August

I put down the phone and just stand there, completely still. "Mum? What is it?"

Everything in this house is Grace's business. At eighteen, she's allowed secrets, but no one else. When I don't reply instantly, it's not good enough.

"Mother, who were you talking to?"

"Sorry." You know those moments when your head is bursting with too many thoughts to form the words? My eyes fix blankly on something — a spot on the wall, an empty mug — not seeing them. "That was Jo. Something really odd's happened. Rosie's gone missing."

Living at opposite ends of a small village, with daughters at the same school, Jo and I belong to a group of mothers who meet now and then. I know that she's married to Neal, a renowned journalist, whose handsome face I've seen looking out of our TV screen more times than I've actually met him, reporting from the middle of war zones. That they have two daughters, drive new cars — her black Range Rover and Neal's BMW X5 — and live in this big, architect -designed house, which I've been inside only once or twice. It's a friendship that extends to the occasional coffee or gossipy lunch, but it's Rosie to whom I've found myself drawn. They're the same age, Grace and Rosie, A levels behind them, the start of hard-won university places a few short weeks away, but the similarities end there. I know Rosie as a shy girl, quieter than Grace's crowd and who shares my love of horses.

Grace rolls her eyes. "She's probably just hanging out with Poppy and hasn't told Jo, because she wouldn't let her. Poppy's a slut."

She says it good-naturedly, like idiot or moron, but it's an ugly word on my daughter's lips. The reprimand's out before I can stop it.

"Gracie ..."

And then my mind's wandering, as I try to imagine what's happened to her, seeing the clear eyes she hides behind the fair hair that falls across her face.

"Seriously, Mum. You haven't met Poppy. Her skirt's so short, you can see her panties. And she snogs anything — even Ryan Francis."

Ryan Francis is the worst male specimen on the planet, according to Grace, who's yet to explain exactly why.

"But Rosie's not like that, surely?" I struggle to imagine the Rosie I know snogging an indiscriminate anyone. She has a gentleness I've seen with my horses, which comes from her own instincts. They mooch peacefully around her through the long grass, like she's one of them.

"Duh. I'm talking about Poppy, Mother. But, you know, peer pressure and all that ... I wouldn't be surprised...."

Alarm bells start ringing. What if she's right and Rosie's got in with a bad crowd or, worse, been persuaded to run off with some less than desirable boy? Should I say something to Jo? Then I see Grace's face. She's winding me up.

"Well, whatever," I say, annoyed, because this isn't something to joke about. "If you hear anything, let me know. Jo's really worried. She hasn't seen Rosie since yesterday, and her mobile goes straight to voice mail. If it was you, Grace, I'd be out of my mind."

Grace hesitates. "I can get Poppy's number, if you like." Flicking her long red hair over her shoulder as she busies herself texting.

Thanks to the interconnectedness of today's teenagers, in a few seconds she has it. "I'll send it to your phone."

Half an hour later, I get through to Jo. She's jittery, not surprisingly, only half listening, her mind jumping all over the place.

"Not Poppy Elwood?" I can hear from her voice, she's shocked. "Oh, Kate, Rosanna wouldn't be friends with her...."

"Well, according to Grace, she is."

"Oh my God ... " I can hear her imagining her worst nightmare, that her daughter's run off or eloped. Jo's inclined to fuss over her daughters, even though Rosie's eighteen and about to leave home. "The police will find her, won't they? You hear about this kind of thing happening ... but they always do find them, don't they?"

"Try not to worry, Jo." Sounding far more confident than I feel. "I'm sure they will — if it comes to that. She'll probably walk in any moment with a perfectly reasonable explanation. But why don't you call Poppy?" I remind her. "You never know. She might be able to tell you something."

"Yes, I suppose I should." She's quiet. "I still can't believe she's friends with that girl."

I know how she feels. All mothers have them. The friends who threaten everything we've ever wanted for our daughters with another way to live, another set of standards, which we're terrified they'll prefer to ours.

"She can't be all bad, or Rosie wouldn't be friends with her," I point out. "And at the end of the day, she's your daughter. She knows what's right. She's not stupid."

Jo's silence echoes my own hesitation, because it's not something Rosie's even hinted at, but I'm curious.

"I was thinking. ... Does she have a boyfriend, Jo? Only if she does, he might know something."

"No. She doesn't. She's put all her time into studying. Not like ..." She leaves the sentence open-ended.

"I'll get off the phone," I say hastily, ignoring her gibe at the students who work hard but play hard, too. Like Grace. "She might be trying to call you. Will you let me know when she comes home?"

Rosie will turn up. I'm sure of it. I have a gardener's inherent belief in the natural order of things. Soft-petaled flowers that go to seed. The resolute passage of the seasons. Swallows that fly thousands of miles to follow the eternal summer.

Children who don't die before their parents.

