They can stay at the dynamite factory as long as they choose, she figures. The days will be getting longer and warmer, more conducive to camping out, closer to the time she’ll be able to find work picking fruit. If Pauline and her friends are going to sign up for the season, then Rat will be able to join their work crew inconspicuously, without too much fuss about her being underage, and Morgan will have a safe place to hole up while she’s off picking.

But the longer they stay in the Pyrénées-Orientales, the greater the danger that one day they will be spotted by someone they know. For all Rat knows, Vanessa’s already called Mémé Catherine to check up on them. And if she finds out they’re just plain missing, who knows what she might not do to find them?

You need to call Vanessa to let her know you’re both okay, Rat tells herself, but she’s still too angry to call. What they really need to do is get to England. She wonders whether her father has finally answered. It feels like months since she e-mailed him. Out of the sixty euros they started with, they have a little less than thirty-eight left. Not much. Better get going, and skip the harvest. Better try to hitch to London.

But Thierry’s scumminess has shaken Rat. A few weeks ago, she would simply have headed for the nearest highway, stuck out her thumb and hopped into any car that stopped. Now she finds herself wondering, What if we get picked up by another child molester? How will I be able to protect Morgan this time? She loathes Thierry even worse for making her think about these things, for having undermined her blithe assumption that other people were basically well-intentioned.

The world looks uglier, more menacing than it did when she was younger. You can’t just assume your innocence will keep you safe.

Morgan’s known this all his life. Now she too is having to catch on.

Chapter 4

“You are such a prat,” says Kate.

Her face has gone bright red, and she’s trying to laugh, but Gillem can see she’s fighting back tears. “Why did you never tell me? That’s what I can’t understand.”

“I never think about it,” he admits. “It was such an abysmal period in my life, I did so many shameful things. I find it very hard to think about.”

“This daughter of yours exists, she’s been growing up, she’s—she’s a teenager. You’ve never thought about her? That’s pathological. Not even at the back of your—you are so closed, you don’t even know what you’re thinking. That’s serial-killer mentality.”