‘Are you sure you don’t want me to wait?’ Mum asks.
We’re parked outside the anonymous block of flats where Jojo’s dad lives.
‘Yes, thanks,’ I say. ‘We’re probably just going to skip Ella’s now and go straight to Theo’s.’ I paste a convincing smile on my face. ‘Jojo’s dad can drop us off,’ I add for good measure.
I haven’t shared my fears about Jojo with Mum. Mum adores her, she always has, and I know the second I suggest Jojo might be preparing to cast me off, she’ll only try to convince me I’m wrong and attempt to talk me out of confronting her about it. I’m not wrong, though. I’m certain. It’s literally the only explanation.
‘Did she explain why she didn’t let her mum and Stacey know where she’d got to?’ Mum asks. ‘I know her phone wasn’t charged, but surely her dad could have let her use his. She must have known they’d worry.’
‘No,’ I admit. ‘She didn’t say.’38
It’s a good point. And yet another niggling aspect of our telephone conversation. The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t add up …
I open the car door and get out, peeling my dress from where it’s stuck to the back of my legs.
‘If you’re going to want a lift later on, make sure you give us a decent bit of notice,’ Mum says. ‘No SOS calls at three in the morning, please.’
‘Will do,’ I murmur, already distracted by the myriad things I want to say to Jojo before I lose my bottle. That’s the thing about Jojo. She’s got a vulnerability about her, a natural delicacy that can make it hard to get mad with her, even when she’s in the wrong.
I head into the foyer of the building and press the call button on the lift. It’s way too hot to even contemplate the two flights of stairs.
As I make my way down the bland corridor to Jojo’s dad’s flat, I try to decide what my opening gambit should be. After all, I’m just turning up here uninvited. Not that I had much choice – Jojo’s phone is still going straight to voicemail, so I couldn’t have warned her I was coming over even if I wanted to. Still, I can’t help but worry this might not be the best idea. What if her dad really is in a bad way? The last thing he’s going to want is his daughter’s mouthy best friend turning up on his doorstep. But at the same time, I can’t shift the feeling that Jojo wasn’t being entirely truthful when we spoke on the phone earlier. Jojo is an excellent actor, but she’s a shit liar, always has been.
I reach Jojo’s dad’s flat. I can hear the theme music to The One Show playing on the other side of the flimsy mock-pine door. 39
I take a deep breath and ring the buzzer.
Less than ten seconds later, Jojo’s dad opens the door. He’s wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and eating a strawberry yoghurt. Now, this is probably going to sound really terrible and I know you don’t have to look depressed to be depressed, but Jojo’s dad seems completely fine to me, slightly confused perhaps, but otherwise perfectly chipper and very much enjoying his yoghurt.
‘Frankie,’ he says, blinking in surprise. ‘Er, what can I do for you?’
I peer over his shoulder. The front door leads straight into the open plan kitchen/living room. I haven’t been here in ages but it hasn’t changed one bit. It’s still typical clueless single-bloke territory – bare magnolia walls, ugly black leather sofa, standard issue IKEA coffee table, a recycling bin overflowing with empty pizza boxes and beer bottles.
But no Jojo.
She must be in her room.
‘Hiya. Er, I wanted to speak to Jojo if that’s all right. Is she through there?’ I nod down the corridor towards the bedrooms.
‘Frankie,’ Jojo’s dad says gently. ‘Jojo’s not here.’
‘What do you mean, she’s not here?’
‘She’s not due here until next weekend.’ He frowns, concern suddenly flooding his face. ‘Why? Did she say she was going to be here? It’s just that Helen’s been looking for her too.’
I hesitate. The last thing I want to do is freak him out. ‘I must have got confused,’ I say, styling it out as best I can. ‘Mixed up my dates. Sorry to have bothered you.’ I back out of the front door, into the communal corridor.
‘Wait,’ he says. ‘Is everything OK? With Jojo, I mean.’40
‘Of course. Er, why do you ask?’
‘No reason. I just haven’t seen much of her lately. What with her being poorly the past few weeks …’ His voice trails off.
