Page 81 of The Bordeaux Book Club
Nathan turned the corner, ‘Do you think she’d definitely have gone this way?’ he asked. He was following the usual route theydrove to Mathilde’s house. But in reality, there were several different streets Scarlett might have chosen.
‘I don’t know, Nathan!’ she snapped. Then, trying to calm herself. ‘We’ll just do them all,’ she said. ‘We’ll drive them all.’
Her mobile beeped with a message from Grace.
36
Grace’s text message had read:
In my car, keep me up to date.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, Leah realised. But it was a very precious, albeit prickly, needle that she simply needed to locate. Grace had offered to drive around some of the back streets close to the old town – the chances of her stumbling across their child were minuscule. Yet what was the alternative? They couldn’t give up. And more people looking had to be a good thing.
Thank you
Leah replied, seeing Nathan glance at her, slightly irritated.
‘Grace is helping,’ she said, shortly. ‘And George answered too. He says he’ll have a walk around – he’s quite close to Notre Dame, but we just don’t know. It might help.’
‘Does he know what she looks like?’
‘I’ve sent a picture,’ Leah said. It had been taken just a few months before, yet Scarlett looked entirely different now. In it, her daughter’s face wore an open expression. Even a smile. She’d known that Scarlett had changed, was struggling. Why hadn’t she done more to support her?
There’d been no response from Monica, but Alfie had offered to go to the local gendarmerie and hand in a picture – his fluent French would help him to explain their predicament, and although Scarlett would barely qualify as a missing person yet, she hoped they’d help.
Images raced across Leah’s mind. The sort of things you see on the news every now and then. The picture of a child smiling innocently into a camera. Footage from CCTV, or of local locations. The parents sitting behind a table pleading with their child to come home. But she shook her head and focused her eyes on the buildings passing her window – this wasn’t the time to spiral. Scarlett had only been missing a couple of hours and they were already doing everything they could to find her. It would be OK.
It would be OK because it had to be OK.
She’d driven the route to Mathilde’s house so many times over the years. Often begrudgingly, picking Scarlett up later than she’d wanted, or taking over forgotten items for a sleepover. It had always seemed fairly close, fairly easy to navigate. Tonight, it seemed like a dangerous and perilous journey into the unknown. Her daughter. Out here. On the dark streets somewhere. She dialled the phone again. It continued to ring out.
‘Turn left,’ Leah said, pointing to a small road almost hidden off the main route. ‘I usually go this way.’
‘I know the way to Mathilde’s!’ Nathan snapped, signalling and slowing to make the turn.
‘OK, sorry!’ she said. ‘It’s just I’m usually the one to take…’
‘Oh, so it’s my fault, is it?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You’re saying I don’t spend enough time at home. There’s no need to stick the knife in.’
‘What are you talking about?’ She looked at Nathan’s face and saw that beneath the anger, he was close to tears. She felt her own eyes well up again. ‘It’s nobody’s fault, Nathan. Let’s just find her, OK?’
The small side-road was empty, the shops scattered along its length closed. A few lights in upper flats threw light onto the pavement. A cat shot from a doorway and scooted up a set of steps, making them both jump.
Nathan reached the end of the cut-through and signalled right.
Leah didn’t say anything, simply hit redial yet again on her mobile. She thought about Scarlett’s face and how it might look when she saw the eighty-seven missed calls from her mum. She imagined the eyeroll of disbelief and horror. But it didn’t matter. It never really had, she realised. Scarlett was entitled to be a teenager – and Leah was entitled to be a mum. She shouldn’t have altered her behaviour to suit what she thought Scarlett wanted. She’d made herself distant. But although they might call it annoying, children – even teens like Scarlett – needed to know their parents were there.
‘Do you think…’ she began, then stopped, froze and lifted the phone. ‘Scarlett?’ she said hearing a click as her daughter answered.
Next to her, she saw Nathan glance across. He flicked the signal on the car and pulled up sharply against the kerb.
‘What?’ her daughter said, sharply.
‘What do you mean “what”?’ she said. ‘Scarlett, where are you?’