Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © C.J. Cooke 2017

Cover design by Heike Schüssler © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover Photograph © Josephine Pugh / Arcangel Images

C.J. Cooke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008237530

Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008237547

Version: 2017-04-24

Dedication

For Summer

Little lover of horses

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Girl on the Beach

17 March 2015

17 March 2015

17 March 2015

18 March 2015

18 March 2015

18 March 2015

19 March 2015

18 March 2015

20 March 2015

18 March 2015

11 April 1983

23 March 2015

23 March 2015

24 March 2015

24 March 2015

24 March 2015

25 March 2015

21 January 1986

28 March 2015

27 March 2015

29 March 2015

29 March 2015

Red Wool

14 November 1988

31 March 2015

31 March 2015

1 April 2015

24 April 1990

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

31 March 2015

2 April 2015

1 April 2015

2 April 2015

1 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

2 April 2015

The Light That Moves Inward and Outward

3 April 2015

3 May 2015

25 June 2015

Three Years Later, 17 October 2018

Afterword

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

The Girl on the Beach

17 March 2015
Komméno Island, 8.4 miles northwest of Crete

I’m woken by the sounds of feet shuffling by my ears and voices knitting together in panic.

Is she dead? What should we do? Joe! You know CPR, don’t you?

A weight presses down against my lips. The bitter smell of cigarettes rushes up to my nostrils. Hot breath inflates my cheeks. A push downward on my chest. Another. I jerk upright, vomiting what feels like gallons of disgusting salty liquid. Someone rubs my back and says, Take it easy, sweetie. That’s it.

I twist to one side and lower my forehead to the ground, coughing, choking. My hair is wet, my clothes are soaking and I’m shaking with cold. Someone helps me to my feet and pulls my right arm limply across a broad set of shoulders. A yellow splodge on the floor comes into focus: it’s a life jacket. Mine? The man holding me upright lowers me gently into a chair. I hear their voices as they observe me, instructing each other on how to care for me.

Is that blood in her hair?

Joe, have a look. Has the bleeding stopped?

It looks quite deep, but I think it’s stopped. I’ve got some antiseptic swabs upstairs.

My head starts to throb, a dull pain towards the right. A cup of coffee materialises on the table in front of me. The smell winds upwards and sharpens my vision, bringing the people in the room into view. There’s a man nearby, panting from effort. Another man with black square glasses. Two others, both women. One of them leans over me and says, You OK, hun? I nod, dumbly. She comes into focus. Kind eyes. Well, Joe, she says. Looks like you saved her life.

I don’t recognise any of these people. I don’t know where I am. Whitewashed stone walls and a pretty stone floor. A kitchen, I think. Copper pots and pans hang from ceiling hooks, an old-fashioned black range oven visible at my right. I feel as though all energy has been sucked out of me, but the woman who gave me coffee urges me to keep awake. We need to check you over, sweetie. There’s an American lilt in her voice. I don’t think I noticed that before. She says, You’ve been unconscious for a while.

The younger man with black glasses tells me he’s going to check out my head. He steps behind me and all of a sudden I feel something cold and stinging on my scalp. I gasp in pain. Someone squeezes my hand and tells me he’s cleaning the wound. He looks over a spot above my eyebrow and cleans it, too, though he tells me it’s only a scratch.

The man who hoisted me into the chair sits opposite. Bald, heavy-set. Mid to late forties. Cockney. He takes a cigarette from a packet, plops it into his mouth and lights it.

You come from the main island?

Main island? I say, my voice a croak.

From there to here on her own? the younger man says. There’s no way she’d have managed in that storm.

I think that’s the point, Joe, the bald guy says. She’s lucky her boat didn’t capsize before it hit the beach.

The woman who served me coffee brings a chair and sits at my right.

I’m Sariah, she says. Good to meet you. Then, to the others in the room, Well, she’s awake now. Why don’t we stop being rude and introduce ourselves?

The guy with glasses gives a wave.

Joe.

George, says the bald man. I’m the one who found you.

