They sat in silence on his mother’s sofa, no words between them that could ease their separate torture. Claire stiffened when Luke reached tentatively to place an arm around her shoulders. She felt his tense intake of breath, but he didn’t move, waiting quietly instead – and her will to resist crumbled. A guttural moan escaping her, she turned to him. She needed to feel the solidity of him. She couldn’t bear it. She could feel her baby’s pain. Hear her. Oh God. She pressed her face into Luke’s shoulder, tried to block out the graphic images playing through her mind. Her little girl’s face, pale and petrified, her summer-blue eyes recoiling in fear. Her small voice, bewildered, filled with terror as she cried out for her mother. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t. Don’t hurt her. Please don’t hurt her.
‘I’m so sorry about your father.’ Luke squeezed her still closer.
Claire drew a breath; tried to stop the sobs rising in her chest. ‘You hated him.’
‘I didn’t hate him, Claire,’ Luke said, with a weary sigh.
He didn’t, she knew. He’d hated Bernard’s lack of respect for him, had despaired of the way he’d treated him, but he didn’t hate him. She could hear the sorrow in his voice. He would grieve for him, she suspected, where she felt she couldn’t. She cried harder. Luke tightened his grip as the sobs racked her body. Claire allowed him to hold her. She needed him to. Needed him.
Why had he done it, taken the first opportunity he could to do to her as her father had done to her mother? She couldn’t have stayed with him. Lived a lie; died a slow death until her life became unbearable, as her mother had done, part of her withering away each day as she’d waited, living in hope that the man she loved would choose her. He’d killed her as surely as night turned to day. He’d also killed part of his daughter. Claire’s ability to allow herself to be loved, to believe that she was worth loving. She’d prayed that Luke would never put her through that kind of pain. That she could trust him. That he would be the one person on earth who would understand the promise she’d made her father. Perhaps deep down she’d considered it inevitable that he would stray. Her survival instinct driving her, she’d pushed him away. And now this. She blamed him. But she blamed herself more for the pain she’d caused their precious child.
Another desperate sob shook through her. ‘Where is she?’
‘They’ll find her,’ Luke said, his throat hoarse from the tears he’d tried and failed to suppress. Was it worth it? Claire wanted to ask him. She didn’t. She hadn’t got the strength to. She didn’t want to argue any more. She just wanted her daughter.
Her hands strayed to her tummy as a new wave of empty helplessness swept through her. The space where she’d been able to keep her baby safe until she could survive independently of her. She should have always kept her safe. It was her duty as a mother. She’d failed.
‘They’ll find her,’ Luke repeated, taking hold of one of her hands, squeezing it gently. Was there the same conviction in his heart that there was in his voice? Claire wondered. Did he really believe that?
‘How?’ Pulling away, she looked up at him – and was shocked by the raw pain she found in his eyes. He was hurting just as much as she was. Had she really imagined he wouldn’t be?
‘Sorry to interrupt.’ Detective Myers had come in. ‘Claire,’ he said, his expression giving nothing away as he stopped in front of her, ‘you wouldn’t happen to have a recent photograph of your half-sister, would you? For identification purposes. We’ve sent officers round to her address in Rhyl. She’s been back there, according to neighbours, but doesn’t appear to be there now. We need to locate her and take a statement.’
Searching his face warily, Claire pulled herself to her feet and fetched her bag from where Joyce had left it on the armchair. She’d found her mobile, eventually, in her car. She’d imagined all sorts of things when she couldn’t find it: that Luke had stolen it in order to stop her getting help, which was ridiculous. He would hardly have done that and not cut the landline. They’d used a photograph of Ella from Luke’s phone in the end, one he’d taken in the park the day Claire had been settling her father into the care home. She swallowed back an overwhelming sense of guilt and tried not to linger on him: where he was now, how he would look. At peace? His mind finally free of his torment? She wasn’t sure she wished him that much. Her mind would never be free.
She wiped a hand across her wet cheeks and went back to Detective Myers. She didn’t have many photographs of Sophie, just one or two she’d taken at Children’s Village, the best likeness one she’d taken as Sophie came off the helter-skelter. ‘I only have a couple,’ she said, handing the phone to him. ‘I’m not sure how helpful they will be.’
‘Extremely,’ he assured her.
Luke got to his feet and walked across to look at the photos. Claire watched him, feeling for him. His face was deathly pale, his body language tight. She noted the tense set of his jaw as he studied them, the hand going through his hair, then he turned and walked away. ‘Fuck!’ he growled, slamming the heel of his hand against the partially open door. ‘Where the hell is she?’ His shoulders heaved as he pulled in a deep breath.
Her heart pounding with fear, Claire watched him carefully, wondered if he would ever breathe out.
‘I’ll get one of my officers to forward these to the appropriate people, and then let you have the phone back,’ Myers said, drawing her attention back to him.
In case someone tried to contact her? she wondered, her stomach twisting afresh.
Myers walked to the door, pausing behind Luke. ‘We’ll find her,’ he said quietly, placing the flat of his hand briefly against Luke’s back before heading out.
‘Luke?’ Claire took a step towards him.
Kneading his forehead hard, Luke turned to face her. ‘Do you know of any places she might be?’ he asked her, his voice gruff, his face now pale to the point of grey. ‘Sophie,’ he clarified. ‘Does she have any friends or relatives in Rhyl?’
Claire shook her head. ‘I was only there for two days. We just took in the sights and then went to the beach. She said she didn’t have anyone…’ She stopped, hope rising briefly inside her, followed by a new kind of terror as she remembered the derelict pub. Sophie had said she’d spent much of her childhood there. Talked nostalgically about it, as if those were her happiest memories of growing up.
‘The village pub,’ she said, locking fearful eyes on his. ‘It’s in Meliton. It’s being demolished. Sophie’s mother worked there. She—’
‘I’ll let Myers know.’ Luke spun around, heading abruptly for the door.
Minutes later, hearing raised voices in the hall, Claire headed after him.
‘Luke! Hold up!’ She saw Myers catch up with him at the front door. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Where the hell do you think?’ Luke yanked his arm from the detective’s grasp, his eyes blazing as he turned to face him. ‘To look for my daughter. I can’t just sit here doing fuck all.’
‘Luke!’ Claire called, alarmed at the state he was in.
‘It’s Anna!’ Luke yelled, and raced out, slamming the front door behind him.