‘No,’ Claire answered firmly. ‘I’m just a tourist missing the internet.’ The girl led her to the computer terminals, blocked together, hot and humming. Claire sat down, took a deep breath, and logged on. But what good would it do? A wheedling voice piped – You know what happened. It’s not as if you can change anything. You’re both trapped together, you and Lorna. She shook her head, silenced the voice. ‘Knowledge is power,’ she said to herself. The heavyset woman with the Zimmer frame, sitting opposite, stared at her. Claire blushed and clicked.
A new twist in the tale had re-excited public interest. There were definitely not three human bodies, but two. Someone – a child – hadn’t been in the house when the fire began. Neighbours said that they’d seen Carl playing with the dogs in the street outside, one of them had had to take him back home, talked to his mum about letting the animals run wild. Nobody could now be sure that they’d seen Lorna either in or outside the home after the shopping trip in the afternoon. The Sun ran a picture of Lorna on its front page, and offered a reward for information. The Guardian ran an op-ed piece in its ‘Comment Is Free’ section: ‘A Tale of Two Britains – Why Lorna Bell Will Never Be Another Madeleine McCann’. The Daily Mail had undertaken a forensic investigation into Rabbit Girl’s past: three other children adopted, a series of violent relationships, an anonymous source from the school – who Claire recognised immediately as James Clarke – claiming that the school cared deeply about Lorna and did its very best to support her, and that there had been concerns expressed.
Claire scrolled through the pictures of the police raking through ashes, their harried faces at press conferences. Only two bodies found. Lorna had not been seen in the house before the fire. Will not comment on media stories of her being missing. Being kidnapped.
‘Oh Jesus,’ Claire said out loud. The woman with the Zimmer frame glared again, and shifted her bulk disapprovingly, but this time Claire didn’t notice. Her brain raced ahead of her panting comprehension. Two bodies. No Lorna. They know Lorna’s not dead. They’re trying to find her.
Had anyone seen her with Lorna?
Think! Has anyone ever seen you together? Not here, anyway. Once at the café in winter. That time at the hairdresser’s, but the barber had barely looked at them, and Lorna looked so different now – so much taller, her hair longer again . . . Aside from that, Lorna had taken all her trips to town and the beach with Marianne; Claire had always stayed at home because of her ankle, or because she was still asleep. Just stay here, Mum, we’ll bring you your pills from town. Yes, Claire, you have a little rest. We won’t be long, will we poppet? The dance lessons, the shopping trips, the cinema, McDonald’s, that had all been Lorna and Marianne.
Cool sweat crawled down her sides. She shut her eyes, clenched her jaw. Think, Claire, think. What about at Mother’s house? Could anyone have seen you together then? Old Mrs Foster next door surely would have mentioned something to Claire if she’d seen a girl coming and going; if you left your bins out an hour longer than usual, she was at the door complaining. The house opposite was being renovated and the family had moved out while the building was going on, and the house next to that was vacant. No, nobody had seen her. Couldn’t have done.
She typed rapidly, ‘Lorna Bell kidnap woman’, and got no real information. Then, shaking, ‘Lorna Bell sightings’. A café in Bristol – Bristol? When had they been there? Claire frowned doubtfully. A girl who might have resembled Lorna, with a blonde woman, but the waitress couldn’t be sure, and there was no CCTV footage. The police were at a dead end with that one. And another – an Argos in Newquay. The blonde woman had bought luggage. A blonde woman. Marianne? Claire felt dizzy again, as her mind reached its destination and stood about it excitedly. Lots of links to Marianne, but none to me. I could be free.
But there’s something else, isn’t there? What? No, nothing. Oh there is, Claire, you know there is. A door in her mind opened, and behind it was crammed one big truth, tumbling out like a badly folded eiderdown.
Lorna had started the fire.
But you knew that all along, didn’t you, Claire? You hinted as much to the girl last night. And think about the soap opera countdown, Claire. Think about that. The abuse. The fire. Even the name Lauren.
Had Lorna started the fire?
Her fingers typed ‘cause of boxing day fire’, though she knew the answer already. Here it was, in cheerless black and white in the Daily Mail. Accelerant likely to be petrol and/or lighter fluid. Down the drains, the stairs, the letterbox. That smell when Lorna had arrived that final time, almost catatonic. ‘We have to go to Cornwall’; that smell, mingled with, but not masked by, dirt, sweat, sugar, all those familiar Lorna odours – ‘He poured lighter fuel on me!’ Back, back, her mind ran, panting, to an earlier memory; Claire had been at Lorna’s home, the time when the dog had attacked, and the men had been drinking, watching football. Outside, the barbeque, crusted with rust and meat, one of the men squirting lighter fluid on it, to make the burgers cook faster.
This little girl. My little girl. This sweet, goofy, kittenish darling. This killer of her own people.
Claire sat like a sack of laundry on the swivel chair, mouth open, eyes glazed. She didn’t notice the assistant standing by her, a middle-aged woman gifted with the stunned, emptiness of heavy medication. She was saying something.
‘Need ID for the computers.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, the girl on the desk didn’t tell me.’
‘Need ID.’
Claire scrambled in her bag, pulling out mints, fumbled for her purse, and stopped. Think Claire, think. They keep records of who looks at what on the internet, and what would it look like if one of the ex-teachers of a kidnap victim was researching her?
‘Sorry, I’m not sure I have anything on me. All I seem to have is this.’ One of Marianne’s loyalty cards for Boots, she had two – ‘You keep one, Claire, just so we can get double points for Lauren’s vitamins’ – and it was this that she handed to the woman. ‘Will this do?’
‘Is it a credit card?’ The woman stared at it, her face completely blank.
‘Sort of.’