LITMIR.BIZ

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had said no, she needed to cook supper. Lucy had demanded another chapter of the book they were reading at bedtime, an enormously dull chronicle of life among woodland folk, and had thrown a theatrical tantrum when Sally declined. Lucy had also wanted Michael to kiss her good night, but he had not been at home; she had not cried on that occasion, but her silence had been worse than her tears and screams. Lucy had wanted to bake gingerbread men the other day, Lucy had wanted the conjuring set from Woolworth’s, Lucy this and Lucy that. Sally sat placidly at her desk and pretended to read a magazine while, all around her, the flat hummed with lost opportunities and reminders of her failure to be the mother that Lucy needed and deserved.

      Suffering had a monotonous quality; Sally had never known that before. Only the phone broke into the tedium. Each time it rang, Sally willed it to herald news of Lucy; or, failing that, that it should be Michael. Yvonne answered all the calls. Sally held her breath, digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands, until it became clear that the caller was just a time-waster – or rather, worse than that, someone who might be preventing news of Lucy from reaching Sally.

      ‘Mr and Mrs Appleyard aren’t available for comment …’

      Sally’s fingernails left raw, red half-moons on her palms. Some of the calls were from friends but more were from journalists.

      ‘I’m afraid they’ll soon be camping on the doorstep.’ Yvonne went to the window and looked down at the road below. ‘Not a lot we can do about that except move you somewhere else.’

      ‘Why are they so interested?’ Sally made an enormous effort to be objective about what had happened. ‘Thousands of children must vanish every year. They aren’t news.’

      ‘They are if their dad’s in the CID and their mum’s a vicar. Let’s face it, love, that makes it a news story whether we like it or not.’

      Michael did not ring. She wanted him very badly. What the hell was keeping him? Sally tried to prise information out of Yvonne but had no success: either the policewoman knew no more than Sally or had been forbidden to discuss the case.

      By ten-thirty, there were three journalists outside the front of the block. Sally felt sorry for them: though they were well wrapped up against the weather, they looked pinched and cold. One of them tried to sneak into the service entrance at the rear and was indignantly shooed out of the communal garden by the owner of a ground-floor flat.

      Sally tried to phone Carla, but there was no reply. Sally wondered how the child minder was feeling. Did she blame herself? Sally perversely wanted to monopolize the blame.

      At eleven o’clock Sally made some coffee. By then she and Yvonne had stopped trying to talk to each other. Sally sat at her desk in front of the window, nursing the steaming mug between her hands, and waited for something to happen. In her mind, the pictures unfolded: she saw a pool of blood sinking into bare earth under trees; Lucy’s broken body half-concealed under a pile of dead leaves; a man running. She heard laughter. Fire crackled; a bell tolled; there was snow, straw and excrement on the cobbles. Briefly she glimpsed the dream that had filled her mind just before waking. Had there been a woman screaming? In the dream or in reality? Another or herself?

      ‘Do you do crosswords?’ Yvonne asked.

      Sally hauled herself out of the confusion. ‘No – well, I used to, but I haven’t had much time recently.’

      Yvonne was working on the crossword in the Daily Telegraph and had already completed a respectable number of clues. ‘It passes the time. Do you want a clue?’

      Sally shook her head. She tried to read but it was impossible to concentrate. Her mind fluttered like a butterfly. She pushed her hand into her pocket and touched Lucy’s sock, her talisman, her Jimmy.

      Please God, may Lucy have her Jimmy. Please God, bring my darling back to me.

      It was important to act normally, otherwise they might sedate her heavily or even put her in hospital. But what was normal now? Reality had lurched into unreality. The substantial was insubstantial, and vice versa. Sally felt that if she poked her forefinger at the surface of the pine table in front of her, the finger might pass straight through the wood and into the vacancy beyond. It was unreal to be sitting at home doing nothing; unreal not to be helping at the Brownies’ jumble sale in St George’s church hall; and most of all unreal not to know where Lucy was. Like a small hungry animal, Lucy’s absence gnawed at Sally’s stomach.

      ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a tablet?’ Yvonne’s voice was elaborately casual.

      ‘No. No, thanks.’

      There was shouting in the street outside. Sally looked down, and a second later Yvonne joined her at the window. A man was shouting at the journalists, waving his arms at them.

      ‘Who’s that?’ Yvonne asked. ‘Anyone you know?’

      ‘It’s Michael. My husband.’

      Michael was very tired. When Sally hugged him, he leaned against her but otherwise he barely responded. His face was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot; he wore yesterday’s clothes and smelled of sweat.

      ‘The bastards won’t tell me anything,’ he muttered fiercely into her hair. ‘And they won’t let me do anything.’

      Sally heard footsteps in the hallway. And the sound of voices, Yvonne’s and a man’s.

      Michael raised his head. ‘Oliver brought me home. Maxham phoned him up; someone told him we were friends. I want to do something, and all they can think of is to give me a fucking nanny.’

      Oliver Rickford hesitated in the doorway. He was wearing a battered wax jacket over a guernsey and paint-stained jeans. Yvonne bobbed up and down behind him. Yvonne was short, and in thirty years would be stout, whereas Oliver was tall and thin. Sally saw them both with the eyes of a stranger: they might have belonged to different species.

      ‘I’m so sorry.’ Oliver spread out his hands as if intending to examine his nails. ‘Maxham really is doing everything he can.’

      ‘And those bloody vultures outside,’ Michael went on. ‘I could kill them.’

      ‘You need to rest,’ Sally said.

      Michael ignored her. ‘If they’re still there when I go down, I’m going to hit one of them. Tell them, Oliver. It’s a fair warning.’

      Sally stepped back and shook his arm. ‘Why don’t you have a bath and get into bed?’

      Michael’s eyes focused on hers. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Sleep? Now? You must be out of your mind.’ The hostility ebbed from his face. ‘Sal, I’m sorry.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying.’

      ‘Sally’s right.’ Oliver had a hard face and a soft voice. ‘You’re practically asleep on your feet. You’re no use to anyone like that.’

      ‘Don’t tell me what to do. I’m not one of your bloody minions.’ Michael looked wildly from Oliver to Sally. His face crumpled. ‘Oh shit.’

      He stumbled out of the room and into the bathroom.

      Oliver peeled off his jacket and dropped it on a chair. ‘Can I help?’

      She didn’t answer, but he followed her into the bathroom. Michael was sitting on the side of the bath with his head resting on the rim of the basin. Sally turned on the taps. Between them, she and Oliver persuaded him through the bath, into pyjamas and into bed. Yvonne dispensed two sleeping pills from the supply the doctor had left behind. Sally sat with him until he went to sleep.

      ‘When they get the man I’m going to kill him. I could kill Maxham, too. Devious little shit.’ As time slipped by, Michael’s words grew less distinct. Once he opened his eyes and looked straight at Sally. ‘It shouldn’t be like this, should it, Sal? It’s all our fault.’

      She bowed her head to hide the tears. Michael was being unreasonable and part of her feared that he was right.

      He wasn’t

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