‘I’m not hungry.’‘I don’t care. I’ve made soup. I want you to get it down.’‘I’d rather stay out here,’ I said.She took my arm, steered me towards the front door.‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘If Tina is watching the house then she’s probably reluctant to make an appearance with you standing outside looking as though you’re going to give her a major bollocking.’‘I won’t be doing that.’‘I know it and you know it. But she doesn’t. So come in.’I’d spent most of the morning outside, wandering around the grounds and praying for my daughter’s safe return. Her second text message had completely thrown me. What’s more it had convinced the two detectives that she was OK and therefore there was no need to mount a search … and no need to for us to worry. But I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was very wrong. Call it a father’s intuition. Or a refusal to accept that my daughter would take off by herself in the dead of night. Unanswered questions were also still eating away at me.