Silence. Joe turns to the thin woman at his right, expectant. She seems nervous. Hazel, she says, her voice no more than an exhalation.

You got a name? George asks me.

My mind is blank. I look over the faces of the others, fitting their faces to these names, and yet my own won’t come. I feel physically weak and battered, but I’m lucid and able to think clearly.

It’s OK, sweetie, Sariah is saying, rubbing my shoulders. You’ve had a rough time. Take it easy. It’ll come.

You holidaying on the main island? George asks again.

My head feels like someone is pounding it with a hammer. I’m sorry … what is the main island?

Crete, Sariah answers. Whereabouts were you staying?

You staying with family? A group of girlfriends? the guy with glasses asks. Hey, she might have come from one of the other islands. Antikythera?

I don’t think so, offers the tiny woman with red curly hair – Hazel – in a low voice. The currents between here and Antikythera are worse than travelling to Crete. And Antikythera is further.

I’m sorry, I say. Did someone say I’m in Crete?

See? George says.

No, no, I try to say, but Joe cuts me off.

She asked if she’s in Crete, Joe answers. This is Komméno, not Crete.

Well, we’ll need to let whoever you’ve left behind know that you’re still in one piece, George says. You got a number I can ring?

He pulls a small black phone from a pocket and extends an antenna from the top. Crete. Was I staying there?

I can’t remember, I say finally. Sorry, I don’t know.

The kind woman, Sariah, is holding my hand. We’ll call the police on Crete the second we get a signal on the satellite phone. Don’t worry, sweetie.

The big guy – George – is still watching me, his eyes narrowed. Where are you from, then?

I’m light-headed and nauseous, but I think I should know this. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t even call it to mind. Why can’t I remember it? I try to think of faces of my family, people I love – but there’s a complete blankness in whatever part of my brain holds that information.

George is leaning on one hand, taking slow, thoughtful drags from a fresh cigarette, studying me. The others are halfway through cups of tea. I have no recollection of anyone putting cups out or boiling a kettle. Time lurches and stalls. I rise from my chair and almost fall over. My legs are jelly. Sariah moves to hold me up.

Easy now.

The large window at the other side of the kitchen frames a round moon in a purple sky, its glow bleaching fields and hills. A burst of light crackles across the ocean, lighting up the room. A few moments later thunder pounds the roof, rattling all the pots and pans. I am disoriented and weak. I begin to shake again, but this time it’s from shock.

Sariah wraps an arm around me. We’re going to move you into the other room, OK? Deep breaths.

But before we have a chance to move, I hear a deep voice say, Maybe she’s a refugee.

Sariah hisses, George!

He gives a loud bellow of laughter. It makes me jump.

I’m joking, aren’t I?

Pressure builds and builds in my head until I’m gasping for air and clawing at my throat. The two women lean forward and tell me to breathe, and I’m trying. They ask me to tell them what’s wrong but I can’t speak. Someone says,

We need to think about getting her to a hospital.

17 March 2015
George Street, Edinburgh

Lochlan: I’m having afternoon tea with a client at The Dome when my phone rings. It’s an important meeting – Mr Coyle is interested in setting up a venture capital fund to invest in some new technological companies – and so I pull it out of my pocket and hit ‘cancel’.

‘Sorry about that.’

Mr Coyle arches an eyebrow. ‘Your wife?’

It was, actually. Right before I hit ‘cancel’ I saw her name appear on the screen.

‘No, no. Anyway, what were we saying?’

‘Google glass?’

I pour us both some red. ‘Ah, yes. This company’s creating something similar, only better. It integrates seamlessly with new social media platforms and user trials have rated it at five stars. The first product is scheduled to retail for around five hundred pounds in September.’

My phone rings again. This time Mr Coyle gives a noise of irritation. ‘ELOÏSE’ appears in white letters on the screen. I make to hit ‘cancel’ again, but Mr Coyle gives a shooing gesture with his hand and says, ‘Answer it. Tell her we’re busy.’

