I feel a bit jealous, I suppose, of all those people with secrets, things they hold close, just for themselves. I don’t have secrets, not really. But I’m going to work on getting some. Not just things that we aren’t supposed to talk about, like farting or Dennis the butcher’s bad breath or Dad. Or things like Danny and what Mum was like before I was born because other people know those things so they’re not really secrets, they’re just sad memories, and no one likes to talk about sad memories. I mean proper cross-your-heart secrets. Now it makes sense. Lola gave me this diary so I have somewhere to keep my secrets, something to confide in. It’ll be like having a new friend, one who’s always happy to let me whisper in their ear. I’d like that, especially now Cara isn’t around so much. And the next time someone says “Everyone has secrets,” I’ll be able to nod in a knowing way because I’ll have this diary and it will be full of them.

We left as soon as Mum’s polish has dried, and no one noticed when I picked up a curl of golden hair on the ledge below a mirror. Zara missed it when she was cleaning up. I rubbed it between my finger and thumb and put it in my pocket. No one else knows I have it but me. Secret number one.

Love, Grace xxx

4

Jon

The Best Year Yet: Plans for Ashford’s Award-Winning Summer Fair Gathering Pace.

The cursor blinks at me on the empty screen, the computer equivalent of tapping a watch, as if impatient for the first word of the article. My hands hover over the keyboard. I always work in the kitchen with the radio on, but today the words “kidnap” and “Grace Nichols” carry through the flat, so I kick my chair back to turn it off before I sit back down at my desk. The bloke reading the news won’t have met Grace, of course, won’t know how tiny she sat in her chair but how huge her smile was. I pull my glasses off to rub my eyes before I position my hands back over the keyboard, try to recall what it was the mayor said about the fair. My fingers start to type but I can’t focus. My thoughts keep drifting to Meg and Grace and Simon, their faces filling my mind.

Grace and Meg were very similar, but there were a few things about Grace that reminded me of Simon. Did they both have blue eyes? Or was it the way Grace spoke, the soft inflection of her voice that made me think of her dad? Now I come to think of it, I can’t remember what Simon’s voice was like. I stop typing. I could listen to the tape from my interview with him. No. Come on. I force my eyes back to the screen to read, with dismay, the words I just typed. All I’ve done is write out the headline for the article again. Bloody idiot. I drop my head to my desk with a groan. This is so fucking painful. Why do I have no energy for what I should be doing but boundless energy for exactly what I shouldn’t?