Bella made her call to her workplace, telling them she wasn’t well and wouldn’t be in. She didn’t have to fake the tremor in her voice. When she put the phone back in its rest, she stood for a moment in the hallway. Why can’t I just trust him? She began to walk up the stairs, dragging her feet, letting one hand trail slowly up the slippery banister. Because I just can’t.

In the bedroom, she pushed back her sleeves and tucked her hair behind her ears. Then, finally, she began to search. She lifted stacks of paper from the desk, sorting through sheet by sheet. She found the photograph again and forced herself to look at it. Carl, Jake, Veronica – and that girl. It was the girl who was driving her to do this. The identity of this strange woman was tormenting Bella. Was she a previous girlfriend of Jake’s? Of Carl’s? Of Veronica’s? Who was she?

Bella looked at the four of them on the bed. She even took the photograph over to the window to look at it in daylight. In the harsher light, she could see small details that she’d missed before. There was a glint of metal from one of the girl’s nipples – she had one of them pierced. Bella felt her mouth turn down. She looked, grimly fascinated, at Carl’s penis. He was big; bigger than Jake, she thought disloyally and felt herself go hot at the thought. She wondered again how it would feel to be naked, naked and erect, in front of a family member. To see your own brother touching your girlfriend. Fucking your girlfriend. She looked at Jake’s hand, resting on Veronica’s hip. Veronica’s breasts were shallow, her nipples almost colourless. Her eyes shone red in the flash from the camera.

Bella made herself put the photo down. She turned again to the desk, digging out more paper, careful to remember how things were set so she could replace it afterwards. She sat on the floor of the bedroom, reading through countless bills, bank statements, riffling through other, more innocuous photographs, old postcards, odd scraps of paper, discarded envelopes, curled up post-it notes and broken CD cases. There were no other photographs of the girl.

Bella piled all the paper back on the desk, fitting things back into their previous position. She sat on the bed, gnawing at her nails, baulked. The sick, self-righteous feeling she’d had since beginning to search Jake’s possessions had abated somewhat. Every time she looked at the photograph of the four of them, it ebbed away a little more. Who was that girl? Bella brushed her hair back from her face and sighed. Go downstairs, she told herself. Go downstairs and make yourself some lunch and forget about this.

No. She moved to the wardrobe and opened the door. This was Jake’s territory; his suits and jackets and shirts hung in haphazard order. One solitary dress of Bella’s was wedged at the end of the rail. Bella stood, gripping the door handle in frustration. She fetched a chair and climbed carefully up to peer at the shelf that ran along the top of the wardrobe. Jumpers, T-shirts, a brown leather belt that slithered out and dropped like a snake to the floor. Bella thrust her hand into the mass of clothes that packed the shelf. Nothing, just masses of cloth that weighed down her arm. She moved her fingers. Ah – she could feel something – the sharp corner of a box. She scrabbled for it, trying to grip the sides to draw it towards her.

It turned out to be an old cigar box, still redolent with a faint whiff of tobacco that had Bella wrinkling her nose as she raised the lid. Inside there was a jumble of cufflinks, a champagne cork, an old playing card. A scrap of newspaper. Some old copper coins, a silver dollar. Bella sighed. She climbed down from the chair, still holding the box. All of a sudden, the irrationality of her behaviour struck her anew. What was she doing? What did she hope to find? She sat back down on the bed, the box in her lap. You idiot, she told herself. Just let it go. Idly, she stirred the contents of the box with her finger. She picked up the newspaper clipping and unfolded it, and froze.

Missing. Have you Seen…? said the headline. The face below the uncompromising black letters was young, plump-cheeked; blonde hair straggling, black smudgy roots. It was the face of the girl from the picture. Bella closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. Then she went to the desk and picked through the stack of paper she’d put back on the surface until she unearthed the photograph. She compared the two faces. It was the same girl. She looked younger in the newspaper clipping, her chin stippled with acne. She looked very young. Bella read the clipping, trying to hold her hand still. Have you seen Candice Stanton, she read. Candice, 15, was last seen in Camden Town on the night of July the first, 2004. She was wearing jeans and a white vest top. There is great concern for Candice because of her age. If you have any information about her disappearance, or have seen her, please call… Bella looked unheedingly at the string of numbers at the bottom of the clipping. She looked again at the face of the girl and at her name. Candice Stanton. Candice. With a shiver, she recalled Jake’s mumbling in his sleep, his bad dreams, the name from his nightmares. Candy.

She tried to think. Jake had known this girl, known her intimately. So had Carl and Veronica. And now she was missing, she’d been missing for more than a year. Or had she? You don’t know that, she told herself. She could have been found two days after the paper published that clipping. She walked back to the bedroom and picked up the scrap of newsprint again. The date of the newspaper ran along the top left hand corner of the article. 14 September 2004. Bella pressed her fingers into her forehead. So, what does that prove? This girl, this Candice, was still missing last autumn. It doesn’t mean she still missing now. And even if she is – if she is – Bella felt herself falter. She forced herself to complete the sentence in her head. Even if she is, it doesn’t mean that Jake had anything to do with it.

She put all the detritus back in the cigar box, her hands moving automatically. The other voice in her head was growing stronger. The voice of doubt, the one that had sent her to search this room in the first place. How do you know Jake had nothing to do with it? Jake and Carl and Veronica? They knew her, they had sex with her. Once, or many times? Who was she, this Candice Stanton? Where was she?

Bella read the clipping again and looked at the photograph. It was her, the same girl. She felt sick. She put the box and the photo in the dank, dust-furred space under the bed. Then she walked downstairs and poured herself a glass of wine. Her legs felt odd beneath her; she felt odd – insubstantial. As if she weren’t really there.

As she sat there at the kitchen table, swilling sour wine, she heard the sound of a key in the lock. Dully, she wondered who it was and looked at the kitchen clock, nothing with astonishment  that it was past five o’clock. She couldn’t seem to move. The front door opened and slammed closed. Footsteps moved towards the kitchen where she sat, slumped in her chair. She looked down at the table, concentrating on the rippling maroon surface of the wine in her glass.

“Hey babe…”

It was Jake. Bella felt a jolt of – something – fear, nervousness, even anger. She looked up, trying to keep her face expressionless.

“What’s up?” Jake paused for a moment in the doorway. He had his jacket slung in a crumple of denim over his arm. “How are you feeling? What’s that you’re – are you drinking?”

Bella took a deep breath. All of a sudden, she felt exhausted, bludgeoned into fatigue by the sheer weight of questions. Where on earth was she going to start? She picked up her glass and slugged back the contents.

“Bella – what the hell? Are you okay?”

Jake put his jacket and his bag down on the table without looking. He was too caught up in staring at her. Bella put the glass down and it rang briefly, its brief crystal chime echoing around the kitchen. She braced her hands against the edge of the table and stood up.