In our front room, Tara had been asleep on the lounge, Daisy in the pram beside her. I’d forgotten that they were in our house and I switched on the light, startling Daisy. Her cry stabbed through me. Ignoring Tara, I picked up the baby and held the bundle of warmth against me, breathing in Daisy’s sweet smell, my tears falling on her fine hair. I’d never touched her before, this precious child with her gummy mouth and drools of saliva. The red cheeks, chubby face and flat nose of a baby. Perhaps I’d avoided looking at her during playgroup. The cherub grinned at me for a second, realised I was a strange face, then screamed for her mother. Tara had snatched Daisy away from me and hurried out to her car, followed by Imogen pushing the pram. My arms, bereft of the baby, bereft of Bella, fell limply by my sides. Standing in the middle of the lounge room in my silent house, I didn’t know what to do. My family was gone.

At three in the morning, Imogen had put me to bed, stroking my back until I was asleep. As I fell into a blessed blankness, I’d wished for Phoebe to be lying beside me. We used to sleep together as kids, camping on the floor between our beds, draping a blanket over the top as a tent.

‘Anything?’ I asked Marty.

I sat up in bed and turned on the bedside lamp, trying to read his face. He shook his head. His eyes were bloodshot—tiredness and tears. I’d done this to him. I’d failed to protect our child. I got up and wrapped my arms around his waist. His chest heaved and I held him tighter as he began to sob, his tears dripping onto my neck.

‘We’ll find her,’ I whispered into his shoulder. ‘Any moment now.’

I couldn’t look at my husband’s broken face.

‘Superintendent Milson will be at playgroup at seven,’ Marty managed to choke out between the sobs.

‘I’ll go down there now,’ I told him. ‘You have a shower.’

I forced myself to eat a whole slice of Vegemite toast and washed it down with tea, and two Panadol to help my throbbing head. The fridge was full of plastic containers. Yesterday, while waiting at our house, Mel had made soup and casseroles from whatever she could find in my cupboards. God knew who would eat it though; I could barely manage the toast.