Where Everything Seems Double by Penny Freedman (popular romance novels .txt) 📕

want him to drive me three hundred miles. ‘Can you do it?’ I ask, and accept without comment the estimated fare, which he seems to pluck out of the air. He says he will be with me in fifteen minutes.

I consider what I need to take with me. There is really no blueprint for this expedition and I am fairly clueless, but the prospect of doing something has lifted me out of lethargy and I whirl about, picking up a jacket, changing my shoes, checking the contents of my bag – wallet, phone, tissues, biscuits and water from the hotel’s complimentary offerings and – a last minute thought –the sharp little fruit knife that has been left with the bowl of apples and oranges which Freda and I have overlooked up till now.

I am waiting for Gary as he sweeps up to the front doors, and in my weak state I am absurdly reassured by the luxury of the car and the courteous way I am ushered into it. I am relieved when he doesn’t invite me to sit in the front, though I was all prepared with an excuse about a sleepless night (true) and my intention to sleep the journey away (not true). Annie has noticed the car and is drawn away from hobnobbing with the police. She comes over just as we’re moving away. I roll down the window.

‘I was going to text you,’ I say. ‘Tell Ellie I think I know where she is and I’ve gone to find her.’

I leave her open-mouthed and give Gary full marks for professional discretion when he asks no questions. I am going to have to tell him something eventually and think about what to tell him when we get there, but for the moment I sit back and wait for us to eat up the miles. Gary is a model chauffeur: he doesn’t have the radio on, his satnav is silent and he doesn’t swear about other drivers. He just drives the car and I am cocooned in comfort. Drifting between the security of the hours that must intervene before I have to do anything and pleasant though inchoate reveries about afterwards – the triumphant return, reconciliation with Ellie, general jubilation – I am able to slide past the messy, unpredictable scene in the middle, in which I arrive at my unknown destination to find – what? Freda, I hope, obviously, but who else? And how easy will it be to get Freda away, armed only with a small fruit knife? Reluctantly, because he has disappointed me to my very soul with his mealy-mouthed, ‘I don’t have any authority’, I text David. I don’t expect that he will actually do anything but I need some sort of insurance policy – not least for afterwards when I will need to stave off all the Why didn’t you? questions and I shall at least be able to say, ‘Well, I informed the police. What more do you want?’

I get out my phone, note that here I have a robust four bars and could phone anyone I wanted, and text David. I could speak to him, of course, but then Gary would hear me and I would have to start on explanations. Actually, thinking about it, I realise that he would probably insist on turning round and driving us back to Carnmere. So I send David a postcode and a name. I lean forward to scan the satnav on the dashboard, add in time for a loo/lunch break, and add, ‘Heading there now. ETA 3.0.’ I don’t get a reply but I feel irrationally comforted.

I think I doze, because when I next look at the time it is already midday, and I am hungry. I suggest a break to Gary, who says there is a service station coming up. It turns out that he, paragon that he is, has brought his lunch with him, so I can slip in for a quick sandwich without the awkwardness of having to make conversation with him. But inside I am hit by an unnerving sense of unreality. I watch the noisy family groups, off on holiday, and wonder whether anyone would guess that I am on a rescue mission. I buy a bottle of water, a ham sandwich and a very small chocolate bar from the Plain and Simple counter, aimed, I assume, at picky children. I don’t take it back to the car because I’m sure Gary would quail at the idea of spills and crumbs in his lovely motor, but perch at a corner table, eat too fast, go to the loo, and am about to leave when I am arrested by a headline on the news-stand just inside the sliding doors to the outside world. SECOND GIRL MISSING IN RUBY’S TOWN it screams at me, and underneath there is Eve’s sketch. Photographs of missing children usually break your heart because they are smiling trustfully at the camera as though they expect nothing but good from the world. Even children who turn out to have been horribly abused by their parents seem to be able to summon up that happy smile when called upon. What would the casual reader make of Freda here – pensive and inward-looking? I don’t know, but I want to rip every one of these pages to shreds. I don’t, of course. I find a cashpoint and take out a huge wodge of notes to pay Gary with and I hurry to the refuge of the car. Checking the time on my phone when I get back, I see that I have a text message. It is from David and is so enigmatic that it defeats me: ‘Yes. Because Ruby had her phone with her.’

I don’t settle after this. The miles ahead no longer feel like a protection from what is to be found at the end of them. That headline makes it a reality. What do I think I am doing? There is a nationwide search for Freda.