I take the phone from her and type in a message:
Sweetheart, it’s Dad. I’ve lost all the contacts on my phone. Can you send me your number on here? This is Daisy’s account, who I live with. Thanks, love. Would be great to have your brother’s phone number too. And your mum. Love you, Dad.
I press send and then go back to Blaise’s account. Her last post is a series of ten photos, each taken in a different part of London, and there’s me and her in the final shot, our arms around each other, smiling up into the phone camera in our booth at the Standard. I look so happy, so relaxed. I turn it to show Daisy. “Look,” I say, “that’s us the night we got together.”
Daisy stares at the image thoughtfully. “She’s really pretty. You look really happy.”
“Yup. Right on both counts.”
“I’m really sorry,” she says, taking her phone back from me. “About what happened. I feel like it was my fault, for telling you to go.”
“No,” I say. “No, it was not your fault. It was the right thing to do. I’m glad I went. And the only person to blame for what happened to me is your mum. OK?”
Daisy nods, fiddling with her fingernails in her lap. Then suddenly she looks up at me and says, “Promise me you won’t leave us, Stuart. Please. I know it’s a nightmare here. I know Mum is fucking mad and Grandma is a total bitch. I know how shit it all is, but please, please don’t leave. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I look Daisy directly in the eye and I smile. “I will stay here until you’re eighteen, OK? I’ll stay here until you’re ready to fly.”
Five and a half years, I think to myself. In five and a half years, I’ll only be forty-six. I’ll still have gas in the tank. I’ll still have money in the bank, a twinkle in my eye. I could start again. Maybe even somewhere new. Amsterdam? Edinburgh? Maybe even settle in Australia to be closer to Blaise?If there’s one thing my years in this tainted house have taught me, it’s the beauty of everything, of every single thing. Having your wings clipped makes you see the world differently, shows you the extraordinariness of normal lives.
Daisy nods. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you.”
chapter fifty-seven
Jane smiles at Helen Yaxley, who is halfway through hosing down her dogs outside her house.
“Jane,” Helen says, pointing the hose toward the gravel and then turning it off at the wall. “Lovely to see you. How are you?”
“Oh, fab. Yes. All good. Just, you know, still pottering around trying to find your ex-guest Rose White. Who it turns out is actually called Daisy Black.”
“Gosh, is she really? Sounds like you’ve been doing sterling work.”
“Funnily enough, turns out she might have been down here to meet her uncle. He works as a—ha! Quite funny actually—but he works as a clown at the circus. I mean, someone has to be a clown, I suppose, and anyway, not only has Daisy disappeared but so has her clown uncle. And God, I could go on, Helen. I really could. But for now, Reggie and I”—she indicates the German pointer in the passenger seat of her car—“we’re heading over to the grounds where the circus was on the bank holiday and we’re going to have a sniff around. See what we can find. And I wondered—and I know this sounds weird—but could I possibly grab something of Daisy’s from her suitcase? Something she’d worn? Assuming you still have her things?”
“Oh,” says Helen. “Right. I mean, yes, I do still have her suitcase. It’s in the garage. And your dog, he’s trained, is he?”
“Well, yes and no. As in, I have not trained him, but someone must have as he is very good at it. At sniffing.”
Helen wipes her hands down on the sides of her jeans and hands the dogs’ leads to Jane. “Give me a minute. I’ll be right back.”
The wet dogs collapse at Jane’s feet, panting. She’s not sure what they are, some kind of poodle mixes, a black one and a brown one. Helen returns a moment later with the scruffy suitcase and passes it to Jane. “Knock yourself out.”
“You’re a star,” says Jane. “Thank you.”
She unzips the case and is confronted once again by the sad array of clothes. She holds leggings, T-shirts, bras to her nose, and she sniffs, looking for that scent of skin and flesh. Then she sees minuscule white flecks of dry deodorant on the edge of a bra cup. That’s the one, she thinks, and she waves it at Helen. “Got it!” she says, and Helen gives her one of her looks, a look that says: “I always thought you were a little mad, and now you’ve just proved it.”
“You may as well keep the suitcase, Jane, to be honest. I really don’t think the police are coming back for it and clearly you have more use for it than me.”
“Good idea,” says Jane. “Great.”
She zips it back up and lobs it into the boot of her car. Helen waves her off a moment later, looking slightly dazed.
The field is bare. It’s hard to imagine that just over two weeks ago this small corner of the Dorset countryside had been packed with cars and people and animals and caravans and there was a huge tent here, right in the middle of it all. Now it looks a little tired, the grass not as lush as the grass elsewhere, but apart from that, you’d never know a circus had been here.
She pulls into the empty car park and opens the door for Reggie, hislead in one hand, Daisy’s bra in the other. “Here,” she says to Reggie, running the straps of the bra across his snout. “Find it! Find it!”
The dog understands the assignment and immediately dashes across the field, his nose close to the ground, running up and down in stripes across the tired grass. His snout goes in and out of the undergrowth, the hedgerow, and soon he is changing direction, taking Jane across the field and into a tarmacked area that Jane had not known existed. Here, it is immediately clear, is where the circus performers kept their trailers and caravans while they were in the village. There are large rubbish bins at one end, a row of toilets at the other.
Reggie makes a beeline for the bins and starts sniffing crazily at the bases. Then he runs behind them and starts scrabbling in the grassy verge just behind, which is a run of three wooden benches. Jane approaches the dog. He’s got something in his mouth. She gets closer and gently removes it. It’s a paper cup with a logo on it that Jane recognizes from the coffee shop in the village.
