‘You should let him know.’

‘Does that mean you think this is really serious?’ She wanted him to say no, it didn’t really matter, but she knew it was serious. She was damp with fear. He could almost feel it rising off her.

‘We’ll keep in touch. A female officer is on her way here.’

‘What shall I do? There must be something I can do. I can’t just sit here waiting. Tell me what to do. Anything.’

‘You could phone people,’ he said. ‘Anywhere she might have gone.’

She clutched at his sleeve. ‘Tell me she’ll be all right,’ she insisted. ‘Tell me you’ll get her back.’

The officer looked awkward. He couldn’t say that and he couldn’t think of what else to say.

Every time the phone rang it was a little bit worse. People knocking at the door. They’d heard. What a terrible thing, but of course it would be all right. Everything would be all right. The nightmare would end. Was there anything they could do, anything at all? Only ask. Say the word. Now the sun was low in the sky and shadows lay over streets and houses and parks. It was getting cold. All over London, people were sitting in front of TV sets or standing at stoves, stirring the pot, or gathering in smoke-fugged groups in pubs, talking about Saturday’s results and holiday plans, moaning about little aches and pains.

Rosie crouched in the chair, her eyes wide. One of her plaits had come undone. The female police officer squatted beside her, large and plump and kind, patted her hand. But she couldn’t remember, didn’t know, mustn’t speak: words were dangerous. Nobody had told her. She wanted her father to come home and make everything all right, but they didn’t know where he was. They couldn’t find him. Her mother said he was probably on the road. She pictured him on a road that stretched away from him and dwindled into the distance under a dark sky.