presence behind me.
‘There was a storm,’ Joe adds, though something in his voice sounds uncertain, hesitant. ‘Big sandstorm coming across from Africa, no doubt. George and I went out to check that our boat hadn’t come loose from its moorings. And then we saw you.’
‘Where was I?’
‘On Bone Beach,’ Joe says.
‘Bone Beach?’
‘The small horseshoe beach with white rocks that look like bones. Down below the barn.’ He grins. ‘Crazy that you managed to survive all that. Someone up there must like you.’
‘You were in a boat,’ Sariah explains. ‘You don’t remember if you were with anybody?’
I have a terrible feeling that I should know all of this, that I should know all about the boat and the beach and where I’m from. And I have no idea, absolutely no clue, why I don’t know these things.
‘Why did you come to Komméno, anyway?’ George asks, moving to the light as he reaches for a pack of cigarettes. ‘I mean, it’s not like there’s anything here.’
‘What’s “Komméno”?’ I say.
‘It’s the name of this place,’ Sariah says, a note of sadness in her voice, as if she’s addressing someone very stupid, or ill. ‘Komméno Island.’
I hesitate, hopeful that an answer to George’s question will surface in me automatically and provide an explanation for all this.
But it doesn’t.
Potter’s Lane, Twickenham, London
Lochlan: It’s after midnight. My wife is officially missing. I’m trying to get my head around this.
The facts are as follows: (1) I Facetimed Eloïse on Monday night shortly after seven while she was making pancakes in the kitchen and our two kids were playing happily in the family room, and (2) sometime between ten and one today, while our children were asleep in their beds upstairs, she disappeared from our home. Also, (3) there is no indication that anyone has been here, Max didn’t see anyone come in and (4) Eloïse’s clothes, passport, credit cards, car, driving licence and mobile phone are still at home. She has therefore no way of making contact and no way of paying to get anywhere: not the tube, not a taxi, not a flight, and no way of paying for food or drink. Lastly, (5) no one seems to have any clue where she might have gone.
We have run out of expressed breast milk. I’m so out of sorts that Cressida shrieked for an eternity until it dawned on me that she was probably due another feed. An hour ago I phoned a taxi company and paid them fifty quid to go and buy some formula milk at a supermarket and bring it here. Cressida was a little confused at first, both by having to suck a plastic teat again and by the weird taste of formula, but finally she relented and drained it in one sitting.
Mrs Shahjalal has gone home. She lives alone at number thirty-nine, across the road. She has offered to come again in the morning and help in any way she can. Right now, I’m mired in bewilderment and can’t think straight.
On the train from Waverley I set about contacting Eloïse’s friends to see if anyone had heard from her. Of course, they’d seen neither hide nor hair of her since yesterday or the day before. My Facebook post was met with weeping emojis and well-wishing; in other words, nothing of any use. With great reluctance, I texted Gerda, Eloïse’s grandmother, to ask if El had gone to their place in Ledbury. It was a long shot, of course, given that the kids were still here, but I had quickly run out of possibilities.
I’ve searched the whole house four or five times in total. Wardrobes, the bathroom closet, that weird space under the stairs, even under the beds and in the loft, then running around in the back garden with a torch, checking all the bushes and the shed. I guess I thought she might have got stuck somewhere. I felt like I was going insane. All of this whilst Max was running around after me asking if we were playing a game and could he hide, too, and whilst Cressida realised she was being held by someone other than her mother and wanted half of London to know all about it.
Gerda rang back to say no, she hadn’t seen El since last week, though she spoke to her on Sunday night. She started to ask questions and I stammered something about El not being home when I got back this afternoon. There was a long pause.
‘What do you mean, El’s not home? Where are you, Lochlan?’
‘I’m back in London.’
‘And where are the babies?’
‘They’re here.’
‘Lochlan, are you saying Eloïse has left?’
‘I’m saying she’s not at home. Her car is still there, her keys and her mobile phone. Everything.’
‘Call the police.’
‘I’ve already done it.’
I checked El’s mobile phone, examining all her messages in case there was some unforeseen emergency she’d been called away for, but all I found was an eBay enquiry about a high chair, emails from Etsy, Boden, Sainsbury’s and Laura Ashley, as well as Outlook reminders about Max’s parent-teacher meeting at nursery next Friday and Cressida’s jabs at the health clinic.
At eleven o’clock Max came downstairs, bleary-eyed and wrapped in his Gruffalo robe, his blond hair longer than I remembered it being, dandelion-like with static.
‘Hi, Daddy,’ he said, yawning.
‘Hey, Maxie boy. How are you doing?’
He padded across the room and climbed up on my lap. I kissed his head, flooded with a sudden tenderness for him.
‘Is Mummy back?’
How much it pained me to tell him that she wasn’t.
He curled into me. ‘Did Mummy have to go to the shops? Did she forget that me and Cressida were in the house?’
‘I don’t think so, Max.’
‘Did she get lost coming home?’
I shook my head, and he started to grow upset.
‘Want Mummy, Daddy. Where’s Mummy?’
When I began to feel overwhelmed at my inability to console him – and by the thought that he might well wake Cressida – I told a fib.
‘I think maybe she’s gone to take her friend some flowers.’
‘Which friend?’
‘Uh … the lady with the long black hair from playgroup.’
He straightened. ‘Sarah?’
‘Yes, Sarah.’
‘No, it can’t be Sarah, ’cos Sarah got her hair yellowed.’
‘Niamh, then.’
‘Why is Mummy taking Niamh flowers? Is Niamh sad?’
‘I think so.’
‘What kind of flowers?’
‘I don’t know, Maxie.’
‘Can you call Niamh on your mobile and tell her that we need Mummy to come back to us now, please?’
‘Soon, darling, soon. Let’s go back to bed.’
In a fleeting moment of clear-mindedness I remembered the high-spec baby monitors that El had installed when Max was born – seriously, they’re like surveillance cameras – and checked El’s phone to see if any footage had been recorded. But no, the recording facility had been switched off ages ago. Of course it had.
I