Page 83 of Breaking the Dark

She sighs again. “I have been through both their rooms forensically, and there is nothing, literally nothing.”

“But anyway…I’d like to.”

“Of course,” says Amber. “Go ahead. But don’t move anything, they’re like hawks, they’ll know in a nanosecond.”

“I won’t leave a trace.”

Lark’s bedroom is first. It’s at the rear of the apartment, tucked away in a corner. The drapes are closed, the air is still and heavy with the smell of vanilla and musk. Jessica pulls open the drapes and peers down into the roof garden of a lower apartment. Her dressing table is littered with beauty products, scrunched-up tissues, and overturned cans of sprays and deodorants. Her walls are papered with unsettling posters and dark art, and her bed—unmade and scattered with discarded items of clothing—is a futon on the floor with piles of dark gray bedding, a far cry from the airy sugar-pink room that her father’s girlfriend designed for her in Essex. Jessica’s eyes scan the details, looking for the paper she saw in Malcolm’s photo.

She finds it pinned to a board:

MEET MIRANDA

NYC

* *

7pm October 24th

*SCAN THE CODE for details*

She pulls out her phone and scans the QR code. Her phone goes black briefly and she bangs at the screen, but a few seconds later it comes back to life and some text appears over the top of the familiar graphic of the child with outstretched arms.

You’re all signed up!…

Location details will be sent direct to this device at 6pm 10/24…

Be ready!…

The text fades away and Jessica’s phone vibrates gently, just once, followed by a small burst of heat against the palm of her hand, and then it is gone, and she is looking once more at her home screen. She searches her phone for an app to correlate with what she was just seeing, but there’s nothing. No new icons on the home page. No sign that the page was ever there. She feels a prickle of discomfort run through her as she continues her search of Lark’s room.

It’s not until a few minutes later that she notices the small mint-green pot on Lark’s dressing table. There is a label on the lid that says BEAUTY X in swirly hot-pink cursive. Jessica’s mind scrambles at the sight of it. She takes it and stares at it. It looks weirdly familiar. She’s seen it before, she’s sure she has.

Carefully, she unscrews the lid from the pot. It’s empty, just a sleek residue clinging to the inside of the container. She brings it to her nose and sniffs. The smell hurtles her back to the Old Farmhouse, the sweet metallic smell that sat under the damp and the dust.

She screws the lid back onto the pot and tucks it into her jacket pocket.

Jessica had thought it was detergent, or surface cleaner.

But no, it was the smell of Debra herself.

Four Years Ago

Bristol, UK

Polly has a new Instagram account. At last!

Her new persona, Perfect Peach, is entirely anonymous. Peach never shows her real face on her Insta account, only one distorted by filters. She doesn’t display a name, or a location. She talks about the beauty products that she gets sent for free because her account has nearly a hundred and fifty thousand followers, which makes her, officially, an influencer. And all it took was for Polly to wipe every trace of her authentic self from the account.

Peach reviews creams and potions, smoothies and lasers. She even reviews dog products and cleaning products. Every day Polly goes to the cash converter shop in town where she has a locker and collects the things that have been sent to her. The account is her full-time job; she replies to every comment, to every message in her inbox. She tests products vigilantly and thoroughly and writes up her reviews to the very best of her grade 6 English GCSE abilities. She makes stories and spends ages splicing reels together, finding the perfect pieces of music. Her followers use words like exquisite and magical and stunning about her posts, and about her.

The filters are all Arthur. He is one of the most prolific filter designers across all the social media platforms now and has started playing around with AI. It’s not there yet, but he reckons it won’t be long before filtered images look totally natural and nobody will be able to see the difference.

None of this is making them any money though. Polly still works at the nail bar, and they still live in a caravan. But she has plans. Soon she’ll take Perfect Peach to YouTube, when she gets better video equipment. She’ll get subscribers by offering bonus content and private one-on-one tutorials. She and Arthur have their next steps in place.

But then, one sunny August afternoon, a message appears in Polly’s inbox.

Hi there! My name is Jodie, and I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but are you the same lady who used to sell Beauty X on here? I know you’re anonymous but there’s something about your face that reminds me of her! And your dogs are the same as hers! If it is you, I just really wondered what happened to your brand? It was so so so amazing, especially the Visage Magic and I ran out years ago and nothing else has come close. If it is you, do you still sell it? I’d be happy to pay for it, just name a price! ANY PRICE! I just want to have perfect skin again!

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