Unconsciously he looks at the clock over the door. The other officers follow his gaze. Five oclock. Michael has been missing for more than twenty-four hours.
CHAPTER 30
Ruth is sitting in the garden with her brother sharing a bottle of wine. This situation is rare enough to seem almost surreal. Ruth cant remember the last time that she sat down with Simon, just the two of them – not since he married Cathy anyway. And despite the ever-present gnawing anxiety over Michael, she has to admit that its rather pleasant. Kate has pitched her tepee next to the giant blue tent which now takes up most of the garden and the cousins are playing a very complicated game called Squeak piggy squeak. Theres no doubt that Kate is doing most of the squeaking. Her squeals of delight would be deafening the neighbours, if Ruth had any. As it is, Flint has retreated in high dudgeon to the top of the apple tree, where he sits like a disgruntled owl, gazing at Ruth reproachfully.
Kates having a brilliant time, says Ruth. Jack and George are really kind to spend so much time playing with her. Its true that the boys have been kind, going into the sea with Kate – holding her hands, one either side – playing football on the beach with her and swinging her along on the walk home. The trek back from the beach, which often ends in tears, today was pure joy.
Simon watches his sons, eyes screwed up against the setting sun. Theyre good boys, he says. Theres a pause, during which Kates shrieks rise to new levels, and then he says, Ive left Cathy.
Ruth, who has by now guessed as much, says, Why?
Simon spreads out his hands. The gesture would look melodramatic were it not for the expression of acute misery on his face. I dont know, Ruth. Its just … Im forty-five and Ive started thinking is this all there is to life? A boring job, a three-bedroom house on Shooters Hill, golf on Saturday, roast meal on Sunday. I mean, whats it all for?
Ruth cant answer this one. She has never lived the kind of life described by Simon, though she has sometimes wanted to. Also, shes not the biggest fan of her sister-in-law, but it seems a bit harsh that she should bear the brunt of Simons existential mid-life angst.
But thats not Cathys fault, is it? she says. Have you talked to her about how you feel?
Simon takes a slug of wine. Oh yes, Ive tried to talk to her but you know Cathy. As long as shes got a nice house and a nice car and the latest cupcake-maker, shes happy. She told me that I was just being stupid.
Ruth cant understand the latest craze for dressing up like a Fifties housewife and making cupcakes (though she can understand eating them), but she still feels that this is a rather patronising statement. She decides that Simon needs shaking up a bit.
Have you told Mum and Dad? she asks.
Simon groans. No. They just think that Ive taken the boys on holiday. Cathy wont tell them because she thinks Ill come to my senses. Itll kill them.
Ruth says nothing. The news wont kill her parents but theres no doubt that it will come as a body blow. Their favourite child; perfect Simon with his perfect marriage and perfect children. A tiny ignoble part of her cant help feeling slightly pleased that shell no longer be the family black sheep. In fact her life (no husband but no divorce either) might seem almost virtuous by comparison. Another, even smaller, part of her thinks: what if Nelson woke up one morning and realised his marriage was over? He too seems to live a suburban half-life, especially now that his daughters have left home. What if he, too, thought, Is this all there is?
What are you going to do? she asks at last.
Find somewhere on my own, says Simon. Think about things. Maybe travel a bit. Do you know, Ive never been anywhere. Just Spain and Greece on holiday. Ive never been to America or China or Russia. Ive never climbed a mountain or swum with dolphins.
Again, Ruth feels slightly impatient. A sudden urge for world travel is fine for an eighteen-year-old. Ruth had it herself and remembers her mothers horror at her backpacker trips with her university friends, contrasting them with Simons carefully organised package holidays. But Simon isnt eighteen. Hes a forty-five-year-old man with two children.
What about the boys? she says. What are they going to do when you disappear to a kibbutz for a year?
Who said anything about a kibbutz? says Simon. Shed forgotten how maddeningly literal he was. I just want to have some fun.
Fun. Theres that word again. Why does everyone suddenly think that theyre entitled to have fun all the time? Ruth thinks of Judy, sitting in her little house waiting for the phone to ring. She doesnt want to have fun, she just wants her child to be alive. The thought makes her voice harsh.
Cant you wait until the boys are grown up? she asks. Then you and Cathy can go and climb Mount Kilimanjaro together, or whatever it is you want to do.
