Chapter Thirty-Six
Thirty-six.
There’s no message from Robin when we land.
Maya has been dealing with undertakers and other officials all day and therefore knows only in a general way that I’m trying to track Robin down.
She has, finally, left a voicemail, but it contains no information about my husband.
After sharing the logistics of death she talks about Nicola’s mental state, and then says—almost as an afterthought—that Robin’s probably just busy and she hopes the kids take the news about their granddad OK.
We head straight for the car hire desks. Robin drove me all the way to Heathrow when I left for my placement. He held me for a long time before I walked into Departures and he told me how much he would miss me; how much he loved me. He’s due to pick me up at the end of my placement next week.
Mum, who I called a few times from Sweden, still hasn’t returned my call, nor has she read my messages.
—
Johan buys snacks at Fleet Services while I try Robin again.
“I know,” I say to his answerphone. “I know what you did. We can talk about it later. For now, I just need to know where the children are.”
We drive on. Johan, wordlessly, arranges snacks in the center console of the hire car.
He always knew how to handle my undereating without confrontation.
He trusted me to get back on track, which I always did; he knew I’d do something about it if things ever got out of hand.
Whereas Robin would stand over me and my unfinished meals as if I were Maeve back in her toddlerhood, when all she’d eat was chips or strawberry yogurt.
You must eat, Carrie, he’d say. Go on. Just this bowl, please.
I find myself taking the food gratefully. Dried mango. Squares of chocolate, cherry tomatoes.
We don’t talk much as we drive west. It’s a clear night and the sky is a brightly studded cavern, stretching in all directions over the A303 and the sprawling Wiltshire hills.
Maya calls at around nine thirty, worried about our stepmother.
It seems Nicola had somehow expected Dad to make a full recovery and became so frenzied in her grief that her GP had to prescribe a sedative this afternoon.
She’s still fast asleep, and Maya doesn’t know if she should wake her to give her some food or not.
She sounds shattered and close to breaking herself.
I ask again if she’s heard from Robin or the kids, but she says no. There is no point burdening her further. She is in our dead father’s house, on the front line.
Our dead father. I cannot internalize this.
As I drive I think of Dad, drinking tea underneath his apple tree, an empty jam tart tray folded neatly on a plate. I think of the horse game Maya and I used to play with him, the swing he took five weeks to erect in the garden because he was so bad at DIY.
I remember the feeling of his arms around me when he arrived at that police station in London after Mum lost us in the protest, the feeling of having been rescued almost from death.
Dad stopped the car repeatedly on the way back to Devon—on this very road, in fact—so he could get out and cuddle me and Maya.
Again, and again, and again. He was distraught.
I cry for a while. Johan lets me, passing me a clean T-shirt from his bag in the absence of any tissues.
My rock has gone, and now—hours later—it seems that my other rock has been shattered too.
I am untethered, floating in this vast ocean of stars.
I have nowhere to anchor and no one I can trust. Three months ago, I thought I’d found my direction.
I thought the drifting was over, that it was my destiny to return to surgery, to myself.
I would stand next to Robin as a working parent and move back into the only life that had ever made sense to me.
I was ready. But what did I know?
I call him again and leave another message, warning that I will call the police if I don’t hear from him soon.
He doesn’t respond. I think he’s probably gambling on the likelihood that I’d do almost anything other than involve the police after nearly being taken away from my own parents when I was young.
We drive past a closing service station somewhere in Wiltshire; its lights blink off as we pass. It’s late, and my children and husband have been unaccounted for for more than twenty-four hours.
I force myself to forget about Robin, the man who put Johan in prison; to think instead about my husband, Robin Carghill, aged forty-two.
Owner of matching socks, astronomy manuals, secondhand camera lenses.
Robin Carghill, daddy to my children, who buys them Roald Dahl books, choc ices, fragments of asteroids.
Robin Carghill, my lover, my friend, my cheerleader as I fight my way back up the steep ladder into surgery.
He is a good man. He has to be. Like Johan said, I’d have realized by now if he was a psychopath. I’d have started to notice things; I’d have begun to worry.
Wouldn’t I?
I look out of the window. Stars watch our hire car as it inches toward my home. Is Robin looking at this sky, too? Is he asking for answers, for hope, just like I am?
