ensure no small children escaped (although that didn’t seem to work so well, did it?), I realise that I am still wearing yesterday’s clothes. As well, I’d shoved my feet into trainers, not wellies. Although the sky last night was clear, meaning a frosty start to today, the rain that has fallen all week long along with hundreds of feet marching through the field has led to more sloppy mud, with a thin crunchy shell of frost on top. There is a damp mist in the air, the kind of cold that seeps right into your bones, and already my feet are cold. My shoes slide awkwardly on the mud as I follow Jess.

There are maybe thirty other people combing the edges of the field where the grass leads into the wooded area that surrounds the lake beyond it. I see others heading out of the gate, presumably to search the lane. I look around, but I don’t see Dominic.

‘Are they looking anywhere else?’ I ask. I hadn’t felt able to ask DI Dove for any information this morning, or indeed last night, not in front of Fran and Dominic. After all, Laurel isn’t my daughter, as Fran regularly goes to great lengths to remind me.

‘Mainly the woods this morning, I think, and then out into the lane,’ Jess says, her cheeks pink with the cold. She’s remembered to put wellies on, at least. ‘They said the main area of the field was searched last night, but they want to search again in daylight. Police are going door-to-door through the main road to the village this morning as well, I believe. Hopefully someone saw something that might point them in the right direction.’

We reach the edge of the woods, the rough path in front of us splitting in two just a few yards into the bushes. Jess stops and points to the left. ‘I’ll go that way, you take the right-hand path. Meet back here in an hour?’

‘OK. Jess …’ I say, panic starting to beat in my chest as I look towards the thick overhang of trees above me. It’s winter, and the branches are bare, but they reach towards each other, tangling their limbs together leaving dark, sinister shadows across the mulchy forest floor. ‘What am I looking for?’ I blink rapidly, to fight back the tears that spring to my eyes.

‘Oh, Anna.’ Jess reaches for my hand, clasping it in her gloved palm, transferring warmth to my cold fingers. ‘Anything – anything at all that doesn’t look right. Bushes that have been flattened, any signs of … disturbance.’ She blinks hard. ‘The police gave us a talk when we all arrived at the hall, told us what sort of things we should be looking out for. We’ll find her, Anna, I’m positive we will.’

I give her a watery smile and wish that I shared her conviction. She steps away, on to the left-hand fork of the path and I turn to the right, keeping my eyes trained on the ground for the first few feet, anxious in case I miss something. Then I realise that some of the tree branches are shoulder or even head height to Laurel, and I might have missed something that may have caught on the bony fingers of the branches.

I retrace my steps back to the edge of the wood, a flash of colour catching my eye as I reach the outskirts. It’s Dominic’s yellow ski jacket, and he paces backwards and forwards a little way from the entrance to the woods, mobile phone clamped to his ear, his breath escaping in tiny clouds of vapour as he speaks. I slide my thin frame behind the nearest tree, straining my ears to try and hear what he’s saying. He paces the same route over and over, shoving a hand through his hair until it sticks up in short silver spikes, but it’s no good, I’m too far away to hear him.

I start to creep backwards, into the shadows of the woods, when a branch cracks under my trainer, and Dominic looks up. He starts to walk towards the woods, when whoever is on the other end of the line says something he clearly doesn’t like. He hangs up with an angry curse and stares at the phone for a moment as if wondering whether to throw it at the nearest tree. After the way he reacted earlier, grabbing me when I mentioned his whereabouts last night, I can’t help but feel nervous – but he tucks the phone into his back pocket and walks off towards the hall. I let out a shaky sigh of relief and edge back onto the path, my eyes combing every branch.

The damp, mulchy path squelches underfoot as I get further into the wooded area, muddy water leaching up from the leaf litter and soaking my white trainers. This far up there is a large expanse of woodland before the lake, and I am glad that I don’t have to search near the water. The thought of finding something that belongs to Laurel close to the edge of that dark, dank, silty water makes my blood run cold. As does what I see in front of me next: a pile of leaves, clearly recently disturbed, their wet, smelly undersides exposed to the open air, filling the area with the scent of decay.

As I edge closer, I see they have been carved into ruts, as though something (or someone, my brain hisses) has been dragged through them. As though two tiny little feet have been pulled through the wet, mulchy mess, a voice whispers in the back of my mind. I raise my eyes to follow the line of rutted leaves towards a diamond mesh fence that runs along the perimeter of the woods, separating it from the field behind. The diamond mesh fence that has clearly been cut, to reveal a small opening. Perfect for the size of a small child.

