the room. He thumps down the stairs in a temper.
Amber nods for Ruby to enter, then shuts the door. ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ she says. ‘It’s really difficult for me to see you right now.’
‘I know.’
‘I want to kill you. We all want to kill you.’
‘I can see that, and I do feel really, really bad, but … but honestly, Amber, I don’t think I did anything wrong.’
Amber looks at her, bewildered. ‘You let some bastard steal my daughter and you don’t think you did anything wrong?’
‘The police think whoever took her had a key.’
‘The only person who had a key was you.’
‘What’s going on, Amber?’ Ruby says. ‘What’s really going on? Why did you lie to George about going away for the weekend?’
Amber pinks. ‘That’s not relevant.’
‘Did you really go on a yoga retreat? I mean, it’s not your thing, is it? All that touchy-feely, harmony-with-the-universe stuff.’
‘Piss off.’
‘The police will check, you know. They probably have already.’
‘Ruby …’
‘If you’re having an affair, they will find out.’
Amber’s eyes widen. ‘How dare you talk to me like that? My baby is missing! She’s gone, vanished!’ Her voice cracks down the middle. ‘Nobody knows who’s got her or even if she’s still alive. She was taken while you were looking after her, and you won’t even say sorry.’
‘You know I’m sorry, I’ll always be sorry, Amber, for as long as I live, but I didn’t do it deliberately; it could have happened to any of us!’
‘But it happened to you,’ Amber retorts. ‘Just you. Because you’re an airhead. No, you’re worse than an airhead; you’re a fuck-up, you’re not safe.’ She advances towards her. ‘Do you know what George thinks?’
Ruby has never seen such hatred in her sister’s eyes. She backs away.
‘He thinks you killed Mabel and buried her somewhere, then pretended she’d been abducted.’
‘What?!’ Ruby gasps. ‘That’s … that’s obscene! I would never … You can’t believe that, you can’t. I love Mabel, I’d never do anything to hurt her.’
‘The police will check,’ Amber replies, throwing Ruby’s words back with added venom. ‘If you killed her, they will find out.’
Chapter Nineteen
Day Two without Mabel
Amber sits on the edge of the bed and sobs. It was very wrong to accuse Ruby – her sister’s shocked and horrified expression will be forever printed on her memory. Worse than that, she spoke about Mabel as if she were dead. It’s wicked even to contemplate the possibility that she’s not alive. Wicked and unforgivable. Even if Mabel doesn’t come home, Amber must never get to the stage of thinking about her in the past tense.
It was a horrible encounter, exactly what she was trying to avoid. She’s deeply angry with Ruby, but despite what George thinks, she knows her sister would never hurt Mabel. It’s true that she got into a lot of trouble as a child and tried to wriggle her way out of it, but as she grew up, she settled down. She’s remained careless and chaotic, always picking up new projects and never finishing them, but there’s no harm in her. She’s her own worst enemy, not other people’s.
Amber swallows down her guilt. She shouldn’t have lashed out like that. It was only because she’s under so much strain and Ruby accused her of lying about Gaia Hall. Attack has always been Amber’s first line of defence.
But Ruby knows she has secrets, and that’s very worrying. She doesn’t know what they are exactly, just that they exist. If she keeps digging around, if she tells George … well, it could send him over the edge. Aren’t they all suffering enough?
She dries her eyes with a tissue and throws it in the direction of the bin. It’s bad tactics to make an enemy of Ruby. Unfortunately, it’s too late to call her back and apologise. She fled the house immediately, straight into the pack of media hyenas prowling around the driveway. They will have sniffed that she was horribly upset. Amber hopes she didn’t talk to them.
Amber and George have been warned about the tabloids. To begin with, Sally said, the media will be on their side in the search for Mabel, full of sympathy for their plight. But one false step and they’ll turn against them. Amber remembers what happened to the parents of Madeleine McCann, how they were vilified for leaving their children unsupervised, even accused of killing Madeleine themselves. Apparently the press is already making comparisons with the case – the girls’ names starting with the same letter doesn’t help.