I stand up and walk to the nearest window.

‘El, what is it? I’m in a meeting …’

‘Lochlan? Is that you, dear?’

The woman at the other end of the line is not my wife. She continues talking, and it takes a few moments for me to place the voice.

‘Mrs Shahjalal?’

It’s the Yorkshirewoman who lives opposite us.

‘… and I thought I’d best check. So when I opened the door I was surprised to see – are you still there?’

From the corner of my eye I see Mr Coyle hailing a waitress.

‘Mrs Shahjalal, is everything all right? Where’s Eloïse?’

A long pause. ‘That’s what I’m telling you, dear. I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

‘It’s like I said: the man from the UPS van brought the parcel over to me and asked if I’d take it as nobody was in. And I thought that was strange, because I was sure I’d seen little Max’s face at the window only a moment before. So I took the parcel, and then an hour or so later I saw Max again, and I thought I’d best go over and see if everything was all right. Max was able to stand on a chair and let me in.’

I’m struggling to put this all together in my mind. Mr Coyle is rising from his chair, putting on his jacket. I turn and raise a hand to let him know I’ll be just a second, but he grimaces.

‘OK, so Max let you in to our house. What happened when you went inside?’

‘Well, Eloïse still isn’t here. I’ve been here since three o’clock and the little one’s mad for a feed. I found Eloïse’s mobile phone on the coffee table and pressed a button, and luckily enough it dialled your number.’

The rustling and mewling noises in the background grow louder, and I realise Mrs Shahjalal must be holding Cressida, my daughter. She’s twelve weeks old. Eloïse is still breastfeeding her.

‘So … Eloïse isn’t in the house. She’s not there at all?’ It’s a stupid thing to say, but I can’t quite fathom it. Where else would she be?

Mr Coyle glowers from the table. He straightens his tie before turning to walk out, and I lower the phone and call after him.

‘Mr Coyle!’

He doesn’t acknowledge me.

‘I’ll send the fact sheet by email!’

Mrs Shahjalal is still talking. ‘It’s very odd, Lochlan. Max is dreadfully upset and doesn’t seem to know where she’s gone. I don’t know what to do.’

I walk back to the table and gather up my briefcase. The brass clock on the chimneybreast reads quarter past four. I could catch the four thirty to London if I manage to get a taxi on time, but it’s a four-and-a-half-hour train ride from here and then another cab ride from King’s Cross to Twickenham. I’ll not be home until after ten.

‘I’m heading back right now,’ I tell Mrs Shahjalal.

‘Are you in the city, dear?’

‘I’m in Edinburgh.’

‘Edinburgh? Scotland?’

Outside, the street is busy with traffic and people. I’m agitated, trying to think fast, and almost get knocked over by a double-decker bus driving close to the kerb. I jump back, gasping at the narrow escape. A group of school kids on a school trip meander across the pavement in single file. I wave at a black taxi and manage to get him to stop.

‘To Waverley, please.’

I ask Mrs Shahjalal if she can stay with Max and Cressida until I get back. To my relief she says she will, though I can barely hear her now over Cressida’s screams.

‘She needs to be fed, Mrs Shahjalal.’

‘Well, I know that, dear, but my days of being able to nurse a baby are over.’

‘If you go into the fridge, there might be some breast milk in a plastic container on the top shelf. It’ll be labelled. I think Eloïse keeps baby bottles in one of the cupboards near the toaster. Make sure you put the bottle into the steriliser in the microwave for four minutes before you use it. Make sure there’s water in the bottom.’

‘Sterilise the breast milk?’

I can hear Max in the background now, shouting, ‘Is that Daddy? Daddy, is that you?’ I ask Mrs Shahjalal to put him on.

‘Max, Maxie boy?’

‘Hi, Daddy. Can I have some chocolate, please?’

‘I’ll buy you as much chocolate as you can eat if you tell me where Mummy is.’

‘As much chocolate as I can eat? All of it?’

‘Where is Mummy, Max?’

‘Can I have a Kinder egg, please?’

