The Missing Hours by Emma Kavanagh

is bigger than a second could possibly encompass.
    Now there are only three of us left. Me, the sister-in-law, and the woman who vanished.
    I smile. ‘Hi, Selena. I’m DC Leah Mackay.’ She nods. Her navy-blue eyes dart back and forth across my face, reading me. I can see now that there is mud in her hair, across her face, that her fingernails are stitched with it. She seems stunned, unsteady, is gripping the metal bars of the hospital bed like she is on the deck of a storm-tossed ship.
    ‘Hi.’ Her voice is throaty, the words fully rounded, singing of a decent school, a good family. ‘You’re the detective?’
    I nod. Yes. I’m the detective. It is so clear then, so uncomplicated. I’m the detective, responsible, capable, whole.
    ‘We’ve been worried about you,’ I say.
    Selena Cole nods. Her eyes are swimming with tears, a dam that is one moderate rainfall from bursting.
    ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
    Selena looks at me. Takes a deep breath. And then it’s like she changes in front of me, her expression tightening, eyes becoming calm, as if she has simply shrugged off her victimhood. ‘Yes. My girls …’
    Orla moves by me, takes her sister-in-law’s hand. ‘They’re safe. They’re asleep. Seth is with them.’ She glances up at me. ‘My husband. He arrived back from New York yesterday.’
    ‘Selena,’ I say softly, ‘can you tell us what happened?’
    She stares at me, her lips moving like she is struggling to form the words. ‘I … I don’t know.’
    ‘You … what do you mean?’
    ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember what happened.’
    I had prepared myself for many answers. Yet I had not anticipated this one. I nod slowly, even though I have no idea what I am agreeing to. Now I’m thinking head injury. But the doctor, he said no concussion. I look around, trying to find him, even though I know that he vanished through the swinging trauma-room doors, that even now he will be up to his knees in blood.
    ‘Okay.’ I’m playing for time, trying to get my brain to catch up with events. ‘What is the last thing you remember?’
    Selena shifts her gaze, staring up at the ceiling tiles above her, the long, narrow gaudiness of the strip light. ‘Heather. Heather wanted to go and play. She was … she had so much energy. You know how they wake like that sometimes? Like a fizzy drink and someone has shaken the can? I thought, well I’ll take them. I mean, it was early, but we’d been up early because Tara couldn’t sleep and she’d woken the house up. So I thought, what does it matter what time it is? I’ll take them. Before the rain comes.’ Her fingers pull on the bed sheet, plucking it from the mattress, releasing it, plucking it again. ‘I remember putting their coats on. Heather, she wanted to wear her good shoes. They were supposed to be for school, but I … she was so determined. I remember closing the door behind us.’
    ‘And then …’
    She turns towards me, looks at me dead on, a single tear sliding down her cheek, splashing silently on to the linoleum floor. ‘Then there’s nothing.’
    Orla gives a low cough. ‘A taxi driver found her sitting on the bank of the River Wye at about 3 a.m. She had no coat, no handbag. He said she seemed confused. He brought her to the hospital.’
    ‘I remember being beside the river.’ Selena looks at her hands, at the mud that stains her fingernails. ‘It was so cold. I don’t know how I got there. I just … I didn’t know where my girls were or what had happened. Then the taxi driver passed me and he stopped and …’ She closes her eyes, covers them with her hands and lets out a sob. ‘The girls. I left them alone.’
    I hang there for a minute, floating between two worlds. Then Orla sweeps forward, clutching at Selena’s hand, shushing her like you would a small child.
    ‘It’s okay, Mogs. It’s okay. They’re fine. Vida found them right away. She took care of them. They’re fine.’
    I think of the Cole girls, sitting