Heart thumping, a wash of nausea making me feel dizzy, I hesitate, unsure whether to shout for Jess, or take a closer look. It might be nothing, I whisper to myself, running my tongue over dry lips. I step close to the fence, careful not to place my feet anywhere near the drag marks, and peer into the field beyond. I see nothing at first, until I slide through the opening in the fence and into the field. The damp grass near the fence has been flattened down, and a trail of bent stems lead away from the fencing towards the other side of the field – as though someone has walked a path through the longer grass. I look behind me, telling myself that if Jess is in sight I’ll call her over, but there is no one. From here, I can’t even hear the searchers calling Laurel’s name. Stepping to one side, so I create my own path, I follow the trail over the slight hill, stopping short as I see where the path of flattened grass leads to.

A camp. There are eight or nine caravans parked up on the far side of the field, no doubt having forced their way in by cutting the padlock off the gate on the other side. It’s happened more times than anyone cares to mention in Oxbury; the travellers’ arrival usually gets reported to both the police and the council within hours of them pitching up. Nice middle-class people from Surrey don’t want travellers in their midst. Obviously, this time the police have been too busy to come out and move them on, and if they only arrived last night there’s a chance that no one else has even noticed them yet. I force my feet on towards the camp, ignoring the flip of my stomach as I get closer, nervous at having to speak to them. The only experience I’ve had of them before was when one of them threatened to smash up the Co-op after he got caught pinching bacon, while I was buying sweets for Laurel. As I get closer, I see two men standing outside one of the caravans, both turning to face me as I get within talking distance.

‘Hello,’ I say, my mouth dry again. They are both tall and well-built, their skin tanned a dark brown, roll-up cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Neither of them wears shirts with sleeves despite the cold, and I see the tattoos on one of them ripple as he raises a hand to push his hair back from his face, his dark curls dotted with droplets of water from the mist.

He speaks, his voice rough. ‘What d’yer want?’

‘I’m looking for a little girl,’ I say, running my tongue over my lips. ‘She went missing from the fireworks party in the field over there last night,’ I point behind the trees, ‘there’s a huge search operation being organised by the police.’

With an anxious glance at his friend, the tattoo guy speaks again. ‘We don’t know nothing.’

‘Are you sure you haven’t seen anything? No one coming through here last night …’ I break off, about to mention the drag marks and the cut in the fence before common sense catches up with me.

‘We said, we don’t know nothing.’ The second, slightly smaller guy takes a step towards me and I flinch a little, hating myself straight away for looking so weak. Adrenaline shoots through me, leaving my knees wobbly. ‘Get lost.’

‘OK, thank you. Forget it, I’m going. Sorry,’ I babble, almost falling over myself to get back through the fence to where other people are. I’m intent on finding a police officer to explain about the drag marks, then I can go home and check on Fran and wait for Laurel, and forget about the intense, intimidating stare that these two guys laid on me. And I would forget, only …

I stop, something moving in my line of vision, something that makes my breath catch in my throat. I see it again, from the corner of my eye, the thing that made me stop in my tracks and I turn my head a fraction towards the caravan immediately behind the two men.

‘I’m going,’ I say again, holding my shaking hands up in surrender, as they both take a step towards me, my heart thumping double time in my chest as I try and process what I just glimpsed. The back of a head, at the window of the caravan. A tiny, blonde head, with a high ponytail, that I’m sure I last saw being stuffed into a sparkly silver bobble hat.

Chapter 5

I manage to walk calmly away, resisting the urge to run until I reach the mesh fencing and I am sure I am out of sight of the two travellers. I squeeze my way hurriedly through the tiny gap, the sharp cut edge of the fence slicing into my fingertip, catching my jacket as I go. Shit. I’ve probably contaminated a crime scene now as well. My shoes sliding on the damp, muddy forest floor, I rush back towards the field, branches grabbing at me, my hair falling over my face and my breath coming in short hitches that strike up the stitch in my side again. Coming out of the woods I look around, hoping to see a police officer, or Jess at the very least, but everyone seems to be tied up, busy with their own searches so I push on towards the school hall.

Falling through the double doors, I call out, ‘Is there a police officer here?’ A sob catches in my throat and I have to work hard to swallow it back down, not wanting to lose it in front of the volunteers.

‘Oh gosh, you need to sit down, here, come this way.’ The mousy woman from the PTA appears by my side, her hand grabbing at my forearm and tugging me towards a chair. ‘Let me help you.’

‘I don’t need to sit down.’ I shake myself free impatiently, trying to see over the tops of people’s heads to catch a glimpse of DI Dove, or perhaps Dominic.

‘Anna? There you are.’ Jess appears from the throng of people that have edged their way towards me. ‘I waited for you and you never came … look at the state of you. Oh God, you’re bleeding!’ She grasps my hand tightly. ‘What happened?’

