I NEVER DID get to make my speech.
At first, when I called them, the police weren’t particularly interested.
“How old is your daughter,” asked the person who answered.
“She’ll be nineteen next Friday,” I replied.
“And how long has she been missing?”
“About an hour.”
How the balance of one’s life could change so rapidly in just a single hour—from happiness and joy to foreboding and terror.
“Adults are not officially listed as missing until they have not been seen for at least twenty-four hours, sometimes even longer.”
“But we’re in the middle of her birthday party,” I said. “She is due to be making a speech, but she can’t be found. We have thoroughly searched the house and garden, and she’s not here. All we have found is the scarf she was wearing.”
“Even so, she’s not really been missing long enough,” said the policeman. “She might have just gone for a quiet walk on her own.”
“In the dark? From her own birthday party? Without her mobile phone? And what about her scarf we found?”
“People sometimes do the strangest things,” he replied drolly.
I felt I was getting nowhere.
“I believe my daughter must have been abducted. I just hope it has nothing to do with me winning the Derby this afternoon.”
“In what way could that be relevant?” the policeman asked.
“Because my horse is now a very valuable commodity,” I said slowly, not wanting to believe what I was saying, “and that might make my daughter a target for kidnappers.”
“I’ll get someone there right away,” he said, changing his tune. “Stay where you are, and don’t let anyone else leave the party. They might need to give a statement.”
I disconnected.
I had gone into the house to use the landline and, in spite of what I had said to the policeman, I didn’t really believe that Amanda had been kidnapped. I tried to convince myself that there must be a less dramatic reason, and she would soon turn up, and eventually we’d all be able to laugh about it.
I went upstairs and into every single room to look for her. I searched under the beds, in the wardrobes, and even behind the shower curtain in the bathroom. Nothing.
“Amanda,” I shouted loudly from the landing, “if you are here, show yourself. This is no longer a joke. I have called the police.”
There was no sudden appearance, and no sound.
I went back outside and into the marquee, where people were standing in various groups discussing what to do.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said again into the microphone, “we are still unable to locate Amanda, and I have now called the police to report her missing. They are sending a car. I have been asked to keep everyone here as you might be needed to make a statement. So I suggest we all sit down again in our designated places so that we can check that everyone is here and no one else is missing.”
Everyone slowly moved back to their seats while I went over to Amanda’s table and stood at the end to address her friends.
“If anyone knows more about this than they are saying, now is the time to come clean, before the police get here.”
I stared at each one of them in turn, but no one responded.
“Darren, here,” I said, pointing at him, “tells me that he and Amanda had an argument, and she went off in tears. Did anyone else see that? Did she tell any of you about it? Did anyone see her crying?”
I tried to establish exactly when she had last been seen, but they had all been drinking heavily, and most of them couldn’t really remember anything.
“She came to the loo with me,” said one of the girls, “just before the main course was served. I was feeling sick, and she showed me where to go.”
“Did she stay with you?” I asked.
“No. She said she would wait outside, but when I came out, she’d gone.”
I looked around at her friends. One of them was even using a phone to take a photo of me. But it gave me an idea.
“Look at the photos you have taken this evening,” I said. “Check to see if Amanda appears in them. The police might want to see those to have a description of what she’s wearing.”
Every single one of them picked up their phone and began scanning through the photos.
“Also look at the time record on each picture, and sort out when the most recent was taken of her.”
Georgina came over to me. “What are you doing?”
“Checking if anyone has taken any pictures of Amanda during the evening, and when. Go and ask James and his friends to do the same. There may be one of her in the background. Maybe even one of her leaving the marquee. That would give us the time she went missing.”
I didn’t hold out much hope, but it gave them, and me, something to do. Anything to take my mind off what might be happening to my daughter. I had visions of her lying out there somewhere, cold and afraid, maybe in the fields at the back of the house.
“Did anyone search the paddock and the stables?” I asked no one in particular.
“James did,” Georgina said. “He took a torch while you were calling the police.”
Brian Perry came over, looking deeply concerned. “Shall I go and check that she hasn’t gone through the gate into our place?” he asked.
Brian and I had installed a gate between our respective gardens to make it easier for the children to go over there when they’d been small, to save them having to go out onto the road. As far as I was aware, it hadn’t been used for years, but it had never been removed.
“Thank you, Brian, but I think we should all stay here until the police arrive.”
“But we recently had a pond created in the garden.”
He didn’t need to elaborate on what he meant. I had a vision of Amanda, Ophelia-like, lying face up, beautiful and drowned in Brian’s pond.
I quickly turned around to find James.
“James, go with Brian. Take your torch.”
They hurried away, and I wondered if I should have gone with Brian rather than sending my son.
However, I more than half expected Amanda to waft back in, totally unperturbed, wondering what all the fuss was about. But she didn’t.
The noise level rose somewhat as everyone was discussing the situation.
What should we do? Putting on any music seemed inappropriate. So did offering any more drinks, especially to the two young people’s tables, as they had clearly had enough already.
We had been saving cheese and biscuits for a late-night snack at midnight, but I went over and told the catering manager to serve them to the tables now.
James and Brian returned, both shaking their heads.
“I also went into our house,” Brian said, “but it was all dark, and there was no sign of her.”
“Thanks,” I said.
We waited. And then we waited some more.
I felt powerless. I thought I should be doing something more. Like driving around the village looking for her. But maybe not after the number of glasses of wine I had already consumed. I felt fine but I might be close to the limit, or just over. Perhaps I should walk or arrange a search party made up of other guests.
Staying here seemed all wrong, but the policeman on the phone had been adamant that everyone was to remain.
