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‘Thank you.’
‘Do you need to know what I ate?’
‘No. That won’t be necessary.’
Zhang handed me a box of tissues.
We also compiled a list of the people that I’d seen in the woods: the crowd in the car park, including
Peter and Finn and the other young footballers and their families, the group of fantasy re-enactors, the
cyclists and the old lady who’d helped me when I first lost Ben. I also remembered a man who Ben
and I had passed early on in our walk. He was carrying a dog lead, though we didn’t see his dog. It
was frustratingly hard to recall what he was wearing, or even what he looked like, and I became
upset with myself.
I promised that if I thought of anything or anybody else I would let the police know. They asked
permission to look through my phone records, to search my home, and especially Ben’s bedroom. I
said yes to it all. I would have agreed to anything if I’d thought it would help.
‘Do you have a photograph of Ben? One that we can release to the public and press?’
I gave him the picture that I kept in my wallet. It was a recent school photograph, not even dogeared
yet as I’d only got it the week before. I looked at my son’s face: serious, and sweet, beautiful
and vulnerable. His father’s eyes and dark sandy hair, his perfect skin, scattered lightly with freckles
across the nose. I could hardly bear to hand it over.
Clemo took the photograph from me gently. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and then, ‘Ms Jenner, I will find
Ben. I will do everything in my power to find him.’
I looked at him. I searched those eyes for signs of his commitment, for confirmation that he
understood what was at stake, wanting him to mean what he said, wanting him to be on my side,
wanting to believe that he could find Ben.
‘Do you promise?’ I said. I reached for his hand, gripped it, startling both of us.
‘I promise,’ he said. He extricated his fingers from mine carefully, as if he didn’t want to hurt me. I
believed him.
When he’d gone DC Zhang said, ‘You’re in good hands. DI Clemo is a very, very good detective.
He’s one of our best. He’s like a dog with a bone. Once he gets stuck into a case he won’t give up.’
She was trying to reassure me but I was thinking of only one thing.
‘I let him run ahead of me,’ I said. ‘This is my fault. If somebody hurts him, it’s because of me.’