He had to move on.
He walked out of the hospital, thinking fiercely. Trying not to muddle thoughts of the future with what needed to be done now.
He stood in the car park and let his gaze wander around the moonlit valley.
The football ground lay to the north, about a half of the way round from the hospital, or a quarter of the way round from Ginny’s farm. At night the lights would be on for player practice. Let’s assume Madison heard those words of Oscar’s and took them to heart.
Madison could see the football ground from Ginny’s farm. It wasn’t very clear during the day but at night it was lit up like a beacon. Madison would have a very clear idea of where it was.
But the lake was six miles round, and the way from Ginny’s farm was rough. There was a better road lower on the lake shore but the road from Ginny’s was a milk run, designed to take in every farm. There’d be dogs along the road, Fergus thought, hauling his phone out and starting to dial.
There were people searching already but they were searching the bushland around the farm and the lake below. They were also following the main road back this way, thinking that she might have tried to head back to wherever she thought of as home.
His gut twisted at the thought. Madison.
Madison and Ginny.
Ginny answered at the first ring, her voice tight with strain and hope and terror.
‘It’s OK, love,’ he told her. ‘I think I know where she’s gone. Let me talk to Sergeant Cross.’
‘How-?’
‘I talked to Oscar,’ he told her. ‘Let’s not get our hopes up too far but I think we’re searching in the wrong place.’
And ten minutes later they found her.
Ginny was in the police car. Ben Cross should have been delegating; he should have been organising others, but those others would take time to get back from where they were searching to try again. Much easier to pile into the police car, put the lights on high beam and head along the track to the football ground.
And there she was.
At first Ginny thought she was imagining it-a sliver of light fading into the shadows at the side of the road the moment the headlights lit the road after a curve. But Ben had seen it, too, and he slammed on the brakes and was out of the car before her.
‘Madison,’ Ginny called, but there was no answer. But Ben had his huge flashlight and he was searching the undergrowth beside the road. There it was again, that flash of white, the cotton of the little girl’s nightie. Ben was through the undergrowth, using his body as a bulldozer, reaching…
He had her, lifting her out of the bushes as one would lift a terrified animal. He handed her to Ginny and Madison held herself rigid in her arms.
‘Madison,’ Ginny managed, trying to hug her close. ‘Sweetheart, you’re safe.’
‘I want my mummy,’ Madison whimpered, and the tiny body stayed rigid.
‘She’s not here.’
‘He said…’
There was the sound of another car, coming fast. Headlights, the car slowing as it reached them and stopping.
Fergus, climbing from the car, his face slack with relief.
‘You’ve found her.’
‘Just about where you said she would be,’ Ben said, looking worriedly at the small girl in Ginny’s arms. This was no happy ending.
‘I want my mummy,’ Madison whispered again, and shoved against Ginny’s body.
Ginny’s face crumpled in distress and Fergus reached forward.
‘Let me take her,’ he said, and he lifted her from Ginny’s arms and held her close, brooking no opposition. He’d held Molly when she’d been like this, when she’d been cross with him, which hadn’t been all that often, when doctors had been running tests and she’d started to be distressed.
Molly.
His face touched this little girl’s hair, his mouth brushing the top of her head in a feather kiss. He sat on the ground, even though it was rough and gravelled and not exactly the place to sit, and he motioned Ginny to sit with him.
Ben had kids of his own. He knew enough to stand back, to give them time.
‘I’ll radio off the search,’ he said, and disappeared into the police car.
‘Mummy.’ Madison was still rigid but Fergus’s grasp was firm and solid, using his body to cradle hers, willing warmth into the shivering child.
‘Your mummy’s not here,’ he said to Madison. ‘You know that.’
‘The man said…’ She hiccuped on a sob. ‘He said…’
‘I know what he said, but he was wrong,’ Fergus said in the tone of someone who wasn’t to be argued with. ‘Ginny told you what happened to your mummy.’
‘Ginny’s not a mummy.’
Beside him he heard Ginny draw in her breath and he felt her body stiffen. But she didn’t move away. She was sitting next to him, so close that her body touched his. It felt good. It felt…right.
And it gave him the courage to say what needed to be said, right now.
‘Ginny’s not a mummy yet,’ he said, soft and firm and sure. ‘But she’s very, very close to being a mummy. And she’s a doctor. She knows what’s right and what’s wrong, much more than the silly man who didn’t want flowers around his neck.’
‘He said-’
‘We know what he said, but he was wrong. He was feeling tired and crabby and he’d spilled his drink so he said something that he didn’t mean, just to make you feel bad. But you know where your mummy is, Madison. You know she’s not in the car.’
‘She is.’
‘No,’ Fergus said, and Ginny’s hand was suddenly covering one of his, the one that she could see as he hugged the little girl tight. ‘You know how I know? I’m a daddy. Daddies know things. Daddies know that, anyway.’
‘Whose daddy are you?’ she asked, and he winced, knowing he’d opened up yet another avenue Madison might find distressing. But suddenly the words were there and he knew what had to be said.
‘I was Molly’s daddy,’ he said softly. He hesitated but it might as well be said. It was what was in his heart. ‘Molly doesn’t need me anymore,’ he whispered. ‘But I think that you do. If you like, if you want me to, I’ll be your daddy.’
Maybe it was wrong, he thought. Maybe it was too soon after Richard. But Madison’s relationship with Richard had been fleeting. For Ginny to say to her now that she’d be her mother would be cruel and confusing. But to give her a daddy…
It could give her roots, he thought, hugging her tighter, and then he thought, It could give him roots.
‘You’re the doctor,’ Madison whispered in a voice tinged with doubt. ‘You’re not a daddy.’
‘I am a daddy as well as a doctor,’ he said evenly. ‘And I love your Ginny. I’ve been thinking… If it’s OK with you, I think we might be a family. I’ve lost my family. Ginny’s lost her family and you’ve lost your mummy. If we came together, I think we could make a really good new family. All of us. You and me and Ginny and Bounce and Twiggy and Snapper. We could all live together in Ginny’s lovely house and we could stay together for ever.’
There was a long silence. Ginny’s hand had lifted away in shock. It stayed lifted but suddenly it returned. Ginny’s hand rested on his, warm and sure and true, and her other hand came up to touch Madison’s soft hair.
‘That sounds really good, Madison,’ she whispered, and she smiled at Fergus in the moonlight as she said it. ‘Fergus has come up with a really good idea. What do you think?’
‘I’ll never find my mummy,’ the little girl whispered, and something in her voice told Fergus that this was necessary grief. Madison was letting go.
‘You know where your mummy’s shell is buried,’ Ginny was saying, smoothing down the tousled hair and
