Кара Хантер - All the Rage

Ev rings and waits. Then rings again, longer this time.

`˜I can't hear anything.'

`˜Give it a minute,' says Somer. `˜She's probably trying to see who it is. I would be, if I was her.'

And sure enough, they eventually hear the sound of footsteps inside, and the door opens. But slowly and not very far.

`˜What do you want?' Her face is scrubbed clean now, but there are still red rims round her eyes. She has the same ragged old jumper wound about her like a straitjacket. `˜Mum's not here.'

`˜It's you we wanted to talk to, Faith,' says Somer. `˜On your own, if that's OK. It's quite important.'

`˜Doesn't Mum have to be with me?'

Ev shakes her head. `˜You don't need anyone with you unless you want them to be. You're a victim. Not a criminal. You haven't done anything wrong.'

She leans on those last words, trying to get the girl to meet her gaze. We're on your side `“ we want to help.

`˜We can do this whichever way makes you feel more comfortable,' says Somer. `˜At the station with your mum or someone else you trust, or here, with just us. We thought that might be easier, but seriously, it's entirely your call. We'll do whatever you prefer.'

Faith hesitates. `˜I told you `“ it was just a bad joke.' But her eyes are wary all the same. Because she can see something in their faces; something that wasn't there before.

Somer steps forward. `˜We know, Faith,' she says softly. `˜We know about you `“ about Daniel.'

The girl bites her lip and her eyes fill with tears. `˜It's so unfair,' she whispers. `˜I never did anyone any harm `“'

`˜I'm sorry,' says Somer, reaching out and touching her lightly on the arm. `˜I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't have to. But you can see why we're worried. What you do with your own life is no one else's business and we're absolutely with you on that. But we don't want this to happen to another girl. Someone else in your position. Something like this `“ it's not OK. Even if it was `њjust a joke`ќ. And if it wasn't `“'

She leaves the sentence unfinished. She knows the power of silence. Silence in a good cause.

The girl takes a deep breath and blinks the tears away. `˜OK,' she says at last. `˜OK.'

* * *

Tony Asante is in a cafГ© on Little Clarendon Street. One of those achingly trendy places with displays of muffins and shiny cakes and sourdough bread. The place is packed, and a couple of students taking up space with laptops are getting side-eyes from people in the queue. As is Asante, though he's too absorbed to notice: the cup of coffee in front of him is long since empty, but he's still sitting there, staring at his phone, switching every minute or so between different web pages. Baxter may have been the one assigned to social media, but he won't be doing what Asante is doing. Or going where Asante has gone.

* * *

Faith takes the two women through to the kitchen at the back of the house. Ev had been steeling herself for yet more mauve but it proves to be just anonymous cream cupboards and worktops that look like granite but probably aren't. The fridge is barnacled with Post-its and to-do lists and jolly little magnets. A woolly sheep, an enamel cat, three ducks in formation; a large pink heart saying Daughters start as your babies but grow up to be your friends , and another, square and yellow with a sprig of daffodils, Just be yourself. That's plenty wonderful enough .

Somer feels her throat tightening. Diane Appleford might be prickly and defensive with the police but when it comes to her kids her heart is definitely in the right place. She's going to support her children, whoever they turn out to be. And Somer wonders suddenly if her husband wasn't, in the end, able to do the same `“ and whether that's the reason he's no longer around.

`˜You want tea?' she asks, moving towards the kettle. `˜Coffee?'

Faith shakes her head but Everett indicates yes. She'd have done the same even if she'd had four cups already and was wired with caffeine: it's not about the drink, it's about the domesticity. The reassurance of routine. There's only instant in the cupboard but the aroma fills the small room. Not for the first time, Somer wonders why it always manages to smell better than it tastes.

She pulls out one of the stools at the breakfast bar and slides Ev's mug across to her. They're waiting to see if Faith speaks first `“ they want her to feel she's in control.

`˜So,' begins Everett, having strung out the process of sugar and milk (neither of which she takes) as long as humanly feasible.

`˜I'll talk to you,' says Faith at last. `˜But I don't want any of it coming out. In public, I mean. About me. Who I am.'

The two women exchange a glance. They know the perils of a promise like that. Especially if this is a hate crime. Somer takes a deep breath and makes a decision.

`˜Until we know who did this we won't know why. If he did it because of your status, then we'll have to charge him with that offence and it'll be almost impossible to keep your name out of it entirely.'

Faith starts to shake her head but Somer plunges on. `˜ But if he attacked you because you're a beautiful girl `“ and you are `“ then that's different. Either way, I promise you I will do everything I possibly can to protect your privacy.'

She reaches out for Faith's hand, forces her to look up, to believe her. Their eyes meet and slowly the girl sits up a bit straighter and lifts her chin.

`˜OK. What do you want to know?' she says.

`˜Why don't you start at the beginning?' says Somer. `˜You had breakfast with your mum and sister then left for college? Let's start from there.'

Faith takes a deep breath. `˜I left the house at 9.00 and walked down towards the bus stop on Cherwell Drive. That's where it happened.'

`˜Someone took you `“ abducted you? Is that what you're saying?'

Her head drops and she nods.

`˜It's usually quite busy along there at that time of the day, isn't it?' says Ev. She makes it a question, hoping it sounds less confrontational like that, but there's no getting away from the fact that Rydal Way is a rat run and no one reported any sort of incident along there that morning. The idea that a young girl could have been snatched off a busy cut-through in the middle of the rush hour and no one saw anything `“

Faith looks up briefly. `˜It had just started raining. Really hard.'

Which could `“ just about `“ explain it. The road is suddenly awash, windows get steamed up, drivers concentrate more on where they're going and less on what's around them.

`˜I'd stopped to get out my umbrella,' says Faith. `˜I'd propped my bag up on a wall to look for it. That's when it happened. Someone put a plastic bag over my head and started dragging me backwards. I tried to fight them off but they jabbed something in my back. Something sharp. I thought it was a knife.'

`˜You didn't see his face?' asks Somer, keeping her voice steady. It's her own personal wake-at-dawn terror. Not being able to breathe, not being able to see. `˜No one went past just before? No one was hanging around?'

`˜I had my earphones in, so I wasn't really concentrating.'

`˜And then what happened?'

`˜He started dragging me round the back towards the garages. I couldn't see but I could tell `“ it's all gravelly in there `“ it's different to the pavement.'

`˜The garages?' asks Ev.

`˜Yeah, you know, at the bottom of the road.'

And Ev does know, now she thinks about it. You hardly ever see that sort of thing any more, but Rydal Way has a separate area for garages just before the junction with Cherwell Drive. And now Faith's story is starting to make more sense: if the attacker was lying in wait round there he wouldn't have been visible from the street and it would have taken only a few seconds to bundle Faith out of sight.