Chapter Twenty-Three

BY FOUR O’CLOCK the fear of what might have happened to Molly was taking on so many terrifying dimensions that Katie could hardly bear to look at anyone in case she saw the same appalling thoughts reflected in their eyes too. There had been no call back from this Brad yet, though based on what she’d been told, it didn’t seem likely they were together anyway. In fact, she almost wished they were, for there was more comfort in an abscondment with an eighteen-year-old boy than there was in Molly taking off alone while in such a disturbed and vulnerable state.

For the past two hours Michelle, Laurie and Judy had been contacting as many of Molly’s schoolfriends as Judy and Katie could come up with, while Dave and a couple of other neighbours went out driving around Chippenham and the local villages to see if they could spot her. So far there had been no sign, nor had anyone from school either seen or been in touch with her by phone.

Now they were sitting in silence, Judy’s words from the final call still seeming to hang in the air – a ghostly reminder that there was no-one left to ring. Gradually the same words were coming to each of them, yet no-one wanted to be the first to speak them, because no-one wanted to take that dreaded next step.

It was Michelle who finally plucked up the courage. ‘I don’t think we have any choice,’ she said, ‘we have to contact the police.’

Katie turned away, for the very idea of involving the police embraced every one of her worst nightmares to a point where she couldn’t actually tell Michelle to do it. So she merely sat, mute and rigid, as Laurie, rather than call 999, looked up the local number, dialled it, then passed the phone to Michelle.

The next half an hour seemed to pass in a blur as two bobbies arrived, one male, one female, oozing friendliness, efficiency and calm. Katie wanted to scream at them to go away, because they shouldn’t be here. They were giving it an air of reality, and it shouldn’t be happening … It couldn’t … Please God, it just couldn’t!

Michelle did most of the talking, backed up by Laurie and Judy, while Katie sat and listened and ached for her daughter in ways she’d never known she could ache. The voices around her seemed distant, and strange, a persistent burble of noise that was happening beyond her awareness, yet was permeating it too, for she kept hearing them mention Molly, and wished they would stop. It was all an intrusion, a horrible misunderstanding. Molly wasn’t missing. She’d just stayed out longer than she should have, which she’d done lots of times in the past, but she’d be home any minute. Katie could already see her, dawdling down the lane, texting someone on her mobile, hungry, moody, and – she could just hear her saying it: like, seriously embarrassed that her mother had gone and called the police.

‘I’m sure there’s absolutely no cause to worry,’ the WPC was saying, looking at Katie.

Katie blinked as the words clattered like stones into the fog of her thoughts.

‘We have so many cases of teenagers taking off like this, you just wouldn’t believe, and they almost always turn out to be with friends, or other family members. It sounds as though that’s what we’re going to find here, based on what your sister’s just told us. But is there anything else you’d like to add? Has anything unusual happened lately to make you suspicious or concerned in any way?’

Katie wasn’t sure if she responded, but a moment later the WPC was talking again.

‘I’m thinking of things such as anonymous phone calls, strangers hanging around, odd behaviour … Have you yourself been involved in something that has changed your own circumstances, such as a man, or a hobby, something that might have distracted you?’

Katie looked at Michelle. ‘Didn’t you tell her about me?’ she said.

‘Yes, I did,’ Michelle said gently. ‘She’s talking about over and above that.’

Katie still looked bothered.

‘They’re just questions,’ Michelle assured her. ‘They don’t necessarily mean anything, but they could prompt something in you that will help them to direct the search.’

The WPC assumed an even warmer tone as she said, ‘Apart from this boy Brad, is there anyone else you think Molly could be with? Someone she might just have mentioned in passing?’

Katie shook her head.

‘What about clubs or groups? I’m afraid computers have brought several more of those into the frame than we might like over recent years … Do you know if she’s signed up for anything recently?’

Again Katie looked at Michelle. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘The police have her computer already.’

The WPC’s eyebrows rose. ‘We have? Why is that?’ she asked.

Katie’s heart was starting to thump as two totally disparate situations seemed to embark upon a bizarre and horrifying struggle to connect. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, her head starting to spin with the craziness of it. ‘I can’t … It’s got nothing to do with Molly … They took it last week.’

