'Who d'you think they were, the men who came to our house?'

'Oh, Finn. I don't know. Sad, silly people, I expect. Not scary men.'

'Will their children be watching our DVDs?'

Charlie had stopped building, too. He sat up on his heels and looked across at us. 'Will they come back?'

Two anxious faces were turned to mine. 'I don't think they'll be back. We don't need to be scared of them.'

'I'd hide in the attic,' said Charlie.

Finn marched to our pile of firewood and picked up what was-in his hands-a hefty stick. 'I would wallop them with this!'

I thought about my little boy trying to tackle a marauding adult; a thug, tearing the puny stick from his hands. A sense of mourning draped itself over me. Meanness had intruded on their world, and spoiled it. I dropped down in the sand beside their run. 'This ready? Where's the ball?'

'Let it rip!' they screamed, as Kit returned with more firewood.

Later we sat around the fire, digging our teeth into blackened marshmallows.

'Poor Sacha,' said Charlie. 'She's missing this fun time.'

Finn lay on his back, turning his face up to the moon. 'One day please can we sleep here, on the beach?'

Kit sloshed more wine into his plastic gla.s.s, emptying the bottle, and a dark goblin of anxiety came sneaking into my mind. ''Course we can,' he promised. 'In the holidays. Just you and me, boys. Okay? We'll leave these bally women behind, and we'll come down here and sit around the fire and tell swashbuckling tales.'

Finn made angel shapes in the sand. 'Better not leave any bally women alone in the house,' he said. 'Those b.l.o.o.d.y burgerers might come back.'

Beneath the p.r.o.ne body of Hinemoana's hill a clump of seaweed lay half-submerged in the surf. The waves tugged and pushed, making the dark fronds sway fretfully, like long hair. My eyes were drawn to it, though I tried to look away. It looked so terribly like the corpse of a young woman.

Twenty-six.

At first, I thought the call was benign.

I was in my pokey office at Capeview and had spent lunchtime talking to a patronising idiot at the insurance company who wanted valuations of everything stolen. A migraine was mustering forces behind my eyes, and I wondered about taking a couple of ibuprofen. Which was when my phone rang.

'Martha McNamara?' It was a pleasant voice. Female. 'Lyndsay Carpenter, Sacha's dean. Is this a good moment?'

'Yes! h.e.l.lo,' I said brightly. 'Is it about the Performance Diploma?'

'Not directly.' The dean sounded taken aback. 'I'm calling about Sacha's attendance record.'

'Her what?'

'Her name came up at today's staff meeting. It's a problem. She has missed a number of internal a.s.sessments.'

'She's missed what?'

'Internal a.s.sessments. They are essential if she's to gain enough credits to pa.s.s-'

'Yes, I know what internal a.s.sessments are. But isn't this an overreaction? She's had a week off with a cold, maybe a couple of other days. I don't think she's missed anything important.'

'Sacha's attendance was less than sixty per cent last term, and the pattern is continuing.'

I was flabbergasted. 'Are you sure we're talking about the same girl?'

'Well, take today as an example, Martha.' New Zealanders rarely do the surname thing. 'You are aware that she's absent from school?'

'No, she . . . Are you sure?'

Lyndsay was inexorable. 'A message was left on our absence line at . . . let me check . . . nine fifteen this morning, ostensibly from you. It said that Sacha was unable to attend school today due to a dental appointment.'

'No. I think there must be a mistake.'

'There's no mistake. I checked the records myself after the staff meeting. The head of music raised the issue. She's suspended Sacha from the orchestra for non-attendance.'

The little room spun. It wasn't possible.

'She's one of our most talented musicians, but she appears to have given up,' said Lyndsay. 'Her flute teacher hasn't seen her for weeks.'

'Is Bianka at school? Her friend, Bianka?'

'Bianka Varga . . .' there was a pause, just long enough for the teacher to check her computer files, '. . . is at school today. Yes. And her attendance record is excellent.'

'Oh.' I was deflated. 'So Sacha isn't with her?'

'I'm afraid not.'

I was thinking frantically. There had to be an explanation. My daughter was not a truant; she was good and honest and biddable. Then I remembered how jealously Sacha guarded her texts from prying eyes. Modern tormentors used technology to hara.s.s and torture their victims, even after the school bell had rung. 'Perhaps she's being bullied,' I suggested. 'I think she might be getting abusive texts. She never lets me see them.'

'Okay. Well, that's a thought. We have a zero tolerance policy on bullying, and text messaging is a live issue . . . I think the best thing is for us all to meet as soon as possible.'

'But where is she now?' I asked helplessly. 'Do I call the police?'

'That's up to you, but I'd expect her to turn up,' Lyndsay predicted briskly. 'She'll come home in the usual way, which is presumably what she's done on all those other occasions. We have a lot of truants, Martha. You're not alone.'

As soon as the teacher rang off, I called Sacha's mobile.

Hi, this is Sacha. Don't bother to leave a message.

