As she hurried along in the rain she reached for her radio and depressed the button, shouting, “This is DS Harper, I’ve got them, copy, both boys safe,” but the radio was dead. Water must have got into it somehow, though the devices were supposed to be impervious to weather of all types. Maybe the battery was flat. Too late now to call Wright back, he wouldn’t hear her over the sound of the rain anyway. Quicker to keep going. The most important thing was to get these two baby boys back to their mother.

Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lauren scanned the river, the woods, the road. The babies were nowhere. That’s what it felt like. Her heart drummed painfully in her chest, someone punching her in the thorax over and over. Each time the police radio crackled a message, she searched the officer’s faces for signs that they had been found. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

When the first dark cloud rolled over the valley, Lauren thought there was something dirtying the ground. A large dark pool of something. Then another, larger cloud passed in front of the sun and it occurred to her that she hadn’t seen a proper cloud for weeks, and that the strange dark shape covering the playground was simply a shadow, not an ominous sign of something unexplainable. The patchy shadows fused together and became an immense low roof of dense grey. Electricity charged the air. Lauren’s skin was prickling as she stood outside the cafe, tensed, waiting.

The police officer had let her get up after she’d promised repeatedly that she would not run away. Patrick was coming, he’d be here soon. He’d sounded devastated on the phone. Was it the worst thing imaginable, to tell your husband that you had made a mistake and allowed someone to take his children, that you had no idea where they were, who with, and why? Not the worst thing, not even close. But it was bad. During their short conversation, they’d both failed to say anything even remotely comforting to each other.

She felt weak, and fierce, and angry and guilty. Ready to fight, light on her heels, yet holding such a heavy weight in her chest that she could have been crushed by it, had she let it pull her down. Powerless, and at the same time full of potential for something. With a jolt, she realised that it was violence. Lauren was ready to beat someone pulpy if they’d harmed her precious ones. She was looking forward to it, in a sick sort of way. Fists bunched, in readiness. Come on, then.