As the plane bumped clumsily onto the tarmac, my fantasy annoyance crumbled into sickening anxiety. God became the hero in a children’s fairy story. My powers as an older sister dwindled to still impotency. I remembered viscerally Leo’s death. Grief like swallowed offal made me wretch. I couldn’t lose you too.
The window is surprisingly huge for an office, and spring sunshine floods through it.
“So you made a connection between Tess’s disappearance and Leo’s death?” Mr. Wright asks.
“No.”
“You said you thought about Leo?”
“I think about Leo all the time. He was my brother.” I’m tired of going through this. “Leo died of cystic fibrosis when he was eight. Tess and I didn’t inherit it, we were born perfectly healthy.”
Mr. Wright tries to turn off the glaring overhead light, but for some reason it won’t switch off. He shrugs at me apologetically and sits down again.
“And then what happened?” he asks.
“Mum met me and I went to the police station.”
“Can you tell me about that?”
Mum was waiting at the arrivals gate wearing her Jaeger camel coat. As I got closer, I saw that she hadn’t brushed her hair, and her makeup was clumsily applied. I know; I hadn’t seen her that way since Leo’s funeral.
“I got a taxi all the way from Little Hadston. Your plane was late.”
“Only ten minutes, Mum.”
All around us lovers and relatives and friends were hugging each other, reunited. We were physically awkward with each other. I don’t think we even kissed.
“She might have been trying to phone while I’ve been gone,” Mum said.
“She’ll try again.”
But I’d checked my mobile countless times since the plane had landed.
“Ridiculous of me,” continued Mum. “I don’t know why I should expect her to phone. She’s virtually given up calling me. Too much bother, I suppose.” I recognized the crust of annoyance. “And when was the last time she made the effort to visit?”
I wondered when she’d move on to pacts with God.
I rented a car. It was only six in the morning, but the traffic was already heavy on the M4 into London, the frustrated, angry crawl of the absurdly named rush hour made even slower because of the snow. We were going straight to the police station. I couldn’t make the heater work, and our words were spoken puffs hanging briefly in the cold air between us. “Have you already talked to the police?” I asked.
Mum’s words seemed to pucker in the air with annoyance. “Yes, for all the good it did. What would I know about her life?”
“Do you know who told them she was missing?”
“Her landlord. Amias something or other,” Mum replied.
Neither of us could remember his surname. It struck me as strange that it was your elderly landlord who reported you missing to the police.
“He told them that she’d been getting nuisance calls,” said Mum.
Despite the freezing car, I felt clammy with sweat. “What kind of nuisance calls?”
“They didn’t say,” said Mum. I looked at her. Her pale, anxious face showed around the edge of her foundation, a middle-aged geisha in Clinique bisque.
It was seven-thirty but still winter dark when we arrived at the Notting Hill police station. The roads were jammed, but the newly gritted pavements were almost empty. The only time I’d been in a police station before was to report the loss of my mobile phone; it hadn’t even been stolen. I never went past the reception area. This time I was escorted behind reception into an alien world of interview rooms and cells and police wearing belts loaded with truncheons and handcuffs. It had no connection to you.
“And you met Detective Sergeant Finborough?” Mr. Wright asks.
“Yes.”
“What did you think of him?”
I choose my words carefully. “Thoughtful. Thorough. Decent.”
Mr. Wright is surprised, but quickly hides it. “Can you remember any of that initial interview?”
“Yes.”
To start with, I was dazed by your disappearance, but then my senses became overly acute; I saw too many details and too many colors, as if the world were animated by Pixar. Other senses were also on heightened alert; I heard the clank of the clock’s hand, a chair leg scraping on linoleum. I could smell cigarette smoke clinging to a jacket on the door. It was white noise turned up full volume, as if my brain could no longer tune out what didn’t matter. Everything mattered.
Mum had been taken off by a policewoman for a cup of tea, and I was alone with DS Finborough. His manner was courteous, old-fashioned even. He seemed more Oxbridge don than policeman. Outside the window I could see it was sleeting.
“Is there any reason you can think of why your sister may have gone away?” he asked.
“No. None.”
“Would she have told you?”
“Yes.”
“You live in America?”
“We phone and e-mail each other all the time.”
“So you’re close.”
“Very.”
Of course we are close. Different, yes, but close. The age gap has never meant distance between us.
“When did you last speak to her?” he asked.
“Last Monday, I think. On Wednesday we went away to the mountains, just for a few days. I did try phoning her from a restaurant a few times, but her landline was always engaged; she can chat to her friends for hours.” I tried to feel irritated—after all, it’s me that pays your phone bill—trying to feel an old familiar emotion.
“What about her mobile?”
“She lost it about two months ago, or it was stolen. She’s very scatty like that.” Again trying to feel irritated. DS Finborough paused a moment, thinking of the right way to phrase it. His manner was considerate. “So you think her disappearance is not voluntary?” he asked.
“Not voluntary.” Gentle words for something violent. In that first meeting no one said the word abduction or murder. A silent understanding had been reached between DS Finborough and me. I appreciated his tact; it was too soon to name it. I forced out my question. “My mother told me she’d been getting nuisance calls?”
“According to her landlord, yes, she has. Unfortunately, she hadn’t given him any details. Has Tess told you anything about them?”
“No.”
“And she didn’t say anything to you about feeling frightened or threatened?” he asked.
“No. Nothing like that. She was normal, happy.” I had my own question. “Have you checked all the hospitals?” As I asked it, I heard the rudeness and implicit criticism. “I just thought she might have gone into labor early.”
DS Finborough put his coffee down, the sound made me jump.
“We didn’t know she was pregnant.”
Suddenly there was a lifebelt and I swam for it. “If she went into labor early, she could be in hospital. You wouldn’t have checked the maternity wards, would you?”
“We ask hospitals to check all their inpatients, which would include maternity,” he replied and the lifebelt slipped away.
“When’s the baby due?” he asked.
“In just under three weeks.”
“Do you know who the father is?”
“Yes. Emilio Codi. He’s a tutor at her art college.”
I didn’t pause, not for a heartbeat. The time for discretion was over. DS Finborough didn’t show any surprise, but then maybe that’s part of police training.