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Again, I think over the party with our parents, searching for something, anything, that could have ended up with Princess sobbing in the orchard, pushing me, hating me.
Maybe they had just been pretending before. They were being nice because they felt sorry for me, and then they ran out of patience.
I spot the bright dot of a satellite speeding across the navy sky. I cover it with my palm and wait for it to come out the other side.
In the distance: the dull roar of a combine harvester and sheep baaing.
No one is coming.
My mum is busy. My dad never knows where I am anyway. He doesn’t really care about us. He’s only here because of some twisted sense of duty.
Maybe Mum only stays with Dad because of me. She loves him, but he’s not good for her. He makes her sad. Maybe if I weren’t here, she’d finally leave.
Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if I weren’t here?
What, exactly, is the point of me?
48
NOW
‘Oh, Frankie.’ Tristan comes into our sitting room, where I’m pacing. He has to stoop under a beam and I’m reminded of how much smaller the rooms in the extension are.
Tristan puts his arms around me. It’s nice that he’s checking on me. I try to soften.
‘How are you doing?’ he asks.
I shake my head, feeling dizzy. I don’t know where my daughter is. She took a tape I was meant to destroy when I was a child and now she’s gone. And she’s being bullied. And my husband says he’s ‘passing Swindon’, but is he really?
I start crying again and I hide my face behind my fists. We sit on the sofa.
‘I’m so sorry, Frankie. I’m so, so sorry.’ He rubs my back and sniffs but I don’t know if it’s real.
I pull away from him and ball up.
His children lied to the police for him, and he gathered them in his arms and thanked them. Did he really come home tonight to support me, or to manage a situation that might hurt him? Did he refuse to speak to the police because he has something to hide?
Why am I pretending my brother is in this room because he’s being nice?
He sighs. ‘Look, I’m sorry about Ash and Ava. I don’t know why they didn’t tell you about Jenna leaving school in such serious circumstances. I suppose because they’re teenagers. But when this is all over, I can assure you, there will be words.’
Words?
He goes on. ‘I just – I’m so sorry, Frances. I don’t want to have to ask this, but I have to. If the police search this place properly, is there any way they might find something that shouldn’t be here?’
He came home early because he knows that anything to do with Georgia could – could what? Embarrass him, or… put him in prison?
What is on that tape? Why did I keep it, only to never watch it?
Because that’s what I do. I hide things.
I realise that while it’s true that I threw out the photo of Dan the second I got it, it’s also true I haven’t emptied that bin in months. I could’ve given it to Bevan. Have I hidden evidence in my own daughter’s investigation?
‘Frankie?’
I shake my head. But as I do, something occurs to me. What if Tristan already knew about the tape? What if that’s why Jenna is gone? She got it back from Rose and went to her uncle with it instead of me because she’s his pet.
But he only just found out that it still exists, didn’t he? That’s why he’s asking me. He can’t be sure that’s what Jenna had, can he? Because he thought I destroyed it thirty years ago.
