Free Mapping the Edge by Sarah Dunant Page B

this morning. Mum said she’d be home for that.”
    â€œWell, sweetheart, she’s not going to be able to make it. Kylie and her mum are going to go with you instead.”
    Lily scowled. “But she promised.” I waited for her to make a thing about it, but instead she said: “Why can’t you or Paul take me?”
    Outside I heard Paul’s voice—“Yep, yep. That’s fine. We’ll be here. Thank you.”
    â€œLily says can we make swimming at eleven?” I said as he came back in.
    He clicked back the receiver. “Sorry, squirt. Estella and I have got work to do. But I think we could probably manage McDonald’s afterward.”
    She shook her head. “I’m fed up with Chicken McNuggets.” I raised an eyebrow. “You’re lucky, Estella,” she said. “In your country the cows haven’t gone mad.”
    They arrived ten minutes after the swimming party left. It was so warm we sat out in the garden around the slatted wood table, self-assembly Ikea, circa 1995. I remembered it well. I had got a blood blister from jamming my thumb in between the slats. Lily had put on her doctor’s uniform to deal with it.
    Their very presence made her absence more sinister, and I found myself feeling sick again, the kind of nausea you sometimes get in important meetings when you have to talk for too long. Paul was more settled, but then he is better at playacting than I am. What would they think of us; father and friend? And would what they thought mean anything?
    I have to say they were good at it, thorough and sensitive, trained to deal with jagged nerves. Name, age, height, weight, coloring, clothes. All those little boxes to fill in. Anna formed like some verbal hologram in front of our eyes.
    Missing person, Anna Franklin, Ms.: age thirty-nine, height five seven. Striking—“pretty” was always too tame a word for her—good build (a little heavier since Lily, but she could carry it), with thick black hair cut in a wedge, open face, broad forehead, and full lips in a slight Cupid’s bow.
    Identifying marks: pierced ears, no body rings, but a small blue elephant tattoo on her ankle. (No bluebirds or panthers, she had insisted, too New Age. Why not have it full-sized?, I had suggested, as I sat with her in a seafront shop in Brighton watching the needle buzz.)
    Clothes: in general, stylish, probably more expensive than she could afford; in particular, no idea, though Paul claimed she had a yellow linen jacket that she hadn’t left the house without for the last two months and that wasn’t on the hat stand now, and who was I to contradict him?
    Character: clever, funny, intense, loving.
    There was a pause when we came to the end of the list. Anna? Was that it? I thought about her. There were other things, but I didn’t know how to put them into words. At least, not for strangers.
    â€œAny history of depression, mental illness, that kind of thing?”
    â€œNone.” Two voices on a single thought.
    â€œDoes she often spend time away?”
    â€œThe odd night here and there for work,” said Paul briskly.
    â€œAnd who looks after the little girl then?”
    â€œIf it’s in the week, Patricia, the child minder, stays. At weekends I’m usually around.”
    â€œBut you’re not the child’s father?”
    â€œNo. Not biologically, that is. But I see a lot of them.”
    â€œSo could you tell us what the nature of your relationship with Ms. Franklin is?”
    Paul smiled. “We’re just good friends, Officer,” he said prettily.
    â€œI see.” Though it was clear he didn’t. “So if there was someone else, I mean if she was seeing another man, you wouldn’t necessarily know that? She wouldn’t tell you?”
    â€œ
Au contraire—
she most certainly would.” He had been so good up till now, not a hint of camp in his performance, and you could see