When I went to bed around midnight, I put my mobile phone on the bedside table next to me with the volume turned up. I wanted to be absolutely sure I’d hear if Oliver were to call me. I jolted awake around three in the morning and immediately checked my phone, but the screen was blank. I opened WhatsApp and saw that he hadn’t been online since the beginning of the afternoon. This wasn’t like him at all.
I lay down in bed again and saw the moonlight cast a shadow on the white wall, revealing greasy finger smudges. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall back asleep anymore. As I kept tossing and turning I loosened the fitted sheets, exposing the grubby mattress. Around five o’clock I got up and made myself a cup of warm milk, after which I must have dozed off.
Suddenly I heard a loud “mummy” from the adjacent room. The first sunlight trickled in through the plain, transparent curtains. I reached out next to me, but Oliver’s side of the bed was still empty and cold.
After I got out of bed and headed for the small nursery, I felt a dull headache form behind my brow as a result of the restless night. I squeezed myself between the wall and the cot, which barely fitted next to the bunk bed, and lifted Tim up. I buried my face in his neck and breathed in his well-known, comforting scent.
With Tim in my arms, I walked the few metres to the living room of the single-storey bungalow and sank down on the couch. “Did you sleep well, sweetie?” I asked, unzipping his sleeping bag and freeing his arms.
He nodded and slid straight off my lap, then plodded barefoot to the box of toys and tipped it over. The sound made my head pound. I frowned as a sigh escaped my lips.
Tim pointed to the Duplo. “Mummy play?”
I nodded with little enthusiasm and lowered myself to the floor. Together we built a tower out of the colourful blocks, but after a while I started to feel antsy. “Pumpkin, you carry on playing. Mummy needs to do something,” I said and went to the bedroom.
I took my phone from the bedside table, but much to my disappointment I had still not received a message from Oliver.
In a flash I remembered something. How could it have slipped my mind? I flung on the crumpled trousers that I’d tossed carelessly onto a chair last night.
I returned to the living room, where Tim was playing. Could I leave him alone for a few minutes? I grabbed my laptop. “Timmy, would you like to watch a movie?”
He immediately dropped the Duplo block he was holding and jumped up excitedly.
I put Tim on the couch and turned on an episode of Peppa Pig. “Mummy will be right back,” I promised, but he didn’t seem to hear me anymore.
I hurried to the front door where I put my coat over my nightgown and stepped into my ballerina shoes.
On the asphalt road I scurried past all the bungalows, most of which still had no lights on. The air was clear and crisp, creating the expectation of a beautiful autumn day. At the end of the road I turned the corner in the direction of the car park, which was less than a few hundred metres from the house. As I got closer, I slowed down my pace.
I leaned forward and rested my hands on my thighs to catch my breath, while scanning the full length of the car park, which was packed with cars.
My heart skipped a beat. Our Volvo was right where we’d left it on Friday night. A gnawing started in my stomach – it was evident now that something wasn’t right.
I rushed back to our house, ignoring the bewildered look of an early brisk hiker accompanied by a Labrador.
Once inside, I saw Tim still sitting on the couch, his feet dangling over the edge, staring blankly at the screen. With trembling fingers I tried to press the buttons on my phone.
A sing-song voice sounded on the other side. “Good morning, police speaking. How may I help you?”
I bit my cuticle. “It’s my husband. He left yesterday afternoon and never returned home.”
“What’s your residence?”
“Amsterdam.”
“Hold on. I will put you through.”
“No, wait!” I said. “We’re not at home right now. We are in America.”
It remained quiet for a moment on the other side. “America? You shouldn’t be calling this number. The one you need is 911,” the woman said kindly.
I swore under my breath. “No, I mean America in the Netherlands. It’s a small village in the south of the country. We’re staying at a holiday park for a weekend getaway,” I explained.
She temporarily switched out of her role as a professional officer coming to my aid and laughed out loud. “Oh dear. How funny, America. I’ve never heard of the place. What a coincidence.”
I muttered something meaningless. Just please connect me with the right person, I thought. I couldn’t bear the thought of wasting anymore time.
“One moment. I’ll put you through.”
I let out a sigh and a few seconds later heard a male voice. “Good morning, this is Jennifer Smits speaking. I need to speak to …” I faltered. “It’s about a missing person. I want to report my husband – he has disappeared. He’s vanished, I mean gone missing,” I rattled on.
Again I was reconnected.
Für Elise blared through the phone while I was on hold, the harsh, mechanical sounds hurting my ear. I rubbed my eyes, feeling exhausted.
My gaze moved to Tim, who still looked unperturbed as he watched the cheerful figures dancing across the screen.