‘Honestly, I’m sure it’s fine,’ I say. ‘This is my cock-up. It’s the weather, I swear. It’s turned my brain to mush.’ I treat him to one of my winning smiles and it seems to do the trick, his shoulders visibly relaxing. ‘Sorry to have bothered you,’ I add. ‘Er, enjoy your yoghurt. Bye.’
I stumble downstairs and out onto the pavement, my head spinning.
Everything Jojo told me on the phone was a pack of lies.
But Jojo isn’t a liar.
She hates lies. Even silly little fibs. I remember once persuading her to ring Luca and pretend he’d won some competition to win a fancy mountain bike, and she fell apart after less than a minute, going bright red in the face and confessing. Despite my annoyance with her at the time, Jojo’s complete and utter inability to be dishonest is one of the things I like best about her.
I sit on the edge of the kerb and try to decide what to do.
My phone is going berserk with messages from people wanting to know where Jojo and I are. I reply to them all with the same message: Something came up. We’ll see you at Theo’s.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to come up with a plan. It’s no good, though. My brain feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton wool.
Think, Frankie, think. What stuff do you already know?
I know that Jojo disappeared from her house sometime between 8.30 and 9.30 this morning. 41
I know her phone has been off pretty much all day, despite the fact I’ve never once known her to run out of battery.
I know she called me not long after tea and told me she was at her dad’s.
I now know this is a big fat lie.
I call her again.
It goes straight through to voicemail (surprise, surprise). I hesitate before leaving yet another message:
‘Jojo, it’s me again. I know you’re not at your dad’s. You really need to ring me.’
I hang up.
Now what?
Just wait for her to maybe call me back? But that might never happen. After all, I’ve been calling her and leaving her messages literally all day, and apart from that one weird conversation I haven’t heard a peep out of her in response.
Perhaps I should just go to the party, forget about Jojo for twelve hours or so and deal with this in the morning.
I know I can’t, though.
Jojo is my best friend.
If she lied, she lied for a good reason. I just have absolutely no idea what this reason might be. This is what’s killing me the most right now. Because Jojo and I ordinarily tell each other everything.
And I mean everything.
From secrets to sleeping bags, there’s nothing we haven’t shared.
I know that until the age of eight, Jojo regularly wet the bed.
Jojo knows that when I was seven, I ate three of Luca’s Easter eggs and successfully blamed it on our dog, Lola (R.I.P.). 42
I know that Jojo once sent an anonymous home-made Valentine’s Day card to our physics teacher, Mr Ronson.
Jojo knows that I cried myself to sleep for five nights on the trot when Zayn left One Direction.
I know Jojo thinks she’s the reason her mum and Stacey can’t have a baby.
Jojo knows that my ex-boyfriend Ram’s penis bends slightly to the right.
You get the picture.
Nothing is off the agenda.
If I’m entirely honest, the whole Arts Academy episode made things a bit scratchy between us for a while, but that’s behind us now. I thought we were back on track. Or at least somewhere in the right direction. The realization that I might have been wrong burns.
Water fills my eyes. I blink it away. This is no time for tears. I need to stop being so bloody sentimental and focus.
Right. OK. So we’ve established that Jojo isn’t at her mum’s or her dad’s.
So where else might she be?
I dismiss our mutual friends. If Jojo were with them, I’d know about it. Plus, it’s rare that Jojo and I socialize without the other present. We come as a pair and always have done.
A thought hits me. Could she have a secret boyfriend? I had my suspicions she had a crush on someone earlier in the year when she started acting all cagey any time I mentioned the opposite sex, but she refused to admit to anything and eventually I stopped pushing her for details. Plus, even though Jojo can be a bit prudish about boys and sex and stuff, I just can’t 43imagine her not telling me if she met someone she liked, unless maybe it was someone totally inappropriate.
Like someone really old and disgusting.
An image of Mr Ronson and his unkempt beard jumps into my head.
