'Look, look what Sadie found in Dr Hunter's garden,' the girl said, thrusting a manky piece of green cotton into Louise's hand.

'Sadie?'

'Dr Hunter's dog.'

'What is this?' Louise asked doubtfully, holding the scrap of green between thumb and forefinger.

'It's the baby's bit ofblanket, his comforter,' Reggie said. 'He won't go anywhere without it. Dr Hunter would never have left it behind. I found it in the garden. Why was it in the garden? It was already dark when I left and he had it in his hand then, and look at it, that stain there, that's blood.'

'Not necessarily.'

Archie had something similar, a bit of egg-yolk-yellow plush that had started life as a duck hand-puppet before the stitching gave way and the duck was decapitated. He couldn't go to sleep at night without it, she could see him now clutching it fiercely in his hand as if his life depended on it. Only in sleep did his fingers uncurl. He was the deepest sleeper. Louise would creep into his room in the middle of the night to cut toenails, remove splinters, swab cuts and grazes, all the little acts ofeveryday child maintenance that would cause him to scream the house down in daylight hours. He would rather have been separated from Louise than from that bit of yellow material.

She handed it back to the girl, saying, 'Things get lost.' Accidents happen. Milk gets spilt. Platitudes rain.

'Mr Hunter said Dr Hunter drove down,' Reggie said, 'but her car was in the garage. There was nothing wrong with it when she drove home in it yesterday. She's gone away but she never told me she was going, which isn't like her at all and Mr Hunter says she's visiting a sick aunt but she's never mentioned the existence of an aunt to me, I spoke to her friend Sheila at work and she was supposed to have gone to Jenners' Christmas Shopping evening yesterday but she didn't tell her she couldn't make it -which is 50 not Dr Hunter, believe me -and her phone is in the house somewhere because I heard it ringing, I definitely heard it ringing, Bach's "Crab Canon" she wouldn't forget her phone, it's her lifeline -she isn't forgetful, Dr Hunter never forgets anything, and her suit is missing, she wouldn't drive all that way in her suit, and-'

'Take a breath,' Louise advised.

'She's disappeared,' the girl said. 'I think someone's taken her.'

'No one's taken her.'

'Or Mr Hunter has done something to her.'

'Done something?'

The girl dropped her voice to a whisper, 'Murdered.'

Louise sighed inwardly. The girl was one ofthose. An over-excited imagination, could get stuck on an idea and be carried away by it. She was a romantic, quite possibly a fantasist. Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. Reggie Chase was a girl who would find something of interest wherever she went. Training to be a heroine, that was what Catherine Morland had spent her first sixteen years doing, and she wouldn't be surprised if Reggie Chase had done the same.

'It happens that I was at Dr Hunter's house earlier today,' Louise said. 'I was seeing Mr Hunter about something quite unrelated.'

'That's a funny coincidence.'

'And that's all it is,' Louise said sharply. 'A coincidence. Mr Hunter told me that his wife had gone away, to stay with an aunt who isn't well.' 'Yes, I know, I said that, that's what he told me but I don't believe it.' 'The aunt isn't a matter of faith, she's not Father Christmas, she's a relative. She's not part ofsome grand conspiracy to hide Dr Hunter.'

'No one's seen Dr Hunter. No one's spoken to her.'

'Mr Hunter has.'

'He says.'

Louise sighed heavily. 'Look -Reggie -why don't I give you a ride home?' 'You should get the phone number for the aunt of Dr Hunter, make sure she's OK. Maybe you could send someone to the aunt's house in Yorkshire, someone local. Hawes, H-a-w-e-s. Mr Hunter won't give me an address or a phone number but he'd have to give it to you.'

'Enough.' Louise held up a hand like a traffic cop. 'Leave it alone. Nothing has happened to Dr Hunter. Come on, my car's not far away.'

'Find out ifthe aunt exists. Get hold ofDr Hunter's mobile it's in , the house, then you can see if the aunt really phoned her.'

'Car. Now. Home.'

She said she had saved the life of a man at the train crash. More fantasy, obviously. Louise should have sent a uniform to talk to her. Ifit had been about anyone else she would have done, it was just that she had claimed Joanna Hunter and now she couldn't let her go. Her lady.

I might go away. Escape for a bit. Her husband's finances were in meltdown, he was walking on the dark side with some questionable people, the marriage was probably falling apart and Andrew Decker was back on the streets. Who wouldn't disappear? Was the marriage falling apart, or was she just projecting her own feelings on to Joanna Hunter?

Joanna Hunter had never told Reggie about what had happened to her when she was a child. In fact she hadn't told anyone as far as Louise could see, apart from her husband, and Louise wasn't about to break that confidence. It was Joanna Hunter's decision to keep her secrets, not Louise's to reveal them. 'I don't want Reggie to know something like that,' Joanna Hunter said. 'It would upset her. People look at you differently when they know you've been involved in something terrible. It's the thing about you that they find most interesting.' But it was the thing that was most interesting. Survivors of disasters were always interesting. They were witnesses to the unthinkable. Like Alison Needler and her children.

'A burden you have to carry through the rest ofyour life,' Joanna Hunter said. 'It doesn't get better, it doesn't go away, you just have to take it with you to the end.' Louise thought ofJackson, his sister had been murdered a long time ago and now he was the only one left who had known her. No such problem with Samantha. If her husband and her son didn't remember her, her things did. She lived on, forgotten but not gone, the spirit of Patrick's wife embalmed for ever in her napkins and vases and good silver fish knives. Samantha was the real wife, Louise was the pale impostor.

Of course she didn't need to drive all the way out to Musselburgh and back in rush-hour traffic. 'It's out ofyour way,' Reggie said. It was, but she didn't care. Not out of any real consideration for the girl, it was just a time-spinner, an avoidance of the inevitable return home. She'd been on the move all day, her own personal hejira, and the idea ofcoming to a stop was unsettling. Unable to stay put, she had spent half the day in her car going places and the other half making up places to go to. (Sorry I'm going to be late, something came up. Who had insisted that Bridget and Tim stay five whole days?

Louise, that was who.) 'What's Dr Hunter like?' she asked Reggie Chase on the drive to Musselburgh and the girl said, 'Well .. .' It seemed Joanna Hunter liked Chopin and Beth Nielsen Chapman and Emily Dickinson and Henry James and had a remarkable tolerance for the Tweenies. She could play the piano -'really well', according to Reggie -and agreed with William Morris that you should have nothing in your house that you didn't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. She loved coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon and had a surprisingly sweet tooth and said that it was a medical fact that you had a separate 'pudding stomach' which was why when you'd eaten a big meal you could always 'find room for dessert'. She didn't believe in God, her favourite book was Little Women because it was about 'girls and women discovering their strengths' and her favourite film was La RegIe du Jeu which she had lent Reggie a copy of and which Reggie liked a lot although not as much as The Railway Children which was her favourite film. If Dr Hunter had to rescue three things from a burning building they would be the baby and the dog but Reggie hadn't been sure what the third thing would be -Louise suggested Mr Hunter but Reggie said she thought he would probably manage to rescue himself. Of course, if Reggie was in the building then Dr Hunter would rescue her, Reggie said.