manages to sleep. What wouldn’t she give to rewind to last Friday afternoon and reset the clock? She lies in bed, remembering how it felt to drive away from number 74, leaving Mabel in Ruby’s charge. It was as if she’d been at the bottom of the sea, weighted down with rocks of responsibility. Suddenly the weights were lifted and she felt herself rising to the surface, bobbing above the water and gulping in breaths of air. Now guilt is pushing her down again, the pressure heavier than before. There’s a hard lump in her chest where her heart should be.
‘George?’ She shakes him awake. ‘George …’
His eyes open, widening with hope. ‘Wh … wha … What is it? Have they found her?’
‘No … I mean, I don’t know. I need to talk to you.’
‘Okay …’ He leans across to look at the time on his phone. ‘God, Amber, it’s the middle of the night.’ His head hits the pillow again.
‘I don’t know how you can sleep at all,’ she says ruefully. ‘I’ve been awake for hours.’
‘Couldn’t help it; my body just gave in … Sorry.’ He tries to rouse himself. ‘You okay?’
She huffs. ‘Of course not. My brain’s on high alert. I’m constantly listening out for her, as if she’s napping in the next room. Then I realise she’s not there and … What if we never hear her little voice again?’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about her, every single second; it’s driving me crazy. But the thing is, I don’t want to stop.’
He feels around under the covers for her hand and squeezes it tightly. ‘I understand, I’m the same.’
‘It sounds weird, but I actually hope Sonya’s got her.’
‘Hmm,’ he says, unconvinced. ‘The police will track her down, they always do. Nobody can hide for long these days. Eventually, she’ll have to use her phone or buy something and—’
Amber releases his hand and sits up. ‘George! I’ve just remembered. Polly said Sonya had gone off the radar; you know, shut down all her social media accounts, stopped answering the phone. The girls thought she was having a breakdown, but … Oh God, do you think she might have been planning the abduction for weeks?’
‘I, er … I don’t know.’ He wrinkles his nose. ‘Possibly.’
‘I think the baby she lost was a little girl, but Polly and Hanima also had girls. So why pick me?’
‘Did you fall out with her?’
‘No. Not at all, I didn’t really know her. After the miscarriage, everyone else in our group went round to “support her”.’ She makes quotation marks in the air. ‘They took cakes and flowers and stuff. I thought it was grief-bombing, so I didn’t go.’
He considers. ‘Maybe she resented you for that.’
‘I can’t think why. I was trying to be sensitive. I didn’t want to turn up there with my enormous tummy sticking out.’
‘You never know how other people are going to react. Maybe she thought you didn’t care. Maybe she wanted to take revenge to show you how it felt.’
Polly’s words at the last meet-up suddenly crash into her head. You don’t understand what it’s like to lose a child. Could it be true that Sonya was angry with her? Was that her motivation for taking Mabel? And if so, does it mean that she, Amber, is once again to blame?
It’s not even 8 a.m., but the media are already milling around outside. Vicky, who is peering through a gap in the bedroom curtains, announces that there are more of them today. She recognises one of the journalists from the telly and comments on his attractiveness. Amber nearly hits her when she says this, but George lays a restraining hand on her arm and suggests they get dressed and go downstairs.
‘Try to eat,’ he says, guiding her into the kitchen. He puts the kettle on and rummages in the bread bin. ‘Toast?’
‘I hate them,’ she says. ‘They’re disgusting, the lowest of the low. They don’t care about us or what we’re going through; they don’t even care about Mabel. All they want is a juicy story.’
He puts two slices on and pops some tea bags into the pot. ‘Ignore them, forget they’re there.’
‘How can I? It’s like there’s a party going on outside. I’ve a good mind to—’
‘If you open the door and give them a mouthful, it’ll be all over the front pages. Sally said there was already a load of negative stuff about us on social media; don’t make it worse.’
She puts her hands around the