Stolen

by Tess Stimson

  ‘It was kind of you to come.’

  Beneath the platitudes, a deeper exchange is taking place. Jack exhales, his breath a puff of white carried on the cold air. It brushes my skin, warm, like a kiss. He smiles and I feel the heat spread to my bones.

  Harriet calls out to me from across the car park. ‘We should go,’ she says. ‘Dad and Aunt Julie are waiting in the car.’

  ‘One minute,’ I say.

  ‘You should go be with your family,’ Jack says. ‘I just wanted to let you know, the CPS won’t be taking your case any further. It’s not official yet; we need to wait for public interest to die down. But if you agree to see a counsellor for a few months, they won’t press charges.’

  For a moment, I find it hard to speak. Jack must have called in a dozen favours to make this happen.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t thank me. Flora’s mother lobbied very hard on your behalf.’ He hesitates. ‘Alex, I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. If I’d picked up your messages when you first saw Flora—’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Jack. None of this is on you.’

  ‘I was looking for Amira,’ Jack says, abruptly. ‘My wife.’

  I remember who she is.

  ‘It took me a few days to track her down,’ he adds. ‘I haven’t seen her in more than six years. And I didn’t want the press getting wind of it, so I took myself off-grid for a bit.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain—’

  ‘I asked her for a divorce, Alex. She’s got citizenship, now. She doesn’t need me.’

  His breath mingles with mine in the chill air.

  ‘You don’t have to rescue me, Jack.’

  ‘Maybe I’m the one needs rescuing.’ He brushes a fallen leaf from my shoulder. ‘I’ll see you when you get back to London,’ he says.

  It’s a promise. A fragile thread to the future.

  Harriet cranes around me as I climb into the car, and the cortege starts to move. ‘Who’s that?’ she asks, watching Jack as he shambles away.

  ‘No one you know,’ I say.

  My sister exchanges a look with Aunt Julie. There’s an air of complicity between them, and I know they’ve been talking about me.

  I shiver, as if someone’s walked over my grave.

  chapter 69

  alex

  We bury Mum in the cold earth of an ancient cemetery, beneath a juniper tree. Later, at my parents’ house, where the wake is being held, I pour myself a thick measure of gin in her memory, savouring the bitter taste.

  No one stays long. Aunt Julie passes around platters of curling sandwiches and mini quiches, while Dad sits inert in his armchair, gazing at nothing. He’s lost ten pounds in as many days and his skin is thin and loose over his bones. It’s as if he’s joining Mum in her decay beneath the ground, collapsing in on himself, his blood and muscles and bones turning to putrefaction and rot.

  I could tell him: grief is the price we pay for love.

  Aunt Julie confers with Harriet in the kitchen, their eyes on Dad as they whisper together. I hadn’t really noticed the resemblance between them before, but they could be mother and daughter. They both have the same thick, dark hair, though Aunt Julie’s is greying now and caught up in a neat bun, while Harriet’s reaches halfway down her back. If Harriet was my cousin rather than my sister, maybe she’d be happier.

  After the last of the mourners has gone, I help Harriet wash up. Mum’s handbag is still on top of the microwave, next to a pile of unopened bills. Her apron still hangs on the back of the kitchen door.

  ‘Did Aunt Julie say how long she’s going to stay here?’ I ask.

  Harriet hands me a platter to dry. ‘A few more days, I think.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’

  ‘Harry—’

  ‘I’ve already been here three weeks,’ she says. ‘I’ve been commissioned to paint a mural at a school in Brae. I can’t afford to take any more time off.’

  My sister doesn’t need to say it: it’s your fault we had to wait to hold Mum’s funeral. Her rigid back does all the talking for her.

  We finish washing-up in silence. Aunt Julie is sorting through photographs in the dining room and Dad has gone upstairs to lie down. Grief is wearying; of all its unimaginable aspects, the intensity of the physical symptoms is what takes you by surprise. After Lottie disappeared, I was exhausted all the time.

