if you could stay here at the house, just for . . .’
‘No! I’m sorry, but no. Am I under arrest? Can you legally stop me from leaving my house, right now?’
‘No, we can’t but you must understand . . .’
‘No, you must understand. You’ve torn my house apart, you’re asking us the same questions over and over . . . you should be out there looking for my daughter, not here, questioning me. So, if you’ll excuse me, I am going out there to search for Laurel, whether you people like it or not.’ He shoulders his way past DI Dove, who frowns but says nothing.
‘I’ll come with you,’ I say, jumping at the chance to get out of the house, to get away from the cloying, claustrophobic atmosphere that has swallowed up every fitting and all its inhabitants. Plus, I am eager to get out there, to be doing something constructive to help bring Laurel home.
Grabbing a coat from the rack and snatching up my mobile, I step out into the cold, fresh November morning, thinking as I do so that when I last left this house, Laurel was clinging tightly to my hand, bubbling over with excitement and now . . . well, now who knows where she can be? Fighting off the exhaustion that tugs at my bones, I fall into step with Dominic, who marches on towards the field in silence, and I inhale the crisp air, hoping to clear my head. I need to find Laurel, before it’s too late. I can’t let something awful happen again. It can’t happen again.
My mobile buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to see seven text messages from Jessika, my nanny friend, three missed calls, and several texts from numbers that I don’t recognise. I shove it back in my pocket without opening them, realising I have fallen behind and Dom is now several paces in front of me. I consider asking him about the previous evening, asking him where he was when he wasn’t at the hospital, but he marches towards the fields at a brisk pace.
I take long strides in order to catch up. Finally, I draw level with him. His face is grim, his eyebrows knitted together and his mouth a harsh line scored into his face.
‘Dominic?’
‘What?’ He turns back to me, that angry, desperate look still etched into his features. His face softens. ‘Sorry, was I going too fast for you? I just . . . I just want to get there, you know? I should have been there last night.’
‘That’s what I wanted to ask you – about last night.’ I slow right down, a stitch in my side making me wince. ‘Where were you? You said you’d be here . . . and you weren’t at the hospital. And you asked me not to say anything to Fran.’
He stops abruptly, before turning to face me. ‘That is none of your business, Anna.’ His voice is cold, and it sends icy shivers down my spine. Dominic has never spoken to me this way before. Clearly, I have overstepped the mark, but he carries on before I can apologise. ‘Wherever I was last night had nothing to do with Laurel, do you hear me?’ He takes a step towards me, grabbing me by the upper arms, and I draw in my breath in a hiss of pain as his fingers dig tightly into my flesh through my jacket. ‘Are we clear on that? I’ve told the police where I was, and that’s the end of it. I don’t want to hear another word, OK?’ He lets me go, and I rub at the tops of my arms before I give a slow nod.
‘OK. I’m sorry.’ I swallow, fear making my throat dry. ‘I never meant anything by it. I’ll forget about it.’
‘Thank you.’ Dominic strides off again, not even attempting to temper his pace so that I can keep up this time. I watch him for a second, as he hurries past Mr Snow’s house, onwards towards the school, his head bent, and I run his words over in my mind again before I start to follow him. I’ll forget about it. I’ll try, but it will be difficult to forget the way his eyes flicked up and to the right, as he said he’d told the police where he was last night: up and to the right – a classic sign that someone is lying.
As we approach the field, a police officer directs us towards the school hall, that backs on to the fields a little further along from where the bonfire was held. There are people everywhere, and I hear Laurel’s name as groups gather together, some prepared with bottles of water and backpacks, as if in for the long haul. There is a sense of urgency in the air, underwritten by something else, something that if I had to name it, I would say was panic. Things like this don’t happen in places like Oxbury.
I lose Dominic as he forges ahead, which I think is probably for the best – I don’t think I can cope with the now strained atmosphere between us – and as I step into the hall I pause for a moment. The familiar smell of school dinners – cabbage, with an underlying, vanilla-y hint of lumpy custard – assaults my senses, and there is a rousing babble of chatter that dies momentarily as people notice me enter the room.
‘Anna!’ The caramel blonde woman from the PTA rushes towards me, her arms outstretched. The other mother from the PTA admission stand last night hangs back, hesitant, as though she wants to come over but daren’t.
‘What’s going on?’ I look around, puzzled by the sheer number of people in the hall and on the field outside. Quite a few had hung around last night to help search, and while I’d thought it would be similar today, this has the air of . . . organisation.
‘We’ve set up a search station . . . well, I have.’ She fusses at her hair, smiling with perfect white teeth on display. ‘The police are sending volunteers to us, and then we are directing them to start their part of the search, as arranged by the officers in charge. I’ve got someone making up posters and we’re even having T-shirts made up with Laurel’s face on . . . you know, Have You Seen Her? et cetera, et cetera.’
‘Right,’ I say, my eyes still roaming the room. I can’t see Dominic anywhere, and I wonder for a brief moment how he feels about all of this. I know that I feel overwhelmed by it all. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name?’
‘Lola’s mum. Cheryl.’ She looks a bit put out, and I smile to soften the blow. ‘Is Fran here?’ She cranes over my shoulder, looking towards the door. ‘I thought she might like to see what we’re doing, the effort the community is making.’ She gestures around the room, and I see a man with a large camera around his neck talking to one of the other parents. I shrink back, sure that he must be with the local press.
‘No, she’s not. She’s stayed home,’ I say, spying Jessika on the other side of the room, ‘will you excuse me?’ I push past, ignoring her as she calls something after me, and make my way across the crowded hall, keeping my head lowered as I pass the man with the camera. It’s started to empty out slightly, people moving towards the double doors with polystyrene cups of coffee in one hand, crumpled posters bearing Laurel’s face in the other.
‘Jess!’ I call out, before she can join the hoards leaving the hall. Jessika Lewis is the one friend I have in Oxbury. She is nanny to Laurel’s best friend, Daisy, and we met in the park one warm summer’s day when the girls were tiny. She turns to face me, biting her lower lip.
‘Oh God, Anna. Are you OK? I’ve texted you like, a million times.’ Her arms reach around my skinny frame and pull me tightly towards her in a hug.
‘Sorry, I only just saw the messages . . . what are you doing here?’ I say. ‘Where’s Daisy?’
‘Technically it’s my day off, so I thought I’d come along and see if I can do anything to help find Laurel. But then Claire turned up here anyway, and brought Daisy along with her, so I’m pretty sure I’ve only got an hour or so before Madam calls me over to take Daisy back to the house.’ She gives a little jerk of her head behind her, and I see Daisy sitting at a low table, colouring in, while Claire buzzes around behind her, posters in hand. ‘Cheryl Smythe somehow organised all of this, overnight, single-handedly.’ She points, and I realise that she’s talking about the caramel blonde woman. ‘It doesn’t take long for word to spread around here, you know that, and everybody wants to be involved.’
Somehow this doesn’t surprise me – Fran and Dominic are the closest