‘Did Mummy go out this morning? Did someone come to the house?’

‘I think she went to the Natural History Museum, Daddy, ’cos she likes the dinosaurs there and the big one that’s very long is called Dippy, he’s called Dippy ’cos he’s a Diplodocus, Daddy.’

I’m getting nowhere. I ask him to put me back on to Mrs Shahjalal, who is still wondering how she is to sterilise the breast milk, and all the while Cressida is drilling holes in my head by screaming down the phone.

Finally, I’m on the train, posting on Facebook.

I don’t usually do this but … anyone know where Eloïse is? She doesn’t seem to be at home …

Night falls like a black sheath. The taxi pulls into Potter’s Lane. We live in a charming Edwardian semi in the quiet suburb of Twickenham, close to all the nice parks and the part of the river inhabited by swans, frogs and ducks, and close enough to London for Saturday-afternoon visits to the National History Museum and Kew Gardens. A few lights are on in the houses near us, but our neighbours are either retired or hard-working professionals, and so nights are placid round here.

I pay the driver and jump out on to the pavement. Eloïse’s white Qashquai is parked in the driveway in front of my Mercedes, and my hearts leaps. I’ve been on and off the phone to Mrs Shahjalal during the train ride from Edinburgh, checking in on the kids and trying to work out what the hell to do about the situation. Mrs Shahjalal is very old and forgetful. More than once El has climbed through the window to open the front door because she locked her keys inside. In all likelihood this is a big mistake; I’ve lost a client while El’s been upstairs having a shower or something. I ran out of battery on my phone some time ago and all the power points on the train were broken. Mrs Shahjalal hasn’t been able to contact me. But the Qashquai’s here. Eloïse must have arrived back already.

I turn my key in the door and step inside to quietness and darkness.

‘El?’

I head into the playroom and see the figure of old Mrs Shahjalal sitting on the edge of the sofa, rocking the Moses basket where Cressida is lying, arms raised at right angles by her tiny head.

‘Hi,’ I whisper. ‘Where is she?’

Mrs Shahjalal shakes her head.

‘But … she’s here,’ I say. ‘Her car is outside. Where is she?’

‘She isn’t here.’

‘But—’

Mrs Shahjalal raises a finger to her lips and looks down at Cressida in a manner that suggests it has taken a long time to settle her to sleep. Cressida gives a little shuddered breath, the kind she gives after a long paroxysm of wailing.

‘Max is upstairs, in his bed,’ Mrs Shahjalal says in a low voice.

‘But what about El’s car? The white one in the driveway?’

‘It’s been here all the time. She didn’t take it.’

I race upstairs and check the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the attic, then switch on all the lights downstairs and sift the rooms for my wife. When that proves fruitless I head out into the garden and stare into the darkness. In that moment a daunting impossibility yawns wide. I barely know Mrs Shahjalal, save a few neighbourly waves across the street, and now she’s in my living room, gently rocking my daughter and telling me that my wife has vanished into thin air.

I take out my phone and begin to dial.

17 March 2015
Komméno Island, Greece

Somehow I find myself in a rocking chair with a thick orange blanket around me, next to a crackling fire. My right sleeve is rolled up and someone’s tied a belt tight around my bicep. The tall skinny bloke with glasses, Joe, is standing next to me with a cold instrument pressed to my wrist. The room smells funny – like seaweed. Or maybe that’s me.

‘Only a couple more seconds,’ he says.

‘What are you doing?’ I say, though it comes out as a strangled whine. The inside of my mouth feels like sandpaper.

‘Checking your blood pressure.’

There’s a heated discussion going on amongst the others in the room and I sense it’s about me. I still feel queasy and limp.

Eventually he removes the belt from my arm. ‘Hmmm. Your blood pressure is a bit low for my liking. How about the tightness in your chest?’

I tell him that it seems OK but that I’m weak as dishwater. He reaches forward and gently presses his thumbs on my cheeks to inspect my eyes.