After I've spoken to Jo, I call upstairs, "I'm going riding, Grace. ... Want to come?"

"Going out," comes the muffled reply from behind her closed door. "Sorry."

Another day, her indifference might irritate me, but not today. Grace likes to ride out early, when the air's still cool and the landscape quiet. Thinking time, she calls it. And it means I can set my own pace, instead of being swept along full tilt on teenage time, when the entire day happens randomly and at speed — until you arrive at the social -life part, which is what it's all about. And today I need time to clear my head.

It's hot for late afternoon, a heavy, muggy kind of heat that goes with the clouds bubbling up in the unstable air. As I walk across the field, the horses are lethargic, lazily flicking tails against the flies, momentarily interrupting their grazing to lift their heads when they hear me coming.

Apart from my own semiretired Reba and Grace's almost outgrown Oz, the horses here arrive with problems, according to their owners, who pay me well to reschool them. It fits around my work designing gardens, and, anyway, horses are my lifeblood.

Whatever else is happening in my life, they keep me grounded. It's their beauty, their spirit, matched by no other creature. The way they move, the warm, velvet softness of a muzzle against my cheek. There's no pretending with a horse. They read your body language. Know what you're thinking before you do.

Today I'm riding Zappa, a large gray I've been warned is unpredictable and dangerous. Whatever, as Grace would say, rolling her eyes. He's one of the most beautiful horses I've ever seen, with straight, elevated paces and dark, intelligent eyes. The kind of horse that hears your every whisper, responds to the smallest shift of balance. A dream.

This supposedly dangerous horse stands sleepily while I tack him up, then, once I'm on him, strides calmly up the lane, his pale coat contrasting with the rapidly darkening sky, ears twitching back and forth as he peers over walls and hedges. Not for the first time, I contemplate how long I can keep him here before I tell his owner there's absolutely nothing wrong with him.

At the top of the hill, we reach the bridle path through the woods just as the first, heavy drops of rain fall. The breeze is picking up, and Zappa jumps as a field away, a gust of wind slams a gate shut. I glance up at the sky, which is growing blacker by the second, then toward the woods, where beneath the trees, it's darker still.

Scenting the coming storm, Zappa takes the decision out of my hands and jogs into the woods. I press him forward just as the heavens open and the drops become a deluge.

Underneath the leafy canopy, the path is dry. The sudden cry of a pheasant startles him, and I touch his neck, steady him, as one of his hooves catches a tree root. As he breaks into a canter, out of nowhere Rosie's in my mind.

The other night, the last time anyone saw her, she could have been here.

My heart quickens with the intensity of the raindrops as I shake off the sense of disquiet that fills me. Rosie could have been anywhere.

But what if something has happened to her?

And then another, far more chilling thought.

What if something happened to her here?

I'm ice-cold all of a sudden, as if a stranger has walked over my grave, and it strikes me that there are no dog walkers, no other riders out here. I'm alone.

A feeling of foreboding hits me. Then fear, looming everywhere I look, except fear is too mild a word for the raw panic that engulfs me. I'm too terrified to think, as a single word screams inaudibly from deep inside me.

Run.

Zappa hears me, springing forward, even though the path narrows, and suddenly we're galloping, fear keeping pace with us, thunder crashing above us, wind whipping the branches at my face. A bolt of lightning sends him even faster, just as ahead of me I imagine a flash of pale hair. Rosie's hair. Then her voice — or is it the wind? — screaming my name.

Zappa's head comes up, and I try to slow him, but he's not listening anymore. All I can do is hold on, stay with him. Then, just when I think he's going to fall, up ahead the gloom lifts and there's brightness.

Zappa turns toward it as twigs snag at my clothes, and thorns rip my skin. Missing his stride, he scrambles up the chalky slope in front of us, then at the top, stops dead, pitching me headlong into darkness.

ROSIE

As the image forms in front of me, instantly I know three things. I'm four years old; it's the first day of term and my first day at Abbey Green Primary, a small village school with a picket fence round its neatly mown grass.

My uniform is scratchy, and my braids pull on my scalp. I'm frightened, and I don't want to leave my mother.

"Come along, Rosanna. We don't want to be late." Taking my hand firmly in hers.

I am that little girl again, being pulled along, with a pit of dread in my stomach.

When we get to my classroom, Mummy remains at the door. I want to stay with her, but I have to walk in on my own, staring at the floor as everyone turns round to look at me. My face is very hot, and I want to cry again.

"Good morning, Rosanna."

Jeez. I'd forgotten Mrs. Bell. At the time, I liked how she smiled and was kind. Now I see a weary middle-aged lady with endless patience and too much love, worrying about her pupils, watching me when I'm not aware of her kindly glances, reassuring my mother that I'll settle quickly, then, after her last pupil leaves, tired, gray from the heart complaint no one knows about, sitting for five minutes before she prepares the classroom for another day.

