Just as Theo is about to leave the room something catches his eye on his dad’s desk. It’s immaculate, as everything in the study always is, even after all the rummaging, but left on the padded dark green leather insert is a newspaper clipping. Theo wonders if it’s anything to do with his mother. His dad has obsessively kept everything that ever mentioned her name while simultaneously never wanting to talk about her death. He goes to it and picks it up, confused when he sees it isn’t about his mother at all. It’s dated last week and is a small article, only a few paragraphs long accompanied by a photograph, about a young couple from a Cotswold village in Wiltshire who found two bodies in their back garden. SKELETON PLACE screams the headline. The names of the couple are underlined in red as well as another – Rose Grey. Underneath the article someone has written, Find Her.

6

Lorna

IT’S RAINING HEAVILY AND LORNA CURSES UNDER HER breath as her umbrella spoke suddenly springs free of the fabric so that it concertinas over her head, no longer providing adequate cover for her freshly cut hair. And now her hair, which took the stylist – the strapping Marco – for ever to blow-dry into a sleek finish, will fluff out to resemble the shape of a bell. She’d wanted to look nice for Alberto, make an effort for their date tonight. After nearly two years together she fears things have become stale between them; she works during the day while he’s out late supervising the bar he owns. She can just imagine him flirting with the young women, pretending he’s Tom Cruise from Cocktail. Why, oh, why does she always choose the wrong men? Too young. Too handsome. Too egotistical. She’ll be forty-one in three months’ time. She should know better. But, no, she won’t think negatively. That’s not her style. And, anyway, he’s promised to take the night off from the bar so they can go dancing. Maybe they can get some of their fire back.