Losing You by Nicci French Read Free Book Online Page B

seemed to want to pretend that this was a normal Saturday, that he could carry on with the weekend he had planned.
    ‘It’ll take too long,’ said Alix, in a tone that permitted no disagreement. ‘I’m concerned about shock and loss of blood. We must go at once.’ Now she turned to me. ‘Sorry to spoil your party.’
    That was pure Alix. In the middle of a crisis, she still had the presence of mind to aim a jab at me. Clearly her feelings about me and her husband were still raw.
    ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I said.
    Alix asked if they could take the blanket with them. Since it was wrapped round Karen and possibly preventing her falling into severe shock, I wasn’t about to refuse. It was a grim conclusion to what had already been an awkward social occasion. Karen was half led, half carried out to her car by her husband and Joel. She was laid on the back seat, then Rick and Alix drove away.
    Joel gave me a constrained hug. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    He looked round to see if anybody was within earshot. ‘Alix is still a bit funny about all this,’ he said. ‘I mean about us.’
    ‘That’s all in the past,’ I said, wishing he would leave.
    ‘You’re going away for Christmas,’ he said.
    I opened my mouth to tell him that this wasn’t the time or the place for a chat about holidays, then shrugged. ‘If I can track down Charlie,’ I said.
    ‘You’re going with your new, er…you know…’
    ‘Joel,’ I said. ‘You’re meant to be following Alix.’
    ‘I know the way,’ he said. ‘So.’ He paused, as if we were still at the party having a desultory conversation, rather than in the middle of an emergency. ‘So, have a really good holiday. And happy Christmas and I hope you have a really good new year.’
    He leaned across and gave me a peck on the cheek.
    ‘You’ve got to go, Joel. And I’ve got so much to do.’
    He still hovered as if he was trying to think of a pretext to stay.
    ‘So if I don’t see you – ’ he began.
    ‘Go,’ I said, in as soothing a tone as I could manage and almost pushed him into the car.
    I watched him drive away but I wasn’t really seeing anything. I was thinking. This was ridiculous. I had to do something straight away. Did you dial 999 for something like this? Was it enough of an emergency? When I got back into the house I opened a cupboard and fumbled for the phone book. I looked in the Yellow Pages . There was nothing between ‘Point of Sale Advertising’ and ‘Political Organisations’. Finally I found a whole page of police numbers. There were numbers for recruitment, a drugs-crackdown hotline, abnormal loads. There was a gay and lesbian helpline, victim support, Crimestoppers, ChildLine, domestic violence. You could even report a crime online. I ran my thumbnail down the page and found the number for the service desk for Sandling Island.
    Unbelievably, the party in my house was still going on, like an organism that refused to die whatever was done to it. I retreated with the phone into the utility room that led off the kitchen, and shut the door behind me. A female voice answered and I realized I hadn’t considered precisely what I was going to say.
    ‘This may sound stupid,’ I said. ‘I think my daughter may be missing.’
    The woman stopped me right there and took my name and address, then Charlie’s full name and age. She didn’t sound impressed by my answers.
    ‘How long has your daughter been missing?’
    ‘It’s difficult to put it like that. She was staying with a friend last night, but she was due back a couple of hours ago and…’
    ‘A couple of hours? And she’s fifteen years old? I’d really give it a bit longer than that.’
    ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘I know it doesn’t sound like much time but something’s gone wrong. We’re due to go away on holiday. We’re supposed to be leaving before one and it’s twenty to twelve now. She knows about that, she’s excited about it. She had to get back