‘… and she just wasn’t there, was she, Anna?’ I am shaken out of my thoughts by Fran’s voice speaking my name.
‘And you are?’
‘Anna.’ I look over at DS Wright’s colleague, a slight woman with short blonde hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose, who stands poised with a small black notebook, as Wright waits for my answer. ‘Anna Cox. I’m … I’m Laurel’s nanny.’
‘And you brought Laurel here, earlier this evening?’
‘Yes. I walked here with her while Fran was getting ready. Laurel was excited, she wanted to get here as early as possible.’
‘And then … what? Can you run me through exactly what happened – when you first realised that Laurel wasn’t where you expected her to be?’
I see Fran glance in my direction as I open my mouth to speak, to repeat exactly what she has just told them. ‘Fran was going to the loo, and to get us a drink. Laurel said she was going as well, and she ran off after Fran. But then Fran came back, and Laurel hadn’t caught up with her.’ Guilt lies heavily in my stomach. Why hadn’t I watched? Made sure she reached Fran, kept my eyes on her until she grabbed her hand?
‘Thank you, Anna.’ The police officer seems satisfied with my comments, scratching away jotting down my words in her notebook. ‘So, it sounds as though she’s wandered off, lost sight of Mum. We’ve got the exits closed now and we’re looking for her, OK? She can’t have got far – we’ll find her.’ She gives me a brisk smile, before walking away towards her colleagues, leaving Fran and me alone, the chilly night air taking on a sinister feel as Laurel’s name is shouted again and again into the dark.
I’m not sure how long it is before DS Wright walks back over to us, her face pensive. She stumbles over an uneven patch in the muddy ground, her sturdy black shoes sliding as she almost loses her footing. Righting herself, she brushes a splash of mud from her black trousers, before stopping in front of us.
‘What is it?’ Fran says, almost shoving me aside to get close to the police officer, her hand reaching out before falling to her hip. Her voice is hoarse from shouting Laurel’s name, and as I swallow I realise my throat is also raw. ‘Did you find something? Did you find Laurel?’
‘Mrs Jessop … Fran.’ DS Wright speaks slowly, calmly, before she turns her gaze to include me. ‘As yet, we haven’t found any sign of Laurel in the immediate area, but we are still carrying out a full, intensive search. In the meantime, there are just a few things that I would like to ask you about.’
Fran says nothing, her face pale, so I nod instead. ‘Yes, of course. We’ll answer any questions you have, won’t we, Fran?’
‘Great, thank you.’ DS Wright pulls out her notebook, rifling through the pages until she finds what she’s looking for. ‘So, Laurel went to catch up with her mother – with you, Fran – is that right?’
‘Yes.’ I nod again, as Fran crushes a tissue to her nose, tears spilling over and running down her cheeks. ‘But I didn’t actually see her catch up with Fran.’ Just saying the words makes me feel sick.
‘But you’re sure she went in that direction – towards the portaloos?’
‘Yes, yes I’m sure.’ I am sure – aren’t I? Guilt and worry converge to make me doubt myself, to doubt the picture I see in my mind’s eye of Laurel running towards the back of Fran’s coat, as she weaved her way slowly through the crowds.
‘And you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, either before or during the bonfire? Nobody hanging around that shouldn’t have been? No one who seemed overly interested in Laurel?’ Her eyes settle on my face and I feel a slight sweat break out across my forehead, despite the cold night air, as though it is me under investigation, me who has done something wrong.
‘No. No one. Although, there were people starting to arrive as we walked up the lane, so I don’t know that I’d …’ I was going to say, I don’t know that I’d have even noticed, but I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.
‘And what about Laurel’s father? Fran says that he was supposed to meet you all here this evening?’
‘He was,’ I say, frowning slightly, ‘he’s a surgeon – a heart surgeon at the hospital in South Oxbury – but he didn’t make it here, obviously.’
‘I tried to get hold of him,’ Fran says, a frown to match my own creasing her forehead. She pauses for a moment and blinks hard. ‘I called him a few times, but it just kept going to bloody voicemail.’ She presses her lips together and looks away, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.
‘It was sort of a big deal, tonight …’ I say in a low voice, ‘he works really long hours, but he’d promised Laurel that he would make it.’
‘Can we try him again?’ The blonde officer who spoke to me earlier has arrived to stand next to her colleague, and she looks to DS Wright for confirmation.
