“But you implied it?”

“Perhaps accidentally.”

“Did you get muddled again?”

Becca flushes. “I . . . I just got a bad feeling about him at first and I wanted to . . .”

“Wanted to what?”

“To make sure.”

“Make sure?”

“Make sure Aunt Laura was okay.”

“And if she wasn’t, what action did you plan to take?”

“I don’t know . . .”

“You’ve responded violently in the past when you’ve thought people close to you were being treated badly.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“We’ve heard evidence of fighting, bullying . . .”

“That’s just school stuff! It’s nothing to do with any of this!”

“And what is ‘this’ exactly?”

“This—this case . . .” Becca’s voice cracks, tears glossing her eyes.

“Objection!” her lawyer shouts. “The witness is being intimidated.”

The prosecutor holds up her palms. “No further questions.”

Becca seems to draw herself together, swallowing her tears. Just before she’s led back to her seat behind the glass, she looks in my direction for the first time. Her eyes find mine, as if she’s known exactly where I’ve been sitting the whole while, but panic makes me cast my gaze down to my lap. There’s a hole in my school tights that I must have been picking at throughout the questioning—it gapes right across my thigh.

Energy swirls around the room like dust that won’t settle. Becca’s lawyer leaps out of his seat, as if remembering he’s supposed to be doing something, and fluffs his words as he tells the judge that the case for the defense is concluded.

62.

STEPH

“What are you doing here?” Becca said, a blaze of fear in her eyes. Then she adjusted her tone, as if to sound casual: “You’re not due to visit until tomorrow.”

Steph was incredulous as they stared at one another across the living room of the maisonette. Was Becca really going to act like everything was normal? They hadn’t spoken since Freya had disappeared, so officially her cousin was oblivious, but surely they were past that now. Hadn’t Becca sent somebody with a note, only an hour ago, to summon Steph? To invite this confrontation and whatever it would lead to?

“You’re leaving.” Steph gestured at the packed bag lying on Becca’s sofa.

Becca opened her mouth, then pressed it closed again. Steph saw the familiar nervous blotches on her neck. Her cousin’s hair was long and unstyled now, her skin dull from so much time spent indoors, her clothes plain. Steph always felt conscious of her own tailored work suits and salon-smooth hair when she visited. In a way she had become Becca, had borrowed her sleek style and social confidence as she’d built her new life.

“Where is she?” Steph rushed forward, the words spitting out. “Where’s my daughter?”

Becca backed off toward the wall. “What?”