‘But they must have given you a reason for taking it.’

Katie took a breath, found she had no words and looked at Michelle.

‘What I think Mrs Kiernan is trying to say,’ Laurie came in, ‘is that if you want to see the computer at any stage, then it’s already been impounded.’

‘By us? In Chippenham?’

‘Actually, by the FBI, which might go some way towards convincing you of Molly’s lack of involvement.’

The WPC looked more baffled than ever and not a little dubious.

‘Tell her,’ Katie pressed. ‘Tell her what’s happening.’

Though clearly reluctant, Michelle explained as loosely as she could about the investigation they were involved in with Tom. ‘This,’ she concluded, ‘is obviously in no way connected to Molly and what’s happened this weekend.’

The WPC and her colleague both seemed to agree. ‘Nevertheless,’ she said, ‘I’ll get the chief to see if we can have the computer sent back so’s our forensics can give it a going-over – if,’ she added to Katie, ‘it even gets that far, which I strongly doubt.’

‘So what happens now?’ Laurie asked, as the WPC stood up.

‘We’re going to speak to the friends you’ve already spoken to,’ she answered. ‘You’d be surprised what different answers seem to come up when someone in uniform is asking the questions. CID has already been informed, so I expect one of the detectives will be around to see you, but honestly, Mrs Kiernan, judging by everything that’s been said, I’m pretty certain she’ll turn up any minute.’

As Michelle saw them out Katie looked at Laurie. ‘They always say that, don’t they? Even when they’re thinking the worst.’

‘No,’ Laurie replied. ‘She said it because it’s probably true. Molly was in shock last night, slightly traumatized even, she got drunk, maybe stoned, then had the dreadful humiliation of throwing up in front of everyone, even over this Brad – frankly, under those circumstances we’d all want to crawl into a hole somewhere and never come out again. But we do, eventually, and so will she.’

Katie wanted to believe her, she wanted it so desperately that for several minutes she was able to, but then the demons were back, tearing at the delicate fabric of reason until she was almost beside herself with dread. ‘What if,’ she began shakily, ‘what if this does have something to do with Tom?’

Michelle frowned. ‘But how?’ she asked.

Katie shook her head. ‘I don’t know. They could be holding her hostage … No, I know it doesn’t make any sense, it’s just with it all happening at the same time …’ She put her hands to her head. ‘I feel as though I’m going out of my mind, and if I weren’t so worried and guilty I’d be furious with her for putting me through this.’ She looked at Michelle again. ‘We have to do something. We can’t just sit here and wait. We should be out there looking for her.’

‘The police are doing that, and you’re not up to going out there yourself,’ Michelle said gently.

Katie looked at the clock. It was twenty to five.

At a quarter to seven the police came back in the form of two detectives, who introduced themselves simply as Wendy Ford and Clive Painter.

‘We’ve found something, Mrs Kiernan, that we’d like you to take a look at,’ Wendy Ford told her. ‘It could be nothing, but one of our constables stumbled upon it in a field next to the Fortescue-Bonds’ house.’ With a gloved hand she reached into a plastic bag and took out a black and white checked slingback shoe with a red bow on the toe.

Katie looked at it and felt the world rushing in on her. In those horrifying fragments of seconds she saw her precious girl being raped, murdered, torn apart and screaming for her mother …

Immediately Michelle was behind her, hands on her shoulders, willing her to hang on.

‘Is it Molly’s?’ Ford asked.

Katie nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered in a dry, cracked voice. ‘Yes, it’s hers.’

‘Are they the shoes she was wearing when she went out last night?’

‘No, she had her trainers on, but I expect those were in her bag.’

‘Which means she could easily have dropped it without realizing,’ Ford assured her. ‘So let’s not start jumping to conclusions yet.’

Katie looked at her in disbelief. ‘It’s a shoe,’ she said croakily. ‘It belongs to Molly and she isn’t home, so what the hell do you expect me do?’

‘I understand how you’re feeling,’ Ford responded calmly, ‘and I assure you a thorough search of all the surrounding fields is already under way, and if you listen, you can hear the helicopters overhead.’

Yes, Katie could hear the clattering roar of the engines, but it did absolutely nothing to calm her. Instead it intensified her horror tenfold, for the reason they were up there was adding a terrible reality to the very worst nightmare of her life.