  ‘Do you think you can come home for Christmas?’ I ask Harriet, as we put Mum’s best china back in the sideboard. ‘I know Dad would like us both here.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘It depends on Mungo. He’s got a family, too.’

  I feel a wave of sadness. The distance between us has never felt as unbridgeable as it does now. I know she blames the stress of the last two years for driving Mum into an early grave. Blames me. But I don’t want the next time we see each other to be years from now, at Dad’s funeral. I want us to be sisters again.

  Harriet’s barely spoken to me since she came down from the Shetlands. When I enter a room, she leaves, as if she can’t bear to be anywhere near me. I don’t think she’s looked me in the eye once since she got here. I could understand if this was about Flora Birch, but she’s been acting like this towards me for months.

  Ever since Lottie went missing, in fact.

  I know she blames me for losing Lottie. But if anyone has the right to be upset, it’s me. When Lottie was taken, Harriet didn’t come to Florida to help look for her. She’s my sister. How could she not be there for me?

  ‘Aunt Julie said she bumped into you at Heathrow,’ I say, suddenly remembering. ‘The day Lottie disappeared.’

  Harriet has her back to me and I’m not sure she’s even listening. She shifts the coffee table an inch to the left and then steps back to consider it, as if its precise positioning is the most absorbing thing she has ever done.

  ‘Where were you going?’ I ask, curiously.

  ‘When?’

  I suppress a sigh of irritation. ‘When Aunt Julie saw you at Heathrow.’

  ‘Mmmm? Oh, yes, we did run into each other. But that was years ago, when Mungo and I were going off on honeymoon. She must’ve got it muddled.’ She nudges the coffee table another inch. ‘Does that look like it’s in the middle to you?’

  Aunt Julie was quite clear. I ran into her at Heathrow, the day Lottie disappeared.

  In our family, the day my little girl vanished is like 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, the 7/7 bombings on the Tube. We all know what we were doing, where we were, who we were with.

  It’s not the kind of thing you get confused about.

  In the last two years, I’ve relived the final hours I spent with my daughter a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, slowing and stopping time to examine every detail, hoping this continual, slow-motion reconstruction will help me find the clue that’ll lead me to her.

  Lottie shoving pieces of paper beneath the bathroom door.

  Lottie splashing in the pool.

  Lottie holding my hand as we walk along the powdered sand to face the ocean.

  Lottie treating Sian with the contempt she deserved.

  I’ve always fast-forwarded through my brief phone call with Harriet, concentrating instead on the moment I turn round and see Lottie talking to a strange man who has his hand on her shoulder.

  But now I remember.

  I remember the sound of a flight announcement in the background of the call. I remember asking my sister: Are you at the airport?

  And her answer: It’s just the TV.

  chapter 70

  alex

  It’s not possible.

  Harriet would never.

  My sister may not approve of me or the way I was raising Lottie, but she’d never take my baby away. She’d never put me through this. She’d never put Mum through this.

  Aunt Julie comes into t
he sitting room, an album in her hand. ‘Some of these photos,’ she says, fondly. ‘Our hair. Look at your mum, in those flares. I can’t believe we went out like that.’

  ‘Do you remember when you bumped into Harriet at Heathrow?’ I say.

  ‘What, love?’

  ‘You said you ran into her at the airport.’

  ‘When did I say that?’

  ‘After Mum died.’

  Aunt Julie glances at Harriet, and then back at me. She closes the album and holds it against her chest. ‘I don’t think so, love.’

  ‘You said you saw her at the airport the day Lottie disappeared,’ I repeat.

  ‘Which airport?’

  ‘Heathrow,’ I say, impatiently.

  ‘What would I have been doing in England, love?’

  ‘I don’t know! But you said—’

  ‘Alex, I was at home in New Zealand, with your Uncle Bern, when Lottie was taken,’ she says. ‘I didn’t fly out to Florida to help you look for her till days later. I think you’ve got confused, sweetheart.’

  Harriet sighs. ‘I told you, Alex. It was when Mungo and I were on honeymoon.’

