Saturday 24 February

Saturday 24 February is marked by a sharp contrast between the uncertainty surrounding Jill Richards’s disappearance and the certainty of danger inside the loft. Eve Strong can offer Jill’s mother no confirmation that The Phantom has taken her; elsewhere, Felicity Wanless learns that Jill has become her replacement and that the captor no longer needs her.

The Missing-Person Inquiry

Eve speaks gently to Jill’s mother, passing her tissues as she struggles to compose herself. Looking from the distressed woman to the photograph of Jill on her phone, Eve notes their strikingly similar brown eyes. Jill’s mother asks whether The Phantom has her daughter, but Eve says the police know only that Jill is missing. Abduction is possible, she explains, but people disappear for many reasons, and most turn up within about a day. Her measured reassurance reflects the limits of what the investigation can establish at this point.

Felicity’s Replacement

The loft scene gives the reader a more immediate view of Jill’s peril. Felicity encourages Jill to be brave; then the captor appears carrying a Tupperware box and an old-fashioned cut-throat razor, which he places on top of the cage. He unties Felicity’s hands and feet, drags her out by the rope, and binds her wrists behind her back. Her gasp registers the pain of being pulled from the cage, while her defiant question makes clear that she understands what his arrival may mean.

A Day of Unequal Knowledge

The captor explains that Felicity has been replaced: he has a new doll, Jill, and no longer needs the woman who came before her. He says he would already have dealt with Felicity if other matters had not intervened, and declares that her life ended when he acquired Jill. The date therefore holds two sharply different forms of knowledge. In the investigation, Jill’s absence remains unexplained; in the loft, the captor’s words confirm her captivity and expose the lethal rule governing the women’s succession.