Although she still felt the physical exhaustion that had troubled her since the morning, she was too restless to lie down. Instead, she sat on the sofa for a while, listening to the radio and sipping automatically at a small glass of whisky. Then she began to go through Edward’s large walnut desk which they had put in a back bedroom. She did so with a methodical bitterness, knowing that if there was anything there that was incriminating in any way, it was essential that she found it before MI5 did. And so she went through every paper, every notebook, and then through every garment in the wardrobe and every coat hanging in the hall, checking pockets, feeling linings. She found letters from Giles and Alistair, which they had sent to him in Washington, and through them she read for the first time the sad story of Giles’s downfall. She found a card from Nick, wishing him luck on his work at the American Department – ‘though I feel the charms of the Newfoundland have palled on you in more ways than one!’ – and she took the card and burned it in the grate, pounding the ashes with the poker until they were a tiny heap of nothing. She found lines of poetry that Edward had scribbled in the back of a notebook over the last few months, featuring trains and gardens, hills and birdsong, and heard his voice in them. At dawn she ate a piece of the pathetic birthday cake, and fell asleep on the sofa, only waking at about noon.
It would have been quite in character for her to have telephoned Sybil or Winifred during the day, but she held herself away from the telephone, in case they asked about Edward, in case someone had heard that Nick had disappeared – in case the chase began. It was raining, a dreary drizzle, but she made herself walk down to the village and pick up some provisions she did not need in the local store. She stood in the shop for a while, talking to the tall untidy woman she knew a little, who said she was thinking of setting up an amateur dramatic society in Patsfield. Would Laura be interested? After the baby, obviously. Laura was not interested, but she was glad to talk, to hear about the plans, to walk slowly by the woman’s side back down the high street. Letting herself into the house, its silence oppressed her. She could not bear to make herself a meal, but stood by the kitchen table, eating handfuls of raw peas, and then two more slices of the cake, the crumbs falling onto her belly. Even though she knew it was a dangerous thing to do, she couldn’t help herself, she needed to speak to someone, and she went to telephone her mother.
‘No, nothing is wrong yet, but I wondered – you know, I just have a feeling that it’s going to happen soon. I know we planned for you to come next week, when the Caesarean is booked, but how would you feel—?’
‘I’ll see if I can change the flight,’ Mother said. Her immediate response threw Laura back in her mind to that time four years ago when her mother had risen to the crisis after the stillbirth. As she replaced the telephone receiver, she found herself kneeling on the floor in the hall, gripping her own wrists painfully in an effort to keep hold of her calm.
The next morning, she went to church. She had been in once or twice before, for Easter and carol services. She liked the whitewashed simplicity of its interior, the airy setting up on the hill. But the regular congregants were standoffish with her, since neither she nor Edward were regulars. There was no presence there for her in the coloured glass and the scent of lilac, but it was good to be with other people and she stayed this time for the coffee and cookies, seeing again the woman who had talked to her about the amateur theatrics. When she got back to the house, she went straight to the darkroom. She had found some old negatives among Edward’s papers, old photographs from school. As she printed the pictures, she saw his young face looking up at her, unshadowed.
It was another sleepless night, characterised by fear and heartburn. But finally she could act: at nine in the morning she telephoned the Foreign Office and asked for Edward, and when she was told he was not there, she asked if she could speak to Archie Platt. Her mouth seemed dry as she said that she had not seen Edward since Friday evening and had thought he must have stayed the weekend in town. ‘I hope he’s not ill or …’
‘God, what a time for him to behave like this,’ Archie said. ‘I’ll pass the word along and we’ll have him ring as soon as he gets in.’
The prints in the darkroom were dry. She brought one to the house and propped it on the mantelpiece. She did not think Edward had taken a photograph of her with him. But maybe that was a sign that he didn’t think they would be long parted. She threw the stale cake in the bin before Helen came and changed her dress which, she suddenly realised, catching sight of herself in the hall mirror, she had worn all weekend; it had a stain on the front. She must look normal; she must look as though she had slept, as though she was the usual Laura.
It was after lunch when Archie finally rang back, a new tension in his usually lazy voice. ‘Look, everyone’s a bit concerned that he hasn’t turned up here either. Could I put Spall on the telephone? He’s one of our chaps – looks after this kind of thing.’ The receiver was slippery in Laura’s hand as she waited for Bill Spall to come on the telephone and introduce himself. He asked her when she had last seen Edward and where he had said he was going.