‘Your children, Mrs Allister. We’re looking for your children.’
‘There’s no way they’re in there. Kim’s already looked and if there was anything, she’d have found it.’
‘Well then, we’re looking for proof that your childrenwerethere. That they were there and that something befell them and then we’ll use that evidence to try and put together a picture of what happened on Friday night and where your children might now be.’
‘You’d be better off talking to those cab companies again. I bet half the time they don’t even write things down. The woman whoruns the one in Manton is asleep half the time, literally facedown on the desk, fast asleep. I’ve seen her. I reckon she runs so many jobs that she never actually goes to bed. You should talk to her again. She’ll have sent them a taxi but forgotten to write it down.’
DI McCoy smiles patiently at Megs. ‘I think you mean Carole Dodds? At Taxis First? Yes, we’ve spoken to her twice. She wasn’t working on Friday night, she was unwell, so her husband took her shift and he told us that every booking goes straight into the computer system, that they can’t actually send a car without it going through their system.’
‘Oh, well, you know computers. You can’t trust them as far as you can throw them.’
‘So you still think they did get a taxi, Mrs Allister?’
‘They must have.’
‘And where did that taxi take them?’
‘They’re kids,’ she replies loudly. ‘Who knows?’
DI McCoy stifles a sigh. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘we’re about ready to go in, I’d say. You’re welcome to stay here and wait for developments, or we could meet you back at the village? Whichever you’d prefer.’
Kim glances at Megs. Megs shrugs. Kim says, ‘Well, I’d like to stay here while you’re at this end, and then head into the village when the search teams are getting closer. If that’s OK?’
‘Absolutely.’
Megs and Simon exchange a look. Megs says, ‘Yeah, I think we’ll just head back to Upfield and wait at that end. Maybe at the Ducks.’ She touches Kim’s arm, making her jump slightly. ‘See you there,’ she says, and then they all head back to the road where their car is parked in a passing place, just in front of Kim’s.
From her car Kim watches Megs and Simon’s car doing a slow eight-point turn in the narrow lane, before heading back towards Upfield. Megs issues a slow wave from the passenger window as they pass by and Kim returns the gesture.
She is chilled by Megs’s response to this crisis. It makes no sense to her whatsoever. She knows that boys are less terrifying to parent than girls – she’s done both and she knows that she feels less anxious when Ryan is out after dark than Tallulah. But still, it’s been nearly three days. The disappearance of anyone for that amount of time is just fundamentally worrying. Yet Megs is not worried in the least. For a moment, it crosses Kim’s mind that maybe Megs is not worried because she knows something, because she knows her son is safe but she cannot, for whatever reason, tell anyone. But no, she immediately corrects this train of thought. If Megs was lying to protect her son or the person responsible for her son’s disappearance, she would surely at leastpretendto be worried. But her reaction to this is too authentic, too real, too Megs.
Kim turns and watches the high-vis-clad police officers and their dogs as they finally head into the woods. The plain-clothes detectives stay where they are for a while before heading back to their vehicles.
It’s strangely quiet. A car drives past after a few moments; the elderly couple inside look curiously at the line-up of police vehicles parked on the verge and then slow down.
‘What’s going on?’ the old man asks an officer.
‘Just a local police investigation,’ the officer replies.
‘Another break-in?’ asks the lady.
‘No,’ he replies. ‘We’re just looking for a missing person.’
‘From Upley Fold?’ says the man.
‘No, from Upfield Common.’
‘Oh,’ says the woman. ‘Well, good luck. Hope you find them,’ and they drive on.
Kim looks at her phone. It’s one forty-five. She texts Ryan.
Everything all right?
All good. You?
So far so good.?♥
The minutes pass horrifically slowly. Every time she sees one of the detectives put a phone to their ear, her blood turns to ice. Her imagination fabricates a dozen scenarios, all involving Zach somehow snuffing the life from her beautiful baby girl in the woods; she sees him throttling her on the ground, pinning down her limbs with his. She sees him producing a knife from somewhere, who knows where, maybe he picked one up in Scarlett’s kitchen, a premeditated move, approaching her from behind and slicing through the soft white of her throat, her blood turning black and sticky on the dry earth. Or just beating her, beating her and beating her until there was nothing left to beat, her beautiful face mashed into a pulp, he staggering breathlessly through the woods afterwards with bruised, bloodied fists.