He made his decision. There was no point in staying any longer, he thought. The best thing for him to do would be to return to the flat and see if she was there. If she was not, then he could wait outside the door until she came back from wherever it was that she had gone. Yes, that would be what Mr Baden-Powell would advise in such a situation.

He started on his way, and within a few minutes he was outside the door of the flat. Trying the door, he found that it was locked, and there was no reply when he rang the bell. Ulysses watched him with interest.

‘Well, Ulysses,’ said Bertie. ‘We’re just going to have to wait here until Mummy comes back. Sorry about that.’

He sat down, and that was where he was when Domenica came up the stairs about forty minutes later and happened upon him.

‘Hello, Bertie,’ she said. ‘Are you locked out?’

‘I don’t know where my mummy is,’ said Bertie, his voice wavering. ‘I thought that she would come back, but she hasn’t.’

As Bertie told her what had happened Domenica listened, wide-eyed. That woman, she thought, is very peculiar, sure enough, but this takes the shortbread – hands down.

‘I think that you had better come up to my flat,’ she said. ‘Then I can look after you until Mummy comes home.’ Then she added. ‘And I might just phone the police too.’

Bertie looked alarmed. ‘The police? Why?’

Domenica wondered how to put it tactfully. ‘Well, Bertie, it sounds as if your mummy might have … lost her way. The police could help find her.’

Bertie swallowed hard. Like all young children, he blamed himself for misfortune, and now he was in no doubt at all that this disappearance of his mother was somehow his fault. It was he who had wished that she would stop talking so much, or at least stop talking about the things that she tended to talk about; it was he who wished for more time by himself; it was he who wished that he was eighteen and free to move to Glasgow, or Paris. All of this evidence was now amassed against him, indicting him for this disaster. He had wished his mother gone, and now she was. Be careful of what you wish for, Bertie Pollock! They were the very words that Olive had used a few days earlier, when she had seen Bertie looking thoughtful. Well, they were wise words, unexpectedly prescient, as wise words sometimes prove to be.

Bertie drew a deep breath. It was all his fault.

He began to cry.

Oh, poor wee boy, thought Domenica, as she bent down to comfort him. Poor, poor wee boy.

58. Painful Questions