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Chapters (62)
  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Book
  6. Dedication
  7. Your Worst Nightmare
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. The Answer to All Your Prayers
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. Somebody Else’s Child
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. Sunlight on Water
  60. July
  61. September
  62. Acknowledgements

‘I don’t know what to say to her,’ says Vicky. ‘What can I say that won’t sound inadequate?’

She presses the dial button and hears the dual tone which means there’s a message. She puts the phone on speaker, so Paul can listen too.

‘Hi, Vicky, it’s Claire.’

And it is Claire’s voice, but the confident, sometimes strident woman it belongs to has been replaced by a new Claire, who speaks hesitantly, almost timorously, with a vulnerability which brings a lump to Vicky’s throat.

Claire starts with niceties – thanks for ringing, hope Stewie’s OK – then stumbles over a few words Paul and Vicky can’t make out.

‘The thing is,’ she says next, ‘they’ve asked me to ask you if he’ll do it. And you know I would never ask such a thing, only things here are . . .’ There’s a laugh, bitter and crazy. ‘Unsurprisingly, things here are not great. And I know it’s a huge, huge favour, but Vicky . . . Vicky, for Evan’s sake, please say yes.’

FIVE

FIVE

18 October

The morning of the reconstruction – which will begin one week to the day, hour and minute of Evan’s disappearance – is clear and cold. Two hours after the time she’d usually arrive at work, Claire is lying in bed, looking out at the sky. Downstairs, Matt’s yelling at the Family Liaison Officer, a well-meaning man who seems content to be punchbag for them both. Tears and anger run off his back, and even the most stinging tirades on police incompetence are met with expressions of sympathy, and fresh mugs of tea.

But this morning, the Liaison Officer’s really got off on the wrong foot. He’s let Matt know the reconstruction won’t be screened until it’s shown on Crimewatch, five days from now.

‘If that’s not an admission of defeat, I don’t know what is!’ Matt is shouting. ‘Don’t think I’m going to let you lot drag your feet until Monday! I want my boy home long before then!’

Claire, too, aches to have Evan home. Her waking hours are a torment, yet sleep feels like a betrayal. What normal parent sleeps while their child is lost? She catches herself making observations on her own behaviour, quite able to distinguish her rational from her irrational thoughts. She wonders if she might, in spite of herself, be losing hope. The past day or so, increasingly the possibility slithers through her mind that Evan might be dead. On that detached, removed level, she notes her biggest concern for him, dead or alive, is broadly the same: she wants him to be warm. What would be most unbearable, what she could never begin to forgive, would be if his body were left in the open, exposed to the cold, to foxes and scavenging crows.