Page 31 of Stolen
When Dad finally releases us, Marc and Sian are standing awkwardly a few feet away, clearly not wanting to interrupt.
Mum hugs them both in turn. ‘I’m so sorry this happened to you,’ she says.
Sian looks surprised and gratified. It hasn’t even occurred to me to spare a thought for a bride whose wedding day was hijacked in the most terrible way. Grief makes you selfish. But Sian and Marc will never be able to celebrate their anniversary without remembering this. Only Mum would think to acknowledge their loss in the midst of our own.
‘We wanted to be with you for the press conference,’ Marc says to me. ‘Some of the others are coming downstairs for it, too. Moral support.’
‘We should be getting you a lawyer,’ Dad says. ‘No matterwhat the police say now, they’ll start to look at you, if they haven’t already. And you’ll need someone to handle the media, too. After this appeal goes out, the story will get a life of its own. We need someone to keep the press off your back so you can focus on doing what you need to do.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Marc says. ‘I’ve got a few media contacts here and at home.’
‘Fine,’ I say.
Mum is watching Lorenz and Bates as they confer with their colleagues by the door to the conference room. Beneath the sheen of maternal competence I’ve known all my life, she looks scared and suddenly old. She’s not yet sixty, but she’s had two brushes with cancer, and her beloved grandchild is missing. Her skin is yellow and waxy, and there are grey pouches beneath her eyes. I’ll be glad when my sister arrives to take care of the person I need to take care of me.
‘What time does Harriet’s flight get in?’ I ask Dad.
‘The Shetlands are a long way away, love,’ he says. ‘Lottie will be home long before Harriet could get here.’
It takes a moment to register that my sister isn’t coming.
Our relationship has always been complex. We’re sisters, after all. Friends and rivals in equal measure. I always envied Harriet’s ability to take advantage of the battles I fought as the firstborn with our parents over curfews and boys and school; she was resentful she never got to do anything first. As a child, it never occurred to me she might feel excluded from the self-nourishing triumvirate my parents and I had established before she was born two years later. Only recently have I wondered if her retreat to the Shetlands was a tactical withdrawal, precipitated by an instinct for self-preservation.
I’m aware, too, of the cruelty of fortune: that the sister who prioritised work over family was given a child she hadn’t asked for, whereas Harriet, who only ever wanted a baby, will neverhave one of her own. But we love each other dearly. I’ve never questioned that.
And she worships the ground Lottie walks on; I’ve never doubted that, either. Harriet was the first to visit me in hospital after Lottie was born and, unlike me, she was a natural with the baby. Lottie suffered from colic and, within days of taking her home, Luca and I were on our knees with exhaustion. Nothing we did settled her: we rubbed her back, put a warm hot water bottle on her tummy, gave her gripe water; I even changed my diet and cut out anything spicy, in case something in my milk was upsetting her. But no matter what we tried, she screamed unrelentingly, for hours at a time. Sometimes I didn’t know if it was Lottie crying or me.
When she was about a week old, I called Harriet, who was staying with Mum and Dad, and begged her to come and take Lottie out for an hour, just so we could get some sleep.
The second Lottie was in my sister’s arms, she stopped crying.
The baby-whisperer, we called her. Lottie only had to hear Harriet’s voice and she became calmer. To her shattered parents, it was like dark magic. Harriet saw us through the first six weeks, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought Lottie had been born to the wrong sister.
After Luca died, Harriet came down again to rescue us. For all our differences, I don’t think I’d have coped without her. Neither Lottie nor I were ready for me to be a full-time single parent, and Harriet saved us both.
Which is why I can’t believe she’s let me down now.
As Mum and Dad go upstairs to change after their long flight, the wedding party gathers in the hotel lobby in an unconscious parody of yesterday’s formal photographs: Marc and Sian in the centre, with Sian’s parents behind her, and Marc’s dad, Eric, at his son’s shoulder. Flanking them are Catherine and Zealy on one side, and Paul and Ian on theother. It’s the first time I’ve seen Ian since our encounter on the beach and, when he catches my eye, he flushes and looks away.
Only the little bridesmaids are missing from the tableau, a truth that lands like a blow to my solar plexus.
The lieutenant touches my arm. ‘Before you talk to the media,’ she says, ‘there’s something you need to know.’
She hands me a small, clear plastic evidence bag. It takes me a few moments to understand what I’m holding.
My daughter’s hair.