Simon laughs hollowly, draining the last of his wine. Can you imagine it? When we went to Centre Parcs, Cathy wouldnt come on a bike ride in case it messed her hair up. I cant exactly see her on a Polar expedition.
Mount Kilimanjaros in Africa, thinks Ruth. She seems to remember that Simon didnt take geography O-Level. In fact it wasnt long after O-Levels that Simon met Cathy, even then not a girl known for her adventurous instincts. Ruth remembers how shocked she was when she heard Ruth, aged sixteen, talking about going to a music festival. They havent got proper toilets in those places, Cathy had warned. And theres nowhere to plug in your hair dryer.
But youve always known what shes like, she says now. Its not fair to blame her for being the way she is. She hasnt changed.
She hasnt changed, says Simon. But I have. Ruth has no answer to this and is relieved when the boys come over and nag their father to start the barbecue.
Cathbad holds Judy in his arms while Darren watches. Its like the realisation of all his darkest fantasies. Except that Judy is sobbing about wanting to be dead, both Cathbad and Darren are crying and Thing is whining to be let out.
Nelson says theres still a good chance theyll find him, says Darren, for the hundredth time.
Judy turns her head. Her face is a mask of anger. For Christs sake, Darren. Nelson is full of shit. He doesnt know anything.
Cathbad has noticed before that Judys anger seems particularly directed towards Nelson. Hes not sure why this is unless, on some level, Judy expected Nelson to be able to protect her and, by extension, Michael. But he does know that Judy is feeling guilty. He can feel the negative emotion everywhere. Its poisoning them all, he thinks.
She kept Poppy alive, shell keep Michael alive, Darren says desperately.
Shut up! screams Judy. She collapses onto Cathbads chest.
Cathbad looks at Darren over Judys head. Im sorry, he says.
CHAPTER 31
Norfolk police are still searching for one-year-old Michael Foster who was abducted from his childminders house on Monday afternoon. Police search teams and local volunteers worked through the night in the village of Castle Rising, near Kings Lynn, but no traces of the missing child have been found. The detective in charge of the case, DCI Harry Nelson, said that he was still hopeful of a positive outcome. He wouldnt comment on similarities to the abduction, just two days earlier, of fourteen-month-old Poppy Granger. Poppys disappearance led to another extensive police search but she was returned anonymously to her family.
Ruth reaches out a hand and switches off the radio. She doesnt want to hear any more. Although she knows that Cathbad would have called her if there had been any developments, she had still hoped to wake to good news. She thinks how alien it all sounds: police search teams, detective in charge, returned anonymously. But she knows the truth. She has seen the desperation – and, worse, the resignation – in Judys face. She has sat in the house with Michaels parents, listening for the knock at the door. And she knows the detective in charge intimately. She can see beneath the policemans phrase still hopeful of a positive outcome. She knows that Nelson wont be hopeful, there is a deep vein of pessimism in him, but she also knows that hell never give up. He wont rest until Michael is found, alive or dead. And, if its the latter, if Nelson has to return Michaels body to Judy, she thinks it may well kill him.
She had set the alarm for six. She hadnt wanted to waste any time not knowing. All last night, while Simon burned sausages and the boys tried to build a tree-house, her mind kept going back to the little house in Castle Rising. When she finally carried an exhausted Kate up to bed, she had looked at her phone for the hundredth time. No news. A second night with Michael out there somewhere in the dark. She gets up and goes into Kates room. Her daughter is still asleep, arms and legs splayed out in abandonment. She doesnt know that Michael (her future husband, according to Cathbad) is still missing. Ruth looks out of the window at the blue tent squatting in the garden. Simon might say that his life is empty and has no meaning (two phrases that kept recurring well into the second bottle) but does he know how lucky he is, just to be sleeping with his sons at his side?
But Simon isnt sleeping. To Ruths surprise, when she comes downstairs, hes already up, drinking tea and reading through her proofs.
I still cant believe that youve written a book, he says.
Cant you? says Ruth airily. She finds it pretty hard to believe herself.
Mum and Dad are really proud of you, you know.
Are they? Now this is a surprise.
Yes. Mum tells everyone about it. Its embarrassing sometimes, the way she shoehorns it into the conversation. "Do you want your windows cleaned, madam?" "No, but did you know my daughters written a book?" Goodness knows what shell be like when the book actually comes out. Shell probably wear it round her neck like a pendant.