The screen blanked, making her jolt in surprise.

“Oh! Zeb, you still there?”

There was a crackle and his image reappeared. “Think we lost video for a second,” he said.

“Yeah . . .” She was discombobulated. Part of her wished the picture had remained blank. It might be easier to do this blind. She knew she needed to see his face, though. To be sure he’s telling the truth, a tiny part of her acknowledged before she shoved it away.

“Freya’s missing?” Zeb seemed to say her name with greater familiarity now. “Really?”

Emma nodded. “Three days.”

“Shit.” Zeb rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, the cut visible again. His fingers were calloused, too, with white plaster dust on their tips. Emma’s gaze darted toward Robin in the background, now leaning on a spade contemplating a stack of paving slabs.

For a moment he seemed to look straight at her. She jerked her eyes back to her son.

“And her mum found some photos,” she said, all in a rush. “Of you and her in one of those photo booths. Which confused me, because I didn’t even know you were friends.”

“We’re not.”

Emma’s arms grew cold. With an almost subconscious gesture she reached to her left and turned up the thermostat. She should be thrifty with her utilities, but this spring day suddenly had bite.

“We only . . .” Zeb said, “we spent one night together . . . not like that.”

She made herself stay quiet, waiting, steadying her breath. But when Zeb clammed up, she couldn’t help prompting him: “What happened?”

There was another long pause before he launched into his explanation at last.

“It was a couple of months ago. I bumped into her in the park. I was sitting on a bench, thinking about stuff, and so was she by the look of it. I wasn’t going to say anything more than hi, but then I realized she was totally pissed.”

“Was she?” Emma couldn’t imagine Freya drunk. Healthy, golden Freya. Zeb’s sketch flashed into her mind: the girl on the merry-go-round with her arms in the air.

“I thought I’d better check she was okay. She was clearly upset—she was saying all this stuff, it didn’t make a lot of sense . . . She had a bottle of gin and asked me to have a drink with her.”

“What was she upset about?”

“I couldn’t work it out at first. I got the impression she hadn’t talked to anyone else, but maybe I was able to rela—” He stopped. Emma looked at him. He’d been about to say he could relate to Freya, to her troubles. Before she could ask how, he hurried on: “She got kind of giddy after a while. She sat in the playground and she was laughing, saying she’d got a plan . . .”

“You drew her.” It popped out before she could think it through.