I glance down at the mud that cakes my shoes and splatters up the legs of my jeans. A thin trickle of blood stains my fingertips where I caught myself on the mesh, and there is a long rip in the arm of my jacket from the fencing. I can feel the sweat break out over my skin again. ‘A police officer, Jess. Are there any still here or are they all doing the door-to-door?’

‘I’m here,’ a voice says behind me, and I turn to see DI Dove.

‘Oh, thank God.’ I resist the urge to throw myself on him in relief. ‘I found something, out there on the other side of the woods.’

‘OK,’ Dove pulls me to one side, away from prying eyes and straining ears. ‘What did you find? Tell me.’

‘At the edge of the woods – where it meets Briars Meadow – the fencing has been cut. There are drag marks … I crawled through it, and they’re there …’

‘Whoa, not so fast.’ DI Dove waves his hand up and down in a gesture designed to slow me. ‘Who is there?’

‘The travellers,’ I say, my breathing finally calming. ‘There are eight or nine caravans, all parked in the field, in the usual spot. There are drag marks, like feet, leading to the cut in the fence and then the grass is all beaten down as though someone has walked through there. But that’s not it. I saw her.’

‘You saw her? Who? Laurel?’ A spark gleams in his eye and I see why he is a detective – he loves the thrill of the chase.

‘I think so. I saw her hair. It’s in a high ponytail, she was sitting in the window of one of the caravans. I’m sure it was her. You have to go! You have to go and see if it really is her!’ My voice rises, and several people glance our way. There is no sign of Dominic, and I hope that they find him before someone tells him I saw something. DI Dove looks around, one hand on my shoulder.

‘We need someone to take you home,’ he says, as I shake my head.

‘I can take her,’ a voice pipes up, and it’s her again, the mousy woman.

‘No, I’m not leaving. I need … I want to be here when you bring Laurel back.’

‘Anna, it might not even be Laurel. And I need you to be with Fran, she’s on her own … I mean, Kelly is there, but it’s best if either you or Dominic stay with her. Just in case.’ Just in case there’s bad news. That’s what he means. Reluctantly I give a slow nod, just as Jess arrives at my side.

‘Come on,’ she says, giving a curious glance in DI Dove’s direction. ‘I have to take Daisy back to the house anyway, she’s getting bored. She keeps asking where Laurel is.’ Her mouth turns down. ‘Best to get her out of here.’

I let Jess lead me out of the hall, away and towards the lane, watching as Dove calls over another police officer, waving his arms and gesturing. There is a flash of yellow as Dominic appears from behind the building and sees Dove, changing his course to walk over to the policeman. Jess follows my gaze.

‘Let’s get you back,’ she says, one hand on my arm, one holding tightly to Daisy.

‘I should stay,’ I insist, eyes fixed on Dominic as Dove talks at him, hands moving as he shakes his head, clearly telling Dominic to stay where he is.

‘You can’t,’ Jess says firmly, ‘Dove told you to leave … and he’s right. Someone needs to be with Fran, whether it is Laurel or it isn’t, and better it’s you than some police officer that she barely knows.’ Especially if it isn’t Laurel, I think, letting Jess guide me away. I can’t imagine how Fran will react if it turns out that it isn’t her after all.

Jess leaves me at the front gate, smiling at Kelly who has stepped outside to the garden to have a cigarette. She smiles sheepishly back, as if ashamed to have been caught on a break.

‘I’ll be fine, Jess, you go.’ I step back, waggling my fingers at Daisy. Jess looks uncertain, but I nod at her enthusiastically. ‘Honestly, I’ll be fine. Kelly’s here. You go.’ I want her gone before Fran looks out the window and sees Daisy. I can’t imagine that she’d want to see her daughter’s best friend, not when her own child is gone. If I’m honest I’m finding it hard enough to see Daisy without Laurel beside her, and I am relieved when Jess finally turns to leave.

‘Are you OK?’ Kelly lets out a stream of smoke, picking a tiny piece of tobacco from between her teeth, and I have to struggle to stop my mouth curling up in disgust. The smell of cigarette smoke always puts me on edge. ‘I’ve spoken to DI Dove.’ So, she does know what’s going on over at the field. ‘I haven’t told Fran yet. I was waiting for you to get back. I thought she might need you.’

‘I’ll tell her,’ I say, ‘I don’t mind. No offence, but it might be better coming from me than from you. She knows me. She trusts me.’ When it suits her. Kelly wavers for a second before she gives a small nod.

‘OK.’ She stubs out her cigarette and throws the butt into the black bin. ‘Let’s head back in.’

