Heading back to the living room, Gina closed her curtains and sat on the floor in front of her computer as she finished eating a small wedge of cheese. It had been a long day. Ebony, her little black cat, meowed for attention. ‘Not now. Some of us have work to do.’ She pushed the cat from her lap and continued looking over the case notes and photos. The young girl’s sunken closed eyes stared back at her, taking her back to a moment she’d rather forget. Hannah’s fourteenth birthday which had been a chilly October evening. She ran her fingers through her matted hair as she ruminated over her argument with Hannah.

Back then, Hannah had said she was only going to the cinema with friends. When she hadn’t returned by ten in the evening and wouldn’t answer her phone, Gina had been pacing the floor, calling all her friends’ parents to no avail. She’d spent the next two hours searching the streets in Birmingham City Centre, around by the Electric Cinema and along Station Street. She’d frantically run back and forth, taking in the faces of all who passed by. People shouted noisily as they headed towards clubs and fell out of pubs. Little pockets of homeless people gathered in doorways, begging for spare change. Gina pulled her attention back to the computer screen and zoomed in on a photo of the girl’s face. Her eyes were drawn to her teeth. Yellow and furred, like they hadn’t been brushed in a long time. A few strands of straggly hair stuck to her cheek. She flinched. Some mother out there had a daughter who sadly wasn’t coming home.

Hannah had eventually came home that night. Her teenage girl had looked childlike as she tried to creep through the door, smelling of cider.

‘I’ve pounded the streets tonight, looking for you. Do you know how scared and worried I was?’

Hannah giggled as she tripped up the first step, trying to escape to her room. ‘Mum, just chill out. I’ve been enjoying myself with friends. It’s my birthday,’ she slurred.

‘It may be your birthday but what you put me through, I’ve been beside myself all night. Anything could’ve happened—’

‘But it didn’t. I’m all good. I bet Dad wouldn’t have moaned so much if he were here—’

‘How dare you!’ Everything Gina had been through and protected Hannah from had now been thrown in her face, and not for the first time. Gina had been doing her best to make sure that her daughter didn’t end up with a man like her dad.

‘Whatever, I bet he would’ve been a cool dad. He might have even had a birthday drink with me, not like you.’

‘Ouch,’ Gina whispered. She was certain that Terry would have had a birthday drink with his child daughter; that was the problem. ‘Time for bed.’ Gina kept close behind her, slowly steering her up the stairs until they finally reached the landing. ‘Come on. We’ll talk about this in the morning.’

‘I want to talk about it now,’ Hannah said as she held onto the handrail at the top of the stairs, swaying. As she lost her footing, images of Terry’s body falling backwards from the top step flashed through Gina’s mind. Her heart began to pound as she gasped for air and gripped her daughter’s arm. There were things that Hannah would never know.

‘I won’t let you go,’ she yelled as she gripped the girl. ‘I would never let you go.’

As Hannah found her footing, Gina realised she was still gripping her arm. ‘Fuck off, that hurts. Let me go.’

‘What did you say to me?’

Hannah hiccupped and the colour drained from her face. Gina pushed her daughter towards the bathroom and listened as she retched. ‘Happy birthday,’ she whispered as the bathroom door slammed with a force that almost shook the top floor.

The computer screen had gone black but the picture of the girl in the hospital was still etched in her mind. Gina shifted the mouse, bringing the image back up. The girl was a little older than Hannah had been but not by much. Had she left home to be with friends and not returned that night? Maybe her mother had been pacing the floor, then the streets, looking for her missing daughter. Maybe she’d run away from something or she may have met someone she knew, someone she trusted. What had happened after?

She checked her phone. There was a message from Wyre.

Gina finished the last of the cheese as she powered her laptop down. At last they had a lead.