The Hour Before Dawn. Sara MacDonald

Good luck, Ms Montrose. I’m sure you’ll find your mother safe and well. Old people do go astray, you know.’

      I laughed as I put the phone down. Fleur, old! Never. But she was vague.

      We thanked Melanie and left the now deserted little terminal. As we drove slowly home I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know whether I was annoyed or anxious.

      ‘It seems you were right, Nik, she has gone walkabout.’ Jack looked at my face. ‘Darlin’, you really are worried something’s happened to her?’

      ‘I was being facetious before, Jack. Fleur is perfectly capable of travelling long distances. She spent her whole childhood doing it. How can you miss a plane on a stopover? A bus picks you up and deposits you, bang, at the airport. She knew we were meeting her. If something has happened why hasn’t she rung us?’

      ‘As soon as we get home we’ll ring that Singapore hotel. There may be a message waiting for us.’

      But there wasn’t. Dark seemed to descend quickly and the house seemed oddly stilled. We had been poised waiting for Fleur. I didn’t want her to be ill and alone in some huge hotel full of strangers.

      I rang the Singapore Hilton and could not make the first girl understand what I wanted and needed to know. I could feel my voice rising and Jack took the phone and calmly went over it all again. Then he put his hand over the mouthpiece.

      ‘They’re getting the manager.’

      Jack repeated his message once more and then listened. I watched his face change and he flashed me an anxious look. He gave the man our number and said, yes, we would ring later. He put the phone down and came over to me.

      ‘Your mother booked in for one night only…’ He hesitated. ‘She didn’t catch the airport bus when it came and no one could find her. Her luggage is still all in her room and she hasn’t booked out of the hotel. No one has seen her since early yesterday morning.’

      I stared at him, felt the blood drain from my face. Something really had happened to Fleur.

      Jack took my hand. ‘I’m going to run you a bath and then make you toast. You’re getting into bed. Do you hear me? We’ve had one fright with the baby, we don’t want another…’ He paused.

      ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’

      ‘The manager is going to contact the police if she doesn’t return tonight. We’re to ring the hotel in the morning. They are going to ask Fleur to ring us immediately if she comes back.’

      My back ached and Jack ran me a bath and made me get in it. I was glad to be in bed. He came and sat on the edge of it with toast, which we shared. Then he brought the phone upstairs where we could hear it and I checked my mobile was switched on. He went for a shower and then got into bed and held me tight, and even though he warmed me I could not stop imagining all the terrible things that could have happened to Fleur.

      Jack always could fall asleep straight away and he did tonight. He had been up since 5.30. I lay there against him thinking it served me bloody well right. I had not wanted my mother to come and now she was probably dead in some alleyway in Singapore. Or…Or what? If she had been taken ill she would have had her passport on her, and hotel and flight details. If she was in hospital we would know by now. Which meant she was in trouble. Or dead.

      I shivered and carried on circuitous conversations in my head. It was a long time since I had prayed. I tried to remember what my mother had said to me on our one and only telephone conversation, how her voice had sounded, and I couldn’t.

      If my mother was dead, I would be to blame for not checking all her plans in detail, like any daughter would have done. For not phoning or texting or letting her know she could contact me and not feel a nuisance. For not monitoring her progress thousands of miles towards me. For not caring enough; for being wickedly self-absorbed and childishly selfish.

      Could it be she had gone looking for some piece of architecture and got lost or gone further than she’d meant to? Or maybe her phone had been stolen and she couldn’t contact us. Maybe she had met an acquaintance or colleague and was staying with them. I was clutching at straws.

      I lay very still with a terrible sense of prescience. More than that, fear lay under my skin as if something dark was crawling my way. Jack breathed beside me and the night stretched on and on and the dawn came, surprising me with its suddenness.

      The phone went and I leapt upright. It was a Detective Sergeant James Mohktar who spoke perfect English. He was ringing from the Singapore Hilton. He asked me if I was Mrs Campbell’s next of kin. Her luggage was still in her room and her disappearance was worrying. Had she contacted me? Was there any place I could think of that she might have gone to?

      No, I told him. She had not contacted me and I had no idea where she could possibly have gone. ‘She once lived in Singapore a long time ago, but she doesn’t know anyone there now. I’m very worried, this is not like her, or the fact that she hasn’t been in touch…’

      There was a pause and then the detective said, ‘You are advising me that Mrs Campbell is definitely missing and that you have no explanation whatsoever for her disappearance?’

      ‘Yes, I am. My mother was flying out to us in New Zealand via Singapore. She caught the plane from Heathrow to Singapore, but did not catch the second leg of her journey to Auckland. She was then due to fly from Auckland to Kerikeri where she knew we were waiting to meet her. If she’d missed her flight or was ill she would have let us know.’

      ‘OK, Mrs Montrose. We are going to make a search of the hotel now. My men will make inquiries to try to ascertain her whereabouts and safety and which member of staff may have had a conversation with her and who saw her last. Then I will ring you again…’ He paused. ‘If we do not find your mother, I am afraid you must fly to Singapore to register her officially missing and identify her belongings. She did always carry her passport about her person?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t have left her passport in a hotel room. She would have kept it with her.’

      ‘We will’ the detective sergeant said, ‘maintain hope, Mrs Montrose, that there is a rational explanation. I will ring you this evening. Try not to worry. Good day.’

      I crumpled on the edge of the bed, Jack’s anxious eyes on me. Was God or fate visiting some sick and terrible retribution on me? Was my mother too going to disappear without trace? Her body never found, so that I would never know what happened or where she had gone, who took her or why?

      Just like Saffie. Snatched from under our noses; disappearing from us without trace twenty-eight years ago.

       EIGHT

      It was time to leave for the airport. Fleur walked round the army quarter which would soon be empty of all their personal things. She moved slowly, touching the heavy mahogany furniture, staring past the small Malay house that chimed in the window of the twins’ room, the sound as familiar as breathing in the easy, somnolent days spent there.

      Far below her came the dull thud of the naval base and the hot morning breeze brought to her a vague smell of sea mixed with frangipani blossom from the garden. Fleur stood looking out, invoking the image of David moving through the house with her.

      Surely if she closed her eyes for a moment she could shift time back, change by sheer will the sequence of events. Make it all a bad dream. A small tragedy you spot suddenly in a paper, the abrupt end of someone else’s life.

      The sun flowed across the polished floor and touched one arm, making the other instantly cold. She shivered and moved to the front of the house. There it was, the black car moving sleekly up the road towards her, small pennant flying. Fergus would get out, immaculate in his starched uniform, looking as pale and stunned as Fleur; a familiar presence to take them to the airport and the long journey home to bury David.

      Fleur