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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 know it’s a shock, Dad. When I got the message . . . Well, to be honest I thought they were going to say something different. You’ll tell Mum for me, will you?’

‘She’ll be beside herself,’ says Jack, wiping away tears. ‘She’ll be absolutely over the moon. That’s the best news we could ever have had, and I thank God for it. It’s the answer to all our prayers. Thank God he’s safe.’

‘I must go,’ says Matt. ‘I just wanted you to know. I’ll ring you from the hospital, let you know how he is.’

‘You give him our best love, and a big hug from both of us.’ Jack reaches out and touches the photo frame. ‘And ring as soon as you can. And Matt, promise me you’ll tell that boy how his grandma and grandpa missed him. Tell him his grandma’s baking a cake, and we can hardly wait to see him.’

Claire is riding in the back of a police car, no siren going but blue lights flashing. They’re moving pretty fast, or maybe it’s that other drivers slow down when they see them in the rear-view mirror, start behaving and driving at seventy. Naylor’s in the front passenger seat, next to the uniformed driver. For the first few miles, she tries to keep the conversation going, but by the time they reach the M25, they’ve all lapsed into silence, and Naylor has laid her head back on the rest, maybe to doze. Claire sits silent in the back, fizzing with excitement, overwhelmed with apprehension about how Evan will be, hoping for reasons she can’t quite define that she’ll be there before Matt, wondering how long it will take him to drive from Colchester.

Colchester. She doesn’t remember him mentioning Colchester.

She wonders if Evan will recognise her, if she’s changed very much, whether she’ll recognise him, how much he’s grown. When she spoke to him on the phone – tears in his voice, surrounded by strangers and trying to be brave – he sounded like himself but different, an Evan she fears she won’t know. Out of the side window, she watches the traffic, people going about their everyday business, and marks off in her mind their northern progress. Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton. They pass Leicester and Derby, and beyond Derby, cross the South Yorkshire border into what she’s always thought of as true north: Rotherham, Doncaster. Near Doncaster, they see the first signs for Pontefract, where Evan is waiting.

Naylor hasn’t spoken for a while, but now she turns round in her seat and smiles at Claire.

‘Not far now,’ she says. ‘It’ll be a big story again, when it breaks. We’re going to try and get you in and out of there before that happens.’