Page 66

Seaton was trying to outpace the feeling of sick sadness that was threatening to overwhelm him, but he was failing. He’d been walking the streets of London for a good half-hour, at speed, and yet it was all right there with him.

How was he supposed to outrun this? The possibility that he’d not only lost his daughter but also the one person who’d been there for almost forty years?

Philip isn’t a murderer , he thought, furiously. He hasn’t got a violent bone in his body. And neither has James.

But at that second thought he found himself floundering. Did he really know that about James? He knew that he was sensitive. That he felt things deeply. That he had loved Holly with a fierce intensity and that he’d been in pieces ever since she’d died.

Could he really have killed her that night? Out of bitter hurt and humiliation?

Seaton imagined James dwelling and dwelling on the necklace. Waiting for Holly to explain it. He imagined that intense love turning into a form of hatred.

And if James had done it, what might Philip have done to protect him? Could he have helped James kidnap Anna, to find out what she knew? If he’d thought of her as a snoop?

And what if he’d needed to silence her? Would he have done it?

As everything in him was crying out against this thought his phone buzzed with a number he didn’t recognise. Could it be Reid on another phone? He hesitated and then picked up.

‘Seaton Laws,’ he said.

And into his ear came a warm, achingly familiar voice. A voice that in equal parts frustrated him and made him want to hug her as tightly as possible.

‘Hey, Dad,’ Anna said. ‘Sorry for the radio silence.’

And Seaton embarrassed himself entirely by starting to cry.