Stolen

by Tess Stimson

  ‘The fucker deserves to be hung by his balls with piano wire,’ Quinn says. ‘But he’s your last, best hope to find Lottie. You need to be smart about this, Alex. Don’t rush over there and blow it.’

  The traffic snarls ahead of us, forcing me to a halt.

  ‘I’m serious, Alex. You won’t get another shot if you drive him underground.’

  I don’t want to hear this. Paul Harding knows where Lottie is. I want to beat down his door and shake it out of him.

  ‘Let the cops do their job,’ Quinn says. ‘If she’s still alive, they’ll get her back.’

  ‘What do you mean, if?’

  Quinn shrugs, but doesn’t answer my question.

  ‘Do you think she’s still alive?’ I say.

  ‘There’s a chance he’s got her stashed away somewhere,’ Quinn says. ‘A second home somewhere in Wales—’

  ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

  ‘No,’ she says, baldly. ‘I think she’s dead. I think she died within hours of being taken.’

  The breath rushes from my lungs. ‘But I saw her—’

  ‘You asked me what I thought.’

  The car ahead of us starts to move. Neither Quinn nor I speak again until I pull up in front of the primary school and park.

  ‘You’re going to his house anyway, aren’t you?’ she says. ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fine. I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Get out, Quinn. This has nothing to do with you.’

  Quinn twists in her seat. Her single blue eye conveys scorn and irritation in equal measure. ‘Like hell it doesn’t,’ she snaps. ‘I told you about Harding. This’ll lead straight back to me. You think I’m going to let you go over there and make me an accessory to assault or murder?’ She slams her head back against the headrest. ‘Goddamn. I should never have told you about this till after he was arrested.’

  ‘You told me because you wanted a good story,’ I say. ‘Well, here you go.’

  ‘Fuck. You’re enough to drive anyone to drink.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to get involved. Go to your meeting, Quinn.’

  Quinn stubbornly stays where she is. I shrug and plug Paul’s address into my sat nav. If she thinks she’s going to stop me with her impromptu sit-in, she’s mistaken.

  I’ve got more important things to worry about than Quinn Wilde.

  My world has narrowed to a single, primal impulse: to get to Paul Harding and find my daughter.

  I can’t think beyond that.

  I can’t think at all.

  chapter 52

  alex

  As soon as we turn onto Paul’s street, I realise I’m too late.

  The road is blocked by three police vehicles, all with their lights flashing. Clusters of neighbours gawk from the pavements. An officer stands in the middle of the street ahead of us, arm raised, palm outwards, halting traffic.

  ‘Shit,’ Quinn says. ‘I didn’t think they’d get here this quickly.’

  Paul’s glossy black front door abruptly opens. He’s escorted down the steep flight of steps to the street by two police officers. He’s not in handcuffs, but it’s clear he’s not with them voluntarily. One of the policemen even shields his head as he ducks into the police car waiting for them, as if this were a gritty televised drama.

  Catherine appears at the top of the steps, still in her dressing gown. She watches, ashen-faced, as the police drive her husband away. I’m shocked to realise she’s seven or eight months pregnant. I haven’t seen her in a while and Paul never mentioned it.

  ‘Find a place to park,’ Quinn says.

  ‘What’s the point?’ I smack my hand on the steering wheel. ‘For fuck’s sake, Quinn! You couldn’t have waited before calling this in?’

  ‘And leave the kids in those videos where they are for one more day?’

  She’s right. Lottie isn’t the only child who matters, even if she’s the only child who matters to me.

  ‘I’m going home, Quinn,’ I say, wearily. ‘Obviously I can’t talk to Paul now.’

  ‘You can still talk to her. Come on, Alex. Get with the programme. We need to speak to her before she lawyers up.’

  I reverse a few metres down the road and turn into a side street, driving slowly between the banks of parked cars until I spot a free space.

  Quinn gets out as soon as the car stops moving, but I hesitate. The woman I saw with Lottie on the train was definitely not pregnant. It can’t have been Catherine.

