When I turn up at the house early next morning she isn't there. I check through all the rooms, but there's no sign of anyone, just tins of paint and battered old bookcases covered in tarp. Maybe I made a mistake in giving her the keys? But I couldn't have just left her out there on the street . . .
I leave the food anyway: half a loaf of bread, some chocolate and two tins of soup bundled up in a plastic bag. I put it on the kitchen counter where she'll find it for sure if she comes back. On my way back home I head to the waterfront and wander past the stretch of beach where I first met her. Just checking, I tell myself. But she isn't there either. Now, in the rational light of day, she's starting to feel like a ghost or a dream; something not quite real that's faded away with the daylight.
Because I don't want to go home just yet I head to the library, pick up a couple of books from the shelves and sit reading at one of the study desks. I'm struggling to concentrate though; what I really want is to talk to Mari, to tell her about the girl and ask her advice. Mari always knows the right thing to do. Today, however, she's busy showing a group of students how to use the microfilm. She gives me a smile and a wave when she sees me, but that's all.
After staring at the same page for half an hour, lost in thought, I'm struck by a sudden idea. I get up and head for one of the computers. I barely ever use these things, and I have to get out my library card and check my account number before I can log in. The machine whirrs and chimes, and the desktop flashes up. I double-click the internet browser.
By now I know the web address for the Missing Person's register off by heart. I've been on it enough times to check Darren's entry. I wait until the page has loaded and then click the search bar. Now what was it the girl told me her name was when I left her last night? Lynch. That was it. I type it in and search, but the result's page comes up empty.
I sit back, disappointed, feeling like I've hit a dead end. Of course, Lynch probably isn't her real name. I imagine she'd have come up with it when she ran away from home.
For a few minutes I try to think of some other plan, but nothing comes. And then, absent-mindedly, I find myself checking Darren's entry on the Missing Person's register. There's his school photo, taken a few months before he disappeared. He's grinning, the same as ever. And listed there are the few bleak facts that are known about his disappearance. Went missing in July last year. Seventeen years old. Last seen leaving the school grounds after a hockey match . . .
Since he went, I feel like I've spent days staring at that picture, at those few words. I reach out and touch the screen, and for a moment feel terribly, immensely sad.
