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‘To be honest, I assumed Nicky would have told Rachel, but when I realised that wasn’t the case, I thought I would spare her this, which is why I’m here, telling you. Rachel must be going through a living hell already.’ As soon as he’d turned his back on me, I bolted back into the building and took the stairs up to the incident room three at a time.
RACHEL On Sunday night, after dark, I still thought of nothing apart from the fact that Ben had been gone for one week. Seven days, one hundred and sixty-eight hours, thousands of minutes, hundreds of thousands of seconds. And counting. My thoughts were suddenly full of the woods as if, now that seven days had passed, the memories had swollen, and germinated into a vivid sensory overload. The bright blue sky and the kaleidoscopic intensity of the backdrop of beautiful, colourful, crisp autumn leaves replayed in my head like a movie reel. I saw Ben’s flushed cheeks, the gauzy mistiness of his breath, floating momentarily, a piece of him, of his warmth, in the air, then evaporating into nothing. I would have seen more, lost myself in those memories, but my phone rang. It was the police, letting me know that a DC Woodley, my interim FLO, was on his way to call on me. They apologised for the lateness of the call. It was already half past eight at night. DC Woodley arrived at nine. He was very tall and very skinny with an elongated neck and a large nose. He looked as if he was about seventeen years old. He introduced himself awkwardly, and then he said that we should probably sit down, and he licked his top lip nervously when he said it. At my kitchen table we sat under the stark central light. Unlike my sister, I didn’t think to make the room cosy by switching on other lights, or boiling a kettle. I’d lost my social niceties a week ago. I only wanted to hear what he’d come to tell me. ‘We’ve arrested somebody,’ he said. ‘We haven’t charged them yet, but they are at Kenneth Steele House and they are under arrest.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Lucas Grantham. Ben’s teaching assistant.’ My mind curled around this information and then recoiled at the ghastliness of it. Lucas Grantham spent all day of every weekday with my son. He spent more hours with Ben than I did. And I didn’t know him at all; he was a stranger to me. For DC Woodley, and his patient, insistent questioning, I tried to remember anything I could, any mention of Grantham that Ben had made, but there was nothing beyond the entirely bland. Ben had hardly ever mentioned him, favouring Miss May, who he had known for longer. I scraped my mind for my impressions of him. They’d been fleeting. We were only a few weeks into term after all, and Lucas Grantham was new to the school, like the headmaster. I forced my mind to work back through any memories of him when I’d collected Ben’s schoolbooks from school just a few days before, but I had none really, just the vaguest sense of him being there at all. And then those thoughts were interrupted by a question that I had to ask: ‘If Lucas Grantham took Ben, then where is he?’ ‘We’re undertaking extensive searches at his property, and at properties he’s associated with. We’re doing everything we can to locate Ben. In the next twenty-four hours we’re going to be questioning everybody around him. I’m afraid I can’t give you any more information than that at present, but we wanted you to hear this from us, and not from anybody else. Please know that we are doing what we think is best in order to return Ben to you safe and well. That’s our priority.’ ‘Do you believe that?’ ‘That we’re doing our best? Yes. Absolutely. I’d swear on my mother’s life.’
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Gilly Macmillan grew up in Swindon,
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Burnt Paper Sky Table of Contents A
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JIM BEFORE
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DAY 2 JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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DAY 3 JIM
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DAY 4 JIM
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DAY 5 JIM
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DAY 6 JIM
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DAY 7 JIM
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DAY 8 JIM
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DAY 9 JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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RACHEL
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RACHEL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BIBLIOGRAPH
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Author’s Note During the research
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PROLOGUE NOVEMBER 2013 - ONE YEAR A
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imaginary interview goes really wel
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But whether I’ve been awake or as
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BEFORE DAY 1 SUNDAY, 21 OCTOBER 201
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eally honest, I hadn’t noticed it
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‘OK,’ and he was off, careering
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as if the woodland was holding its
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appeared on the path. Our progress
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‘That’s good news,’ she said.
