Elona smiles and puts her hand over Cate’s. She has a heavy gold chain around a narrow wrist; her nails are painted taupe. ‘Thank you, Cate,’ she says. ‘Thank you so much. I will talk to her tonight and see if there’s anything she’s not telling me. You’re very kind to take such an interest.’

  Cate smiles tightly. She’s not being kind. She’s being desperate and scared.

  She walks home via the supermarket where she buys all the cake-making ingredients on Georgia’s list. At the checkout she glances across the street again at the entrance to the Tube station, subconsciously looking out for her husband, as if the echo of his appearance there two weeks ago might still be playing out infinitely.

  She walks home circuitously, via a couple of the places the newspaper report mentioned, to the estate agent just past the cinema where she sees police tape up around the back entrance, a police car still parked on the street outside. Then to the dogleg in the next road down from her road, the place she sometimes goes to post letters. She doesn’t know the precise location of this attack, but it makes her shudder nonetheless, looking at the hidden places here where a woman could easily be grabbed without anyone seeing.

  She walks home quickly after that, all her nerves on end, her breathing coming slightly too hard. As she turns the next corner on to her street, she sees someone sitting on the wall outside her house. It’s a young man, well built. He’s wearing a grey coat with a bright green hoodie underneath. As she gets closer she sees that he is mixed race, very nice-looking. He gets to his feet when he sees Cate turning on to her pathway. He says, ‘Hi, do you live here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replies, thinking that she should be nervous, especially in the light of what she’s just been doing, but that she isn’t. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I … I guess. I don’t know. My niece. Saffyre. She was here. I think. You know, Saffyre Maddox? She disappeared … I …’ He pulls at his chin as he talks, as if trying to massage out the right words.

  ‘You’re Saffyre’s uncle?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, I am. Aaron Maddox. Are you Mrs Fours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Roan Fours’s wife?’

  She nods.

  ‘Would it be OK if I asked you a few questions?’

  She knows she should say no. She should say I’ve said everything that needs to be said to the police and send him on his way. But there’s something in his body language that suggests he’s carrying something with him, and not just the pain of his missing niece.

  She says, ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘I’ve found something,’ he says. ‘In her room. And I know I should take it to the police. But I just kind of wanted to check in with you first. Because … I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. Could I come in?’

  She looks across the street at Owen Pick’s house. It’s blank and quiet. She looks up at her neighbours’ windows. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Of course. Come in.’

  In her kitchen, Aaron Maddox sits for a moment in his big grey coat before Cate says, ‘Here, let me hang that up for you.’

  ‘Thanks, that’s great. Cheers.’

  Underneath the coat his hoodie has the Marvel logo and a picture of Spiderman on it. She finds this strangely reassuring.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Something cold?’

  ‘Water would be great. Thank you.’

  She pours him a glass of water and places it in front of him.

  He clears his throat and smiles awkwardly.

  ‘You know,’ he begins, ‘I’ve met your husband, just before Saffyre started her sessions with him, back in 2014. He’s a good man.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agrees. ‘He is. He’s a great clinician.’

  ‘I put my faith in him. You know, a little girl like that, hurting herself as she was, well, you know that there’s something bad happening, something you don’t really want to have to face. But he just got in there with her. Made her feel safe. And stopped her hurting herself.’

  ‘She was self-harming?’

  She does already know this, not because Roan told her, but because of hacking into his work files and reading his reports the previous year.

  ‘Yeah. Started when she was ten years old. So bad. She’s still got the scars. Like, here.’ He points at the cuffs of his joggers. ‘But your husband. He cured her. So amazing. And then to find out that she was here, you know, outside his house, when she went missing.’ He shakes his head. ‘Unreal. And it can’t just be a coincidence, can it? And, listen, I know’ – he puts his hand out, palm first – ‘I know it’s nothing to do with him. I know you were out that night; I know he was with you. But it’s still weird. And I can’t stop thinking about it. It spins round and round my head all the time. Because as far as I know, after she stopped her sessions with him, she never saw him again. And I don’t even know how she knew where he lived. That’s what gets me. How did she know where he lived?’

  He leaves the question hanging, pendulously, between the two of them.

  ‘Well, it’s possible she saw it written down in his office one day, I suppose …?’

  Aaron nods and says, ‘Yeah, I guess it could have been something like that. I’m probably overthinking it all. And that guy.’ He gestures behind him in the direction of the street. ‘The one they reckon abducted her.’ His voice cracks slightly on the words. ‘What do you know about him? Did you know him at all?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No. I only saw him in passing. Not even on nodding terms. He talked to my husband once, a few weeks back; he was drunk apparently and asked my husband if he was married. Kind of weird. But with what we know now about his internet habits …’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Aaron. ‘That’s some sick stuff. I didn’t even know about all that, all that incel thing. God. Sad, sad men.’

  ‘Toxic masculinity,’ she says. ‘It’s everywhere.’

  He nods. But then says, ‘Not in our house, it wasn’t. I just want to say that. Saffyre lived in a house with two men who were both good, who put girls equal to boys. I want you to know that. Whatever happened I know she wasn’t trying to get away from stuff at home. Her home was good. Is good.’

