Miss Foxton sighed. ‘She tends to select a certain type of child with whom to attach herself; the more vulnerable and easily led types. Hannah can be very persuasive when she puts her mind to it. She’ll allow that child to be her ally for a time, and then she’ll grow bored and turn on them completely. It’s a pattern we’ve witnessed repeatedly.’ Her eyes slid away to the pencil she was fiddling with. ‘Daisy Williams is one example, of course. But no, I’ve never seen her truly befriend anyone as such.’
I nodded, remembering Daisy. Shy and eager to please, she was a very pale, thin child with white-blond hair and red-rimmed eyes who reminded me a little of a skinned rabbit. Hannah had homed in on her during the previous school term, enjoyed her new friend’s admiration and slavish devotion for a few weeks, before Daisy had been found, tied up with her own skipping rope and soaking wet, in the playground toilet block. Hannah, all wide-eyed innocence, had maintained that they’d merely been playing a game of cops and robbers, and Daisy had eagerly backed up this claim, but from then on the school had done everything they could to keep the two girls apart, at the insistence, I was sure, of Daisy’s mother, who glared at me with open hostility whenever we crossed paths in the playground.
After our talk with Hannah’s form teacher we walked back to the car in miserable silence. ‘Oh, Doug,’ I said when I was sitting in the passenger seat.
He looked at me and sighed. ‘I know.’ He reached over and took my hand, and for a second something of the old closeness between us flickered. He opened his mouth to speak but at that moment Toby woke and began to cry.
I glanced at Doug and began to open my door. ‘I’d better sit in the back with him,’ I said. Doug nodded, put the key into the ignition and we drove home without another word.
A few days after the school meeting we sat Hannah down and told her what her punishment would be. It was always hard to discipline her because it was difficult to find anything – any treat or toy – that she was genuinely attached to: she literally didn’t care if I confiscated any of her belongings. The only thing she really liked to do was watch television. So on that occasion we told her there’d be no TV for a week. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look of fury, of pure venom on her face when we gave her the news.
I found the bruise on Toby’s arm the next day. Earlier in the morning I’d left him sitting in his little bouncy chair while I got Hannah ready for school. It was as I was fetching her some clean socks from the tumble dryer that I heard his howl of pain. I raced back up the stairs and there he was, red-faced and hysterical, though moments before I’d left him cooing happily. When I went to find Hannah she was sitting in exactly the same spot on her bedroom floor, placidly doing a jigsaw puzzle. She didn’t even look up when I came in. It wasn’t until later that I found the bruise; a small, angry, purple mark on Toby’s upper arm – as though, perhaps, he’d been pinched very hard. I couldn’t prove it was Hannah, but I knew that it was. Of course I did.
London, 2017
Shell-shocked, Clara and Mac walked back from the police station. When they’d arrived and told their story to the young officer at the front desk, he’d appeared unimpressed at first, listening with studied patience as Clara haltingly went through her story. His attitude had changed, however when, putting Luke’s laptop on the desk in front of him, she described the hundreds of threatening emails, the break-in a few months before, the letter and the photographs stuffed through their door.
‘I see,’ he’d said. ‘If you’ll just come with me please.’ She and Mac had been ushered through to a small, windowless room and told to wait. They’d sat in nervous silence as they listened to footsteps come and go in the corridor beyond the closed door.
When it opened they were greeted by a slender black woman who introduced herself as Detective Constable Loretta Mansfield. Briskly she approached them and shook their hands with a firm dry handshake, her eyes quickly searching theirs as she smiled, before sitting down and placing Luke’s laptop on the table between them. ‘Right, Clara,’ she said, ‘I’ve had a chat with my colleague about Luke, and what we’re going to do next is fill in a missing person’s report.’
Clara swallowed hard, her mouth dry with nerves as she went over again what she’d told the officer on the front desk, DC Mansfield’s calm, almond-shaped eyes flicking up to meet hers at various points in her story.
‘And there’d been no arguments between you recently,’ she asked, ‘no indication that Luke might want out of the relationship?’
‘No! And as I said, he’s left his mobile and credit card, and he had an important interview at work he’d prepared hard for. We were … happy!’ she heard her voice rising and felt Mac’s hand on her arm.
Mansfield nodded, then opened the laptop and read through the emails. ‘I see.’ When she looked up again, she cleared her throat decisively. ‘OK, Clara, I’m going to hang on to this for now, and talk it over with my sergeant in CID. What I suggest you do now is go home and wait for us to get in touch, and in the meantime, if you hear from Luke, or if anything else suspicious happens, please call us straight away.’ She got up and with another brief smile and a nod of her head, indicated for Clara and Mac to follow her.
But Clara remained seated, staring up at her in alarm. ‘CID? So you agree those emails could be linked to his disappearance?’ She had half hoped to be fobbed off, to be told she was overreacting, that there was clearly an innocent explanation for it all. The seriousness with which Mansfield was taking her concerns caused darts of panic to shoot through her.
‘It’s possible,’ the DC said. ‘There could be any number of reasons why he’s taken off for a bit. He might have gone out and had a few drinks and not made his way home yet – that happens. Hopefully there’s nothing to worry about. But as I said, go home, and someone will be round to see you as soon as possible. We have your address.’ She went to the door and held it open, and reluctantly Clara got to her feet.
‘Are you all right?’ Mac asked as they trudged back down Kingsland Road towards home.
‘I don’t know. It all feels so strange. You see on the news and stuff about people disappearing, you see those Facebook appeals, and I can’t believe he’s one of them, it’s too surreal. Half the time I’m telling myself there’s some rational explanation and I should just chill out, the other half I feel guilty because I’m not tearing through the streets searching for him. I don’t know what to do.’
He nodded gloomily. ‘He’ll turn up. It’s going to be OK. They’ll find him,’ but she could hear the worry in his voice. As they walked she thought about Mac and Luke, and the friendship they’d had for so many years. Of the two of them, Luke had always had the loudest personality, Mac with his quiet dry wit the straight man to Luke’s clown. And if Luke’s love of the limelight meant he sometimes didn’t know when to quit, ensuring he was always one of the last to leave any party, Mac was invariably there to keep his friend out of trouble, bundling him into a cab when he’d had too much to drink, ensuring that he eventually made it home in one piece. Instinctively now she reached out and linked her arm through his, more grateful than she could say for his calm, steady presence. He glanced down at her and smiled, and together they walked on in silence.
She felt desolate when they returned to the empty flat. There was Luke’s leather jacket hanging on its peg; on the table by the window was a half-completed Scrabble game they’d abandoned two nights before. The last record they’d been listening to sat silent and still on the turntable. It was as though he’d stepped out only moments before, as though he might reappear at any second with a bottle of wine tucked under his arm, smiling