I don’t have any choice but to agree, and my heart feels as though it’s lodged in my throat as I slide the door handle down and step into the front hallway. The house is cool, chilly almost, and I realise that the heating timer has probably switched off, and Fran hasn’t noticed. I peer into the living room, expecting to see her tucked into the huge grey Conran sofa, the plush corded material etching lines into the skin of her bare feet as she sits with them tucked up beneath her, her pose of the last twelve hours, the light from the Tiffany lamp casting a yellow glow across her face. But the living room is empty, with only the faint scent of Fran’s perfume on the air. I step along the hall into the kitchen, thinking that maybe she’s making a cup of tea, but the light airy room is also empty.

‘Shall I?’ Kelly nods her head towards the sink and I shrug. I don’t want any more tea – it feels as though all we’ve done since we got home last night is drink tea.

‘Fran must be upstairs. I’ll go and get her.’ Lightly I make my way up the wide staircase to my little box room, a tiny bubble of hope blooming inside me at the thought that Laurel might be back home with us soon. Fran must have finally gone up to get some sleep, I think to myself, before muffled voices come from the room above me, the attic room that Fran and Dominic converted into their huge, spacious bedroom before Laurel was even born. Stealthily, I creep up the tiny staircase, telling myself that I’m going to knock and make sure that Fran doesn’t need anything. But my hand doesn’t tap on the door. Instead, I find myself pressing my ear to the wooden panel, holding my breath in order to be as silent as possible.

‘No. No, honestly, it’s all going to be fine,’ I hear Fran say, as her footsteps pace across the wooden floorboards. ‘I don’t know why … look, it will be OK. I promise. I can deal with this. I’m OK on my own.’ More pacing, her voice becoming indistinct as she steps away from the door, presumably towards the windows that face the back garden. I lift a hand and tap the door lightly before she discovers me.

‘Fran?’ I push the door open, seeing her hand slide her phone into her pocket. ‘Is everything OK? I thought I heard voices?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say I’m OK.’ She gives me a tight smile. She still looks terrible – her skin washed out and grey, and her eyes puffy – but she has given her lashes a lick of mascara, and her lips shimmer with a faint, rosy glow, achieved from a tube of lip gloss. ‘I was just … I was talking to my mother.’

‘Oh?’ I don’t know what else to say. Fran very rarely mentions her mother. She told me once, rolling in after a late-night boozy wrap party, that she didn’t get along too well with her mum. That it was her mother’s fault that her father had left them, taking his generous bank balance with him.

‘She offered to fly over here. Although what she can do to help I don’t know.’ Fran shakes her head, sadly. ‘I don’t want her fussing over me. It’ll simply be easier if she stays where she is. And anyway, Dominic won’t want her here.’

I don’t know where to look, so I stare at my feet as I shift them uncomfortably on the spot. Although Fran and I have lived in the same house for three years, and Fran entrusts her daughter to my care every day, we are not friends. Although I share this house with Dominic, Fran and Laurel, this house isn’t my home and I am not really a part of the family. Fran is prickly, aloof, and quite clear where the boundaries lie between us. She is my employer, and I am her employee. This Fran, the Fran that speaks openly, that shrieks at Dominic in fear, that exposes her emotions is a stranger to me.

‘Well,’ I say, for lack of any other response, ‘shall we go downstairs? Kelly is making some tea …’

‘More tea.’ Fran tries to muster a smile and fails miserably, before heading for the door, her movements sluggish and slow as if she is weighed down with exhaustion. I follow after her, my socked feet slipping on the polished oak staircase. Kelly is placing three mugs of tea on the table as we enter the kitchen. Fran slides into the nearest chair and wraps her hands around a mug as if to soak up the warmth.

‘Fran,’ I say, my stomach full of butterflies. Please let Laurel be coming home. ‘I went to the field this morning …’

‘Yes, I know.’ For a second I catch a glimpse of the old Fran – brittle, impatient Fran – before her shoulders round and she almost seems to shrink in her chair. ‘I assumed … wait. Did something happen?’ Her eyes flick between me and Kelly and all of a sudden, I can’t tell her. I look at Kelly, and she takes the hint.

‘Fran, there’s something I should let you know. Something was found in the meadow behind the field.’

‘What?’ Fran’s voice has a tremor to it that almost sounds false and I feel a tiny bubble of inappropriate nervous laughter prick in my chest. ‘What did they find?’

‘I saw something,’ I step in, the chill of the house settling into my bones, and I wish I’d thought to flick the heating back on. ‘In the meadow … there are caravans parked up there. I saw a blonde girl sitting in the window of one. I told Dove and he’s gone there now, I mean, the men I saw were dark, all black hair and tanned skin, so why would there be a blonde girl with …’ I trail off, as the blood drains from Fran’s face.

