he put up their Christmas tree, tested the lights then let the girls loose on the decorations, all of which were unbreakable. Usually he would have been entranced by their joy, watching Maria pull faces at her own fish-like reflection in the curve of a bauble and be charmed by Josie combing the hair of the tree-top angel. The magic of Christmas touched him via the children but it didn’t make him forget that Hannah still didn’t come.
Mid-morning, regardless of the downpour, he got the girls into coats and boots and set out for Nan Heather’s, his heart trotting uncomfortably as they neared the red-brick cottage with its cute dormers. His heart fell when he noticed the lights were out on the small Christmas tree at the window. The car Hannah had been using wasn’t outside and, when he knocked on the door, nobody answered.
‘Urgh, this weather’s yuck,’ moaned Josie, while Maria looked doleful under her dripping hood.
‘Yeah. Let’s go home.’ Nico felt as miserable as the weather. Then inspiration struck. ‘No! Let’s jump in the car and go out for lunch.’ There was a tea room at Carlysle Courtyard and maybe Hannah was working there again today.
‘Yay!’ shouted the girls.
They cheered again to see the balloons and lights and he had to put Maria on his shoulders to keep track of her. At Santa’s grotto he asked an elf if she’d seen Hannah. Santa looked up from his sack of presents to observe, ‘She put together a cracking opening for us yesterday but I haven’t seen her today.’
They queued for sandwiches at Posh Nosh but the dark-haired woman behind the counter shook her head when he asked after Hannah. ‘Don’t think we’re expecting her.’ Nico decided he wasn’t going to wait a week for his phone to dry out. Where the hell was Hannah? And how was his dad? They drove to Bettsbrough and the kids bickered over colouring things at a play table in a phone shop while he sorted himself out with a new model – at huge cost; he’d have to check out his insurance policy – then returned to Honeybun to wait for it to activate while the girls snuggled up with him to watch Disney.
The phone came to life on his original number and he rang Carina first. ‘Dad’s taking things easily and drowsing in front of the TV,’ she reported, which left him free to ring Hannah. He knew with deep, gut-clenching certainty that the Loren nightmare wouldn’t seem so bad if he could talk it over with her, even see her smile and feel her arms around him. It wasn’t like him to be the one in need of a cheerleader but her acerbic good sense would banish the spectres that danced around him.
There were a few messages from her from yesterday and also some missed calls, but nothing since. He called her and got voicemail. He left: ‘Hannah, are you OK? Can you get back to me?’ He texted, too, in case she was somewhere she couldn’t take a call. After an hour he called again. And again.
No response.
Late in the afternoon, though it was still raining, he got the girls back into their outdoor things and they splashed through the puddles to Nan Heather’s. His heart lifted to see the windows lit from within and the jolly mixture of coloured lights on the tree. Impatiently, he rapped at the kitchen door.
After a short wait, Nan answered, holding her arm awkwardly in its cast. ‘Wondered if I’d see you,’ she said, her slippers squeaking on the quarry tiled floor. ‘I’m at sixes and sevens because I’ve only just come back but my daughter’s brought me a lovely basket of French goodies from her travels. Would you like to help me unpack them, girls?’
‘Yes, please!’ cried Josie. ‘Where’s Hannah?’ She looked around expectantly.
‘Not here, I’m afraid.’ Nan shot a sidelong glance at Nico and his senses went on alert.
Something was wrong. His heart heaved. ‘Is she OK?’ he asked quickly.
‘Far as I know, duck.’ Nan led the children to the adjacent dining room and pointed at a basket on the floor, circular with an enormous hoop handle, decorated profusely with red, white and blue pompoms. ‘Pretty, isn’t it? But I can’t undo the cellophane.’
Nico recognised unpacking it as a job invented to keep kids busy but Josie happily unhooked the cellophane, trying to preserve the silver ribbon and began lifting the packets of biscuits and jars of preserves and passing them to