‘Fuck!’ he said, casting around, his mind buzzing with possibilities. Grabbing his keys, he walked to the elevator and caught the lift to the basement, where their VW Polo was parked. He walked around it, looking for damage. He touched the hood—it was cold—and looked through the windows to see if there was anything out of place in there. Romy had the car keys.

He took the elevator back up to the ground floor and burst out onto the footpath, making another call to her. Still no response.

He walked the block and a half to a collection of neighbourhood boutiques and cafes. Romy and the boys weren’t in their usual cafe and Valerie, the woman who ran the small épicerie where they bought newspapers and milk, hadn’t seen the de Payns family that afternoon.

He walked the block, trying Romy’s number again. Nothing. His blood pressure rose, the fear rising along with it. He paused as he walked north through a leafy street behind their apartment, and above the traffic he heard the chanting of young kids. He followed his ears to an open door at the church hall. It was a Saturday afternoon, which meant karate with sensei John. Inside the hall parents were sitting around the walls on fold-down wooden chairs, and in the middle of the floor a bunch of young kids in white canvas gi yelled in unison as they ran through their kata on blue and white mats. In the first row of kids he caught sight of Patrick’s blond head. His son had that serious look on his face, lips pursed as he concentrated, mouth wide as he roared back at sensei’s prompts. A spitting image of de Payns himself at the same age. A hand waved from along the watching parents and de Payns’ eye was drawn to his wife, smiling and beautiful, while his youngest—dark-haired Oliver—mimicked the kata from the sidelines.

He tried to make his legs move towards Romy and Oliver, but his thighs felt like jelly. He was frozen, a wave of emotion moving up and through him like a drug. He was overwhelmed—he’d been running through a list of plans and contingencies for dealing with his kidnapped wife and here they were, and here he was, stranded in the midst of his neighbourhood life. It was too much. He longed to be elsewhere—to be sitting in Big Nose’s bar with Templar and Shrek, drinking in a place where he belonged and he could be himself. Before he could make himself leave the doorway, Oliver was in his arms, yelling, ‘Papa!’ so loud that the mothers laughed.

He picked up his son and swung him around so no one could see his emotional state.

‘I love you, Ollie,’ he whispered, as he held him. It was the best he could do.

‘Dad, can I do karate and soccer?’ asked his five-year-old. ‘Mum won’t let me.’