‘The police won’t do anything. Haven’t you got to wait twenty-four hours or something before they’ll look into an adult’s disappearance?’

I take a deep breath, pushing down panic. I don’t know what to do with myself – my body oozes with nervous energy. I know Mum is a free spirit and I never worry about her when she’s in Spain. But something doesn’t feel right about this. I know she would have rung me – after all, this is a journey we’re on together.

I pull back the grey flowered curtains that we’d taken from our Croydon flat and don’t quite fit the window. It’s dark outside. There isn’t even a streetlamp to light the way, the moon a sliver of a crescent in the sky, half obscured by a cloud. The night seems heavy and oppressive, like a thick blanket curling around my car and Tom’s bike, making innocuous shapes menacing.

‘Come away from the window,’ says Tom, gently. ‘I’m sure she’s okay.’

‘Then why wouldn’t she have phoned?’ I wail, my hands clenched by my sides.

I can’t shake the feeling that something bad has happened to her. Something that’s connected to all this.

What have we got involved in?

27

Lorna

LORNA FINDS HERSELF A WINDOW SEAT ON THE TRAIN back to London, clutching her caramel macchiato, grateful that nobody has occupied the space next to her so she can stretch out. She’s shattered and a little tipsy. She shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine.

Now it’s gone eight and she still has to get from London to Chippenham. She leans her head against the glass as the train pulls out of the station, watching the sun cast purple and peach streaks across the sky, reflecting on her conversation with Alan and her suspicions that Daphne and Sheila are the same person. She can’t wait to tell Saffy.