‘I love you, Dad, even though I don’t act like I do. And you love me, even though I’ve never heard it said from your lips. I can’t explain now. We didn’t get Josie. Jane will tell you. We don’t know where she is—’

He tried to interrupt, but she didn’t want a conversation like this on the phone. She interrupted right back. ‘Look, please, Dad, I’ll talk to you in a couple of hours. We’re heading back. Don’t call back. Please wait for me to return. Get money, Dad. I want as much as you can spare for me. A lot. As soon as you can.’

‘Anna, it’s out. Someone must have spoken. Everyone knows. All the neighbours know. There’re people outside. Reporters have been calling. Somehow everyone knows Josie has been kidnapped.’

‘Bye.’ She hung up.

Everyone was looking at her.

Nick especially. ‘Anna? What’s going on? What’s the money for? We can’t expect the kidnappers to trust us again. What are you thinking of doing?’

She lay her head back, turned her face away. He didn’t press it. She felt his hand stroke her arm, and then his head once more on her shoulder. Like everyone else, he would wait for her. She decided not to burden him just yet with the news that Josie’s kidnap had become citywide, maybe even nationwide, gossip. And that the cadaver dogs would be coming out.

M1/A/76.8

Anna started to scrabble for the door, right out of the blue, after drifting off and jerking awake. Nick tried to grab her arms, and Bennet pulled into the hard shoulder.

‘I don’t want her body to be found,’ she moaned, still fighting to exit the vehicle.

‘Anna, no, don’t say that,’ Nick said.

‘I don’t want a funeral! And I can’t always think she could be alive out there, growing up, when she might be dead.’

‘Please, Anna, stop.’

But she forced herself out of his arms, and ran into the undergrowth, and climbed the bank, through the trees. Because she wore high heels that couldn’t get a grip in the soil, Nick stayed right behind her, close enough to stop her doing something silly but willing to let her burn energy, which he prayed would calm her.

At the top, he reached out like a relay runner passing a baton, grabbed a wrist, dug in his more practical heels, and she hit a dead stop. Just in time. No way, even if she’d seen the land drop away sharply, could she have hauled up in time.

The jerk in her shoulder dropped her into a side-sit. She stared up at him, just feet from a dangerous drop.

‘Let me go. I’ve got nothing left.’