  Cate nods. She believes this man, completely, every word he says. ‘I hear you lost your father?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He gaze drops to his water glass. ‘Back in October. She took it badly. Stopped eating. Stopped doing schoolwork. I said to her that she should come back and see Dr Fours. I offered to set that up for her. But she said she was fine. I got someone in to talk to her from the school, a pastoral teacher. Didn’t make much difference. And then early November she just sort of snapped out of it. Started eating. Got back into her studies. We had an amazing Christmas, just being together, you know, like a real family. And then, I don’t know, after Christmas she just sort of … drifted away again.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Just wasn’t at home very much. Spent a lot of time at her best friend’s house. Or “going for walks”. Did a lot of sleepovers. And I suppose I just thought, you know, she’s seventeen, she’ll be an adult soon, I guess she’s spreading her wings. And she was a late bloomer in that way, kind of young for her age, never really had a social life, didn’t do parties, boyfriends, hanging out, nothing like that. So I thought, well, you know, good, it’s about time she found her feet in the world. And then …’

  She sees a film of tears across his eyes and feels an instinctive urge to touch him, which she resists. He drags the back of his hand across them and smiles. ‘And yeah, so, I’m just left with all these questions. And I started going through her stuff. There wasn’t much, to be honest. The police have still got her laptop, but I don’t think they’ve found anything on there; they’d have said by now. Every night after work I just sit in her room, with her things, looking for something, anything that might explain what happened to her. Why she was here. What she was doing. And then last night, I found this in the pocket of some old joggers …’

  He puts his hand into his back pocket and pulls out a piece of folded paper. He unfolds it and pushes it across the table to Cate.

  She reads the words written on it and her blood runs cold and dark.

  44

  SAFFYRE

  School had started back on 7 January and I had gone back to being the ‘other’ Saffyre Maddox, the one who showed up in the classroom every morning clean and fresh, hair neatly tied back, some mascara, some lip gloss. It wasn’t so much that I actively wanted to look nice, it was more that if I didn’t look nice, people would worry, they’d ask me questions, the pastoral-care woman would pull me into her office and expect me to tell her what was wrong with me. So I did my schoolwork. I traded in gossip. I smiled at boys but kept them at arms’ length. It was like I was Superman or something, with my two different personas. By day I was Saffyre Maddox, aloof but popular, mild-mannered A-grade student. By night I was a kind of nocturnal animal, like the human equivalent of a fox. My superpower was invisibility. There in the playground at school, or in the sixth-form common room, all eyes were on me, but at night I did not exist, I was the Invisible Girl.

  The confrontation with Harrison had been horrific on many levels. The sound of my name on his lips. The same lips he’d licked while he’d done what he’d done to me when I was a child. The size of him, no longer a child, but a man, an adult. The way he appeared in the half-darkness, dressed in black. The thought of him out there now, just being able to go where he wanted and do what he wanted. And that was the root of it really. That was what turned my head from self-harm to Harrison-harm. I felt like we were occupying the same territory, the same ground. We were both invisible but we’d seen each other, like two foxes facing off in the muted street light. I thought, I do not want to hurt myself any more because of what this person did to me. I thought, I want to hurt him.

  Now, wherever I went, I looked for him.

  I knew it would be only a matter of time until our paths crossed again.

  Mid-January. Cold as cold can be. I had fallen asleep in the plot of land across from Roan that now felt very much like it was mine. I rarely slept and when I did it was fast and immediate and hard and deep, usually for ten minutes, maybe sometimes as much as half an hour. Noises always woke me. Every noise. But this noise didn’t wake me. The sound of a young man entering the empty plot at two o’clock in the morning and sitting behind the JCB just out of sight of me and my little campsite.

  He didn’t know I was there. I didn’t know he was there. And then I was wide awake and, with that strange intake of breath that accompanies a sudden wakening, I was upright. I looked up and I saw a face and it was a face I knew.

  ‘Oh my fucking God.’ The boy clutched his heart. ‘What the fuck?’

  I said, ‘Josh?’

  He said. ‘Yes. Fuck. How do you know my name?’

  And I was fuddled by sleep and not thinking straight and I said, ‘I know your dad.’ I pulled my sleeping bag high up around me, suddenly cold.

  ‘How do you know my dad?’

  ‘I was in therapy with him.’

  ‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘More than three years.’

  ‘So why are you sleeping here?’ said Josh.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I said.

  ‘Are you homeless?’.

  ‘No. I’ve got a home.’

  ‘So why …? Is it something to do with my dad?’

  Where to start with that one? I did not have a clue.

  ‘Yeah,’ I began. ‘Kind of. Or at least, it started off being about your dad. And now it’s about loads of other things. I just like being outdoors; it’s like I can’t breathe with a roof over my head.’

  ‘You’re claustrophobic?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe I am. But only at night.’

  ‘Do you sleep here every night?’

  ‘Yeah. I do now.’

  ‘So, was it you,’ said Josh, ‘here, on New Year’s Eve?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I was here. I was hiding. In the corner over there.’

