Good Bad Girl: A Novel

Frankie sits down with Clio but struggles to speak as she ruminates about whether coming to Clio’s was a good idea. When Frankie finally acknowledges that she came to talk about her daughter, Clio receives an emergency phone call that she steps out to take. While Clio is out, Frankie notices a framed paper cutting in the office that she is certain her daughter made.

Clio takes the phone call in the hall. Someone from the home tells her that her mother has disappeared. Clio says that she’ll come right away. She returns to the office to tell her client, whose name she can’t remember, that she must leave. However, she finds that her client has disappeared through the window with the framed paper cutting.

Frankie returns to her houseboat, The Black Sheep, on the Thames. She reflects on how challenging it was to raise a child on a roving houseboat as a single mother, but she also thinks about all of the pleasant moments she had with her daughter before her daughter ran away. Frankie finds no signature on the paper cutting, but words on the back suggest the art is from Kennedy’s Gallery in Covent Garden.