  Suddenly, I feel dizzy, as if I have vertigo. I know I didn’t imagine it. I remember: I ran into her at Heathrow, the day Lottie disappeared.

  But my memory can’t be trusted, can it? The debacle with Flora Birch proved that: my need to find my child is so overwhelming, I conjured a mirage so real I couldn’t tell the difference between truth and fiction.

  Perhaps Harriet and my aunt are right. Maybe I’m remembering fragments of a conversation and splicing them together in my imagination. Harriet has no conceivable reason to lie to me.

  Does she?

  ‘Your mum had just died,’ Aunt Julie says, touching my arm. ‘You were probably in shock, love, and got your wires crossed. Best not to dwell. Now, why don’t I make us all a cup of tea, and we can look at some of these photos of your mum together?’

  Harriet’s voice is surprisingly kind. ‘You can’t keep on like this, Alex,’ she says. ‘You need a break. Somewhere you can get away from the press for a bit.’

  ‘I’m on bail,’ I say. ‘They’ve taken my passport. I’m not going anywhere.’

  That night, as so often, I can’t sleep. I tell myself I’m being paranoid, but I can’t shake the sensation Harriet and my aunt are hiding something from me.

  Harriet knows Aunt Julie much better than I do. She took a gap year while I was at university and spent six months in New Zealand. Neither of them have children; Uncle Bern already had three by his first wife when he met my aunt and didn’t want any more. Maybe the two of them—

  The two of them what? Stole their niece and great-niece and smuggled her to New Zealand or the Shetland Isles? Hid her in an outbuilding somewhere?

  I feel as if I’m going mad. I need a break: Harriet was right about that.

  The clock on my bedside table says 4.54 a.m. Flinging back my bedcovers, I grab a thick cardigan and fumble my way downstairs in the dark, careful not to tread on the creaky step fourth from the bottom. I let myself out into the back garden and tiptoe through the frost-rimed grass in my bare feet, almost running because of the cold. My breath comes out in white puffs and hangs heavily on the chill night air.

  I perch on the mossy stone bench beneath the beech tree, hugging my knees to my chest and curling my feet beneath me for warmth. This is where Mum and I used to sit and chat. She’d be on the deckchair, there, and I’d unburden myself of whatever was troubling me: boys, exams, work.

  Lottie.

  I close my eyes, listening for her voice, and hear only mocking silence.

  The sun hasn’t yet risen, but the dense blackness of night is softening into the strange, grey half-light that precedes dawn. I feel as if I’ve been trapped in this moment of non-being, caught between two worlds, ever since Lottie disappeared. For those who grieve, time is not a linear experience. My purgatory is both endless and rawly fresh.

  My eyes sting with sudden tears. I can’t keep careening from one crazy conspiracy theory to another, the way I have been ever since I thought I saw Lottie on the Tube. My feet need to touch bottom.

  Somehow, I have to find a way to climb back out of the abyss. For two years, I’ve clung to the hope of being reunited with my daughter. It’s time I figured out how to let her go.

  First, I need to heal the breach with Harriet. Whatever’s happened between us in the past, we’re sisters. Mum would be heartbroken if she could see how wide the rift between us has become. Perhaps I should go back to the Shetlands with Harriet for a while and really get to know who she is. We might surprise ourselves and actually like each other.

  With a sudden sense of purpose, I uncurl and head back towards the house. The kitchen is still in darkness as I let myself in. Before I make peace with Harriet, I need to make peace with myself. I can lay my doubts to rest with a single phone call. I unplug my mobile from its charger on the kitchen counter and shut myself in Dad’s study at the front of the house, where I won’t be overheard.

  Mungo answers on the second ring. I’m aware it’s still not yet six, but he works shifts on the rigs and I have no idea when a good time would be.

  ‘Mungo, it’s Alex,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry to call so early. Do you have a moment to talk?’

  ‘Two minutes,’ he says.

  My brother-in-law has always been a man of few words but, even so, I’m surprised by the gruffness of his tone.

