LITMIR.BIZ

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to answer, I thought about calling uniform out. Being a bit forceful with Mr James. Pressing him. Checking Ciara did come home later. But then I shook my head.

      ‘Have a word with yourself, Phoebe,’ I said out loud. He was a boring bloke wearing slippers and corduroy trousers, who went to bed early on a Saturday night so he wasn’t tired at church. Uniform would probably laugh at me if I asked them to come round.

      And so when my call was answered, I asked to speak to Stacey. ‘She’s not missing,’ I said when she answered. ‘She’s at the cinema.’

      ‘Okaaaay.’

      ‘The mum got confused, apparently.’

      ‘Fine,’ Stacey said. ‘Good.’

      ‘Can you flag the name?’ I asked. ‘And ring me if anything else comes in.’

      ‘I thought she was at the cinema.’

      ‘Just in case.’

      ‘All right,’ said Stacey amiably. ‘See you Monday.’

      It was Monday morning when I got the call to say that Ciara James was gone. I felt my stomach plummet into my shoes, leaving me with a sick feeling that stayed with me for days and days as we searched fruitlessly for the missing teenager.

      ‘There’s definitely nothing on the parents?’ my boss, DI Blair, said on the Friday evening, fixing me with his steely glare across the room.

      I shook my head. ‘I’ve been over it and over it,’ I said. ‘They’re just … normal.’

      I twisted my hair into a ponytail in my hand and pulled it over my shoulder, the way I always did when I was thinking. ‘But it was all just misunderstandings. The mother – Molly – she can’t even remember phoning us last weekend. She’s in a state. Blaming herself. And the father – Steve – he’s the same. They were up early for church and it wasn’t until the evening that they realised Ciara was gone.’

      DI Blair nodded.

      ‘I should have searched her bedroom,’ I said. ‘I should have pushed the mother more.’

      ‘You had no cause to search the house, and the mother sounds like she didn’t know whether she was coming or going,’ DI Blair pointed out.

      I said nothing. I knew he was right, but I felt completely awful.

      ‘Do you think it’s the parents?’ DI Blair asked, looking at me intently. ‘What’s your instinct telling you?’

      I shifted in my chair, feeling uncomfortable under his glare.

      ‘I just don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘My heart said they were to blame, but my head says no. They’re so …’

      ‘So?’

      ‘Nice.’

      He sighed. ‘You know as well as I do that bad things happen in nice families, too.’

      I bit my lip. He was right. Of course he was.

      ‘We should speak to them again,’ I said, firmly.

      ‘Sure?’

      I shrugged. I really was at a loss. I’d spoken to everyone in Ciara’s life. She was a happy sixteen-year-old girl growing up in the suburbs of south London. Her teachers had no concerns. Her parents were normal. Her friends were sweet. There was nothing suspicious about the family whatsoever. Her mother didn’t sleep well but apart from that she was ordinary and her father – well, stepfather actually though he’d brought her up since she’d been tiny – was an all-round nice chap. But her parents being to blame was the only thing that made sense. Wasn’t it? I had no idea any more.

      ‘Focus,’ DI Blair said. ‘And let me know when you’re ready to decide on a next step. I might even come with you.’

      He marched off towards his office and I sighed. He’d never been this bolshie or unpleasant to work with before, but I understood the strain he was under. Ciara’s picture had been on the front of every newspaper today. She smiled out at me on every news website, her drab school uniform unable to dull her youthful prettiness.

      The rest of the team were looking at me, waiting for a decision, so I forced myself to focus.

      ‘Right,’ I said to two uniformed PCs who were helping with the door-to-door inquiries. ‘Benny and Joe, can you go through the information from the neighbours and friends?’ They nodded and I turned to another colleague. ‘Stacey, you double-check the reports from her school, and I’ll reread the parents’ statements. We must be missing something.’

      There was a bustle of activity. Stacey – DC Maxwell – squeezed my arm as she walked past me to her desk, letting me know she had my back. I gave her a grateful smile. Eventually everyone settled down and silence fell as we all read through every bit of information we had about the girl’s disappearance.

      Ciara’s mother, Molly, was a nursery school teacher, and the stepdad, Steve, had his own business doing accounts. He rented a desk in an office near the station and everyone there said he was always pleasant. As I already knew, they were both fairly religious – regular churchgoers. Upright. Moral, even. Steve, I’d heard, had turned down the contract to do the accounts for a local betting shop because he didn’t approve of gambling. Molly was sweet-natured and kind. No criminal records. Not so much as a speeding ticket. Nothing.

      Ciara had been messaging a boy online – someone from a nearby school – and we’d originally thought she might have gone to meet him. But he’d been playing football the evening she disappeared, and he admitted – slightly sheepishly – that he’d never met her.

      I put aside the statements from Ciara’s parents. This was getting me nowhere.

      ‘Phoebe, I spoke to the dad’s mates at his golf club,’ Benny said, appearing at the side of my desk. ‘I just uploaded the statements.’

      ‘Anything worthwhile?’

      He shrugged. ‘Just what a nice bloke he is.’

      ‘I’ll have a look,’ I said half-heartedly.

      I scanned the statements. This was so hard. There was just nothing to go on at all. Gut instinct went a long way in police investigations, even though lots of my fellow officers would deny it and claim it was all legwork and asking the right questions. But just now, my gut instinct was switched right off. I had unfounded doubts about the dad and that was it. All I could see was that Ciara was a nice, normal sixteen-year-old. In fact, I thought, she was even nicer than her parents made her sound – but that wasn’t unusual. I had friends who claimed their babies were absolute nightmares while smothering them with kisses. Maybe parents of teens did the same?

      I sighed, looking at the statement from Steve’s friend. ‘Steve’s one of the nicest blokes I know,’ he’d said. ‘We all thought he was really good to take on Ciara as his own.’ Yawn. I rested my head on my hand, and scrolled on. ‘Considering,’ the friend had added. I sat up straighter. ‘Considering,’ I murmured to myself. What did that mean?

      I pulled my phone to me and dialled the number on the bottom of the statement. The friend answered straightaway.

      ‘Sorry to bother you,’ I said. ‘This is DS Bellingham from Lewisham police station. I just wanted to double-check something in your statement.’

      ‘Right,’ the man said, sounding nervous.

      ‘When you said Steve was good to take Ciara on as his own child, considering … What did you mean? Considering what?’

      The man laughed. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘You probably know more than me. But she sounds like a right handful. Always in trouble. Last I heard, she was messaging some lad. Steve was worried about it. Sounded like she was sending him all sorts, if you know what I mean?’

      I had no idea. We’d found Ciara’s phone in her very tidy room – another odd thing about her disappearance. What teenager went anywhere without

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