The clouds roil overhead as she pauses on the pavement outside, unbuttoning her collar to better feel the incoming breeze. Cables slap as television cameras ready, paving stones glimmer as lights flicker on, for the media storm is seconds away, clamouring to amplify the verdict the country needs to hear. A nearby kiosk bulges with newspapers, headlines screaming to her from another life, their pages flapping as the January wind whips into a gale, sky suddenly quilting to grey and black.

And so the crowds begin to gather, clustering for information, no one’s interest idle, everyone’s breath baited.

Except there is a girl. And the girl is me, the only one walking away with purpose, with everything I need to finally move on.

I smile as the clouds groan with relief, rain falling like tears. And I spot Julie, walking towards me with a thick envelope under her arm, frizzy hair unbowed by the shower. I pause as we meet, silently taking it from her outstretched hand. She doesn’t need to tell me what it is. It’s the only kind of information that ever comes in these envelopes.

‘I knew I’d find you here,’ she breathes, so soft I can barely hear her, except I don’t need to. ‘I just wanted to let you know. I’ve finally found her, too.’

My finger trembles as I peep inside the file, thick with photographs, crackling with promise. And I find hope, immortalised in the faint lines around the corners of water-blue eyes. The unmistakable mark of survival; the mark of a tentative, incoming smile.

277

Acknowledgements

For some it only takes a village. For me it took a veritable metropolis.

Thank you first and foremost to the most courageous of agents and formidable of publishers, Jon Wood and Karen Sullivan. You both took a chance on a debut author trying to handle the most harrowing of subject matters and never once turned away. I could not have imagined a better home for The Source than Orenda, a publishing house with a heart that dwarfs the entire industry. This book is forever in your debt.

To Fanny Blake, without whose introductions, encouragement and inestimable editorial input The Source would have languished forever as a Word document. Similarly to Rupert Wallis, Midge Gillies, Sarah Burton and the whole crew at Madingley Hall. Thank you for the guidance, the laughs, the late-night ‘workshops’ and, of course, all the new vocabulary. I owe the class of 2019 so much more than just a Masters in creative writing.