  The certainty that brought me here suddenly ebbs. Maybe Catherine isn’t involved, after all. She’s pregnant. What sort of mother would knowingly have a child with a paedophile?

  Quinn’s already heading down the street towards Paul’s house. ‘Wait!’ I call.

  She turns. ‘Don’t get soft on me now.’

  ‘I don’t think Catherine has anything to do with—’

  ‘Get real, Alex,’ Quinn says, harshly. ‘Even if Harding didn’t take your daughter, Catherine thought he did. She invented the thin man, just in case. She protected him. And then she doubled down and took that video of Ian Dutton. She went to a lot of trouble to set him up and derail the investigation.’ Her expression is scornful. ‘Now you want to give her a pass just because she’s knocked up?’

  She takes off again. By the time I catch up with her, we’re almost at Paul’s house. Catherine has spotted me and is rushing down her front steps, her dressing gown flapping loose.

  ‘Alex!’ she exclaims. ‘Thank God you’re here! I can’t believe what’s happening, you have to …’ She breaks off as Quinn takes advantage of the distraction to slip into the house. ‘Who’s that woman?’ she says, uncertainly. ‘Is she with you?’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ I say. ‘Catherine, what did the police say? Why’ve they arrested Paul? Did they tell you?’

  Catherine glances at the clusters of people still gawking in the street. I usher her inside, away from prying eyes and mobile phone cameras.

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ she says. ‘It’s obviously all a terrible misunderstanding. Paul’s already called his solicitor to sort it out. You know Paul, how could anyone think—’

  ‘Did they say anything about Lottie?’ I ask bluntly.

  ‘Lottie?’ Catherine is suddenly wary. ‘What does she have to do with this?’

  ‘Please, Catherine. Where is she?’

  ‘Mrs Harding, don’t say another word.’

  A woman in a charcoal trouser suit storms up the front steps and in through the front door, which no one has yet thought to shut. She pushes past me and steps in front of Catherine, as if ready to take a bullet for her.

  ‘Mrs Harding, your husband called me,’ she says. ‘My name is Rebecca Miller. I’m a criminal lawyer.’

  ‘I don’t need—’

  ‘Please, Mrs Harding. Let me do my job. I don’t know who you people are,’ she adds, as Quinn appears at the end of the hall behind us, ‘but you need to leave.’

  ‘Catherine, please,’ I beg. ‘If you know anything about Lottie—’

  ‘Now.’

  I’m about to protest, but the words die on my lips. I exit the house without another word.

  Quinn has no choice but to leave with me. But as soon as we reach the street, she grabs my elbow, furiously spinning me towards her. ‘You’re going to give up, just like that?’

  I shake her off. ‘I told you before, this has nothing to do with you. You’re not my friend, Quinn. You’re a bloody jackal. Call yourself a fucking Uber and go home.’

  I leave her standing in the street and go back to my car.

  Quinn yells something after me, and then scowls and pulls out her phone. I wait till I’m sure she’s not watching and then flip over the silver frame I just stole from Catherine’s hall table.

  Carefully, I prise off the velvet hardboard backing to extract the photo. There’s a note scrawled in Biro on the back of the picture: Ellie & me, South Weald Bay, summer 2019.

  It’s the woman from the train.

  In the wake of your friend’s arr
est, our hearts go out to you, but the truth is it’s time to find some peace …

  By Hannah Foster for the Sunday Post

  Dear Alexa,

  Can it really be two years since your little daughter Lottie disappeared? Since her three-year-old face first began to haunt us?

  Who can forget her fierce expression blazing out at us from posters that went up everywhere, from airports to village shops.

  Could she still be alive? Is she the prisoner of some twisted individual? I know that must be your deepest fear – indeed, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

  The fact that the evil sickness of paedophilia has now reached your inner circle must have shocked you to your core.

  A man you trusted, who worked alongside you in the search for your daughter, turns out to be a monster.

  How devastating that must be.

