Free The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald Page A

pour myself a glass of red wine and gulp it down. I know it’ll cost a fortune, but I dial my lawyer’s number anyway. She takes a while to answer then does so groggily. I tell her what I’ve read, wait as she types and reads the same, then recount my movements that evening. Collected Chloe from school at 3.15 p.m. Took her swimming. Came home. Had takeaway Roti Channai, watched TV, kissed her goodnight. Yes, I was with her all night, from 3.30 onwards, except when I ducked out to get the Roti Channai. Yes, I often nip out. I’m a single mother. She’s fourteen. I ring Mum. She and Dad will be here in just over an hour.
    I hope the police will take longer.
    I open Chloe’s bedroom door. She’s clutching the small brown bear Alistair gave her for her sixth birthday. I sneak in at least once a night to watch my troubled near-woman sleeping like a little girl. It’s incongruous and delicious, that she’s hugging a teddy, just strings now, from eight years of being cried on and clung to. She’s mad at her father for making little or no effort to see her, but she blames Joanna, not him. She misses her father. Like most children in this situation, she dreams that one day Joanna will disappear, and that her family will be a family again. I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s asked me if I could at least try to get him back. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ I say each time, suppressing the urge to tell her what I really think of him. It’s hard, almost impossible sometimes, but she’ll be a happier person if she loves and admires her dad. What if he takes her now? If Mum and Dad don’t make it here from Diamond Creek before the police, they might just give her to him when they take me in. Even if he’s shocked and grief-stricken, he’s still the next of kin after me, so it’s a possibility. I can’t let that happen. I go back to the kitchen and pour another wine, drink it, then go and sit on the edge of Chloe’s bed.
    I stroke her fringe. I’ve worked out ways not to see him in her. Her dark lashes come from her grandmother, not from him. I always liked his mum and I’ve made sure Chloe’s had contact since we came home. They meet in town, mostly – Chloe always comes back with Darrell Lea Coconut Ice and oodles of shopping bags.
    She’s frowning in her sleep. Another dream about her dad, she’ll tell me when she wakes. ‘He was eating dinner with me, nothing unusual, just sitting there eating,’ she’ll say, or something like that.
    I whisper, ‘Chloe.’
    ‘Hmm?’ She turns onto her other side, bear and all.
    ‘Chlo. Wake up beautiful girl. I have to tell you something.’
    ‘I had a dream,’ she says, eyes still closed, but awake enough to hide the bear under the covers.
    ‘Something bad has happened,’ I say, taking her hand.
    She opens her eyes and sits up. ‘What?’
    ‘Baby Noah has gone missing.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Someone took Noah from your dad’s car while he wasn’t looking. Tonight, in Point Lonsdale.’
    She’s dressed in seconds, making plans about how to help. She wants to go and look for him now and wonders why I’m not ready myself. ‘Maybe he crawled, maybe he got out of the car himself. Get a move on! We have to go there and look!’
    I’m about to explain there’s no way a nine-week-old baby can crawl but there’s a knock on the door.
    *
    The police are wondering if Chloe is lying for me, assuming she’s used to doing this since I grabbed her and left. The young female one with glasses keeps looking at her when I answer them. I follow her eyes and unfortunately Chloe does look like she’s covering for me. ‘Yes, we’ve been here all night,’ she says. ‘No, no one else has seen us.’ She looks at me every now and then, as if asking: Have I said the right thing? I’m terrified she’ll tell them I left her alone to pop out for the Roti Channai. It’d take me off the list of kidnapping suspects, but keep me on the unfit mother one.