Page 24

CHAPTER 24

MATTHEW – D AY T HREE

When Matthew finally returns home, the FLO, Molly, is sitting in the kitchen alone, a single lamp lighting the room.

‘I’m sorry I was longer than I said.’ He’s been driving the streets again. More than two hours this time. He said he’d be back for midnight but it’s well past 1 a.m. It’s not even that he expects to find Amelie this way, circling Maidstead over and over. He knows there are volunteer groups out looking now as well as the police. Facebook groups organising rotas and checks of parks and meadows and backstreets and bins. And all the unthinkable. But driving around makes him feel that he is at least doing something. That he just might spot some small thing; some tiny suspicious thing that could help. And in any case, it’s so hard to stay at home ...

‘It’s OK,’ Molly says. ‘But I’ll get off now if that’s all right with you. Sally’s upstairs but she’s not sleeping. I just checked on her.’

‘Thank you. Sure you don’t want to stay over?’

‘No. I’ll grab a few hours at home.’

‘Of course.’

Molly picks up her coat and bag and Matthew sees her to the door. Thanks her again.

Back in the kitchen cum diner, he slumps on to the sofa by the doors to the garden, not bothering to put on more lights. Feels more comfortable with the dark. He checks his watch. Thursday now. Day three. Amelie has been missing for thirty-four hours and fifteen minutes.

The maths is eating into him like a tumour. His insides feel permanently tight as if there isn’t enough room for his organs anymore. Everything sort of pressing together. Yes. Just as if there is a tumour.

He remembers that when Amelie was born, he used to worry about what would happen to her if one of them died young – him or Sal? Car accident or cancer? Life was suddenly serious; everything else seemed trivial. It no longer mattered whether his dodgy knee could manage the tougher runs skiing. Winter holidays were a thing of the past. It was suddenly all about survival. Keeping this little life safe. Keeping themselves safe.

And he’d failed at all of it. Amelie gone.

Matthew checks his phone. The last message from Melanie says she expects to interview Carol early. Uniformed police are driving Carol from Bristol Airport to the station in Maidstead where Mel has her incident room. All such a mess.

There’s no way Matthew believes Carol is involved with Amelie’s disappearance but he knows that Melanie will have to play it completely straight. Do it all properly. And it will be unpleasant. Questions that will offend Carol. Hurt Sally too.

All those years ago, when Carol had her ‘breakdown’ and took the baby, it was such a dreadful shock. Matthew, who had simply been brought in as a PI to find her, obviously didn’t know Carol at all. He just wore his professional hat and was appalled first and foremost for the mother whose child was missing. Yes, he sympathised with Sally too. His feelings for her were growing fast. But he was piggy in the middle.

Sally, naively, had imagined that the police would be sympathetic when they found out the truth of Carol’s life. Her controlling and violent partner; that awful life that Carol had hidden from everyone. The reason she had withdrawn from her friendship with Sally. But Matthew had tried to make Sally see how differently it would all be seen by others. All the sympathy would rightly be with the mother of the child – missing for several hours.

Carol will be charged, Sally. Imagine what it’s been like for the mother of the child she took ...

But Carol is ill, Matthew. Surely they will take that into consideration?

In the end, the judge did consider Carol’s situation as mitigation. But just as Matthew predicted, she was still given a custodial sentence, albeit suspended. Sally had been numb with shock.

Matthew feels a long sigh leaving his body. Shoulders slumping. He thinks of the most horrible irony. That Sally is now the mother of the missing child. Finally and so cruelly getting to feel what that mother had felt all those years ago. With Carol right in the middle of the two nightmares.

Sally was right. He should have spoken up as soon as Carol phoned from France. He should have warned her to stay away for her own sake but mostly for Sally’s. To spare his poor wife this extra stress. Why didn’t he do that?

Matthew scrapes his fingers through his hair and closes his eyes. He’s tired from the lack of sleep and all the driving. Is he losing it? His judgement? That powerful instinct that has served him so well right up until now.