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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

‘So it hasn’t been all bad, moving up here?’

Matt considers. The air smells fresh, and not of diesel and fast food. When he drives home in the evenings, there’s no traffic. Best of all, he has much more free time. Family time.

‘No, it hasn’t been all bad,’ he says. ‘In fact, it’s not been bad at all.’

September

September

Claire’s waiting for the bus. Through the open kitchen window she can see down to the road where it joins the track up to the house, and every school day, the wait is difficult, a reminder of the day he didn’t come home. Every time she sees the bus pull up, she feels relief.

It’s a day of Indian summer but the kitchen smells of autumn, of the fading leaves on the honeysuckle which climbs the house’s old stone walls and of the blackberries she’s picked to make a pie. She’s thinking of tea on the terrace, because outside is always Evan’s preference. He’s drawn to meadows and woodlands and uplands, regardless of the weather. In that, he’s like his grandfather.

The mini-bus pulls up at last, and Evan climbs down, gawky and slightly awkward in his school uniform. Usually, there’s only Evan who gets off here, but today, there’s someone else.

Evan is bringing home a girl.

Down at the stream, there’s sunlight on the water, sparkling on the ripples.

Evan beckons to the girl, and leads her along the grassy bank to the pool where sticklebacks hide under the stones.

‘Look,’ he says, ‘down there.’

She crouches beside him, and for a while watches with him the silver slivers cutting through the weeds.

‘Come and meet my mum,’ he says.

As they walk up the track, Evan takes the girl’s hand. She isn’t beautiful, but her face is kind.

Watching from the window, Claire sees them laugh, and feels a weight she didn’t know was there lift from her heart.

Evan is reaching the end of his journey home. In his own way, he will be fine.

A honey-bee lands on the last of the roses, and Claire smiles.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Found would never have been completed without help from the Society of Authors, whose generous grant bought me much-needed time and space to write.

I offer a huge thank you to my editor Toby Jones, whose insights and molecular-level dissection inspired me to hone and polish the manuscript he first read into the book I hoped it could be.

In developing the police investigation, I mercilessly picked the brain of ex-Det Sgt Terry Parry, whose patient and thorough responses on the technicalities of contemporary detective work have been invaluable. Thanks, Tel.

To all my advance readers, thanks for your time and critiques, and a special thank you to Ken Fishwick, who went the extra mile (and then some) to check and re-check the timings throughout the novel.