didn’t know if there was any difference for someone like him.
Her heart shrank almost to nothingness at the thought of her mother finding out she wasn’t new any more. What would become of the special occasion then?
Standing in the headmistress’ office, Beth’s wounded gaze burning a hole in her, Pen had wanted to shout, Don’t you dare hate me! I did this for you!
But she couldn’t. She’d just had to stand there and watch Beth turn away from her, her eyes full of betrayal. And now Beth did hate her, Pen knew she did, just when she needed her most.
She didn’t want to need B. A tiny, spiteful, furious part of her heart hated her right back.
The breeze from the window tickled her neck. She went to shut it, and then stopped. The balding man was sitting in a battered car a few yards up the street. She stared out at him, but he made no move towards the ignition. He didn’t look threatening. His shoulders were slumped, and he looked utterly defeated.
She bit her lip. ‘Mum,’ she called down in English, ‘I’m going to sleep for a bit. Could you ask Dad not to disturb me when he comes in?’
Her mum’s assent floated back up the stairs. Parva shrugged off her dressing gown and pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt. She lifted her hijab from the faceless mannequin head by her mirror and wrapped it securely around her head.
What are you doing? a voice in her head asked. He’s a stranger, a strange man. It’s not safe.
Thoughts like that dogged her now, but she couldn’t succumb to them. Beth wouldn’t. Of course, Beth wouldn’t have caved in to Salt. Pen despised that thought, but it was there, clinging to her mind like a leech: if only she could have been a little more like Beth, she would have been safe.
Pen arranged the pillows and the duvet, enough to fool a casual inspection, and switched off the light.
After days of staring at her bedroom ceiling Pen found the day painfully bright, the sky strikingly blue. Her heart felt like a hummingbird caged behind her ribs. There weren’t many people around, but still she flinched from those who passed, walking too close. She tried to calm herself, and screwed up her courage, until at last she felt able to walk over and knock on the car window.
The man jumped and stared out at her and she immediately felt less afraid: there was no threat in his face. He had sagging cheeks. It looked like sleeplessness had sucked the weight off him.
The window whirred down. ‘Parva,’ he started uncertainly, and then, ‘Pen?’
Pen started at the name. She cocked her head sideways. ‘Who are you, mister?’ she asked, although now she was sure she knew — he was only the second person to ever call her that.
‘My name’s Paul Bradley. I heard you were sick — thank you. Thank you for talking to me.’ He sounded pathetically grateful. And then he asked, ‘Have you seen my daughter?’
No; I haven’t seen her, I’ll probably never see her again — I don’t care if I don’t. I don’t care if she drank her own spray-paints, threw up a mural and died, Pen thought, but what she said was, ‘What’s happened to Beth?’
Mr Bradley’s forced smile fell away. ‘I was hoping you knew,’ he said. ‘Could we talk?’
‘I can’t go far,’ Pen said. ‘I told my parents I’m sick.’
‘Aren’t you?’ he sounded puzzled.
Pen considered it. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but not in any way they can know about.’
He pushed a button and the bolt on the passenger side of the car popped up. ‘We can talk in here if you like, since it’s cold out.’
Pen stopped dead, feeling herself freeze up. At the thought of getting into this man’s car even her hair felt cold. She eyed the button he’d pushed, the locks on the doors and gave a tight shake of her head.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘where then?’
Pen pointed at a cafe across the street and crossed over before he had a chance to get out of the car.
Some indie band was playing over the cafe stereo. The espresso machine provided a whirring accompaniment.
‘ Hey girl,’ the singer whined, ‘ you got me in a whirl- ’
And this’ll be a hit, Pen thought, even though it’s sh ‘Shouldn’t you be talking to the cops?’ she asked as Beth’s dad sat down, interrupting her musings.
He sipped his coffee. He’d asked if she wanted one, but after her tight-lipped head shake, he didn’t offer her anything else. ‘I did,’ he began. ‘They weren’t much help. Apparently she’s been in trouble with them before.’
How did you not know that? Pen wondered. ‘Look, Mr Bradley,’ she said, trying to sound reassuring, ‘I’m sure Beth’s fine. She can look after herself. In a few days she’ll-’ She tailed off at the expression on his face.
He dropped the sheaf of papers onto the Formica table. ‘That’s exactly what the police said to me,’ he said, his voice shaking a little. ‘So I looked online…’
Pen picked up the papers and leafed through them. There were perhaps twenty printouts of newspaper reports, each a picture of a distraught parent with pleading eyes. She flicked through them, reading names from under the headlines: Jessica Saarland, Ian Tompson, Michael Williams, Rowena Moors. Each one was an appeal for news of a missing child.
‘And that’s only the ones who were young enough or pretty enough or who disappeared on slow enough news days to get the papers interested,’ he said in a defeated voice. ‘I was a journalist. I know how this works.’
Pen felt her stomach clench. The missing person’s report on Beth would be sitting at the bottom of a police filing cabinet, squashed in between Allah alone knew how many others: lost lives and forgotten futures, forty to a drawer.
‘I’m sorry. We had a fight — a bad one,’ she confessed. ‘We both said some pretty nasty things. I haven’t seen her for days.’
Mr Bradley slumped a little more. It was a long time before he spoke. ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble. Do you — I don’t know, do you want me to try to create some sort of diversion so you can sneak back up to your room?’
Pen cocked her head and looked at him. ‘Wow, Mr Bradley,’ she said. ‘Beth never mentioned you were a Ninja.’
He blushed as Pen continued, ‘It’s okay. Besides, my mum’s pretty fierce. If she sees you again, after you suggested you come into my room — ’ She whistled and slit her throat with her finger.
‘She didn’t seem that bad.’
‘Don’t let the Karachi Kitten act fool you. She’d shove you slowly through a cheese-grater if she thought you were messing with her little girl. Let me handle her.’
He laughed at that, and a brief guilty look flitted across his face, as though it was wrong to be laughing at a time like this. ‘When Beth gets back,’ he said, ‘I hope you make it up. I’m glad she has a friend like you.’
Something stretched queasily in Pen’s stomach. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
They walked together back across the road, dodging the brightly dressed women carrying bags of vegetables from the market in Dalston.
‘Are you sure you don’t want a diversion?’ he asked her as they neared her house. ‘I could, I don’t know, sing?’
‘No offence, Mr Bradley, but Beth told me about your singing. She says your rubber duck’s about the right audience for it.’
‘Oh, well- Okay.’ He turned back to his car.
‘Mr B, wait!’ She saw him stiffen, snared by the urgency in her voice. She was staring at her front door — or rather, the door frame. Tiny trains had been drawn around its edge, a trail that led away along the bottom of the wall like black breadcrumbs.
They followed it around the corner into a drab alleyway and peered closed at what had been painted onto the bricks.
‘What’s that supposed to-?’ he started. ‘ Fractured harmony? I don’t-’
‘I do,’ Pen said. She creased her stiff, sore hands into fists and then released them slowly. ‘I know what it means, Mr Bradley. I’ve been there.’ She paused, and then found herself saying, ‘I’ll show you.’
‘Who’s that?’ He pointed at the sketch of a skinny boy using a spear to pick his fingernails with a nonchalant air.
Pen shook her head. ‘Never seen anyone who looked anything like that,’ she admitted. ‘Tell you what though, if Beth’s looking, she’ll find him.’
She dipped into her pocket, lifted out her phone and snapped a photo of the boy. ‘And that means we need to
