but there’s nothing. I sign into her Facebook account. Her most recent status update hardly suggests anything out of the ordinary:
Big smiles from Cressida all morning! Love this girl
She had sent text messages to her friends Rachael, Mimi and Niamh about meeting up for coffee and the park and an eBay offer for a toddler bed. She’d made recent calls to the dry cleaner’s, Gerda, and me. Her phone contains hundreds of photographs, a vast percentage taken by Max, it seems – these images are mostly of Max’s nose, hand, and the carpet, with a few blurry shots of Cressida in various states of discomfort. There are several blurry ones of Eloïse, too, and on seeing these images I can’t help but fall into a chair and wrestle with the urge to turn into a big mushy puddle of emotion. It’s more out of frustration, or perhaps a concoction of extreme emotions, that I find myself with tears running down my face.
Max must have taken these. El seemed unaware that they were being taken. In one she is asleep in Max’s bed, his Thomas the Tank Engine bed covers visible. In another she is sitting cross-legged on the floor by his Peppa Pig set. In another she is captured from behind as she stands at the back door, her head turned to the right. I flick to the next image, then go back.
She is holding something in her hand.
I zoom in to it. The image is blurry, and at first I dismiss the small white object as a pen, but on closer inspection I can determine that the ghostly white spiral above her hand is smoke winding upward like a thin white ribbon. A cigarette.
The date stamp is 7 February 2015. This year. A month ago. I study it for a long time, wondering if it is Eloïse in the picture or someone else, maybe one of her friends. El has never smoked. She was staunchly opposed to the whole concept of smoking, would choke and wave her hands if anyone lit up close by. It was actually embarrassing how vocal she’d get about it. I quit soon after we got together because she threatened to dump me if I didn’t.
If for some reason she suddenly decided to take it up, surely she would have told me, of all people? And why when Cressida was barely eight weeks old? Eloïse decided to become more or less vegan to ensure that Cressida got the best nutrition while being breastfed – so, smoking? I’m amazed. It doesn’t seem to fit the picture, and yet here she is. Smoking. I almost want to laugh, it’s that bizarre. I have no way of even beginning to interpret what this discovery means.
I flick through all the images, studying them for any signs of anything equally mis-fitting. One of the videos shows El laughing and clapping as Cressida kicked her legs on the play mat. This is consistent with the woman I know and love, and so I give a big sigh of relief, as though I’ve found her again. Another clip shows her in the living room sleeping as Max tells the camera to be very quiet and not wake Mummy up.
I make a mental note to think carefully about how to ask Max about Mummy smoking.
As I’m figuring out how to work the dishwasher, DS Canavan comes into the kitchen holding out a baby monitor. ‘We’re going to have our technical team look over these, if that’s OK?’
I nod. ‘Yes, of course.’ I tell him I’ve already checked them in the hope that they might tell us where she’s gone. He perks up at this, and I feel gut-kicked all over again when I tell him they were turned off.
‘Have you the one set of monitors, or are there any more around the house?’
This, I can answer.
‘We have four. A camera in each of the kids’ bedrooms, one in the playroom and one overlooking the landing upstairs. They’re wireless.’
‘And did you link up the babycam to any online account?’
‘My wife had them synched to her phone. I’ve already checked. She had the monitors switched off.’
Canavan nods.
‘We’ll get our tech team to check it out.’
Komméno Island, Greece
My dreams are strange and vivid. I dream I am holding a ball of red wool and walking from the back door of the farmhouse towards the outside. Only, the island with its vast blue sprawl of ocean is not to be found beyond the threshold – instead, I step through the door to a dark cave.
I am terrified of the dark, of the cave entrance marked with fang-like stalactites and jagged walls, but somehow I know I have to go in. I have no choice. I find a cigarette lighter in my back pocket and flick it to illuminate my path. At my feet I can see shallow puddles of muddy water. The cave is narrow, though the ceiling is high – about fifteen feet. The cave does not stretch very far ahead but seems to twist and bend around many corners, widening at some parts to ten or twelve feet and then narrowing again to three or four. I keep the ball of wool in one hand and the flickering lighter in the other, my mouth dry with anticipation.
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