‘And you,’ Mary whispered. ‘You’ve been here all that time too.’

‘I’m as strong as an ox, you know that. Besides, I ate when I ran home to check on the kids.’

‘You went home? I don’t even remember that …’ Mary shook her head.

‘Just for a short time, when you were with Ruth. Not that Ruth bothered hanging around for long once I got back,’ Della added, muttering the last bit. ‘You find out who your friends are in a crisis.’

Mary nodded, leaning against her as they walked back across the green and into the trees. Della shone a torch on the ground ahead of them.

‘Will we look here? Or in the building site?’ She didn’t add the word ‘again’, but Mary heard it anyway. They’d looked here. They’d looked everywhere.

‘Let’s head over to the site,’ Della said, answering her own question.

The torches were fireflies, flitting around the dark hulk of the building site. Shouts for Lily broke the otherwise silence; nobody had the energy or inclination to chat. Mary and Della retraced their steps, checking inside every half-built house, inside every room, in every corner. Mechanical searching. Holding hands to hold one another up. Not speaking. Not even calling her name.

Fran, Della’s daughter, joined them. A whispered greeting, reassurance that the twins were fine, then more silent searching.

Inside a house that had proper stairs, they heard voices from the first floor. Robbie, and Tom Stedman. Mary began her ascent on shaky legs, followed closely by Della who seemed braced to catch her. But Mary wouldn’t fall. Now was not the time for falling.

At the top of the stairs, Robbie put his good arm around Mary, whispering into her hair.

‘We’ll find her, we’ll find her.’

Mary leaned into him and nodded, not trusting her voice.

Della was saying something to Fran. Mary turned to listen.

‘I was just saying, I was here earlier and couldn’t get into that room,’ Della repeated, louder now, pointing at a doorway and at a wide, wooden pallet that was leaning against the wall. ‘Two barrels were blocking the pallet and the pallet was blocking the doorway. Who moved them? Was there anything inside?’

‘Just another empty room,’ Tom said. ‘I don’t know why it was blocked off.’

‘I need to see,’ Mary said quietly, walking through the doorway. Robbie followed, holding a torch. He swung it slowly about the room, lighting up the floor and then the walls. Mary turned like a music box ballerina, following the light. Nothing. No sign that anyone had been there. At the window, she stood looking out, the night breeze blowing wisps of hair into her eyes. The scaffolding beneath the window ran the width of the house but it was too dark to see beyond the surface immediately below.

She turned to her husband. ‘Can you shine the torch out here.’ Her voice shook. Robbie did as she asked. The beam swept all the way along the wooden pathway, first one side, then the other. Nothing.