I thought Jojo’s crush on him died the day he played the cat in Dick Whittington in the sixth form and staff pantomime two Christmases ago, dressed in nothing but a black body stocking. I remember the expression on her face as he crawled about the stage, his arse in the air – the mixture of horror and disappointment and sheer embarrassment etched all over her features.
But that was a while ago now. What if her crush had been reignited? And what if he was into it too?
No.
NO.
I’m being ridiculous.
Jojo has not run off with Mr Ronson. Plus, didn’t he get married recently? I seem to remember Bex or Ella or someone tracking down his wife on Facebook and trawling through the honeymoon album she’d uploaded, chortling over pictures of a loved-up and rather sunburned Mr Ronson wearing Speedos on the beach, sipping a piña colada.
I reject the possibility of a secret boyfriend and take out my phone, double-checking Jojo’s various social media profiles for clues. My search gleans very little. Jojo’s never really been much of an online sharer and there’s been nothing new for over three weeks now. The last thing she posted was on 27 July via Instagram – a photo of her grandma’s dog, Pickle, fresh from the dog groomers. 44
I’m about to close the app when my eyes snag on something.
The location above the photo of Pickle.
Newfield. Our home town.
Quickly, I scroll through my apps until I find the one I’m looking for.
Find Your Friends.
Jojo and I downloaded it years ago, when we both got our first ever smartphones for Christmas. It’s this app that lets you see where your friends are. We used it all the time at first. Even though I generally knew where Jojo was and what she was up to at any given time, there was something comforting about being able to see it in the form of a pulsating blue dot on the screen confirming her exact location. I’m not sure when I stopped using it. Perhaps when I got together with Ram and felt guilty about not being as available as I once was. Not that Jojo ever made a fuss or indicated she felt neglected in any way. But then, that’s Jojo for you.
I open the app and pray that Jojo hasn’t deleted it. I select the ‘Friend Finder’ function and wait.
Jojo444 is offline.
Shit. Of course. The app only works if the person you’re looking for has their phone switched on.
A second alert flashes up on the screen.
Would you like to see Jojo444’s last known location?
I press ‘yes’ and hold my breath. It’s all coming back to me now. If you’re offline, the app saves your most recent location.
The map is taking ages to load.
Hurry, hurry.
Finally it appears, Jojo’s location as of 18:49, indicated by a non-pulsating version of that familiar blue dot. 45
She’s on Princes Way.
Princes Way?
Is that in Newfield? If it is, I’ve never heard of it.
I zoom out a little, my eyes searching for familiar road names or landmarks.
Nothing springs out at me.
That’s when I see a train station symbol. I zoom back in.
Swindon station.
I frown.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of Swindon, but I have no idea where it is. I keep zooming out until I can make sense of where it is in relation to Newfield.
It’s miles away.
My mind racing, I switch to the internet and type Princes Way, Swindon into Google Street View. It’s a pretty bleak sight – mostly grey office buildings. I can’t for the life of me think why Jojo might be there.
Then I see it.
A popular chain hotel, its sign aglow.
I go back to the app.
Boom! The locations match exactly.
I’ve found her.
I just have absolutely no idea why she might be there. Zero.
I think back to our telephone conversation. Was it really just an hour ago? Already the exact content is fading from my memory.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember what she said, what I said, how she sounded.
That’s when it comes back to me.
A baby. I heard a baby crying.46
Jojo said it was the TV.
It didn’t sound like the TV, though. It sounded like it was right there in the room with her, right next to the phone even. I was about to say that, I remember now, but I didn’t get the chance because that’s when she hung up, and in my annoyance and belief that she was where she said she was, I totally forgot about it.
Hurriedly, I put everything together.
Jojo left the house sometime between 8.30 and 9.30 a.m.
Olivia Sinclair was taken around 9.15 a.m.
Jojo hasn’t been seen since. Neither has Olivia.
Jojo has lied about where she is, not only to me, but to her mum too.
Jojo has a baby with her.
My heart is galloping like crazy now.
Because, taking everything into consideration, there’s only one possible explanation here.
Jojo, my best friend in the entire world, has stolen a baby.