She looked at the morning light bleeding through the curtains and ran a hand over her bedsheets. Her childhood bedroom was now the pastel shades of a guest room, but it was hers again. What woman in her forties lives with her mum? She remembered Liam being in this bed, the only man she’d had since she moved back in, and that didn’t last long because of Craig. She picked up her phone and scrolled through Facebook. Her account was private but she still wondered if Craig was checking on her somehow. Then she looked up Liam, she’d known she would do this. A couple of posts of upcoming art shows that he had paintings in. She was glad he was getting his work out there, but it hurt all the same. There was no sign of a girlfriend in his pictures, and she checked any cute women who liked his posts, but nothing connected. She went to his photos, scrolled down to the few of the two of them smiling together a year ago. She slipped her other hand inside her panties.
Her phone rang. Fiona.
She checked the time, 7:15am.
Jenny was just there last night, they’d taken to drunkenly commiserating with each other about their shit choice in husbands. Her head was fuzzy now, couldn’t handle it like she used to, and Fiona had been knocking back two for every one of Jenny’s.
She answered. ‘Hey, what’s up?’
‘Sophia’s gone.’
Jenny pushed the hearse into rush-hour traffic, turning right into Cramond through an amber light that was already red, horn blasting across at her. She gave them the middle finger.
‘Fuck you.’
‘Careful,’ Thomas said in the passenger seat.
Jenny had thrown clothes on and knocked on her mum’s door, knowing Thomas had stayed over. Five minutes later the two of them were in the hearse. Jenny wondered about pulling up at Fiona’s in the deathmobile, but fuck it.
Into Cramond Vale, round the corner and she saw the police car parked outside Fiona’s mum’s place.
‘Only one car?’ Jenny said.
Thomas shrugged as he got out. ‘It’s just a missing person for now.’
Jenny rang the bell and waited. She had pictured the front door being wide open, search parties scouring the neighbours’ gardens, a fleet of squad cars with lights flashing, something to match the panic she was feeling. In daylight this seemed like a different place to the one she visited ten hours ago.
Other families in the street were taking their kids to school, folk staring at the hearse and cop car.
Fiona’s mum opened the door. Betty Ellis was short, slight and beautiful like her daughter, and everyone called her Birdie, a nickname she’d had since childhood. She’d been a widow for twenty years and had invested all her love in Fiona and Sophia, delighted when they moved back in despite the circumstances.
‘Through here,’ she said, scuttling to the kitchen.
Jenny half expected her and Fiona’s wine glasses from last night to be on the table still, crescent of red in the bottom, fingerprint smudges, but of course they’d been tidied away.
Fiona and a female cop were at the table. Fiona turned to Jenny and Thomas.
‘That fucking bastard.’
‘Miss Ellis,’ the cop said. ‘Please stay calm.’
The cop was young, which didn’t help. When your eight-year-old daughter goes missing you want someone with experience, not some baby with a blonde pleat in a scratchy uniform. Her badge said Zalenski.
Fiona turned to her. ‘He’s got her, I’m telling you.’
To her credit Zalenski was calm, she’d been thrown into this shitstorm and was coping. ‘The more details you can give us, the better chance of finding her, Miss Ellis.’
‘There’s no more fucking details, I told you.’ Fiona was shaking, fingers locked like she was choking someone. ‘I got up at seven, same as usual. Went to her room and she wasn’t there. No clothes or other stuff have been taken. It’s just her in her pyjamas.’
‘What about last night?’ Thomas said.
Fiona nodded to herself, breath ragged. ‘I checked on her before I went to bed, about 1.00am. She was asleep. I pulled the covers over her, she kicks them off in summer.’
Jenny looked out of the window at the garden. It was mild, the day taking a bit of time to warm up. You wouldn’t catch your death in your jammies, but it wouldn’t be comfortable either.
‘Has she ever sleepwalked before?’ Zalenski said.
‘She’s not fucking sleepwalking,’ Fiona said. ‘Don’t you understand? Craig has taken her.’
This had obviously been discussed already, judging by Zalenski’s face. Thomas explained who he was and she straightened her back, apologised for no reason.
‘We need to take this seriously,’ Thomas said. ‘Have you organised a search party and put out Sophia’s details?’
Zalenski tapped her radio. ‘Yes, sir. Another unit’s on its way.’
‘Any sign of a break-in?’ Thomas said.
Zalenski shook her head.
Birdie cleared her throat. She was clutching a dishtowel at the sink, horror on her face.
‘I mean…’ she said.
Thomas turned to her. ‘What?’
Birdie shrugged. ‘We’ve never changed the locks. Fi, you used to have spare keys, do you remember what happened to them?’
Fiona shook her head. ‘I still use my old keys, from when I was a kid.’
‘But there was a spare set,’ Birdie said. ‘You had them at Ann Place.’
Fiona swallowed. ‘I don’t remember that. I brought everything from Stockbridge when we moved.’
‘Craig has them,’ Jenny said. ‘He must’ve taken them a year ago, when he broke into your old place after escaping prison. Didn’t you check?’
Fiona narrowed her eyes. ‘There was a lot of shit going on, remember?’
Jenny remembered her and Liam tied up in that basement, Craig waving a gun.
She turned to Thomas. ‘Craig has her, I know it.’
‘What does Sophia know about her dad?’ Thomas said.
‘Just that he had to go away for a long time,’ Fiona said, tears dripping onto the kitchen table.
‘How does she feel about him?’
‘I know what you’re asking. Would she go with him if he turned up in the middle of the fucking night and asked her?’ Fiona’s head went down, knuckles white against each other. ‘The answer is yes.’