She’s on the verge of hysteria. It’s bubbling up inside her and it takes everything she’s got not to lose it because she knows that won’t help her daughter. This white-hot blind panic is like nothing she’s ever experienced before.
Emilia’s at Jonas’s house now, the house that used to be hers, where Jasmine took her first steps, said her first words. She’d rung her ex-husband from the car to tell him everything, and Elliot had dropped her there.
‘I’ll take Wilfie with me,’ he’d said, without getting out of the car. ‘Just in case she comes home. But let me know immediately you hear anything, okay?’
She’d nodded tearfully, and when Kristin opened the door, she’d wordlessly pulled Emilia into her arms. She’d been too surprised and upset to reject the hug.
Now Kristin is seated at the small kitchen table, ashen-faced, while Jonas paces the room. Nancy’s parents, Marcie and Frank, are with them, standing at the sink. Marcie is silently crying and Frank has his strong, beefy arms around her shoulders.
‘I’ve called around all her friends,’ says Frank. ‘Nobody seems to have any idea where they are.’
Emilia knows calling their small group of studious friends wouldn’t have taken long. Jasmine finds it hard to branch out and make new friends. It’s something they’ve talked about a lot.
‘Should we call the police?’ says Emilia, even though she doesn’t want to because then this becomes real. And she so doesn’t want it to be real, just a figment of her imagination. A plot in one of her books. According to their friends, the girls had been in school yesterday and had left at the normal time of 3.30 p.m. But now it was midday and they’d been gone for nearly twenty hours.
‘Won’t they just say that the girls are obviously together?’ says Frank.
‘They’ve been away all night,’ wails Marcie. ‘That’s not normal for them.’
‘I agree,’ says Emilia, trying to sound strong, but her hand trembles as she gets out her phone. ‘I have a friend in the force. I’m going to speak to her.’
She moves off into the narrow hallway as she dials Louise’s number and wants to cry in relief when her friend picks up immediately.
‘Hey, lovely,’ says Louise, cheerfully.
‘Lou …’ She swallows. Her throat is dry and scratchy, thick with unshed tears. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m at home. Why? What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Jasmine. She’s missing.’ And then she launches into everything that’s happened.
‘Right. Okay. It sounds like they’ve just gone off together somewhere so try not to panic. Where are you now? Are you at home?’
‘No. I’m at Jonas’s house in Twickenham.’
‘Okay. Is Elliot with you?’
‘No, just me, Jonas, Kristin and Nancy’s parents.’
‘Right. Okay. I’m coming over now. What’s the address?’
Emilia reels it off, and Louise says she’ll be over as soon as she can. Emilia is thankful that she lives close by. She tries to fight the guilt that she’s asking this favour of her busy friend at the weekend.
‘What will she be able to do?’ asks Jonas, when Emilia joins the rest of them in the kitchen.
‘She’s a detective in the Met. I can’t think of anyone better, can you?’
Nobody speaks. The only sound to be heard is the odd sob coming from Marcie.
Eventually, after what feels like years but is more like half an hour, the doorbell rings and Kristin jumps up to answer it, Emilia following close behind. Louise is in her off-duty clothes of jeans and a sweatshirt with a dog on the front. Her short dark hair looks freshly washed and is still damp. She’s wearing no make-up. Kristin steps forwards. ‘Hello, again,’ she says.
Louise nods curtly and walks into the hallway. The prickly vibe Emilia had picked up between them at her launch is still there. But she hasn’t the brain space to think about that now. All she cares about is finding Jasmine.
‘This is DC Louise Greene,’ says Emilia, when they get back to the kitchen, and then she watches, impressed, as her friend switches into detective mode.
‘Now,’ says Louise, standing by the sink and addressing them all. They crowd around her, like eager pupils. ‘I’m afraid that I can only be here as a friend and in an advisory capacity, but on the way over I called my colleague at your local station and gave the details and this address. Someone will be here shortly. But, in the meantime, can any of you think why Jasmine and Nancy would lie? They’re obviously off somewhere together.’
‘I’m scared they’ve been kidnapped.’ It’s out of Emilia’s mouth before she can stop it. She can’t help but voice it, this deep-seated fear. But Marcie and Frank look horrified.
‘Let’s try not to be too melodramatic,’ begins Kristin.
But Louise has cut across her, calmly addressing Emilia: ‘You have to remember abductions are vanishingly rare. The fact that both girls have lied makes me think they’ve snuck off somewhere together. Where could they have gone?’
Emilia can’t think. She feels inert with panic and anxiety, like a deer that’s wandered into the middle of a motorway and doesn’t know what to do, except stare at the oncoming cars.
Marcie turns her tear-stained face towards Louise. ‘I’ve rung around their friends. Nobody has seen them since the end of school yesterday. Nancy has started going out with this boy …’
Emilia stands up straighter. She remembers Jasmine telling her about him. Jake Someone. It had surprised Emilia because both girls are shy and feel left out of that whole party scene. She’d told her daughter there was plenty of time for parties, getting drunk and snogging boys. She hadn’t done anything like that until she’d gone to university and met Jonas, mainly because she’d been at a single-sex boarding school.
‘What’s his name?’ barks Louise, and even in her red sweatshirt with the Labradoodle on the front, she exudes power.
Marcie wipes a tear from her cheek. ‘Jake Radley. He’s in their year at school, I think, and runs with the popular crowd. I was surprised when Nance said he liked her.’ She suppresses a sob. ‘Not because she isn’t beautiful. She’s my baby girl …’ Frank hugs his wife harder.
Emilia knows exactly what Marcie is getting at. She’s heard of Jake Radley. He’s one of the most popular boys in Jasmine’s year. She hadn’t realized it was that Jake when Jasmine told her Nancy had a boyfriend. He’s not the kind to be interested in Nancy, Jasmine, and their studious, geeky crowd.
Just then the doorbell rings and Louise runs to answer it. Jonas moves to stand closer to Emilia, takes her hand. ‘It will be okay,’ he says, but she notices the fear in his blue eyes and feels bonded to him in that moment due to their shared panic. From across the room Kristin clears her throat and Jonas drops Emilia’s hand.
Louise returns with a young woman in police uniform, her caramel-highlighted hair pulled back in a sensible low ponytail. ‘This is PC Bryan,’ she says. ‘Can you tell her everything you told me?’
Emilia and Marcie take turns to fill her in. A frown crosses her fine features when Emilia tells her about the hoax phone call from the hospital. She asks for Jake’s address and strides out of the room, talking into her mobile. When she’s ended the call she comes back into the kitchen and stands beside Louise. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this,’ she says, and Emilia thinks that this woman can’t possibly understand how they’re feeling. She doesn’t look older than twenty-five. ‘Please try not to worry. Now, is anything going on this weekend that the girls wanted to go to? A party, perhaps? Or a concert?’