Chapter 71
Call the police. Everything Holly found on the internet said the same thing and the advice to those in her situation was unequivocal.
If someone was missing, feared abducted, call the police immediately.
The police had people trained to secure the release of kidnap victims and offer support to terrified families.
On the other hand, she found an equal number of stories about kidnap victims who were never seen alive again.
The first hour passed, and all Holly could bring herself to do was listen to the messages from the babysitter. She made a single phone call.
As the church clock struck one in the morning, she was overcome with the urge to search.
She hadn’t checked the house, not properly; it could all be a silly misunderstanding.
She swept through it – every corner, every cupboard, even the two lofts – looking for her missing son.
Then, despite the rain that had started to fall heavily, she searched both gardens, before walking up and down the street outside.
Finally, soaked to the skin, unable to stop trembling, she returned to a house that felt empty and cold as a ransacked grave.
The second hour passed.
Holly didn’t hear the church clock again, but when she woke with a start, on bedclothes damp with rainwater, her watch told her it was nearly ten minutes past two in the morning.
Dragging herself to her feet, she lurched into the next room.
Charlie’s bed was the same: a dent on the pillow, the quilt pulled back.
The bastards had taken him from his bed, drowsy with sleep, in nothing but pyjamas.
Dropping to her knees, Holly laid her face against the sheet where her son’s body had been, inhaling his scent, imagining she could still feel the warmth of his body.
The third hour passed. Holly hadn’t realised it was possible to feel so alone.
At three o’clock, she almost gave in and called Coffie. But Coffie would insist on getting the police involved and she couldn’t take that risk. Logan Quick was better resourced than any police force in the land. If he wanted Charlie to disappear, he could do it. And a dying man had nothing to lose.
In the days following, Holly couldn’t remember the hours from three to four in the morning.
She opened a bottle of red wine but didn’t dare drink it.
She thought she might have dozed briefly on the sofa.
She forced herself to change into dry clothes only because she knew getting ill wouldn’t help Charlie.
When the clock struck four, Holly, who didn’t have a religious bone in her body, dropped to her knees and began to pray for the life and return of her son. At five o’clock, she climbed into her car and began the hour-and-a-half drive back along the A30.