"Millie …. Come on … be a good girl … out you come …its nearly tea time and Mr Fuddley is down here"

He stood at the bottom of the stairs and listened intently but all he could hear was a resounding silence, and a tiny niggle of doubt started to build in Charles' chest. They should have found her by now. It was hard to accept what Molly had said about Sam having looked everywhere, Millie had to be there somewhere, she wouldn't have gone outside. She would never have wandered off by herself, not even if she was in a strop about something or if she had the dog with her, not when she was so afraid of the dark. She always clung to him like a little limpet whenever they were outside and it was dark or even starting to get dark. He retraced his steps along the hall and when into the kitchen where Chloe and the baby both turned to look at him. They were both crying.

"Come on Chlo …. come here … look at me, come on .. I need you to look at me …"

They were both still crying their eyes out as he crouched down in front of her and took hold of the tops of her arms and then shook her gently before he let go of one and stroked her hair back from her damp little face. She had been a very stroppy little madam recently, had got very good at answering back and making smartarsed comments, especially to her mum, and had become an expert at rolling her eyes. Molly had complained a lot about her propensity to hero worship Sam, especially when he was behaving really badly and no-one could fail to notice just how often she clashed with her mum these days, but as she stood in front of him she suddenly looked like the little girl she undoubtedly still was. A distraught little girl. He ran his thumbs over her cheeks to wipe away the tears and ignored the Niagara Falls of snot as Chloe sniffed loudly and then ran her tongue over her top lip. He was doing his best at the same time to block out the screams of pure outrage that were coming from Livvie that he hadn't immediately plucked her out of her highchair when she'd seen him and had stretched out her arms towards him.

"Listen … Chloe … are you listening?" Chloe sniffed hard and nodded her head "Good girl .. I want you to think very, very carefully for me and then tell me whether your sister said anything to you about where she …" He swallowed hard "Where she might have been thinking of going ….. anything at all …."

"I'm sorry Daddy …."

Chloe gulped, she was doing her best to stop crying, but couldn't seem to stop the tears that were overwhelming her. She hadn't even been listening when Millie had been doing her mental act, had been far too busy trying to watch something on television and had made a great big point of turning the sound up as far as it would go. She'd been deliberately trying to drown her out and had then pointedly shoved her to one side because Millie was standing in the way of Chloe being able to see the screen. Chloe had been making it plain she had no intention of trying to look round herm letting her stand in the way and that she wasn't a bit interested in whatever it was that was wrong with her this time. As usual Millie was making some huge great big deal about something. Probably nothing. Like she always did. No-one seemed to notice that it wasn't fair, her mum and dad didn't even notice when Millie was being naughty or was throwing a strop about something, which was all the time. Let alone do anything about it. They just let her get away with everything. Well her dad did. There was just sometimes when her mum did seem to notice, a bit, but it wasn't enough, not nearly as much as she noticed whenever Chloe did something her mum didn't like, then she would get really mad at her. She'd shout and tell her off and tell her to stop whatever it was or else and that it was no good her bawling, she could stop that straight away because it wasn't going to make any difference, but she never did any of that with Millie, only with her. She didn't do it with Marcus either, but then he didn't count. He never got in any trouble, not like her, he was little Mr goody two shoes who never did anything wrong which was why he was her mum's favourite, just like Millie was her dad's, even their Gran had said so.

"There's no need to be sorry Chlo … it's not your fault … you haven't done anything wrong …. but I do need you to help me out here … have you got any idea at all where she might have gone?"

"Nah ….I don't know Daddy … I really don't … she never said anything"

Chloe was actually telling him the truth, she genuinely couldn't think of a single thing her stroppy little sister had said, well not that she'd heard anyway and neither her nor Millie had any friends near where they lived. Their house was a long way away from where any of their schoolfriends lived, and anyway even though Millie was one of the worst of the show-offs at school and was always part of the gang being a nuisance in the playground, she really didn't have any special friends of her own. She didn't have a best friend, not that Chloe knew of anyway.

