7

They talked as they walked the streets close to Daniel’s home. There were no driveways or front gardens here, just rows of no-frills, functional houses. They were close to the front doors and windows of the terraced homes they passed, only net curtains preventing them from peering in. They walked at Daniel’s pace, which was an unhurried amble, and made the most of the remnants of an uncharacteristic mini heatwave that had warmed the north-east for a week or more now. It was T-shirt weather, unusually early in the year.

‘I didn’t mean to,’ said Daniel, ‘but earlier, when you asked me what I was doing when Alice went missing, I kind of lied. I’m sorry.’

‘You kind of lied?’ she queried. ‘Either you did or you didn’t, Daniel. Where were you when Alice disappeared?’

‘I didn’t lie about that,’ he protested. ‘I was in my room, like I said.’

‘Then what did you lie about?’

He sounded uncomfortable. ‘I said I was chatting to people online, and I wasn’t, not really.’

Which meant no one could vouch for him. ‘Why did you lie?’

‘Because my parents were there when you asked.’

‘You weren’t chatting,’ Beth concluded. ‘You were just surfing the Web?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Looking at what?’

He shrugged. ‘Stuff.’

‘Porn?’ Was that what he meant?

‘There was some porn, yes.’

‘Well, Daniel,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you are the first, but try to tell me the truth from here on in, will you?’

‘I will,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

He seemed to loosen up then, as if the tension had been lifted when Beth hadn’t judged him for his porn habit. ‘How would you describe Alice’s frame of mind?’ she asked.

‘You mean, lately? The same as always. I mean, Alice was stressed, but …’

‘What was she stressed about?’

‘Exams. What else?’

‘Just exams? All kids her age worry about those. Was there anything else?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing major.’

‘And you’d know?’ asked Beth.

‘What does that mean?’ he snapped.

‘We heard you were close so, if something was bothering her, then she might come to you about it.’

His tone softened. ‘She would, usually.’

‘But not this time.’

He thought for a moment. ‘She was worried,’ he admitted. ‘About a number of things.’ He started to count them off on his fingers. ‘How she would do in her exams, would she get the grades she needed to get to uni and, if she did, would it be the right one? Would she fit in there, make friends and be happy? What was she going to do about her boyfriend?’ As he mentioned her boyfriend, he switched hands and started counting on the other one. ‘She was worried about Mam and how Dad would be if she wasn’t there any more. He has to take things out on someone. She was concerned about Grandad being lonely on his own. She worried about her friends, too, and whether they would be able to get where they wanted for uni … Oh yeah, and she worries about me, bless her.’ And he half smiled at that.

‘Why does she worry about you?’

He was dismissive. ‘I’m the family fuck-up. I messed up my A levels and I’m not sure where I go from here. She thought I should be taking life more seriously. She’s a bit like Mam,’ and he started to mimic his mother’s voice: ‘“Why don’t you get a proper job? When are you going to meet a nice girl?” They just want me to be happy, but I’m in no hurry. I’ve got a bar job in Newcastle. I’m doing okay.’

‘You mentioned her boyfriend. Was she going to break up with him?’

He hesitated. ‘She hadn’t made her mind up about that.’

‘But it was on her mind.’

‘She didn’t think long-distance relationships worked out.’

‘Did he know Alice was thinking about finishing with him?’

‘They discussed it – the future, I mean. I know he was very keen to keep on seeing her somehow. They had a big break-up last summer and he was gutted.’

‘Tell me about that.’

‘She was going out with Chris in the Lower Sixth and it got a bit intense, so he called it off. He said he wanted some time on his own over the holidays. She went along with it and started seeing someone else in the summer but kept it quiet to begin with.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it was his best mate. She knew him through Chris. They hung out together. Turned out Tony was the one who’d been encouraging Chris to let her go.’

‘Because he wanted her instead?’

‘Yeah,’ said Daniel. ‘Not cool.’

‘What happened when Chris found out?’

‘Big scene in the pub, which spilled out on to the car park.’

‘A fight?’

He didn’t make much of it. ‘Some pushing and shoving, a lot of shouting.’

‘With Alice in the middle?’

‘I didn’t see any of it. If I had, I would have banged their heads together.’

‘What was the upshot?’

‘Bad blood between the boys and a drama half the town was talking about for weeks.’ He added dryly, ‘Not much happens round here. We have to make our own entertainment.’

‘Did she carry on seeing Tony?’

‘For a while, but it burnt out over the summer.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘They all went back to sixth form. Alice patched it up with Chris and started seeing him again.’

‘That must have been hard for Tony. He fell out with his best friend over a girl who ditched him, so he lost them both.’

