Because of You

search every house in London. They needed to bring every single baby in the world to her, so that she could see if it was Florence.
Why were they still talking?
‘Right, sir, I think we have all the facts as they stand,’ said DI Thripshaw, ‘I think we have apprehended the situation to our best abilities thus far. We are presently conducting an initial search of the hospital, but to be honest, we’re closing the door after the cows have gone home, clearly … It’s less than hopeless … to be honest …’
Constable Debbie Cheese was looking at the ground. She’d worked with Thripshaw for three years now, and it didn’t get any better. In her opinion, he was an adequate detective, but whenever he spoke, a swarm of confused word wasps came sizzing out of his mouth. He was insensitive and befuddled. He should never really have been allowed near live humans, especially not a grieving mother such as Anna. Debbie was standing right next to Anna and she decided to risk putting a comforting hand on Anna’s shoulder. It might have been considered unprofessional, but no one else seemed to be being gentle near her. Anna felt it, and looked up at her briefly. She couldn’t smile, even in pathetic gratitude, which she most certainly felt – there were simply no smiles available in Anna’s top drawer of stock reactions. She was empty. The constable saw only a haunted face, pleading for help.
Julius ploughed on, ‘Surely we need to sort out some kind of press conference? Make a public plea? Quick as?’
‘Yes, Mr Lindon-Clarke. That is being set up as we speak, which is why we pacifically requested you remain in situ, for all intensive purposes. We have to set it up according to due process or it’s proven to be next to useless, so please calm down and trust us on this. We’re not making it up on the fly, y’know. This ain’t my first rodeo …’
Julius’s knuckles were itching. His desire to make physical contact with DI Thripshaw’s potato face was powerful, especially since he had brought his punch-worthy mush so very close, in an attempt to calm Julius down. He was having the opposite effect. Julius liked to be in charge; he liked it when people snapped to it. This maddening fool was a huge challenge, but he was their only hope at this point.
‘Please remain calm. No point beating a dead horse …’ Thripshaw kept stumbling on. ‘We need to be uber-careful we choose the right tact here.’
‘Please …’
The room went quiet as they all turned to Anna, who was attempting to speak, but very quietly, which was all the volume she could summon.
‘Please find Florence. Please,’ she whispered urgently, using all the breath she had. ‘She’s gone.’
‘Of course, Mrs Lindon-Clarke. We will,’ assured Constable Debbie, who was the only genuinely composed person in the room.
‘We will come and collect you when we’re all set up and hunky-dory. There’s a room downstairs we can utilize …’ said Thripshaw as he shuffled awkwardly in his concrete boots out of the room, his head firmly between his tail.
‘Would you like me to stay with you for a moment?’ offered Constable Debbie.
‘No, no. I’m wanting to … be quiet now … with Jules … until you’re ready,’ Anna told her, and so she respectfully retreated, ushering anyone else other than Julius out of the room.
Julius was fuming and kept bellowing at various people on his treasured Nokia. He called his lawyer friend, Piers; he called another contact high up in police echelons in Manchester to see if he could mobilize anything quicker from there, only to find out that Manchester is Manchester and nothing to do with the Met. He called a couple of Westminster front-bench bods he knew. He repeated the tale of woe to each and every one, with the emphasis on how shocking and painful this all was FOR HIM. He hardly turned back from the window as Anna watched him react to the situation. It occurred to her that his main thrust was fury at the lack of speedy action, not shock at the fact that Florence was missing. He seemed to have absorbed that awful, unthinkable information quite quickly and was swiftly moving on to tactics. He wanted to place himself at the helm of the operations ship; he needed to be captain. This was MASSIVE and his compulsion was to be in charge. He was almost slavering at the immensity of the opportunity. It was a chance to be masterful.
Anna observed him as he noisily talked to person after important person with hardly a break for air, in his element, striding up and down in front of the window. She was saddened to see that he was regularly pausing to check his reflection in the glass. It was as if Julius wanted to reassure himself that he looked as heroic as he felt. On and on and on he went, blaming everyone he could think of. From the midwives to the police. Julius was at his maximum testosterone level, a loud bull.
A loud vain bull.
She was suddenly reminded of a time, years before, when she’d been crying about the loss of a dear friend. She’d noticed that he also started to cry. For a second she was touched, until she noticed him move to the mirror above their fireplace to check out his own crying face. To see if it was impressive. Anna remembered how she’d felt chunks of respect for him crumble away. She felt the same again now.
Anna sat still and didn’t know who to be. She had been a mother for a fleeting moment, the very thing she’d wanted to be so desperately for so long. Was she still a mother? Was that over now? If you don’t have your baby with you, are you still her mother? Maybe she’s the mother to nothing now? Had it actually even happened?
Anna knew in her deepest heart that what had happened