you startled me,’ I say, pressing my hand to my chest, feeling my heartbeat thud rapidly beneath my palm.
‘Sorry.’ He looks a little sheepish. ‘I only wanted to say … you did the right thing just now. Speaking up to say that you thought Laurel might have got in the car.’
‘Oh. I just … I didn’t mean to …’
‘Really, Anna, it was the right thing to do. I saw the look Fran gave you when you said it, and I … look, you know how she is.’ Our eyes meet in a look of understanding. Yes, I know how she is. ‘This is really tough on her, and she’s probably going to take a lot of it out on you, but I understand that it’s tough on you, too. You can talk to me, if you need to.’
‘Thank you.’ I feel a faint blush start to creep up my neck, relief that perhaps I am not on my own through this starting to flood my veins.
‘And if you think of anything – anything at all that might help find Laurel – in the meantime just come to me.’ Dominic pats the top of my arm and turns to head back down the stairs to Fran.
My room is freezing cold, the weak wintry sunlight streaming in through the window not enough to warm the room at all. I’m not sure if it’s the temperature of the room, or the fact that Laurel is missing that makes me shiver, my arms stippled with goosebumps. My stomach twists, as I think of her again, running after Fran, the way I turned back to the fireworks display before I saw her catch up. Why didn’t I keep my eyes on her, just for a few seconds longer?
Clothes litter the end of my bed, from where I tried on and discarded several different outfits before leaving last night, settling on the blue and white striped top I still wear now. I sniff under the armpits and grimace, before tugging it over my head and dropping it into the laundry pile. I need a shower, and clean clothes. My blonde hair hangs limply around my shoulders, and the tops of my feet are splattered with tiny flecks of mud where my trainers didn’t cover them.
Listening out as I step on to the landing, I hear the murmur of voices below as I go into the bathroom and lock the door. The hot water thunders down over my hair and I let go of the tears that I’ve held at bay since this morning. Salty trails stream down my cheeks, mixing with the hot water from the shower, and I gasp as my nose clogs, the steam catching in the back of my throat.
I love Laurel. It’s something I find hard to admit, even to myself. I’ve been in a situation before where I let myself become attached – and look how that ended, I chide myself. I swore that this time, it would merely be a temporary stopgap until I could find something else, a different job where I could simply turn up from nine to five and then go home and not think about it again till the morning. But I got lured in by Laurel and her familiar baby smell, right at the beginning. It is second nature to me to comfort her as she runs to me, not Fran, when she falls and hurts herself. She fell a few weeks ago, as she ran in from the garden, the paving slabs wet and slippery underfoot. Fran and I had been stood in the kitchen, both of us hearing the thud as she went down and then her thin piercing shriek. We’d rushed outside together, Fran pushing past me to get to her first, her arms outstretched ready to pick her up, but Laurel had shrieked louder and shaken her head, reaching her arms out to me, for me to scoop her up and carry her inside. Fran had shrugged it off, but I’d seen the look of fury on her face when I had lifted Laurel up, her head fitting naturally into the hollow of my shoulder as if she were my own.
Spending all that time caring for her, making sure she is happy, looked after, it was inevitable that I would get attached in the end. And now, it’s happening again, just as it did before. I take my eye off the ball for a few seconds and everything comes tumbling down.
*
Fran is lurking outside the bathroom when I slide the lock back and pull the door open, making me jump, and I almost drop the bundle of dirty laundry I am carrying. I can only hope that the thunder of the water drowned out the sound of my sobbing, although the redness around my eyes will still give it away.
‘I’m going to try and get some rest,’ she tells me, her face closed. I don’t blame her. I don’t think she slept at all last night and her face is pinched with exhaustion. Plus, she is clearly still annoyed with me for what I said – it’s probably best for both of us to be in separate rooms for a while. ‘Get Dominic to wake me up if … anything happens.’ She glances down towards the bundle in my arms. ‘What is that?’
‘Just the laundry.’ I have collected up my own dirty clothes, as well as the bundle in the bottom of the laundry basket. It’s not my job to do the laundry; Fran has a cleaner every day that takes care of it, but I feel as though I am lost at sea without Laurel to occupy me.
‘No, that.’ She points at something sticking out of the bottom of the bundle, that I can’t see from the position I am holding it in. ‘Give it to me.’ She tugs, and the clothes fall out of my arms, all over the hall carpet. Fran is clutching a scrap of lilac cotton to her face, that I recognise as the nightdress I took off Laurel yesterday morning before I put her in the bath.
‘No one said you could take this!’ Fran cries, tears shining in the corners of her eyes. ‘No one said you could do the laundry! Just leave it! Put it all back!’ She holds the nightdress tight against herself, rocking slightly as she cries.
‘Fran? What’s going on?’ Dominic thunders up the stairs, concern pulling his eyebrows in to a deep crease in his forehead. ‘Anna?’
‘I was just …’ I stutter, too frightened to say anything more. There is something primal, something horrifying, about the way Fran wails, the noise chilling the blood in my veins.
‘She was going to wash Laurel’s clothes!’ Fran cries, before burying her face in the soft washed cotton again, her shoulders hitching.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think …’ Of course, Fran wouldn’t want me to wash Laurel’s clothes, how could I be so stupid? ‘I only wanted to help.’
‘Leave it, Anna. Fran, come on. I’ll take you upstairs.’ His tone curt, Dominic puts an arm around his wife, guiding her gently towards the stairs that lead to the attic room. Fran turns to stare at me over one shoulder, and I look down, not wanting to meet her gaze, ashamed that I could be so thoughtless.
I grab my laptop and slide down onto the floor, my back against the radiator as I wait for it to boot up. The incident with Fran has left me feeling drained and shaken, and I wish I could sleep, but I know I won’t. My mind is too busy turning over the events of the past few hours, the vision of Laurel climbing into the back of a car etched on my brain. As I wait for the laptop, my mobile buzzes. It’s Jess. Again. She’s messaged several times since I left her, and I can’t ignore her any longer.
‘Jess?’
‘Anna. Just wanted to check you’re OK? This morning was pretty emotional.’ Understatement of the year.
‘I’m OK. Well … you know.’
‘I’m guessing it wasn’t Laurel then?’
‘No. It wasn’t. I made a mistake, a massive one.’ I close my eyes, thinking of that blonde head bobbing in the window of the caravan. I’d been so sure.
‘Have you been on Facebook today?’ Jess asks, a note of trepidation creeping into her voice.
‘Not yet. Why?’ I pull the laptop back towards me and log into my Facebook page. ‘Oh.’ The first thing that comes up in my timeline is a page entitled ‘FIND LAUREL JESSOP’. I click on the page and Laurel’s face fills my screen. My heart does a little double skip in my chest as I start to read the opening post.
‘Jess, who did this? Was it you?’
‘No, it was Cheryl Smythe. She’s been rather busy since yesterday evening, don’t you think?’ I can picture Jess rolling her eyes as she speaks.
‘Do you think this will help?’ I am scrolling down the page, scanning my eyes over the posts. They are all incredibly supportive, some offering ideas as to what may have happened