I tell him what has happened.
‘What the fuck? Who’s doing this? I’m calling the police.’
‘No! She said come alone or there’ll be consequences for Henry. She might hurt him if she realises we’ve called the police. I just need to get to him, to see he’s all right. The police can come later.’ If at all.
‘Right, we’ll go in my car. Thank God I’m working from home today. Where are you?’
Fifteen minutes later we’re on our way. At every red light, I grind my teeth a little harder, my jaw wound tight.
‘Oh God, oh God. What if Maria hurts him?’
‘He’ll be OK. It’s just someone trying to scare you.’ He doesn’t sound convinced though and I can see the tremor in his hands as he changes gear. He’s as frightened for Henry as I am, he’s just trying to be strong for me. ‘But Lou… you can’t really think that Maria’s still alive?’
I shrug, stare out of the window, dig my nails into my palm.
‘I’ll come in with you,’ he says after a few minutes.
‘No! You can’t, I have to go alone.’ If I don’t, I know what will happen. Maria’s already stepped over the line; done the unthinkable and taken my child. If she told me I had to cut my leg off to save him, I’d do it in a heartbeat. ‘You’ll have to wait outside.’
Sam looks at me with real concern.
‘This could be dangerous. You’ve no idea who’s in there.’
‘I don’t care. All I care about is getting Henry out of there. I don’t care what happens to me. I never have. No one does.’
‘Don’t say that. I care what happens to you.’
I think of Sam’s way of caring for me. I am better off without it.
‘And I’m not the only one,’ he goes on. ‘Lots of people care about you.’
‘But none of them really know me, do they? If they knew what I’d done, they wouldn’t care quite so much, would they?’
‘You’ve never given them the chance, Lou. Like you never gave me the chance. Even though I knew what you’d done, even though I was part of it, you still held me at a distance.’
‘I wasn’t holding you at a distance.’ Tears are starting to flow unchecked down my face now. ‘I had no choice, I was at a distance anyway. I’ve always been at a distance, from everything, ever since Maria disappeared. Being with you made it a bit better, I didn’t feel so far away, because you knew, at least you knew who I was. So when you left me…’ I can’t speak, great sobs wracking me. Sam reaches out a hand and takes mine, the contours as familiar to me as those of my own hand. I pull mine back and brush fiercely at my eyes, wiping away the tears.
‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘Don’t touch me.’
He puts his hand back on the steering wheel and we drive in silence.
I wish that there was someone else to support me, that Sam wasn’t the only person in my corner. I wonder whether he has ever been in my corner or if, and maybe this is true of most people, the only corner he is really in is his own.
We speed down the A11 in silence as the Norfolk landscape unfolds around us, the huge skies and endless fields pulling me back to them once more. The journey has never felt so long. There’s an old train ticket in my bag and I tear it into pieces as we race along, each scrap tinier than the last. Neither of us knows Woodside Street, so as we enter the outskirts of Sharne Bay, I check the map on my phone again. We turn left off the main road onto an estate of boxy modern houses, all neatly tended gardens and sensible cars. Woodside Street is the third on the right and we drive slowly down between the bungalows.
‘Don’t get too close,’ I say, panicking as we pass number 11. ‘Stop here.’
Sam pulls over and already I’m opening the door, running down the street.
‘Louise!’ he calls after me.
‘Stay there,’ I shout, leaving him looking desperately after me. I am zinging with electricity; if anyone touches me they’ll get thrown back like someone who’s put a knife in the toaster. After these last few weeks of hiding, running, reacting, there’s something almost freeing about doing something positive, taking back some of the control that has been wrested from me. I run down the street: 19, 21, 23, 25, 27. And then I’m there. Number 29 looks innocuously back at me. Whereas the other houses glow invitingly from behind closed curtains, the windows at number 29 are blank and unlit. I open the rusty gate and make my way up the path. The front garden is mostly paving stones with a few drooping weeds forcing their way up between the cracks. It’s bordered by a narrow strip of flowerbed that looks as if it was once well cared for, but has been recently neglected.
The front door is blue, with two panes of frosted diamond-patterned glass in the top half. I am raising my hand to ring the bell, quickly before I can change my mind, when I realise that the door is ajar. Slowly, I push it open, reminding myself to breathe. The door gives a slow creak. I step inside, my boots squeaking on the dusty laminate floor, the sound echoing round the narrow hallway. There’s a musty, unused smell of damp and long days with nothing to do.
The bungalow is double-fronted, and there is a doorway either side of me. I take a few steps further in, my ears straining for any sound in the silence. Cautiously I peer into the room on the left. It’s the living room. By the light of the streetlamp outside I can see an old-fashioned green three-piece suite clustered around a glass-topped coffee table. A pine sideboard holds dusty trophies and china ornaments, and on the top shelf, sitting alone, I can just make out a photograph in a silver frame, elaborately curlicued. It’s the face I’ve been looking at onscreen for the last few weeks: Maria’s school photo. I step back and turn to look into the room on the opposite side of the hallway. It’s also dark and empty, and looks like a spare bedroom, a double bed with a peach frilled eiderdown the only furniture.