"Mummy thinks it's my fault … she said …" Chloe burst into a fresh storm of tears, tears that were a combination of fear and guilt and a massive amount of self-pity. It wasn't her fault, she hadn't meant for any of this to happen "Mummy said it was my fault for being mean to her, but I never meant …. I'm really sorry…. "

"No-one thinks it's your fault Chloe … Mummy is …. just very worried about where Millie's hiding … come here …"

He picked her up and hugged her and then struggled not to immediately put her down in order to obey the little voice in his head that was screaming at him to stop wasting time and get himself upstairs to search for Millie himself, to search properly. He was filled with an urgent need to check, he kept telling himself that maybe Sam hadn't looked carefully in all the nooks and crannies, that he hadn't checked under beds and in the wardrobes, that he might not have actually looked underneath and behind everything. She had to be there somewhere. Millie was bright and could very easily have found somewhere to hide herself away that wasn't obvious to anyone looking for her and she was bloody stubborn so although he'd heard what Molly had said about the dog not coming when she'd called, there was always a chance that the two of them had stayed hidden somewhere. She'd been very tired, it had been a long day and she'd been to ballet and then had one of her tantrums, she could well have found somewhere to hide and was now fast asleep.

He didn't want to even think about the alternative. Something deep in his stomach twisted as the fear started to bite, she was six years old for fuck sake and he didn't know where she was.

He took a deep breath and controlled his impatience as Chloe put her arms round his neck and then felt a huge pang of guilt as he tightened his hold and hugged her. He couldn't pinpoint the last time he'd picked up this mini-Molly and hugged her. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he adored her and had always made time to listen when she was telling him anything or needed his help with something, with her homework or a project or when she just wanted to talk to him. And he would laugh and ruffle her hair affectionately, despite the way she invariably ducked her head away from his hand and yelled at him to stop. She seemed so grown up these days that he sometimes forgot that she was still a little girl.

"What you waiting for? Come on you need to get out there with Sam… you gotta go and look for her Charlie … or you can stop here and I'll go …"

There was a rising note of panic in Molly's voice that mirrored his own feelings as she hoicked the baby out of the highchair and started to jiggle her up and down in an absent-minded attempt to stop the bawling that was fraying her already severely frayed nerves.

"Give over Livs, there's a good girl …. sshhhh…. Charlie … come on .. it's been bloody hours ….. we gotta DO something … I'm gonna call the police … she could be anywhere …."

"Okay, I'm going to take another look round upstairs just to make sure …"

"Make sure of what? Sam's already looked and I been calling her for hours … she's not bloody there … we looked everywhere ….…."

Molly gulped and swallowed hard against the rising tide of panic that was stopping her breathing properly, it was gripping her throat in a way that was totally different to anything she'd ever had to deal with in the front line of anything. But it was coupled with the burning need that was building inside her to scream at him that it was all his bloody fault, which even she knew would be unfair to say the least.

"Shit … s'pose someone's taken her? Someone's got her? SHIT … someone might 'ave taken her Charles, come on we gotta DO something … we can't just stand 'ere for fuck sake … "

"Come on Molly, calm down … she's not …."

"Don't fucking tell me to calm down …. Just bloody DO something will you …? You don't know any more than I do …"

"No, I know …. But we both know that she's probably still in the house somewhere don't we? or at least that she's not going to be far away … come on Moll, I'll go and check upstairs and … you phone the police and tell them … see what they have to say …. Okay?"

He knew the minute he got to the top of the stairs that it was an exercise in futility, but knowing it was fucking pointless didn't stop him looking anyway. The silence that greeted him was the sort of absolute silence that tells you there is no-one there. Nothing. But he did his best to shake off the terrible sense of foreboding that was building in the pit of his stomach, or at least to swallow it and subdue the feeling.

"Millie ….. MILLIE …. come on, come on out now, there's a good girl …"

But the silence from the bedrooms remained deafening as he ran from room to room flinging curtains to one side and checking behind them and crouching down to peer under beds, then flinging open wardrobe doors to frantically pull at the clothes that were hanging inside. He was still trying to convince himself that she'd tucked herself away behind something, even though he knew logically that if she and the dog were anywhere nearby he'd have heard Patches by now. Even if Millie was hiding and refusing to hear him or was fast asleep somewhere, Patchey would have made his usual little whimpering noises of pleasure as soon as he heard his voice. Or he would have come scrabbling out to find him. Instead there was nothing. Not a sound.

