Page 25 of Just Another Missing Person

“Yes—and fashion. Shoes. The push–pull between being sustainable and buying what she likes,” I add. Day’s eyes meet mine, and they look upturned, affectionate.

“I see,” she says simply, and I feel a rush of embarrassment, from nowhere, about how very much we love her. As though the world can see it, and so, too, see our pain.

“What did you do that night you last saw her?” Poole says, as smooth as that.

And that’s when it suddenly occurs to me: we are suspects. That is completely clear now. Isn’t the father often accused? “Why is this relevant?” I ask, but Yolanda puts a hand on my leg underneath the table.

“We ate, watched television,” I say crisply in response to Yolanda’s hand.

She removes it and places it back on the table. Her engagement ring has spun around, the stone hitting the table. She’s lost weight, already. Her appetite is always the first thing to go in times of stress, even though her cooking isn’t. She cooks and cooks and cooks, but doesn’t eat any of it.

“What did you eat?” Poole asks.

Immediately, I begin to sweat. Jesus, the power of the police. They must never be able to ask anyone a single question ever, at parties, at parents’ evenings, anywhere, without whoever it is thinking they are about to be arrested. “Er,” I say. And then it comes to me—do you remember? The bloody saga that is Hello Fresh. Billed as timesaving; actually, a huge pain in the fucking arse. “Butternut squash risotto,” I say. “It’s with this Hello Fresh, you know, they courier it all to you and you cook it—”

“I know it,” Day says. Two dimples appear on either side of her mouth.

“Nobody needs to know about how much you hate Hello Fresh,” Yolanda says, the first smile in what seems like forever. A flick of her eyes to me, and there she is: the woman from the lift.

“Supposed to save time but actually you spend all that time opening tiny fucking packets of cheese,” I gabble.

“I would’ve cooked, if I had been there,” Yolanda says softly, which I’m glad of. It changes the mood, back to somber, away from farce, away from my swearing (always out of control). And back to you.

Anyway. The risotto was rubbish. We have this thing where we text each other our meals—your recent Portisheadbeach churros, for example—then the other rates them out of ten. Once, you gave a croissant of mine an eleven. We both gave the risotto a two.

“What did you watch?”

“Selling Sunset.” This is the first thing Poole writes down, much to my humiliation. “And thenDogs Behaving (Very) Badly.”

“Right—okay. And your daughter, she seemed...?”

“Totally herself.” My eyes mist over. You were totally, utterly you. Ranting about ableism, about the unfairness of the housing market, reading out Taylor Swift lyrics to me. You ate two portions of risotto even though you said it had the texture of Blu Tack. Just you being you.

“No seeming off-color, no secretiveness, no shielding her phone from view?”

“No—but...”

Day’s head snaps up, although she says nothing. Just looks at me. Her eyes do that thing where they look at your left eye, then your right, then your left, then your right, microdancing in front of me.

Yolanda sighs. She knows what I’m going to say. She is not prone to extremist thinking, but she can predict me.

“Hang on,” Poole says. “What time did she leave, Lewis? Just for completeness.” He’s making a note, now. The sort of person who is so fastidiously by the book that he is happy to miss the important details, I presume. Julia side-eyes him but lets him continue.

“I don’t know.” The use of my name irritates me. This isn’tEastEnders. “She drove home, maybe eleven thirty?” I remember the way the outdoor light clicked on, illuminated your hair like a spider’s web. The last time I saw you.

“Was it just you two?” he asks, even though he knows this already.

“Yes,” Yolanda says. “We said. I had a client emergency at work.”

“What do you do?” Day asks, interested.

“Social work.”

Day nods in understanding, then looks at me. “But?” she prompts, wanting me to finish a sentence from minutes ago.

“She has this boyfriend.”

It is as though I have passed a grenade across the table. Day’s and Poole’s body language changes completely. He sits up; she leans forward, eyes on mine. “Tell me about him,” she says.

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