The first police car didn’t arrive until thirty minutes after my phone call, by which time I was almost climbing the walls, or I would have been if the marquee had had walls.
James had gone out to the driveway to meet it, and in due course he brought two uniformed officers in high-visibility yellow jackets around the house to the marquee. I went to greet them on the dance floor.
“My name is Chester Newton,” I said. “I was the person who called the police. It’s my daughter who has gone missing.”
The two officers looked at everyone still sitting at the tables in their smart attire.
“This is her birthday party,” I said. “Along with a silver wedding anniversary celebration for my wife and me.”
One of the two took a notebook out of his jacket pocket and made some notes.
“Your daughter’s full name?” he asked.
“Amanda Rose Newton.”
He wrote it down.
“Date of birth?”
I gave it to him, and he wrote that down too.
“Is this house her home address?”
“Yes.”
“When did you notice that she was missing?”
“At about ten to ten, when she couldn’t be found for the speeches. But the last photograph we have found of her this evening was taken at three minutes past nine. No one has seen her since.”
“At 21.03?”
“Yes.”
He wrote it down and also looked at his own watch.
“Did she leave with anyone?”
“No one from the party,” I said. “Everyone else is accounted for.”
“Can you give me a description of what she was wearing?”
I showed him a photo that one of her friends had taken of Amanda in her white dress and silk scarf. The dress was short and strapless, which I thought was obviously not appropriate attire to run away in, not that the policeman made any such comment.
“Did she have access to any vehicles?”
“She has her own car, a battered old blue Ford Fiesta, but it’s still in the driveway. I checked. And no other cars are missing.”
“And you have searched the house?”
“Yes. Thoroughly. And the garden. There’s no sign of her. But we did find her scarf. It was on the ground outside the ladies’ loo.”
I held it out to him, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he made some more notes, and I was becoming frustrated by his lack of urgency or action.
“Shouldn’t you be organising a search of the local area,” I said. “Or maybe getting a helicopter up to look for her?”
He glanced up at me from his notebook.
“Your daughter has been missing for less than two hours. Do you have any idea how many people are reported to the police as missing?”
I shook my head.
“In this country alone, a person is reported missing every ninety seconds. That’s a hundred and seventy thousand missing persons every year.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“We can hardly send a helicopter up for all of them, now can we?” he said. “Now, does your daughter have any medical issues?”
“In what way?”
“Does she suffer from any form of mental illness? Or any other condition for which she takes regular medication?”
“No.”
“What is the name of her doctor?”
“Dr Duncan Matthews,” I said. “He’s here tonight as one of my guests.”
I turned around and searched for him. I knew that he was sitting at Georgina’s table, and I found him quickly. “Duncan,” I called, “could you please come over here for a moment?”
He came and joined the policemen and me.
“Good evening, sir,” said one policeman. “I understand that you are Miss Amanda Newton’s doctor. Can you tell me if she takes any regular medication, for example, for any adverse psychiatric condition?”
“She does not have an adverse psychiatric condition,” Duncan said slowly and clearly. “The only regular medication she takes is the contraceptive pill, which I have been prescribing to her for about three years. At her own request.”
That was news to me, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe I ought to be pleased that she was sensible enough to take precautions against becoming pregnant. But—for three years?
“Is there any other medical reason you might be aware of that could explain her sudden disappearance?” the policeman asked.
“Absolutely not,” Duncan replied. “I have been Amanda Newton’s doctor since she was two years old, and I consider this to be totally out of character.”
“In your professional capacity as her doctor, would you describe Miss Newton as being vulnerable or particularly at risk?”
“There is no medical reason for believing so, but I judge that any young woman of nineteen who has disappeared without explanation, especially at night, should be considered to be at risk.”
The policeman made another note. “Thank you, Doctor.”
Duncan went back to his seat, and the policeman turned back to me.
“My dispatcher said something about you believing that your daughter might have been abducted. Why is that?”
“Why else would she not be here at her own birthday party? And what about the scarf? She wouldn’t just take it off and drop it.”
He didn’t seem convinced.
“I also wonder if she might have been a target for kidnappers,” I said. “I have a very valuable horse. It won the Derby this afternoon.”
That seemed like a very long time ago now.
“Have you received any ransom demands?”
“No,” I replied.
I took from his body language that he didn’t believe for one second that Amanda had been kidnapped. But if not, where was she? Would she really go missing for a couple of hours during her birthday party if she hadn’t been forced away by someone?
The policeman snapped shut his notebook.
“I will make a report and circulate your daughter’s details on the National Police Computer. Checks will also be made to ensure she is not in police custody or a patient in a local hospital.”
The two officers turned as if to leave.
“Is that all?” I said, grabbing one of their yellow jackets. “You haven’t even looked for her!”
The policeman turned back to face me.
“It is my assessment that this is a low-risk missing person situation and that your daughter has most likely gone away from here at her own volition. She is an adult, and choosing to leave, even in the middle of her own birthday party, is not a crime, nor is it a police matter.”
“But there is one other thing,” I said, lowering my voice. “It seems Amanda had an argument tonight with her boyfriend. The boy in question has shown controlling behaviour towards her in the past, and I am really worried that he might have something to do with her disappearance.”
“What’s her boyfriend’s name?”
“Darren Williamson,” I said. “I believe he’s already known to you.”
“Why is that?”
“He was convicted of joy riding in a stolen car in Didcot last year.”
“Is he here?”
“He’s over there.” I gestured towards where he was sitting.
Darren saw me pointing at him. His eyes widened, and he suddenly stood up and bolted for the marquee exit.