In her line of work Joanna visited a lot of houses, and where there were babies, there were always baby pictures. Her mother had pictures of her kids everywhere. Grainy baby photos of Joanna and studio shots of Ruby as a small child. Pride of place, above the TV, there was a large portrait of the two of them, Joanna in her police cadet uniform and Ruby in her new school uniform, ages eighteen and four, respectively, both grinning and standing to attention in front of the fireplace. Here, there were pictures, but none of them had any people in them. Moving around the apartment, she realized that every image hung on the wall was a seascape. A photograph of sweeping beach, a print featuring seabirds, a distant horizon. In the bedroom there were more, paintings of stormy seas, calm seas, sunsets over the ocean. But there was nothing displayed of the people who lived here, nothing to show who they were except the scraps of things they’d left behind. She stood in the bedroom where it looked as if a child had been sleeping. No bed toys, no baby blanket; those things would be with the child, wherever it was now. And whoever had the child would be the one who knew what had happened to Gregor. That was who they needed to find, and quickly.

CHAPTER

10

THEN

Ruby

September

THE APARTMENT SEEMED too small and dark to stay inside for yet another day with nothing to do. There were things she ought to do: tidying, cleaning, playing her violin, but none of them appealed to her at that moment. The flat was a state, kitchen filthy with grime, but that was usual. What was different was that she hadn’t taken her instrument out of its case for many days. It just didn’t seem important. Why was she perfecting the Sibelius when she would never perform it? Only a week ago, she’d written to Sam to tell him that things were looking up, that she was composing again, and that she might have met a new friend, finally, though it was early days. She certainly felt stupid for saying that last part. She’d only met someone on a tram and spoken to them for five minutes. Ridiculous to think of Gregor as a “friend,” she could see that now. Unfortunately she’d posted the letter a few hours before she’d looked across at the window and seen the woman and baby, which had blown the idea of Gregor away like the fantasy it had been all along.