But he’s already closing the door.
I walk down the steps and across the courtyard. In the silence of my car I sit and think about what Max had said, replaying his lies in my head.Don’t know what you’re talking about. What baby?Was he aware of the role played by Dominic, the angry ex-boyfriend, in the events of these past few days? After a few minutes, I type ‘Seer Green’ into the satnav, and make the short drive to the small train station where Kathryn got off the train on Tuesday.
It’s another picturesque Chiltern village, a few miles nearer to London. Why didn’t she get off in Great Missenden, which was nearer to her flat? Was that where she got on? And what was here? There’s a pub, a church, a primary school. Not much else. I park at the little train station and walk up onto the platform through open ticket barriers, staring down the two parallel tracks carving their way through the Buckinghamshire countryside and flanked by trees on both sides. It’s a little two-platform stop that looks like it hasn’t changed much since the 1950s, I guess mostly used by commuter-belt workers heading in and out of London. Was Kathryn meeting someone? Or avoiding Dominic, waiting for her at the end of the line in London? And most important of all, why leave Mia behind?
On the drive home, I can’t stop thinking about Holt visiting Kathryn’s flat without Gilbourne. The way he’d looked when he left: furtive somehow, as if he didn’t want to be seen. Max lying about Mia. His reaction when I asked about Kathryn’s sister. I’m still trying to decide whether I should ask Gilbourne about her as I pull up on the drive of my house, still mulling it over as I find my front door key and fit it into the lock.
The side gateslamsin the wind, the wood banging against the frame like a gunshot. I flinch, my pulse spiking. I’m sure the gate was bolted when I left. I push it open carefully in a creak of hinges and walk around the little block-paved path at the side of the house, cold fingers of unease at the tip of my spine. I stop at the edge of the garden.
The kitchen door has been kicked in.
27
I can see through the busted door that the kitchen is a mess.
Run.That’s my first instinct.Get away. Go to Tara’s house, to a hotel, anywhere but here. I take a step back towards my car, engine still ticking as it cools on the drive. But at the gate, I stop, the heat of shame rising up from my chest, the prickle of frustration and anger. I’ve never run away from anything in my life. I’ve stood and faced everything head-on. This ismyhouse.Myhome.
Heart thumping in my chest, I turn back around and walk over to the patio to look in through the kitchen windows. Cupboards and drawers hang open, pots and pans and cutlery and food strewn across the floor. The lounge is worse. Through the closed patio doors I can see books and DVDs scattered everywhere, chairs knocked over, the sofa cushions ripped and scattered. The drawers of my antique writing desk pulled out and upturned, contents spilled. A bookcase knocked down, framed pictures lying in shattered glass, dark earth spilled across the carpet from pot plants knocked to the floor. There’s no sign of Dizzy and I look around the garden in case he’s waiting for me but he’s nowhere to be seen. He’s a smart little guy – he would know when to run and hide, where to wait out the storm.
I can’t see anyone inside. Phone in my hand, I step carefully into the kitchen and listen, waiting, straining my ears to hear any sound of movement. But the house is silent, as if it is exhausted, broken by this ordeal. The kitchen door hangs drunkenly, half off its hinges, fragments of wood and plaster from the wall scattered just inside on the kitchen floor. I’m about to try to push it closed when I remember I shouldn’t touch anything: my house is a crime scene now, there might be fingerprints. Evidence.
Gilbourne’s words ring in my ears again, the scepticism in his voice when I had called him about last night’s intruder. ‘The baby’s on your mind, it’s a pretty intense experience you’ve had. I can see why you might want to see a link between the two things.’
I’m not imaginingthis.
There is a spilled bag of rice near the kitchen door, grains scattered in a long white arc across the tiles, and I step over it into the hallway. It’s the same in here, coats thrown across the floor, their pockets pulled inside out. I pick up a few books and magazines spilt from the side table onto the stripped wooden floorboards, feeling something hard at the bottom of the pile. My iPad. I check the lounge again. The TV is still here, too.
I stop at the foot of the stairs, listen again with my phone in my hand. Silence.
One careful step at a time, I go slowly up the stairs. A faint smell of something here, of exhaled breath and disturbed air. The same faint scents as last night when I found my kitchen door unlocked, earthy and dark. Did I know they would come back for a second visit? Maybe. Perhaps I’ve just been in denial.
