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The puzzle piece her mother was trying didn’t fit. She placed it into a bag of discards by her side and selected another from the box.

And then she sighed.

“He shouldn’t have torn it,” she said. “I’m a bit disappointed in him for doing that. If he wanted it, he should just have taken the whole thing.”

“The whole what?”

“The box is in your bedroom.” Her mother nodded toward the corridor. “Go and see for yourself.”

“See what?” Katie said. “Who is this?”

“Nobody. One of your father’s fancies.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop a notch. Katie wasn’t sure that she’d heard her correctly, or what her words meant if she had.

“What did you say?”

But her mother didn’t reply. She just kept moving a puzzle piece around the empty space in the puzzle, rotating it methodically, trying it in every available position. Katie watched her for a moment, then putthe photograph of the little boy back in her pocket and turned to face the gloom of the doorway behind her.

Go and see for yourself.

“Okay,” she said. “I will.”

It was not her bedroom anymore, of course. It was a storage room now—one filled mostly with rubbish. Her mother had indeed rarely thrown anything away. Broken bookcases and cabinets lined the walls, while folding tables were stacked on top of each other, and slumped piles of trash bags stuffed with old clothes rested beneath the window. But the bones of the room were still familiar, and Katie felt a shiver of recognition as she stepped inside.

Her desk was still there.

She had loved it as a child: an old wooden school desk. There was a square black slate attached to the inside of the lid with a clock stenciled onto one corner. She walked across now and opened it slowly. The lid creaked up awkwardly on rusted hinges, releasing the sealed-away smell of chalk dust and chewing gum. The black slate was still there. The clock too. The ghostly marks of hundreds of chalk hands there gave the impression it was telling every possible time at once.

Katie looked down.

There was a cardboard box on the floor beside the desk. She knelt down. At some point in the past, the box had been sealed with brown parcel tape, but Chris must have cut it open. She opened the top to discover the box was full of material—old documents and paperwork; packets of photographs—but she found what she was looking for almost immediately. There was a collection of old newspaper clippings, and the one Chris had torn the photo of the little boy from was on top.

She picked up the yellowing paper and then took the photo of the child from her jacket pocket. It fit into the corner of the clipping perfectly, and now that the photograph was back in place, the little boy seemed to be staring at the stark headline beside him.

SEARCH CONTINUES FOR WHITROW’S NATE

Police and civilians today (April 12) continued their search for missing infant Nathaniel Leland (pictured), combing the fields and woods around the home from which he is believed to have vanished last week. Their efforts were hampered by adverse weather conditions and the difficulties of the terrain.

One volunteer told them, “It’s boggy land, the trees are thick, and the rain has made progress pretty tough. It’s just unforgiving out there. But each of us is one hundred percent committed. If Nate is out there somewhere, we’re determined to bring him back home, where he belongs. This is something that’s affected us all.”

Local police are keen to emphasize that Nathaniel’s disappearance remains a missing persons inquiry for now, but sources indicate that hopes of finding the missing child alive now are dwindling. Many are privately preparing themselves for the worst.

“We’re determined to keep looking,” another volunteer commented. “I think at this point we’re all afraid of what we might find, but no child should be out there regardless. I know Nate’s father. If nothing else, I want to find him for his sake.”

It is a view that has echoed throughout this tight-knit community ever since Nathaniel disappeared from his family home on Monday. Nathaniel was left in the care of a babysitter, Peter Leighton, who is also missing. A tent believed to belong to Leighton was located in dense woodland nearby. As of today, his cottage remains sealed off while officers and forensic teams perform a fingertip search of the property.

And in the meantime, a shaken community continues to search.

Katie kept hold of the photograph but put the newspaper clipping down on the dusty carpet beside her. She was shaken by what she’d justread. Not by the contents, as such, but by the questions they raised. And by the implications she could feel gathering from her mother’s choice of words.

One of your father’s fancies.

What the hell could she have meant by that?

She turned her attention to the other news clippings in the box. There were several, and she took them out one by one—carefully at first, then more quickly—spreading them out on the carpet and then moving them round in an attempt to create an order—a narrative—from them.

Only part of one emerged.