‘You’re in shock. Little wonder, given that you rowed across the Aegean in a full-blown storm. Let’s get your feet raised up. And some more water.’

The woman – Sariah – lifts my feet and supports them on a stack of cushions.

‘How’s your head?’ she asks.

‘Sore,’ I say weakly.

‘You don’t feel like you’re going to pass out again?’ Joe asks, and I give a small shake of my head. It’s enough to make the pain ratchet up to an agony that leaves me breathless.

‘It’s after midnight, so getting you to a hospital has proved a little tricky,’ Sariah says, folding her arms. I notice she has a different accent than the others. American, or maybe Canadian. ‘There’s no hospital or doctors anywhere here,’ she says. ‘George has contacted the police in Heraklion and Chania.’

‘Did anyone report me as missing?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

She must see how this unnerves me because she lowers on her haunches and rubs my hand, as though I’m a child. ‘Hey, don’t worry,’ she says. ‘We’ll call again first thing in the morning.’

Nothing about this place feels familiar. It feels like I’m seeing everything here for the first time.

‘Do I live here? Do I know any of you?’ I ask her.

‘We saved you,’ George says flatly. I can’t see him, but sense his 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.

18 March 2015
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 bribed Max to go to sleep without Mummy bathing him and reading him his favourite story by promising to take him to Thomas Land. Even so, he insisted on staying downstairs with me and cried himself to sleep.

It’s almost two in the morning when a police car pulls up outside and two uniformed police officers appear at the door, a man and a woman. I show the officers into the living room and attempt to console Cressida so that I can actually hear what they say. Her face is beetroot-red, tears rolling down her cheeks, and she punches the air with her fists. Max has fallen asleep on the sofa, holding the quilt Eloïse made for him up to his chin and murmuring occasionally.

‘When did you last speak with your wife, Mr Shelley?’ the male officer asks as I rock Cressida back and forth.

‘I already gave all this information on the phone,’ I say. I want answers, resolutions, for the police to wave their magic wands and materialise my wife.

‘Sorry, but there’s some information we’ve got to confirm. We’ll ask a few additional questions before we begin enquiries.’

‘I’ve been in Edinburgh since Monday but I spoke to her around seven on Monday night via Facetime,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Sometimes I call during the day as well, but it’s been really busy at work. I didn’t get a chance.’

‘Where do you work?’

I shift Cressida into a different position, away from my ear. She’s still tiny at three months so she fits along the length of my arm. I bounce her there and she lets out a huge belch. I say ‘Good girl!’ but she starts to cry again.

‘I work at a company called Smyth and Wyatt. Four days a week I’m based in Edinburgh, the rest of the time I’m at the London branch on Victoria Embankment.’

The male officer jots this down as ‘Smith & White South – a bank’.

‘It’s not a bank, it’s a corporate finance firm.’

He scores out his note. ‘OK. Did you and your wife have any disagreements? Anything that might have made her leave?’

‘Look, I’ve already explained this. My wife has not left. Cressida’s only twelve weeks old. El’s still breastfeeding.’

I’m mad as hell, frustrated, but above all I’m anxious. I can’t help but feel that El must be worried, wherever she is, because she’s fought to breastfeed Cressida after some difficulties with Max and ensures she feeds on demand. This is hard to put across – my wife hasn’t left, you see, because she wants to breastfeed. They ask about El’s line of work, and I explain that she’s a stay-at-home mother but still goes on TV to talk about her work.

‘She set up a small charity some years ago for refugee children and it’s become quite successful,’ I say. ‘She gets asked to do the occasional media event. I guess I’m worried that, maybe … I don’t know. A lot of nutcases out there.’ I know I’m clutching at straws, but my mind is racing, my body buzzing with adrenalin. I keep glancing at the front door, waiting for her to walk in.

‘Did she mention anything of that nature? Threatening letters, stalkers, that kind of thing?’

‘No, nothing.’

He gives me a moment in case something comes to mind, but it doesn’t.

‘Can you describe what she was wearing when you last saw her?’

