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Why wait to check? Doesn’t every second count? What if I’m already too late?
They’re not going to know. When did they last speak to Jenna outside of mealtimes? When have they ever shown any interest in my daughter?
I see my father’s face, eyes not quite as clear as they once were, watching me. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Frances.
The heat suddenly overwhelms me. White spots dance before my eyes, and I pull over on the hard shoulder and step out of the car and gasp at a rush of air as something huge and fast and enormously loud comes towards me. I flatten against my car as an SUV dragging a trailer flies past, throwing up a biting storm of dust.
Blood beats in my ears as it retreats, honking, a middle finger raised out of the window. Over the gate, seagulls rise in a swirling cloud.
This is all too much. I have to keep a clear head. I need to… What did Tristan say? Get under the situation.
The sun is golden on the fields and poppies dance in the long grass. Hanging far off in the sky is the dot of a red hot-air balloon. I watch as it grows, the flame bursting to life then disappearing.
I look at my reflection in the car window and force myself to smile.
There. That’s the real me.
What you think, you become.
I get back in the car. Everybody keeps saying the police will expect me to have spoken to everyone before contacting them, so that’s what I’m going to do.
24
NOW
I haul open our gate, careful not to lose a sandal down the cattle grid. Father likes everyone home by six forty-five on Fridays so as not to be late for dinner, so if he gets back around then, he closes the gate for the day.
The long driveway up to the farm slopes gently uphill, through an immaculately kept tunnel of yew trees. In their shade, the sweat clinging to my neck becomes ice.
The wide black roof with its many chimneys and cockerel wind-vane appear at the brow of the hill. White light bounces off the windows. Our extension clings to the back like an overgrown limpet.
I remember, when I was little, feeling slightly overwhelmed whenever we came home. It was fine in my room or Tristan’s, running up and down the main stairs, but when I saw the house like this, stretched out and looming, it felt like a vast and unknown kingdom; shut-off rooms full of dust and shadows; places to get lost, trespass, die and never be found.
It doesn’t look so daunting now. Just a large farmhouse like all the others dotted about the Cornish countryside. What was I so scared of? I wipe at the freezing shawl of sweat.
It’s a waste of time, but my father hates it when we leave our cars in the drive so I park in the old grain store. Mina’s silver Audi sits beside the twins’ Range Rovers, and Father’s burgundy Bentley is still warm. Only Tristan’s car is missing.
As I trudge back to the house, I see Ash and Ava sitting on the new wicker sofas out on the terrace, engrossed in their phones.
Ava lied to me. They both did.
‘Ava, Ash,’ I say, coming to a halt in front of them.
They glance up then go back to their phones – the latest iPhones. They both have the latest of everything, and I feel a pang of jealousy on Jenna’s behalf; she never has the latest of anything.
Not that anyone has a God-given right to an iPhone, but it’s all family money. Tristan did have a fancy job at a bank, but he gave that up to concentrate on politics. Mina doesn’t work, and Tristan only started earning again when he became the North Cornwall MP. Until then I had earned more than the pair of them working at the gallery.
But my brother and his family must present themselves in a certain way to be taken seriously by certain people in politics, so our parents give him a generous allowance. Which I support. Because he’s talented and wants to make a difference and what have I ever done to make the world a better place?
Ash’s mouth is curled in a secretive smile. Ava scrolls with the flick of a perfectly manicured finger – pink glitter.
I want to shake them, ask why they didn’t tell me about the argument, why they omitted the fact that the last time they saw Jenna, she was walking away from school. But I don’t want them on the defensive.
‘Hi, guys,’ I say, and Ava looks up. For the first time I wonder if her sweet smile is an act. And then I realise I should’ve just called Ava from school and asked to speak to my father. ‘Did you ask Granddad if he’s heard from Jenna?’
Ava shakes her head. ‘Sorry. I didn’t think.’
Of course not. Because he’d never know where my baby was. ‘Do you know what Jenna and Rose were arguing about at lunch?’ I ask.
