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He shakes his head and replies only, ‘They’re on their way.’
Later, there were bite marks on my fist. Perhaps I bit my knuckles as I ran out again onto the street. Can I remember it? I’m not sure. Can I see myself running down our street, biting my own hand? I can, but maybe it’s a mental image made by the marks – a deduction. What I know is that as soon as Matt called the police, I ran back to Neil and Bella’s. What I can see is myself battering once again on their door, weeping frantically, full of bitter justifications for why this cannot be happening, cannot be happening to me. I have done my best, I really have. I have tried so hard to get everything right, read all the pamphlets, trained in first aid. I know how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre, how to give mouth-to-mouth, how to put someone in the recovery position.
But I didn’t close the front door and no amount of safety literature can reverse that.
I bang on Neil and Bella’s door again, lower my mouth to the letter box and push it open with my fingertips. ‘Neil? Bel? It’s Ava. Help. I need help.’
Ear to the door, I bang it with my fist. The discordant wail of a siren. Another second. I realise that sound is for me. The door opens. Neil’s hair is wet. He is pulling up one strap of his white overalls, his face etched in concern.
‘Ava?’
‘Have you got Abi?’
He shakes his head a fraction. ‘No, why? Has something happened?’
I’m backing away, stumbling a little. ‘Abi’s missing. I thought she might have… I’ve got to go. The police are here.’
‘Missing?’ Neil’s features crowd, an expression between confusion and panic. ‘Police? Christ.’
He’s running with me. I can hear him panting.
‘Is Matt there?’ he says breathlessly.
‘Yes, yes, he’s come back. I knocked for you before.’
‘Did you? Sorry, babe, I was in the shower.’
More neighbours have come out onto the road. Concern fills their bodies, informs their movements: arms fold, hands shield eyes from the weak sun, heads bend together, ask each other what’s going on. A patrol car is parking outside my house. The blue light flashes, and stops.
‘Have you seen Abi?’ I ask my neighbours as we run past. ‘My little girl? She’s wandered off.’
‘No, sorry.’
‘Have you seen my little girl?’
‘No, sorry.’
What do I know about that morning? Nothing. Only dread obliterating all coherent thought. Morphing time. Blurring edges. I was I am blind. I was I am deaf. I was I am senseless. Matt was Matt is talking to two police officers on our front path, the blaze of black and fluorescent yellow. The spark of radios, a blue-and-yellow-chequered car was, is parked in our road. Neil was, is with me. He has his arm around me. He is telling me to stay calm, that we’ll find her.
‘Don’t worry, babe,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘This is my wife, Ava,’ Matt is saying now, yesterday, today, a year ago, over and over again. The uniformed police officers on my front path are one woman, one man. Their radios cough and crackle. Black and white. Fluorescent yellow. The air has thinned, shrunk my skin tight.
‘Hello.’ My voice is small and near, strange and far.
‘And this is Neil,’ Matt says. ‘Our close friend. He’s Abi’s godfather.’
Neil holds out his hand, shakes theirs. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘Hi.’
And then we’re in the kitchen: me, Matt and the two police officers. We have had to come through the side gate because the front door has been taped off, the hallway now a potential crime scene. My hallway. Our home. The officers have radioed for more units but I don’t know if I know this yet. Later, I will find out that they have called for search dogs, and for a duty officer, whose name is Bill Simmonds.
But not yet.
Now, we’re sitting at the breakfast bar. I want to scream at them not to sit down, how can anyone sit down – my daughter is out there somewhere and we have no time. We have already lost so much time. The man, whose name is PC Simon Peak, has taken out a notepad. He rests it on his knee. The woman is still standing. Her radio barks with static. She takes it and wanders out through the patio doors into the back garden, around the side of the house.
‘Mrs Atkins,’ PC Peak says. ‘If you can tell me exactly what happened.’
I begin, as best I can, but I haven’t got far before Neil appears at the back door, holding out his hand. His eyes are wet, his face flushed. ‘This was outside on the road.’