After reading the email from Laurie informing him of Molly’s disappearance, Elliot pushed his computer across to Tom so he could read it too, and went to stand at the window, gazing out at the windswept hills where the leaves were being tossed around like snow, and the sky glowered sinisterly overhead.

‘What do you make of it?’ he asked when Tom had finished.

‘It’s not connected,’ Tom said decisively. ‘It’s just not their MO, the losses would too far outweigh the gains.’

Elliot turned back into the room. ‘Laurie sent the email last night, so Molly could have turned up by now,’ he said.

Tom was turning on his cellphone, knowing he had to be fast, for the signal alone would pinpoint their location. ‘Any news on Molly?’ he pressed into a text, and after sending it to Michelle he quickly shut down again. ‘I’ll check in a couple of hours,’ he said, going back to the rest of Laurie’s email. ‘So still nothing from Nick and Max,’ he murmured.

Rejoining him at the table Elliot said, ‘They must have been pulled in for questioning, or they’ve been got at somehow.’

‘Do we start contacting editors ourselves?’ Tom wondered aloud.

Elliot pondered the question. ‘If we haven’t heard anything by tonight, I’m going to drive into town and call Chris,’ he said. ‘He should be able to find out what’s going on. He might even know if there’s any connection to this situation with Molly – though I’m with you, I just can’t see it.’

Katie was standing in Molly’s bedroom staring at all her treasured possessions – her glittery hair clips, beaded bracelets, the mauve bedspread and matching pillows rumpled from where she’d last sat on them … It was so easy to picture her there, to hear her chattering away on her mobile, or yelling downstairs. ‘Mum! Mum!’

Katie just couldn’t bear it. Another night had now passed without that prized iron-framed bed being slept in, hours and hours of darkness, endless torment, too much fear. In the early hours she’d woken suddenly, drenched in sweat and certain she’d heard Molly calling her. She’d lain very still, waiting, praying to hear it again, but there was only silence, and the terrible emptiness coming from this room, next to her own.

It was now late on Monday morning. For a while it had been possible to hope that Molly might turn up for school today, but that had been dashed by a phone call from DS Wendy Ford at nine thirty. Registration was complete, and there was no sign of Molly. Now everyone in Molly’s class was being questioned. If they got no joy there, they’d move on to the rest of the school. Meanwhile, the partygoers were still being interrogated, including Brad, whom they’d tracked down to his girlfriend’s family home in Berkshire. Apparently he hadn’t even known Molly’s name until Saturday night, so he had no idea why she’d been telling people she was his girlfriend.

Katie now knew how Molly had been cruelly set up by her so-called friends to believe that Brad Jenkins was interested in her, when all the time it was a boy Cecily was paying who’d been making the calls and sending the messages. Hearing that had virtually broken Katie’s heart. To think of her lovely little Molly being made the butt of those monstrous girls’ jokes could turn her to violence. They’d even formed some outrageous cult that involved all kinds of practices that the police were still trying to get to the bottom of, though so far there was nothing to say that some vile ritual, or evil hexing was behind Molly’s disappearance. What couldn’t be in any doubt, though, was the kind of mental state Molly must have been in when she’d run out of that party, and to think of it filled Katie with such anguish she just couldn’t bear it.

As she walked towards the sitting-room window she felt herself stiffen with resistance to see the police cars parked in the lane. ‘I should be out there, helping them to look,’ she said to Laurie who was in the kitchen. ‘I can’t stand being cooped up here, doing nothing.’

‘You’re waiting for her to call,’ Laurie reminded her.

Katie nodded, then struggled to subdue more impatience as she thought of Michelle, over there at the school, helping the police talk to the kids. Why the hell didn’t she ring to let them know what was happening? She knew how terrified Katie was, how every minute that passed was like an hour of pure hell, so what in God’s name was the matter with her?

Turning abruptly away from the window, she took a breath and forced back her frustration. Her control lasted only a moment before she suddenly erupted in a tirade that Laurie finally managed to stem by quickly dialling Michelle’s mobile.

Michelle answered almost straight away.

‘Where are you?’ Laurie asked.

