Her Last Tomorrow

Chapter 5

5 Nick

It’s okay. She’s playing. She’s playing hide-and-seek. That’s all it is.

I tell myself all the lies I can muster as my head darts around on my shoulders, scanning the street for any sign of her. I was only inside for, what, thirty seconds? A minute? She can’t have got far.

I get to the end of the drive and turn left, calling her name as I jog along the pavement. A guy on a ladder cleaning a window a few houses up on the other side of the road turns and looks at me.

‘Have you seen my daughter?’ I shout to him. ‘She was here a minute ago.’

He shakes his head and turns back to his dirty window.

I jog back in the direction of the house, then past it, and keep calling Ellie’s name. There’s nothing.

I’m back up the drive and skirting around the car, looking in the bushes – anywhere I can think of – certain that she can’t have reached the end of the road on her own, so she must still be somewhere around the house.

‘Ellie, this isn’t funny. Come out now,’ I bark, trying to convince myself that she’s somewhere close by and playing a cruel trick on me. Then the realisation of what went through my head a few moments ago hits me.

She can’t have reached the end of the road on her own, so she must still be somewhere around the house.

She can’t have reached the end of the road on her own.

On her own.

If she’s gone, someone has taken her.

I’m well out of my depth here. I fumble in my trouser pocket and pull out my mobile phone, trying and succeeding the third time to enter my passcode as my hands and fingers tremble.

I hit the green phone icon and my first thought is for what number I should dial. I know I want the police, but should I still dial 999 from a mobile? Isn’t there a different number for mobiles? I can’t remember what it is. Surely 999 will still work. Or should I be dialling the non-emergency number? I can’t remember what that is, either, and as far as I’m concerned this is an emergency. I do the only thing I can and dial 999.

There’s an operator on the end of the line very quickly, and I tell her I want the police. Within a couple of seconds I’m put through, and before I can even think straight I’m babbling garbled words about my daughter having disappeared, someone having taken her and far too much detail about the picture she drew of Miss Williams.

The man on the other end of the phone does his best to calm me down with his matter-of-fact questions.

‘How long has she been missing?’ he asks.

I glance at my watch. I don’t know. It feels like hours, weeks, years, but it can only have been minutes at best. I don’t even know what time we got to the car in the first place. Right now, I barely know my own name.

‘I don’t know. Not long. But she’s never done this before. I left her for thirty seconds. I’ve looked. I don’t know.’

I can feel tears breaking.

‘And you say you last saw her outside your house? Have you searched the street and spoken to your neighbours to see if they saw anything?’

‘I looked. And asked the man on the ladder. I can’t find her. She’s nowhere. Please just help me. Please come and find her.’

‘How old is your daughter?’ he asks.

‘Five. She’s meant to be at school,’ I say, my brain switching into organisational – safe – mode. ‘She’s going to be late.’

‘Try not to worry too much,’ he says, trying to sound soothing but instead coming across as patronising. ‘Most children return very quickly. It’s usually just a misunderstanding. Do you have any friends or family around who could help you look?’

‘No, I don’t. Please, please just come and help me. I . . . I think she’s been abducted.’

At the other end of the phone I hear what sounds like either the clicking of a computer mouse or the man’s tongue against the roof of his mouth.

‘Is there someone who would want to abduct your daughter, sir?’

‘I don’t . . . I don’t know. But I’ve looked everywhere. She isn’t here. There’s no way for her to have got in the house. I was there. I’ve checked the front garden and you can’t get into the back from the front. I’ve looked all around the street. She isn’t there!’

‘Okay, sir, try not to panic,’ he says, riling me even more. ‘Could she have reached the end of the street in the time you were apart?’

‘No,’ I say, firmly. ‘No chance. It’s impossible.’

There’s what could only have been a few seconds’ silence, but it seems like hours before he next speaks.

‘What I’m going to do is I’m going to send some local officers out to you. In the meantime, can you knock on your neighbours’ doors and ask them to check their gardens and houses? It’s possible she might have wandered into someone else’s property quite innocently.’

‘I will,’ I tell him. ‘Thank you.’

I have to tell Tasha. I tap her name in my ‘Favourites’ list and the call takes an age to connect.

‘What is it, honey? I’m just about to head into the office,’ she says, without giving me a chance to speak or even saying hello.

‘Ellie’s gone,’ I say.

‘Gone?’

‘Yeah. Gone. I went to get something for her and I came back and she was gone. The police are on their way, but—’

‘What do you mean? She left the house?’

‘No, she was in the car. I went to—’

‘You left her in the car?’ she says, her voice rising in both volume and pitch.

‘For ten seconds. At the most. I just went to grab something. Then I came back and she was gone. I’ve searched everywhere, and the police—’

‘Christ, Nick.’

That’s all she can say. Brilliant.

‘Are you coming home?’ I ask.

‘What choice do I have?’ she says. ‘And I’ve only just got here. You knew I had that meeting with Maxxon today. Why do you always do this to me?’ she says and hangs up the phone.