99 Red Balloons. Elisabeth Carpenter

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       Chapter Four

       Stephanie

      The detectives have gone. PC Nadia Sharma, the Family Liaison Officer, is opening and closing cupboards in the kitchen, too polite or too considerate to ask where the cups are.

      My eyes feel red raw and twice their normal size. Emma’s gripping my hand so hard it’s numb, but it doesn’t matter. Her eyes are glazed and fixed on the carpet. She hasn’t spoken for nearly half an hour. I can’t ask if she’s okay, because I know she isn’t. I can’t ask her if she wants a drink because her mind won’t care what her body needs. I release the hand she’s holding and put my arm around her shoulders.

      ‘They’ll find her soon, Em,’ I say. ‘She’ll walk back through the front door, you’ll see.’

      It’s almost cruel to say it, but it feels like Grace will come home. Any minute now.

      Where is she? She’s eight, but she’s not a street-smart eight. Perhaps she’s had an accident, fallen somewhere and can’t get up. She tries to be brave when she’s hurt, especially if she’s in front of Jamie. She fell off her bike last summer. Jamie helped her into the house, her knees and elbows grazed. I’d carried her up the stairs as Jamie watched from the hallway, biting his lip. As soon as we reached the bathroom, the tears rolled down her cheeks.

      ‘Mum should be here in a minute,’ I say. ‘But with me and Jamie being here, there might not be enough room for us all to stay the night.’

      ‘I want you here,’ she says, her eyes still focused on the carpet. ‘All of you.’

      I reach into my bag and check my mobile. It’s been almost an hour since I managed to get hold of Mum. She said she’d been in the bath when I’d called. I had to tell her about Grace, otherwise she might not have come.

      ‘But I’ve already dressed for bed,’ she said. ‘She’ll have gone to a friend’s.’ She sighed when I told her that none of Grace’s friends had seen her since she went into the shop. ‘I’ll have to get some proper clothes on then and wait for a taxi. She’ll probably be back by the time I get there. You girls were always home late from school.’

      ‘But we weren’t eight,’ I said.

      Mum only lives ten minutes away – traffic can’t be that bad. I don’t know how she stayed so calm. If it were my granddaughter, I’d run as fast as I could to get here.

      Matt can’t keep still. He sits in his chair for only a few seconds before going to the window.

      ‘I shouldn’t be here doing fuck all. I should be out looking for her.’

      ‘I ought to know where she is.’ Emma’s voice makes me jump. ‘I’m her mother, I should be able to sense it. I keep trying to picture where she is, but I can’t.’ She turns to face me. ‘Why can’t I picture it?’

      The tears betray me and trickle down my face.

      ‘I don’t know.’

      I wish I knew.

      ‘She wanted French toast with Nutella for breakfast this morning,’ she says. ‘Don’t be silly, I said. That’s a weekend breakfast. Coco Pops I gave her.’ She starts rocking back and forth again. I’m rocking with her, my arm across her back. ‘Shit. Why didn’t I just make her the French toast? Fucking work. Rushing out of the door every morning to make it there on time. Why do I work? If I stayed at home, I would have made it for her. And then maybe she wouldn’t have gone for sweets after school.’

      Matt strides over and crouches at her feet.

      ‘How can it be about that? How can she have vanished just because you work in a fucking office?’

      He’s almost shouting. He stands while fresh tears pour down Emma’s face.

      I wish he hadn’t snapped at her, but then who am I to monitor his behaviour when their child has just disappeared?

      ‘What is it?’ he says, to himself rather than us. ‘What are we missing? Perhaps she has met someone on the internet – maybe a friend from school told her which sites to go on.’

      He looks around the room and walks towards the computer desk.

      ‘Where’s the laptop?’ he says.

      Emma doesn’t move, just stares at the carpet.

      ‘Did you see them take it?’ he says to me.

      I shake my head.

      ‘The police always take things like that, don’t they?’ I say.

      ‘How the hell should I know?’

      Matt puts both hands on top of his head.

      ‘Shit.’

      Emma said she was going to the bathroom, but she’s been upstairs for twenty minutes. I climb the stairs, but not so quietly that I startle her.

      The bathroom door is open; she’s not in there. There’s a glow from underneath Grace’s bedroom door. There’s a sign on the door – one like Emma used to have on hers, only Grace’s is purple and has her name written in silver. I gently push it open.

      ‘It’s only me, Em.’

      She doesn’t look up. She’s sitting on the edge of Grace’s bed. The quilt cover’s laid diagonally across it, and her giraffe teddy bear is near the pillow – she’s had it since she was a baby. Emma’s switched on the fairy lights, which twinkle on the headboard. Loom band bracelets are piled on her bedpost, untouched for months as the phase was replaced by another. I kneel on the floor, not wanting to disturb anything. Under the window is her dressing table, covered with pens, three jewellery boxes, and two mugs that she decorated herself. Above her headboard is a photo collage of her friends from school, and pictures of Emma, Matt, Jamie and me stuck to the wall with Blu-tack. Alongside them are posters of Little Mix and One Direction. One of the boy band members’ faces has been obliterated with a black marker.

      Emma’s holding one of Grace’s books. She lifts it up: Everything You Need to Know About Horses.

      ‘We got it from the library two weeks ago,’ she says. ‘It’s due back on Friday. She’s decided she wants to be a vet. Last week she was going to be a hairdresser. Matt said he’d buy her a shop. At the СКАЧАТЬ