‘I’ll do it,’ I say, glancing at Fran. She looks white, the blue lights still pulsing in the background giving her face a sickly sheen every time they pass over her features. ‘I’ll call him.’
I call his number, my fingers fumbling with the phone, but I don’t know if it’s through shock or simply the cold. Just as it did for Fran, the voicemail kicks in within a couple of rings.
‘Dominic? It’s Anna. Can you call me as soon as you get this?’ Fran is talking to DS Wright, so I step away slightly, hanging up the phone and scrolling down to the number I am only to call in strict emergencies. This counts, I think to myself, this definitely counts as an emergency. It starts to ring, and I press one finger into my ear in order to hear better, as I feel the blonde officer’s eyes on me – DC Barnes, I think Wright called her. I turn my back and wait for the call to be answered.
‘Theatre,’ a gruff voice barks into the receiver.
‘Oh, hello,’ I say, gripping the phone tightly as I try to keep my voice steady, ‘I need to speak with Mr Jessop, please, it’s rather urgent. Can you tell me if he’s in theatre, or is he available?’
‘Mr Jessop?’ There is a pause on the line and a murmur of voices faintly in the background, and I imagine the nurse glancing at the whiteboard, then asking her colleague, checking to see which theatre he might be in. ‘Sorry, he’s not on this evening. His list finished at five o’clock.’
Shit. Where the hell is he? He promised Laurel that he would be here tonight, and I assumed that he had got caught up with work – after all, that’s usually what happens with Dominic. I glance over to where Fran is holding a tissue to her nose, her other arm wrapped tightly around herself as if cold. DC Barnes takes a step towards me, and I hold up one finger as the phone in my hand buzzes, relieved when DS Wright calls her over and I don’t have to worry about her listening in.
‘Dominic?’ I pause. ‘You got my message? Fran’s been trying to get hold of you for ages.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’ I hear him exhale, a long, deep sigh, and imagine him sat in his car, his big, luxury Porsche Cayenne that neither Fran nor I are ever allowed to drive, or maybe at home, knowing he was going to be late and miss the bonfire, waiting for us to get back so he can put Laurel to bed. ‘Look, Anna, if she’s getting you to call me just so I answer and then she can take the phone and chew me out, I’m hanging up now, OK?’
‘No, Dominic, it’s not … it’s not that.’ My mouth is dry, and I wish I could take it back – I wish I had left it to Fran, or one of the police officers here to make the call.
‘What is it, then? I know I missed the fireworks, but … I’ll talk to Laurel tomorrow and make it up to her. It wasn’t my fault …’
‘Dominic, I called the hospital, looking for you.’ Whispering, I grip the phone tightly in my hand, feeling the skin stretch over my knuckles, and turn back to where Fran is waiting. I raise my voice again. ‘It’s Laurel. She’s gone missing.’
As I speak the words out loud to Dominic, I see Fran almost visibly stagger slightly, as if my words have cut her, her hands covering her mouth as if to hold in a scream. Mr Abbott appears at her side to clutch her by the elbow and keep her steady.
‘What? What’s happened? Where is she? Are you still at the field?’ Dominic fires questions at me, one after the other, barely giving me time to respond, before he tells me he’s on his way and hangs up on me abruptly. More police officers are arriving, and there is a sense of urgency now humming in the air. Mr Abbott has rounded up several more volunteers who are already beginning to search the field more thoroughly, and I hear Laurel’s name being cried repeatedly into the frosty night air.
‘She’ll be getting cold.’ Almost as though she read my mind, Fran comes close to me, her voice quiet. ‘And she’s not keen on the dark either. Remember that time the bulb went in the nightlight in the middle of the night and she woke up? We all thought she’d been …’ Her voice trails off and she gives a tiny huff of wheezy laughter, that catches in her throat. ‘Is Dominic coming?’
‘Yes. He got held up.’ I don’t mention my call to the hospital. My hands are freezing now, and I shove them deep into my pockets, my fingers touching something cold and plasticky. I snare whatever it is between my fingertips and draw it out, only to see a tiny doll, like the little Polly Pocket dolls I used to have as a child. Mr Snow gave it to Laurel as we passed one morning on the way to school – it had blonde hair, and a pink jacket, and he told her it looked exactly like her – I assumed it must have belonged to one of his grandchildren. It certainly wasn’t new. Laurel must have sneaked it into my pocket without me noticing. I curl my fingers round it and feel the soft plastic stick slightly to my palms.