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FM: Do you think that expressing fe
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JC: It was a promotion is what it w
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suspect, is not going to be an easy
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RACHEL John couldn’t stand the wa
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It was the awkward twitch of Inspec
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‘Solid eight hours,’ I said. I
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RACHEL Inspector Miller said that b
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JIM Kenneth Steele House is where I
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had four pairs of officers in place
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at others. He was always watching m
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JIM I was quite pleased with how th
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his parents as well as his grandpar
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‘Expertise is on our side,’ she
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RACHEL My sister Nicky was waiting
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unstoppable. She told me that the w
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the streetlights and the geometric
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JIM Addendum to DI James Clemo’s
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FM: So you recommended Emma for the
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DAY 3 TUESDAY, 23 OCTOBER 2012 Be a
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RACHEL In the car on the way to Ken
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‘If you are the person who is wit
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‘This way,’ she said. She swept
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‘It’s a soft alibi.’ Fraser w
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trace of dignity or vulnerability,
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missing”, and that everybody is l
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looking woman too: nicely dressed,
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‘Were there signs that the arm wa
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accident. But we’ll check it out
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To the insultingly practical: Don
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FM: So apart from the negative pres
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they’re focused on the job? FM: Y
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DAY 4 WEDNESDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2012 Cr
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RACHEL I slept only fitfully after
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WEB PAGE - www.whereisbenedictfinch
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JIM I spoke to Emma before I left f
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say that he doesn’t play by the r
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‘Bye,’ Fount said to him. ‘Wh
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thanked her for what she did for us
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I sat on the bed for a long time, u
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JIM Fraser and I had a pre-meet bef
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‘He’s got an alibi, doesn’t h
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RACHEL Nicky phoned the police and
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door in the middle of the night. Yo
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an orange wash remained. It struck
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RACHEL When I got back inside Nicky
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JIM On the night of Wednesday, 24 O
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DAY 5 THURSDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2012 You
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RACHEL I slept the night in Ben’s
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individuals closest to Ben, and he
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‘What about their son, Charlie Bo
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He took another sheet of paper from
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more imperfect than any version of
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JC: She said she was knackered. She
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It led swiftly to the fourth state.
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Quick response appreciated, obvious
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WEB PAGE - www.whereisbenedictfinch
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I didn’t know what to say. I look
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RACHEL Zhang agreed to come and giv
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sensation. Then she spoke to him of
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abstract shapes floating within it,
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JIM I got one of the DCs to pick up
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RACHEL This time, I made no attempt
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dog, black and white like Skittle,
Page 232 and 233: FM: I’m not intending to. That’
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Page 236 and 237: JIM We worked closely with John Fin
Page 238 and 239: DAY 7 SATURDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2012 An
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Page 242 and 243: school year, but I started to work
Page 244 and 245: tight. A hospital band was visible
Page 246 and 247: cancer himself. The whole family, w
Page 248 and 249: Another page. A different drawing:
Page 250 and 251: ‘The blog.’ I was slow; I didn
Page 252 and 253: told him to fuck off. ‘Tell Frase
Page 254 and 255: ‘Stop asking me to be patient. Ho
Page 256 and 257: JIM In the incident room the blinds
Page 258 and 259: swing. ‘So what are we thinking?
Page 260 and 261: ‘She’s drunk?’ I asked when h
Page 262 and 263: JIM Addendum to DI James Clemo’s
Page 264 and 265: JC: Fine. He coaxes his lips up int
Page 266 and 267: JIM It was Emma who I thought of al
Page 268 and 269: DAY 8 SUNDAY, 28 OCTOBER 2012 The P
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Page 272 and 273: JIM Nine o’clock Sunday morning,
Page 274 and 275: RACHEL The hospital receptionist se
Page 278 and 279: RACHEL My cab driver on the way hom
Page 280 and 281: tall bear of a man, with very dark
Page 284 and 285: He actually put his hand over his h
Page 286 and 287: ‘Cool,’ my avatar said. ‘New
Page 288 and 289: me wants you here to run the invest
Page 290 and 291: I behaved in an arrogant and disgus
Page 292 and 293: RACHEL I logged on to Furry Footbal
Page 294 and 295: ‘I know it was him,’ I said. Th
Page 296 and 297: Her handbag was on the seat between
Page 298 and 299: so that my toes were already numb.
Page 300 and 301: ‘It’s what Miss May said, about
Page 302 and 303: He sat back down. ‘Again,’ he s
Page 304 and 305: JIM Nicky Forbes was disturbed by m
Page 306 and 307: RACHEL It took me twenty-five minut
Page 308 and 309: here. And then I saw something else
Page 310 and 311: JIM Nicky Forbes’s expression was
Page 312 and 313: RACHEL They prised me up off the ca
Page 314 and 315: Operator: OK. They’re a few minut
Page 316 and 317: RECORD OF EVIDENCE: AVON AND SOMERS
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Page 320 and 321: ‘Is the child all right?’ Mrs M
Page 322 and 323: RACHEL I approached my son’s beds
Page 324 and 325: EPILOGUE CHRISTMAS 2013 - ONE YEAR,
Page 326 and 327: RACHEL A few weeks ago, somebody as
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JC: Yes. FM: Have you seen her sinc
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RACHEL We might never have closure,
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us that. He came to our house and w
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BIBLIOGRAPHY The following websites
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