‘You’re assuming I’m going at all.’

‘Fran.’ In the pause that follows Fran feels the shackles of their fifty-one-year-old mother-daughter relationship wrapping around her heart. ‘You need to find out what happened to your sister.’

‘I tried to do that two and a half years ago. I went to Gozo. I—’

‘You didn’t speak to Tom.’

Fran’s lips part but no sound comes out. They can’t keep having the same conversation over and over again. Geraldine may have lost a daughter but Fran lost her sister. The last time she saw Jenna was in the school car park, two weeks before she disappeared. Fran had had a hideous day. She’d been told she’d be teaching ICT to Year Seven the next term (her least favourite year) and then she was reprimanded for rudeness when she objected. When she returned to her classroom she struggled to get the students to settle. It was windy outside, there was a storm forecast for later in the day and the kids were wide-eyed and super-charged. Their concentration spans were shot and they didn’t complete even half the task she’d set for them.

When Fran returned to the staff room at the end of the school day she’d felt exhausted and flat. All she wanted to do was go home, run a bath and lose herself in a book. Instead, she had had an evening at the kitchen table ahead of her, with course work to mark and lessons to plan. She’d groaned as she checked her phone. She’d completely forgotten that Jenna had texted the previous evening saying she needed to talk, and now it was too late to cancel. Her sister was waiting in the car park, primed and ready to go to a nearby cafe – and not even a very nice one. Fran had picked up her bag, heavy with books and put it over one shoulder. Then she’d scooped up an armful of folders and slowly made her way down the stairs and out of the school. She saw Jenna immediately, hovering by her car. Fran’s heart had sunk. It wasn’t like Jenna, demanding a chat, and she couldn’t remember the last time they’d met up alone. She didn’t have the energy to listen to Jenna emotionally dissecting the end of her relationship with Nick. She’d overheard several barbed comments about him at Jenna’s birthday dinner and it was obvious her sister wasn’t over him. The only other thing she might want to discuss was their parents, and Fran certainly wasn’t in the mood for that.

‘Hi,’ Jenna said, as Fran drew closer. She seemed as wired as the kids, stepping from foot to foot, her hands tapping lightly on her thighs. ‘Good day at work?’