‘See?’ The look of worry on Maggie’s face fell away. ‘I told you she’d be fine.’ She hugged her daughter as she teetered into Trevellin’s kitchen on ridiculously high heels. Maggie slipped her arm around her waist as if to show she approved of her behaviour. Rain was still wearing last night’s skimpy dress.

‘Was it a good party?’ Claire asked. She was frying bacon and glanced up.

Rain shrugged but didn’t say anything. She came up close to the range, her lips red, almost sore-looking – perhaps the remnants of last night’s lipstick.

‘Did you stay out all night?’ She couldn’t help asking, not ready to believe that Maggie would allow it.

‘That looks… greasy,’ Rain replied, peering into the pan. She went and poured a mug of coffee from the machine and sat silently at the table next to her mother, cupping her chin in her hands.

Claire turned, spatula in hand, trying not to appear wound up, even though she was. ‘But where were you all night, Rain?’ She knew Marcus would always come home, or phone if he was staying over with a friend. Besides, Callum had given them taxi money. And the thought of Amy staying out all night when she reached Rain’s age was abhorrent.

‘It’s fine, Claire…’ Maggie said, giving her a warning look.

She simply couldn’t understand why Maggie wasn’t concerned where her daughter had been or what she’d been up to. She’d already mocked her for checking with Jason that Marcus had made it back home OK. ‘If he’s not at home, then he’s somewhere,’ Maggie had said. What she failed to recognise was that in Claire’s world that ‘somewhere’ was exactly the same place Lenni had gone.

‘Just at a club,’ Rain said. ‘Had a few drinks, a dance.’ She felt the tears welling and dug her fingernails into her palms to stop them.

‘A club? But I thought you were going to a party. And you only just got back now?’ For Claire, there was missing time and she wanted it filled.

Rain just stared at the floor.

‘She spends a lot of time in London and knows how to look after herself,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s different these days.’ As soon as she’d said it, Claire noticed the regretful look on Maggie’s face.

‘I really don’t think it is,’ she replied quietly. She turned back to the bacon. ‘I don’t think it’s different at all.’

---

Callum called out that he wasn’t hungry when Greta knocked on his bedroom door to let him know there was breakfast up at the farmhouse, that she and Jason were going up. He hadn’t slept well, and last night’s wine was banging in his skull. He felt ghastly.

Then he remembered.

‘Greta,’ he called out again. ‘Would you take Amy up to the farm with you?’ He was lying on his back in the dark, his arm spread across the empty space where Claire usually was. Greta replied that she would.

There was a pause, then Callum heard his daughter being cajoled into getting dressed. He rolled onto his side and pulled a pillow over his pounding head.

How could he have been so bloody stupid?

The scent on the pillow got to him first. A young, spicy aroma – slightly sweet but still tangy and tempting. Yes, dammit, that was it. Tempting. She’d tempted him, and he’d had no choice in the matter, especially with all the alcohol. Any man would have done the same. Then he saw the bangles on his bedside table. She’d left them on top of a novel that he was halfway through reading. Fuck.

So where the hell was she now? He’d forbidden her to leave earlier, even though she’d wanted to. He knew she’d just go running off, telling lies – he’d got the measure of her – and he’d needed time to think, to talk to her, for her to calm down. His whole body ached, and his brain throbbed against the inside of his skull.

He threw back the duvet and sat up, feeling giddy and sick. He shuffled into the en-suite bathroom, feeling like an old man – his joints stiff and slow as he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He peed, then turned on the shower as hot as it would go, scalding his skin as he stepped under it. He washed feverishly and then came back into the bedroom wearing a towel around his waist, dripping all over the carpet. He flung back the curtains and opened the window to take away the stench.

He dried himself, dressed, then began to pull the duvet cover off the bed, knocking all the bangles onto the floor. He collected them up and put them in his back pocket. He would dispose of them later. But then he stopped. He would never normally change the bed. That was Claire’s job. There was a cup of half-finished coffee on his bedside table. He vaguely remembered bringing it upstairs when he came to bed last night. He’d been so drunk. He took the mug and sloshed the curdled remains over his side of the bedding and the mattress. Then he set to mopping it up, making sure a stain was left, before stripping the bed.

With the washing churning in the machine, Callum sat at the kitchen table. The house was quiet. His nail tracked the grain on the wood as he stared into nowhere, his forehead resting against his fist.

‘Dad, have you seen Rain?’ Callum glanced up. Marcus stood in the doorway, bleary-eyed and bare-chested– his skinny, white and virtually hairless body a contrast to his bright pyjama bottoms. ‘She went off in a strop last night.’

Callum shook his head and Marcus went back upstairs, leaving Callum cradling his head in his arms. He had absolutely no idea what to do.

---

Nick couldn’t resist phoning Trevor for an update, even though it was Sunday. He came down to join the others for breakfast feeling pleased that the renovations were going well. Trevor was polite but had clearly wanted to keep the call short on his day off.

‘Morning all,’ he said brightly. His meal last night had been a success and, despite Patrick’s accident, they’d all had a good evening reminiscing and chatting, digging up stories they’d long forgotten.

But he couldn’t fail to notice the worried expression on Claire’s face as she passed him a plate of food. ‘Thanks,’ he said, hoping to catch her eye. He wanted to gently take hold of her hand, sit her down, ask her what was wrong. But he wouldn’t do that with everyone present. ‘I thought of another one,’ he said instead, instantly regretting it. The cold light of day suddenly didn’t seem the right time to bring it up, but he wanted to catch Claire’s attention.

‘Another what?’ Maggie’s pained voice betrayed her hangover.

‘Oh dear, Mags,’ Nick said. ‘One too many?’

‘Don’t rub it in,’ she replied, popping a couple of pills.

‘Another story about Lenni?’ Claire asked, sitting down next to Nick with her food.

He paused, knowing he’d have to continue now. They’d been sharing happy memories about Lenni the night before and Claire hadn’t seemed to mind; in fact, it was as though she’d wanted to talk about her sister.

‘Yes, I remembered it in a dream last night, actually.’ He didn’t let on that it was Claire who’d featured in his dream, that it had simply reminded him of this other story on waking. ‘I’d been to pick Lenni up from school. Your parents asked me to help when you had chicken pox, Claire. I think we were about fourteen. Shona was busy looking after you.’

‘We were fifteen,’ Claire said. ‘I was stuck in bed for days. I thought I was going to die.’

‘Lenni was about nine, maybe ten. I was waiting outside the school and all the kids started coming out to their mothers, but there was no Lenni. When the playground was deserted, I went inside. I found her in the cloakroom sitting on a great big central heating pipe and kicking at the floor with bare feet. She just stared up at me with those big eyes of hers.’ Nick drank some coffee. Everyone was riveted, as if he was about to reveal what happened the day she went missing.

‘Turns out some mean kids had stolen her shoes,’ he said, opting for the short version. ‘She didn’t want to tell on them, so I gave her a piggyback all the way home.’ Nick felt the sweat break out on his forehead. The memory burned inside his mind. ‘Lenni kept saying “Mummy told me never to go off with anyone except her or Daddy or Claire or Jason.” But despite her protests, she was very willing to go off with me.’ Nick remembered how she’d bumped along on his back, her breath hot in his ear as she clung around his neck. ‘“It’s OK because you know me, Len,” I told her on the way back. “It’s not as if I’m kidnapping you.”’

Everyone stared at him, but no one spoke. He wiped the sweat from his top lip and carried on eating. From now on, he would have to be more careful with what he said.