is writing in his pad again. His hand must be sore from all the writing. ‘Sunrise? That’s early.’
‘She always wakes up earlier. She doesn’t like to sleep late. Not like me. I can sleep all day. Olivia likes to go for a walk in the mornings.’
‘Where?’
‘Down to the Ring, along the loch, through the woods by Binscarth Farm – there’s a little trail there. My dad sometimes goes with her, you should ask him.’
‘I’ll do that.’ He rises from the chair, pushing it back gently on the wooden floor. ‘Thank you, Alex. Your mum and dad are waiting outside.’
As he starts towards the door, I call after him. ‘Will Olivia be in trouble when she comes home?’
He doesn’t turn for a while, just looks straight ahead towards the other policeman or maybe beyond him. Slowly he turns to face me and has a forced smile on his face. ‘No, she won’t be in any trouble.’ He gestures towards the closed door.
When I leave the conference room, Mum and Dad are waiting for me in the lobby of the station. They both stand up when I come out.
‘Everything OK?’ Mum asks, as she gently tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. She hates seeing me with my hair across my face. She likes it up off my face, in a bun or a French braid like Olivia’s.
‘What did they ask you?’ says Dad, as he digs his car keys out from his jeans pocket.
‘Just about Hogmanay night.’
‘Well, let’s get home,’ my mum says, as she wraps her arm around me and nudges me towards the exit.
Walking over, I grab the knob but don’t turn it. I have to ask them something, and I have to see their faces when I ask it. ‘She’s just staying at a friend’s, right? We’ll find her?’
My mum nods but my dad doesn’t say anything. He’s not looking at me so I wait for him to say the words.
‘Yeah, sure. We’ll find her,’ he eventually says.
When we reach the house, my dad drops us at the front door. He tells us to go inside and lock the door. He’s going to get some posters printed with my sister’s face on them.
She’s going to be so embarrassed when she comes back.
Scooping up the phone directory, my mum disappears into the living room to start calling people. I think she’s called everyone by now.
No one’s seen Olivia.
No one knows where she is.
The house seems bigger to me now for some reason. And colder. A shiver shoots up my spine, and I hug myself to keep warm. I shuffle over to the wood burner and load some logs into the furnace. Lighter in hand, I search around for some newspaper to scrunch up. Sliding a paper out from under the TV remote, I kneel back down in front of the furnace and begin ripping pages off. I make only three paper strips to burn with the logs when something catches my eye. Lifting the paper up to my eyes, my sister’s name stares back at me. There she is.
Underneath her name is one word, in bold capitals: MISSING. That’s all she is now. Missing. She’s the missing girl from the Orkneys. The missing persons case that’s rocked this small community. That’s what the paper is saying.
Olivia.
Where are you?
Come home before this gets any worse.
Chapter Two: 02.01.2016 (afternoon)
I don’t push the doorbell, but slam my hand on James’s door, needing to feel pain. He doesn’t answer. My palm throbbing a little more than I had hoped for, this time I ring the bell. He answers almost immediately as if he’d been waiting for me right behind the door.
He opens his mouth to say something but I get there first. ‘Is she here?’ I ask, glancing over his shoulder. The TV flickers behind him, crackling against the wall in the hallway.
‘Alex, she’s not here. I haven’t seen her.’
‘Are you lying? Are you trying to cover for her? If you are that’s fine, just tell her to come home.’
He steps out from the doorway and rests against the edge of the frame. Dark circles have formed around his eyes and his skin is a little paler than usual. ‘Look, I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about.’
‘Are you kidding? She’s going to be in so much trouble. The police are involved now.’
‘I know. They just came to see me.’ He pushes his hands into his jeans pockets and looks out past me, towards the street or the ocean beyond me.
‘And?’
‘And I told them the same thing. She’s not here.’
A large sigh escapes my lungs and I tuck my chin to my chest a little. I had been hoping that she was here, hoping that James would know where she was so we could end all of this. But he knows as little as me. ‘Well, when was the last time you saw her? At the party?’
‘What party?’ He shrugs.
‘Euan’s party.’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘She tells me everything. I know she wasn’t watching a movie at Emily’s house. She went to a party at Euan’s house over by Binscarth Farm.’
He digs his hands in deeper into his pockets and smiles slightly, the corners twisting up but not in a way that I find familiar or comforting. ‘She tells you everything, does she?’
‘Yes . . . I think so.’
‘Well, did she tell you we broke up?’
‘What?’
‘I guess she doesn’t tell you everything.’
‘This isn’t a joke. This is a waste of police time. She could be charged or something, I don’t know.’
‘I’m telling you the truth. We broke up. I wasn’t at that party because I knew she was going. I did my own thing, hung out with the boys from the football club.’
‘Why did you break up?’
He frowns, tiny lines forming across his forehead.
I can’t imagine them not together. They’re all I remember. The two of them and Emily have been friends for so much of her – and my – life. Was this because of London? Had they argued about her moving there? Had he refused to go, or asked her to stay?
‘You’ll have to ask her. I would like to know myself.’
He looks uncomfortable, his fingers fidgeting in his pockets. I don’t know what else to say to him. I came here looking for Olivia, but all I’ve done is remind him of a time he seems to want to forget.
‘Um, well if you do know where she is, please get this message to her. She needs to come home. I doubt she’ll be in much trouble now. If she waits too long, she might be.’
‘Like I said, I don’t know where she is.’ He steps back and slowly closes the front door, leaving me all alone on the step.
I turn around and walk down the driveway, glancing back at the house to see if there is any movement behind the curtains. She would have come out if she was there and heard my voice. She’d know everyone was worried about her.
I don’t think she’s here.
I gaze down the street and wonder if she walked here recently. Why would they break up? And why would she not tell me about it? I’m her sister. We tell each other everything, or at least I thought we were supposed to.
Maybe