‘On my way back. There are a couple of developments, though none of them good I’m afraid. How’s Katie bearing up?’

‘She’s frustrated, obviously, and worried sick, but she’s coping.’ Laurie turned to Katie and smiled.

‘Tell her we need to know what’s happening,’ Katie snapped, her temper on the rise again. ‘I mean, does anyone at the school know anything?’

‘Not exactly,’ Michelle said, obviously having heard. ‘DS Ford is with me, we’ll explain everything when we get there.’

A few minutes later Michelle and DS Wendy Ford walked into the kitchen. Michelle knew immediately from Katie’s white face that the only thing holding her together was anger, and that some of it was directed towards her. So refraining from embracing her, she merely suggested that they all sit down.

Finding it impossible not to read something horrendous into their apparent reluctance to begin, Katie shouted, ‘What is it? Just tell me what it is.’

‘It’s OK,’ DS Ford said soothingly. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’

‘How the hell do you know what I’m thinking? Are you a mother? Has this ever happened to you?’

DS Ford said, ‘There’s a boy in Molly’s year called Rusty Phillips. Do you know him?’

Katie took a moment to think. ‘Not very well,’ she answered, feeling more reasonable now there appeared to be some kind of lead. ‘I know he helps Molly with her homework sometimes. Why?’

‘Well, he claims Molly called him late on Saturday night and asked him to meet her at the old railway bridge near his home. She told him something had happened, but apparently didn’t go into any detail. He doesn’t know where she was calling from …’

‘But did he meet her? Does he know where she is now?’

‘He says she didn’t turn up. He waited for over an hour, and kept trying to ring her, but he never got an answer, so in the end he went home, presuming she’d just decided not to come.’

Katie’s expression showed total horror as she looked from the detective to Michelle and back again. ‘Do you believe him?’ she said. ‘Do you think he’s telling the truth?’

‘His phone log shows that she did call him on Saturday night,’ Ford answered. ‘Obviously we’ll be talking to him again, and several officers are over at the railway bridge now, taking a look around.’

‘Where is this bridge?’ Katie demanded. ‘I mean in relation to the Fortescue-Bonds’.’

‘It’s on the northern outskirts of Chippenham,’ Ford answered, ‘about two miles from the Fortescue-Bonds’ …’

‘Going in the opposite direction to here?’

Ford nodded. ‘That’s correct,’ she said. ‘The boy lives on the edge of a housing estate, actually in sight of the old railway line, so it would take him no time to get there. But without knowing where Molly was calling from we’ve no idea how close, or how far away she was when she asked him to meet her. What’s baffling us at the moment is that her friend Allison confirmed that Molly was wearing the black and white shoes during the party, so the one we found must have been dropped in the field after she left. The field, as you know, is between here and the Fortescue-Bonds’, which could suggest that she was on her way home when she lost it.’

Katie rose abruptly to her feet, as though to avoid what was coming next.

‘It’s not necessarily what you’re thinking,’ Michelle quickly told her. ‘Apparently there are no signs of a struggle in the field, so nothing to say that someone tried to stop her. It’s highly possible that she just changed her mind, and decided to call Rusty instead.’

‘Then where is she now? He says he doesn’t know, that she didn’t turn up …’

DS Ford flipped open her mobile as it started to ring. ‘Yes?’ she said into it. She listened for a few moments, then said, ‘Is someone on their way here?’ She listened again, and after telling the person at the other end to keep her posted, she rang off. ‘Apparently one of the search officers has found something close to the railway bridge,’ she told them. ‘He should be here any minute.’

‘What is it?’ Katie demanded, almost wild-eyed with panic.

DS Ford’s face showed her reluctance to answer. ‘An item of clothing, I’m told,’ she said softly. Her eyes came to Katie’s. ‘A red top.’

Katie immediately started to fight for air.

Michelle shot to her feet, and grabbed her. ‘Breathe! Just breathe!’ she urged. ‘Come on, you can do it. In … out … In … out … It’s OK. I’ve got you. Just breathe …’

Half an hour later Michelle came back down the stairs, leaving Katie lying down with Trotty. As she started to speak her voice caught on a sob, but she managed to push past it. ‘Not what we need right now, me falling apart,’ she chided herself.