  The scandal now engulfing the Lottie Foundation will pass, however soul-destroying it must seem now.

  It’s to your eternal credit that you’ve remained so resolutely optimistic, restating at every opportunity your unswerving belief that somehow, one day, Lottie will come back to you.

  Over the years we’ve shared your hope and your nightmares. We’ve obsessed over the events of that fatal evening she went missing along with you. You must have relived those hours a million times and so have we.

  So I hope it doesn’t sound too callous to suggest that two years later, the world has moved on. Not because we have forgotten Lottie, but because time helps us heal and we forget, whether we want to or not.

  No doubt that’s what motivated you to give your impromptu press conference on the front steps of your house yesterday. To remind us. To shake us into caring again.

  Clearly you are still tormented by not knowing what happened to your daughter and it’s obvious that your agony is caused not just by loss, but by guilt, because you weren’t there when she needed you most.

  How else to explain what happened at Victoria station in London two weeks ago?

  No one blames you for grasping at straws, but it’s become painfully obvious to those who care about you that your pain has simply become too much to bear.

  You saw what you wanted to see.

  The terrible truth is, the chance that Lottie is still alive – never mind in London, 4000 miles from where she disappeared – is vanishingly small. Yet still you yearn to know what happened to her and who can blame you for that?

  Perhaps if her body is found, you might finally achieve a glimmer of peace and be able to move on with your life. Maybe if you knew the truth, no matter how tragic that truth is, you might find it easier to bear.

  You are not alone. Parents who lose children have told me how important it is to have something, even a body, to centre their grief on.

  But two years on from Lottie’s tragic disappearance, we have no more idea what became of her now than we did then.

  The public’s fascination with the story has been matched only by the exorbitant amount of time and money spent on trying to solve the mystery.

  First we had a nationwide US police investigation, which put the full resources of the most powerful country in the world at your disposal, to no avail.

  Next came private detectives like Simon Green, who failed to locate Lottie despite trousering more than £500,000 in fees.

  Then, at the behest of your local MP, the indefatigable Jack Murtaugh, Scotland Yard were called in.

  An eye-watering £3 million of taxpayers’ money has now been spent on the search, with no sign of a breakthrough.

  Every witness statement and tip-off has been rechecked, every theory considered, no matter how unlikely. Each development raises fresh hopes and excites the media, but so far they have all come to nothing.

  All of which goes to explain why the chief officer of the force, Ben Rich, has now suggested it might be time to pull the plug.

  Mr Rich’s remarks have inevitably sparked heated debate. #TeamLottie insists that the investigation must continue at any cost, but others have praised the officer for having the courage to voice the unsayable truth.

  With a very heavy heart, I must say I agree with Mr Rich.

  As the grandmother of three children who are roughly the same age as Lottie when she was taken and similarly cherubic, I dread to imagine how it must feel to be living in purgatory like you.

  If, God forbid, I was in your shoes, I would want, demand and plead that everything humanly possible must be done to find my daughter, or, at the very least, to discover what became of her.

  Like you, I would cling to the hope of a miracle, too.

  No one is blaming you, Alexa.

  On the contrary, the charity you set up, the Lottie Foundation, has done a huge amount to raise public awareness of missing children. You’ve become an unofficial global ambassador for the cause.

  Despite everything that’s happened, nothing can take away from that.

  But after two years of false dawns and epic wild goose chases, I have come to the same conclusion as Ben Rich: enough is enough.

  When I saw you on television this week, I was shocked by how vulnerable you seem and how unhappy. And no wonder.

  Be assured, we have not forgotten Lottie or you. But grief, mourning and a carefully created memorial can bring healing.

  And although we would not wish you to lose your commitment, we hope you find comfort in the knowledge that Lottie’s name will live on in the foundation you set up.

  Wishing you happiness as ever,

  Hannah

  two years and nineteen days missing

  chapter 53

  alex

  I hold the photo up against my car window, comparing it to the landscape spread below me.

