“I know what you’re thinking. Of course, it was the dad—who the fuck else would kidnap a disabled seventeen-year-old kid, right? Sam said they’re already trying to track him down—last seen in Plymouth—but no luck yet—”

We both turn towards a movement in front of the house. A dark-haired young woman I recognize, wrapped in a gray blanket, is being ushered slowly out of number 52 by two female police officers. One of the officers is carrying a tote bag over her shoulder. The young woman is Cara Dorman from number 53, Meg and Grace’s next-door neighbor. Cara’s mum, Susan, clad in bright red chinos and clutching Grace’s ginger cat, walks shakily behind them. They keep their heads down, respectful; stare at their feet. Ben clutches his camera—“Gotta go, mate”—before scrambling out of the car and lifting his camera to his shoulder like a hunter with a rifle.

Everyone on the street turns to watch the somber procession as they shuffle slowly past the Nichols’s car and onto the pavement. Ben’s camera pops. They’re walking right towards me and for a mad moment I think they’ve come to arrest me for breaking the restraining order, but the police officers and Susan keep their heads low, like sad, wilting flowers. Only Cara lifts her gaze. She glances at me where I’m parked across the road, her brown eyes wide, wild like they’d scream if they could, but she doesn’t recognize me, and then she looks away again as she is gently ushered up the brick path and through the door to number 53.

Once the door is shut behind them a tension settles coldly in my chest; it pulls and tugs, makes my hands grip the steering wheel. The pain’s familiar. It’s the same pain I felt when my son was diagnosed with leukemia, that sat in my chest the whole time he was in hospital. Two years on and he’s in remission now, thank God. His hair has grown back blonder and he plays football four times a week. It’s Ruth and I who didn’t recover. Jakey’s illness put a strain on our relationship, but it was my badly judged article about Meg and Grace that marked the beginning of the end. A court case, a restraining order, and a difficult separation later, here I am. Back again.

I close my eyes, rub them under my glasses to try to stop an image of Jakey, sick and in hospital, from coming into my mind. Instead I see Grace, remember her showing me the assortment of pills she had to take every day. Blue for her muscles, white for her stomach; she held out a pink pill for me to see.

“This one, this is the most important, this keeps me alive. I have this one twice a day,” she said in her singsong voice. “It keeps my heart from stopping.”

I watched as she swallowed the pill as easily as a drunk with vodka. God, where are those pink pills now? How long will it be before she starts to weaken without them? I imagine her heartbeats becoming soft, irregular, like a wind-up toy running out of energy. I rub my hand over my face because my eyes have filled and all I can see is the photo of Grace we used in the article. She had a new beanie hat covering her bald head, her smile so wide her eyes disappeared behind her huge glasses. And as I try to rub her image and the tears from my eyes, I hear her again—It keeps my heart from stopping—and I know that Grace must be found quickly before she fades and fades and there is nothing left.