‘He’s always held up.’ Fran’s voice jolts me back to the present. ‘Maybe if he’d actually bothered to turn up this evening this never would have happened.’ She gives a little sob and presses the back of her hand to her mouth again, as her eyes comb over the field, watching the figures of volunteers sliding across the mud, all shouting Laurel’s name.
‘Fran? Anna?’ Someone else approaches now, a stranger, but I can tell immediately that he belongs to the police. There is something about his manner, the way he carries himself, that tells me he is important. He introduces himself to Fran, but I don’t catch his name, only the words, ‘… senior investigating officer.’ With a pang, I remember the last time I heard those words. It’s different this time, I think, I can’t be blamed this time.
‘We’re doing everything we can to find Laurel – due to the length of time she’s been missing now we’ve put in a request for a helicopter to join the search, but for the moment I think it’s best for yourself and Ms Cox to return to the house,’ he is saying, a hand on Fran’s elbow to guide her towards the waiting police vehicle.
‘What? No!’ Fran wrenches her arm away, sliding a little in her wellies. ‘Laurel is out here somewhere. Shouldn’t I be here? Waiting, in case they find her?’
‘Mrs Jessop,’ the officer’s voice is low and soothing, and Fran stops dead, biting back whatever she was going to say. ‘We’ve got our finest team out searching for Laurel – the best thing you can do is go home and wait.’
‘Fran, listen,’ I say, still slightly unnerved by Fran’s display of emotion this evening. I’m not used to it – she is usually reserved to the point of occasional rudeness, and to see her so open, so exposed, makes me feel uncomfortable. ‘I think it makes sense for us to go back to the house … what if Laurel has wandered off and she’s made her way home and you’re not there?’
‘Do you think so? DI Dove … do you think she might be at home?’ She turns to face DI Jayden Dove, hope written across her face.
‘It’s possible. We have already dispatched a team to the house just in case.’ He tries to force a smile, but it doesn’t sit right on his face. ‘DS Wright and DC Barnes will take you home.’ He’s lying, I think, the thought closing around my heart like a cold fist, he doesn’t think Laurel is at home at all. I try to force the thought away and tap Fran lightly on the arm.
‘Come on,’ I say, ‘if she is at home, she’s going to want a cuddle and a hot chocolate.’ And I lead her slowly towards the police car, trying to squash down the familiar feeling of dread that rises up, threatening to consume me.
Laurel isn’t there. Of course she isn’t, I knew deep down that she wouldn’t be and I think Fran knew that too. She is quiet as we step into the hall, DS Wright shadowing us as we enter the slightly chilly living room. The curtains are open, a shaft of moonlight slicing the room in two before I switch on the overhead light and slide my coat off. I take Fran’s coat and usher her into an armchair, before returning to the hallway to hang the coats. I slide the little doll from my coat pocket into the back pocket of my jeans. As I reach up to the coat pegs, the sound of the front door opening makes me jump and I gasp, dropping Fran’s Ralph Lauren jacket on the floor.
‘Dominic,’ I place my hand over my racing heart, ‘you made me jump.’ He looks terrible, his silver hair standing on end as though he has been pushing his hands through it, his face pale and eyes ringed with dark circles.
‘Is she here?’ His voice is desperate, and he grips my forearms tightly, eyes boring into mine. ‘Is Laurel back?’
‘No,’ I stammer, trying to pull away from him, ‘she’s not. The police are through there.’ He lets me go and I gesture towards the living room.
‘OK. OK.’ He shoves his hand through his hair again, before rubbing his palm across his mouth, twelve hours’ worth of stubble scratching his skin. ‘Anna, did you tell anyone I wasn’t at the hospital? Did you tell Fran?’
I frown, shaking my head. ‘No, I didn’t get a chance to. As soon as I hung up DI Dove told us we should come back here. Why?’
‘Nothing.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Just … don’t, will you? Don’t say anything just yet. I don’t think Fran would understand … I’ll tell her later, when things are … you know.’
‘Right.’ I don’t know how I feel about this and I waver for a moment, before I decide I have to let it go, for now anyway. Fran will be furious if she finds out, and I know the focus for all of us should be on Laurel and getting her home safely. I go to speak, to tell him that I’ll keep it quiet for now, but he’s already pushing past me, headed to where Fran sits in teary silence on the sofa.
