Page 30

Pete

At the edge of the woods, looking out on to the main road, Pete presses his hands over his face, fighting back the sobs threatening to choke him.

The idea that someone could have come through the woods to a waiting car makes his blood run cold, makes him want to scream and rage until his throat is raw.

Dropping his hands, he looks up and down the road, almost hoping for any sign of disappearing tail lights, but there is nothing.

She has to still be here.

She has to be in the woods.

Pete knows he could be fooling himself, but he refuses to give up hope, refuses to give up on Erin.

Turning back towards the pitchy darkness of the trees, he steps into the shadows, his pulse thudding hard and insistent in his ears.

He had raced along the forest path earlier, scrambled through bushes, skimmed past the stream in his haste to find her, but now he pauses for a moment.

He needs to think logically, to comb every inch of the woods, searching for any kind of clue that someone had brought Erin through here.

Pete’s seen enough true crime shows to know how it works – how the police do fingertip searches, collecting any tiny thing that might help the investigation.

Pete has also seen enough true crime shows to know there isn’t always a happy ending.

Swallowing down his fear that Erin may not be OK – or worse, that she may never be found – Pete turns his attention to the forest floor in front of him, his eyes raking over the carpet of dead leaves for any sign of a disturbance not caused by his own harried dash.

How has this happened?

This is the thought that keeps springing into his mind as he searches, on high alert for any sound, wishing for the faintest whimper or cry to reach his ears.

There were only supposed to be people he and Natalie love and trust in their home today, and the idea that one of them – someone he knows , for God’s sake – could be responsible for Erin’s abduction makes him feel physically ill.

The idea that someone could be vicious enough to walk into his home and take his child …

He shivers, his skin breaking out in goose pimples rippling along his arms. He might have been a twat, might even be a terrible human being, but he and Natalie aren’t bad parents – they’ve never left the kids alone, they’ve never hit them, they’ve only ever wanted the best for them …

Pete wants to cry as image after image of Erin, alone, crying, possibly hurt, some masked captor looming over her, flash in front of his eyes.

Passing the thicket of blackberry bushes that he and Natalie take Zadie to in the summer – the one with the juiciest berries that stain Zadie’s mouth and clothes until Nat is despairing of ever getting the stains out – a flash of white catches his eye, and Pete comes to an abrupt halt, his heart stuttering in his chest. What was Erin wearing?

He’s sure Natalie had dressed her in pink leggings and a white T-shirt for the party.

Dread cloaking his shoulders, Pete feels dizzy for a moment as he steps forward, the faint cries of Erin’s name floating on the air every now and again as the rest of the searchers work their way through the woods.

‘Erin.’ Her name is a whisper as Pete pushes the brambles aside, the thorns clawing at the sleeves of his T-shirt.

His mouth is dry, and he struggles to swallow as he fights his way in.

‘Erin … Oh, God—’ The noise that erupts from Pete’s throat is half sob, half laughter as he gets close enough to see what the brambles are hiding.

A napkin . The square of white that Pete convinced himself was a scrap of Erin’s T-shirt is a paper napkin, blown in from the road.

Backing out, Pete doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

He finds his way back to the path, his eyes straining in the dark for anything, any sign at all that Erin has been here.

He calls out her name, hoping she’ll hear him and cry, but there’s nothing, just the rustle of the wind in the trees, and the faint calls of her name from the other side of the woods.

The path forks at the midpoint between the road and the house, the right-hand fork looping round towards the stream before rejoining the main path a little further on.

After following the main path out, now Pete follows the right-hand fork back towards the house, and as he reaches the old oak – that sturdy, dependable old tree, the site of so many memories for Pete, from smoking his first illicit cigarette when he was fifteen, to picnics with Zadie and Emily from almost as soon as they could walk – Pete stops, overwhelmed by a crushing sense of failure.

Erin isn’t here, in the woods.

Surely, he would have found her by now.

He rests one hand against the trunk, feeling the rough bark scratch at the pads of his fingertips, as a choking sob erupts from deep in his chest. On top of everything that has happened today, he’s going to have to go back to the house and tell Natalie he couldn’t find her.

That he searched and searched but Erin is gone, and he doesn’t know what that’s going to do to her – to them.

Pulling in a deep breath, Pete steps around the far side of the tree, mentally running through how he’s going to tell Natalie that Erin really is gone, when his eyes go to the hollow at the bottom of the trunk, to the faint smudge of white almost glowing in the moonlight.

‘Oh my God.’ Pete slides in the wet mud as he bends down, almost too afraid to blink in case he’s hallucinating.

‘Oh my God, Erin.’ He reaches out for the bundle tucked inside the damp hollow – something that could have been so easily mistaken for litter, casually tossed aside – and scoops it up, holding it close.

The tiny body feels solid, weighty in his arms, and tears leak from his eyes, dripping from his chin onto her pale face, her lips tinged with blue as she lies there, so still and silent.

Pete feels dizzy as he takes in the gnawed edges of the plastic bag that Erin was laid in, torn and shredded by razor-sharp rodent teeth, and his arms tighten around her.

Cry, he pleads silently.

Please, Erin, cry. Please don’t let me be too late.