“She does talk about someone calling the house phone, though. Look.” I reach up and take the photocopied diary from Jon, leaf through the pages until I find the entry, point to it. “Here. She says Meg got really pissed off with whoever it was who kept ringing. There was one time when we were at Meg’s house, having cake for my mum’s birthday, when the landline started ringing. I remember thinking it was weird that Meg went into the kitchen to answer. Everyone was chatting, so I didn’t hear what it was about, but Meg hung up quickly. When she came back, her cheeks had gone red, like she was embarrassed or pissed off. I remember Grace smiling up at Meg from her chair. Meg saw, but she didn’t smile back, which was odd because everyone was always smiling at Grace. Maybe it was GoodSam trying to reach Grace and she knew it was him? That’s why Meg looked weird but Grace was pleased—he’d been trying to get in touch with her?”

Jon raises his eyebrows, nods, and sort of shakes his head at the same time.

“Could have been him, or it could have been her dad of course. Can’t imagine Megan would have been happy about Simon calling.”

Jon sits back down next to me. We sit in silence for a few minutes before I ask, “So what now?”

“Well, I’d like to take the diary away with me, just for a little while, so I can read it carefully—if that’s OK with you?”

I don’t like the thought of being separated from it, from this last piece of Grace, and I hate the thought of someone else reading her secrets, but I remind myself Jon might see something that I missed. Finding Grace is more important than her privacy.

“OK. What about GoodSam?”

“Keep checking the forum, see if he comes online, and, if he does, call me before you do anything, OK?”

I nod agreement and I can see he’s twitching to leave, desperate to read her diary. I can’t blame him. I was the same.

“I’ll give you a call, yeah?” he says as he stands, causing a small avalanche of pebbles to fall into each other. I nod again and he tucks Grace’s diary under his arm, lifting his hand in a small wave before turning and walking quickly away. I keep my eye on the pages under his arm until both disappear from view.

30th November 2018

Today it all went wrong again. I could hear Mum coming into my room to get me an hour after my first syringe of food and drugs. I could hear her but I couldn’t see her because my eyes wouldn’t open.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” she said and pulled the covers back. Behind my eyelids everything became a bit brighter. I heard her suck in her breath. “OK, Gracie darling, you’re OK,” she said, and then I heard her pressing keys on her phone to call an ambulance. I felt the foam around my mouth, felt my mind unclip itself from my body. I seemed to float up to the ceiling like a balloon.