‘You have to find her, that’s what you have to do. Find her. Stop posturing and just bloody well find her—’ says Ian, stopped by tears which seem to ambush him.
Miriam’s gaze has settled on DS Bradshaw, who is leaning against the closed door, her hands behind her back. Beautiful curls, unruly. She’s always observing, and she now returns Miriam’s gaze, though neither woman smiles.
‘We feel,’ says DI Harper, ‘that you would be more comfortable back at home, rather than holed up in a hotel in Huntingdon surrounded by the press.’
‘What you’re saying is, you’re giving up,’ says Ian. ‘You’re closing down the search and you don’t want me breathing down your neck.’
‘Absolutely not,’ says Stanton. ‘This is not, in any way, a scaling down of the case. The search for Edith will continue at full tilt and you will be kept fully informed by your liaison officer.’
‘Great, you’re sending us away with a depressed shadow,’ says Ian. ‘Do we get to keep her for Christmas?’
‘Ian,’ says Miriam, almost in a whisper.
‘Your liaison officer is there to support you. We simply don’t feel it’s sensible to keep you in Huntingdon,’ says Stanton. ‘But please be reassured this is not a scaling down of the case.’
Of course it bloody is, thinks Miriam.
‘I won’t allow this to go cold,’ says Ian. ‘I won’t allow you to stop searching for our child. If I have to call Roger …’
He is standing beside her chair, and Miriam takes hold of his hand and squeezes it, then presses it against her lips and closes her eyes tight to stop the tears from coming, because the smell of him, and the soft feeling of the hairs on the back of his hand against her cheek, and the way he is fighting so hard for them both, for all of them, is making her well up.
‘I know it’s hard,’ says DS Bradshaw, much softer than either of her bosses. ‘Leaving this place – it must feel like leaving Edith. But you can’t stay in Huntingdon indefinitely. And your home is less than two hours away so …’
‘They’re right, darling,’ says Miriam, looking up at Ian, still holding his hand against her cheek. ‘We’re not doing any good here. We might as well go home and sleep in our own bed. But please God don’t make us take that basset hound of a woman with us.’
‘It’s for the best,’ says DI Harper, ‘and I can assure you there will be no diminution of effort or dedication.’
Manon
‘There will be no diminution of effort?’ says Manon, as she and Harriet climb the echoey staircase to MIT, without Stanton, who has gone off to stoke his belly with another large lunch. ‘Bit of a mouthful, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh look, he gets right on my tits. I can’t think straight with him looking at me, thinking—’ Harriet puts on an upper-crust Sir Ian accent – ‘What manner of fuckwit are you?’
‘Yes, he’s a bit … austere.’
‘A bit?’
‘Well, he’s worried. I’d want my dad to do the same.’
‘S’pose. She’s a bloody cold fish, too.’
Manon stops, a hand on Harriet’s arm so that she turns on the stairs. ‘No, she isn’t,’ says Manon. ‘She isn’t at all. She just doesn’t put it all out there.’
‘We really need to get on and identify the people in the Post Office queue,’ says Harriet. ‘Nigel’s got the footage but some of them are shielded by hoods or they’re just standing at the wrong angle.’
‘We can get the staff to corroborate with their paperwork. Where’s Will Carter staying?’
‘Not with Helena Reed, that’s for sure. We’ve let him go home to Stoke but asked him to stay put so we can keep him informed. The Hind brother’s due in this afternoon. I want you and Davy to interview him as soon as he arrives, OK? What are you up to tonight, anything nice?’
‘Another date,’ says Manon. ‘To be honest, I’d rather look at a thousand hours of local authority CCTV.’
They sit in a row in conference room one, waiting for the child protection briefing, everyone on their smart phones. Manon has just received the latest demand for a dating update from Bryony. She’s next to Nigel, who has turned his back to the room and is hissing into his phone, a hand cupped over the mouthpiece. Dawn, obviously. Colin is downloading confirmation of his Ryanair flights. Kim is yawning, her feet up on the chair in front. The room is an oasis of police-blue – blue foam chairs, blue curtains, blue carpet – and smells of brewing coffee. It is filling up, people shuffling along the rows, slight bend at the knee: ambulance crews from Hinchingbrooke, passport control, CID. People nodding, saying hello. A few uniforms, rustling fluorescent jackets with zips and toggles and crackling radios, which make them seem larger than the rest. Amazing she can’t find a date among this lot.
Davy, to the other side of Manon, is sat bolt upright, his neck straining upwards so he can look at the woman at the podium, who is shuffling papers before she begins.
‘You should listen,’ he says to Manon. ‘This stuff’s important. You wouldn’t believe what’s happening out there.’
But Manon is texting Bryony.