‘We were on the third storey. We’d been in the pet store when I got a phone call from the surgery about an emergency that had just been brought in. The phone reception was terrible, so we left the shop and Holls was right there beside me. But the call took longer than I thought it would and I… I don’t know… when I looked down to check if she was okay, she wasn’t there.’
I gave what I hoped was a reassuring smile, although inside me a tiny spark of fear crackled into life.
‘Okay. So, did you check inside the pet shop? Could she have gone back in there?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
He was making no sense and his panic was starting to feel infectious. He drew in a deep breath, but I could see that all he wanted to do was bolt again.
‘Yes, she could have gone back in there. But I checked and the staff said they hadn’t seen her.’
‘Well, what about the toilets? Have you checked in there?’
Nick thumped his forehead so hard that he knocked his glasses askew. ‘The loo,’ he said, as though in the company of a genius. ‘Of course. She must have gone to the loo. Why didn’t I think of that?’
Because you’re panicking like a crazy persondidn’t seem an appropriate response, even if it was true.
‘Okay. Well, why don’t I go and check all the ladies’ toilets and see if she’s there.’
‘Would you? Could you?’ he asked desperately.
‘Of course. No problem,’ I said, pulling a twenty-pound note from my purse and setting it down beside my plate. It was too much, but I had no time to wait for the bill.
‘Could she be with your wife? Is she here with you?’
Two expressions fought for supremacy on Nick’s face. Amazement and fear.
‘Natalie? No. She’s gone away with friends. This ismyweekend with Holly.’
His answer told me a great deal, but this wasn’t the time to explore any of that information.
‘Do you think I should find a security guard? Get them to shut down the centre?’ Nick asked as we hurried from the pizza restaurant.
‘Let’s wait until we’ve checked the toilets,’ I said, already scoping the overhead signs for directions to the nearest ones.
‘Okay. You go do that. I’ll check the Gents down here.’
I did a good job of hiding my fears as to why his young daughter would be in the men’s loos.
I probably looked and sounded just as crazy as Nick had done as I ran from one Ladies to another, calling Holly’s name and even dropping on to my hands and knees to peer beneath the stall doors. I got some very funny looks, but when I explained that I was looking for a little girl, everyone was very sympathetic.
‘Your little girl, is she?’ asked a grandmotherly type in the third Ladies I tried. According to the map of the shopping centre, there was only one left to try after this.
‘No. She’s a friend’s daughter,’ I said, running out of the room so fast my feet almost skidded on the tiled floor.
I bumped into Nick as I flew through the door. Quite literally bumped into him. Had his hands not come up to my shoulders to steady me, I would have ended up flat on my backside.
‘Anything?’ he asked urgently.
I shook my head. ‘No. Nothing.’
‘That’s it,’ he said decisively, dropping a glance to the watch on his wrist. ‘It’s been almost thirty minutes. I’m alerting Security or calling the police.’
Acknowledging that the situation had escalated from worrying to serious was the most frightening realisation of all.
‘There’s one last Ladies still to try,’ I said, but he shook his head emphatically.
‘Go check. But I need to find her now before some pervert does.’