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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

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