‘So, she could be there? She’s in the meadow?’

‘We don’t know.’ Kelly lays a hand on Fran’s arm, who pulls away as though burnt. ‘Officers have gone to the scene and as soon as they know something, they’ll tell us.’

Fran nods, but stays silent, her fingers creeping to her mouth as she starts to nibble at the skin around her cuticles. ‘Where is Dominic?’

‘He’s there,’ I say, ‘I left him there, with the police.’

Fran lets out a long sigh. ‘I’m sure he’ll find somewhere more important to be on his way home.’

I look away, not knowing what to say, as Kelly also turns and reaches for the mugs, even though no one has touched the tea. Fran slides a hand towards her pocket, before catching herself and raising her fingers to her mouth again. I wonder if she is thinking about calling her mother back, about telling her she’s changed her mind and she does want her to come.

The next half hour drags as we wait for news, Fran’s eyes closing as she sits at the kitchen table, a puddle of sunlight highlighting the reds in her dark hair, the skin round her nails now ragged and sore. The crash of the front door opening jolts all of us back to life, and Fran and I both jump to our feet as DS Wright and Dominic enter the kitchen.

‘Where is she? Where is she, Dom?’ Fran looks frantically past him, trying to edge away and head towards the front door, but he grips her tightly by the upper arms.

‘Fran,’ he says, his voice breaking, ‘stop for a moment. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t Laurel.’ She sags against him, and he pulls her into a tight embrace before he raises his eyes to mine. ‘Someone made a mistake. It wasn’t our girl.’

Chapter 6

There is a crushing sense of disappointment at Dominic’s words, heightened when Fran shoves Dominic from her and rushes from the room.

‘I’ll go after her,’ Kelly says, a grim look on her face, as Dominic sinks into the nearest kitchen chair.

‘I’m so sorry.’ I feel the mistake as if it were an actual physical pain, a shaft of hurt piercing my skin. And not just mine – it seems I got everyone else’s hopes up for no reason. ‘I really thought … the hair, it was the hair. She was wearing it the same way Laurel wears it, and it was the same shade …’ I trail off, the bitter taste of failure thick on my tongue.

‘It was a genuine mistake,’ DS Wright says, ‘and better that you raised it with us, because it could have been Laurel.’

‘It was their daughter,’ Dominic says wearily in a husky voice, his head resting in his hands. ‘It was their own little girl. She takes after her mother – blonder than you, Anna, she was. Up close she looked nothing like Laurel.’

‘The drag marks were caused by them,’ DS Wright tells us, ‘apparently the girl sneaked out through the cut fence to watch the fireworks. When they found her, she didn’t want to leave. Had a paddy by all accounts, and they ended up dragging her back to the caravans. They only arrived yesterday evening, a little before the bonfire started. Officers had already spoken to them late last night and told them to move on today.’ Her face twists in something like disapproval.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper again, ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘There’s nothing you can say.’ Fran has appeared back in the doorway, faint smudges of mascara beneath her eyes revealing she has shed yet more tears. ‘It was a mistake, Anna. You weren’t to know that it wasn’t her. Us sitting here crying isn’t going to help get Laurel back, is it? DS Wright – is there anything else you can tell us?’

I blink back tears, frantically trying to rid myself of them before they fall. Fran is right, sitting here crying won’t get Laurel home to us. Although slightly forced, Fran seems to be trying to channel her usual brisk self, and I guess that is the only way she can cope with what is happening in this house right now – to try and keep control of events the way she always does. I can imagine her sitting upstairs, beating herself up, punishing herself for her emotional outbursts and hating herself for losing control.

‘Well,’ Wright says, pushing her dark hair away from her face and gratefully accepting the hot tea that Kelly thrusts in her direction – she’s good for refreshments, if nothing else – ‘we have made some headway following the initial door-to-door enquiries.’

‘Really?’ Dominic lifts his head and gazes around the kitchen. ‘Why are we only hearing about it now?’

‘As you can understand, checking out the possible sighting of Laurel became our priority, and I have only just received the most recent updates from the team that are carrying out the enquiries.’

‘So, what is it?’ The words tumble out before I can stop them and Fran stares at me, putting me back in my place without saying a word. Laurel is her daughter, not mine. Wright doesn’t appear to notice though.

‘There has been a report of a child matching Laurel’s description getting into a car along the lane from the bonfire last night, at a time that corresponds to when Laurel went missing.’

‘What?’ Fran whispers, her face a chalky white. She licks at her lips and raises a shaky hand to her mouth to wipe at it.

