‘Mrs Jessop.’ I point at Fran and he turns to her. ‘I’ve spoken to a few of the parents over at the bar area, but none of them have seen Laurel. We have implemented the first stages of our missing child process. All exits have been closed for the moment, and several people have already volunteered to start searching the immediate area for any sign of Laurel. What time did you last see her?’
‘I don’t know … the display had started, I think. Anna?’ Fran turns slightly, throwing the question to me, her eyes already looking past me, still searching the field for any glimpse of Laurel.
I have no idea. I haven’t checked the time all evening, and my heart thuds in my chest, a frantic double beat that makes my breath stop in my throat for a moment.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘Just after the fireworks started?’ Mr Abbott flips his wrist and checks his watch.
‘So, she’s been missing for around half an hour now?’ He frowns, and I feel sick – I hadn’t realised how long it had been, it feels like seconds ago and a hundred years all at the same time since I last saw her. ‘OK, I think perhaps it’s time we made a phone call … I think we need to get the police involved.’
I turn to Fran, and see my own fear written all over her face.
‘I’ll do it.’ She gulps hard, and slowly pulls her mobile out from her pocket again, tapping in the numbers with shaking fingers, her face illuminated by the glow of the screen.
‘Police, please. It’s my daughter …’ Her eyes find mine and I watch as she blinks slowly, pushing a thick, heavy tear out and over her pale cheek. ‘She’s gone … I can’t find her. I think someone has taken her.’
Pulses of blue light flash as the patrol cars pull up across the entrance gate to the field, illuminating the faces of the families still waiting to go home. There are three of them, parked haphazardly across the entrance to the field, blocking the way out. Just the sight of the blue lights, seeing the dark uniforms of the officers stepping out of the cars, is enough to make my nerves jitter and my hands shake. I’ve spent the last five years doing my best to avoid any interaction with the police, at all costs. I have no choice tonight, though. I watch as the taller of the first two officers leans down to listen as Caramel Blonde says something, pointing in our direction. While others have started searching the field for signs of Laurel, the head teacher has kept Fran and me here, not far from the bank of portaloos, up to our ankles in mud, telling us that we need to stay put to make it easier for the police to find us. And now, they are here.
‘Oh God.’ Fran lets out a little moan as two of the police officers make their way towards us, pressing her fingers up towards her mouth. ‘I didn’t think they’d actually come …’ She turns to me with a look of panic on her face. ‘I thought we’d find her – I thought we’d find her and there’d be no need for them.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say, wanting to reassure her but she’s usually so unapproachable that I find it hard to break the habit of keeping myself back a little.
‘Mrs Jessop?’
Fran says nothing, and I give her a little nudge.
‘Yes,’ she says finally, turning a tear-stained face to the police officer in front of us. ‘That’s me.’
‘I’m DS Wright. You rang us – said you couldn’t find your daughter. Do you want to tell us what happened?’
The woman’s voice is low, and I have to strain slightly to hear her. Fran starts to recount the evening, starting from when she arrived at the field. Laurel had been excited about the bonfire all week, it had been all she had talked about, and I’d ended up leaving the house with her half an hour before we’d needed to, arranging to meet Fran at the field so she could finish getting ready in peace. Laurel had tugged on my hand all the way along the lane to the entrance, not even stopping for Mr Snow’s house at the top of the pathway – an older gentleman, who was often in his garden in the afternoons, and Laurel liked to pause and chat to him for at least five minutes, seeing as he quite often had lollies in his pocket. I think about the way she rushed along the pavement, excitement making her squeeze my hand, before she pulled away, eager to be the first in the gate and I feel my heart constrict in my chest. What if she’d fallen? What if a car had come speeding round the corner and almost hit her? Would I have held her hand a bit tighter then? Would I have made sure she was in my eyeline for the entire evening, instead of assuming that she’d caught up with Fran?
‘… and she just wasn’t there, was she, Anna?’ I am shaken out of my thoughts by Fran’s voice speaking my name.
‘And you are?’
‘Anna.’ I look over at DS Wright’s colleague, a slight woman with short blonde hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose, who stands poised with a small black notebook, as Wright waits for my answer. ‘Anna Cox. I’m … I’m Laurel’s nanny.’
‘And you brought Laurel here, earlier this evening?’
‘Yes. I walked here with her while Fran was getting ready. Laurel was excited, she wanted to get here as early as possible.’
‘And then … what? Can you run me through exactly what happened – when you first realised that Laurel wasn’t where you expected her to be?’
I see Fran glance in my direction as I open my mouth to speak, to repeat exactly what she has just told them. ‘Fran was going to the loo, and to get us a drink. Laurel said she was going as well, and she ran off after Fran. But then Fran came back, and Laurel hadn’t caught up with her.’ Guilt lies heavily in my stomach. Why hadn’t I watched? Made sure she reached Fran, kept my eyes on her until she grabbed her hand?
‘Thank you, Anna.’ The police officer seems satisfied with my comments, scratching away jotting down my words in her notebook. ‘So, it sounds as though she’s wandered off, lost sight of Mum. We’ve got the exits closed now and we’re looking for her, OK? She can’t have got far – we’ll find her.’ She gives me a brisk smile, before walking away towards her colleagues, leaving Fran and me alone, the chilly night air taking on a sinister feel as Laurel’s name is shouted again and again into the dark.
I’m not sure how long it is before DS Wright walks back over to us, her face pensive. She stumbles over an uneven patch in the muddy ground, her sturdy black shoes sliding as she almost loses her footing. Righting herself, she brushes a splash of mud from her black trousers, before stopping in front of us.
‘What is it?’ Fran says, almost shoving me aside to get close to the police officer, her hand reaching out before falling to her hip. Her voice is hoarse from shouting Laurel’s name, and as I swallow I realise my throat is also raw. ‘Did you find something? Did you find Laurel?’
‘Mrs Jessop … Fran.’ DS Wright speaks slowly, calmly, before she turns her gaze to include me. ‘As yet, we haven’t found any sign of Laurel in the immediate area, but we are still carrying out a full, intensive search. In the meantime, there are just a few things that I would like to ask you about.’
Fran says nothing, her face pale, so I nod instead. ‘Yes, of course. We’ll answer any questions you have, won’t we, Fran?’
‘Great, thank you.’ DS Wright pulls out her notebook, rifling through the pages until she finds what she’s looking for. ‘So, Laurel went to catch up with her mother – with you, Fran – is that right?’
‘Yes.’ I nod again, as Fran crushes a tissue to her nose, tears spilling over and running down her cheeks. ‘But I didn’t actually see her catch up with Fran.’ Just saying the words makes me feel sick.
‘But you’re sure she went in that direction – towards the portaloos?’
‘Yes,