Blackbird

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‘Where?’

‘Down to the Ring, along the loch, through the woods by Binscarth Farm – there’s a little trail there. My dad sometimes goes with her, you should ask him.’

‘I’ll do that.’ He rises from the chair, pushing it back gently on the wooden floor. ‘Thank you, Alex. Your mum and dad are waiting outside.’

As he starts towards the door, I call after him. ‘Will Olivia be in trouble when she comes home?’

He doesn’t turn for a while, just looks straight ahead towards the other policeman or maybe beyond him. Slowly he turns to face me and has a forced smile on his face. ‘No, she won’t be in any trouble.’ He gestures towards the closed door.

When I leave the conference room, Mum and Dad are waiting for me in the lobby of the station. They both stand up when I come out.

‘Everything OK?’ Mum asks, as she gently tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. She hates seeing me with my hair across my face. She likes it up off my face, in a bun or a French braid like Olivia’s.

‘What did they ask you?’ says Dad, as he digs his car keys out from his jeans pocket.

‘Just about Hogmanay night.’

‘Well, let’s get home,’ my mum says, as she wraps her arm around me and nudges me towards the exit.

Walking over, I grab the knob but don’t turn it. I have to ask them something, and I have to see their faces when I ask it. ‘She’s just staying at a friend’s, right? We’ll find her?’

My mum nods but my dad doesn’t say anything. He’s not looking at me so I wait for him to say the words.

‘Yeah, sure. We’ll find her,’ he eventually says.

When we reach the house, my dad drops us at the front door. He tells us to go inside and lock the door. He’s going to get some posters printed with my sister’s face on them.

She’s going to be so embarrassed when she comes back.

Scooping up the phone directory, my mum disappears into the living room to start calling people. I think she’s called everyone by now.

No one’s seen Olivia.

No one knows where she is.

The house seems bigger to me now for some reason. And colder. A shiver shoots up my spine, and I hug myself to keep warm. I shuffle over to the wood burner and load some logs into the furnace. Lighter in hand, I search around for some newspaper to scrunch up. Sliding a paper out from under the TV remote, I kneel back down in front of the furnace and begin ripping pages off. I make only three paper strips to burn with the logs when something catches my eye. Lifting the paper up to my eyes, my sister’s name stares back at me. There she is.

Underneath her name is one word, in bold capitals: MISSING. That’s all she is now. Missing. She’s the missing girl from the Orkneys. The missing persons case that’s rocked this small community. That’s what the paper is saying.

Olivia.

Where are you?

Come home before this gets any worse.