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spot Annie had always imagined was fake was still there, at the corner of her mouth, and close up it looked real.
    Yes, Robin Armitage looked every bit as good as she had twenty years ago. Annie thought she ought to hate the woman on sight, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t just because of the missing boy, either, she told herself, but she sensed something very human, very vulnerable, behind the exquisitely packaged model’s facade.
    “This’ll do fine,” said Annie, slipping the photograph in her briefcase. “I’ll get it circulated as soon as I get back. What was he wearing?”
    “The usual,” said Robin. “Black T-shirt and black jeans.”
    “You say ‘the usual.’ Do you mean he always wears black?”
    “It’s a phase,” said Martin Armitage. “Or at least that’s what his mother tells me.”
    “It is, Martin. You wait; he’ll grow out of it. If we ever see him again.”
    “Don’t worry, Mrs. Armitage. He’ll turn up. In the meantime, I’d like more information about Luke himself, anything you might know about his friends, interests or acquaintances that could help us work out where he might be. First of all, was everything all right between you? Had there been any arguments recently?”
    “Not that I can think of,” Robin answered. “I mean nothing serious. Everything was fine between us. Luke had everything he wanted.”
    “It’s been my experience,” said Annie, “that nobody ever has everything they want, even if someone who loves them very dearly thinks they have. Human needs are so various and so hard to define at times.”
    “I didn’t only mean material things,” said Robin. “As a matter of fact, Luke isn’t much interested in the thingsmoney can buy, except for electronic gadgets and books.” Her long-lashed blue eyes blurred with tears. “I meant that he has all the love we can give him.”
    “I don’t doubt it,” said Annie. “What I was thinking, though, was that maybe there was something he wanted to do that you wouldn’t let him?”
    “Like what?” asked Robin.
    “Something you didn’t approve of. A pop concert he wanted to go to. Friends you didn’t like him being with. That sort of thing.”
    “Oh, I see what you mean. But I can’t think of anything. Can you, darling?”
    Martin Armitage shook his head. “As parents go, I think we’re pretty liberal,” he said. “We realize kids grow up quickly these days. I grew up quickly, myself. And Luke’s a smart lad. I can’t think of any films I wouldn’t want him to see, except for pornography, of course. He’s also a quiet, shy sort of boy, not much of a mixer. He keeps to himself.”
    “He’s very creative,” Robin added. “He loves to read and he writes stories and poems. When we were in France it was all Rimbaud, Verlaine and Baudelaire.”
    Annie had heard of some of those poets through her father, had even read some of them. She thought they were a little advanced for a fifteen-year-old boy, then she remembered that Rimbaud started writing poetry at fifteen and gave it up at nineteen.
    “What about girlfriends?” Annie asked.
    “He never mentioned anyone,” said Robin.
    “He might be embarrassed to tell you,” Annie suggested.
    “I’m sure we’d have known.”
    Annie changed tack and made a note to look into Luke’s love life, or lack of it, later, if necessary. “I don’t know how to put this any more diplomatically,” she said, “but I understand you’re not Luke’s biological father, Mr. Armitage?”
    “True. He’s my stepson. But I’ve always thought of him as my own son. Robin and I have been married ten years now. Luke has our family name.”
    “Tell me about Luke’s father, Mrs. Armitage.”
    Robin glanced over at her husband.
    “It’s all right, darling,” Martin Armitage said. “It doesn’t bother me if you talk about him, though I can’t quite see the point of all this.”
    Robin turned back to Annie. “Actually, I’m surprised you don’t know already, given