Will didn’t answer me straightaway. This was exactly why I hadn’t texted him or called first. I’d thought it would be a lot harder to say no to me when I was standing in front of him.

  But maybe not impossible.

  Eventually, after a few seconds that felt like centuries, Will sighed. “Hold on.” There was a pause while he came down to the back door. I heard the sound of the key turning in the lock and then it opened. Will shivered as the cold air struck his skin. The only thing he was wearing was a bath towel wrapped around his waist. Bluish red marks bloomed on his torso, legacy of the fight. Washing the blood off his face had helped, but he still looked rough, and tired, and irritable. “Hurry up,” he said when I didn’t move.

  “Yes. Sure.” I went in past him, thinking I knew how to pick my moments.

  He shut and locked the door, then went back upstairs and I followed, staring at his back. The skin was red, with grazes here and there from being slammed against the trees, and a really horrible purple-black line of bruising halfway across his spine. It hurt to look at it and to know what he’d done to Ryan in return. He led the way to his room, where he grabbed a pair of jeans off the back of a chair.

  “Wait here.”

  I sank down on the end of the bed, not daring to do anything else. He went back out and I heard him shut the bathroom door. The music from Karen’s television was blaring. I hadn’t been in Will’s room before. Sandhayes was a more comfortable place for both of us to be, especially since both Karen and Dan detested me. From where I sat I could look around at Will’s impeccable bedroom, as neat and obsessively tidy as he was in all things. Ryan’s room probably looked as if a bomb had hit it, but Will’s belongings were carefully arranged. I leaned back to gaze through the window at the lit windows of Sandhayes in the distance. I wondered if he stared at my house the way I stared at his.

  Footsteps: Will, returning. He was wearing the jeans now, but his torso was still bare. He threw a tube of antiseptic to me. “Since you’re here, do you mind? I can’t reach the cuts on my back.”

  “Sure.” I made room for him on the end of the bed and he sat with his back to me, his elbows on his knees. I tried not to notice how broad his shoulders were.

  “How did you get back?” Will asked. “Did Dad drive you?”

  “No. Ryan.”

  Will nodded, as if that was what he’d expected. “I waited for you for a bit but I didn’t see you.”

  “I wasn’t ready to talk to you.”

  “But Ryan was fine.”

  I stopped smudging the antiseptic on. “He was, actually. He was easy to talk to. I told him I didn’t like the two of you fighting and he apologized. And then I apologized to him for putting him in the middle of our problems.”

  Will’s head dropped a fraction. He didn’t say anything.

  “So what now?” I asked. “Are you and Ryan going to fight every time you meet? Or just ignore each other?”

  “Neither. We talked. Afterward. I had to thank him for standing up to Dad.”

  “It was only fair. It wasn’t right that Dan was blaming you for what happened.”

  “I knew he would.” Will looked back at me. “Thanks for getting him to come along. I owe you one for that.”

  “I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I thought you’d kill each other.”

  He looked away again. “Possible, but unlikely.”

  “Ryan wouldn’t tell me why you argued. He just said it wasn’t all about me.”

  Will sighed. “I started it. I told him to leave you alone.”

  I concentrated on smoothing on the antiseptic, and on remaining calm. “Because you don’t trust me not to cheat on you.”

  “No. I knew you’d think that, and no. Absolutely not.”

  “Why, then? Why does it matter? I don’t understand why you have to fight over it if you know I’d never do anything behind your back.”

  “It’s because of lots of things.” Will drew in a breath sharply as I touched one of the deeper cuts. I jumped back, and he said, “Keep going.”

  “Then keep talking.”

  “It’s because he’s had it easy for years. His parents give him whatever he wants, and mine can’t or won’t do the same. You saw his car. It was new when they bought it for him. Mine cost fifty quid and I fixed it myself.”

  “Hey, Port Sentinel is full of people a lot richer than Ryan. That’s not a good enough reason to hate him.”