There’s a brief moment of lightness just past Stonehenge, when we pull over to swap seats.
I’ve just vacated the driver’s seat for Johan to have a turn at the wheel, but with the driver’s seat slid forward to accommodate my very short legs, he can’t actually get into the car.
He laughs, pushing the seat back to its furthest limit, and although he doesn’t say anything I know he’s remembering the jokes we used to make about our height difference.
I allow myself to smile, to slide into this warm memory. It feels a lot safer than the present moment.
—
The house is empty. There’s a light on in the Pig Shed bathroom—a lot of our guests are discombobulated by the utter blackness of the moor at night—but nothing in our house.
Not the usual soft glow of the kids’ night-light, or the porch light we always leave on in case of emergencies when we’ve got Roof guests.
I run upstairs anyway, but the rooms are empty.
Our luggage is present and correct, minus the suitcase I took to Sweden, but the kids’ little Trunkis are gone.
He wouldn’t take their travel bags if he was planning to harm them, I tell myself, but the silence of this empty house is like a scream. It’s becoming harder to stay rational.
“They’re not here,” I shout to Johan. “I’m calling the police.”
I pick up Maeve’s Squishmallow and as I inhale the smell of my daughter, the panic erupts from my body in a primal howl.
Seconds later, Johan is in the room. He holds me, tightly, and I no longer have any idea if this is OK, for him or for me, especially here in my children’s bedroom, but I know also that I need him.
“It’s OK,” he’s saying. “Keep breathing, please, Carrie.”
I can hear his heart pumping fast. I allow myself to put my arms around him, and we stand there for a few seconds, my thoughts hurtling in all directions, until my phone starts ringing.
It’s Mum. She must finally have seen the missed calls. “Carrie? Are you OK? I’m so sorry about your dad.”
“Do you know where the kids are?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Raffy and Maeve. Do you know where they are?”
“No. What’s going on?” she says. Her voice has changed. “Hang on. Hasn’t Robin got them? Have you flown home early?”
“Yes. And nobody’s been at our house since yesterday evening when Robin told our Roof guests some bullshit story about an astronomical event that could never have been happening because there was a storm in Devon and I’m fucking terrified, Mum, where are they? What has he done?”
“Why are you suddenly worried about Robin? Carrie, what’s happening?”
“I have to go, Mum. I have to call the police. I’ll call you back.”
—
My children and their father are missing. I am curled up on the rug in their bedroom with Johan Kullberg sitting next to me and the police are on their way. Sobs churn through me as I repeat, over and over, please don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them.
Johan has his arm around me. He’s stopped saying he thinks they’ll be OK. I don’t know if this is because he doesn’t want to belittle my feelings or because he’s beginning to worry himself, but his silence just makes me more frightened.
Once I told her everything, Mum said, “Let me see what I can do”—but she said that to me in Thailand all those years ago and it didn’t come to much. As I’ve come to see over time, Mum is no superhuman. She’s just determined and fearless.
“Tea?” Johan asks. I shake my head. He nods, stroking my back with a warm hand. Then, after a pause, he says, “Teh tarik?”
“No. Actually, yes. Thank you.”
Mum taught him how to make it not long after I introduced them. He must have kept it going ever since.
Johan goes downstairs. “Condensed milk is in the cupboard above the toaster,” I say, but another sob comes out and I don’t repeat myself. I won’t be able to stomach it anyway.
It’s 12:10 a.m.
—
Mum calls just before one, at which point the police are taking a statement. There are officers upstairs checking through our bedrooms; I’ve been given an unbearably kind female officer who’s suggested we sit on the sofa so I can stay under a blanket. I’m still shaking.
“I’ve got them,” Mum says, before I have a chance to speak.
“They were all fast asleep in a hotel about three hundred meters from my flat. I told him if he knew what was good for him he’d let me take them.
He didn’t put up a fight at all and, Carrie, honestly, I don’t think the kids knew anything was wrong.
They were confused at first but then they were full of beans.
Granny’s come to take us for a midnight sleepover!
Can we have a midnight feast? That sort of thing. ”
My hand is on my chest. “They’re safe? They’re OK?”
The police officer is listening intently.