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make us as healthy and happy as him. It’s all low-carb, low-fat, high-cost. So why are we having Toad-in-the-Hole on a Tuesday?
    They’re worried about me. The thought makes me feel awful.
    ‘No,’ I say. ‘Everyone’s talking about her running away with someone she met on the internet.’
    ‘That’s awful.’ My mum takes a sip of wine. She’s the only one having a glass – Kevin doesn’t drink duringthe week and, even though they’d happily let me, I’m not supposed to drink during the season. Not that it always stops me. ‘Her poor parents.’
    ‘You know, we talked about investing in social media,’ Kevin says, reaching to get more peas. ‘But this was one of the reasons we didn’t. It’s so difficult to safeguard, and we just didn’t want to take on the responsibility, not without the software toprotect young kids from this exact thing.’
    Kevin’s company was originally an auction site, kind of like eBay, but now it’s what he calls a ‘global marketplace’. It basically means people can set up their own stores – again, like eBay – but the focus is on ethically-sourced and environmentally friendly products. Lots of vegan chutneys and hemp handbags. People pay a lot of money for that stuff.Advertisers pay a lot of money to be on the site. Kevin owns a load of other businesses now – a web design firm, a security company, a life consultancy (don’t even ask) – but he’s mostly a silent partner, with investments all over the place. Fingers in many pies, as my dad would – and does – say. As far as I can tell, Kevin’s day-to-day work involves checking a lot of emails and giving the occasionalkeynote speech at technology conventions in random exotic places. He sometimes gets calls from the big newspapers who ask for a quote or an opinion piece if there’s a story involving internet trading or responsible consumerism (whatever the hell that means).
    ‘It’s so scary,’ Mum says. ‘I mean, as parents, we have no idea what our kids get up to online.’ She sounds like she’s being interviewedon a chat show.
    I’m pretty sure Kevin could quite easily find out what I get up to online, given that I use his wifi and that he’s basically Minister of the Internet, but I don’t say that. And, besides, Kevin has always been pretty adamant about treating me as an adult, letting me have privacy. Since I moved in here, I’ve never had a curfew, never been told I can’t go anywhere. Maybe it’s becausehe wants me to like him, maybe it’s because he doesn’t have kids of his own, but actually I think that’s just the kind of guy he is. He trusts people. He believes in them.
    ‘I don’t really know if it’s true or not,’ I say. ‘I don’t think Lizzie would just go and meet a stranger.’
    ‘Sounded like that was the police’s theory, huh?’ Kevin says.
    ‘It’s just awful,’ Mum says again. ‘Anything couldhave happened to her. You just don’t know who’s out there.’
    I stare down at my plate. Has something really happened to Lizzie? Is this actually real?
    Kevin must see my face, because he lays a hand over Mum’s and briskly changes the subject. ‘Have you been in touch with Doug? Have you asked him about taking a couple of weeks off in the summer?’
    Mum wants us both to go with Kevin when he givesone of his keynote speeches in Miami next June. Technology convention = not my kind of thing. Miami beaches = very much my kind of thing.
    ‘Yeah, he said it’s okay as long as the hotel has a gym.’
    ‘I’ll check,’ Kevin says, as if he’d stay anywhere that didn’t have a gym, a five-star restaurant, a butler service.
    We eat quietly for a bit, our cutlery clicking against the plates. Each roomin Kevin’s house is carefully optimised by various systems that are constantly assessing air quality, temperature, light levels. Occasionally you’ll hear a dull beep or a click as the room reaches the perfect level of something and the system goes to sleep. The