‘Obviously, we are taking this witness very seriously, and we will be investigating further,’ DS Wright says, glancing between myself, Fran and Dominic, as though wanting to make it absolutely clear that this could also be another dead end.

‘Tell us what happened. Tell us who saw it and exactly what they think they saw.’ Dominic is on his feet, fingers gripping the edge of the table tightly, so tightly that his knuckles are white.

‘A resident of the area looked out of the window at approximately eight fifteen last night, supposedly to watch the fireworks display, and saw a young girl getting into a car not far from the entrance to the display. She describes the car as an “off-roader” which we are taking to mean an SUV. Officers are with the lady now, showing her pictures of different vehicles to see if she can narrow it down for us. At the moment an SUV, possibly dark in colour although she can’t be sure, is all she can tell us.’

‘And what about the driver?’ Dominic says, a sheen of sweat sparkling on his forehead, in the patches where his silver hair has started to recede. ‘Did she see who was driving it? A man? Woman? Did she see anything?’

‘She says it was too dark to see who was driving, and to be honest, she didn’t really think anything of it at the time. All she saw was a small girl, wearing a pink coat, climbing into the back seat of a dark car.’

‘How can she be sure it was Laurel?’ Fran asks, her voice barely above a whisper. She clears her throat, making a harsh, raspy sound that seems too loud in the thick silence of the kitchen. ‘I mean, Laurel wouldn’t get into a car, would she?’ She looks to me and I shake my head, reluctantly. ‘She wouldn’t go off with a stranger. I know my daughter, DS Wright, and she wouldn’t willingly get into a stranger’s car, not after everything I’ve taught her.’

‘She might, though,’ I say, unable to keep the words in, knowing that I’m about to effectively tell the police that I know how Laurel would react to this situation better than Fran would. ‘Sorry, Fran, I don’t mean to contradict you, but she might. Laurel is a very friendly, outgoing child.’ I think about the way she stops to greet Mr Snow every afternoon, the way she always has a smile and a wave for everyone, regardless of whether she knows them or not. ‘And she’s only little. If a stranger told her that you had said she was to go with them, there’s every chance that she might have got into a car.’

‘We don’t know for certain that it was Laurel,’ DS Wright says, as Fran turns an icy-cold gaze on me, her eyes narrowed. I don’t know which is worse – the idea that Laurel might have got into a car belonging to somebody she doesn’t know, or that it isn’t her and we are still no closer to finding her. ‘But I have to ask you if you know anybody who might have a dark-coloured SUV?’

‘No. We don’t know anyone who has a dark-coloured SUV. And she wouldn’t have got in it anyway.’ Fran’s nostrils flare as she speaks, deliberating turning her face away to let me know that she is in charge of this, not me, that I shouldn’t have dared to contradict her.

‘Of course. As I said, officers are working with the witness concerned, and as soon as I have anything more to tell you, I will.’ A shrill ring pierces the air, and DS Wright excuses herself to answer the call. I let out a breath that I haven’t even realised I’ve been holding.

‘Do you mind if I …’ I wave a hand towards the staircase, and Dominic gives a little shrug. I need to step away for a moment, away from the tension, the words that lay between all of us, unsaid. The blame that I feel lies on my shoulders for mistaking that girl for Laurel and raising everyone’s hopes. I escape to my tiny box room, pausing only briefly on the landing to turn the heating back on. Dominic is behind me and I let out a little gasp of shock.

‘Sorry, you startled me,’ I say, pressing my hand to my chest, feeling my heartbeat thud rapidly beneath my palm.

‘Sorry.’ He looks a little sheepish. ‘I only wanted to say … you did the right thing just now. Speaking up to say that you thought Laurel might have got in the car.’

‘Oh. I just … I didn’t mean to …’

‘Really, Anna, it was the right thing to do. I saw the look Fran gave you when you said it, and I … look, you know how she is.’ Our eyes meet in a look of understanding. Yes, I know how she is. ‘This is really tough on her, and she’s probably going to take a lot of it out on you, but I understand that it’s tough on you, too. You can talk to me, if you need to.’

‘Thank you.’ I feel a faint blush start to creep up my neck, relief that perhaps I am not on my own through this starting to flood my veins.

‘And if you think of anything – anything at all that might help find Laurel – in the meantime just come to me.’ Dominic pats the top of my arm and turns to head back down the stairs to Fran.

My room is freezing cold, the weak wintry sunlight streaming in through the window not enough to warm the room at all. I’m not sure if it’s the temperature of the room, or the fact that Laurel is missing that makes me shiver, my arms stippled with goosebumps. My stomach twists, as I think of her again, running after Fran, the way I turned back to the fireworks display before I saw her catch up. Why didn’t I keep my eyes on her, just for a few seconds longer?

