I am flat out, the baby bridging the width of my chest, when I wake up with a start. Shit. I fell asleep on the bed with her. This is bad when Fleur is so tiny; there is a chance of her suffocating. I poke her, check her and she curls in on herself, furious with me for disturbing her sleep. My heartbeat slows back down to normal.
But my daughter is awake from her nap now and wants milk. We head downstairs.
In minutes, Loll puts an instant coffee and something that smells of sugar on the table.
‘The police called me,’ she says.
My head snaps up.
‘CCTV footage. At Liverpool airport. Backs up the woman’s story.’
She takes Fleur out of my arms; cuddles her in close as she feeds her.
I nod. Good, at least the police are being some use; the random passenger’s story corroborated.
I lean against the chair back and shove half of a cupcake into my mouth. When Steffie comes you get falafel wraps from the café; with Loll it’s carbs from Tesco, and I know which I prefer.
‘Anything else?’
She shakes her head. ‘That’s it. But it’s good. Important.’
‘Have you seen it?’
She nods. ‘It’s definitely her. Want me to ask if you can go and see it too?’
I nod. Yes. Absolutely. Break off another piece of cake and shove it in my mouth.
Loll has to all intents and purposes moved in. Despite her cynicism about his parenting, Jake has stepped up in a crisis and, after two nights at her neighbour’s, the kids have now gone for a stay at their dad’s.
And I’m relieved. I’m still not sure what we would do without the emergency procedures of a sister-in-law on the sofa and a revolving front door.
The idea terrifies me. Not to mention exhausts me. It must be what it’s like when people you live with die and the furore stops and the funeral passes and everyone else slips back to the office, to their families, to life, while you sit staring at a gap on the sofa where they used to drink tea in their pyjamas and mark the Bake Off bread week contestants out of ten.
I feel my stomach flip.
I block the thought out. Because never seeing Romilly again is not an option. Fleur not having a mum is not an option. We have a lead, we have information: this is a lot more than we had a day ago. And we have something else: Adam, willing and eager to get out there.
‘You look like you could do with that.’ Loll smiles as I neck my coffee in one and eat the last of the cake and for a second it’s a normal picture.
Tired dad, sister-in-law coming to give some respite.
I need to lie down again.
‘Shall we go into the living room?’
I pull my hoodie sleeves over my hands and sit down on the sofa, chaos all around us; Loll follows after me with the baby. I let my head loll back on a cushion; feel my eyes droop.
‘Why don’t you go back upstairs for a proper sleep?’ asks Loll, the baby with her back to me as she burps up on Loll’s shoulder.
I shake my head.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll just rest my eyes here.’
I look around.
‘I promise I’m not normally this messy,’ I say, sheepish.
Loll eye-rolls. A flash of darkness.
‘This isn’t as bad as Jake used to be when he was left alone,’ she says. ‘Trust me. And not just when we had newborns.’
There is no chat that Loll can’t turn into an assault on Jake’s character.
Me? I like the guy, to be honest.
Not that I plan to ever voice such blasphemy.
Both Romilly and Loll would lynch me. They may not be similar in many ways but they both treat sibling loyalty like a vow.
I miss my old life deeply at that moment – all the parts of it – as I nod and talk in stock responses to Loll. Man, I want it back. Not sofa small talk. Not Jake-bashing. Not politeness. Not instant coffee. I want Romilly’s home-made soup, the Romilly trail, I want her chill-out music blasting, her incense burning. I want this house to feel like my house and it hits me that with Romilly missing – and all these other people added – it doesn’t feel like my house at all.
‘Loll, I think we need to talk about it, the psychosis.’
I hear the tap dripping in the bathroom. Again and again, starting to feel like it is coming from the inside of my brain.
Loll looks at me.
We sit without speaking.
It is so quiet that when Loll puts Fleur in the Moses basket and takes a large gulp of her drink, I hear the insides of her throat and it sounds so intimate, I squirm in my chair.
‘The idea of Romilly sick, ill, not in her right mind and out there all alone?’ I say, pressing on. ‘I’m terrified of that, Loll.’
But Loll shakes her head, raises her eyebrows in frustration.
I pick up my phone, brandish something at her from Google.
‘There are some very concerning stories of women with this,’ I say.
I don’t mean concerning. I mean horrific. Seismic. Life-changing.
Loll knows that. She looks away.
She is panicking. But about this? Or something else?
Loll cups her coffee in both palms. The baby pink on her nails is chipped. A little dab of mascara is on her knuckle.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
For fuck’s sake, this house.
I plough on.
‘If she does have postpartum psychosis, it’s a medical emergency. Time is crucial. Are the police still looking into it? They haven’t drawn a line now they have the CCTV?’
She takes her glasses off; uses her sleeve as a wipe.
She sighs.
‘In truth, Marc, I don’t think they know what I’m talking about with postpartum psychosis. The guy I’m dealing with is a dinosaur. The CCTV is all I could get. But I am on it, and I promise I’ll keep chasing and chasing them. In the meantime though, I think we’re totally right to chase our own leads. Especially as it tallies with theirs anyway.’
She pinches the skin between her eyebrows.
‘She’ll be okay,’ she says, putting her coffee down and starting to tidy; right angles and piles, sweep and stack. ‘I know Romilly.’
I bristle. Loll knows a mental health condition negates what she knows. Why is she answering me like that? And why does every person in this house think they know my wife better than I do? I think of Steffie, when her note backed up the CCTV.
I had bristled then, for some reason.
Loll stops at the Moses basket and leans down; touches Fleur’s smallest pink nail. She has pushed her glasses up onto her head. She rubs her eyes. Underneath them are rims so dark they look like they have been sketched in.
‘You do still think it’s postpartum psychosis that’s done this, don’t you?’ I ask, irritated now, poking at her.
She nods. But says nothing.
‘Because you’re not saying much about it. And I’m trying to work out what else you could possibly think would drive someone to do this,’ I say. ‘What could drive Romilly to do this?’
Loll puts her head in her hands.
And when she looks up, her expression has changed. She studies my face like a textbook.
She stares at me and raises her eyebrows.
‘What indeed,’ she says.
I look at her, a question.