Page 29

Natalie

The sitting room is full of people, and Natalie feels an odd tickle of irritation.

She’d told Pete he had invited too many people for them all to fit comfortably in the house, and for a moment she can’t quite understand why they are all inside.

Then she remembers. Erin .

Erin is not in her cot, is nowhere to be found.

Someone has called the police, she heard them – Mari?

– talking about it, but there is no sign of any police officers yet.

Mari is sitting on the armchair across from where Natalie sits on the sofa, Zadie pulled tightly into her lap.

Zadie’s eyes are wide, and she sucks determinedly at her thumb.

Natalie wants to tell Zadie to take her thumb out of her mouth, that her teeth will be crooked, but she can’t find the words.

She has no idea where Pete is, and part of her is glad about that.

Natalie doesn’t want to see Pete, doesn’t want to talk to him.

The other part of her is desperate for him to come back from wherever he’s gone, to be able to lean against his shoulder, for his arms to come around her and prop her up the way he has so many times before.

‘Holding her …’ a voice is saying behind her.

‘Natalie … sleep.’ Natalie thinks it’s Gina, her colleague from the office, telling someone how she was holding Erin before Natalie took her upstairs for a sleep.

Either that, or they are all talking about Natalie herself, and how she never gets any sleep any more.

All around her, voices are calling out for Erin, or talking about where they all were the last time they saw her.

There is a hushed air about the room now, following the initial buzz of panic, with many of the guests starting to move out into the garden, Erin’s name on their lips.

Wearily, Natalie blinks.

She knows she should be grateful that people are concerned, that they are looking for her missing child, but it’s pointless calling out for her.

Erin is only eight months old; it’s not as if she’s going to reply to them.

As people mill around her, Natalie tries her hardest to connect the dots.

There is an undeniable frisson of fear in the air, so tangible you can almost taste it, but it doesn’t seem to have the same panicking effect on Natalie that it’s having on her guests.

She knows it’s awful – she knows this is the worst thing that could ever happen to a mother – but the combination of too much diazepam and two glasses of Sauvignon on an empty stomach means she feels oddly disconnected from what is going on.

It almost feels as though she is watching events through a mirror, a layer of glass separating her from real life, protecting her from the pain that surely she is about to experience.

Or through a TV screen.

Yes, that’s it. Natalie feels as though she is watching this all happen to someone else – some TV drama starring Jill Halfpenny or Nicola Walker; it’s always those two women the awful stuff happens to – and any minute now Erin will start up her incessant wailing and Natalie will feel that familiar sense of exasperation at once again having to pause her show for the millionth time.

Leaning forward, Natalie rests her elbows on her knees and covers her face with her hands.

Her cheeks burn hot, her palms cool against her skin, and she is grateful to be able to feel something at least. Everything else is numb.

A hand lands on her shoulder and begins to rub her back soothingly.

It makes Natalie think of when she was little, and she would curl up in her mother’s lap and she would rub her back until she fell asleep.

For a sharp, painful moment Natalie misses her mother, the need for her like a splinter under her skin that brings tears to her eyes.

It’s been a long time since Natalie felt like that about her mum, probably not since Zadie was born.

The hand persists in its gentle stroking of Natalie’s back, and she keeps her eyes closed, hidden behind her palms. A familiar floral fragrance fills her nostrils, and she thinks it might be Eve’s perfume.

Didn’t Eve leave? Natalie had thought that Eve left after she had snapped at her so fiercely before taking Erin up to bed.

She didn’t remember seeing her when they cut the cake, but maybe she came back?

Part of Natalie hopes so.

She hates fighting with Eve – they’ve only ever argued a couple of times before, and both times it was over Natalie’s defence of Pete.

She leans back, pressing against the warm palm, hoping it’s Eve and that this means they’re going to be OK.

Natalie is going to need her to get through this, and the affair Pete’s been having with Vanessa.

Natalie half expects tears to spring to her eyes when she thinks about Erin, about Pete, but there is nothing, and it is with flushed cheeks and dry eyes that she looks up, when someone taps her gently on her knee.

‘Natalie?’ A dark-haired woman in a neat trench coat and ugly black shoes is crouched beside her, and Natalie frowns in confusion.

Who invited her to the party ?

‘Natalie, my name is DI Travis. I’m a police officer, I’m here to help you look for Erin.

’

‘Erin …’ Natalie’s tongue feels thick, too big for her mouth, and she licks at her dry lips.

‘I need to ask you a few questions, OK?’ The woman leans in, rocking forward on the balls of her feet, and Natalie wonders how long before she gets pins and needles.

‘How old is Erin?’

‘She’s …

uh …’ Natalie has to think for a moment, her brain fuzzy.

‘Eight months? I think she’s eight months.

’

The police officer exchanges a glance with someone above Natalie’s head and then smiles gently.

‘Excellent. Natalie, I know this is difficult for you, but I need to ask you a few things to help us focus our search for Erin, OK?’

Natalie nods, but everything still has the weird, shimmery feel about it, as though she’s in a dream.