-OG-

"What did they say?"

"They're sending someone … he said they'd be 'ere shortly … stupid sod kept telling me not to worry … I mean … " Molly gulped and took a deep breath "Your phone switched on?"

"Of course and I'll call you if … no, I'll call you just assoon as I find her … find them … and you'll call me if she turns up here … right? Okay?"

"Yeah … take Sam's fleece with you, he 'asn't got a coat … he'll be bloody freezing by now …"

Almost as soon as Charles had vanished into the darkness to begin his search of the fields behind the house with his torch on full beam and yelling her name as loud as he could there was this knock at the front door which had Molly flying to yank it open. For one glorious relief-filled moment she'd thought it was Millie and Patches. Although why the fuck she'd think that Millie would knock at the door, she'd got no idea but she hadn't expected it to be the police, not yet. She'd sort of been listening for a siren, or at the very least had expected them to have their blue lights flashing and twirling in the dark but it was just two very young looking policemen and a girl, well, a woman really, in a suit of some sort. They'd parked their police car next to Charles' on the drive and were now standing huddled under the porch trying not to get soaked. The words of relief that she'd been about to yell at Millie died on her lips.

"Mrs James?"

"Yeah …."

Molly's immediate thought was how the fuck did they hope to search the bloody fields and find her baby when there was only just the two of them and one girl in high heels and no coat. She wasn't going to be much fucking use when the house was in the middle of sodding nowhere. It wasn't east Ham, there weren't any streets and streetlights or corner shops where she could maybe be hanging out, there were just fields and bloody trees and more bloody trees and anyhow it was pitch dark and Millie wouldn't stop out there on her own. Not in the dark. There was no way, not in a million years, so there had to be something that was stopping her from coming home. She had to be hurt or lost or god forbid someone had to have taken her, someone or something was stopping her and they needed a proper search party, not two muppets who didn't like getting wet and a girl wearing silly bloody shoes.

Fifteen minutes later her patience had completely run out. They didn't seem to get it, any of it, question after bloody question so that she was now trying to answer the same bloody questions without losing it. But the girl who seemed to be in charge just kept on asking her all this stuff and then didn't seem to listen to the answers, stupid stuff about why Millie had got herself all upset and whether she often did this sort of thing. Stupid woman had said something about anyone having five kids to look after would sometimes find it hard and had then changed to wanting to know about where Marcus was, and about Sammie and Molly found herself repeating the same things over and over. Then one of the muppets started asking her about what Millie had taken with her in her back pack and she just about lost it, had yelled at him that she'd got no fucking clue and asked him whether he was asking her whether she'd packed it for her. The three of them had exchanged these little looks and had then sort of started asking about Charles, only they kept calling him Millie's dad until Molly suddenly twigged that they were trying to work out whether it was some sort of domestic. That it didn't matter that she'd already said about Charles being outside searching, they suspected that her and Charles had had a big falling out and that maybe he'd taken her. Molly was holding onto her temper by a thread, but there was this little voice in her head keep telling her not to let herself get arsey, that if she went off on one they'd more than likely get the bloody hump and then wouldn't do anything to help. She knew logically that she was being pretty daft, but she couldn't help it. She'd forgotten until now how she didn't trust the police, nothing in her background made her see them as her friends and she'd obviously been right, or rather Dave and the rest of them had been, but she did need their help, and they weren't doing anything that she could see. She wanted to scream at them to stop farting about and get up off of their bums and go and do something useful, go and look for her for fuck sake because they sure as hell weren't going to find her standing in the bloody kitchen asking her the same things over and over again. And then not paying any attention to the answers. The ring on the doorbell didn't get her excited and rushing to open it, not like last time, she bloody knew this time that it wasn't going to be Millie.