  I’m in the right place; there’s the same distinctive rock, shaped like a camel’s hump, rising out of the sea a few hundred metres offshore. In the snap, which must have been taken on this same clifftop overlook, Catherine has her arm around the other woman – Ellie – and they’re both smiling at the camera.

  I toss the photo onto the passenger seat and pull back out onto the road.

  South Weald village is a small place. I don’t know Ellie’s surname but, if she lives in the area, I’ll find her. And it’s a fair bet she does, given that Catherine grew up here.

  A light November drizzle starts to fall as I follow the winding cliff-top road down to the village. I peer through the rain-smeared windscreen, looking for the turnoff to South Weald House. Even though the B&B has been sold into private hands, it’s still as good a place to start as any. And I seem to remember it’s only a few doors down from the village shop. Somebody there might recognise the photo.

  But when I pull into the circular gravel driveway outside South Weald House, it’s in total darkness. Clearly, no one is home. And then I remember it’s Sunday afternoon: the village shop will be shut, too. I should’ve thought about that before I drove all the way down here from London.

  Wearily, I park by the side of the road and get out to stretch my legs, which are stiff after five hours cramped behind the wheel. I tug the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head to protect myself from the rain, which is now coming down in earnest, and trudge down the road, wondering what to do next.

  Jack was right: this is a wild goose chase. He told me last night not to come rushing down here. I should have listened to him. The police have Paul in custody; with all the evidence they have against him, surely it’ll be in his interests to do a deal and tell them where Lottie is?

  Assuming he knows, of course.

  I finally face a truth I’ve been refusing to acknowledge: Paul probably passed my daughter on to one of the other bastards in his paedophile ring after he was finished with her. Who knows how many hands my baby has passed through since she was stolen from me? Paul may have no idea where she is now.

  A delivery van swooshes through the puddles, drenching my jeans. It’s not yet three in the afternoon, but it’s already getting dark. I should just go back to my car and drive home, but I can’t fa
ce leaving the village without getting some answers.

  What if Paul isn’t the one who took Lottie?

  Given his proclivities, it’s logical to assume he’s guilty, but I can’t shake my doubts. Ellie was the woman I saw with Lottie on the train, and Ellie is Catherine’s friend. Maybe Catherine is the one who took her, though it seems hard to believe Paul wouldn’t have known.

  The questions swarm in my head like angry bees. Who is Ellie to Catherine?

  Why would she have Lottie? How did Catherine and Paul get my daughter back to the UK undetected?

  And always, always, the only question that really matters: Where is she now?

  I round a bend in the road, shoulders hunched against the rain, and see the delivery van parked outside a stone pub on the left with a commanding view of the sea. It’s the same pub my parents used to come every night when Harriet and I were secretly watching TV. I’ve never been inside, but my imagination conjures a cosy village inn with horse brasses and a roaring fire, an anachronistic blue fug of tobacco smoke swirling beneath its low ceilings. I could use some warmth and a bite to eat.

  I push open the door. There is a fireplace, but it’s not lit. The ancient beams have been painted white, and the stark decor owes more to chilly Scandi noir than Midsomer Murders.

  It’s not busy. I show the photo of Ellie to the few customers nursing pints at the bleached oak tables, but none of them recognise her. Perhaps my idea of the close-knit village community where everyone knows each other is as outdated as my assumptions about country pub decor.

  ‘You could try the café,’ the girl behind the bar offers. Her accent is strongly Eastern European and a snake tattoo writhes from her shoulder to her wrist. ‘Louise knows everyone. She’s there every day. Just follow the road along the cliff for a couple of miles, and you’ll see it.’

  I thank her and return to my car, not wanting to linger in the unwelcoming pub. It’s stopped raining and, as I drive towards the café, the low winter sun casts a haunting monochromatic light across the landscape.

  The beach below is almost deserted, other than a few hardy souls walking their dogs down by the water’s edge. A biting wind crests the waves with white horses, bucking against the leaden sky.