‘I know,’ she says.
They are in this together; they love Edith together with lion-like force. Whatever rows there had ever been between them evaporated when Edith tottered towards them on chubby legs or made a funny face or delighted them in the myriad ways she did, and they would find themselves looking in the same direction, grinning stupidly at their girl. Together. Thank God they are together. The only person in the world who feels as much terror as she does is here, by her side.
She starts to cry. ‘If she’s not all right then I will never be all right.’
‘Darling Miri, come here,’ says Ian, taking her in his arms. ‘We’ll find her. We’ll keep on looking until we find her.’
Manon
Engine’s off and the wind squalls about the car. She should get out, look lively, jog up the steps ready for a new day, but instead she rests her forehead on the steering wheel.
‘Morning,’ says a muffled voice beyond her driver’s side window. Davy, of course, smiling in at her, coffee in hand, the light glowing behind those marvellous ears, like red quotation marks. She winds down the window and a tinny hail of cold rain buffets in.
‘How does my eye look?’ she says, trying hard to open it fully.
‘Looks normal to me. I’ve got you this. Warm you up. Haven’t we got a briefing at eight?’
‘Gimme a minute,’ says Manon.
She winds up the window, using both hands and all the force of her shoulder. Davy has stepped back and is standing beside the car, holding her coffee like a royal attendant. She flips down the sun visor to look in its cloudy mirror. Her left eye is half-closed, red, and sloping downwards as if she’s been punched. She opens the car door. It is perishing cold, the chill cutting into her ankles and toes and about her wrists and neck, making her hunch and tighten. She locks her car, takes her coffee from Davy and they walk up the steps of the station.
‘Come in, both of you,’ says Harriet, from the doorway of her office. She is pulling at her bra straps. It’s as if she’s never comfortable, the upholstery springing a tack.
‘What’s happened to you?’ she says, peering at Manon’s eye.
‘Oh, nothing. Bit sore, that’s all.’
‘Looks like you’ve been beaten up.’
Harriet’s jumpy. The girl has been missing for fifty-four hours now without a single firm lead but about six possible avenues for investigation. There is mercifully still no sign of their boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Gary Stanton, yet interference is palpably not far away: in the air space above them, the vague suspicion that calls might be passing between the Home Office and Cambridgeshire Commissioner Sir Brian Peabody, the odd mention perhaps at Annabelle’s or in the Pugin Room at the House, perhaps some quiet pressure filtering down to the Chief Constable, who will certainly be taking a keen interest. ‘Best brains on this Hind girl, old chap. Wouldn’t want a cock-up on something this big.’
Manon and Davy take up seats in Harriet’s office, Manon nursing her coffee with two hands.
‘What’s happened to her?’ says Harriet, pacing. ‘It’s like she’s evaporated. There’s no CCTV, no sightings …’
‘Where are we with the search?’ asks Davy.
‘Polsa’s widened it beyond Portholme Meadow – more than a hundred officers in all – and sometime today Spartan Rescue are going to start on the River Ouse.’
‘Take a week or two for a body to float up,’ says Manon.
‘What about that Graham Garfield chap, the Director of Studies?’ asks Harriet. ‘He was sniffing about on Saturday night.’
‘His wife says he was home with her after the pub,’ says Manon.
‘Think we have to be a bit circumspect about alibis given by wives and mothers.’
There is silence for a moment.
‘Right, the press conference with the Hinds. We’re going to watch Will Carter, see how he fares. Kim Delaney is trawling River Island for clothes similar to the ones Edith was wearing on Saturday night – jeans and a blue sweatshirt.’
‘Boss?’ says Colin, at the door. ‘We’ve got something.’
They all look at him.
‘Carter had another phone. Phone mast in Huntingdon picked up activity from a T-Mobile number registered to him on Saturday night.’
They all look at each other.
‘What sort of activity?’ asks Harriet.
‘Two calls, one at 5 p.m., another at midnight. That’s all we can tell before the full traces come in, but it puts him in Huntingdon on the night we think Edith disappeared.’
‘Where’s the phone now?’
‘Dunno, it’s switched off.’
‘Have we tracked his car out of Stoke yet?’ asks Manon.
‘No, we haven’t,’ says Harriet. ‘Nigel’s doing some work on the smaller routes, checking alternative cameras. We need to question him on this – no more tea and sympathy.’