Lost Souls by Jenny O'Brien (android e book reader txt) 📕

her eyes red-rimmed and her skin coated in dark shadows that long predated her missing child. ‘We’re a team, her and me. A tight little unit. She’d never have just upped and left like that. She’d have had no reason. Yes, money’s tight but we still manage to get by.’

‘What about school? Is she happy? Friends?’

‘Happy enough. She likes it, would you believe? I don’t know where she gets it from but she’s clever too. There’s even talk of trying for a scholarship next year at St Elian’s College.’

‘And friends?’ Gaby reminded her softly. ‘Anyone she might have gone to stay with?’

‘But why would she? There’d be no need and certainly not in the middle of the night,’ she said, her tone taking on the shrill note of someone on the edge. ‘There’s really no one apart from her best friend, Heather, and even then they don’t see much of each other. Only in school and for the occasional playdate. Outside of her ballet lessons – she’s mad on ballet – she spends the rest of the time either reading or out with me.’

‘I believe you’re a cleaner.’ Gaby watched her stiffen.

‘And what if I am? It’s a good, honest job.’

Gaby spread her hands only to clasp them together again. ‘It certainly is. An essential one,’ she replied, relieved to see Anita visibly relaxing in front of her. An aggressive witness – and witness was what she had to view her as – was the very last thing she wanted. Time was precious. The most precious thing where a missing child was concerned. They needed clear, accurate information and they needed it fast – it was up to Gaby to get it. ‘So, what about anyone else she might have decided to slope off to see? Any siblings? What about her father or even a boyfriend?’

‘There’s no one. No father. He was never on the scene. No siblings, and a boyfriend at ten? Come on. She’s not interested in boys and, even if she was, there isn’t the time in her day for her to go and chase them.’ Her features hardened, frown lines forming deep tracks on either side of her mouth. ‘And before you ask, I don’t have a boyfriend either. They’re far more trouble than they’re worth.’

Gaby took a sneaky glance at the plain, black-strapped watch on her wrist, her mind on the investigation. The seconds were ticking by. No one knew more than her what little time they had left if there was to be a happy resolution. But she still had questions that needed to be answered.

‘Tell me about yesterday then. Anything that you can think of to spark her running away?’

‘I’ve already told that officer on the phone earlier. Yesterday was a normal day. Nothing happened. We got up. Ellie stayed in her room until lunchtime finishing up a crafting project and reading. After lunch we headed out to the beach for a walk. We came home, had tea and slobbed out in front of the TV. The exact same as every other Sunday.’

No, not the exact same or otherwise your daughter wouldn’t be missing. But instead all she said was, ‘And there was no trouble at school? No bullying?’ Gaby rose to her feet and walked over to the mantelpiece to study the photos: the ‘thin as sticks’ limbs, and eyes that dominated the girl’s heart-shaped face. ‘She’s very slight. No problems with depression? Eating all right?’

‘Ellie eats like a horse, Detective. You probably can’t believe it,’ Anita said, tugging at the pool of flesh around her middle. ‘But I used to be the same.’

Gaby smiled briefly. ‘I can well imagine. So …’

But she didn’t get to finish her sentence. Anita sprung to her feet, quite unaware of the look of desperation etched across her cheeks. Gaby knew what she was going to ask. Every single relative of a missing person asked the exact same question, their words layered with the same frantic tone. They were asking the one question they knew it was impossible to answer at this stage but still they asked it.

‘Will you be able to find her?’

Chapter 3

Ronan

Monday 3 August, 7.05 a.m. The Great Orme

Ronan Stevens wasn’t your average rough sleeper, if there is such a thing. A product of middle-class parents, he’d spent most of his life being tutored in the public school system where the size of his parents’ wallet was more important to the other boys than the size of his brain. Ronan’s mother and father, while wealthy in comparative terms, were veering towards the breadline when compared with the affluent students who attended St Gildas independent boys’ school in Beddgelert. The offspring of minor royalty and foreign oligarchs didn’t take kindly to fellow pupils who didn’t fit their jelly-mould existence and took great pleasure in making his life a daily hell.

All that had changed when Ronan had been pushed up against a wall and held there while he had his clothes stripped off and was given the beating of all beatings. But the two boys had made one crucial mistake. Leaving him collapsed and bleeding, they’d turned their backs – and in a black rage that contained all the injustices of the last five years at the school, Ronan Stevens curled his hands into tight fists and fought for his life. Oscar Hurley-Pride and the Right Honourable Ollie Braden learnt valuable lessons that day on the side of the tennis courts, lessons they’d be forever reminded of each time they took off their shirts and revealed their scars.

Ronan Stevens didn’t need to learn any such lessons. He knew that life wasn’t fair but what he didn’t expect was to be expelled, therefore setting off a train of events that would ultimately lead to him roughing it on a hillside when he should have been awaiting the results of his A levels – exams he’d never got to sit.

He bundled up his sleeping bag into a tight ball and added it to the top