Any moment now Erin is going to shriek that strident, piercing yell meaning she needs her nappy changed, and Natalie will wake up with her pulse pounding in her ears and her hands shaking, rudely ripped from sleep once again as Pete slumbers on, oblivious, beside her.

‘When was the last time you saw Erin tonight? Did you put her to bed yourself?’

Did I?

The combination of wine and prescription drugs has made time seem to melt together like an ice cream on a hot day, dripping and oozing.

‘I … She was …’ Natalie stumbles, her mouth feeling drier and drier.

‘Could I have … some water please?’

The police officer nods at someone behind Natalie, and then the palm disappears from her back.

Emily’s figure appears in Natalie’s peripheral vision, and then she feels the sag of the sofa cushion beside her as Emily takes a seat.

She reaches out and Emily twines her fingers through hers, holding her tightly, like she used to on the walk to playschool.

‘Mum put Erin to bed at about eight o’clock,’ Emily says, her voice strong and clear.

‘So … around two hours ago?’ DI Travis asks, her pencil scratching away in a little notebook as she jots down Emily’s words.

‘About then,’ Emily says, with a quick glance at Natalie.

Natalie wants to agree but her head feels so heavy, too heavy for her neck to support, and she just blinks.

‘Erin was crying after my dad made a speech, so my mum took her upstairs to feed her and get her settled for the night.’

‘Natalie, is that right?’

Natalie looks up.

‘Yes … I fed her and put her to bed in her cot.’

‘I was there,’ Emily says, a blush rising on her cheeks, presumably at the memory of their argument.

‘I came up to see Mum and she was sitting in the nursing chair giving Erin a bottle. She was about to put Erin down when I left and came back downstairs.’

‘And that was the last time either of you saw Erin?’

Emily nods, casting a quick glance in Natalie’s direction.

Natalie also nods, before gratefully taking the glass of water that is handed to her.

She takes long sips of the cold water, almost immediately feeling better, if not that much clearer.

‘I put Erin in her cot and—’ She breaks off, thinking, trying to piece together the events of the evening in her cotton-filled brain.

‘I came downstairs, and we cut the cake. Pete asked Emily to … to check on Erin.’ Her throat thickens and she hastily gulps at the water again, coughing as it goes down the wrong way.

‘OK. Take your time,’ the detective says soothingly.

‘Erin was asleep,’ Emily says, her voice rising.

‘There was no need for anyone to go upstairs after Mum put her in the cot. She was sleeping. We all know not to disturb her when she’s gone down because Mum—’ She breaks off, looking down at her bitten fingernails.

‘Thank you, Emily,’ DI Travis says, ‘you’ve been really helpful.

Can I just have a quick word with your mum, though?

Perhaps you could go out in the garden and see if your dad’s back yet?

Someone said he’s gone out to look for Erin.

’

Emily nods and, with one last anxious look at Natalie, slides off the sofa and heads for the patio doors, where Stu holds out an arm and wraps it around her shoulders.

Mari comes to stand on the other side of her, forming a protective barrier.

Zadie hovers at Mari’s side, staring at Natalie, still with her thumb in her mouth.

‘Natalie?’ DI Travis pulls Natalie’s attention back to her.

Her mouth is pursed, and Natalie can see tiny fine lines etched around her lips, and at her eyes.

She must be the same age as Natalie, or thereabouts.

‘Did you know the battery on the baby monitor has run out?’

Natalie looks up, her brow creasing.

She didn’t know that, did she?

If I had known I would have plugged it in at the wall , she thinks.

She was always nagging Pete to do it.

‘No,’ she whispers, ‘I didn’t know that.

’

‘OK,’ The detective says.

‘It’s OK, Natalie. It just means that if someone did go into Erin’s room, nothing would have been picked up on the monitor down here, that’s all.

’

Natalie swallows, a sick feeling cutting through the drugged numbness.

Is this detective implying it’s my fault for not charging the baby monitor?

Is it my fault? ‘I didn’t …

No one would need to go up there.

She was asleep.’ Even as she says it, Natalie is aware she probably isn’t making any sense.

‘I have to ask you,’ DI Travis says, ‘is there anyone you can think of – anyone at all – who might have wanted to harm Erin?’

‘Erin?’ Natalie sits up, pressing one cold hand to her mouth.

‘She’s … She’s just a baby.

Why would anyone want to hurt a baby?

’ A fuzzy half-formed thought tries to break its way through the cloud of diazepam.

No one would want to hurt Erin, would they?

She’s only been on this planet for eight months, has never done anything to warrant anything bad happening to her.

The detective gets to her feet, wincing as she does so.

‘No one at all?’

Natalie shakes her head, but the half-formed thought persists, becoming clearer the longer she holds on to it.

There is no one who would ever want to harm baby Erin, but after the events of the past few hours, there are plenty of people who might want to hurt Natalie directly, including her own husband.

Pete. Vanessa. Eve. Maybe even Jake .

The list of names pours through Natalie’s mind like quicksand, none of them certain enough to stick.

Her head spins, and her stomach pitches; she thinks she might be sick.

‘Sorry. Excuse me.’ Without waiting for the detective to stop her, Natalie gets to her feet and rushes from the room, one hand clasped tightly over her mouth.