  “I don’t hate him. But I fought my way through school here. He was friends with everyone. He was good at everything, but no one minded that he was clever because he was popular. I got my books stolen and thrown into the toilets and ripped and ruined until I beat up the three biggest bullies, one after the other, and made them leave me alone.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You knew I was the policeman’s son. And you knew that people hated me for it.”

  It was true, I had known that.

  “And you know Ryan and I were friends before he turned his back on me. I tried to help him and he used it against me.”

  Will was talking about something that had happened years earlier, when he’d told his dad Ryan was going to get beaten up, and Ryan had hated him for it.

  “I thought you’d got over that.”

  “We did. That’s the thing. We’d put all that behind us. But it keeps coming back.” Will rubbed his eyes, his voice blurry with tiredness when he said, “He’s not used to losing. He hates the fact that I’ve got you, so that’s enough reason for him to want to punch my lights out. And I hate the fact that life is so easy for him. He’s got everything he ever wanted.” He twisted round to look at me. “I’ve only got you. So I told him to leave you alone.”

  “I understand, I think,” I said carefully. “You think he’s overprivileged. But he’s popular because he’s nice to people. He’s just been telling me what’s wrong with our relationship and how to fix it. He’s a good person.”

  “It’s easy to be good and nice when you don’t have to fight for what you want.”

  “Everyone has to fight for what they want,” I said flatly. “Life isn’t easy for anyone. The rich people have problems. The beautiful people have problems. No one gets everything they want. You should be proud of what you’ve achieved without any help or support from anyone.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, Ryan’s never going to have that. He’s never going to feel like he’s got where he is on his own merits. But he’s probably not going to let it torture him, unlike you.” I put the cap back on the tube of antiseptic. “You’re done.”

  “Thanks.” Will stood up and pulled on a T-shirt, wincing as the cotton brushed against his skin. “Sorry.”

  “For fighting? You should be. It was stupid.”

  “Yeah, I got the impression that was how you felt.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  “You are? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Except for stealing the diary. And skating with Ryan. And telling your dad about you fighting.”

  He sat down on the chair, leaning back, then sitting upright with a hiss of pain as the grazes made their presence felt. “OK. Well, I’m guessing Dad gave you a hard time about the diary. You really have a problem with poking your nose into other people’s business.”

  “Other people’s problems are easier to solve than my own,” I said. “Your dad was OK. I learned my lesson, though, anyway.”

  “Skating with Ryan…” Will sighed. “If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have been such a dick about it. So don’t apologize for that.”

  “Which leaves Dan.”

  “Which leaves him.” Will rubbed his head ruefully. “Do you know what the worst thing is? I hate him, but I still want him to be proud of me.”

  “I know,” I said. “I get it.”

  “Do you?” He looked away, listening to the music jangling from down the hall. “I hate both of them. Mum gets at me all the time, trying to make me pick her side of whatever argument they’re having. And Dad despises me. I wish I could just go and never come back. But Mum wants me here and I can’t turn my back on her when she needs me.”

  “She seems a bit better,” I said, thinking of how she’d looked in the doorway when I’d seen her with Dad.

  “She’s seemed worse than ever since I came home. She can barely do anything for herself.” He sounded worried, and exhausted, and guilty, which was exactly how Karen wanted him to feel.

  “You can’t live your life for your parents. They’re not your responsibility. You said that to me, remember?”

  “Yeah, and I still believe it. But this is different. It will end. She’ll die, and Dad will move on, and I’ll get out of here.” Will stood up, restless, and turned away from me. “I just hate waiting for her to get sicker. I hate hoping for her to get worse, just to end this.”

  I stood up too, and leaned my head against his shoulder. I put my arm round him so my hand was on his heart. “I wish I could help you. I wish I knew what to do to make it better.”

  “Just be you.”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’ve always worried that’s not enough.”

  “It’s enough for me.” Will turned round and traced the line of my cheek with a finger.

  I went up on tiptoe to kiss him, very gently, careful of his bruises, then stepped back.