  ‘It’s about Lottie,’ I say. ‘The day she disappeared. You were at home that week, weren’t you? On the islands, in Brae?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know this might sound ridiculous, but was Harriet with you?’ I wait for him to say, Yes, of course, where else would she be?

  The silence swirling between us is thick and dense, like fog rolling in from the North Sea.

  ‘What’s this about, Alex?’ Mungo says.

  ‘I’m just trying to get things clear in my head,’ I say.

  ‘You should talk to your sister.’

  My mouth is dry. ‘I’m asking you, Mungo.’

  The clock in Dad’s study ticks loudly. I can hear the radiator pipes in the walls as the house breathes.

  ‘I’ve no idea where Harriet was,’ he says, finally. ‘I have no idea where she is. She left me. I came home from the rig one day and she was gone.’

  The ground beneath my feet falls away.

  ‘When?’ I stammer. ‘When did she leave you?’

  ‘That summer. Before your girl was taken.’

  That summer.

  Two and a half years ago.

  Why didn’t Harriet tell me she’d left Mungo? Why didn’t she tell any of us? Mum bought her and Mungo an anniversary card only a few weeks before she died. Why keep it a secret?

  ‘Look,’ Mungo says. ‘I’m sorry. I heard about your mum. She was a nice lady.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s been a shit few years,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Anyway. The lads are waiting for me, so—’

  ‘Mungo, just one more question. When Lottie disappeared, was Harriet still on Brae?’

  ‘No. She left the island after we split up. She hasn’t been back since. I don’t know where she’s living now. Alex, I’m sorry, but I really have to go.’

  I put down my phone and stare at the photograph of Harriet and me on Dad’s desk. It was taken seven years ago, at my wedding to Luca. My sister and I have our arms around each other’s waists, our heads tilted towards each other, almost touching.

  Our smiles are wide and open.

  She lied to me.

  She wasn’t on the Shetland Islands, at home, in Brae.

  So where was she?

  chapter 71

  quinn

  Quinn chucks her phone onto the sofa with an exclamation of disgust. The most basic of errors, right at the very start of the police investigation. Christ on the cross.

  Those so-called detectives should be strun
g up.

  It’s not Penny Williams.

  The last official sighting of Lottie Martini, talking to the quote-unquote bride’s mother on the beach at the end of the wedding ceremony? She wasn’t talking to Penny.

  Quinn knew there was something off when she read the woman’s interview transcript. Mrs Williams remembered verbatim her banal discussion with the hair stylist the morning of the wedding, and every word of the debate with her daughter about the teal nail varnish. But she’d forgotten her entire encounter with a child who’s been at the centre of a global manhunt for the last two years?

  Nope. Quinn wasn’t buying it. So she went back and re-read the interviews with the four wedding guests who’d said they’d seen the little girl talking to Mrs Williams.

  They’d all described an older woman with dark hair, wearing a pale blue dress, whom they’d taken to be the bride’s mother. But when Quinn tracked them down and spoke to them herself, she discovered not one of them actually knew Penny Williams.

  All had made an assumption based on the woman’s age and the colour of her outfit. And the Florida police had never questioned that assumption by showing any of the witnesses a photo of Mrs Williams, to be sure they were talking about the right woman. Every line of inquiry since the very beginning has been based on the same faulty information. And despite millions of pounds spent by the Met, no one had ever thought to go back and actually check.

  So Quinn emailed the four witnesses a photo of Penny Williams in her wedding outfit. She’s just got off the phone with the last of them.

  And now she knows for sure.

  Penny Williams doesn’t remember her conversation with Lottie because she wasn’t the woman the little girl was talking to.

  The dark-haired woman they saw chatting to Lottie was about the same age as Penny Williams, and her dress was a similar colour. But now the witnesses have seen a photo of the bride’s mother, they realise the woman they saw was much more tanned, and thinner. They feel terrible, they just assumed …

  Quinn makes herself some more of her fabled Panamanian coffee and goes back to her computer. She’s got a sense she’s running out of time. Not to rescue Lottie, but to save Alex.