Brave.

The memory gives me courage.

She never let me down. I can’t let her down now. It crosses my mind that I should ring Carly, but first I need to get my thoughts in order. It’s such a lot to process.

Marie was at the Dog and Duck.

He drinks at the Dog and Duck.

The man who arranged our abduction. The only one who went to jail after Doc committed suicide and Moustache was shot in a botched armed robbery. Before Moustache died he told the doctor that he’d been paid to kidnap us by a man and, in between asking for forgiveness, he gave up the name of the man who had arranged it all.

Him.

Simon.

Is it possible she is with him?

The man whose horrible, selfish, unfathomable decision ruined all our lives.

Willingly with him?

She could be. After all, he – Simon – is her father.

Mine too.

Part Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Marie

Then

Marie couldn’t sleep. It was a muggy night and her Little Mermaid duvet felt suffocating but she worried that if she kicked it off then something might come along and nibble her feet. She pulled her covers up to her chin, taking comfort in the fact that Ariel, with hair as red as hers and Leah’s, would keep her safe from the toe-nibbler who she thought lived under her bed, swishing him away with her tail.

Her twin had been asleep for ages. It was rare for one sister to be awake without the other and Marie was bored. She slipped out of bed, padded over to the chest of drawers and wound the projector again. The motor hummed, casting sea creatures across the deep-blue walls. Carly said it was designed for babies and that the twins should have outgrown it at eight but how could you be too old to feel as though you were part of the ocean? She could almost smell the salt, feel the warm sand between her toes. She did hope they’d be going on holiday this year, they had stayed at home all of last summer and she’d missed going on an aeroplane, then playing with kids they’d met on the beach…

Tonight it was as though she was alone in the world except for the octopus drifting across her wall, the shoals of orange striped fish shimmering across her ceiling. It was disconcerting. Marie didn’t like being alone. ‘It’s the actress in you,’ her mum said. ‘Always wanting an audience.’ She didn’t mean it unkindly but still, Marie didn’t agree. It wasn’t that she craved attention but it was just… better when she was with Leah. Without her twin she felt incomplete. They were two halves of a whole. It was more fun with Carly too. Well, it used to be. Lately she’d been constantly glued to her phone, waiting for that stupid boy, Dean, to text. She had stopped spending so much time with Leah and Marie, instead lying on her bed, staring at the screen as though willing it to light up. She didn’t often dance with them any more and some of their routines didn’t work with just two people.