Clothes litter the end of my bed, from where I tried on and discarded several different outfits before leaving last night, settling on the blue and white striped top I still wear now. I sniff under the armpits and grimace, before tugging it over my head and dropping it into the laundry pile. I need a shower, and clean clothes. My blonde hair hangs limply around my shoulders, and the tops of my feet are splattered with tiny flecks of mud where my trainers didn’t cover them.

Listening out as I step on to the landing, I hear the murmur of voices below as I go into the bathroom and lock the door. The hot water thunders down over my hair and I let go of the tears that I’ve held at bay since this morning. Salty trails stream down my cheeks, mixing with the hot water from the shower, and I gasp as my nose clogs, the steam catching in the back of my throat.

I love Laurel. It’s something I find hard to admit, even to myself. I’ve been in a situation before where I let myself become attached – and look how that ended, I chide myself. I swore that this time, it would merely be a temporary stopgap until I could find something else, a different job where I could simply turn up from nine to five and then go home and not think about it again till the morning. But I got lured in by Laurel and her familiar baby smell, right at the beginning. It is second nature to me to comfort her as she runs to me, not Fran, when she falls and hurts herself. She fell a few weeks ago, as she ran in from the garden, the paving slabs wet and slippery underfoot. Fran and I had been stood in the kitchen, both of us hearing the thud as she went down and then her thin piercing shriek. We’d rushed outside together, Fran pushing past me to get to her first, her arms outstretched ready to pick her up, but Laurel had shrieked louder and shaken her head, reaching her arms out to me, for me to scoop her up and carry her inside. Fran had shrugged it off, but I’d seen the look of fury on her face when I had lifted Laurel up, her head fitting naturally into the hollow of my shoulder as if she were my own.

Spending all that time caring for her, making sure she is happy, looked after, it was inevitable that I would get attached in the end. And now, it’s happening again, just as it did before. I take my eye off the ball for a few seconds and everything comes tumbling down.

*

Fran is lurking outside the bathroom when I slide the lock back and pull the door open, making me jump, and I almost drop the bundle of dirty laundry I am carrying. I can only hope that the thunder of the water drowned out the sound of my sobbing, although the redness around my eyes will still give it away.

‘I’m going to try and get some rest,’ she tells me, her face closed. I don’t blame her. I don’t think she slept at all last night and her face is pinched with exhaustion. Plus, she is clearly still annoyed with me for what I said – it’s probably best for both of us to be in separate rooms for a while. ‘Get Dominic to wake me up if … anything happens.’ She glances down towards the bundle in my arms. ‘What is that?’

‘Just the laundry.’ I have collected up my own dirty clothes, as well as the bundle in the bottom of the laundry basket. It’s not my job to do the laundry; Fran has a cleaner every day that takes care of it, but I feel as though I am lost at sea without Laurel to occupy me.

‘No, that.’ She points at something sticking out of the bottom of the bundle, that I can’t see from the position I am holding it in. ‘Give it to me.’ She tugs, and the clothes fall out of my arms, all over the hall carpet. Fran is clutching a scrap of lilac cotton to her face, that I recognise as the nightdress I took off Laurel yesterday morning before I put her in the bath.

‘No one said you could take this!’ Fran cries, tears shining in the corners of her eyes. ‘No one said you could do the laundry! Just leave it! Put it all back!’ She holds the nightdress tight against herself, rocking slightly as she cries.

‘Fran? What’s going on?’ Dominic thunders up the stairs, concern pulling his eyebrows in to a deep crease in his forehead. ‘Anna?’

‘I was just …’ I stutter, too frightened to say anything more. There is something primal, something horrifying, about the way Fran wails, the noise chilling the blood in my veins.

‘She was going to wash Laurel’s clothes!’ Fran cries, before burying her face in the soft washed cotton again, her shoulders hitching.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think …’ Of course, Fran wouldn’t want me to wash Laurel’s clothes, how could I be so stupid? ‘I only wanted to help.’

‘Leave it, Anna. Fran, come on. I’ll take you upstairs.’ His tone curt, Dominic puts an arm around his wife, guiding her gently towards the stairs that lead to the attic room. Fran turns to stare at me over one shoulder, and I look down, not wanting to meet her gaze, ashamed that I could be so thoughtless.

I grab my laptop and slide down onto the floor, my back against the radiator as I wait for it to boot up. The incident with Fran has left me feeling drained and shaken, and I wish I could sleep, but I know I won’t. My mind is too busy turning over the events of the past few hours, the vision of Laurel climbing into the back of a car etched on my brain. As I wait for the laptop, my mobile buzzes. It’s Jess. Again. She’s messaged several times since I left her, and I can’t ignore her any longer.