I wonder how many children have passed through her care. I look around the room, at the little wooden tables that seat six, the book on her desk that she's read to countless children, just as she reads to us every afternoon without fail. Then the memories start, one or two at first, then a whole flood of them. The musty smell in the cloakroom where we hung our coats and shoe bags. How disgusting lunch was. The climbing bars in the playground, under the horse chestnut tree, where we fought over conkers. How when my mother collected me, I bawled.

I make a friend. Becky Thomas. She's small, with sharp eyes and dark brown hair cut in bangs. Now I see how her uniform is a hand-me -down, her sleeves too short, her skirt fastened with a pin. She wears scuffed shoes and squints at the pages of her book, because no one's taken her to get her eyes checked.

I remember I wanted bangs just like hers. I remember Becky's house, too, how it's squeezed between others that are the same, with long, thin gardens and lots of cats. Her mum smokes and says, "God," all the time, and her eyelashes are very long.

We play in Becky's room. Then Becky says we can dress up in her mum's clothes, so we put on pretty dresses that smell of perfume. Then we get necklaces, and I hear her mum coming up the stairs, and I'm frightened.

But she isn't cross. She laughs at us. "God, you're right glamour pusses, you two are," she says. Then she fetches one of her lipsticks, and we put it on.

I've never heard of glamour pusses. I wonder if it's to do with all her cats. We have fries with ketchup, which she lets us eat in front of the television, and then Mummy comes. I hear her talking to Becky's mum. Then she comes inside and has that worried look that makes my tummy slide around inside me.

"Get your things, Rosanna darling."

It's in her voice, too.

"Lovely name," coos Becky's mum, breathing cigarette smoke into the air behind her. "Ever so classy."

On the way home, even though I know she's cross about something, I'm so happy to have a friend, it bursts out of me.

"We had a nice time, Mummy. It was fun. We dressed up as glamour pusses."

"Rosanna ..."

The ring of her voice makes me stop. I don't know what I've done, only that it's wrong. It must be, because I can tell she doesn't want me to talk about it. It's what that shocked, annoyed, worried voice always means.

Mummy drives much faster than usual and, when she's parked the car, tells me to hurry inside.

After she's washed my face, I hear my father's car. He revs it the way he always does before he parks, then slams the door. Mummy hears it, too. I see the deep line on her forehead. Then she crouches down, her hands resting on my shoulders.

"I don't want you to be friends with that girl, Rosanna. They're not like us."

I don't understand. I look at Mummy. I want to be Becky's friend, but Mummy must be right. I remember my happiness swirling down the basin with the running water. Feeling stupid for not knowing, and the taste of soap as I bite my lip.

"And please, Rosanna, don't tell Daddy what you did tonight. He won't understand."

She says it in a nice way, stroking my hair behind my ears. Then she kisses me as his key turns in the door.

"Quick," she whispers, standing up, placing a finger to her lips. "Remember what I said. Not a word."

And because I love my mummy, I do as she says.

Zappa's unscathed, but I'm not pretty. My face is scratched, and I've the beginnings of a black eye when Angus comes home that evening. He's suitably horrified.

"Christ, Kate. What happened to you?"

"The storm spooked Zappa in the woods. I had a fall."

I decide not to tell him about blacking out. Even after twenty years of marriage, Angus still thinks horses are dangerous.

I don't tell him about the fear, either, about my strange certainty that something terrible had happened there to Rosie.

I'd struggled to my feet to find myself in a small clearing at the top of a chalky slope, at the center of a ring of ancient beech trees.

A snorting sound had startled me, and I'd looked up to see Zappa standing there, reins hanging over his head, looking sheepish. One foot at a time, he ventured toward me, nostrils flared, clearly still on alert.

"Hey, boy." I reached for his reins. "It's okay." I patted his neck, reassuring him, before we slowly made our way back.

"You look a mess," says Angus.

"Thanks. You're full of compliments," I tell him.

"I didn't mean it like that, Kate." He comes over and gently touches my bruised cheek, which alone is enough to make me wince. Taking his hand away, he frowns. "Are you quite sure you're not concussed?"

"I'm fine, Angus. It looks much worse than it is."

"Maybe you should get yourself checked out."

I shake my head. I've been through enough for one day. Anyway, there's nothing more certain to make you feel terrible than spending hours hanging around an emergency room.

"Really. I'm okay." I manage a smile for all of about a second, as it comes back to me what was in my head out there. And then I realize.

"Oh my God. You don't know."

"Grace is probably right," he says when I've finished telling him. "Teenagers do the daftest things — even the best-behaved ones. And Rosie would have known her mother wouldn't like her going to Poppy's."

"I know." I sigh.

I want to believe him. And any other time, I'd just agree, pushing it to the back of my mind, while I waited for Jo's call to tell me Rosie had come home. But after what happened earlier today, illogical though it is, I have this unshakable feeling something's happened to her.