‘If she’s not at Shotton and she’s not here in Jordan, where is she?’ ‘We’ll find her. Girls don’t just disappear, not in this day and age,’ he replied. ‘Jeff had to go back to Easington, but you know him. He won’t rest until he finds her.’ Brian put an arm around Marina’s shoulders and hugged her comfortingly. ‘Did you ever think maybe she just wanted to get away by herself? You know what Alf Sharpe’s like, the slimy toad! You couldn’t blame any girl for wanting to lose herself if she had him for a father.’ She knew what Alf was like all right, better than Brian did. If he knew just what Alf had done … Marina shrugged away his arm and got to her feet. She walked to the window and looked out at the tiny garden. The flower bed under the window was bare so late in the year, except for a clump of Christmas roses just coming into bud. It would soon be Christmas, she thought. Rose had been gone for over a week now. Where was she? Marina asked herself for the thousandth time.
