Somer gives her a sad smile. `You're right `“ you are. Never forget that. You have such a great future ahead of you.'
She can see Diane Appleford too now, standing with Nadine just beyond the BBC van.
`And even though all this is just horrible,' says Faith softly, `at least it means that what happened to me `“ it can't have been someone I know.'
Somer wants to agree, but she's not sure she can. Right now, it feels like they're back to square one.
The bus engine chugs suddenly into life, saving Somer from the need to reply. The bus door opens with a hiss and the two girls get in, first `Sasha' then Isabel. Leah and Patsie are standing watching from the kerb, their eyes bright in the glare. A woman who must be Patsie's mother reaches out and puts an arm round her daughter's shoulders, but Patsie shakes her roughly away.
Somer turns back to Faith. `Do you mind if I ask you something?'
Faith shrugs. `Sure.'
`I know you said it was possible it wasn't a van you were taken in. Do you think it could have been some sort of car? Quite a small car, even?'
Faith's eyes widen. `You think you know who it was?'
`There is someone we're talking to, but that's all I can say right now.'
`Can't you test the car then `“ you know, forensics?'
`He claims to have an alibi for that morning, but we haven't been able to corroborate it yet. And in the meantime, yes, we are doing forensic testing on the car. But if there was anything else you remember, that would really help.'
Faith looks troubled. `I'm really sorry, but I just can't be sure. I want to help, but `“'
`No,' says Somer quickly. `It's fine. I understand.'
Faith looks back towards the crowd around the cameras. `Oh, I can see a couple of my mates over there `“ do you mind? I said I'd meet them.'
Somer follows her gaze. Two girls are waving to Faith; one of them is Jess Beardsley, the girl she talked to in the canteen.
`I'm glad you're making friends. That's really great. And Jess seems really nice.'
Faith smiles, a little shyly. `Yeah, that's the one good thing to come out of all this shit. Turns out Jess's brother is trans too. She thinks it's no big deal.'
Three small words, but a world of acceptance. The possibility of another life.
Somer watches her go, sees the hug she gets. Perhaps something good really could come out of all this pain. Against the odds.
* * *
Sasha watches as the bus pulls away, then goes back to the shelter and sits down on the bench. She checks her phone, and then gets to her feet again. She looks up and down the road, her face anxious. She appears to be looking for someone.
Then all the lights go out.
* * *
The cameras stop running and the girl playing Sasha turns and looks for her mother, avid for praise. And perhaps she deserves it `“ perhaps she really did look just like the girl she's impersonating, because Patsie and Leah are clinging to each other, sobbing their hearts out, and when the bus door opens Isabel steps down unsteadily and collapses, weeping, into Yasmin's arms. Everett watches as the woman drapes a blanket round the girl's shoulders, then leads her away like the survivor of an earthquake. And maybe that's not so far from the truth, thinks Everett; because the calamity those three girls have been caught up in has wrecked everything they thought they could count on, and even if that trust can be rebuilt the fault line will always be there.
A few yards away, Jonathan Blake is talking again, to another cluster of journalists. He seems to have found his vocation, thinks Everett scornfully, before remonstrating with herself for being so cynical. Perhaps the man just wants to help. One of the hacks interrupts to ask if Blake can pose for a picture with his new family and after a moment's modest demurral he calls his girlfriend forward. `Rach? Apparently they want you and Liam in this one as well.'
`Fantastic,' says the journalist as the cameraman arranges the couple and their child against the backdrop of the crowd. `The little brother Sasha never even got to meet. My editor will friggin' love that.'
* * *
After her husband leaves for work at 8.00, Alex Fawley allows herself another half-hour in bed before hauling herself into the shower and turning it on. She tests both the water and the pressure before she gets in: not too hot, not too hard. She soaps herself carefully, caressing the skin where it stretches over her child. The baby rises to her touch and she smiles. It's OK. Everything's OK. And it's not long now. Only seventeen more weeks. A hundred and nineteen days `“
She doesn't hear the phone till she turns off the shower and steps carefully on to the mat. It's her mobile; she must have left it in the kitchen. She decides to ignore it and reaches for a towel to wrap round her hair. The ringing stops eventually, only to start again barely thirty seconds later. By the time she gets downstairs and tracks the phone down she's convinced herself it's only Adam checking she's OK, but when she picks up the handset it's her office number staring back at her. And they've already rung four times.
`Hello? Sue? It's Alex `“ were you trying to reach me?'
Evidently she was. It's about one of Alex's biggest clients. One of the firm's biggest clients. And an imminent deadline, and a problem with the tax, and the partner who's standing in for her being off sick, and `“ and `“ and `“
Alex sighs: she's going to have to go in. But if she's lucky it'll only take a couple of hours. She'll be back long before Adam gets home. He won't even need to know.
`OK,' she says eventually. `I've only just got out of the shower, but I'll get there as soon as I can.'
`Oh, thank you,' breathes the assistant. Who is, as Alex reminds herself, unquestionably very bright and very ambitious, but still terrifyingly inexperienced. `That is so kind of you.'
`No problem,' she says, trying to sound more animated than she feels. `Just hold the fort for an hour. I'll be as quick as I can.'
* * *
Ruth Gallagher can't remember the last time she was in Alan Challow's office. Six months ago? Longer? She's run three or four murder investigations in the last year but it's usually the DS who deals with the forensics. As for Alan Challow, he tends to come to you, not the other way round, so to be invited to his home turf is an anomaly, to say the least. She'd like to think he has something important to say, but if all these years in Major Crimes have taught her anything, it's not to get her hopes up.
There's no answer to her knock, and she pushes open the door to find the office is empty. It looks exactly as she remembers it `“ the view down over the car park, the meticulously tidy desk, the complete lack of any personalization whatsoever. Ruth is good at detail `“ at seeing the meaning in the supposedly trivial; she's learned as much about her temporary team from their desk detritus as she has from their personnel files. The toddler pictures stuck round the edge of Gislingham's computer screen; Everett's carefully tended pot plant and Somer's photo of a woman so like her they must be sisters; the casual scatter of Quinn's desk; the chocolate wrappers hidden in the bin under Baxter's. As for Fawley, he has a photograph, too. His wife and son on a beach somewhere, tanned and barefoot, the sunset behind them redding their hair and making the resemblance between them even more striking. Jake Fawley is smiling, a little warily. It must have been taken the summer before he died.
`Sorry to keep you,' says Challow, coming in behind her and closing the door. He has his thermal coffee mug in one hand.
`I thought it would be easier to do this one in person.' He gestures to the chair and goes round the desk to his own seat.