“Department of Missing Persons,” I suddenly heard.
I snapped to attention and introduced myself. “Yes hello. It’s regarding my husband. Jennifer Smits speaking, by the way.” I shook my head. “Oh I’m sorry, I already gave my name. My husband left yesterday and didn’t come home. Something serious must have happened to him. This is unlike him. He’s never been unaccounted for before,” I blurted.
“Hold on, ma’am,” the police officer hissed. He sounded like a man close to retiring, not easily impressed by anything. “Calm down, Mrs Smits. First, take a deep breath.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed demonstratively. “Okay, I’m calm,” I said to satisfy him.
“Very good.” The officer spoke painfully slowly, with a local accent. “Tell me again. Your husband left home yesterday and didn’t return?”
“That’s correct. I’d like to report him missing. His disappearance is completely out of character.” Admittedly, we’d had quite a lot of arguments lately, but he had never picked up and just left.
“What time did he leave the house?”
“We’re not at home but we’re residing in a holiday home in Limburg,” I said, purposefully not mentioning the name of the village again. My nerves wouldn’t be able to handle any more jokes being cracked. “He left around three o’clock yesterday afternoon and I have no idea where he went. He didn’t take the car – it’s still sitting in the village car park. Something’s not right.”
“Aha.” The policeman was still speaking at a snail’s pace. “Do I understand correctly that your husband has been gone for less than 24 hours?”
I glanced at the clock, but I didn’t actually need to do the calculation. Oliver had left in the afternoon and I hadn’t yet had breakfast today. “Yes,” I replied reluctantly. It didn’t take a genius to see where this was going.
“I’m afraid, I won’t be able to help you, ma’am. We can only officially register an adult as missing after forty-eight hours.”
I felt the earth disappearing from beneath me. Wait until tomorrow? This was impossible – I’d never be able to make it through the day. “That’s not an option.” I thought of the crime series Oliver was a huge fan of, where the first few hours after a person went missing were portrayed as critical. “We’re wasting valuable time here. You must do something.” I appealed to his humanity. “We have a son, what should I tell him?”
“Madam, you …”
I interrupted him. “We can’t wait that long to start searching! Something has happened to him.” I felt desperate as I spoke of the unthinkable. “The longer we wait, the less likely we are to find him.”
He sighed audibly. “Madam, eighty per cent of all missing persons return home within forty-eight hours. There is a solid chance he’ll simply be back on your doorstep, claiming his car had a flat tire or he got caught up at work. You have no idea how often that happens,” he said patronisingly.
I felt frantic. “That may well be, but that is not the case here.”
The man was unimpressed and sighed again. “Has something happened between you and your husband?”
I could feel my guard rising. “What do you mean?”
“Perhaps you had a disagreement? You wouldn’t be the first. Many people break up due to a fight and the next day they just continue as if nothing was wrong.”
I paused for a moment and then decided to come clean. “Alright, so we did have an argument. I understand that it’d make you think he left on purpose and truth be told, I had drawn the same conclusion as well at first. However, now I’m completely convinced that his disappearance has nothing to do with our disagreement. He’d never leave his phone unattended for that long nor leave me completely in the dark as to his whereabouts. Besides, where could he have gone without our car? We’re in the middle of nowhere,” I said, cursing this rotten holiday park.
“Who knows, he might have taken a cab,” the man suggested tediously.
I thought about his suggestion for a brief moment before rejecting it. I knew Oliver detested taking cabs, he didn’t like the idea of having no control of the vehicle he was in.
I shook my head. “I’m convinced something has happened to him, really.” The thought of my husband, perhaps lying by the side of the road after a car had hit him, helplessly waiting for someone to come and rescue him filled me with dread.
“I want to believe you, ma’am,” he said in a way that made it clear he didn’t. “I’ll make a note of your call. But as I said, it’s only after forty-eight hours that I’m authorised to take any action on your behalf. I’m sorry, I really am. But until that time has passed, unfortunately, you’re wasting your time,” he added, but the way he said it made me think he was more concerned about his own time.
As the officer wrote down my name and number, I stared out of the small window, where two children were strolling along the road with a paper bag of fresh rolls under their arms. For a moment I considered the option of going out to search for Oliver myself. But I came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be wise to start aimlessly wandering the streets looking for him.
A feeling of hopelessness came over me. There was nothing else to be done. Only tomorrow afternoon would they be able to undertake steps to find him. I had no choice but to try to somehow make it through this livelong day ahead of me.
I heard the officer from afar. “Mark my words, he’ll soon just walk straight back into the house.”