The Love of My Life(49)

I try Jill again but she’s still not reachable, so I decide to go and pick Ruby up early. I feel uneasy knowing that Ruby is only semi-accounted for herself.

Ruby is wild when I pick her up, almost as if she knows something serious is going on. She dances sideways up the street, before having a bellowing meltdown when I refuse to buy an ice cream from the fancy gelato place. She tells me she hates me, and even kicks my ankle.

I bend down in front of her on the pavement. Where is your mother? I want to shout. What has she done? Instead I pull her to me and hug her tightly. We piggyback all the way up the hill to our house, which is helpful, because the strain of carrying a three-year-old up a long hill is just about enough to keep my mind busy.

The house is empty. John Keats is in his bed listening to the jungle I left on for him; he thumps his tail lazily before falling back to sleep. Nothing in the kitchen has been moved.

Ruby passes out on the sofa so I take her up to bed for a nap. As I emerge from her room I think I hear the front door – thank God! Thank God. But when I race out to the landing, I see it’s just a leaflet for a kebab shop.

I call Emma again, while Ruby naps, and this time I hear it: the sound of a vibrating phone. I have only called her from downstairs today. In my panic I hadn’t even noticed that her handbag is on our bed, and her phone is in her handbag. It’s there with her wallet and an overstuffed A5 envelope with nothing written on the front. I can’t say for certain but I’m pretty sure this envelope was in her bag on Friday evening, when I got her phone out.

The envelope holds her passport, and Ruby’s. Not overly suspicious; they took a flight together last week, and it’s typical of Emma not to have unpacked her bag yet. But then I find the letter from St Andrews University about her leaving and, after that, a slew of other documents, including an acceptance letter from the University of Plymouth, offering Emma a place to study for a masters in marine biology. While we normally only accept postgraduate students with a degree in marine biology, it reads, your first class undergraduate biology degree at The Open University earlier this year, and the accompanying recommendation from your tutor there, has satisfied us that you will make a strong addition to our thriving postgraduate research team.

Then I find a letter from Highbury Magistrate’s Court, confirming a non-molestation order. It bans Emma from being within two hundred metres of Janice Theresa Rothschild, and it is seventeen years old. I read it once, twice, three times, but I haven’t made a mistake: if Emma broke the conditions of this notice, she would face immediate arrest.

The penultimate document I see, before my phone starts ringing, is a birth certificate. The name on it is Emily Ruth Peel, a woman I have never heard of, although she shares a date of birth with my wife.

As I open the final piece of paper, I know already what it will be.

Official Deed Poll, the document says at the top, before confirming that Emily Ruth Peel changed her name to Emma Merry Bigelow in 2006.





Chapter Thirty


LEO


Ruby is very excited about the police station, before I put her in a corner with CBeebies on my phone, but the police are not excited about me. People often take time out after arguments, the officer on the desk says. We get it all the time.

She says she’ll be in touch, but that Emma won’t be registered as missing until she’s been gone forty-eight hours.

This whole thing feels like someone else’s life. It can’t be mine.

When we arrive back it’s early evening and there is no sign of Emma, but Olly and Tink have just arrived with Oskar and Mikkel, who are here to distract Ruby. I feel like we’ve been upgraded to Defcon 1. My phone pings incessantly with message previews from friends, asking if I’ve found her yet. I can’t bring myself to open them.

Upstairs, the kids are playing a game that sounds quite dangerous. I leave them be. Tink is making some sort of soup or stew, and Olly is sitting at my kitchen table, listening to the full story for the third time.

‘What’s your worst fear?’ he asks, suddenly.

‘My – what?’

‘Because from where I’m sitting, you’ve just had devastating news about Ruby’s parentage, but you seem far more worried that something might have happened to Emma.’

I think about this. ‘I’ve been worried about her lately. She’s had a lot of stalky messages from men on the internet. Some dropped calls. And I hope it’s nothing, but there was a weirdo staring at her the other day, after the concert. Just staring right at her, as if he knew her.’

Olly seems perversely pleased. ‘Well then – you haven’t given up on your marriage,’ he tells me. ‘Which I’m relieved to hear. Leo, listen, I’m sure the internet men are just lonely. And everyone gets dropped calls – I still think there’s likely to be a reasonable explanation for all of this.’

Tink turns round from the worktop. ‘Sweetheart. Leo’s found out he’s not Ruby’s father. He’s discovered that Emma was called Emily Peel until she was twenty-six years old. I don’t think it’s reasonable to be talking about innocent explanations.’

Olly shrugs. ‘I believe in Emma,’ he says, simply.

I get up once again to open the front door and look down the street. I check my emails, my Facebook, my work emails – but, nothing. I’ve never known powerlessness like it.