Fran nods, but stays silent, her fingers creeping to her mouth as she starts to nibble at the skin around her cuticles. ‘Where is Dominic?’

‘He’s there,’ I say, ‘I left him there, with the police.’

Fran lets out a long sigh. ‘I’m sure he’ll find somewhere more important to be on his way home.’

I look away, not knowing what to say, as Kelly also turns and reaches for the mugs, even though no one has touched the tea. Fran slides a hand towards her pocket, before catching herself and raising her fingers to her mouth again. I wonder if she is thinking about calling her mother back, about telling her she’s changed her mind and she does want her to come.

The next half hour drags as we wait for news, Fran’s eyes closing as she sits at the kitchen table, a puddle of sunlight highlighting the reds in her dark hair, the skin round her nails now ragged and sore. The crash of the front door opening jolts all of us back to life, and Fran and I both jump to our feet as DS Wright and Dominic enter the kitchen.

‘Where is she? Where is she, Dom?’ Fran looks frantically past him, trying to edge away and head towards the front door, but he grips her tightly by the upper arms.

‘Fran,’ he says, his voice breaking, ‘stop for a moment. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t Laurel.’ She sags against him, and he pulls her into a tight embrace before he raises his eyes to mine. ‘Someone made a mistake. It wasn’t our girl.’

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

There is a crushing sense of disappointment at Dominic’s words, heightened when Fran shoves Dominic from her and rushes from the room.

‘I’ll go after her,’ Kelly says, a grim look on her face, as Dominic sinks into the nearest kitchen chair.

‘I’m so sorry.’ I feel the mistake as if it were an actual physical pain, a shaft of hurt piercing my skin. And not just mine – it seems I got everyone else’s hopes up for no reason. ‘I really thought . . . the hair, it was the hair. She was wearing it the same way Laurel wears it, and it was the same shade . . .’ I trail off, the bitter taste of failure thick on my tongue.

‘It was a genuine mistake,’ DS Wright says, ‘and better that you raised it with us, because it could have been Laurel.’

‘It was their daughter,’ Dominic says wearily in a husky voice, his head resting in his hands. ‘It was their own little girl. She takes after her mother – blonder than you, Anna, she was. Up close she looked nothing like Laurel.’