‘Almost everybody sided with Chris, so Tony dropped out.’

‘He left sixth form because of Alice?’

‘That’s what he told everyone.’

‘What’s he doing these days?’

‘Nothing,’ said Daniel.

Then he has plenty of time to brood, thought Beth, on what his love for Alice cost him.

‘Is Chris happy about the state of their relationship now, then?’

‘I don’t reckon Chris is ever happy about it. It’s not like he walks round with a smile on his face while he’s with her. I don’t think he’s good for her. Neither was Tony. She needs someone who doesn’t try to control her all the time.’

‘Could either of these controlling boyfriends have anything to do with her disappearance?’

He seemed conflicted. ‘I would have said no, but I don’t know why she’s disappeared, so I can’t rule anything out.’

‘Was she sexually active?’

Daniel looked momentarily thrown by the directness of Beth’s question then said, ‘Yes.’

‘With Chris?’

‘Well, he is the one she’s going out with.’

‘And she wasn’t seeing anyone else?’

‘No. She had a boyfriend, they were having sex – so what? But there was no one else.’

‘She’d have told you if she was?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But she wouldn’t have told your dad.’

‘God, no.’

‘How would you describe your father?’

He thought for a second then said, ‘Angry.’

‘Angry? Is that it?’ It seemed an accurate description.

‘Everything makes him flare up, but he’s losing control over me and my sister, and soon Alice will be off to uni …’ He stopped short of finishing his sentence, perhaps realizing how absurd it sounded, given she was missing. ‘I’ll leave, too, when I can.’ He seemed less sure of that.

‘Did Alice make him angry?’ asked Beth.

He nodded. ‘All the time. I don’t know how she stuck it.’

‘Examples?’

‘What she wore, where she went, how late she came back, the friends she knew, the boys she talked to.’ He sighed. ‘The way she spoke to him when she answered back, the way she looked at him when she didn’t.’

‘A hard man to please?’

‘He’s bad enough with me, but with Alice it’s as if …’

‘You can say it,’ urged Beth.

‘… as if he doesn’t even like her.’

Beth could tell it had cost Daniel something to say that. Perhaps he felt disloyal or it was the first time he’d ever admitted this, even to himself. She wondered how best to frame her next question. She tried to sound casual. ‘He ever really lose his temper with her?’

‘Hit her, you mean?’ Daniel shook his head. ‘Not since she was a little kid.’ And when Beth frowned at this he quickly added: ‘A smack if she was naughty, nothing since then.’ He straightened up. ‘But he’d never hurt her. Don’t go leaving here thinking he’s somehow responsible for this, because he isn’t.’

‘You sound very sure of that, Daniel.’

‘That’s because I am.’ His voice rose in protest.

Beth nodded to show she had taken the boy’s views fully into account. She changed the subject.

‘Would any of Alice’s friends know if something else was bothering her?’

‘Chloe and Kirstie are her closest mates.’ He supplied surnames and the names of the streets they lived on. Beth dutifully noted them down.

‘If you think of anything else that might give us any clue as to why she might suddenly take off –’

‘There’s her journal,’ he blurted.

‘She kept a journal?’ Beth immediately wondered why no one had mentioned this before.

‘I bought it for her,’ Daniel explained. ‘For her birthday. Alice has always been a writer. She wants to be an author one day. I reckon she could be, too. She’s got a real way with words.’

‘This could be important,’ said Beth. ‘If she was recording her thoughts prior to her disappearance.’

Daniel looked exasperated. ‘I told the first police officer this when he came round, but he wasn’t interested. He kept asking who she could have run off with.’

‘Where is this journal?’ Beth knew it could be vital. In the absence of the missing girl, this could be as near as they got to the inner workings of Alice Teale’s mind. It might explain what had been going through it immediately before she went missing.

‘They searched her room but didn’t find it. I looked, too, but it wasn’t there.’

‘Would she have it with her?’

‘It’s probably in her bag. She didn’t like to leave it lying around.’

‘Because it was private? What did it look like?’

‘It was about this big,’ he said, miming its dimensions with his hands. ‘A5, I think. It had a brown leather cover and they print your name all the way through it on the top of every page. “The Journal of Alice Teale”. She loved that.’

‘You ever read it?’ asked Beth.

‘It was private.’

‘Sometimes people can’t help themselves.’

‘I would never do that. Anyway, it has a lock on it and she has the key.’

‘If you do find this journal, then we obviously need to see it. It might shed some light on all of this.’

‘I get it,’ said the younger man impatiently, as if Beth thought he might be stupid.

‘I mean it,’ she insisted. ‘We have to find this journal, Daniel.’