Page 9

CHAPTER 9

MATTHEW – D AY O NE

Matthew has been driving around Maidstead in the dark. Street by street. Round and round in circles. Nothing. It’s close to midnight. He’s now about ten minutes from home when a panic sweeps through him so sudden and so overwhelming that he’s shocked to feel not just light-headed but unsafe. His eyes blur. His heart pounds. He is used to stress and is accustomed to managing fear in his job, but this throws him so badly, especially the blurred vision, that he’s afraid he may lose control of the car.

He screeches into a lay-by, a lorry roaring past him, as the car comes to an emergency stop throwing his body forward, his heart pounding ever faster. He leans back in his seat and closes his eyes to find Amelie in her pink rabbit slippers carrying a puzzle in a box, staring at him.

Daddy, will you help me? It’s too hard ...

He feels sweaty but is paradoxically shivering too. He tries to remember the day with the puzzle. Ah yes. Sally at the Rayburn stove, sorting out a casserole for the slow oven for supper. He was on the way to work. Too busy. We’ll do the puzzle tonight, honey. Daddy’s got to go to work. Guilt now melds with the panic pounding through his body. He opens his eyes and tries to slow his breathing but can’t seem to get any air into his lungs.

He tries to find the picture of Amelie again but she’s gone. He presses the button for the electric window but the cold night draught makes no difference. In the end, he gets out of the car and stands, leaning with both hands pressed against the window frame, his head bowed, hoping that stretching out his chest might help with whatever this is.

It doesn’t.

For a few minutes, he just stands, huffing and puffing. He feels both terrified and ridiculous. He’s still feeling light-headed and has no choice but to wait until his breathing at last starts to steady. He waits some more until his heart rate slows also before standing up straighter.

He’s disoriented. Embarrassed. Afraid. He closes his eyes but there is only darkness. Amelie still gone. He feels a punch in his chest. His heart?

Is he having a heart attack? Is that it? Or some kind of panic attack? Possibly. He’s not sure because he’s never had a panic attack before. Didn’t think he was the type.

He is worried it will happen again, possibly with other people around. And what good is he to Amelie like this?

He remembers advice to breathe into a paper bag but who has a paper bag on hand? He decides it was maybe a bad idea to stand up and gets back into the car, leaving the window open.

Suddenly and most shockingly, he’s crying. At first, he is just conscious of tears on his cheeks. A surprise because Matthew does not ever remember crying. He did not even cry when Amelie was born.

Next, his shoulders are rolling and he’s not just crying but sobbing like a child, his whole body shaking. This goes on for quite a time and he has absolutely no choice but to wait for the rush of emotion to pass.

When at last the crying stops, he closes his eyes tight, disorientated still as he wipes his face with the palms of both hands. He looks at the clock on the dashboard. Very nearly day two. Sally will be expecting him. Needs him. But she can’t see him like this. It will frighten her. No one must see him like this, not because he’s afraid to look weak but because he’s afraid to be weak when his daughter and his wife both need him to be strong.

What he really wants to do is to drive to Cornwall right this minute and hunt down Dawn Meadows. He wants to search her house and any outbuildings and find out if she has some other property or lock-up. He wants forensic teams crawling all over her whole family. He wants to look her in the face and shout at her. Where is my daughter? The problem is he knows that he can’t do this without betraying Mel’s trust, even blowing the whole inquiry. Mel says she’s on it. She’s a good friend and the best cop he knows. And in any case, he’s already tried to find Dawn Meadows on social media and through all the usual search channels and he’s drawn a complete blank. Mel will have better resources. She may already know where she is and have sent someone to do the initial interview and check. He’ll ask her directly tomorrow when they do the update on the ground search and the dive.

Matthew closes his eyes again, thinking of the dive. A range of different scenarios play in his head – possibilities that don’t involve Dawn Meadows. Amelie slipping into the water. Amelie being pushed into the water. But Amelie can swim so wouldn’t she be OK if she fell in? Next, he thinks of how cold water can be. How quickly someone can be overwhelmed by the cold. He thinks of muscles freezing. Water being swallowed – the thought so unbearable that his pulse quickens again.

He puts his seat belt back on and checks his face in the mirror, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He needs to pull himself together and get home to Sally. Be there for her. To help her through this awful first night.

He picks up his phone to text Sally, warning he’ll be home later than he said. Next, he pulls out of the lay-by, again checking the clock on the dashboard. Two minutes to midnight.

The problem is he knows too much.

Matthew knows that if Amelie has been taken by Dawn Meadows, there is a chance – just a chance – that they can find her and save her before Dawn panics and does something terrible. But if Amelie, God forbid, has been taken by a random predator who means real harm then the stats are terrible.

The majority of random predators who are inclined to kill do so within the first two hours.

Matthew hears a terrible noise escape involuntarily. Something like a howl. Something that echoes around the car and sounds as if it’s coming from another body, not his own. He listens to the echo and understands the panic attack. It’s this very thought he’s been trying to suppress.

This terrible fear that it’s already too late.