I disappeared on a Wednesday afternoon, in June, right in the middle of the heatwave. I was there one minute and the next I was gone. You might think it hard to disappear in broad daylight. To be visible and then, just seconds later, to be invisible. To have a life, and then moments later to have lost it. It wasn’t hard at all.

It was much too easy.

They found my shoes. Well, one of them, turned upside down and covered in dust. They found my car, unlocked. The driver’s window down. My keys in the ignition. My weekly shop melting and rotting in the boot. Cooking in the unspeakable heat.

They found my bag, my purse, my bank cards. My phone. The memorial card with my mother’s picture on it and some rhyming words of comfort, which were supposed to make me feel better about the fact she’d died of breast cancer in her sixties.

They found traces of blood – mine – on the ground outside. Minute droplets. They found traces of unidentified seminal fluid on the back seat, too. Not my husband’s profile. Evidence of a sexual assault, maybe?

Or maybe not.

Scuff marks on the ground, the ground kicked up. Vomit on the patchy, faded tarmac. Smeared fingerprints – mine.

Signs of a struggle.

Half a packet of Wotsits crisps, crushed into the floor of where the rear seats are. An empty Fruit Shoot bottle – blackcurrant – under the passenger seat. An ankle sock. Pink trim. A booster seat in the front of my car.

Signs I was a mother.

‘She wouldn’t leave the baby,’ they said. The baby was three. Blonde curls and blue eyes. Cupid bow lips. A dimple in her left cheek. I wouldn’t leave the baby, they were right. Not unless I had no choice.

I’d been given no choice.

Wednesday, 6 June

Chapter One

Elizabeth

Even with every window open, this house is still too warm. It’s only half past five in the morning and I know there will be no reprieve from this heatwave. It didn’t cool more than a few degrees overnight and I’ve not slept properly in days. Izzy looked at me mournfully, big brown eyes, pleading for the chance to run about outside before the heat becomes oppressive. I feel sorry for her – even though she’s shed her winter coat, it’s much too warm for her. Like me, she’s become a virtual prisoner in our home.