‘It’s fine.’ I was worried about Chloe and Bethany too. I remembered them holding hands while we searched the house. I remembered the look of terror on Chloe’s face when we’d turned up at the Norrises’ house to make arrests. I’d thought it was the early hour and the general upheaval, but I was re-evaluating it, and fast. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
All the lights were on at Oliver Norris’s house, blazing a distress signal across the street. I rang the doorbell, hoping that Una Burt had told them I was on my way. Whether she had or not, Eleanor Norris snatched the door open, the hope dying on her face as she saw I was alone.
‘No news,’ I said, sincerely apologetic.
‘I just thought …’ She swallowed. ‘Sorry. Come in.’
‘Thanks.’ I paused for a second in the hall. ‘We’ve got lots of people out looking for them. Not only the local police – it’s gone out across the Met. Every briefing will include their pictures and descriptions.’
Eleanor nodded but she didn’t look particularly comforted. And really, I could understand it. The girls could be anywhere with a few hours’ start.
I followed Eleanor down to the kitchen, where Morgan Norris was standing by the window, looking out into the dark garden, tapping a car key on the countertop mindlessly.
‘I should go out and look for them.’
‘Ollie’s only just come back,’ Eleanor said.
‘So? He didn’t find them, did he?’ He glanced back over his shoulder and saw me. ‘Oh. It’s you.’
‘I came to see if there was anything I could do.’
‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough?’ He turned around fully, folding his arms across his chest: angry, I thought, despite the way he’d smiled and flirted through his interview.
‘I’m doing my job.’
‘That’s convenient for you, isn’t it? You can use it as an excuse for terrifying two young girls into running away. How do you think they felt, seeing me and Ollie dragged away at dawn, not knowing where we were or what was going to happen to us?’
‘We hardly dragged you,’ I said drily. ‘And you were back by the end of the day. I don’t know what you told them about it, but there was nothing to scare them away.’
‘I didn’t tell them anything. I wasn’t allowed to.’ He shot a vindictive look at his sister-in-law. ‘I knew it would be better to fill in the details than to leave them thinking the worst.’
‘I didn’t want Bethany to hear the details of how that whore seduced you, and if you had any sense, you wouldn’t have wanted it either. You should be ashamed of yourself.’ Eleanor was shaking, I noticed.
‘I’m sure you’re right. It might have been slightly awkward to tell Chloe what happened too, since it was her mother I fucked.’
‘Morgan!’
‘Oh, come on, Eleanor. We’re all grown-ups here, aren’t we?’ He was watching her as if he was interested in seeing what kind of reaction he could provoke. I felt chilled without knowing why. ‘That’s what we did. You couldn’t say it was making love or whatever phrase you like to use.’
‘There’s no need to be crude.’
‘You know, I don’t like Ollie much, but I feel fucking sorry for him sometimes. I can almost—’
She stared at him, hurt and angry. ‘Almost what?’
‘Nothing.’ He smiled. ‘Nothing, Eleanor dear. I’m sure you’re the perfect wife in every way.’
‘Stop going on about it. And stop talking about – about being with her. I don’t want to think about it.’ Eleanor turned away, her face pale.
Morgan looked at me. ‘Is this what you wanted?’
‘I wanted the truth.’
‘And you got it. How much further did it get you? Any answers? No? Thought not.’
I passionately wanted to know whether Oliver Norris had confessed to his wife too. ‘Was there much discussion of your trip to the police station? Would the girls have overheard you talking about it?’
‘No.’ Eleanor looked wretched. ‘I waited until Bethany was at school before I spoke to Morgan. And I haven’t even seen Ollie. He came back so late he slept on the sofa, and he had already left for work before I got up. I rang him when I realised the girls were gone.’
‘So where is he now?’
‘He was having a shower.’ She looked up at the ceiling, listening. ‘I can’t hear the water running any more. I’m sure he’ll be down in a minute. He’s been driving round looking for them. He was so upset when he got back.’
‘It’s strange he didn’t manage to fill you in on his interview,’ Morgan said silkily. ‘Almost as if he’d been avoiding you.’
She whirled around. ‘Shut up. You don’t know anything about it.’
A clatter on the stairs made me look round: Oliver Norris, smelling of shower gel and deodorant, his hair slicked back. He was buckling the belt on his jeans. He hadn’t even waited to put on his shoes, as if my presence was an emergency.
‘Why is she here?’ The question was addressed to his wife but I answered.
‘To see if there was anything I could do to help. And to ask if I can search their rooms.’
‘The police have already checked they’re not here.’
‘I want to search for anything that might tell us where they’ve gone.’
‘The answer’s no.’
My eyebrows shot up. ‘Even if it helps to locate them?’
‘I don’t want you poking around in my house. If you want to search, get another warrant.’ He pushed past Eleanor to get to the fridge. She was standing stock-still, apparently shocked into immobility by the mere sight of her husband, and she staggered a little when he knocked into her. He didn’t pause to see if she was all right, or apologise.
‘We’ve been talking about the girls,’ I said calmly. ‘Do you know why they ran away?’
‘No.’ He twisted open a bottle of water, managing to make it look like a threat.
‘Where did you go, Ollie?’ Eleanor asked. She wasn’t even looking at him, as if she didn’t dare. She went to the cupboard and found a glass, setting it on the table near him.
‘The school. Around the neighbourhood. Over to Richmond and back by New Malden.’ The anger broke through in his voice. ‘They could be anywhere by now, though.’
‘They can’t have gone too far,’ I said. ‘They don’t have a car, so they’ll be on public transport or on foot, and if it’s public transport we’ll be able to track them easily enough. We’re looking out for them to use a bank card or their phones. We will find them.’
‘I bet that’s what you always say.’ Norris poured the water into the glass and gulped at it again. ‘But kids go missing every year.’
‘Sometimes they don’t want to be found, which makes it all the more important to find out why they disappeared in the first place.’
‘If we knew that, we’d tell you,’ Eleanor said. ‘We don’t know. There was no reason for it. Except that of course Chloe must have been disturbed by what happened to her mother. It’s awful. I’ve been having nightmares about it and I didn’t even see anything.’ Her hand went up and clawed at her neck where the stress rash was starting to show. I wondered if it was caused by me, murder, or her husband, or if it was the effect of all three combined.
‘We should never have let them spend so much time together.’ Oliver Norris sat down at the table. ‘We shouldn’t have let Chloe stay in this house.’