AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Don’t worry,’ Mike says for the millionth time, but the strain is showing in his voice. He, too, is as worried about Dominic as I am.
‘I’m frantic, Mike.’ My words are choked with emotion. ‘Where can he be? I don’t want him to spend a night outside.’
‘We’ll go to the police station,’ my neighbour says decisively. ‘See if we can enlist their help. Goodness only knows he should be easy enough to spot. Perhaps we could try to get something on the local television news or the radio.’
That thought brightens me up considerably. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘OK.’ Mike crushes his sandwich packet and then takes mine and does the same. ‘Drink up.’
He waits until I drain the dregs out of my paper cup and then takes that too. Hopping out of the car, he throws our rubbish in the nearby bin and his reliable, steady kindnesses almost have me undone again.
‘You don’t know how much I appreciate this. You’re a good man, Mike.’
His hand squeezes mine. ‘That’s what friends are for.’
Then we’re off again, working our way through the build-up of traffic on the rush hour streets of Milton Keynes in search of the police station.
You may think that I’ve had a sheltered life, but I’ve never been into a police station before. I’ve never had a reason to. I’ve never had so much as a parking ticket in my thirty-odd years. I am a careful, law-abiding citizen.
When we eventually locate the police station, Mike steers me inside while I plod along like a zombie. The officer at the desk is high above us. ‘I’d like to report a missing person,’ I say in a tremulous voice.
The officer seems reasonably sympathetic, at least he makes all the right noises. He takes down all of Dominic’s details, asks for a photograph, which, of course, I don’t have on me, then tells me that they’ll circulate the details via computer to all of the other forces’ missing persons listings.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘That’s all for now.’ He leans on the counter in front of him. ‘They usually come back, Miss. By the time you get home, he might well be there. Or in the morning. One night of this weather and they don’t stay away for long.’
He exchanges a glance with Mike. Clearly the policeman thinks that this is some sort of petty domestic spat that will resolve itself.
‘If he’s not at home?’ I ask.
‘Then call us. We’ll get someone to come round, collect a photograph from you, and take a few more details.’
‘I’m worried about him,’ I say. What I want is people out there with tracker dogs, hundreds of them, and helicopters and that kind of thing. I don’t want to fill in forms and sit and wait. ‘He’s vulnerable. There’s no one else.’ I’ve already told him this in my report. ‘He’s got nowhere else to go.’
‘Most people turn up,’ he assures me. ‘You mark my words.’
There’s nothing else to do, but go home.
Mike and I drive in silence and I stare out of the window, willing myself to catch sight of Dominic trudging home. When we pull up outside the cottages, there are no lights on in either of them. He cuts the engine and we sit in the darkness, the complete quiet.
‘He’s not back,’ I say.
Beside me, my neighbour, my friend, my rock, sighs. ‘We’ll look for him again tomorrow,’ he says.
‘Thank you.’
‘He can’t be far.’
I feel sick inside. The temperature is dropping. If the British weather can be relied on, it will soon hail, rain, or snow, or all three. Does Dominic realise just how bad it can be?
Where is he? I wrack my brains to think where he might have gone, what he might have done. Where would I go in his situation? He hasn’t been here long enough to establish a favourite place. How will he manage without me? But the most pertinent and pressing question is, what on earth can I do to get him back?
Mike insists on bringing me into the house and feeding me tea and toast until my stomach is roiling. We check the answerphone, but the only messages are from me. From Dominic, nothing.
Now Mike, reluctantly, departs for his own home leaving me with the promise of an early start again tomorrow to look for my loved one. Archie is mooching about looking miserable and Little Cottage feels horribly empty without Dominic.
I should go to bed but I can’t bring myself to sleep there alone. In the wardrobe I find the kanga that Dominic gave me on my very first holiday in the Maasai Mara. It’s cheery colours fail to lift my spirits, but the scent of Dominic on it somehow gives me hope.
Wrapping myself up, I go out into the garden and sit on the bench where Dominic sat last night, brooding. Knives of empty pain stab at me and I don’t know whether I want to curl into a ball or stand and howl at the sky. I want to be cold enough to feel Dominic’s pain. Where is he bedding down for the night? I wonder. Is he sleeping in a hedgerow? Maybe he’s found a hut of some sort or an abandoned barn. God, I do hope so. The tiny amount of money he’s taken isn’t going to find him anywhere comfortable, that’s for sure. It might, however, buy him a cup of tea and something to eat. Will that be enough to stop him from getting hypothermia?
