Which does nothing but confirm my worst possible fears.
I get up to go, but there’s clearly one more thing on the doctor’s mind. ‘Inspector,’ he says, looking me straight in the eye, ‘kids with FAS often have an unusually high tolerance of pain. So what you can find – sometimes, with some children – is that they take out all that pent-up anger and frustration on themselves. In other words – ’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘They self-harm.’
*
Quinn is just turning off his computer when the call comes through. He wedges the handset against his shoulder as he shuts down his programmes, only half listening. Then he suddenly sits up and grips the phone.
‘Say that again? You’re sure?’
He ploughs into the paper on the desk, looking for a pen.
‘What’s the address? Twenty-one Loughton Road. Got it. Call forensics and tell them I’ll meet them there. Yes, I do know it’s sodding Sunday.’
Then he’s up, seized his jacket and gone.
*
As I draw up outside my house, my phone beeps with an email alert. I open the file and scan it, then I call Everett.
‘Can you get Leo Mason to the Kidlington suite for nine a.m. tomorrow? We’ll need Derek Ross to be the appropriate adult, so can you call him and get that organized as well – tell him sorry, but there’s no alternative. As for Sharon, she can watch on the video feed if she wants, but she can’t be in the room. And if she wants to bring a lawyer, she can do that too, I’m not going to argue the toss on that one. But I want you there. If Leo trusts any of us, he trusts you.’
I’m just getting out of the car when the phone goes again. I can hardly make out the words for the panic.
‘Slow down – where is she – which hospital? OK, don’t worry. We’ll deal with all of that. You just focus on Janet.’
I end the call and stand there for a moment. And when I go into the sitting room a few minutes later Alex looks up and asks me why I’m crying.
*
There’s already a crowd gathering when Quinn gets to Loughton Road. A forensics officer is unravelling blue and white tape across the entrance to the drive and two more are removing items one by one from the skip. Old chairs, rolls of rotting carpet, broken bathroom scales, sheets of crumbling plasterboard. It doesn’t seem to matter how affluent the area, crap still gets dumped in other people’s skips. One of the uniforms directs Quinn to a small middle-aged woman in a loose dress and a pair of black leggings, standing behind the tape. She has her hair up in a messy bun – one of those women who grow their hair but never wear it down. She looks agitated and starts talking before he even gets to her.
‘Oh, Constable – I was the one who called. I wish I’d known about Daisy before – I feel dreadful that it’s taken so long to get in touch with you but we didn’t have a TV in the cottage and I don’t have internet on my phone. It costs so much, doesn’t it, and you can never get a signal on Exmoor anyway – ’
‘Miss Brookes, isn’t it?’ he says, getting out his tablet. ‘I believe you saw a man put something in the skip on Tuesday afternoon? When exactly, do you remember?’
‘Oh, it would have to have been about five. We had wanted to leave earlier, it’s such a long drive, but then I had to pick up some dry-cleaning and there was a queue and what with one thing and another – ’
Jesus, thinks Quinn. Does she ever stop talking?
‘So about five on Tuesday. What did he look like, this man?’
‘Like I said to the other officer, he was in that bright yellow plastic they wear – ’
‘High-viz clothing?’
‘Yes, that’s right. A jacket and a hard hat, and even a face mask, you know, those white ones they use for sanding? The chap who took the Artex off our bathroom ceiling had one just like it. I should have realized, shouldn’t I, that it was a bit odd – I should have called you before. I’m just so worried it might have made a difference – you don’t think so, do you – ?’
‘Can you describe him? Height, weight?’
‘Well, just average, really. He was bending over behind the skip, so I couldn’t see very much.’
‘OK, do you remember anything about what he put in the skip – anything at all?’
‘I’m afraid I wasn’t really concentrating, Officer. Phoebe – that’s our chihuahua – she was barking because she doesn’t really like being in the car, and Elspeth was trying to quieten her down, and some horrible youth had just made a rude gesture at me on my way back from the cleaners because I tooted him when he walked across the road when the lights were on green. I don’t think that’s fair, do you? I had every right to be there – ’
‘The skip, Miss Brookes?’
She considers a moment. ‘Well, all I can say is that whatever it was, he could hold it easily in one hand, so it wasn’t that heavy. And it was wrapped in something. I’m sure of that. Not a plastic bag, though. It didn’t reflect the light. I definitely remember noticing that.’
And so, from decided contempt, Quinn ends up in grudging admiration. And all the more so when a few minutes later one of the forensics team calls him over and lifts something from the skip. Something light enough to lift in one hand and tightly wrapped in sheets of newspaper.
*
When I get to the John Rad, it’s almost dark. I spend ten minutes driving round in circles looking for the right department, and another ten finding somewhere to park. Inside, the corridors are deserted, apart from the odd weary nurse and cleaners pushing trolleys of mops and buckets. Up on the second floor, a motherly woman at the nurses’ station asks me if I’m a relative.
‘No, but I have this.’
She looks at my warrant card and then warily at me. ‘Is there some sort of problem we don’t know about, Inspector?’
‘No, nothing like that. The father – Mr Gislingham – works for me. I just wanted to see how Janet is.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she says, reassured. ‘Well, we won’t know for certain for a while, I’m afraid. She had severe abdominal pains and some bleeding earlier today, so we’re keeping her in.’
‘Could she lose the baby?’
‘We hope not,’ she says, but her face belies her words. At Janet’s age, the odds probably aren’t good. ‘We just don’t know yet. At this stage, there isn’t much we can do but keep her comfortable and trust Nature to right itself. Do you want to see Mr Gislingham for a moment? You did make all this effort to get here.’
I hesitate. I haven’t been in a maternity ward since Jake was born. We have a video of the birth – his tight little face hollering for his first air, his tiny fists opening and closing, and that tuft of dark hair he never lost even though they all told us he would. I’ve hidden the tape in the loft. I can’t bear the happiness. Its unbearable fragility.
The nurse is eyeing me, her face full of concern. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Sorry. I’m just tired. I really don’t want to disturb them.’
‘Last time I looked, your colleague was asleep in the chair. But let’s have a quick peek. He may be glad of a friendly face.’
I follow her down the corridor, trying not to see the cots, the dazed new dads. Janet’s in a room on her own. When I look through the glass panel in the door the curtains are drawn and she’s asleep, one hand curled round her belly and the blanket balled up in the other. Gislingham is on the chair at the end of the bed, his head thrown back. He looks dreadful, his face grey and shrunk in shadows.
‘I won’t disturb him. That’s not going to do any good.’
She smiles kindly. ‘OK, Inspector.’ She pats me on the arm. ‘I’ll make sure to tell him you were here.’
She chose the right profession – she’s just the person you’d want around you if you’d just had a child. Or if you’d lost one.
*
16 April 2016, 10.25 a.m.
94 days before the disappearance