I dial Gilbourne on the hands-free as we’re driving back but get his voicemail. I remember the look of concern in the detective’s eyes last night and it occurs to me that he will probably be upset with me for going to the meeting on my own. Or for going at all. I also remember the fresh, clean smell of his aftershave, the way it felt when his hand was on my arm. The warmth of his touch.
I shake the thoughts away and concentrate on keeping up with Tara as she weaves in and out of traffic on the way to the boys’ nursery.
Little Charlie has to be roused from his post-lunch nap when we finally get there. As Tara carries him out he flops like an exhausted baby monkey, his head against her shoulder, unaware of any break in the normal routine. Lucas is delighted to be picked up from nursery early and even lets me hold his hand as we walk out to the car park. We make the five-minute drive to Noah’s infant school in three minutes and park up on the street next to the playground. Tara doesn’t want to let go of Charlie or leave him in the car for even a second, and he’s happy to be carried over to the tall slatted steel fence that separates the pupils from the outside world. Lucas wants to see as well so I lift him up onto my hip. He’s only four but he’s surprisingly chunky, nothing like the featherweight of having Mia nestled in the crook of my arm. The thought of her gives me a lurch of fear, the sense that she is somewhere out there, still vulnerable, exposed to a violent world. Unprotected from someone who wishes her harm.
Lucas gives me a shy smile as I hoist him up and we all look into the playground filled with sturdy outdoor play equipment and a couple of hundred small children wearing coats over forest green jumpers, with dark grey trousers and skirts. The sun has come out and the crisp autumn air is full of the excited shouts and squeals of young voices, an excited hubbub of sound as if everyone’s trying to be heard above everyone else.
‘Are we looking for Noah?’ Lucas says.
‘Yes, can you see him?’
‘Has he been bad? Is he in trouble?’
‘No.’ I manage a smile. ‘He’s not been bad.’
The three of us scan the playground, children running and playing, weaving in and out, jumping and stepping over complicated shapes and numbers painted onto the tarmac. A handful of adults on patrol amid the throng of small people. A couple of times I think I spot Noah’s red coat but it’s not him. I can’t see him anywhere.
A block of dread is growing in my chest, a solid mass expanding with every second that I scan the playground. Trying to process it, to figure out how this can have happened if we drove straight here? How can Dominic have got here before us? What did he do?
Because Noah is not here.
44
A voice in my head whispers:this is your fault.
‘Where is he, Ellen?’ An edge of panic is creeping into Tara’s voice. ‘I called the school literally half an hour ago, why isn’t he out here? He should be here.’
‘Maybe he’s inside?’
She shakes her head.
‘Not on a day like this, when the sun’s out. I’m going to find a teacher,’ Tara says, hurrying away towards the school’s front entrance. ‘Call the police, Ellen, we need to—’
‘There.’ Lucas points over to the far side of the playground, into the furthest corner. ‘Over there, look.’
We both turn to see where his little finger is pointing. Two small figures sitting on a white-painted log near the kitchen block. Noah with his friend Rakim. They appear to be playing some kind of card game, two small bespectacled boys facing each other, laying cards in the space between them. Relief floods through me like a shot of morphine.
‘Your eyes are better than mine, Lucas,’ I say. ‘You’ve got eagle eyes.’
He grins up at me, pleased to be the one to spot his brother first. Tara hurries back to the fence, not satisfied until she’s laid eyes on her oldest son herself. She turns to me, her face still white with fear, and I can tell she doesn’t want to frighten the younger boys.
‘I could say he’s got a doctor’s appointment,’ she says quietly.
‘Looks like he’s OK,’ I say. ‘He’s safe here, isn’t he?’
Lucas says: ‘Has Noah got to go to the doctor’s, mummy?’
‘Shush a minute, darling.’ Tara stares for a moment longer, studying her son as he plays, checking the side gates, studying the adults in the playground, teachers and lunch-time supervisors on patrol. The familiar faces of people she knows, people she has chatted to at parents’ evenings, in the supermarket or on the street. Everything seems to be as it should be. ‘We’ll pick Noah up at normal time,’ she says finally. ‘Hey, who wants strawberry milkshake when we get home?’
When we get back to her house, she makes drinks for the two younger boys, and I sit making Lego spaceships with Lucas while Charlie plays a complicated toddler game with various teddies, action men and uncannily real-looking dolls unloaded from a box in the corner of the lounge, burbling to himself all the while. I can’t stop thinking about Mia, what she’ll be like when she’s their age. Wondering whether she will be serious like Noah, competitive like Lucas or a little comedian like Charlie. Wondering whether she will even have that chance.
Dominic’s chilling words won’t leave me alone.
There’s someone out there who will kill her. Who will make her disappear.
I stay with the boys while Tara collects Noah from school. When they return, I go upstairs to the spare bedroom and call Gilbourne again but his phone is still going straight to voicemail. Dizzy is curled up on one of my jumpers at the end of the bed, one eye opening as I sit down next to him. The sound of the TV in the lounge floats up the stairs and a few minutes later Tara appears in the doorway, a cup of tea in each hand. I’m just about finished packing the few clothes that I have into my overnight bag.
‘What are you doing?’ she says.
