Finding Grace(76)

Nobody has called me Lucinda for years. Only one person has ever called me that. That tone, that style of speech; it’s unmistakeable… to me, anyway.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It can’t be him. It just can’t.

I never thought for a second that Grace going missing would have anything to do with Stefan O’Hara.

I didn’t even think it was possible, given what happened to him.





Fifty-Four





I pick up the note and read it again. The paper quivers in my hand.

That name – Lucinda – spoken in a voice that is forever seared into the darkest corners of my mind. Details I’ve tried so hard to file away forever.

I tip my head to the side, listening. I can hear Blake’s deep voice coming from the closed kitchen door. Clinking crockery as someone makes tea. I think I’ll be left undisturbed for a few more minutes.

I grab my phone from the bedside table and google the contact number for the Queen’s Medical Centre.

I can remember the ward. I can remember Stefan O’Hara lying there, helpless for the first time in his life. Unable to move any part of his body apart from his head.

I shudder now as I pace the length of the room, back and forth. That day I saw him in that hospital bed, I felt, for the first time, that I had a chance to seize my power back at last.

My head thumps with fresh pain and I pick up the note and screw it into a ball.

I ring the hospital and the receptionist puts me through to the ward. A hassled-sounding woman answers.

‘I know it’s a long shot,’ I say, speaking quietly but clearly, ‘but I wonder if anyone can help me find out about my friend who was a long-term patient on Ward 6 nine years ago?’

‘Goodness, nine years! I wasn’t here then, but maybe I can find someone who was. What’s the patient’s name?’

‘Stefan O’Hara.’ It takes a huge effort to utter his name. It’s something I’d assumed I’d never have to do again. ‘He was paralysed after a car accident, had to stay in the hospital for weeks. I’ve been out of the area for a long time and I’m trying to trace him.’

‘Hold the line.’ The call clicks on to a cranky electronic recorded track that sounds like a creepy circus ride.

My heart is racing now. I’m racking my brain to think what to say if the door opens and Blake or Fiona comes in.

After a few minutes, she’s back.

‘Someone does remember him vaguely, but he didn’t stay here long. He was transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Newcastle.’

‘Thank you,’ I say.

It’s a start.

But there’s something else I need to do while I can. I slide my laptop out from underneath the couch. I haven’t touched it since Grace went missing.

Remember the old email? You might want to log in.

When I was at university, all students were allocated email addresses on the server. Back then, data protection was not a hot topic and there were rumours that the university snooped on the content of students’ mail.

Stefan had a friend who was an IT expert, and he set the two of us up with email addresses that we only used for communicating with each other. We used to joke about it, but it felt secret and exciting to be able to send anything to each other: racy photographs, jokes and gossip about other people in our friendship circle…

It makes me feel sick now, of course, just to think of that stuff. But it was a different time back then. I didn’t know who Stefan O’Hara really was.

When the laptop finally cranks into life, I open up a new window and tap in the web address to access the email. It’s so long since I’ve done this, I’m fully prepared for the link no longer to exist.

But it is there.

Thank goodness the address and the password are so memorable, I think as I add the necessary details.

The screen whirrs and flickers, and then there it is: my old private student inbox.

There is a single email, from someone calling himself ‘Back from the Dead’, which I assume is his idea of a joke. With shaking hands, I open it. A photo loads. As it fills the screen, I cry out.

It is a picture of a single yellow glove. Grace’s glove. I can see the edge of the name label I sewed in there at the start of the school term.

Underneath the photograph is a message:

We come as a package. If you want her, then you must meet with me. Alone. Check back here tomorrow for instructions. Don’t breathe a word, or I tell them everything. I have nothing to lose.





I read the email again. The words explode like bombs in my head. My whole body is trembling. Half of me processes the horror of what he means; the other half pushes it away.

I listen for a moment, and when I’m satisfied that Fiona’s not about to burst in, I type a hurried reply.

Grace is diabetic. She has insulin, please let her use it.





I feel numb. Terrified. Most of all, I feel completely alone in facing the enormity of what has just happened.

I log out and shut the laptop quickly and push it under the sofa. I don’t want to give Fiona or the detectives the idea of forensically examining its contents.

I let out a long, slow breath.

I will follow up with the hospital in Newcastle, but this is evidence enough. Stefan must somehow have recovered from his paralysis. Or maybe he got someone else to help him abduct Grace. Regardless, there’s no doubt he has her. And I know, more than anyone, he’s clearly unstable.