‘Jess?’

‘Anna. Just wanted to check you’re OK? This morning was pretty emotional.’ Understatement of the year.

‘I’m OK. Well … you know.’

‘I’m guessing it wasn’t Laurel then?’

‘No. It wasn’t. I made a mistake, a massive one.’ I close my eyes, thinking of that blonde head bobbing in the window of the caravan. I’d been so sure.

‘Have you been on Facebook today?’ Jess asks, a note of trepidation creeping into her voice.

‘Not yet. Why?’ I pull the laptop back towards me and log into my Facebook page. ‘Oh.’ The first thing that comes up in my timeline is a page entitled ‘FIND LAUREL JESSOP’. I click on the page and Laurel’s face fills my screen. My heart does a little double skip in my chest as I start to read the opening post.

‘Jess, who did this? Was it you?’

‘No, it was Cheryl Smythe. She’s been rather busy since yesterday evening, don’t you think?’ I can picture Jess rolling her eyes as she speaks.

‘Do you think this will help?’ I am scrolling down the page, scanning my eyes over the posts. They are all incredibly supportive, some offering ideas as to what may have happened to Laurel, others suggesting places to search. There is a post from eight o’clock this morning, from Cheryl, informing people that the school hall will be the main point of contact for all search volunteers – which explains why it had been so busy this morning.

‘It can’t do any harm, can it?’ Jess says. ‘I mean, look at how social media has worked before. Lots of people have been found thanks to thousands of others all sharing the same image. I just thought that I should let you know in case Fran hasn’t seen it yet.’

I don’t know how Fran will react to the page.

‘Thanks, Jess.’ I hang up, and push myself to my feet, my stomach rumbling. It’s almost mid-afternoon and I haven’t eaten since one of Pete the Meat’s dodgy barbecue burgers last night, and despite feeling as though I could never feel hungry again, my stomach is telling me otherwise. Deciding to make a few rounds of sandwiches – as far as I know neither Fran nor Dominic have eaten today either – I head into the kitchen, only to find Dominic, Fran and Kelly all sitting at the kitchen table. There is no sign of DS Wright and I assume she’s gone back to the investigation.

‘Sorry, am I interrupting?’ I say, glancing from one person to the next and wondering if I should head back up to my room, even though I desperately what to hear what is being said.

‘Not at all.’ Kelly gives me a brief smile. ‘Now, as DS Wright was saying earlier, we are still pursuing the information we have been given regarding the SUV, and news of Laurel’s disappearance has reached the national press. We’re not too sure who contacted them, but it was to be expected in a situation like this.’ A knife twists in my chest at hearing Laurel referred to as a situation and my eyes flick towards Fran, who sits blank-faced, her hands clasped together on the table in front of her. ‘We believe that our next course of action should be to hold a press conference to answer questions, to keep the press on our side.’

‘Ah, no,’ Dominic says, raising one hand. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t want … I don’t think a press conference is a good idea.’

‘What?’ Fran says, her eyes wide. ‘Why not, Dom? Don’t you want to find Laurel?’

‘Of course I do,’ Dominic snaps, ‘but you know what happens with a press conference?’ He turns to Kelly, who sits there calmly, waiting. ‘You know, don’t you? They’ll all be scrutinising us! They’ll be saying that we had something to do with it!’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous. No one would think that. We have to do it, Dom, if it means that we can get Laurel back.’ Fran taps her fingers on the table top, long nails scratching at the wooden surface, a noise that sets my teeth on edge.

‘Look at all the other times it’s happened!’ Dominic shouts. ‘All the other criminals who stood there on television, telling the world to please, just give their little princess back, and then all the time it was them!’ His voice breaks, and he slumps back down into the chair. ‘I don’t want that, Fran. I don’t want people thinking we’re guilty of something we’re not.’

‘Dominic,’ Kelly lays her hand gently on his, ‘I promise you, people don’t think like that. This is the best chance we have of keeping the press on side, and we’ll only reveal the things that we need to right now.’

The doorbell gives its piercing ring, making all of us jump. I pull away from where I lean against the kitchen counter. ‘I’ll get it.’ There is a dark silhouette in the glass as I approach the door, and when I pull it open I am stunned to hear a cacophony of voices, flashbulbs going off in my face, and more than one iPhone shoved under my nose as questions are shouted at me, relentlessly one after the other.

‘When was the last time you saw Laurel?’

‘Who are you to the family?’

‘Can we speak with Fran and Dominic?’

The press has arrived.

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