I can pinpoint the exact moment the police stopped looking for a missing woman and started looking for a dead body. One that, by now, was probably beyond recognition. It was the day they stopped phoning my father to tell him they had found 'someone' and started to say 'something'. Something in woodland. Something in the river. Something. He would go off with them then, to see what they had found. Lindsey would come and babysit, or her sister Mel, or both of them, if it was night time, because they found the place spooky, they said. They brought cakes from the shop, or colourful biscuits, made me hot chocolate and let me stay up late watching programmes with detectives in them. I thought for years they did that on purpose. Edward would go off with the police and I would watch some show where the detective always solves the case. It didn't occur to me until much later it was simply what they watched on the television in the evening. The kind of thing that was on after I was usually in bed. When Edward got home he would shake his head, and no one would say anything at all. Now he says he has regrets about all those times he went, and met other families, other husbands or wives or parents or grown-up children, all going to see if this was the something they were waiting for. He regrets letting them all go without talking to them, asking for their addresses, promising to keep in touch, keep asking, did you find her yet? Find him yet? Form a support group. Go on annual picnics. But he didn't. Something stopped him looking them in the eye and asking, who are you here for? Something stopped them looking him in the eye and asking him the same. When he came back I wanted him to bring me back their stories. The stories of why they were there, who they were looking for, who was missing from their lives. I wanted to know, how did they lose them? Did they go out shopping together and lose them in the car park? Did they go on holiday and lose them at the beach? Did they lose them at home, like us? Were they wearing their coats, or just jumpers? Did they take a bag of things? Did they have any money with them? Did they have anywhere else to go? I collected stories of loss, abandonment, shame. Excerpted from Pearl by Siân Hughes All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.