traffic noise, as if he’s outside. ‘But I get it, I think it’s understandable. Ellen, the baby’s on your mind, it’s a pretty intense experience you’ve had. I can see why you might want to see a link between the two things.’
‘Barely twenty-four hours after this thing happens with Kathryn and Mia, someone gets into my house and is creeping around in the dead of night? There must be a connection, don’t you think? What are the chances of that just being coincidence? The guy who abducted me, he took my phone, he knows where I live. He told me he’d find me if I talked to the police.’
‘Can you stay somewhere else for a few days?’
‘I’m not running away. And if I’m in danger, then so is Mia, right?’
He is silent for a moment.
‘I’m not really sure what you want me to say, Ellen.’
‘Do you really not think they’re connected?’
‘I suppose it’s possible.’ I can hear the sound of a car door slamming shut and the line at his end is suddenly quieter. ‘But honestly? I can’t imagine what the link would be. Unless he just got a kick out of frightening you, which is why I’d urge you to stay with a friend for a few days.’
I lean against the kitchen worktop, looking out of the window. Dizzy has jumped down from the fence and is stalking a magpie that sits in the highest branches of the apple tree. There is one question, the only real question that needs an answer, pushing all others from my mind.
‘Why would he be looking for Mia?’ I say. Finally voicing the suspicion that’s been growing in my mind with every passing hour. ‘Is Kathryn her mother, or is she a nanny or something? Are her parents famous, or rich? What does Dominic want with her?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘But you know, do you? You know something?’
‘I . . . I’m afraid I can’t discuss that with you either, Ellen. But I can assure you that she’s safe.’
He tells me he has a meeting with his boss, so I ring off and sit in my silent kitchen. I was hoping that he would be able to reassure me that my instincts were wrong, that I was overreacting, putting two and two together and making five. Maybe that they had arrested Dominic, or identified the weirdo from the train. But the conversation with him doesn’t reassure me at all. In fact, it only prompts new questions. I pull up the single picture of Mia on my phone, stare at it for a moment until I feel a lump start to build in my throat, an ache in my chest. It’s like a drug, an addiction, I know it’s bad for me but I can’t stop looking at her face.
Stop. Just stop.
I need to get out of the house. I kill an hour walking to the high street and buying a couple of deadbolts from the little hardware store, sticking to the busy roads on the way back and checking over my shoulder every few hundred metres. Back home again, I’m glad of something else to think about as I measure and mark up and put the screws into the top and bottom of the kitchen door, feeling marginally better as I slide both bolts home with a thunk of metal on metal. I make another pot of coffee and look for something else to distract me. My eyes fall on a stack of unopened mail that I have piled on the kitchen table and I sift through it. A handful of flyers for takeaways and local tradesmen. A thick letter from Richard’s solicitor and a thin one from mine. Two utility bills. A credit card statement. I don’t bother to open any of it. All mundane, pointless, meaningless.
I push the stack to one side and sip my coffee, thinking back to where this all started. A train carriage. Mia. Kathryn. A strange guy sitting down opposite me, taking pictures. It wasn’t a coincidence that he had suddenly appeared – there had to be a connection. At the time, my first instinct was that he was following me. Because that was a natural assumption, wasn’t it? Photographing me. But I was wrong. Mia’s the key. She was the reason. All of the strange things, all the craziness started the moment I took her in my arms.
The fresh jolt of caffeine clears my head a little. I find a pen, turn over one of the