The two girls in shorts, T-shirts, sunglasses and baseball caps, laughing, carefree, legs straddling either side of a narrow, paved path behind a red-and-yellow sign.
ECUADOR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD
Meg hadn’t printed it out. So who had? She picked it up and turned it over, but the reverse was blank.
She knew the girls had set up a WhatsApp group for their trip. In a wild thought, she wondered if one of Laura’s friends had done it and brought it round as a gift. A surprise gift. But surely they would have left a note with it?
And how would they have got in? The only person who had a key was her Latvian cleaning lady, Vesma, and she was the last person on earth she could imagine being on social media. Besides, she only came on Fridays.
Then she remembered the hidden spare key beneath a flowerpot in the garden shed. Laura used it regularly as she was always forgetting her key. Probably half her friends knew where it was. But all the same, she thought, it was very odd there was no note with it.
Suddenly, looking at the photograph again, she was struck by something. Curious, she pulled her phone out of her bag, opened WhatsApp and went to the photograph Laura had sent on Thursday. Then she compared it to the one on the kitchen table and, with a trembling hand, put her phone down.
They were different.
Both must have been taken at almost the same moment, but the one Laura had posted was face-on, with other tourists clearly visible in the background and trees beyond. The printed one was angled, high quality, and must have been taken from some distance away. The girls were clearly not aware of the photo being taken as they were so far away and not looking at the camera at all. Her heart sank as she realized it was most definitely not the same photo.
There was a creak from out in the hallway and she spun round. Shivers rippled through her. Someone had come in whilst she’d been at the races and put this on the table. Could that person still be in here?
Another creak. It was drowned out a moment later by the cat miaowing.
‘Hello?’ Meg called out, a dark unease coiling through her. ‘Is someone out there?’ She turned sharply, her eyes hunting in every direction.
Miaowwwww.
‘Shut it,’ she hissed. Then listened. The house was old, 1930s, it creaked all the time. She waited a full minute, the thudding of her heart echoing in her ears like drumbeats — boomf... boomf... boomf... A few feet away were a bunch of kitchen knives in a wooden block. She strode over, grabbed the largest then walked to the doorway to the hall. ‘Hello?’ she shouted and marched through, brandishing the knife.
There was nothing there.
She stood for some moments, wondering. Should she call the police? And say what? That someone had broken into her house and left a photo of her daughter in the kitchen?
The thought suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t checked to see if anything had been taken. Still holding the knife and still scared, she went from room to room. Nothing seemed to have been touched. Laura’s menagerie was all fine. She was topping up the water for the gerbils when she heard a phone ringing downstairs.
Might it be Laura? She raced back down and into the kitchen, and realized it wasn’t her own phone as she saw another one on the sideboard that she didn’t recognize. A cheap-looking one. Whose was this phone — Vesma’s?
She answered it, tentatively. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Meg!’
A male voice. Confident. Pleasant, with the rasp of a heavy smoker. Almost like they were best buddies. Salesy. These kinds of calls really pissed her off. ‘Who am I speaking to?’ she asked, coldly.
‘A very good friend, Meg.’ He sounded so hurt that, for an instant, she thought she must know him, and the fault was with her for not recognizing who it was.
‘Really?’ she said. ‘I’m sorry but your number hasn’t shown up, so I’m not sure who I’m talking to.’
‘Do you like the photograph?’
‘Photograph?’
‘The one I left on your kitchen table. By the way, that’s a nice photograph of your racehorse — I presume it’s yours, the one on the wall. Did your late husband take it?’
She could scarcely believe her ears. ‘You’ve been in my house while I was out? What? How dare you? Just who the hell are you?’ She began screaming at him. ‘What do you want? What the hell do you want?’
‘She’s a lovely girl, your daughter, Laura. Having the time of her life backpacking in Ecuador with her friend Cassie, isn’t she?’
She was silent for a moment, her mind spinning for traction, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. ‘Laura? Did you say Laura?’
‘That’s a cute tattoo she has on her left shoulder. A Tibetan symbol to keep you safe when travelling — very appropriate.’
‘Who the hell are you? How dare you come into my house? How — how do you know — my daughter?’
‘Let’s just call me her guardian angel.’
His tone was still cloyingly pleasant.
‘Where did you get that photograph?’
‘There’s a guy there all the time, snapping tourists and trying to sell photos to them. Just out to make himself a buck. Actually, that photo was of someone else that day, he just got lucky to have caught Laura and Cassie in the background.’
‘Was it you — did you write that note the bookie gave me?’
‘The thing is, Meg, I know how much Laura must mean to you. After the terrible loss of your Nick and Will, she really must be so precious to you.’
She said nothing. Her mind was churning, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. He was silent for a moment, too, before he went on.
‘Meg, you need to trust me. Laura’s in danger and I want to help you — we really need to make sure she is safe, don’t we? South America’s a wild and dangerous place, it’s not like England. Life is cheap, people get killed or vanish there all the time. Laura and Cassie are very vulnerable, they need someone to keep them safe. Make sure they don’t get anything stolen, you know what I mean?’
‘Oh God,’ she said, scared. ‘What do you mean? Please, please, do not hurt them. What do you want?’
Ignoring her comment and her question, he went on. ‘I can keep Laura safe, Meg, no charge, I’ve got contacts there. They’re already looking out for her, for me. I’ll ping you a photo they sent me this morning so you can see. Coming through now!’
Almost instantaneously, the new phone pinged with a text alert. It was a photograph of the girls sitting on the veranda of a large wooden shack, each holding a wine glass and what looked like a cigarette. Again, it was taken from a distance and the girls were not looking at the camera.
Beneath was the geomapping time, date, location.
She stared at it. ‘Why did you send this? Did you leave this phone here? Are you following them?’
‘Like I told you, Meg, I just want to make sure your daughter stays safe, and to show you how we are watching her all the time. We’ve left you this pre-paid mobile to keep in contact with you.’
She stood there, unable to think clearly, feeling like a rabbit frozen in headlights. Anger was rising through her fear. ‘Stop it, just stop it. Get away from those girls.’
‘I’m afraid they need me, trust me. I’m phoning to offer you a deal, and I think you should accept it for your daughter’s sake.’
‘Really? What deal?’
For the first time, she could sense a tone of real menace in his voice.
‘Firstly, just in case you’re thinking of warning Laura, or telling her to come back home right away, then all bets are off. You do understand me, don’t you, Meg?’
‘What is this all about?’ Meg demanded.
She had a nasty feeling that she already knew.