Page 61 of Breaking the Dark

Jessica looks back at Debra. “I think, probably, it’s safe for Belle to wander into the village for some tea and cakes at two o’clock in the afternoon with a responsible adult.”

“I’m sorry, Jessica, but whatever you say, I am fully in loco parentis and my instructions are very clear. Belle must stay in the grounds at all times.”

Jessica looks at Belle. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to go for tea,” she says, quietly.

Debra pulls herself tall and says, “I’m sorry, but if you take Belle another step further from these gates, I will have no choice but to call the police and tell them that she’s been abducted.”

The fire leaves Jessica’s belly. She cannot have the police involved, not at this stage of a delicate private investigation.

“Fine.” She turns to Belle. “I’m sorry. We’ll do it another time. I’m here for a few more days. And here, take my number. Call me if you need me, at all.”

She passes her a scrap of paper with her number quickly scrawled on it and then stands and watches as Belle slips back through the rusty gates, Debra’s hand on the small of her back leading her away as the gates slowly close behind her. Her heart aches painfully, not just because of the blow to her investigation but because of the girl. Belle. The vulnerability of her. The sadness. She’s not safe and Jessica wants to save her.

Back at her hotel, Jessica goes straight to her room, ignoring the conservatory full of people enjoying their cream teas, the quiet murmur and tinkle of teaspoons against porcelain. She makes an espresso from her little machine—sue me, unborn child—opens up her laptop and googles the name of the boarding school that Belle mentioned. She calls the number and a moment later a woman says, “Good afternoon. Truscott House.”

“Oh, hi. Good afternoon. I was hoping to speak with one of your students. She’s named Belle.”

“Hold the line for just one moment, thank you.”

The woman returns and says, “I’m sorry, but there is nobody called Belle at this school.”

“Oh.” Jessica is both surprised and entirely unsurprised. “Are you…are you sure? This is Truscott House, yes, in Suffolk? Near the sea?”

“Yes, that’s correct. And yes, I’m sure. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

“No,” says Jessica. “No, really, you have been more than helpful. Thank you so much.”

Jessica ends the call and then her eye is caught by something on the screen of her laptop. In the search results for Truscott House, to the left of the Google feature box where she found the phone number, there is a result with the headline:

TRUSCOTT HOUSE: STUDENTS STILL MISSING AFTER SCHOOL TRIP

Her breath catches and she clicks on it. It’s dated July of two years before, twenty-seven months ago.

Parents of three pupils missing from the girls’ boarding school Truscott House in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, are tonight still waiting in agony for news of their daughters’ whereabouts. It’s been three days since Grace Partridge, Audrey Hill-Lock, and Amina Sultanov, all age fifteen, failed to return to their coach after a school trip to Saffron Walden. The three missing girls were last seen taking part in a “treasure trail” of the picturesque Essex town, where students were given a series of clues that would lead them through the town discovering historical facts. The girls were divided into groups of three and CCTV shows the last sighting of Grace’s group at four forty-five p.m., leaving a sweet shop and turning off Museum Street in the direction of St. Mary’s Church, a five-minute walk from the car park where they were due to meet their coach. The girls never returned. Fellow students at the £8,500-a-term school claim that the trio had been “obsessed” with an Instagram account run by a beauty influencer and would spend hours talking about the unidentified account holder. One girl said that the missing students had talked about wanting to go and see her to have a face-to-face beauty consultation. “It felt almost like they were being groomed into a cult,” said one student, who shared a bedroom with a missing student. “Like the influencer was brainwashing them. It was weird.”

Alongside the article are photographs of the three missing girls. Audrey is shown on what looks like the terrace of a hotel somewhere hot, her blond hair tied back, tanned arms, a white tank top, her soft smile making a dimple in her left cheek. Amina is shown sitting on a sofa alongside her younger brother, her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, grinning widely at the camera. Grace is shown in an official school photo, wearing her school uniform. She’s a slight girl, very pretty but with dark shadows under her eyes, and fine brown hair tied back into a ponytail. She’s smiling in the photograph, but still looks sad.

Jessica leans closer to her screen and zooms into the photo and then gasps as it suddenly hits her that the sad girl in the photograph looks just like Belle.

TWENTY-ONE

JESSICA IS TEN miles deep in the internet researching the disappearance of the three Truscott House schoolgirls when her phone buzzes.

It’s Amber. She drags herself out of the rabbit hole and sighs, before taking the call.

“Hi.”

“Listen. There’s been a development. I got a call from the twins’ school this morning and am just leaving the principal’s office now. He’s worried about the twins. Says that he’s heard things on the grapevine about some kind of cult?”

“A what?”

“Yeah. I know. He was vague on details. But word has got to him that the twins are supposedly brainwashing their friends? I mean, yeah, I dunno, it sounds insane. Quite clearly, they’re not brainwashing their friends. But it is possible that they’re involved in some kind of sinister online thing or organization. And that their friends want in on it? You know, because of the perfect skin and what have you.” Amber sighs heavily down the line. “The principal is launching an investigation, internally. So yeah, shit is getting real and, seriously, whatever you have from over there, I need it ASAP. If this ends with my kids being thrown out of school, I want to be ahead of the game. I want to know. So what have you got, Jessica? Please.”

Amber sounds desperate and drained, and Jessica feels a pang of empathy for her. “I sort of don’t know where to start,” she says. “This whole thing, Amber. It’s kind of crazy.” She tells her about meeting Belle and Debra, about the missing schoolgirls, Belle’s inability to leave the property, her resemblance to Grace Partridge. “And this Debra woman,” she adds. “I dunno, there’s something off about her. Alternately unassuming and quite fearsome. I’m pretty sure she’s behind the kidnapping of the three schoolgirls, I’m pretty sure Belle is Grace Partridge, and I’m also pretty sure that Debra is using some kind of mind control or drugs to keep her there against her will. I need to get back into that house, get her out of there, but it’s guarded by these, like, wolf-dogs, they’d tear me limb from limb.”

“But surely you could just…” Amber trails off.

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