The Love of My Life(74)

The traffic is stop-start all the way up Haverstock Hill. My fingers drum against the steering wheel, my leg twitches. Being trapped in here with these thoughts is unbearable.

When I pull up at my house I scan for Emma, just in case, but the only familiar car is Olly’s.

My heart pounds. I’m exhausted. I have no idea what to think, what to do, what my next move should be. My heart is afraid for Emma – my heart which has loved her so long, and so deeply – but I am angry, I am in shock, and I do not see how I could ever trust her again.

And if there is no trust, there is no us.

As I lock my car I hear another car door closing behind me. I whip round, certain it will be Emma, only to find Sheila standing in my road, under a streetlight. Normally quite casual, she’s wearing a trouser suit tonight. She could not look more like a high-ranking intelligence official if she tried.

‘Sheila? What are you doing here?’

‘I have some news,’ she says. ‘About Emma.’





Chapter Fifty


Olly and Tink are looking at something on Tink’s laptop when we get into the house; Mikkel and Oskar are asleep under a blanket.

I introduce Sheila.

Olly eyes her with some interest. ‘Are you the ex-spy?’

‘Olly!’

‘What? I’ve never met a spy!’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ Sheila says, which Olly loves.

I remove John Keats from the Queen Anne chair in the study and bring it through for Sheila. ‘It’s a bit doggy . . .’ I trail off: Sheila isn’t interested. She sits on the hairy chair. I take a seat on the floor.

‘I went to your daughter’s nursery and asked to view their CCTV,’ she begins. ‘It seemed expedient; it was the last place Emma was seen.’

I stare at her. ‘And they let you?’

She nods, almost surprised. ‘Of course. Anyway, I saw Emma leave at exactly the time they told you. She looked upset, just like they said. And you’re quite right, she didn’t have so much as a handbag on her.’

A sleepy John wanders in from the study, an ear stuck to the top of his head. He goes straight over to Sheila and sticks his head into her crotch.

Sheila removes him. If she has any feelings about this, her face doesn’t betray them.

I am horrified and delighted. Not just by my dog and my brother, but by the thought of Sheila, marching into a nursery and demanding CCTV footage. It’s exactly the sort of thing I’ve always imagined Sheila doing.

‘I then watched a car pull up outside the nursery entrance. She got into it and drove away, quite willingly, I’d say: she didn’t really hesitate.’

‘You think it’s someone she knows?’ Olly asks.

‘I do.’

Sheila pulls out her phone and swipes a few times. ‘ZQ16 5LL,’ she says. ‘Silver Peugeot. Does this ring any bells?’

I frown. ‘No . . . At least, I don’t think so . . . Oh, actually, her friend Heidi has a silver car, a big estate thing . . . ? Roof rails? Bike rack on the back?’

‘No. This is a small car. Never mind, I took the liberty of calling in a favour from an old contact at the DVLA.’

Olly and Tink exchange glances. Now they know Emma is probably OK, they’re enthralled.

Sheila swipes her phone again, then looks at me. ‘The car is registered to a Jill Stirling. Do you know this woman, Leo?’





Chapter Fifty-One


EMMA


Earlier that day

‘You’ll see,’ is all Jill keeps saying, when I ask where we’re going.

She’s enjoying this. She doesn’t say much, but I can see it in her face; her body language – she’s alive with purpose. The radio’s turned off but she keeps singing snatches of songs under her breath, and she’s running a full commentary on the road conditions as if we’re having a driving lesson.

It’s been more than twenty minutes since she picked me up outside nursery. We’ve just joined the North Circular, on the outskirts of London. Ahead, the M1 is signposted, for Watford and The North.

‘Look at the size of that man’s bum!’ she hoots, pointing at some poor specimen crossing the footbridge. ‘A symphony of an arse!’

It is generous, but it definitely doesn’t warrant this condemnation.

‘I really think I should call Leo,’ I say, after a pause. ‘I know you said he needs more time, but it . . . It just doesn’t feel right not to check in with him. Please can I borrow your phone?’

‘No,’ Jill says. ‘I told you, I spoke to him.’

When she turned up outside Ruby’s nursery earlier, I thought Jill had just come to offer me some moral support before my meeting with Leo – a lift up the hill, perhaps, with a pep talk, a coffee and a hug. But instead she drove straight past our road and headed up and out across the top of the Heath, towards Golder’s Green.

‘I’ve got a meeting with Leo at 9.30!’ I said. ‘Stop! Jill, I can’t talk now!’

‘This is far more important,’ she replied, with a strange smile; so strange I almost wondered if she had taken something. In our first year at St Andrews we’d tried mushrooms, but Jill had declared the experience of being out of control to be so intolerable she never tried any drugs again.