`And she's definitely had boyfriends before?'
Patsie looks up. `But she didn't tell her mum because she thought she'd be angry. You know `“ that she's had sex. She thinks Sash's still,' she blushes a little and avoids my eye, `you know, a virgin.'
`OK, let's leave that for now. Let's go back to last night. You said you went to Summertown to have a pizza and then Leah walked home down the Banbury Road and the rest of you got the bus back towards Headington together?'
A nod.
`What time was that?'
`Nine forty-five? I don't really remember.'
`Then you got off first, and Sasha and Isabel stayed on the bus.'
Another nod.
`And that was about 10.00 p.m.?'
`Round then, yeah.'
`And Sasha would have got off on Cherwell Drive.'
`Right.'
`But you don't know where she was planning to go when she got off the bus?'
She shrugs. `Up to her house? I mean, where else would she go?'
That, of course, is the whole point of asking. But there's no use getting tetchy with this girl.
`Does Sasha have any other friends who live near that bus stop, Patsie? Someone she could have gone to see after she got off the bus?'
A slow shake of the head. `I don't think so. Nobody we like, anyway.'
`So you can't think of anywhere she'd have gone, apart from straight home?'
Another shake of the head. She glances up at me briefly, almost shyly, and then stares at her lap again. It occurs to me `“ as it should have before `“ that she's been texting on her phone this whole time.
Time for a different tack. `Do you know anything about Sasha's dad?'
She looks up for real this time. `Why?'
`I just need to get the full picture. Do you know if she still sees him?'
Patsie hesitates, then bites her lip.
* * *
`She hasn't seen her father for thirteen years. Not since the bastard walked out on the both of us.'
Fiona Blake's tone has hardened and Somer can't honestly blame her. Abandoning a toddler isn't exactly her idea of doing the right thing either.
`Do you know where he's living now?'
Fiona shrugs. `Last I heard he'd shacked up with someone up north somewhere. But that was at least two years ago.'
`And he's never attempted to get in touch with Sasha?'
She shakes her head. `No. Not once.'
`So if he approached her in the street, she wouldn't be likely to go off with him?'
Fiona stares at her, and Somer can see the hope flare for a moment then die in her eyes. She shakes her head sadly. `She was three when he left. I doubt she'd even recognize him.'
* * *
Adam Fawley
4 April 2018
14.09
`He found her on Facebook,' says Patsie. `They messaged for a bit and then she bunked off school and met up with him about a month ago. But don't tell her mum `“ she'd go mental.'
`How did the meeting go?'
Patsie shrugs. `OK. Dunno really. She said he was all right. They went to Nando's.'
As if that's important. As if it makes any difference at all.
`He told her he's living in Leeds now,' she says suddenly. `That she could go up there to see him.'
`And is she going to do that?'
Patsie shakes her head. `She said her mum would never let her.'
I hold my breath, try not to look too eager. `But if he'd turned up `“ last night, say, as a surprise `“ would she have gone with him?'
Patsie stares at me, as if this has only just occurred to her. `I guess,' she says eventually. `I mean, she'd never get into a car with a weirdo or anything. But if it was her dad, that'd be different.'
* * *
`Could I see her room?' asks Somer. `Would that be OK?'
Fiona flashes her a look. `Shouldn't you be out there looking for her? If some paedophile has abducted her what difference will looking at her room make? It's a complete waste of time `“'
`We don't know it's a paedophile,' says Somer gently. `She may be with someone she knows. That's why we need to find out as much about her as we can.'
Fiona looks at her and then away; the flash of temper evaporates as quickly as it came. She starts to cry again.
Somer puts her hand on the woman's shoulder. `And please believe me that we're doing everything possible to find her. We already have a team out searching the entire surrounding area.'
Fiona nods, and Somer tightens her grip a little. And when the woman looks up, she asks the question again, silently this time.
`OK,' Fiona says at last. `It's upstairs. On the left.'
It's like staring at her teenage self. The boy bands may have changed but pretty much everything else about Sasha Blake's room is uncannily like the one Somer left behind in Guildford more than a decade ago. When she helped her parents move house last year, it was all still there, like a time capsule, clean and tidy and dusted just as she left it. And now it's as if she's back there all over again. The mirror draped with pink fairy lights, the dreamcatcher over the bed, the box poking out underneath stuffed with shoes and scarves and bits of cheap jewellery, and the row of paperbacks on the shelf by the window. Pride and Prejudice, The Wings of the Dove, Look Back in Anger, Poems by John Keats. There's a laptop on the desk, with a pile of National Geographic beside it and a book called 1,000 Things to Do Before You Die. There are yellow Post-its purfling the pages.
She wants to seize the book and bury it somewhere. She doesn't want that book staring at Fiona Blake every time she comes in here `“ because `“ because `“
Five minutes later there's a noise behind her and she turns to see Fawley at the door. He's staring round at the room, just like she did.
`Looks like she's a bright kid,' he says eventually. `Henry James isn't your usual fifteen-year-old reading, is it?'
Somer shakes her head and holds up a sheet of paper. `I just found this letter on the desk. It's from Vogue `“ they've offered her work experience for this summer. I can't even imagine how much competition there must have been for something like that.'
The flutter of unease Somer's had all morning has sharpened into foreboding. It shouldn't make a difference, that Sasha is clever and likes poetry and is interested in the world, but it does. It does.
`Are those hers too?' Fawley says now, walking over to a cork board hanging by the window. It's thick with photos, but they're very different to the ones her mother has downstairs: Sasha and her friends, grinning, sticking their tongues out, making rabbit ears behind each other's heads. And beside the snaps and selfies, a scattering of sketches: what looks like the view across Port Meadow, a bowl of oranges and pears, a pair of pink stilettos, one lying on its side.
And suddenly Somer sees what Fawley's getting at. `Oh, you mean the shoes?'
He shrugs. `And the Vogue thing. And the fact that Faith lives barely a mile from here.'
She joins him, and they stare in silence at the drawing.
`An interest in fashion isn't much, by way of a link,' she says eventually. `Not when you're talking teenage girls. And Faith is three years older, at college `“'
`Just look at her,' he says. `Sasha, I mean.'
And she knows what he's getting at. It's not just the hair or the facial resemblance. It's only a hunch `“ an intuition `“ but something tells her Sasha is the girl Faith has always wanted to be. Pretty in a happy, effortless, unforced way. Confident about who she is, content in her own skin, and barely able to imagine what it might feel like not to be. Even as her anxiety sharpens for Sasha, Somer still finds her heart aching for Faith.