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It was the awkward twitch of Inspector Miller’s mouth that gave it away when he turned back to us.
Whatever they’d found, it wasn’t making him happy.
‘Right.’ He took a deep breath, drawing strength from some internal reserve. ‘The boys have found
something that they believe might be significant. It’s not Ben –’ he’d seen the question on my lips –
‘but it might be an item or items of his clothing.’
‘Where?’ said John.
‘By the pond at Paradise Bottom.’
I knew it. It was nearby. I ran. I heard them shout after me, I was aware of the heavy rhythm of
someone running behind me, but I didn’t pause, I sprinted into the woods as fast as I could.
Before I even reached the pond I saw them: a group of three men, huddled together, standing in the
middle of the path. They watched me as I approached. One man held a bundle in his hands, a clear
plastic bag with something in it.
‘I’ve come to see,’ I said, and the man with the bundle said, ‘It would be good if you could confirm
whether any of these items belong to Ben or not, but please don’t take them out of the bag.’
He held it out towards me, an offering.
John arrived beside me, his breathing loud and ragged.
I took the bag. It had a weight to it. Droplets of water smeared the plastic outside and in. The
contents were wet. I saw a flash of red, some denim, bundled up white cotton fabric. I turned it upside
down, and beneath the fabric items were two shoes: blue Geox trainers. They were scuffed, and on
one of them the sole was slightly separated from the shoe at the toe, as I knew it would be. I gave the
bag a little shake. Triggered by the movement, blue lights flashed along the sole of the shoes.
‘The shoes are named,’ I said. ‘With his initials, under the tongue.’
Through the plastic I managed to pull up the tongue of the shoe. Underneath it were the letters ‘BF’.
The ink had bled into the fabric around it.
‘Thank you,’ said the man. He had white hair and a darker grey moustache and eyebrows, and red,
pockmarked skin. He took the bag from me, though I didn’t want to give it back to him.
‘Where’s Ben?’ I said.
‘We’re doing our very best to find him,’ the man replied, and the compassion in his voice robbed
me of any shreds of composure that I might have had left.
An ugly fear was growing in me like a tumour; it was an idea that I hadn’t wanted to contemplate.
John hugged me, tightly. He knew what I was thinking because he was thinking it too.
‘No!’ I shouted and it was the sound of a wild animal, an ululation, an uttering that a mother might
make if she saw her offspring being dragged away by a predator.