‘I think she was wearing grey yoga pants and a pyjama top. Like I said, it was seven o’clock at night. I should have called her this morning but I was running late …’

He writes this down, asking for more of a description. Does she have any tattoos or visible scars? No. Any jewellery? I tell him she would likely be wearing her wedding band and engagement ring. I’ve not found them anywhere in the house.

‘Have you asked your neighbours if they saw anyone come into the house?’

I nod. ‘Mrs Shahjalal from across the road was the one to find out she was missing.’

More writing, slow, slow, slow, as if he’s taking orders for a takeaway. ‘We’ll follow up with Mrs Shahjalal. What about your bank accounts? Any withdrawals? We might be able to trace her last steps if we have that information.’

I’ve already checked our bank account on my mobile phone. We have a joint account and no money has come out today, with the exception of direct debits for the water bill and council tax. Of course, I’ve said all this. It was one of the first things I checked.

‘Tell me a little about Eloïse,’ he asks. ‘Age? Height? Weight? Personality?’

Cressida begins to squawk so fiercely that the female police officer rises to her feet and holds her arms out.

‘May I?’ she says.

‘Please,’ I say, handing Cressie to her. The female officer holds her cheek against Cressida’s and speaks softly to her. Ten seconds later the screaming stops. It’s only then that I realise that most of the noise is coming from inside my head.

‘How old did you say she is?’ the officer asks.

‘Twelve weeks. Max turned four in January.’

The officer smiles at Cressida, who gawps back. ‘I have a little boy, he’s ten months old. And he’s huge. But you, you’re dinky!’

‘She was slightly premature,’ I say. It is a huge relief not to be screamed at. I sink down into the sofa beside Max and rub my temples. The male officer is looking at me expectantly.

‘Eloïse is thirty-seven. She’s about five foot six, fairly slim. Not sure what she weighs, exactly. Maybe ten stone. She just gave birth.’

‘Is that a recent photo?’ he asks, glancing up at the new studio photograph mounted between two thick slabs of glass on the wall behind me.

Cost a fortune, that photo, but we all look so happy and I’m glad I deferred and had it taken. Eloïse is holding Cressida, who’s a scrawny sparrowy thing at three weeks old, and although I know she felt self-conscious, begging me to kneel slightly to the right so my head would cover her swollen stomach, Eloïse looks amazing. Buttery blonde hair hanging loose by her shoulders, that lovely smile and perfect skin of hers, as though her veins contain LED lights – luminescent, that’s the word. I know I married a looker, miles out of my league.

‘Is Eloïse the sort of person who would just up and leave?’ the male officer asks. ‘Has she done anything like that before?’

‘No, no, no. Absolutely not.’

The officer stares, blank-faced. ‘No problems with drugs, alcohol, anything like that?’

I shake my head. ‘Nothing like that. She stopped drinking when she became pregnant with our son. She maybe had the occasional glass of wine. She’s … Look, I can’t emphasise enough that Eloïse is the last person on earth who I would expect to go missing like this. She’s quiet, reserved. You know, a home bird.’

‘So she wouldn’t have, say, popped out to pick up a message? For five minutes or so?’

I can feel myself losing patience, almost on the verge of tears, which freaks me out. ‘Our kids were here. She wasn’t expecting me back from Edinburgh until tomorrow night. There’s no way she’d leave our children on their own. El won’t even leave Cressida downstairs when she’s taking a shower. We’ve a car seat in the bathroom and a baby rocker in the kitchen.’

The police officer nods. ‘OK. When you came home were there any signs of someone having been here? Any signs of an intrusion?’

I shake my head. ‘Everything was locked up.’

‘What about the back door. It was locked?’

I think back. Was it?

My hesitation prompts him to glance around the room. ‘What about any other entrances to the house? Windows? Back doors?’

‘We have had a problem with the back door, now that I think about it. The lock froze and it’s not been closing properly. I meant to get it fixed, but …’ I’ve been so busy. I close my eyes and sigh, speared with panic. How careless could I have been to leave the back door accessible?

