He looks strangely perky, she thinks. Upbeat. ‘Have you seen that?’ he says, pointing at the screen of his laptop. She touches it and she sees the BBC home page. The headline says: ‘College Lecturer Arrested for the Abduction of Saffyre Maddox’.
‘Oh my God,’ she says. ‘They’ve arrested him!’
‘I know,’ says Roan. ‘I’m so relieved.’
She glances up from the screen. ‘Relieved?’ It strikes her as a strange choice of word.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Now maybe we’ll find out where she is.’
She drops her eyes again and reads the story.
Thirty-three-year-old former college lecturer, Owen Pick, has been formally arrested and is being held at Kentish Town police station charged with the abduction of missing teenager, Saffyre Maddox. Miss Maddox, 17 years old, was last seen ten days ago on Valentine’s night heading into Hampstead village after telling family she was going to meet a friend. Police sources say that Pick, who is unmarried and lives with his aunt in her flat in Hampstead, has provided no explanation for blood traces found at his property. He has also been found to be active on a number of whatare known as ‘incel forums’, internet websites where men who identify as ‘involuntary celibates’, unable to form sexual relationships with women despite a desire to do so, come together to share their frustrations. It is theorised that the abduction of Saffyre Maddox might have been the result of the online radicalisation of Pick by other forum users. Many recent mass shootings in the USA have been attributed to the influence of radical elements on such sites.
Pick’s family have been unavailable for comment. It is believed that his bail has been set at one million pounds.
‘Incel forums?’ says Cate, her stomach churning at the concept. She’d seen a documentary about incels once that had chilled her to her core. The hatred and the bile and the bitterness. ‘Christ.’
‘I know,’ says Roan. ‘Kind of adds up though, doesn’t it? When you look at him, when you see where he lives. I mean, you can tell, just by looking at him, that no one gives a shit about him.’
‘Have you ever treated a patient like that?’ she asks a moment later. ‘You know, someone who hates girls because girls don’t like them?’
‘God yes,’ says Roan. ‘Little boys who will totally grow up to be on incel forums talking about the best way to rape women. I certainly have. I had an eleven-year-old boy once, a few yearsago; he’d been caught at school writing elaborate and very violent rape fantasies.’
Cate shakes her head, slowly, wondering not for the first time about the gruelling nature of her husband’s job. ‘Doesn’t it ever, just, you know, get to you? Dealing with kids like that?’
He stops buttering his toast and turns to look at Cate. ‘Of course it does,’ he says. ‘Christ. Of course it does.’
It’s the Sunday before the children go back to school after the February half-term, which means that Georgia will spend the whole day in her pyjamas angrily finishing her homework, shouting at junctures about how much she hates school and hates exams and hates Cate for making her go to school and hates the government for making her go to school and hates life and hates everybody and doesn’t care about her GCSEs anyway. Until finally the homework will be done and she will make herself something sugary to eat and have it in front of the television which she will feel she has totally worked for and deserved and enjoy all the more for it. It will be a high drama day, a draining day and Cate is ready for it from the moment she hears Georgia’s bedroom door opening at eleven thirty that morning.
‘Hello, angel.’
‘Urgh,’ says Georgia. ‘I woke up at, like, eight o’clock or something and I couldn’t get back to sleep.’
‘Well,’ says Cate, ‘I came in and looked at you at about ten thirty and you were out cold.’
‘Yeah, well, I was kind of drifting in and out.’
‘Want something to eat?’
Georgia yawns and shakes her head. ‘It’s nearly lunchtime. I’ll wait.’
‘I went to see the house earlier,’ Cate says, turning on her phone and bringing it to Georgia.
‘Oh,’ says Georgia, brightening. ‘House! House! Let me see!’
Cate shows her the photos and then heads down the hallway to Josh’s bedroom to check in on him. He’s normally up earlier than Georgia. She would have heard the shower going by now, the sound through the wall of music coming from his phone which he props up against the tooth mug. But there’d been nothing.
She knocks gently. ‘Joshy?’
There’s no response.
‘Josh?’
She pushes the door open.
Josh’s bed is empty.
She goes to the bathroom and finds Roan sitting on the toilet with his trousers round his ankles playing Candy Crush.