‘Dominic.’ She gets to her feet as he enters, and at first I think she’s going to shout, or hit him, fury crossing her face before she crumples into his arms. ‘She’s gone, Dom. Laurel’s gone. Someone has taken our baby.’
Chapter 3
I wake with a jolt, without even realising that I have dozed off. It must have only been for a few minutes, as I had watched the sun rise a couple of hours ago and now its light inches its way through the open curtains to create a warm puddle of gold on the parquet flooring. I shift, stiff and uncomfortable from spending the night scrunched into an armchair in the front room, my eyes gritty and sore.
With a rush the events of the previous evening come back to me and I force my stiff body round, placing my freezing cold feet on the floor, the wood warm beneath my bare skin. We had all been questioned separately, but informally, over the course of the evening about what had happened and what we had seen, and it had left me feeling almost drunk with tiredness, reliving those terrifying first moments when I looked down and Laurel was gone. My head aches, and I wince as I sit forward, taking in the scene in front of me.
Everyone is pretty much in the same position as they were last night, when Fran told me roughly to go to bed, that there was nothing I could achieve by staying up. I had refused, wanting to be there if any news came in, wanting to know if Laurel was OK, but her voice had a familiar hard edge to it, one that she uses to remind me that she is the boss, that she is in charge, not me. Instead of doing as I usually would and hurrying away upstairs to my room, I had folded myself into the hard, uncomfortable armchair in the corner of the room, for once daring to disobey Fran. Dominic had given me a tiny smile of solidarity as he watched me tuck my feet up underneath me, making it quite clear that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I would stay awake all night. Obviously, exhaustion had overtaken me at some point, even if it had only been for a few minutes.
Now, my head throbbing so hard it makes me feel queasy, I look to the tableau in front of me. Fran still sits curled into the huge, squashy sofa, while Dominic stares out of the front window. As I follow his gaze I see DS Wright pacing outside the front of the house, mobile phone clamped to her ear. Both parents look exhausted and grey, with slight wrinkles that I’ve never noticed before appearing at the corners of Fran’s eyes.
‘I take it there isn’t any news?’ I ask.
‘No.’ Fran shakes her head and dislodges a tear that runs slowly down her cheek. ‘Nothing.’ The door swings open and a tall, slim girl appears. She gives me a small smile, before asking if anyone would like some tea.
‘You remember DC Barnes, from last night,’ Fran says, her voice dull, as she leans down and picks up the mug of tea, now stone-cold, that I left by her feet an hour or two ago. ‘Apparently as well as a DC, she’s a “family liaison officer”.’ I can hear the quote marks she puts around the words.
‘Would you like a hand in the kitchen, DC Barnes?’ I ask, the atmosphere in the living room suffocating me in the few short minutes I’ve been awake again. She smiles her thanks and I follow her through into the huge, clinically clean kitchen where she looks around for the kettle, confused when she can’t seem to find it.
‘Here.’ I lean past her to the sink, turning on the boiling water tap. ‘No need for a kettle.’
‘Oh, fancy!’ She throws tea bags into the mugs laid out on the counter and starts to fill them. ‘Enough with the DC stuff for now,’ she says, raising her voice over the sound of rushing water. ‘Just call me Kelly. So, you’re Anna? Laurel’s nanny?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you worked for the Jessops for long?’
‘About three years,’ I say, thinking back to the day I got the job. I wasn’t sure if I’d even turn up for the interview, after what had happened before. I didn’t think I was cut out for nannying, not anymore, but working in a bar wasn’t for me as I had soon discovered, and a chance meeting with an ex-boyfriend, where he revealed that an old friend of his was looking for a nanny, meant that I decided to bite the bullet and take a chance. ‘Laurel was a year old when I started working here. It doesn’t seem like that long.’
‘And how is it?’ Kelly slides a hot mug of coffee towards me and leans against the counter, her blonde hair falling over one eye.
‘It’s OK. Good, I mean. I enjoy it.’ I sip at the coffee. ‘Laurel is a little sweetie. It wasn’t meant … It was only supposed to be temporary, a stopgap, you know? But … I liked it. So, I stayed.’ I’m more attached to Laurel than I ever thought I would get. I was conscious in the beginning that I shouldn’t let myself care for her too much, that it was bound to go wrong. Now look what has happened. I take another, bigger sip of coffee and let it scorch my tongue.
