is dropping her home. I don’t like her getting the bus this late. I worry about her being out on her own. There are some dodgy people around. I’d have picked her up myself but I don’t like staying up late on Saturday because I have to be at church early in the morning.’
‘But your wife said …’
‘She gets muddled,’ he said quietly. ‘She takes pills to help her sleep and sometimes they make her misunderstand things.’
I looked at him. He seemed totally genuine. And yet, there was something niggling at me. ‘Have you seen Ciara this evening yourself?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. I’ve been at my choir practice.’
‘At church? Which one?’
‘St John’s.’
I nodded. ‘And your wife was here?’
‘I assume so. When I got home she was in bed. Perhaps she took a pill and couldn’t remember where Ciara had gone.’
‘Can I speak to her?’
He made a face. ‘If she’s taken a sleeping tablet, I won’t be able to wake her.’
‘Could you try?’ I smiled at him. ‘I really should speak to her, or my boss will give me grief.’
I was still standing on the doorstep, and the evening was bitterly cold. I didn’t wait to be asked, but just stepped inside. He looked like he was going to say something and then changed his mind.
‘Wait here.’
I had a good nose round the hall while I waited. It was very ordinary. Dull, in fact. Neat and tidy. Ciara’s school photo on the wall, showing her to be a pretty but unremarkable teenager. Boots stacked neatly in a rack and three coats hanging from pegs. Three coats. I frowned.
‘Does Ciara have another coat,’ I asked as Mr James came downstairs again.
‘Pardon?’
‘Does Ciara have another coat?’ I gestured to the coat rail. ‘I presume that’s hers? But it’s very cold outside.’
He screwed his nose up. ‘No idea, sorry. I don’t pay much attention to what she wears.’
‘Right. Is your wife awake?’
A noise upstairs made me look up. A middle-aged woman was coming downstairs, wearing pyjamas and looking pale and sleepy.
‘So sorry to disturb you, Mrs James,’ I said. ‘We had a call that Ciara was missing.’
She rubbed her eyes like a toddler. ‘Ciara is at the cinema.’
‘That’s right,’ her husband said. He looked at me and I saw a flash of something in his eyes – triumph? ‘You get back to bed.’
Obediently, Mrs James turned and went back upstairs before I could stop her.
‘Terribly sorry to waste your time,’ Mr James said with a smile. ‘I trust my wife isn’t in trouble.’
‘Not at all.’
We stood in the hall for a second. I looked at him and he looked back at me. All my instincts were telling me that something was off, but I had nothing. I wished Stacey had come with me. Another pair of eyes on this outwardly normal family would be useful.
‘If Ciara doesn’t come home, please call the station,’ I said.
‘Of course, thank you so much, Constable.’
I forced myself to smile instead of correcting him about my rank. ‘Call us if you need to,’ I said again, more sternly this time.
My car was already icing up again, so I blasted the heater and drove a little way down the road, before I parked up and called the station.
As I waited for someone 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
