I didn’t find anything between the flats and the school, of course. Not sure what I was thinking might be there – her schoolbag, her coat? Anyway, it was cold and dark by the time I got back and my feet were sopping wet and killing me. I looked up at Nelson House and contemplated the broken lift and the three flights of stairs between me and home and a hot bath and bed. I was pretty much done in and I didn’t actually know how I was going to get my trolley up there.
There was a soft light in the kitchen window of my flat – I leave the hall light on and the telly, so it’s nice to come back to, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. The lights were on in the flat next door! That was all the incentive I needed to tackle the stairs. I didn’t even notice the pain in my knees – I was up there like a jack rabbit.
I stopped at number seven and knocked on the door. Almost straight away I heard a voice, ‘If you’ve lost your key, I’m going to fucking kill you—’ The door opened and I was looking at the angry face of Mina’s mum. She still had her coat on, an oversize khaki parka with a pink fake fur collar, so I guessed she hadn’t been home for long.
‘What do you want?’ she said, in the nice, neighbourly manner I’d come to expect.
‘I’m sorry to knock.’ I wasn’t. I was actually bursting with curiosity. ‘Is your daughter home?’
Her scowl grew deeper. ‘Mina? No, she’s not. What’s it to you?’
‘I’ve been worried about her. She didn’t come home from school yesterday. I listen out for her, you see, and I didn’t hear her yesterday or today.’
I was expecting another volley of hostility, something about minding my own business, but it didn’t come. Instead, her face softened a little. ‘She hasn’t been home?’
‘No. I don’t think so. I usually hear the door, and—’ I stopped. Mina knocking on the wall might not be allowed and I didn’t want to get her into trouble.
‘Shit,’ Mina’s mum said. ‘Wait there.’
Leaving the front door open, she retreated into the flat. She went into one of the bedrooms and I could hear her swearing.
She came back to me and this time she was wide-eyed with panic. ‘Her bag’s not here. Her coat’s not here. What should I do?’
‘Could she be staying with a friend?’
She was chewing at the inside of her mouth now, eyes darting here, there and everywhere. ‘No. No. She hasn’t got any friends.’
‘She might have made friends at school and not told you …’
The fierceness was back. ‘She wouldn’t go off with anyone. Not Mina. She knows the rules. Straight to school. Straight back. No messing. Something’s happened. Someone’s got her.’ And then she crumbled, disintegrated before my eyes. Her face seemed to collapse in on itself and her knees gave way and she crouched in the doorway and let out a heart-rending scream. ‘Where is she? Oh, my baby! My baby!’
As she fell apart, I somehow became calmer. Someone needed to take charge. I bent down and rubbed her back. ‘It’ll be all right. She won’t have gone far. We’ll ring the police. They’ll find her.’
‘The police?’ She looked up at me, tear-stained face a sallow yellow in the harsh light of the walkway.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We need to report her missing. The sooner the better.’