I force myself to take John Keats for a walk on the Heath. I watch people running round the athletics track, and John steals another dog’s ball.
When I return, it is 1.30 p.m. and she’s still not here. I make a sandwich I can’t eat.
I check in with Nin again. She says she supposes Emma could have gone to a marine ecology event in Plymouth, but she doesn’t sound convinced – pulling a sickie just so she can sneak off to her other employer is not the sort of thing Emma would do. I hear myself agreeing with her, but what do I know about my wife?
‘Will you let me know?’ Nin asks, and it’s then that I really begin to worry. ‘When you find her, will you message me?’
I promise I will.
I sit down with a notebook and make a list of the places Emma might be.
Jill’s
Jeremy Rothschild’s
Her therapist’s
Marine conference Plymouth
On the Heath/ladies’ pond
With one of her Mum Friends
With one of her other friends.
I feel better when I’ve finished this. There are many people and places to check, and by the time I’ve got through them, she’ll probably be home.
I find the Plymouth event first and give them a call. Several people are no help at all, but eventually I’m passed to someone who says he works with Emma when she’s in Plymouth, and she is definitely not there. ‘We’d have loved to have her here today!’ he says.
Her therapist tells me she cannot talk to me about Emma, but that if I am concerned I must call the police, and maybe Jill. I end the call as quickly as I can. That woman will know far more about me than is comfortable.
I try the two mum friends for whom I have numbers, but she’s not with them. They sound borderline excited that I’ve lost my wife. I promise more and more people I’ll keep them posted. Nin texts for an update. On the edge of all of their responses, I notice, is an unspoken suggestion that she might perhaps be having a serious depressive episode – something more weighty than the Times we are all used to – and that I should escalate my search if she doesn’t appear soon.
I try Jill, but there’s no reply. I text her, asking her to phone me.
Sheila calls again.
From the moment I got off the plane at Luton four days ago until 9am this morning, Emma has done nothing but text me. She’s been desperate to talk. What has happened? I begin to feel the first movements of real fear inside me.
I try Jill again but she’s still not reachable, so I decide to go and pick Ruby up early. I feel uneasy knowing that Ruby is only semi-accounted for herself.
Ruby is wild when I pick her up, almost as if she knows something serious is going on. She dances sideways up the street, before having a bellowing meltdown when I refuse to buy an ice cream from the fancy gelato place. She tells me she hates me, and even kicks my ankle.
I bend down in front of her on the pavement. Where is your mother? I want to shout. What has she done? Instead I pull her to me and hug her tightly. We piggyback all the way up the hill to our house, which is helpful, because the strain of carrying a three-year-old up a long hill is just about enough to keep my mind busy.
The house is empty. John Keats is in his bed listening to the jungle I left on for him; he thumps his tail lazily before falling back to sleep. Nothing in the kitchen has been moved.
Ruby passes out on the sofa so I take her up to bed for a nap. As I emerge from her room I think I hear the front door – thank God! Thank God. But when I race out to the landing, I see it’s just a leaflet for a kebab shop.
I call Emma again, while Ruby naps, and this time I hear it: the sound of a vibrating phone. I have only called her from downstairs today. In my panic I hadn’t even noticed that her handbag is on our bed, and her phone is in her handbag. It’s there with her wallet and an overstuffed A5 envelope with nothing written on the front. I can’t say for certain but I’m pretty sure this envelope was in her bag on Friday evening, when I got her phone out.