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Pete

‘Nat?’ Pete can’t take his eyes off a sleeping Erin even as he answers the phone to his wife.

‘Erin’s OK, you don’t need to—’

‘Pete, oh God …’ Natalie’s voice is a broken croak, and Pete’s arms break out in gooseflesh as she gasps.

‘She’s … Zadie—’

‘Nat? Natalie, what is it? Calm down.’ Pete doesn’t mean to be so abrupt, but he can’t make sense of what Natalie is trying to tell him.

He hears her draw in a deep breath and then finally, he can understand her.

‘It’s Zadie,’ she says.

‘She’s gone. She’s not in her room, she’s not here, I can’t find her.

’

Immediately something sharp and spiky floods Pete’s veins, his hands beginning to shake.

‘I’m on my way.’ He hangs up and, with one last look at Erin, whispers, ‘I’ll be back, baby girl.

’

Pete hurries past the ICU reception, calling out DI Travis’s name to the nurse there as he does.

She points towards the waiting room where Pete and Natalie have spent so much of their evening, and he breaks into a sprint, his breath coming hard and fast in his ears as he shoves the door open, his mouth dry.

Travis and Haynes are sitting closely together, Haynes talking quietly in his phone, both of them with dirty brown cups of coffee in their hands.

‘Pete?’ Travis frowns as she gets to her feet.

‘What is it? Did something happen?’

‘Zadie’s gone,’ he puffs, winded and slightly sick.

‘I need to go home, Natalie called.’

Travis immediately throws her coffee cup into the bin and pulls on her jacket.

‘I’ll take you. Tell me exactly what Natalie said.

’

‘She just said Zadie isn’t in the house – she can’t find her anywhere.

Erin …’ Pete feels his eyes fill with tears.

‘What about Erin? She’s going to be on her own.

’ He feels torn – the idea of leaving Erin here alone, even though she’s going to be OK, is unbearable, but Zadie …

He needs to find his little girl.

‘Haynes will stay with Erin.’ Travis is already bustling Pete out of the door and down the corridor towards the lift.

‘We have the number for your friend – Stuart, is it? DS Haynes will call him and ask him to come in and sit with Erin, too, if you’d like?

This way, come on.’

Pete lets Travis guide him on leaden feet towards her car, feeling oddly numb as his mind races.

How has this happened?

He’d left Zadie tucked up in bed, Emily, Jake and the FLO downstairs.

Could someone have sneaked into the house and taken her?

Pete doesn’t understand how, but he supposes it could be possible.

He presses his pounding head against the window as Travis reaches over and switches on her siren, the scream of it cutting into histhoughts.

‘I’ve spoken to the team,’ Travis is saying.

‘Another unit is being dispatched to the house. Pete, we will find her, OK? We will find Zadie.’

And what if you don’t?

Pete wants to ask. What will he do then?

What will any of them do?

Just when he’d thought that things were going to be OK, he’s staring down the barrel of a fresh nightmare.

He can’t imagine a life without Zadie.

Without her wit – so sharp for an eight-year-old; Pete was always so sure she’d be a stand-up comic one day – without her relentless questions about the most random things, without her whingeing that she’s bored the moment there’s a single minute of downtime.

Pete draws his hands across his face, feeling the prickle of stubble under his fingers.

That was one of the things he usually found infuriating about Zadie, especially after a long day on site, but now he’d give anything to listen to her whine about there being nothing to do, if it just means that they’ll find her.

The police car zips through the familiar streets, the speed adding to Pete’s sense of urgency.

Fear burns like bile in the back of his throat as they hit the outskirts of West Marsham and Pete realises he’s utterly terrified at the thought of going home.

How will we carry on , he thinks desperately, as DI Travis slows a fraction for the speed humps through the village.

How will we ever go on if Zadie is gone for good?