There are some messages that make you sit up straight immediately. This is one of them.
The message has been forwarded from Sal, who runs the news site, at the writer’s request.
I saw someone getting on a plane at Manchester airport, it says. Hysterical and in tears.
I am holding my breath.
I only realised when I read about her going missing in the local news. But I am 99 per cent sure it was your wife.
From a woman, if that matters. Name of Susanne.
You read a thousand descriptions in your life of your heart thumping in your chest and then it happens for real and you should be able to describe it another way, as your body, horrified, pushes out from its insides.
Thump. Thump.
But no. That is what happens.
Thump.
She was on the same flight as me and I saw her get off the plane too – the flight was to Nîmes, in the South of France, she says. Lost sight of her after that, I’m afraid. It’s a small airport though. Not that many places you’d go if you fly there. So hopefully that will help.
A sign-off and a number to call if I want to, but there is no need: I have my information. I reply to Sal to say thanks.
When I sit back against the sofa, I smell the coconut oil Romilly used to smear on her bump; I see the smudge of it on a cushion, another bit of her left behind. A reminder too of just how recently she was here with a baby in her belly and a smile on her face.
What is certain now is that Romilly got on a plane to France. However much it upset her, however hysterical she was in that airport, she went through with it.
And then a sentence I scanned over jumps out.
It was this morning, about 6 a.m.
I stare at it.
Because if my wife only got on a plane this morning, where the hell has she been since she left the hospital?
More than forty-eight hours earlier.