48. Now

‘Oh, Frankie.' Tristan comes into our sitting room, where I'm pacing. He has to stoop under a beam and I'm reminded of how much smaller the rooms in the extension are.

Tristan puts his arms around me. It's nice that he's checking on me. I try to soften.

‘How are you doing?' he asks.

I shake my head, feeling dizzy. I don't know where my daughter is. She took a tape I was meant to destroy when I was a child and now she's gone. And she's being bullied. And my husband says he's ‘passing Swindon', but is he really?

I start crying again and I hide my face behind my fists. We sit on the sofa.

‘I'm so sorry, Frankie. I'm so, so sorry.' He rubs my back and sniffs but I don't know if it's real.

I pull away from him and ball up.

His children lied to the police for him, and he gathered them in his arms and thanked them. Did he really come home tonight to support me, or to manage a situation that might hurt him? Did he refuse to speak to the police because he has something to hide?

Why am I pretending my brother is in this room because he's being nice?

He sighs. ‘Look, I'm sorry about Ash and Ava. I don't know why they didn't tell you about Jenna leaving school in such serious circumstances. I suppose because they're teenagers. But when this is all over, I can assure you, there will be words.'

Words?

He goes on. ‘I just – I'm so sorry, Frances. I don't want to have to ask this, but I have to. If the police search this place properly, is there any way they might find something that shouldn't be here?'

He came home early because he knows that anything to do with Georgia could – could what? Embarrass him, or… put him in prison?

What is on that tape? Why did I keep it, only to never watch it?

Because that's what I do. I hide things.

I realise that while it's true that I threw out the photo of Dan the second I got it, it's also true I haven't emptied that bin in months. I could've given it to Bevan. Have I hidden evidence in my own daughter's investigation?

‘Frankie?'

I shake my head. But as I do, something occurs to me. What if Tristan already knew about the tape? What if that's why Jenna is gone? She got it back from Rose and went to her uncle with it instead of me because she's his pet.

But he only just found out that it still exists, didn't he? That's why he's asking me. He can't be sure that's what Jenna had, can he? Because he thought I destroyed it thirty years ago.

I'm so confused.

He looks me straight in the eye. ‘You do know what I'm talking about?'

I nod and swallow. ‘I destroyed it.'

He nods, smiling ‘I know. Of course you did. I just… What did you do with it?'

I frown. ‘I pulled all the tape out and burnt it in the Aga the moment I got home from school that evening. I threw away the cassette in some bins near the hospital, when I came to see you later that night.'

‘You didn't write about it in a diary or…'

I shake my head, seeing my trembling hands as I stood before the Aga that evening. They were empty. But not because I'd stuffed the tape inside. It was hidden far away.

‘Tris?' I feel my lips pulling further down.

I love my brother. I study the mottled red scar like a poppy on his right cheek. The wound that left him confused and drowsy, had him hiding in bed for a month, changed his ambitions from the stage to politics.

We told everyone he'd had a horse-riding accident. But at the time most people knew the truth – or what I suppose might have simply been our version of it.

‘She's at Glastonbury,' he says. ‘I can feel it. She hasn't stopped talking about it since last summer.'

Hasn't she? How often does he talk to her?

‘Tris, what was on that tape?'

‘You know what was on it.' He squints at me.

This is my brother. He's a good man. He's always been there for me.

‘Which is why it had to be destroyed. I can't have people getting the wrong end of the stick. And if there's any chance at all that it could have… survived, well, I just need you to consider that. It wouldn't be good for any of us. In that case, it would be better, really, for us to try to find Jenna ourselves.'

‘I destroyed it,' I lie. ‘And the police are involved already.'

He smiles but doesn't break eye contact as he says, ‘Yes, and I'll make sure to speak to the commissioner once he's had his morning coffee.'