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crossed his ankles. ‘I got your text earlier.’
    She shrugged.
    ‘I understand how you feel,’ he said. ‘It’s the same for kids everywhere. When things aren’t going smoothly at home, everyone looks for a way out.And when you’re stuck with the one parent all the time, you imagine it would be better to be with the other.’
    ‘I’m not a kid.’
    ‘Until you’re eighteen, you’re not an adult either.’
    She shrugged again, a sharp dismissive move of her shoulders and head that had a practised air. He thought of what Jane said about keeping going.
    ‘I know you imagine that being with your mum wouldbe all roses, but you don’t know her. She’d be like some random stranger on the street. You’d have as much chance of being happy with them, really.’
    ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘She’s my mother. And I should be able to get to know her.’
    ‘I agree,’ Alex said. ‘But she made the decision to leave, and she’s made the decision not to keep in touch.’
    Mia’s cheeks were red, her eyesfixed on her nails. ‘This girl at school said her dad has to send maintenance, and her mum knows where he is and what he’s doing because of that.’
    Alex’s chest hurt. ‘Sweetheart, your mum doesn’t send anything.’
    The last contact he’d had with Helen was when she stood in the bathroom doorway, suitcase in hand, and told him she was moving to Canada to meet up with an old boyfriend fromschool. He’d been on his knees by the bath and had reached out a wet hand. She’d turned away. Mia, three years old, No More Tears foaming on her head, had waved. ‘Bye-bye, Mummy!’ Helen had written three weeks later from Ontario, a brief note saying she was happy and hoped they were too. He’d sent photos of Mia and an admittedly grief-soaked letter to the return address, and got no reply. The nextone he’d mailed was returned stamped ‘addressee unknown’. When he’d still been in touch with Helen’s sister, Mia’s beloved Aunty Natty, before things had fallen apart on Mia’s fifth birthday, he’d asked her to let him know if Helen ever got in touch, or to get Helen herself to call. Nat had promised. He wondered, not for the first time, where Nat was now, if she and Helen were in contact. WhetherNat had decided to abandon her promise after what had happened.
    He rubbed his chest. ‘I know you don’t believe me, but I don’t know where your mum is.’
    Mia dashed tears from her eyes, her mouth set in an angry line, frown lines white on her red forehead.
    ‘She’s the one who’s missing out here,’ Alex went on. ‘She’s lived eleven years without you, without getting to know you andseeing you grow. If she doesn’t want to be a part of that –’
    ‘You’re glad she’s not here!’ She was on her feet now, trembling. ‘If she was here she’d let me do stuff and you wouldn’t be the boss of everything! If she was here I might get to have a life, and you’d hate that!’
    She rushed from the room and upstairs. Her bedroom door slammed.
    Alex slumped back in the chair. She wasright about one thing: he was glad Helen wasn’t here. After the way she’d left, after she’d chosen not to keep in touch, after he’d picked himself up and made their little family work, he didn’t want to share it with anyone. The two girlfriends he’d had for a month here and there over the years had eventually gone their own ways for the same reason. It was just him and his little girl – ‘That’sclearly all that matters!’ one had flung at him. It was. So how hard was he supposed to search for someone who’d walked out on it?
    Mia was wrong that he didn’t want her to have a life though. Her life was the reason for the rules. He knew there was nobody to protect her but him. And while Jane had said he should trust her a little, it wasn’t about trust. He’d seen what could happen, andhe would never, ever forget.
    *
    In a stuffy control room at Town Hall station, Ella stood next to Murray