Local Girl Missing by Claire Douglas

said, trying to keep my voice even. Frankie and I have had enough rows in our lives, I’ve known her since we were seven after all, but since meeting up again we’ve been on our best behaviour, like lovers in the first flush of a relationship.
    She paused, her eyes scrutinising my face as though wondering if she should be honest with me. She frowned. ‘Are you going to go out with him?’
    I shrugged. ‘I really like him, Franks. And he likes me too.’
    ‘Then there is something that you should know. About him,’ she said.
    I sighed, expecting more dramatic revelations about the way he chased her. ‘And what’s that?’ I folded my arms across my chest as though to protect myself from her words. But I wasn’t prepared for what she said next.
    ‘He’s Jason’s cousin.’

8
Frankie
    Daniel is quiet on the drive home. It’s still spitting with rain, the sky a white, thick duvet of continuous cloud that has swallowed up the rear end of the old pier.
    He pulls up outside the villa, the engine still purring, and stares straight ahead. The house is in darkness, the thick bushes that separate it from its neighbours prickly and black.
    In the far distance I notice a woman in a long raincoat walking towards us, holding an umbrella over her head. I turn to Daniel. His expression is unusually dark and I mentally replay the conversation at Leon’s house. Did I say or do something wrong? And what had Leon meant when he said he thinks I know why you split up? Was he alluding to Jason? Did you tell him, Soph?
    I can understand if you did. Under Leon’s electric gaze it felt as though the oxygen was being sucked from the room. You once said he had the type of eyes that could see into your very soul and in that moment I knew exactly what you meant.
    Who knows what I would have said if my phone hadn’t rung when it did. I had pulled it from my bagwith relief, and when Stuart’s name flashed up on screen I muttered my excuses, telling them it was an important work call, and hurried from the house.
    I stood in the garden, my feet freezing in my impractical boots. Stuart was all apologies for disturbing me on the weekend but an important order had been messed up which could potentially put the new hotel opening back weeks. I talked him through his options, trying to remain calm despite Leon and Daniel inside the house waiting for me to return. It felt strange taking a work call while in Oldcliffe, as if my two separate worlds were merging, and it unsettled me. I had to push you, Daniel and Leon from my mind and concentrate on what Stuart was telling me as we brainstormed through our options. I don’t know how long I was on the phone for, but eventually I sensed someone behind me. I turned to see Daniel toeing the edge of the grass with his boot and doing his best to look as though he wasn’t listening to my conversation. ‘I’ll call you back later,’ I told Stuart. ‘But remember to call the supplier. Plead ignorance if you must. And put Paul on a warning. This isn’t the first mistake he’s made.’ I dropped the phone into my bag, Daniel’s presence pulling me away from my familiar corporate world and back into Oldcliffe.
    ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ he said, his face grave as he strode up the garden path, leaving me to jog after him to keep up.
    He hasn’t said a word to me since.
    ‘Is everything OK?’ I ask him now, my voice sounding too loud in the silence of the car.
    ‘What did he mean?’ Daniel asks. ‘Leon. When he said you knew why he finished with my sister?’
    He’s still not looking at me and I know I have to be honest with him.
    Except how can I? Leon might not have been alluding to Jason at all. He might have been talking about something else entirely.
    ‘Why don’t we go somewhere and get some lunch?’ I say. ‘And talk?’
    He finally turns to look at me and I can see that he’s softening. ‘I don’t know, Franks … I’m supposed to pop into the newsroom at some point today