I’ve received crude messages on social media from men telling me how they could blow my world, or how I should agree to meet them because they feel we’d have such a great time together. And yes, there has been the occasional dick-pic as well, and it’s the reason I was so keen to avoid social media in the first place. If it weren’t for Maddie’s insistence that authors need to have a social platform, I wouldn’t be on it today. I’ve never received an image through the post though, let alone one of a girl.
‘How old is this girl?’ I ask.
‘Hard to say. Adolescent, I guess. Oh, wait, there’s a name scrawled on the back. Faye McKenna.’
The name doesn’t ring any bells in my tired mind. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Nope, just the name. It’s been written in some kind of thick permanent marker, I’d hazard.’
I know I’m tired, and the only semi-logical explanation my mind can conjure is that it’s a picture of a missing girl sent in by a fearful parent, or one of her family. Given the work Rachel and I are undertaking with the charitable Anna Hunter Foundation, offering emotional and financial support to the families of missing children, I suppose it’s possible an applicant has sent the image to try and attract my attention.
‘I can take a photo of the image and send it over via email,’ Maddie offers.
‘Sure,’ I relent, and check my phone until my inbox pings. Switching Maddie to speaker phone, I download the image and stare at it on my phone. ‘I can’t say I recognise the name, or the face,’ I admit. ‘Pretty young thing though. I don’t remember coming across the name Faye, nor McKenna, in any of my previous research, but I can check on the Foundation’s database and see if her family are listed.’
I hope this doesn’t become a common thing: parents trying to emotionally blackmail me into accepting their requests for financial support. Since we launched the Anna Hunter Foundation a little over a year ago, we have been inundated with requests for help, and that’s the purpose of the charity, but there are also those chancers who will request support under the pretence of having a missing child. Each application is rigorously checked, and we even have a small team of private investigators on retainer to verify the authenticity of each claim.
Loading up my laptop, I log into the Foundation site and check the database of claimant names, but there is no Faye McKenna listed.
‘Are you sure there was nothing else in the envelope?’ I check with Maddie. ‘It isn’t possible a letter fell out when you pulled out the photograph? No explanation of who sent it to me, or why?’
I can hear Maddie scuttling about on her carpet, before she returns to the phone. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’ll bring the envelope and original picture with me in the morning, and you can see for yourself. Maybe whoever sent it forgot to include a letter of explanation. I wouldn’t let it worry you tonight. Go to bed and get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow. Remember, I will meet you at the shop at half nine. Okay?’
‘Sure, thanks, Maddie. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Switching off the laptop and locking my phone, I head to bed, but I don’t settle for ages as all I can see when I close my eyes is Faye McKenna’s face.
Chapter Ten Then
Piddlehinton, Dorset
‘Do you want to wash your hands? Dinner’s nearly ready,’ Chez said to her, as she continued to stare lovingly at her freshly polished nails.
‘It smells delicious,’ she told him, sliding out from behind the table and squeezing past him into the small bathroom at the rear of the cabin.
‘It ought to be! Spaghetti bolognese – my grandmother’s recipe – the only thing she taught me before I left.’
Joanna used the facilities, the nerves that had gripped her bladder so tightly finally easing. For all the fear and anxiety, nothing bad had happened. And if Chez was so bright and positive about life here, who was she to question it? Deep down, she knew Grey taking her hadn’t been right, but there was also something inside that told her if this was all some elaborate ruse, then her parents would use the police to find her, so why not play along until then? Grey’s words were still fresh in her mind, and she didn’t want to end up buried in some hole, never to be found.
After washing her hands she exited the small bathroom and returned to the kitchen area. Chez had cleared the table of the nail polishes and had placed forks and plates where they had been sitting.
‘You can grate the cheese if you like,’ he said over his shoulder, stirring the pan of red sauce, while steam from the pan of pasta hovered in a cloud above her head.
She spotted the block of cheese and the metal grater on the table with the plates and headed over. ‘You know, my mum never lets me near the grater; she always says I’ll cut myself and ruin the cheese. Are you sure you want me to do it?’
Chez looked over, his mouth pulled into a pitying grimace. ‘Do you think you’ll cut yourself doing it?’
She shook her head firmly.
‘Well, then,’ he replied. ‘Neither do I. Go on, you’ll be saving me the effort if you do it. I’ll strain the pasta and start plating up.’
Taking the block of cheese in her hand, she dragged it over the metal ridges, each stroke giving a satisfying tear. Her mum never trusted her to do anything! Everyone always said how mature she was for her age, yet they still treated her like a seven-year-old. She was more than capable of grating some cheese; in fact, she was pretty sure she could learn to make spaghetti bolognese like Chez if he showed her how.
He arrived at the table and slopped the strands of spaghetti