  “Now let’s get out of here before your dad comes home.”

  18

  I was working in the Christmas market the next afternoon, and it was busier than on any other day I’d been there. It was the day before Christmas Eve and the shoppers were out in force. We’d sold out of handmade cards and wrapping paper, and the customers were focusing their attention on the prints and small sketches that had sat, unloved, on the shelves up until now, which meant that the daily takings had jumped enormously. I was happy to be occupied, to be useful, to be thinking about something other than my love life or Gilly’s disappearance.

  So it was a shock to look up halfway through the afternoon and see a face I recognized on the other side of the market. I recognized him from the news I’d watched the previous night: Gilly’s father. Dan had persuaded him to appear at a press conference in front of all the cameras and journalists who’d been filming and photographing the search. The camera flashes had made him blink and stutter as he sat at a table with a picture of Gilly behind him. He had spoken briefly, with lots of long pauses, and had seemed to be on the verge of tears all the way through his statement. I’d have recognized him as being related to Gilly even without having seen him on television: he had the same small features and curling hair, although his was graying and going thin on top. It was strangely unsettling to see her features divided between her parents, to recognize her in both of them, and neither.

  There was no sign or mention of Gilly’s mother during the press conference. I didn’t know if that was because she’d refused to be involved or if she just hadn’t been invited to attend. She wasn’t the most approachable person. I could imagine the public being less than moved by an appeal from her. Gilly’s dad, however, had been perfect. He’d talked about how much he loved Gilly, and how much he missed her, and Tilly had had to leave the room. I forgot, now and then, that she was still grieving for her own daughter, whose place I had taken in Sandhayes but whose shoes I could never, ever fill. Gilly’s disappearance was a huge news story, especially since it was coming up to Christmas. Everyone wanted to see her safe and well and back with her family.

  Mr. Poynter was standing with a young girl, maybe ten years old, who was holding his hand. She looked very like Gilly too, and slightly scared by the throngs of people who were pushing past them.

  “Can you manage without me for a bit?” I asked Mum. “It’s important.”

  “Of course,” she said, because she was too nice to say anything else and she realized that it mattered to me. I knew she was struggling to keep up with the customers as it was. As if she heard me thinking it, she looked at me pleadingly and added, “But don’t be too long, Jess.”

  “I’ll try.” I ran, bolting out of the back door of the hut and jumping down the steps to the ground. I hurried round to the front, hoping that Gilly’s dad and sister would still be where I’d last seen them. For a heart-stopping moment I couldn’t find them, but then the crowds parted and I saw Mr. Poynter’s bewildered face. I kept my eyes fixed on him as I crossed the square, muttering apologies as I trod on feet and knocked into people’s shopping. I caught up with them just as they turned to head for the gate.

  “Mr. Poynter?”

  He turned, looking wary. “Yes?”

  “I’m a friend of Gilly’s.” I introduced myself. “I saw you on the news last night.”

  “Lots of people did.” He sounded edgy, as if his newfound celebrity wasn’t something he’d ever wanted.

  “It was very good. Very moving.”

  Mr. Poynter was holding his daughter’s hand so tightly she made a small noise of complaint. “Sorry. I just … Can I help you?”

  “I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute about Gilly.”

  “You don’t know anything about where she is, do you?” He was polite but desperate, hoping against hope that I might have some answers for him. I felt a squirm of guilt: all I had were questions.

  “I’ve been trying to find out where she’s gone,” I said. “I was supposed to meet her last Friday.”

  “At the library,” Mr. Poynter said, and I realized that he’d been briefed by the police. He knew exactly who I was and what I had to do with Gilly’s disappearance.

  “Could I talk to you about it? Just for a couple of minutes? It really won’t take long.”

  He looked down at his daughter. “Now’s not a great time.”

  “I understand,” I said quickly, and I did. It wasn’t a nice thing to discuss in front of Gilly’s sister, who might not even know she was missing. “Maybe later.”

