43. Now

I cry onto my knees for a minute then wipe my eyes and leave a message on Detective Bevan's phone about Georgia breaking her student's arm, hoping the reason Bevan isn't picking up is because she's speaking to Daisy.

Outside, the night is black. I switch on a lamp and imagine Jenna seeing the light in the window from far off, keeping it in sight as she walks back to me.

But what if she sees it like a lighthouse beacon? Beware, rocks, stay away!

I can't be alone now, can I? Surely, my family isn't going to just let me sit on my own tonight?

I scroll through my phone at the dozens of messages from parents wishing me well, telling me I'm not alone, they're helping with the search, keep up hope. I stare at a string of messages from Dinae and Devon's mum – she had been at PES too, a few years below us.

Sorry, Frances, I don't know where she is.

You know, Dinae hasn't mentioned Jenna in a while. Did something happen?

FFS. I finally got the girl to speak. Dinae says they fell out a while ago. I don't think my daughter has treated yours with great kindness. I'm so sorry. I'm literally driving down now. I'm going to join the search and I'm getting the little madam out of bed when I get there. She can search with me.

God, girls are the absolute worst.

Apart from yours – sorry.

My heart aches.

I imagine all these kind people I know being organised by the police, walking in groups across the fields, torch beams waving across the grass, not a single member of my family with them – not even Tristan.

I should go join them. I think again of Trevethan House. It's only a twenty-minute walk from the school. Georgia's family never owned it, even when they lived there. But it would be worth a look, wouldn't it?

I imagine walking past that strange harp sculpture, twisted and curling like it was being blown by the wind, and peering in through the glass by the front door.

I remember, on our first visit, Georgia's father, Patrick, helping Tristan with his scales practice, demonstrating in the air by rolling his clever fingers so they looked like liquid. I loved watching his fingers.

‘How much for lessons?' my father had asked, walking in behind me.

Patrick had laughed, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling.

Father had stepped further in and picked up a guitar. ‘Am I too old to learn?'

‘Oh, for you?' Patrick had turned on the stool.

So had Tristan, with a scowl. ‘Father, Patrick isn't a music teacher. He's a proper musician.'

But then he became our music teacher, every Wednesday that he was in town, which usually turned into dinner with them and our parents.

I push the memory hard away.

Maybe now that my parents are asleep, Tristan and Mina will come with me to the school. I walk down through the laundry and up Tristan's main stairs. The TV is on in their sitting room. I'm about to push in when I hear Tristan's voice. He sounds angry.

I peek through the crack in the door. He's sitting on a footstool in front of the twins on the sofa. Ava is crying; Ash is sitting back with his arms crossed.

‘Why would she be faking it?' Tristan says.

‘I don't know, Dad, special treatment?' says Ava. She sobs again.

Tristan slips onto the floor and hugs her. Ava murmurs something I can't hear.

‘She isn't my pet, Ava. I just look out for her because no one else does,' he says.

Is he talking about my baby?

Ava tries to push him away but he holds on and she says something else too quiet for me to hear.

‘You can always, always talk to me,' he says. ‘I'm sorry if it makes you feel that way.' He lowers his voice and I angle my ear closer but can't catch it.

Ava leans back and he lets her. ‘It's just, she said she had something on you.'

‘On me?'

Ava shrugs. ‘I don't know.'

‘What do you mean?'

Jenna had something on Tristan? What did that mean?

‘After the fight with Rose today. We tried to follow but she told us to go away… and if we didn't, she would tell everyone about you.'

‘Tell everyone what about me?'

‘I don't know, but that's what her fight with Rose was about. They were fighting about you.'

Tristan rocks back onto his heels then sits on the footstool again.

‘She's a little bitch,' says Ash with venom, and I want to run in and shake the boy. Does he think this about all girls his age?

‘Don't talk about your cousin like that,' says Tristan.

Ash looks away and I step back into the shadows.

‘What do you mean that's what she was fighting about with Rose?'

Ash puts on a high voice and says, ‘It's not yours! What I do with it isn't your choice to make!' I realise he's doing an impression of Jenna. I've never heard him sound so cruel.

What wasn't hers? What wasn't her choice?

‘And that sounds like it's about me, to you?'

‘It was Rose who mentioned you,' says Ava. ‘She calls you The Prince.'

Tristan smiles. ‘It has a nice ring to it.'

Ava shakes her head. ‘Rose hates you.'

Now his smile turns to a frown. ‘What did she say in this argument?'

All he gets back is a shrug from Ava. ‘I don't know. I didn't hear properly.'

Tristan raises his eyebrows. ‘You didn't hear?'

Ava shakes her head. ‘I'm sorry.'

He sighs. ‘But you didn't tell the police any of this?'

‘We're not idiots,' says Ash.

Tristan steps forward again and gathers them both in a hug, and they cling to him. ‘My dear, darling children,' he says, pulling them closer. But his eyes are wide open, staring straight between their dark heads.

And then I know. Jenna had something on Tristan. It wasn't just information, but something you could hold – a real, physical object – or Rose wouldn't have been able to take it.

And I know what it was.