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the Californian coast. Tentatively, Stained Teeth went on.
    ‘I should ask, madam, did you argue with your husband today?’
    I wondered dimly whether he’d count almost-rows about chocolate cake and being fat, and so I replied, ‘Yes, well sort of, well—actually no, not really. Well, not about anything serious, you know. Just a silly sort of row.’
    And there was rather a fraught pause, in which I felt quite daft, and then the policeman said he’d take my details anyway, though he was sure it would all be fine, but just in case…and when I said goodbye, I knew the policeman thought I was just being neurotic, only I wasn’t, you know, I really wasn’t. It’s just that deep in the pit of my stomach I felt that something was wrong, very wrong, and what I really wanted to do was scream, but I didn’t, because that’s not what we do. Not what I did then, of course.
    Blindly I stumbled to the bathroom. I splashed my face with freezing water and then I leant back and shut my eyes. I needed to have a plan, that’s what I needed.
    I went up to Louis’s room. Shaded by the old ash tree behind the house, it was cool in there, very cool and silent. I felt a sudden urge to lie on the floor, prostrate myself beneath the dangling star mobile, but Ipushed the impulse down. Instead I walked across the big white rug with all the blue giraffes on, and walked up to Louis’s cot. And though I could see he wasn’t there, though I knew he couldn’t be there, I stood for a minute looking down. I held on to the cot bars very tight, and then I moved his soft bear to the end where I always laid his head. To where his head had left a little dent. I walked out very fast.
    Outside Mickey’s study I stood for a moment, feeling like a five-year-old awaiting her dad’s approval; took one deep breath and pushed back the door.
    Dust danced in the slatted light the blinds threw forth as the evening closed in outside, and the room smelt kind of weird. Of my husband, perhaps; a familiar, rather sensual smell. Like some kind of clumsy spy I rifled through the diary on his desk, turning the pages ever quicker—but hope faded fast. Today hadn’t warranted an entry at all. I pulled down the huge Rolodex that lurked on the shelf like some great metal spider, next to Mickey’s scotch. It made me realise suddenly how dry-mouthed I was; I looked quickly over my shoulder and then unscrewed the lid, took a swift gulp of the fiery liquid. It brought tears to my eyes—but I had another slug anyway. Fortified a little bit, one by one I began to call his friends. I rang everyone whose names I recognised, and then those I’d never heard of. The people I reached were most polite—polite and rather disconcerted. And of course no one could shed any light on Mickey’s whereabouts, although, as Greg said with a great woof of a laugh, trust the old bugger to vanish without a trace! Probablydown the boozer. I had another go at the scotch and resisted telling Greg what I really thought of him. The Mickey I knew never did ‘boozers’.
    Finally I rang my sister. I took the handset, kicked Mickey’s door firmly shut behind me.
    ‘Honestly, Jess, I’m quite sure he’ll walk through that door any second now.’
    Was there a trace of exasperation in her tone? ‘Leigh, I haven’t fed Louis since about two and it’s nearly seven now. My boobs are about to explode, Mickey’s phone’s dead, I can’t think where he’d be, and the police already think I’m insane. Yeah, I’m sure he will walk through the door soon, but if I don’t do something in the meantime, I really will go stark raving mad.’
    A voice behind her muttered; Gary, no doubt. She covered the receiver to muffle him. ‘It’s a bit early to start panicking, Jess.’
    ‘I’m really trying not to, believe me. I just want the baby back here, that’s all. I don’t understand where they’ve gone.’
    ‘Look,’ her sigh was almost inaudible. ‘Do you want me to come round and keep you