‘What about Fran and Dominic?’ Kelly asks, her eyes never leaving my face. ‘How are they to work for?’
‘Oh, you know,’ I shrug, but she gives a nod as if to say, go on. ‘Mostly fine. Fran is a bit … highly strung at times. She’s an actress, she’s always busy learning lines, meeting directors, that sort of thing, so things can get a little stressful for her. Dominic isn’t here a lot of the time. He’s always at the hospital.’
‘So, neither of them is about much?’
I think for a moment. ‘Not as much as they’d like, maybe. Fran loves being with Laurel, she just isn’t able to much of the time, not with auditions and meetings and things. And Dominic … well, he has to put his patients first quite often.’
‘And how are they together? Do they get along OK?’
‘Most of the time. Everyone has their ups and downs, don’t they?’
‘And what about you? Have you got a partner, boyfriend, significant other?’
‘No,’ I let out a little huff of laughter, ‘definitely not. I spend all my time with Laurel.’
‘So, did you live in the area before you started working here? Or did you move here especially?’
I snap my head up from where I am staring into my coffee and meet her gaze. I should have known that she wasn’t simply being friendly, I need to remember that she’s not my friend – she’s only here to do a job. I could kick myself for letting my guard down.
‘Am I being questioned?’
‘No,’ Kelly says, a faint blush rising in her cheeks, ‘nothing like that. I’m sorry. I just wanted to get a feel for how things are usually in the house. Obviously today it’s tense, and everyone is under a lot of strain. I don’t think Fran has taken too kindly to my being here.’
I let out a long sigh of relief. ‘She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s simply the way she is. Prickly.’ I let out a tiny huff of rueful laughter. Fran is unpredictable at the best of times, and I often find myself walking on eggshells around her in case I inadvertently do something to upset her. Frequently I find myself making the wrong decision – taking Laurel to the park for half an hour on Saturday mornings after Fran has come home late, in order to let her have a lie in, only to come home and find her pacing the kitchen, demanding to know why Laurel wasn’t there when she woke up, or all the times I’ve bathed Laurel and put her to bed, only for Fran to waltz in earlier than expected and then demand to know why Laurel wasn’t kept up to see her. You don’t always know which Fran you’re going to get.
‘Did you know them before you worked for them?’ Kelly asks, before looking away. ‘Sorry. I’m honestly not interrogating you. I just need to get a feel for things, it’s an important part of the investigation. You know we need to do everything we possibly can to find Laurel.’ She gives me a reassuring smile and I stare into my coffee cup, shaking my head.
‘No, I didn’t know them. I’d never even heard of Dominic, although apparently he’s top of his field and well known for what he does.’
‘But you grew up round here?’
‘No.’ I’m puzzled now. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Sorry.’ She gives me a proper smile now. ‘It’s just that you look familiar, and I thought maybe we went to school together or something. You must have one of those faces.’
‘That’ll be it.’ I manage to force the words out, the blood freezing in my veins. ‘We definitely don’t know each other.’ I slide off the stool the moment Dominic pokes his head around the doorframe, his face grave.
‘Anna? DS Wright wants to talk to us all. Can you come in?’
I nod, and follow him through into the living room, my heart starting to thunder in my chest. Has there been a development? Or has DS Wright found out what I so desperately wanted to keep a secret?
DI Dove is standing in front of the log burner, his hands clasped in front of him as I totter into the room on shaking legs. DS Wright looks small and frail next to his large frame. Fran still sits huddled up on the sofa, her face pale and drawn, already looking thinner, diminished somehow.
‘OK,’ DI Dove speaks, his voice a rumbling baritone that matches his dark, brooding looks. Italian, I think, or maybe Spanish. ‘I think we all know that now we are looking at the very real possibility that Laurel hasn’t simply wandered off. That someone else might be involved in her disappearance.’
There is a little squeak, and Fran presses her hands to her mouth, as Dominic sinks onto the cushion next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, trying to pull her in towards him. Sitting alone on the armchair opposite, I feel cold and sick, the headache I woke up with still pounding away at my temples.
‘We had people searching the field well into last night, and again since early this morning, and we have yet to uncover anything that might lead us to Laurel, or give us some idea about what might have happened to her. We still have a team of volunteers down at the site, all willing to continue the search and we have officers doing door-to-door questioning to see if anyone saw anything that might be of use.’
