Chapter Sixty-Eight
Daisy picks at the edges of the bacon sandwich that Stuart has placed in front of her. “Thanks and everything,” she says to Jane, “for trying to find me. And for bringing Hugo home.”
Jane stares in awe at the young woman who she can now see is both the small, quirky dark-haired girl in Spencer’s son’s photograph and also the plain, dumpy blond girl described by Helen Yaxley.
She has put on weight, and she is older now, less elfin, but it is definitely her: the same dark eyes, the same slightly protruding ears and fine-boned nose.
“You’re welcome,” says Jane.
“It was stupid of me to take Hugo. I don’t know what I was thinking—I just had never been anywhere on my own before and I was scared to be alone. But I’m glad you found him. I’m glad he was OK. I was so worried about him.”
There’s a small silence and then Jane says, “So, how long have you been home?”
Daisy shrugs and pulls a piece of bacon out of the edge of her sandwich. “A couple of weeks.”
“Bloody hell,” says Jane, thinking, of course, of course she has. “Right. And what happened, with Helen’s Airbnb? Why did you abandon it like that?”
Daisy stirs slightly in her chair and sighs. She looks up at Jane with those liquid brown eyes and she says, “Listen. If you want to know everything, I’ll have to start at the beginning.”
“Which is?”
“Which is the day that policewoman came here and showed me that picture.”