  “I don’t know where I’ll be later.” He thought for a second. “Violet, do you want to skate?”

  “You said it was too busy.”

  “Well, it looks a little quieter now.”

  “Can I?” She jumped up and down. “Can I really?”

  “Come on.” He looked at me. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” I looked around and spotted Darcy by the skating booth, tying her laces. “I have a friend who could help Violet skate, if you like.”

  “That would be good, wouldn’t it?” Mr. Poynter shook his daughter’s hand encouragingly. “That sounds like fun.”

  “Yep.” She bounced all the way to the skating rink, where I grabbed Darcy just before she stepped onto the ice.

  “Nice skirt.” It was red and flared, and she’d teamed it with a blue jumper and yellow tights. “Bright, aren’t you?”

  “As a button. And this is a proper skating skirt. I made it myself. The pattern is from the 1950s, when people really knew how to dress.” She attempted a twirl, but it didn’t totally come off since she was already wearing skates but wasn’t on the ice.

  “Can you skate?” I asked, suddenly dubious.

  Darcy grinned. “I insisted on having lessons after the Winter Olympics in 2006. I was glued to the women’s competition. All I wanted was sequins and white boots.”

  “Understandable.” I laced my fingers together imploringly. “Could you do me a huge favor?”

  Darcy could. Darcy was delighted to take Violet onto the ice and hold her hand while she skidded and wobbled and laughed. Violet was entranced by Darcy’s outfit, her skating ability, and the way she’d done her hair (two-tone curls snaking down over one shoulder). Darcy was entranced by being found entrancing. It was a match made in heaven.

  All the way at the other end of the happiness spectrum, Mr. Poynter and I leaned on the barrier and talked in low voices. He occasionally called encouragement to his beaming daughter and managed to smile at her, but his eyes were sad and his forehead was wrinkled with worry.

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking about Gilly,” I said.

  “No, I don’t mind talking about her. I’ll talk to anyone if it just brings her back to me in one piece.” He attempted to laugh. “Not that I’m expecting you to do that.”

  “I was just wondering … when was the last time you heard from Gilly?”

  “Weeks ago.” His face was drawn. “The start of November. She called me and we talked for a bit.”

  “November? That’s a while ago,” I said, trying to say what I was thinking diplomatically. “Nothing since?”

  “We argued. She wanted to come and live with me and her sister.” Mr. Poynter rubbed his head. “I wish—I wish I’d handled it differently.”

  “Did you say no?”

  “I told her to wait until the end of the school year—or at least until January. I told her it wasn’t a good idea to change schools midterm.”

  “Did she say why she wanted to move?”

  “She wasn’t getting on with Marian.”

  “Marian?”

  “Her mother.”

  There was a shock. “Did they usually get on?”

  Mr. Poynter shook his head. “I don’t know how she could bear her. Marian is poisonous.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Right.” That was more or less the impression I’d formed too, but I didn’t want to say too much, even with that opener.

  Mr. Poynter gave me a guilty smile. “Marian and I split up four years ago. It wasn’t a pleasant divorce.”

  “Most of them aren’t all that great,” I said, thinking of Mum and Dad. “Why did Gilly stay with her mum?”

  “She chose to. She wanted Violet to stay with me and she wanted to make sure her mother was all right. She couldn’t stand the thought of her being on her own, even though…”

  “Even though?”

  “Even though she was a very difficult person to live with.” He sighed. “I wasn’t happy about her being with Marian.”

  “But when she said she wanted to leave…”

  “I was trying to do what was best for her. I wanted her to be happy, and of course I wanted her to come back to me, but I knew it would cause huge problems with Marian. And then there was the issue of finding a school for Gilly. I said I’d look into it. I told her she’d probably have to wait until September next year, and she burst into tears, so I said I’d try to find somewhere for January. I did too.” He paused for a second, and when he spoke again it was with real force. “But I wish I’d just said yes. She told me I’d let her down and I argued with her about it. But she was right.”

 

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