I felt so powerless. She'd been attacked, abducted, raped in the cellar of some sordid house, waiting to be skinned like the girl in The Silence of the Lambs.

Redial. Same result.

And again.

And again.

And- 'That you, bro?' It was a breathless, garbled voice. Male.

'S-sorry, I think I've got the wrong number,' I stuttered. 'Is this Sacha's phone?' m.u.f.fled voices. Howls of laughter. 'Is that you, Jani?' I asked sharply. 'Jani?'

Then Sacha's voice, spiky and long-suffering. 'Yeah?'

'Where the h.e.l.l are you?'

'At a friend's.'

'Why aren't you at school?'

'I felt really, really ill.' Another burst of hilarity from the background.

'I'm coming to get you.'

'You're not,' she said flatly. 'I'll be home on the school bus, and there's f.u.c.k all you can do about it.'

The line went dead. I stared at the phone in my hand. There was indeed f.u.c.k all I could do.

Kit was painting at an orchard near Hastings, and greeted the news with maddening calm. 'She hasn't really gone missing, has she?' he reasoned. 'I'd call it AWOL.'

'Kit, a man answered her phone! Bet it was Jani. I'm going to have him arrested.'

'Sacha's a young adult.'

'She's not,' I protested. 'She's a child.'

'She can leave school any time she likes, legally. This is going to get blown out of all proportion if you make a ginormous fuss.'

I could have throttled him. 'What a stupid thing to say. I'm fussing, Kit, because she's left fake messages on the absence line and I've absolutely no idea where she is right now, and actually it's time you f.u.c.king grew up.'

Slamming down the phone, I reached for the ibuprofen.

Adolescents surged out of the school gates like a flood from a washing machine. Some of the boys needed to be shaving, and a few of the girls wouldn't have looked out of place in a singles bar. You could smell the hormones. I'd parked the car and was leaning against it.

My phone rang. I grabbed it, but it wasn't Sacha. It was Kit.

'Have you heard anything?'

'No,' I said tersely. I was still smarting. 'I'm waiting outside the school.'

'Sorry,' he said. I huffed. 'Really, Martha. I'm sorry. It's time I f.u.c.king grew up.'

I couldn't help but smile. The best thing about Kit McNamara is his voice; it melts me still.

He seemed to sense a thawing. 'I've got the boys,' he said. 'I'll wait for you at home. Stay in touch.'

A school bus started its engine and pulled away, followed by a second. There were only two left when someone spoke behind me, and I spun around. It was Bianka: a Hollywood waif in a gingham miniskirt.

'Sacha sick today, Martha?'

I folded my arms. 'Don't play games with me. Sacha isn't at school and she isn't at home, as I'm sure you know. So where is she? And where's Jani?'

'Oh my G.o.d.' I caught the fear in her voice. 'Martha . . .' She took a step closer to me, glancing over her shoulder. 'I'm so scared.'

At that moment a figure hurtled up the street, a crumpled slapper with grubby hair. She looked terrifyingly like a girl who'd just climbed out of somebody's bed.

I grabbed her arm. 'Where the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l have you been?'

Heads turned; a long row of parents, bored in their cars, all entertained by the family drama. Bianka slipped away. Sacha pulled free of my hand, dragged the pa.s.senger door almost off its hinges and threw herself in.

'Where?' I screamed.

She shrugged, jamming headphones into her ears. 'I'm here now, aren't I?'

'Take those frigging things out of your ears!' I was shrieking. 'I thought you might be dead in a ditch! Were you with Jani? You answer me, or I'll-'

I was furious. So furious, that now I had her sitting beside me-alive, not skinned-I burst into tears.

'She won't tell me anything.' I was unburdening myself on the phone to Dad the same evening, sitting on the verandah steps in the dark. 'She was scruffy. She smells, Dad! She's avoiding school, but she won't say why. If someone's bullying her, she won't say who. I drove straight into the staff car park and marched her up to the dean's office. Sacha had to admit she's missed loads of school-a week with flu, admittedly, and two other Mondays she was genuinely ill.'

'Always Mondays? Mondayitis?'

'Mm. I hadn't thought of that . . . And all those times she said she was going to orchestra, and wasn't.'

'Fibbing on the absence line,' murmured Dad. His voice was immensely calm. 'Devious. Not like our Sacha at all.'

'Kit spent an hour talking to her this evening. He's been really good, but he got nowhere. She'll get herself suspended if she carries on like this.'

'Has she promised to stop truanting?'

'Oh yes. Solemnly. But since none of us know what's going on, how can we protect her?'

'What about the other girl? The friend?'

'Bianka knows something, for sure; but n.o.body's prepared to pile on the pressure because her mother's in hospital again. She may or may not pull through the latest crisis.'

'Could Bianka herself be the bully?'

'Family of beautiful vampires,' I mused. 'No. I don't think she's the problem, but she knows who is. And then there's her brother . . . everything started to go wrong when he arrived on the scene.'

'Hm.' Dad paused for thought; I imagined him stroking Bernard's black fur. 'Have you looked at Sacha's phone?'