After Anna. Alex Lake

to talk. I’ll come down to the village and pick you up.’

      She stood on the pavement. It was cobbled, and she could feel the hard curves of the stones through the thin soles of her shoes. It was the only thing that felt solid; the shops and cars and people that surrounded her seemed slippery, ungraspable, unreal.

      ‘Anna,’ she shouted. ‘Anna!’ It was as much a wail of loss as a call that she expected an answer to; she realized when she tasted the tears on her lips that she was crying.

      Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number.

      ‘Mrs Crowne?’ a voice said. ‘This is Jo Scott. I was wondering whether you were still coming?’

      For a moment, Julia could not work out who the woman was, then she remembered. The dog woman. The woman with Bella, Anna’s puppy.

      ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Something came up. Can I call you back?’

      There was a pause. An irritated pause, Julia thought.

      ‘Ok,’ the woman said. ‘Call me back. But I have to leave for work now, so it’ll have to be another day for the puppy.’

      As Julia hung up a car pulled up next to her. It was Brian.

      ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Get in. The police are at the school and they want to talk to you.’

       iv.

      They pulled up at the school and got out of the car. As they walked towards the door, Julia reached out for Brian’s hand. It was a while since they’d touched in any but the most perfunctory way and she was surprised how much reassurance it gave her, how much she needed to feel another human being.

      She squeezed his fingers.

      He looked at her, eyes narrowed, and pulled his hand away.

      ‘Brian,’ she said. ‘Please.’

      ‘Now’s not the time,’ he said. ‘You need to talk to the cops.’

      Mrs Jacobsen, the headmistress, approached them. She was accompanied by a uniformed officer. He nodded at Julia. He had a bustling, efficient presence. At the far end of the corridor another officer was talking to a woman in jeans and a sweatshirt.

      ‘Mrs Crowne,’ he said. ‘I’m PC Davis. We received a report that your daughter is missing?’

      ‘Yes,’ Julia said. The presence of the police officer was as disturbing as it was reassuring. If the police were here, then this was real. She felt her legs weaken. ‘I don’t know where she is. Help me find her. Please.’

      PC Davis nodded. ‘We will, Mrs Crowne. I’m sure that she’s close by. That’s normally the case in these situations. There are quite a few members of the school staff out looking for her,’ he said. ‘Now, you were in the village?’

      ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Anna – there’s a sweet shop she likes, that we sometimes go to after school. I thought she might be there.’

      ‘Is there any reason you thought she might have gone there?’ PC Davis asked. ‘Has she done this before? Walked away from the house, or the school?’

      ‘No,’ Julia said. ‘Never. She knows not to.’

      PC Davis nodded again. ‘Have you traced the route back to your house?’ he said. ‘Often when a child is missing from school they have simply gone home alone.’

      ‘She wouldn’t have done that,’ Julia said. ‘We live three miles away. I doubt she even knows the way.’

      ‘Maybe not,’ PC Davis said. ‘But children sometimes decide that they are ready for something when we don’t expect it. We need to check the route to your house.’

      ‘No,’ Julia said. She knew Anna, and she did not think for a second that she was merrily strolling home on her own. ‘I don’t want to waste time.’

      ‘Mrs Crowne,’ PC Davis said. ‘We need to check whether Anna left on her own. I understand your concern, but we have to be systematic in our approach. Could you give me your address?’

      ‘Of course,’ Brian said. He gave the address.

      ‘Thank you,’ PC Davis said. ‘We’ll send a car to drive the route.’

      ‘What else are you going to do?’ Julia asked. ‘Anna could be hurt, or in danger.’

      ‘We’re going to do everything we can, Mrs Crowne,’ PC Davis said. ‘But we have to take this one step at a time.’

      Julia stared at him. She didn’t like him, this burly officer who thought of this as a process, as a problem that could be solved with a step by step approach, when it was her daughter, her only child, who was five-years-old and missing, now for almost forty minutes.

      Forty minutes. Yes, she might be on the route home, or playing in a local park, but what if she wasn’t? What if someone had taken her? She could be forty miles away by now.

      ‘What can we do?’ Julia said. ‘How can we help?’

      ‘Call around,’ PC Davis replied. ‘Anyone you can think of. Anna’s friends’ mothers, relatives. Anyone who might have picked her up. Think if there’s anywhere else she might be? Does anyone else ever pick her up? A relative maybe?’

      ‘Her grandma, on Mondays and Wednesdays,’ Julia said.

      ‘Is there any possibility she came today, by mistake?’

      ‘No,’ Brian said. ‘I spoke to my mother about two p.m.. She was at home. The kitchen was flooded.’

      ‘Anyone else?’ PC Davis asked.

      ‘No,’ Julia said. ‘Only myself or Brian or Edna pick her up, and she knows not to go with strangers.’

      ‘Could another parent have seen her alone and taken her home? Maybe tried to call you?’

      ‘I don’t think so.’ Julia looked at her phone. ‘There are no missed calls.’

      ‘It is possible, though,’ PC Davis said. ‘Who would be the most likely to do something like that?’

      Julia looked down. Her shoes were scuffed from the search in the village. ‘Perhaps Dawn Swift’s mum, Gemma. Or maybe Sheila Parks.’

      ‘Could you call and ask them?’

      Julia nodded and found Gemma Swift’s number on her phone. Gemma picked up on the second ring.

      ‘Hi Julia,’ Gemma said. ‘How’s it going?’

      She hesitated for a moment, hoping that Gemma would fill the gap with a declaration that Anna was with her and she hoped Julia didn’t mind but she’d brought her home when she saw she was alone at the school and she’d meant to call but the girls wanted a snack and then the dog had to be fed, and you know how things can get away from you.

      ‘Are you there, Julia?’ Gemma said.

      ‘Yes. Gemma, did you happen to see Anna at school today?’

      ‘No. Why?’

      ‘I was late. And when I got here she was gone.’

      ‘What do you mean, gone?’

      ‘She wasn’t at the school. I can’t find her.’

      ‘Oh my God.’ The horror in Gemma’s voice was like a sudden blow to the stomach. It crystallized everything that was bad about this situation into one moment, and it left Julia short of breath.

      This is real now, she thought. This is the real thing.

      ‘Jules,’ Gemma said. ‘Can I help?’

      ‘I don’t think so. The police are here.’

      ‘I’ll call round some people,’ she said. ‘The