To Catch a Rabbit by Helen Cadbury Page B

reminded her she was on hold and thanked her for waiting. She wondered if they’d put any posters up yet or whether the Missing Person’s Unit had decided to feature Phil in one of their newspaper campaigns. She’d seen them on screens in the doctor’s waiting room and by the Post Office queue. She might suggest that to the desk sergeant at Doncaster, if she ever came back on the line.
    Leave it. Let them get on with their job. Max’s voice was in her head and maybe he was right. Except that she felt something gnawing away inside her and it was always the same question. She thought about the young support officer she’d met in Doncaster worrying about a dead Chinese girl. I can’t believe no-one’s looking for her. But what if someone was, just as she was looking for Phil? A woman’s voice came back on the line to tell her that there was no further information and a colleague would be in contact regarding the poster campaign in due course. She looked up The Volunteer Arms on the Internet and phoned Jackie. Would she put up missing posters? There was a silence and then, very kindly, very gently, Jackie said no. There was no point, everyone in the village knew Phil and if they’d seen him they would have said. If he turned up, or if she heard anything, she’d certainly let Karen know. It seemed that everyone, except Karen, believed it was entirely plausible that he’d run off with another woman. She stared out at a bank of grey clouds above the house next door and tried to imagine Phil in Florida. She liked to think he would have let them know if he was going abroad, but she couldn’t be sure. He didn’t even tell their father when he got married to Stacey. Just phoned up one day: by the way, guess what I did at the weekend. Maybe the others were right and she should just leave it, wait for him to get in touch and get on with her life.
    Max came home later that evening, long after the children were in bed, and found her Googling local newspapers for North Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire.
    ‘Can I get on there?’
    ‘Just a minute…’
    ‘No, I haven’t got a minute. Look, Karen. I need to check some details for tomorrow. We’re pitching for the Ptarmigan Project.’
    ‘I’m just checking Saturday’s Gazette.’
    ‘You’ve had all day. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to leave it.’
    ‘Isn’t a Ptarmigan a kind of bird?’
    ‘In this case, they’re a Scottish development consortium and they have a very big shopping centre in the offing.’ His voice was rising. The muscles in his neck seemed to be battling for control of his vocal cords, veins standing out with the effort. ‘A shopping centre which I’d quite like to design, so that my employers continue to pay me, so that I can put bread in the mouths of my children. Please, I won’t ask you again. Will you leave all this amateur sleuthing and get off my computer. Now!’
    She sat very still and watched the screen blur. She wasn’t aware that she was crying until she blinked and her cheeks ran with tears. She wanted to say something about not waking the children, but she couldn’t speak. If he’d tried to hold her or just put his hands on her shoulders, things might have been different, but he didn’t.
    ‘They’re my children too. And Phil is my brother.’
    ‘For God’s sake, Karen, just leave it alone! You can’t magic him up. He’ll come back when he’s good and ready. Now, move.’
    As she got up, he stepped aside to let her get to the door. He went straight to the desk and logged himself on. Karen walked out on to the landing and stood for a moment, waiting for him to apologise, until she realised he wasn’t going to.
    The next morning, she walked the children to school and came home to the silence of the house. She filled it with the sound of the vacuum cleaner and Radio Two in every room. She’d never liked housework, but today she wanted to do it, dusting and polishing, wiping marks off the paintwork. After an hour, she