Emily refuses to be part of the next television appeal. At the press conference she sits at the side of the room, close to the front, disguised under a heavy coat and hat, and she feels as though she’s watching the whole thing through water. Her rational brain fears that she’s becoming too dependent on the tablets that get her through each day, but the part of her that is still fighting to survive knows that she couldn’t do it without them.
The conference table is arranged with DCI Jacobs and DC Piper to the left, James and Chloe in the middle, and the Chief of Police to the right. Jess isn’t here; she’s outside in the car park, waiting with DC Cherry to speed them away as soon as the appeal is over. Thank God for Jess.
They start with an introduction from the police chief, and Emily is zoned out, not hearing a word he says, not caring, her attention trained on that horrible #findDaisy banner – and then she regrets it, regrets not listening to every little detail, so that she will know what she’s dealing with here. So she knows what’s what. When DCI Jacobs begins to speak, Emily is better focused, concentrating hard, straining to take it all in amidst the fidgeting, note-taking, photo-snapping background of the hungry press row.
‘What we know about Avril King is that she’s a forty-three-year-old woman, five foot six inches tall, medium build, with dark blonde, shoulder-length hair, usually worn up. Given her age, she could be presenting herself to others as Daisy’s mother, or even her grandmother, and if she knows she is being looked for it’s quite possible she is disguising her appearance in some way. With all these difficult factors in mind, we’re hoping that members of the public will be vigilant in looking out for anyone they feel may fit this profile. Do you know anyone who has recently been visited by a new grandchild or niece, for instance? Is there anyone new in your area, on her own with a child of Daisy’s age? Have you noticed anyone acting suspiciously? We do know that Ms King travelled over in a silver 2008-reg Renault Scenic and that she arrived on the island twenty-four hours before Daisy’s disappearance on New Year’s Eve. Any help in locating this vehicle could be crucial to our investigation.’
Behind her is a poster-sized image of Daisy – blown up from the photograph Emily handed the police on the night she was snatched two weeks ago. DCI Jacobs half turns and gestures towards it. ‘This is Daisy, taken only a few weeks before she disappeared. Details to look out for are her lilac-print sleep suit –’ the DI holds up an identical romper ‘– and her favourite toy, a velvet plush elephant like this one, purchased from Debenhams.’ She holds up a toy elephant just like Ellie, but newer, and Emily thinks how ridiculous the inspector looks – a middle-aged woman, grave-faced and composed, brandishing a bean-bottomed elephant with a droopy trunk.
Further along, behind the Chief of Police, there’s another poster. It’s of Avril King – ‘A’ she thinks bitterly, remembering the simple sign-off at the foot of that letter she’d found in James’s office – but the picture is too out-of-date to be much use. It’s at least a decade old, and it’s a grainy, unprofessional image, blown up from a group photo taken at the mental health facility she stayed in – long before she’d been moved into the lower-security care home where she resided up until her release last year. These are the details the police have shared with them over the past twenty-four hours. The care provision details of a woman who, up until now, Emily hadn’t thought existed in the world, a woman she had believed to be long dead and buried. God knows, she recognises the irony of her wish on New Year’s Eve – the thought that James’s first wife would be more tolerable still alive and divorced than dead and sainted. Guilt rises up in her: she could have prevented all this, she knows it. She should have worked out the truth of James’s past earlier, but she never tried to, did she? Even when he was evasive about his first wife, about their home and life together, Emily never pressed him, and she wonders whether deep down she knew he was lying. She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to open up anything that might smudge the unblemished life she was so proud of. In a rare surge of self-awareness, Emily sees herself for the flawed, shallow creature she really is. It’s all her fault. It’s Emily’s fault that Avril came looking for them, Emily’s fault that Daisy has gone.
She clenches her fingers into fists and stares ahead.
Now, it’s James’s turn to talk, and, as agreed late last night, sitting around their dining table with the police officers and their media consultant, his appeal is directed at Avril. The experts fear Avril’s confusion is so profound that she believes she has taken Chloe, her baby, and that their best chance of bringing her forward is by showing her Chloe now. Chloe the teenager. What a shock that would be, thinks Emily, and she imagines not seeing Daisy again until she is a fifteen-year-old, make-up-wearing, attitude-filled teenager with views of her own. The thought is appalling.