‘They’ll find her. She’ll be all right,’ Laurie told her.

Michelle nodded. ‘Yes, of course. I’ve just sent a message back to Tom. Has there been anything from Nick and Max yet?’

Laurie shook her head.

For several seconds they merely looked at one another, each knowing what the other was thinking, neither willing to voice it. In the end, Michelle shook her head and turned away.

‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ she said. ‘There can’t be a connection.’

‘No, of course not,’ Laurie agreed.

‘It’s just not the way they operate, snatching innocent kids to force parents and relatives to meet their demands.’

‘Particularly not when the press is bound to get involved,’ Laurie added, ‘and as we already are, they know very well that it would take one phone call from me, connecting the warrant for Tom’s arrest to Molly’s disappearance, for all hell to break loose.’

‘Precisely, so it’s all just a horrible coincidence. I know it in my heart, I feel it in my bones.’ She looked at Laurie.

‘I’m not arguing,’ Laurie assured her.

‘So how do I get that across to Katie, when I can sense the suspicion taking root in her mind, and when right now she’s in no state to see anything through to a rational conclusion?’

‘The only answer to that,’ Laurie said, ‘is that we have to find Molly.’

*

‘Under no circumstances is anyone to go anywhere near that house until the child’s been found,’ Deborah Gough was saying into the phone. ‘The last thing we need is to be mixed up in that.’

‘There could be ways to use it to our advantage,’ Allbringer suggested.

‘I’m not even going there,’ she snapped. ‘The blowback, if it came out, would finish us all.’

Refraining from pointing out they were on the verge of it anyway, Allbringer said, ‘What do you want to do about the two journalists we’re holding? Questions are already being asked.’

‘I’ll get back to you on that,’ Gough replied, making a rare admission that she wasn’t actually calling the shots here. She turned aside to stare blankly out of her seventh-floor window. ‘Damn!’ she muttered furiously, ‘this is slipping out of our control. Have Chambers or Russell made any personal contact with editors that we know about?’

‘Nothing I’m aware of yet.’

‘All right, I’m going to get authorization to launch our own initiative. One way or another Chambers has to be stopped, and if we have to do it through the media, so be it.’

The lack of response from the other end reminded her of Allbringer’s views on the strategy to destroy Chambers’s reputation in preparation for an arrest. She wasn’t interested in hearing them again now, so before he could get started she said, ‘Keep me up to date on that missing child. As soon as they’ve found her we can start leaning on Michelle Rowe.’

*

Molly couldn’t stop shivering. She wasn’t cold or anything, she was just scared and unhappy and she didn’t want to be here any more. Rusty had promised to smuggle her into his house tonight, while his mum and dad went to their folk group, so she could go on the suicide web site and find out how to do it. She had to make sure she got it right, because she didn’t want it to hurt or anything, or make a mess of anyone’s house – even though this one was a mess anyway. It was about three doors down from Rusty. His mum was keeping an eye on it while the owners were on holiday in Spain. It had a really scruffy garden and rooms that smelled of cigarette smoke and something else that was horrible, she just didn’t know what it was.

Earlier, from behind the yellowy nets, she’d watched the police going up the street towards the old railway bridge. They’d been up there for ages, then they’d gone over to Rusty’s house, where his mum had let them in. Molly had been so on edge through all that, even though Rusty had sworn he wouldn’t tell anyone where she was. He’d just say that she’d called him on Saturday night, then hadn’t bothered to turn up. That way, if they checked his mobile phone he was covered.

He was a really good friend the way he was helping her. He’d even crept out a couple of times during the nights to make sure she was all right and not afraid. She was afraid, but she didn’t tell him. What was the point? There was nothing he could do. He kept saying that she ought to go home, that her mum would be worried, but he didn’t understand. Her mum wouldn’t be there much longer, and then no-one would want her, so she might just as well die too. She’d still be with her mum then, and that was the only person she wanted to be with, because she was the only person who loved her. No-one else did. She didn’t even have any friends any more, or a boyfriend. She didn’t count Rusty because he was just Rusty, and after those horrible things she’d said about Michelle … Anyway, she didn’t want Michelle. She just wanted her mum …

As tears welled up in her eyes, she got stiffly up from the bed and went to look in the mirror. She’d cried all her make-up off even before she’d got here, but she’d washed her face since anyway. She didn’t really know why, because she was so ugly and rank who cared if her face was clean? She hated her face because it belonged to her, so she punched it. Then she punched it again, because it was what her nasty face deserved. It wasn’t a good person’s face, it belonged to a disgusting, horrible, wicked person, so it was no wonder everyone hated her. She expected her mum did now, after what she’d done, so why not just keep punching herself until she made herself bleed and bleed and all her teeth fell out?

