Free Say Her Name by James Dawson Page A

student here … ’
    Bobbie could have kissed her – why hadn’t she thought of that? ‘See, that’s why I love you. You’re beautiful
and
clever.’
    ‘Snap!’ Naya grinned.
    Bobbie found the Piper’s Hall website and then clicked on the link to the alumni pages. It was divided up into sections – decade by decade. ‘There must be thousands and thousands of girls on here.’
    Naya chewed her lip. ‘Was there anything in your dream? Like were they all in flares and stuff?’
    ‘No.’ Bobbie took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. ‘At a guess I’d say Thirties or Forties.’
    ‘Worth a look.’ Bobbie did so, also checking the 1920s and 1950s as a precaution, but there was no record of a Mary Worthington amongst the lists of former pupils. ‘That’s weird. In the dream, I – I mean she – was definitely a student. I was in uniform.’
    ‘In the story, she committed suicide,’ Naya said. Bobbie altered the search to PIPER’S HALL SUICIDE. This time there was a positive result, but it concerned a Piper’s girl who’d killed herself in the Nineties while at home. Bobbie disregarded it and Naya shrugged, at a loss. Another idea occurred to Bobbie. ‘Can you remember? On Saturday night, Sadie said something had happened while her sister was here.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Do you know
her
name?’
    Naya shook her head. ‘No – the middle sister was here at the same time as us, but the eldest one had left by the time we got here. Just look for Walsh – it can’t have been too long ago.’
    Bobbie looked through the last two decades. Sure enough there was a Claudia Walsh who’d graduated four years before and was now at Oxford, and then there was a Tabitha Walsh who’d left thirteen years earlier. That was quite a bit older than Sadie; Bobbie wondered if perhaps they were stepsisters. Bobbie brought up the alumni list for Tabitha’s graduating year. She scanned the names until something caught her eye. ‘Oh that’s weird. Look.’
    ‘What am I looking at?’
    Bobbie pointed at the two names at the very end of the list.
    Abigail Hanson and Taylor Keane – always in our thoughts.
    ‘Well, what’s that supposed to mean?’
    ‘Let’s find out.’ Now in full-on detective mode, Bobbie googled ABIGAIL HANSON PIPER’S HALL and hit enter. ‘Jackpot.’
    This time they’d struck gold.
    Police escalate hunt for missing schoolgirls …
    Parents’ plea to missing pair …
    No evidence of foul play in double disappearance …
    Each story came with an accompanying picture of the two girls. Abigail was a devastatingly pretty brunette with cheekbones to die for while Taylor looked like a cheerleader or something, all bronzed skin and tousled off-blonde hair. ‘How have we not heard about this?’ Bobbie wondered aloud.
    ‘If there were no bodies, I guess there’s no case.’
    Bobbie opened one of the news reports. It
had
made the national news, but at the time she’d been only about four and living in her limited, childish world. Both girls had vanished from their homes: Abigail in London and Taylor on the Welsh borders. That made no sense. Apparently it hadn’t made a lot of sense to the police either. Two girls vanishing on the same date, miles apart. From what Bobbie could tell, the only lead was that the two girls had run away together, although neither took any belongings.
    They’d vanished. Just like Sadie. A jagged, icy feeling chilled Bobbie from inside out, starting in her spine and spreading through her bones. ‘I would literally bet anything in the world that five days before they vanished they were in front of some mirror … ’ She didn’t need to finish.
    ‘Try searching for more missing girls,’ Naya suggested. Bobbie did so and there was only one positive result – another Piper’s Hall girl some eight years before Abigail and Taylor. Same story – another girl who seemed to drop off the face of the earth. Naya puffed her cheeks out. ‘I bet there are more – from before