James reads from a script, careful to look up between sentences – as coached – to make contact with the camera, ultimately to make a connection with Avril. ‘Avril, if you’re watching this, I hope that it means you are well, and that you’re caring for Daisy. I’m sure you are, because you were always a good, loving mother to our baby daughter Chloe. Avril, we don’t harbour any ill feeling towards you. All we care about is having Daisy returned to her family where she belongs – and making sure that you are all right, that you are cared for too.’ He pauses, and Emily wonders if this is also scripted, to make him appear more vulnerable, to pull on Avril’s heartstrings, if she has any. He rests his hand over Chloe’s, who sits beside him like an ivory-skinned mannequin. ‘This is Chloe, your daughter. It’s been nearly fifteen years since you saw her, and we’re hoping that when you bring Daisy home you’ll be able to see her at last.’
Chloe doesn’t move; doesn’t react at all. When this line of appeal was put to her last night, she said she didn’t care what they promised Avril, so long as she could bring her baby sister home. ‘I’d cut off my right hand if it meant we could get Daisy back,’ she’d said, and Emily had felt a lurch of self-disgust, because she knew that she couldn’t be certain she would promise as much.
James turns his face towards Chloe and gives her fingers a squeeze of encouragement. She too looks directly into the camera, but she’s struggling to keep her upset and anger inside and her words come out robotic and stilted. ‘Please. Mum.’ She says this last word with such weight that it could be construed either as something that means a great deal to her or as something that cost her a great deal to give up. ‘Please bring my little sister back home. Please, Mum.’
And that’s it. That’s where they end the appeal, with the word ‘Mum’. As Emily dashes from the room ahead of the gathered television crews and journalists, she wonders, will she ever get to hear that word spoken to her? Will Daisy ever be old enough to graduate from Mama to Mummy to Mum?
When Chloe was ten, she asked James and Emily about her ‘real’ mother, while travelling in the back seat of the family car as they drove along the old Military Road on a bright August day. Out beyond the tent-festooned fields the sun shone brightly on a sea dotted with sailing boats. Emily was wearing a new pair of designer sunglasses for the first time, enjoying the Hollywood feel of them, and she had just been silently musing that there was nowhere more idyllic than this island on a summer’s day, nowhere more perfect. It was one of those rare moments in which she felt wonder – and pride – at the faultlessness of her life: she had a handsome husband, a stepdaughter who adored her, a comfortable lifestyle, and the figure of a woman several years younger. What more could she want?
‘I just wondered,’ Chloe asked, ever so casually, as the warm breeze whipped through the open windows and snatched up her long honey hair. ‘You know my mum? My real mum? Is there a grave we could visit? You know, to put flowers on or something.’
Emily felt a powerful and unusual twinge of spite towards the girl, for yanking her from the indulgence of those earlier thoughts. She noticed with irritation how James’s grip tightened momentarily on the steering wheel, how he paused before answering, his eyes darting up towards the rear-view mirror and back to the road again. Did the mention of Avril still upset him so much all these years later? It was nearly a decade since her death, Emily thought, and he had her now, didn’t he? Wasn’t their relationship, their stability, enough to have got him past it all? ‘James?’ she urged him quietly, wanting to hear his reply.
‘It’s a long way away,’ he told Chloe. ‘Too far to visit very easily.’
‘Do I have any cousins?’
‘No,’ James replied.
‘What about photos? Are there any photos of me with my mum before she … you know? Before she died?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, love. I’ll have a look when we get back.’ James was clearly struggling to keep his voice even, and he kept his eyes fixed ahead, ignoring Emily’s attempts to catch his attention.
‘Do I look like her?’ It was as though Chloe had discovered curiosity for the first time; the questions just kept flying out of her. ‘I mean, I know I look a bit like you, Dad – but my hair’s different isn’t it? I thought if I could see some photos it would be good. It would be interesting.’
Where was this all coming from? Emily’s heartbeat quickened, and she wondered why she should feel so panicked by this unexpected interrogation.
‘All right, Chloe! For God’s sake!’ Her tone was far harsher than it had sounded in her head – virtually a shout – and she turned to look back between the headrests to see that Chloe looked as though she had been slapped. Emily tried to soften her voice a little, forcing a smile on to her lips. ‘Stop bombarding your dad when he’s driving – we could crash if he takes his focus off the road. He’ll see if there’s a photo when we get back, won’t you, James?’
James nodded, frowning hard, and Emily wondered if he was frowning about Chloe’s inquisition or about her raising her voice so severely.
‘Why all the questions, anyway?’ Emily asked, attempting to bring serenity back into her tone.
Chloe shrugged, the firm set of her jaw showing she was still stung. ‘We’ve been doing family trees at school,’ she replied, turning her face away to look out across the horizon. ‘That’s what I took the photo album in for. Beth said I didn’t look anything like my mum and everyone agreed. So I told them –’ and now, she looked straight back at Emily ‘– that you’re not really my mum.’
This time it was Emily who was stung. Was that the beginning of the end for her and Chloe? she ponders now. Was that the moment their bond began to fray loose?