Page 9 of Savage Obsession

“Including a grand’s worth of golf clubs and the latest Nintendo?” Does she think I’m an idiot? “Whose is that gear?”

“No one. Have you eaten?”

I allow her to change the subject. I’ll know soon enough in any case. “On the plane.” I wander through to the living room. “So, tell me what happened. With Lily.”

I lounge on her sofa while she perches in front of me on an armchair and relates some tale of a row. She’s not telling me all of it, I’m sure of that, but from what I can glean, Lily found a bunch of my cards and this unsettled her enough to prompt her to run away.

I see no point in going into why the cards were hidden in the first place. That can come later. My priority now is to try and work out where she might be.

“Did she say anything? Anything at all about where she might go?”

Julia shakes her head. “Nothing. Well, apart from wanting to come and find you, but I don’t see how she?—”

“But still, you phoned me. You thought there was a chance she was on her way to me.”

“The passport. She doesn’t know anyone else abroad.”

“Thanks to you, she doesn’t know me either.”

Julia flushes. Hazel eyes flash, and she tosses her brunette mane. “You were the one who walked out.”

I bite back the stinging retort and stick to the business at hand. “What about her socials?”

“I’ve spoken to all her friends.”

“Okay, but what about online?”

“Online? I don’t…”

“Does she have a laptop? Did she take it with her when she went?”

“I’m not sure. She has a tablet…”

“Let me see her room.”

She waves her hand towards the door. “It’s the one at the back. I don’t know what you expect to find there.”

I take the stairs two at a time, pausing on the landing to check the bathroom. An aerosol of shaving foam and the presence of three toothbrushes suggests to me who might be the owner—previous owner—of the Nintendo and golf clubs. Clearly, she’s thrown him out or he’s gone anyway, but every nerve ending in my body tells me this nameless man knows more about my little girl’s disappearance than Julia is letting on.

And she knows it, too, or why would she be so evasive?

I check the main bedroom but find nothing to suggest double occupancy. I didn’t really expect to, given the bags piled outside. She obviously cleared him out of the bedroom but not the rest of the house.

The spare room is a surprise. Furnished and equipped as an office, there’s a modern desk, a bookcase housing a bank of lever arch files, a printer and scanner, and a desktop computer. I pull out a file at random to find it full of spreadsheets. The lower shelf of the bookcase is home to several books on accountancy.

Is Julia’s absent lover an accountant working from here? From the house I pay for. If I wasn’t already determined, this settles it. He’s going.

I enter the back bedroom and take a moment to simply observe, to smell the air, almost. The usual crop of teen posters depicting Polish pop stars adorn most of the wall space, though pride of place opposite the bed is occupied by an anatomical image graphically displaying the human skeleton. A map of the world has been pinned beneath, and I note that she’s marked Tenerife in felt tip pen. She’s also marked the United Kingdom, and Madrid in Spain, all places I’ve mentioned in my cards. Clearly, she’s been tracking me, so perhaps Julia is right to assume she’s trying to make her way to the Canary Islands.

And I’m not there.

The bed is a solid wood bunk type, with a desk built in beneath. The duvet cover is bright pink and matches the curtains. There’s no laptop on show, but I check the drawers and find an iPad Air tucked away. I perch on the desk chair and fire it up.

It’s set up for fingertip recognition, but I’ll need to circumvent that. I’m not the best hacker in the world, and Apple devices are known for their security, but if I can make a decent stab at a passcode I’ll be in. I try Lily’s date of birth, and Julia’s birthday. No joy. I run through the various pop stars on the walls, but none of them come up trumps either. I’m starting on variations on her name when a movement under the desk catches my eye.

“Hello, you.” I bend to greet the tatty mongrel peering out at me. Dark grey, wiry hair, he’s some sort of terrier and obviously timid. The tip of his tail sways cautiously as he observes me from the safety of his den.

I reach out my hand, allow him to sniff my fingertips. He wants to be friends.

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