If I’d taught Bella to read, maybe she would have been able to understand the street signs and find her way home. I keep failing as a mother. Why don’t they say it out loud instead of treating me like a patient with a terminal illness?

Imogen suddenly embraced me again.

‘We should have been watching her more closely. I can’t believe she disappeared. I’m so, so sorry. We’re to blame.’

I started to disagree, to tell her that it was my fault—and then stopped mid-sentence. She was right: I had trusted them, those playgroup mums, and they were to blame … along with me. We had all allowed her to disappear. But Imogen and Lucas were doing so much to help find her.

A memory from that playgroup dinner came back to me: Lucas wants a baby girl. Imogen had so much of her own stuff going on—the difficult twins, a husband who was away for months at a time in a dangerous job, the pressure to have another baby and cope on her own. And yet she was always there for everyone else. A never-ending well of kindness.

‘Can I do any jobs for you?’ Imogen asked. ‘Shall I put on a load of washing?’

Washing Bella’s clothes ready for when she arrived home. Washing the scent out of them—the shape of her body inside them, the softness of a jumper moulded to her chest, the pockets of her jeans filled with her treasures of pebbles and sticks.

‘No.’

The single word came out more sharply than I intended.

In the afternoon, Detective Sergeant Caruso arrived with four police cars.

This is it. He has come to tell me that Bella is dead.

‘Mrs Parker, can you please ask everyone in the house to come into your lounge room?’

‘It’s just Marty and I here.’ My voice cracked. ‘Imogen left earlier.’

The coldness at my core made my muscles slow to move. I dragged my body to the couch.

He wants to tell us at the same time. Tinker Bell’s light has gone out. Breathe. Count to ten and breathe.

Marty sat beside me and I squeezed his hand hard. He pulled my other hand on top. A pact. A sign of unity. Or drowning together in fear.

‘We’d like to have another look around the house and gardens, please,’ the detective announced sombrely. ‘Will you give us your informed consent for another search?’

The air whooshed out of me and I collapsed against the back of the couch.

‘Bella’s not here,’ I whispered. ‘Please don’t waste your time.’

Caruso grimaced and stared straight at me. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why?’ Marty demanded, jumping to his feet. ‘Have you found something? Tell us.’

‘We have to cover every possibility, Dr Parker. If you give us your informed consent to search the house, you are free to withdraw it at any time.’