Page 18 of You Lied First
‘S he was with you!’ I say, without bothering to temper the accusation that seeps into my voice.
‘I know,’ Flynn says, ‘but then we lost her. I thought she’d have come back here.’ He spins to face Celine and snaps quite savagely, ‘I told you we should have waited for her!’
Celine holds up her hands. ‘I’m sorry. I thought she was right behind us. Have you messaged her?’
‘She doesn’t have data. I told you that!’
‘Let’s just wait here,’ Guy says calmly. ‘I’m sure she’ll find her way back.’
But I’m not so sure. The place is a maze and, if I know Liv, she would have been focusing on everything but the route along which she walked.
‘Where were you when you last saw her?’ I ask. ‘Did she say what she was looking for?’
‘She was after a tote bag – something cute, not the naff ones,’ Flynn says.
‘Where are the tote-bag shops?’ I ask, hoping that, as with the fabrics and the jewellery, they’re all in one area, but Guy shakes his head.
‘Everywhere. Most shops have them. But look, don’t worry. The souk isn’t huge. If she has any sense of direction, she’ll make her way back towards the road where we came in …’
‘She has no sense of direction!’ I snap. ‘She could end up coming out the wrong side completely! And then what?’
Tears bloom in my eyes and I turn away, embarrassed.
I’m picturing what Michael’s going to say.
His anger when he hears that I lost Liv in a Middle Eastern souk.
His ‘I told you so. This is why she lives with me’.
How could I blow it like this? How do other parents keep an eye on their children at all times?
I’m hot, sweating, and my heart’s racing.
The souk takes on a different feel: gone is the benign fun of a tourist trip.
I spin around, scouring the crowds for Liv’s face, her hair, her walk.
I know my daughter’s seventeen but she’s still my baby, and memories of the Madeleine McCann story flash through my mind.
A lapse of parental attention. A snatched child.
The people-trafficking signs stuck on the loo doors at the airport in Birmingham.
Liv’s blonde hair and grey eyes. Rape. Sex rings.
All these men milling about, watching us with hooded eyes, but doing what?
Those narrow alleyways, the tiny staircases leading up – to where?
Guy’s hands land on my shoulders and he turns me towards him, giving me the tiniest of shakes as he does so.
‘Do you want to look for her? Would you rather be looking?’
I nod, silently grateful.
‘Okay, Celine: you stay here with Flynn,’ he says. ‘We’ll work our way around the main touristy area and then head down towards the road in case she does make it there. Stay in touch with your phone, okay? Right, come on, Sara. We’ll find her and we’ll be laughing about this before you know it.’
He steers me down one of the pathways of the souk and we peer into each shop we pass, him looking left and me to the right. After we reach the end and emerge onto the street without finding her, I stop. The beauty of the nighttime port and corniche is completely lost on me.
‘This is useless! How are we going to find her? There are so many people! It’s a rabbit warren, Guy! Why didn’t Celine stay with her? She had one job!’
‘Hey, hey, hey. Come here.’ Guy pulls me to him in a hug. My ear presses against his chest and I can hear the solid thump of his heart, a contrast to the racing staccato of my own. It’s calming, but he’s hot and I’m even hotter. I pull away.
‘I need to find her!’
I plunge back into the souk, taking a different alley this time, and I try to find my way to the wider pathways, the more touristy ones with the more commercial shops that I know would appeal to Liv – and then, suddenly, there she is, standing outside a shop, looking left and right, her eyes panicky and the sheen of tears shining on her cheeks: my baby.
The girl for whom I would do absolutely anything.