All four doors off the landing are open and it is clear that none of the bedrooms have been spared. The master bedroom is a riot of clothes on the bed, on the floor, bags and shoes and coats, all the drawers and wardrobes open. My bedside drawer is open and scattered beneath are my passport, a few credit cards and a small box of jewellery that includes a few items inherited from my grandmother. Diamond stud earrings that I haven’t worn in years, a silver chain bracelet. Still here.
When I go into the little box bedroom that looks out over the garden, all my fear turns to angry tears, a hard weight brimming behind my eyes.
Last night I was terrified at the idea of my home being invaded while I was upstairs. My sanctuary, my refuge from everything, being violated by a stranger. I’ve had an uneasy feeling all day that someone might be watching me, following me. Last night they left the house untouched but were close enough to hurt me if they wanted to. Today I was far away, safe, when they returned – but it’s still much worse, because of what they’ve done to this room.
It’s the room we once decorated as a nursery, sunshine yellow walls and soft cream carpet, one feature wall papered with circus animals. Neutral yellow, not pink or blue. Ready for pine furniture, a cot and a wardrobe and maybe a chest of drawers with a changing table on top. This would have been the baby’s room, and then when he or she got big enough we were going to move them into the spare room to make way for a sibling, maybe two. Richard and I decorated it together one weekend, Radio Two on and sunshine streaming through the window, me in the first trimester of the only natural pregnancy we managed to conceive. I was already allowing myself surreptitious visits to Boots and JoJo Maman Bébé to buy a few sleepsuits and vests and scratch mittens and all the things I knew I shouldn’t – but I wanted to dive into it, to be fully immersed in it, to be properly ready. Ignorant of what was to come. That was before the worst years started, before the brutal cycles of IVF and the endless waiting, hoping, praying, wondering in sleepless hours whether I had somehow cursed it – cursed my pregnancy – by buying baby clothes too far in advance.
I haven’t been into the nursery for months and normally I keep the door shut. It’s a snapshot of a life that will never be, a museum exhibit, preserved in aspic and frozen in time.
Now it’s in an even worse state than the rest of the house. Everything is torn, opened, strewn on the floor. Drawers pulled out and turned upside down, smashed, the wood splintered and snapped. Everything opened, emptied, ripped. Hurled against walls and stripped of their contents. The destruction downstairs is methodical; but this is on a whole different level. It looks like venom. Like anger.
The tears spill then. I’m furious at myself, but I can’t help it. I cuff the tears away with the heel of my hand, not wanting to look at the ruin of the nursery but unable to look away. I pick the little doll off the floor and set it on the small painted chair by the door. It doesn’t make sense. There is literally nothing in here worth stealing. Nothing of value. I haven’t even set foot in the room since . . . I don’t know when. Maybe the summer, a few months ago. I nudge the shattered remnants of a wooden drawer with the toe of my shoe. Then I begin setting some of the furniture back upright to clear the floorspace a little.
And I realise thereissomething missing.
The half-dozen sleepsuits – soft white cotton never worn or washed – are gone. The little nought to three month vests are gone. The scratch mittens and a few other items of baby clothing, bought years ago during those furtive visits to Boots, all gone.
A thought pushes its way through the anger and fear: this is all about Mia. But she’s never been here in my house, not even once. Did they see the little nursery in the box room and connect it to her? Did they take the baby clothes as the next best thing, as evidence of her presence here? That doesn’t even make sense. Or was someone trying to send me a message? I have no idea what the message might be, apart from the fact that it somehow relates back to Mia.
Everything relates back to her.
In the bathroom I find a box of tissues among the bottles and creams knocked off the shelf, dry my eyes and blow my nose. I go into the spare bedroom last, survey the damage there. More of the same, wardrobes open and searched, everything flung to the floor, blankets and old clothes and pillows piled up to complete the wreckage of my house.
I’m about to go back downstairs when I notice something.Feelsomething. A draught. A breeze. Just a touch of cold autumn air coming through an open window across the room. Pulling the sleeve of my shirt over my hand to avoid messing up any fingerprints, I shut the window and turn the key in the lock, making sure the latch is fully down. I need to call 101, and when I’ve done that I’ll call Gilbourne as well.
I turn to leave the room and immediately freeze in place, the breath stolen from my chest.