"That'll be my colleagues …"

Muppet One nodded at the other one who went to the door and let them in, one of them had a bloody great big Alsation-type dog with him, a dog that looked fierce enough to eat one of them. It was definitely enough to make dog-lover Chloe shrink away and lean against Molly on the side farthest away from it.

"Molly isn't it?" She nodded at the girl who'd just had a chat with the one with the dog "If you'd like to wait here with the children Molly, we'll start with checking the house …. Upstairs first of all lads …."

"But we already done that …"

"Nothing to worry about ….… it's just routine … we need to make sure she's not hiding upstairs … that she's not hiding somewhere and enjoying the fuss …"

"She's not, she wouldn't …."

"You'd be surprised …"

"Yeah …I would .. okay, look … just get on with it will you? … go and do whatever it is you wanna do, go and look everywhere all over again, but you'll be wasting even more bloody time" Molly bit her bottom lip "When you actually gonna do something … start looking for 'er?"

Rationally she knew she was letting her panic and imagination run away with her, but was suddenly convinced that their suspicions about Millie still being in the house somewhere was because they thought her or Charles or both of them had done something to her. It made her itch to chin someone, preferably the smug girl pulling the strings who kept talking down to her in a patronising manner as though she was the one who was six, and a bit dumb. Or if not her then one of the others who were standing around doing sod-all in her kitchen would do just as bloody well. All she wanted was for them to get on with it, to get that bloody dog to sniff at the school jumper that she'd already given them and to take the school photographs that they'd asked for and bloody well do something. Stop standing around talking and start looking for her for fuck sake.

-OG-

"Fuck Moll, I thought for a minute she was back …..…." He'd fumbled his phone almost dropping it in his haste to grab it from the back pocket of his jeans when it started vibrating and had momentarily felt light headed with an overwhelming flood of relief when he saw it was Mollie. Only to find that she hadn't rung to tell him Millie was back.

"And are they still there?"

"Yeah … where else would they be? They're not out there fucking looking for her Charles … they think we've done something to her … I mean they're not saying they think that … they're saying all this shit is just routine but they do, I bloody know they do… I can tell …"

Molly had suddenly felt very much alone, which wasn't entirely a unique feeling for her these days, but this was different. It was the one thing that hadn't occurred to her for a single solitary second, that the police might think they'd done something to hurt Millie.

"Is he there? Let me speak to him …. Do you want me to come back?"

"Nah … someone's gotta keep looking … and they're not doing it are they? 'n it's not an 'him' it's a girl in charge …. 'n they got a bleeding great big dog with them 'n all … but …" Molly had to fight against the now familiar feeling of panic that was again tightening her throat and making her want to yell and bawl and scream "What if she's hurt? … I mean …. what if she's out there somewhere and she's hurt herself … something must 'ave 'appened or she'd be home by now … is Sam with you?"

"He's on the other side checking the hedges … I can hear him shouting …. we will find her Moll …."

"Hang on, bloody Vera wants me …. I'll 'ave to call you back …"

For the second time in a few minutes Charles felt an enormous surge of relief when he saw rather than heard Sam shouting and waving his torch in a way that made it obvious he was desperately trying to attract his attention. He shoved his phone back and began to run across the field on legs that felt like cooked spaghetti towards where Sam was now crouching down by the hedgerow. Charles was nowhere near as sure-footed as he used to be and his calves had started to ache to buggery as he ran, and stumbled in the dark, it seemed to be taking forever to get anywhere as he bitterly regretted no longer being army fit.

But Sam hadn't found her. He'd found a very wet and muddy Patches, or rather the little dog had suddenly come barrelling out of the darkness and was ecstatically happy to have found Sam and now Charles. But of Millie there was absolutely no sign.

-OG-

A/N: Thank you to all the people who read and reviewed Chapter 1 – and for your kind comments – I know I've said it before but I really can't do it without you. I was all ready to post this yesterday when Windows 10 was suddenly the subject of a massive update, one that they tell you will take some time when what they actually mean is you can forget about using the blessed thing for hours … and hours … and hours. Once again my huge thanks go to Flossy for her unwavering patience and support.

* For anyone who is not familiar with her, Vera is a female detective wh is not known for her people skills.