By the time Rusty came home from school she was downstairs, watching from behind the nets. He went straight past the little caravan parked next to his house and disappeared round the back. He didn’t come out again. He couldn’t, because his mum was there, so he’d have to wait until it got dark and his mum went out. He couldn’t ring either, because the battery had run out on her mobile, and anyway, it was too much of a risk. So she just stayed where she was, waiting for Rusty to come and telling herself not to think about anything any more, because if she did, she’d just have to start hitting herself again.

It was now Tuesday morning. Michelle was in the kitchen speaking on the phone to Laurie as Katie came down the stairs and stopped right next to her. Seeing her expression, Michelle immediately ended the call.

Before she could speak Katie said, ‘You have to tell them.’

An uneasy beat in Michelle’s heart belied her frown of confusion.

‘You know what I’m talking about,’ Katie said, her voice dangerously low, ‘you’ve got to tell them where Tom is, because I can’t go through another day of this.’

‘But Katie, it’s got nothing to do with Tom …’

‘It has everything to do with him, and you know it!’ Katie raged. ‘They’ve got her somewhere, they’re holding her to make him come forward, now you’ve got to tell them where he is, or so help me God, I will.’

Michelle put a hand to her head, trying to think how to handle this. ‘Look, if Tom thought for one minute that they had her,’ she said, ‘he’d have done something about it the instant he knew she was missing.’

‘No he wouldn’t. The story always comes first for someone like him.’

‘Katie, you don’t mean that …’

‘Stop stalling, Michelle, and make the call.’

As she handed her the receiver Michelle took it and put it back again. ‘Look, you know what Molly went through on Saturday night,’ she said, ‘what she’s been going through for months …’

‘I don’t need you to remind me of my own responsibility in this,’ Katie seethed, ‘but you have one too, Michelle, so pick up that phone now and tell him he has to give himself up.’

‘Even if I did, he won’t do it,’ Michelle responded, ‘because he knows as well as I do – as well as you do – that they don’t have her. Katie, this isn’t the way they operate.’

‘How can you say that?’ Katie demanded. ‘You of all people know what they’re capable of, so you surely can’t be standing there telling me that a fourteen-year-old girl means anything to them. They couldn’t give a damn about her, or me, because little people like us don’t count. Collateral damage, that’s what we are …’

‘Katie, you’re not being rational. I understand how you’re feeling, but …’

‘Don’t you dare say that!’ Katie yelled, slamming an empty cup against the wall. ‘You haven’t got the first idea how I’m feeling, because you have it in you to give your child up. As a mother I could never do that. Molly means everything to me. Everything. And I want her back, God damn you.’

Michelle’s face was ashen as she said, ‘We’ll find her.’

But Katie wasn’t listening. Rage and grief were pouring out of her with an unstoppable might, tearing words from her that she barely knew she was saying. ‘You make me sick, sick!’ she yelled. ‘I hate looking at you. I hate listening to you. You know they’ve got her, but all you care about is Tom, and the child you’re carrying, and the future you’re going to have together …’

‘Katie …’

‘You didn’t tell me about that baby, did you? No, you kept it to yourself, because you didn’t have the guts to tell me you’ve cheated me again. You said you were here for Molly …’

‘I am!’ Michelle shouted.

‘I want her back! I want her in my house, and I want you and your baby to go. I’ll find someone else for Molly, someone who’ll care about her and not let her be used the way you are now.’

‘How can you say I don’t care about her, when I gave up everything to be here for her – ’

‘You gave up nothing! You’re pregnant, you’re marrying him …’

‘I didn’t know it was going to turn out that way …’

‘But it always does for you! Everything works out in your world. It’s only in mine that it all goes wrong …’

‘Stop it! Just stop. You can’t go on resenting me for things I have no control over …’

‘But you have control over what’s happening to Molly, and I want her back. Do this, Michelle, and I’ll know that she means as much to you as she does to me. It’s all I ask. I have to know you’ll put her first.’