He rises and walks to the back of the house. I follow. It’s dark, however, and the view from the window isn’t helpful.

‘What’s behind your garden?’

‘A back alley, then the gardens of the street behind us. Larkspur Terrace.’

He writes this down. ‘You keep any money in the house? Any valuables, expensive items?’

‘We’ve a couple of hundred quid in a box in the kitchen. For emergencies.’

‘Is it still there?’

I nod. ‘So is all of El’s jewellery.’

‘Are you sure?’

The doorbell cuts me short. I stride into the hallway to answer it and find Gerda and Magnus standing there, both angry and worried. I tell them that the police have arrived.

‘She’s still not returned?’ Magnus barks. Magnus is Eloïse’s grandfather, bull-ish, well-dressed, and immortal, like Clint Eastwood – the man’s had I don’t know how many triple bypass surgeries and cancer treatments and yet he only seems to grow more robust with age. Not quite as po-faced as Gerda, a little more down-to-earth, but still not the sort of man I’m ever likely to get drunk with.

‘Did you come from Herefordshire?’ I ask. They have properties all over the place – Switzerland, Greece – and I had wondered whether El had gone to one of them. But they’re all completely remote and impossible to get to. And besides, El would have no reason to go there.

Gerda ignores me, having swept into the living room and spotted Maxie asleep on the sofa. ‘The children aren’t in bed? Isn’t it rather late?’

The police officers make brief introductions in sober tones. Gerda sits down beside Max, pursing her lips as she tucks the blanket around him. Magnus walks around the room as if trying to identify something out of place.

‘This is Gerda and Magnus Bachmann,’ I tell the officers, remembering how I would always add fresh from the crypt under my breath when I was referring to them. El would give me a slap on the arm, though she’d always laugh. ‘Gerda and Magnus are Eloïse’s grandparents. Naturally, they’re very concerned.’

I don’t explain that they’re the world’s most interfering in-laws. Gerda flips open a gold mobile phone and dials a number with a manicured finger. ‘Eloïse, darling, it’s Mamie. This is the twentieth time I’ve called you, and I won’t be stopping until you reply. Please can you call one of us soon to let us know you’re all right?’

Gerda’s accent is elocution-English with clipped Swiss tones. It reminds me how El occasionally sounded foreign from the years she spent in Geneva as a teenager. She speaks French and German fluently, as well as conversational Italian, and has been teaching Max. I go to tell Gerda that Eloïse’s mobile phone is sitting on the dining table next door, but right then it rings loudly. For a faint moment Gerda’s eyes light up, as though she’s found Eloïse, and then the penny drops.

The house feels deathly still, hollowed out. In a daze I pour Magnus a whisky and make cups of tea for me and Gerda. Then the five of us sit in the living room, bewildered and lost for words. Despite how late it is my mobile phone continues to bleep with texts and Facebook messages, and although I check every one of them I find nothing that tells me where my wife may have gone.

‘Have you spoken to her friends?’ Gerda asks.

‘Of course he’ll have done that,’ Magnus snaps.

I give a weary sigh. ‘I’ve contacted the baby groups she sometimes goes to. I’ve spent all afternoon on the train phoning libraries, cafés, the swimming pool, our GP, the dentist … until my batteries died. Everyone I can think of.’

Magnus sits down, then stands again. ‘That’s good. Someone’s bound to have come into contact with her.’

I say, ‘I made a list of people who saw her yesterday, but no one saw her today. Except the kids.’

‘What did Max say? He must have seen something,’ Gerda says for the hundredth time.

‘He said they made gingerbread men in the morning and then he had a nap. When he woke up he searched the house and garden but couldn’t find her. That was when Mrs Shahjalal came over.’

I stand and begin to collect everyone’s glasses and cups. ‘Well, I best be getting the children to their beds. I’ll call you both in the morning, shall I?’

Gerda looks affronted.

‘Oh, no. We’ll be staying. I’m sure Eloïse will be back soon but until then the children will be needing us.’

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