AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I run. The metallic taste of blood fills the dry cave of my mouth. Past the Parkers and the Smiths. The chap with the camper van has left. Outside my own house yet again, I stand with my hands on my hips, panting, trying to think. Next door’s Mercedes has gone. She works in Surbiton, leaves early; he works in town, takes the train. The other-side neighbours’ Porsche has gone; they leave together, kids in the back. Lovegood, I think their name is. I think of our own rusty Volkswagen and Neil’s big white van:Johnson’s Quality Buildswritten in green on the side, and I think of how Neil, Bella and Matt are more a part of this town than anyone here, though they seem like the outsiders now – their cars, their voices don’t match, and I think: why am I thinking about that now?
And here, in this tortured present, what I’m thinking is: why aren’t you running to the river, Ava? Why, when you were going to feed the ducks? Why haven’t you thought of that?
But I do not run to the river. I am for the moment rooted to the spot. Abi will be somewhere, is what I’m thinking. She’ll be in the front garden or in the house. Playing a trick. Boo! she will say. You didn’t see me, did you, Mummy?
‘Abi!’
Too many minutes have evaporated now into the steam of my boiling panic. Too long, too long. She should have appeared by now. I am running again. Up to the end, back again, the sense that I have done this too many times now, that I’m repeating the same action with the hope of a different outcome. Past number 76, 78, 80. Second by second. Beat by beat. The beats get louder, a pounding, drumming rhythm. My heart. My little girl’s heart. Hearts beating. Clocks ticking. A metronome keeping time, a melody accelerating. Sand slipping, slipping away.
Sweat pricks on my forehead. She must be around here somewhere. She couldn’t have walked as far as the main road. There’s no way she’d have made it, no way she would have dared to go as far as the river.
No way.
I’m outside our house again. When did I go upstairs? Let’s be logical. Let’s slow this down. Eight? Five to? I clipped her into her buggy and I went upstairs. She won’t have made a bolt for it immediately. If she became bored and unfastened that clasp, it would have been ten, fifteen minutes later. So she’s probably been missing for maybe twenty-five minutes, maybe longer…
Crying fat rolling tears, I call Matt. Second by second, beat by beat. The long discordant ringtone. The silence. The ringtone. The silence. My own sobs bang against my ribs. The ringtone. He won’t hear it. He’ll be at work by now. He had a meeting at 9.30. A new project, a factory conversion somewhere in the East End. He won’t hear his—
‘Ava?’
‘Matt!’ My voice is high and shaky, my breath short. I am gasping for air, marching through the house, pulling open the kitchen cupboard doors.
‘Ava? Are you OK?’
The broom cupboard is empty, the store cupboard empty.
‘Matt! I can’t find Abi!’
She’s not under the kitchen bar. She’s not under one of the stools pretending to be a lion in a cage.
‘What d’you mean, you can’t find her?’
‘She’s not under the couch!’
‘Not under the couch? What?’
‘She undid her buggy clasp.’
‘What? OK. Ava? Ava, can you just—’
‘I left the front door open. I left the door open, Matt, and she’s… Oh God, the oven is empty, oh thank God.’
‘Ava, slow down. Just tell me what’s going on.’
‘Abi’s gone. She’s just… disappeared. She must’ve wandered out. I only popped upstairs. Literally. I just went to get my phone. There’s no sign of her. There’s no sign of her, Matt.’ I try the back door. Locked. I unlock it. I am in the garden.
‘Abi?’ I press my nose to the window of the shed. ‘Abi?’
This is mad. There’s no way she can access the back. But still I scrutinise the border plants, the chaotic mass of ivy that foams over the entire left-hand fence. Rain speckles the sliding patio doors.
‘She’s probably hiding.’ Matt’s voice is calm, the voice of reason. ‘You know what she’s like. Have you tried upstairs?’
‘Not yet.’ I’m back inside. My trainers pound up the stairs. ‘I don’t know where to look first, Matt. I don’t know where to look for the best. Should I be outside? Do you think she’d walk as far as the main road?’
‘Have you been outside?’
‘Yes. She was nowhere. She’s not in our bedroom.’
‘Have you looked by the bins?’
