Nancy sits in the back of the police car and watches as the familiar houses and shops whizz by in a washed-out blur. She sees them every day, but this afternoon they look strange to her. She registers the shapes and colours through the myriad raindrops that stream relentlessly onto the window and it feels like she has never seen them before.

This is the day that the world has turned upside down and inside out.

As soon as Nancy had alerted the powers that be, the hospital management contacted the police, and they had asked her to accompany them. All in the space of a couple of hours. It was an unusual step for them to take, DI Manvers had explained, but this was an extraordinary situation and it would help, they felt, Nancy being there.

The car slows to turn the corner and the memories rush back into Nancy’s mind. She squeezes her eyes closed against them, for all the good it does.

‘You OK, love?’ DI Manvers glances at the uniformed officer driving the car and turns in his seat to look at her. ‘We’re almost there. We can pull over if you want to take a minute?’

‘No,’ she whispers, her voice catching in her throat. ‘This is not about me.’

But even as she utters the words, Nancy knows it is very much about her. What she knows is about to make someone’s agony even more unbearable.

If that were even possible.

---

The police car travels over the big roundabout, swinging onto Cinderhill Road and finally turning into Muriel Crescent. A delivery man hesitates in getting back into his van, watching the police vehicle approach.

Nancy closes her eyes and feels the car slow to a stop. DI Manvers opens the door and she opens her eyes and climbs out of the car. The air outside is damp and hangs heavy, almost sticky, around her face. She feels a sudden rush of nausea and steadies herself by holding on to the car door.

‘Nancy, are you OK?’ DI Manvers asks again.

She nods.

But she is not OK, not really.

Nancy bends forward, trying to catch her breath. She sees the cracked, damp pavement and suddenly she is back there, back to that awful day when Evie stood sobbing in the street, covered in wasp stings.

Nancy had given just a few minutes of advice that day. After that, she’d seen the Cotters on the odd occasion when she’d either been on her way out or coming back home from work. It had only happened now and again. She’d wave hello and they’d wave back. It had never been anything more than that.

Six months after the wasp sting day, Nancy had started her new job at the QMC, and moved from Muriel Crescent to take a rented apartment on the outskirts of the city. She hadn’t known the Cotters well enough to say goodbye and, she readily admitted, she had never given them another thought.

Until she’d seen those horrific newspaper headlines.

That had made her sit up and take notice alright. Nancy had thought, at the time, how eager the press had been to criticise Mrs Cotter right from the off.

Now nobody knows if Evie is even alive anymore.

Nancy takes a few more breaths in, the cold air sticking to her nostrils. She is painfully aware they are watching her. Waiting for her.

Of course, Nancy had sent a card at the time and followed it up with a couple of short letters to Toni Cotter, saying she was a good listener and if there was anything she could do and so on . . .

She’d heard nothing back, hadn’t really expected to.

DI Manvers waits until Nancy stands up straighter and gets her bearings again. ‘Sure you’re OK with doing this?’

She nods and he turns, walking towards the house. Nancy follows, strands of pure dread writhing in her stomach like a nest of vipers.

The door is the only one on the street that has been obviously repainted; cheap white gloss on top of the original pale blue PVC. The faint shadow of spray-painted words are still evident; daubed accusations that have not been thoroughly masked by the repaint.

DI Manvers raps on the door and they wait for what seems to Nancy like forever.

The sound of someone unlocking the door on the other side forces Nancy’s fingernails into the soft flesh of her palms. Her breathing grows even more erratic and her heartbeat thunders against her breastbone.

The door opens and, with the help of a stick, an old lady stands there. Nancy doesn’t recall her face but she thinks it may well be Evie’s grandma. If she remembers correctly, she had been there, a far sprightlier woman then, on the day of the stinging incident.

‘Oh!’ The lady’s hand flies to her throat when she takes in the uniformed officer and DI Manver’s ID. She staggers and leans awkwardly against the doorframe.

‘Come on, PC Holt,’ the DI hisses at the younger officer. ‘Quicker on your feet now.’

PC Holt coughs and steps quickly inside, allowing the old lady to lean heavily on her and move back a step.

Nancy remains standing outside the front door. DI Manvers is speaking to the elderly lady in low tones, but she cannot decipher anything that is being said because her head is full of white noise.

After a few moments, the group at the door begin to move inside the house. PC Holt helps the old lady through and DI Manvers silently beckons Nancy inside, closing the door quietly behind her.

The group shuffles into the sitting room, where the husk of another woman sits, slumped in the corner of the couch.

Her brown hair is shot through with grey and her lips and skin look parched, as if something has sucked the very lifeblood out of her. For a moment, Nancy doubts she has ever seen her before and then she sees a glimmer of who this person used to be when hope stirs in her face at the sight of DI Manvers.

The small room is gloomy, the blinds pulled low and curtains pulled to, shutting out as much natural light as possible without plunging the room into full darkness. Piles of neatly folded newspapers line the floor against two of the free walls and Nancy catches sight of Evie’s photograph and dramatic headlines on numerous editions.

DI Manvers introduces everyone.

‘I’m Anita,’ the old lady murmurs. ‘And you know my daughter, of course.’

‘We’re here because we think we have some news, Mrs Cotter,’ he says softly. ‘About Evie.’

‘Have you found her?’ the woman croaks, sitting up with difficulty. A luminous quality temporarily lights up the dullness of her eyes and she fixes them on Nancy. ‘Is Evie coming home?’

‘Do you know where she is?’ Anita asks. ‘Is Evie alive?’

‘I’m afraid, as yet, we can’t say if that’s the case.’ DI Manvers looks at his feet.

‘Then do you think Evie is . . .’

‘At this point, we don’t know.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘We’re unable to verify the facts at the present time for reasons we’ll explain later,’ DI Manvers continues. ‘But it has been brought to our attention that there is a stroke victim, a female patient, in Queen’s Medical Centre—’

‘What’s that got to do with Evie?’ the younger woman cries out, jabbing a finger at him. ‘Just spit it out. Please.’

‘The person I am referring to has in her possession a photograph of Evie with a digital date stamp from after she went missing. In the picture, Evie looks a little older and her hair has been dyed brown,’ DI Manvers explains.

‘I – I don’t understand.’

‘Mrs Cotter, we think this woman could be the person who abducted your daughter three years ago.’