The Lost Read Free Page A

going.’
    ‘Well.’ He held the towel awkwardly. ‘Can’t say I want you disappearing anyway.’
    She stood up. ‘Sorry. I’ve got to get some work done.’
    ‘Ah, fair enough.’ He looked about him. ‘Do you know where my—?’
    ‘Here.’ She pushed his jeans across to him with her foot. ‘Your T-shirt’s in the kitchen.’
    ‘Right.’ The backs of the policeman’s clean ears were turning pink. God, he was nice. He bumbled into her small strip of kitchen with his towel, knocking into the fridge and dislodging one of the magnets. A photo fluttered down like a dead leaf. ‘Crap, sorry. Clumsy.’ He picked the photo up. ‘That’s your mum, is it? She looks just like you.’
    Paula was already movingtowards him, but she steeled herself not to snatch it back. ‘Just put it on the side, would you?’ When he did, she slid her hand over the smooth surface of the photo, covering it.
    He cleared his throat. ‘Right, I best—’
    ‘Yeah. You know the way out, don’t you.’
    When she heard the door shut she placed the picture back on the fridge, adding an extra magnet in the shape of a strawberry. She wiped his prints off with the sleeve of her dressing-gown. Paula looked at the picture for a long time. Another girl found safe, that was good. But once again she was realising it would never be enough.

Chapter Two
    Two Weeks Later
    Northern Ireland, October
    ‘Shit!’ Paula’s footslipped on the clutch of the rented Ford Focus. When agreeing to drive herself from the airport, she’d forgotten she hadn’t been behind the wheel in nearly ten years. But in a way it was good to think about the terror of accelerating, rather than dwell on the rest of her circumstances – stuck in a long queue of traffic from Belfast International Airport (a somewhat grand name for the building set low and squat among green, fertile fields), heading south, south to the border town among the hills that she’d left years before. She was drumming her fingers on the steering wheel and wishing she smoked just for something to do. Growing her nails had been futile. She’d bitten them to the quick again, unable to stop once she knew she’d be coming here. Coming home.
    It was raining, of course. It was only October, but it was Northern Ireland, and the chill mist crept up to the car and under her skin, making her shiver. She finally got on the motorway, luckily quiet at this time of day, and tuned the radio to local news. Voices filled the car, rich and heavy like clods of soil. That made her shiver too, the memories returning like ghosts.
    She’d never wanted to come back again, but here she was following signs to the border, to Ballyterrin. Twenty miles. The radio voices were arguing about the new policing Bill, devolving final powers to the Police Service of Northern Ireland – a different name to paint over the murky past. Politics saturated daily life here, just like the insidious rain. Acned teens on the side of the road, they’d be able to tell you the names of all the local politicians and exactly what was wrong with most of them. Old men in pubs, mums pushing buggies, schoolgirls. Everyone watched the news here, fierce and avid, ready to pounce.
    Here already were thehills around her home town, the rolling mountains veiled in rain. It must be a beautiful place, people always said – people who didn’t have to live there – and she always shrugged. Scenery was one thing, twisted hatred another. And the past was still everywhere, creaking with spectral life.
    As Paula inched into the town, the traffic heavy as always, she saw her first sectarian graffiti. Sinn Féin , it said, in bold green. We deliver . Underneath someone had scrawled Pizza . Funny, unless of course they got their knees shattered for it. As she watched, a council employee was painting it out with thick white emulsion, slapping on layer after layer until the green was wiped out.
    She’d never wanted to come back again. But somehow, here she