Faye Paterson is found alive in Newcastle,
working behind a bar for her older boyfriend.
He called the police himself after the media storm.
I didn’t abduct her.
Didn’t know she was underage.
I promise. I promise. I promise.
No one expected it.
Everyone suspected her father
after his silence in the interviews –
his quiet tears.
He was a man with stubble
and a shirt buttoned up too tight
to be trusted.
They’d found blood
and were digging up her back garden.
Marla says,
She isn’t dead then?
That girl.
No, she was pulling pints.
She ran away.
Is that what happened to my Mary?
Is that where she is?
I don’t know to be honest.
Marla is silent for many minutes.
And you. Why did you run away?