  I didn’t know what made me so open to his questions. There was something about him, something pure, untainted. I looked at him and I thought he would understand me.

  ‘So you were listening to our conversation?’

  ‘Yeah. You and your friend were going to unmask yourselves. Or something.’

  ‘Ha. Yeah. That’s right. I think we were maybe a bit wasted.’

  ‘I thought maybe you were planning a school shooting.’

  ‘Er,’ said Josh wryly, ‘no.’

  ‘Good. So, what were you talking about?’

  ‘Just how we were going to change it up. You know, stop being invisible. Make ourselves “relevant”.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ I said. ‘Seriously. Fuck that. Don’t be seen. Stay behind the scenes. That’s the place to be.’

  We fell silent for a moment and then Josh came around the JCB and sat down with me.

  ‘So, my dad? Was he any good? I mean, was he a good therapist?’

  I shrugged. ‘Yeah, in some ways. But in others, no. Like, I enjoyed our sessions and he did stop me from self-harming. But he left something behind. Inside me. It’s still there.’

  ‘Something? Like what?’

  ‘Like a cancer. It’s like he got rid of the symptoms, but he left the tumour.’

  ‘That’s shit,’ says Josh. Then he says, ‘I hate my dad.’

  His words stopped me in my tracks. ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Because he’s having a fucking affair.’

  ‘Whoa. How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen him. He flaunts it. And my mum’s too much of a soft touch to see what’s right under her nose. They nearly split up last year and I reckon that was because of an affair, too.’

  ‘What do you mean, you’ve seen him?’

  ‘I mean, I’ve seen him. With this girl. All, like, touching her hair and stuff. Not even trying to hide it. And it’s like … My mum is the best person in the whole world. She’s so sweet and loving and kind; she’d do anything for anyone. And he just plays about like he can do whatever he wants and then come home and she’ll have cooked him a nice meal and she’ll listen to him moaning on about how stressful his job is. And I just wonder, you know, how someone whose job it is to look after people, to fix their minds, to nurture and cure, how they can do what he does to another human being every single day of his life. It makes me sick.’

  I had so much I wanted to say. But I just tucked my hands between my knees to warm them up and stayed silent.

  ‘And that’s one of the things I want to change this year. Like I was saying on New Year’s Eve. No more Mr Nice Guy.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  His head dropped. He said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She’s called Alicia Mather,’ I said.

  His head shot up. ‘What?’

  ‘The woman your dad’s having an affair with. Her name’s Alicia Mather. I know where she lives.’

  He blinked. ‘How?’

  ‘I’ve been watching too. I’ve seen them. He met her at work. She’s a psychologist, like him. They started dating in the summer. They spent the night at a hotel just before Christmas. She lives in Willesden Green. She’s twenty-nine. She’s got two degrees and a PhD. She’s pretty smart.’

  He didn’t speak for a moment. Then he looked at me with those eyes, so like Roan’s eyes, and said, ‘Who are you? Are you real?’

  I laughed.

  ‘You’re really pretty,’ he said.

  I said, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Am I dreaming you? I don’t get this. I don’t get any of this.’

  ‘We’ve met before.’

  He said, ‘What? When?’

  ‘Last year. You did a couple of beginners’ classes at the martial-arts place. I spoke to you in the changing room. Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. I do. You had pink hair then. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. That was me.’

  ‘Did you know who I was? Even then?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I did.’

  ‘Is that why you spoke to me?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I was so embarrassed. You were so pretty.’

  ‘Yeah, you can stop saying that now.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  I smiled. I didn’t mind. There was something so easy about the boy. ‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘I’m only joking. Why did you stop going? To the dojo?’

  He said, ‘I didn’t. I still go. I just changed my class times. I go on Fridays now.’

  ‘Are you any good?’

  He said, ‘Yeah. Green belt. So, you know, getting there.’

  ‘Remember you told me you wanted to be able to defend yourself? That’s why you were taking lessons? You told me you’d been mugged?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What happened?’

  He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a little bag. As he talked he constructed a spliff on his thigh.

  ‘This guy,’ he said, pulling out a Rizla from a paper packet. ‘Came up behind me. Last summer. Just down there.’ He pointed down the hill. ‘Put his arm round my throat, quite tight. Said, What you got? Put his hands in all my pockets. I tried to push him off but he said, I’ve got a knife. OK? Then he took my phone and my earbuds and my debit card and he pushed me, really hard, so I nearly fell on to my face and I grabbed hold of the wall to stop myself falling and then he ran. And I just stood there. My heart pounding. It was, like, the scariest, scariest thing. And I didn’t do anything. I just stood there and let him take my stuff. Stuff my mum and dad worked really hard to pay for. Stuff he had no right to. And it makes me so fucking angry. I just feel like now, if I saw him, I would kill him.’

  His words hit me hard. I drew in my breath. ‘I know exactly how you feel.’

  And then – and how weird is this, after three years of taxpayers paying for Roan to fix me in his warm room at the Portman, after all those hours and hours and hours of talking and talking and talking but never saying the one thing that really mattered? – I finally found the words to tell someone about Harrison John.