It took a minute for Luke to realise why Myers was asking whether Ella was with him. ‘Why do you think she would be?’ he asked, fear slicing through him.
‘Do you mind if we come in?’ Myers indicated the hall beyond him.
Luke stepped back, allowing him and the two officers with him access. ‘Did Claire call you?’
Pausing in the hall, Myers turned to face him. Luke’s heart pounded painfully as he tried to read his expression.
‘She’s missing, isn’t she?’
Myers nodded – a short, apologetic nod – and Luke’s heart seemed to explode. ‘Jesus Christ, no.’
‘Oh my God.’ His mother pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes petrified as she looked at Luke, and then she was at his side, attempting to hold him up as the blood drained from his body and he dropped heavily to the stairs.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked the police officers. ‘For God’s sake, don’t just stand there. He’s her father. Tell him!’
Myers glanced uncomfortably between them. ‘We received a call from Claire Elliot at approximately four thirty a.m.,’ he said, ‘informing us that her daughter had been taken from her bed.’
‘No. No, no, no.’ Feeling the breath sucked from his lungs, Luke buried his head in his hands and stifled a throaty moan. He couldn’t breathe.
‘She seemed to think her father had taken her.’
‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous,’ Joyce snapped. ‘Does he look like he’s taken her?’ She nodded towards Luke, who was levering himself shakily from the stairs.
‘We need to search the premises nevertheless,’ DS Myers informed her apologetically.
‘She’s not here. You should be out there, looking for her!’ Joyce bawled, flailing a hand in the direction of the street.
‘We have officers going door-to-door,’ Myers tried to reassure her. ‘We’re organising a search of the local areas and circulating—’ He stopped, glancing past her to the sudden commotion at the open front door.
‘Where is she?’ Claire seethed, her eyes a whirl of palpable pain and fury as she pushed past the police officer positioned there.
‘She’s not here, sweetheart.’ Joyce tried to intervene. ‘Luke hasn’t—’
‘Where is she?’ Claire screamed, shrugging her off to fly at Luke. ‘Tell me where she is, you bastard!’ Tears streaming down her cheeks, she drew her hand back and slapped his face, hard. ‘Tell me!’
Staggering backwards from the impact, Luke’s own hand went instinctively to his cheek. ‘She’s not here!’ he shouted. ‘Why the hell do you think I would have—’
‘You shit. You absolute piece of shit!’ Claire sobbed, her eyes, red-rimmed and raw, now full of nothing but loathing. ‘Why are you doing this? Why would you hurt Gemma? To hurt me? Is that it?’ The flat of her hand curling into a fist, she stepped after him, landing a hard blow to his chest. And another. ‘Gemma’s done nothing to you. Why would you do this? Why? Tell me where my baby is!’
Propelled into action, the officer from the door was behind her, catching hold of her wrist, as Luke stumbled back under the impact of another blow. ‘Come on, Mrs Elliot. This won’t help,’ he said gently, feeding an arm around her torso to heave her bodily away from him.
Luke moved after her, his gut wrenching as a female officer joined her colleague, both of them attempting to subdue her. ‘Leave her,’ he said throatily. ‘She’s upset. She—’
‘I’ll kill you.’ Claire glared dementedly at him as she struggled to break free. ‘I swear to God, if anything happens to my baby—’
‘I don’t know where she is!’ Luke insisted. ‘Claire, for God’s sake, I came here because my mother needed help. Derek was trying to… Jesus! I left you a note, on the coffee table. Please… you have to believe me.’ A sob escaping his own throat, he swiped a hand across his face and moved towards her again, only stopping when Myers grabbed his arm.
The detective indicated the kitchen. ‘A quick word,’ he said, relaxing his grip a little.
Luke noticed the cautionary look in his eyes, and his gut twisted afresh. Glancing back to Claire, who was now sobbing like a child – for her lost child – comforted by Joyce and the female officer, he nodded and reluctantly followed Myers.
In the kitchen, the detective pushed the door closed. Then, scratching his forehead with his thumb, he drew in a breath and eyed Luke hesitantly. ‘I’m telling you this because you’re going to need to keep it together,’ he said. ‘Be there for your wife, at least until we’ve established the facts.’
‘Facts?’ Luke searched his face impatiently. The facts, as far as he could see, were that his daughter was missing and they were standing around here doing nothing about it.
‘Gemma Taylor was involved in a road traffic accident,’ Myers said quietly, searching Luke’s face in turn, as if to gauge his reaction. ‘She was the victim of a hit-and-run.’
Luke couldn’t speak for a second, then, ‘Fuck,’ he muttered, dropping his gaze.
‘We haven’t yet been able to identify the driver. You can see how it looks like this might not just be coincidence,’ Myers went on guardedly.
Bewildered, Luke nodded slowly.
‘We also received a call from the Lawns care home,’ Myers added, as Luke scrambled to make some kind of sense of it. ‘They tried to contact your wife, but they couldn’t get hold of her.’
The care home. His gaze snapped back to Myers. ‘Her father?’
Myers nodded gravely, and Luke guessed what was coming next. ‘He passed away early this morning; somewhere between midnight and three thirty a.m., I gather, when someone went to check on him. He was found at the foot of the fire escape outside his window.’
‘You have to be joking.’ Luke glanced back to the door, beyond which he could hear Claire breaking her heart. ‘Does she know?’ he asked, though he knew the answer.
Myers shook his head. ‘They left a message for her to call, but they didn’t say anything other than that it was urgent. The thing is…’ he paused, his expression darkening, ‘we haven’t yet been able to establish whether it was an accident. One of the other residents claims to have seen someone in the grounds. We’re not sure how reliable the information is but we have to follow it up. The staff informed us that Claire has a sister,’ he went on. ‘Do you have a name and address for her?’
Nausea crashing through him, Luke swallowed hard. ‘Sophie,’ he said throatily. ‘Her half-sister.’