The Lighthouse Witches(74)

But Saffy wasn’t in her bedroom. I squinted at the clock—it was after eleven o’clock. She should have been back from Machara’s house.

I looked at the list of phone numbers scribbled in pencil on a page that was Blu-Tacked to the fridge. There was a number for Sibyl, Machara’s mother. I called it.

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry it’s late, but is Sapphire there?”

“No. I’ve not seen her for a few days now. Machara’s here. I can ask her . . .”

I waited. She returned to the phone.

“Machara says she hasn’t seen her, either. Not since yesterday.”

“Are you sure?”

“That’s what she said.”

I set the phone down carefully, trying to think about what to do, who to try. I called Isla to see if Saffy had been with Rowan. It was a long shot, and Isla confirmed that she wasn’t. I tried other people, other school friends and acquaintances—everyone and anyone Isla could provide a number for.

But no one had seen her.

Finally, I called Finn. I hoped beyond imagination that maybe she’d walked to his home to see Cassie. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep, and Finn hadn’t the heart to wake her. I was clutching at straws.

“She’s not here,” Finn said, and I started to cry. “When did you last see her?”

I couldn’t think. My mind was a flurry of names and dates, the terrifying images in the lantern room still flashing in my brain.

I was still on the phone to Finn when Luna stepped forward, one arm across her stomach and her face full of guilt. “I think she’s run away.”

I grabbed her by the upper arms. “What do you mean, Luna? What did you see?”

She broke down into tears.

“I’m sorry!” she shouted. “I promised not to tell!”


II

Saffy was gone. She had been gone for two days.

I felt like I was in a nightmare, a living, labyrinthine nightmare that I was having to drag myself through on my elbows. Saffy’s teacher told us that she hadn’t been to school on Friday; I had supposed she’d woken early and caught the bus herself, as she occasionally did. I wracked my brains; I had thought I’d heard her come in at night. I had even crept up to the loft and peeked my head around her door to see if she was in bed, and I’d seen the rumpled covers of her bed and thought she was there. Why hadn’t I made sure?

I had been distracted by my work. So hell-bent had I been on finishing the Longing that I hadn’t even noticed my oldest child wasn’t at home.

It was after midnight, but Finn insisted on bringing Cassie over while he searched the island in his car. Cassie proved a good distraction for Luna and Clover while I made more calls. To the police, to the coast guard. I made desperate calls to Sean’s family, my father, Saffy’s old school friends, even teachers from her old schools—anyone and everyone that Saffy might have contacted.

At seven the next morning, a black Range Rover pulled up outside and two men got out.

“Who are they?” Clover said warily, watching them negotiate their way to the bothy.

“Detectives,” I told her, and I felt a fleeting sense of relief, which dissipated when Bram walked into the bothy with a junior policeman, Police Constable Thomson, a short, dark-haired man in his twenties, both in plain clothes.

My throat was tight and my head bursting with noise. I hadn’t slept, not a wink. Saffy was impulsive, and she was bullheaded and so downright hateful that sometimes I’d had force myself to walk away from her so as not to scream in her face. But I knew my oldest daughter. She’d have contacted me by now. At the very least, she’d have wanted to know that her punishment had worked. She’d have wanted to know that I was beside myself, searching every corner and overturning every stone to find her.

Bram and PC Thomson searched her bedroom. They found some letters to her boyfriend, Jack, and some books she’d been reading. One of them had several pages folded down at the corners. The one by Patrick Roberts.

“Was she having a relationship with Mr. Roberts?” Bram asked.

“A relationship?” I said, looking from him to PC Thomson. “No! And in any case, Patrick Roberts has been away for most of the time we’ve been here.”

He flipped a Polaroid out of the back of the book. “Did she take this for him?”

I took the Polaroid and gasped. It was a picture of Saffy, but I almost didn’t recognize her—she was naked, her red lips stretched into a seductive smile, one hand cupping her breast. My little girl.

I looked up at Bram, unable to speak for horror.

He flicked a grim look at PC Thomson. “Bring Roberts in for a chat.”


III

For several hours, I fell into the infinite abyss of despair made by imagining what Patrick might have done to my daughter. How I’d neglected to keep as close an eye on her as I should have done. How I should have seen that she was desperate for attention, for love.

I had failed as a mother.

When Bram called to say they’d let him go, my despair only widened. I had so many questions, and no answers.

Needless to say, I missed my GP appointment. I did not sleep or eat. Time passed in strange bursts.

Bram and PC Thomson insisted on interviewing Luna several times over the next few days. Even though I could see she was suffering with guilt and devastation, I allowed it. They said the slightest detail that Luna could remember—a throwaway phrase Saffy had used, some minor action that was in some way out of the ordinary—could point the way to Saffy. Boats docked and sailed away dozens of times a day; she might have been dragged off by anyone, halfway across the ocean in any direction. Or she could have drowned. Or she might have simply decided to punish me for real and hitchhiked back to England, or farther.