Michelle’s eyes closed in despair. ‘Katie, you can’t ask me to prove it like this,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t make any sense, and if you were able to think straight you’d know it. She’s with a friend somewhere, or maybe she’s gone off to London … I don’t know, but I do know she’s not being held to force Tom out of hiding.’

‘But how do you know?’ Katie demanded. ‘How can you be so damned sure, when the timing is perfect, the leverage could hardly …’

‘Please, Katie …’

‘No! I’ve had enough, Michelle. Do you honestly think she’d have stayed out there on her own all this time, just because she had a spat with her friends?’

‘It was more than that …’

‘But not enough to make her stay away from me all this time. I’m her mother, for God’s sake, I’m the one she comes to when things go wrong, only this time, she can’t, because they’ve got her and they won’t let her come back …’

‘Katie, stop! No!’ Michelle cried, as Katie began smashing every dish in sight. ‘This isn’t going to help …’

‘Make that phone call!’ Katie yelled, rounding on her. ‘Put someone else first for once!’

Michelle started to back off. ‘I’m not going to continue with this,’ she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘I know you’re hurting, I understand that you’re afraid, but I will not force Tom into doing something that …’

‘Because he comes first!’ Katie cried savagely. ‘It’s always him, or you, or someone else. Never us … Never me …’

‘That is just not true!’ Michelle yelled. ‘You’ve got these things fixed in your head and they’re based on nothing! You say the most horrible things to me, you’re cruel and spiteful the way you throw Robbie in my face, and now you’re trying to make me choose between Tom and Molly to prove something that shouldn’t even be in doubt. Well, I won’t do it. For once I’m not going to give in to you, and not because he comes first, but because it won’t give you what you want.’

Katie’s eyes were wild. ‘Get out!’ she screamed, slamming a bowl to the floor. ‘Just get out of my house. I don’t ever want to see you again.’

Knowing there was no point trying to reason with her now, Michelle grabbed her bag and turned to the door. ‘My phone will be on if you need …’

‘I don’t need you!’ Katie sobbed. ‘I don’t need anyone, except my daughter.’

Closing the door behind her, Michelle paused for a moment, hating leaving her like this, but understanding that if she stayed she was only going to inflame her further.

Minutes later, Laurie drew up outside to drive them to the school.

‘She knows in her heart that she’s not making any sense,’ Michelle said after recounting what had happened. ‘It’s fear that’s unhinging her, and even in the state she’s in she probably knows it. She just needed to release some of it, and it’s usually the nearest and dearest that gets it … Or so I’m told.’

Laurie threw her a glance, and realized, in spite of the dryness, that she was a lot more hurt by Katie’s attack than she was admitting. ‘Do you think she’ll make the call herself?’ she asked.

Michelle shook her head. ‘No. She just needed to shift the burden of guilt for a while, because she’s absolutely racked with it, so blaming someone else, whether it’s me, or Tom, or some invisible force in the United States was a way of easing some of the pressure. By now she’s probably already starting to calm down, and wishing to God she hadn’t said even half the things she did.’

However, at that very moment Katie was waiting to be connected to Stuart Fellowes’s office at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

It was just after four in the morning, Washington time, when the phone next to Deborah Gough’s bed woke her. Blearily checking the clock, she turned on the light and grabbed the receiver on the second ring before it could wake her husband.

‘We’ve just had word of Tom Chambers’s location,’ the voice at the other end told her. ‘He’s in France, the Burgundy region, holed up in a house belonging to a French reporter.’

Deborah Gough swung her legs off the bed and stood up. ‘OK,’ she said, thinking fast. ‘Is a team on its way?’

‘Even as we speak.’

‘How long will it take them to get there?’

‘They’re being flown in from an RAF base in Suffolk. The French counter-terrorism people have been contacted to pick them up on the ground – I’d say we’re looking at three hours max.’

‘Good. Call Daniel Allbringer and give him the news. I’ll be at my office within the hour.’