The Black Sheep

by Sophie McKenzie

  I reach the table. The milkshakes the girls ordered are here in their clear plastic containers. But Ayesha is definitely alone.

  ‘Where are the girls?’ I ask. ‘Where’s Ruby?’

  ‘In the loo.’ As Ayesha points to the door at the end of the counter Lori emerges from it. She saunters over to the table and picks up her milkshake. She gazes warily at Rufus, who takes a gulp from his own drink.

  ‘Sorry ’bout earlier,’ he mutters.

  ‘Lori?’ My heart races. ‘Where’s Ruby?’

  ‘Still in the ladies, I guess.’ Lori smiles.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Ayesha says, indicating the other people in the café – mostly after-school mums, au pairs and kids – with a wave of her hand. She lowers her voice. ‘It’s just us here.’

  She means ‘us’ as in ‘not the person that I’m scared of’. But it’s not Uncle Perry himself who terrifies me right now. It’s whoever he is using to carry out the PAAUL killings – whoever he has lined up to carry out his threat to murder my children. My phone beeps as I rush across the café. I glance down, distracted. It’s just Lucy asking if I’m okay, if the kids are all right. I open the door and hurry along the corridor to the toilets. The ladies is on the left. I open the door. There are three stalls. Two have open doors. Empty.

  I stare at the third door. ‘Rubes?’ I call. I push at the door.

  It swings open. Also empty.

  My phone forgotten in my hand, I rush back into the corridor. Blood pumps violently at my temples. There’s a fire door a few feet away. I race over. Shit. It’s ajar.

  Panic rising, I pull the door open. Outside is an alleyway full of bins and bits of plywood studded with nails. The wind picks up, whipping at a couple of plastic bags and bringing with it the smell of fried onions from the café next door. I run into the alley.

  ‘Ruby!’ I yell. ‘Ruby!’

  But my daughter is gone.

  TAKEN

  Monday 18 January 2016

  LUCY

  Poor Francesca, in a state of total confusion and misery over events she still doesn’t know the half of.

  She’s worked out some things, for sure, but there are other, secret, things I’m going to make certain she never finds out – especially about you. I’m not protecting you for your sake. Those days are long gone. It’s all for her. Because, well, frankly it would kill her to know.

  You know all about the first secret: that started when I was a child and you blasted away my innocence, corroding me to my very soul.

  No. I’ve promised myself I won’t dwell on that right now. For now I just want to focus on poor Francesca. She thinks she has the full story. Her children’s lives are in danger and, like any mother, she’s prepared to do what it takes to keep them safe.

  What she hasn’t taken into account is you.

  She doesn’t know you. That is, of course she knows you. But she doesn’t see you. Not like I do.

  I sent her a text a few minutes ago, asking if she’s all right, if she’s with the children yet. She hasn’t replied.

  Which is par for the course. I’m not making a thing of it, I know she’s frantic and panicking about everything she’s found out, especially that the kids are under threat. But all our lives it’s been me letting Francesca call the shots, never making a fuss if she forgets to take me into account. Well, you know that as well as anyone. Not that Francesca has ever been anything but loving and caring towards me. We weren’t close when we were younger, the age gap between us is too big for that, but when I was pregnant all those years ago she really tried to help. At least that’s what she thought she was doing.

  Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. I can’t just throw in the abortion without explaining the context. And that, as ever, brings me back to you and what happened when I was that lonely, misfit teenager whose vulnerability you exploited for your own sinful ends.

  Everything changed because of you and what you did. I won’t go into the details now. It’s enough to say that, afterwards, I kept my promise to say nothing. The shame of what had happened was far worse than the physical soreness between my legs, which faded within a couple of days. Mummy found the place where I’d been sick in the garden and expressed irritation that ‘Francesca’s friends had been out of control’. She never suspected for a minute that the pile of vomit was mine.

  After three days where I’d hardly left my bedroom she took me to see the doctor who said ‘hello there, young lady’ with his usual kindly twinkle, as if I was still eight years old instead of fifteen. I liked our paediatrican, I really did, but at the time he seemed like a creature from a distant planet, an old man (though I guess he was only in his mid-forties) and among the very last people in the world to whom I could have confided any aspect of what had happened to me. He listened to my chest and prodded my abdomen, when I said I had ‘a sort of stomach ache’, then whispered to Mummy that it was probably just ‘growing pains’ and that a combination of a decent diet and moderate exercise would set me straight.

  I did my best to eat the food put in front of me, but it all felt like cardboard in my mouth. I put on enough of a show after a few more days to stop Mummy from fretting – luckily she had a series of pre-Christmas lunches with various friends which distracted her – and gradually I developed a hard enough shell to fool the most perceptive observer into thinking I was fine. By the time I went back to school after Christmas I appeared outwardly normal. But inside the hurt was as bad as ever.

  I started self-harming, just little slices with a razor blade on my thighs and stomach. If I’d had the guts I would have gone further, but it fitted with the narrative I had of myself to hold back: I was too weak and pathetic even to properly hurt myself, just as I had been too weak and pathetic to make you love me in the right way before.

  Every time I thought about what we’d done it broke my heart all over again, sending me straight to the razor and the miserable darkness of my self-loathing.

  What it came down to was pain – a cycle of fear, anger and loneliness that had me hooked as hard as any drug. The many secret times that I reached for my razor and sliced at my own skin gave me some release from that pain. The whole winter which followed was a terrible time and it left my thighs covered in tiny scars. I look at them often, even now, and remember how utterly lost I was.

  Francesca came home at the end of March for the Easter holiday. She was at her most rebellious at that time, revelling in uni life away from home and delighting in taunting us all for our ‘uptight’ and ‘repressive’ ways. She stayed out all night on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, causing Mummy no end of anxiety. There was a big row when she finally loped in, make-up smeared down her cheek and clearly still drunk – or even possibly high.

  I crept up to my room and got stuck into my holiday homework, trying to ignore both the nausea that constantly plagued me and the black cloud that pressed on my head, threatening to smother me with a sense of utter hopelessness. As I attempted to revise a list of dates for my upcoming history exam, trying to block out the sound of Francesca yelling that Mummy was a Nazi, it occurred to me I hadn’t had a period in a while. When I counted back, I was shocked to discover my last period had been just before my birthday at the end of November. I stood in front of the mirror and studied my body. My breasts seemed bigger than ever, despite my ongoing attempts to keep them in check by watching my weight. I frowned at my stomach. Was that the start of an outward curve?

  With shaking hands I bought and carried out a test, but in my heart I knew the result before the blue line showed on the stick.

  I was pregnant.

  With your child.

  I often think about that child. He or she would be a teenager now. Older than Rufus. I would have been a mother first, before Francesca.

  Which is funny. For years I envied Francesca being a mother. But not any longer.

  Not now the children are in danger. Not now Francesca is so terrified for their safety. Not now, as I sit here remembering what
you are capable of.

  What you once did to me you would surely do to another child.

  FRAN

  My feet take me back inside the busy, bustling café before my head registers what has happened. The scent of coffee and the sound of children’s chatter whirl around me. Ruby has been taken. I’m numb with the shock of it. It can’t be real. An image of her little face slams in front of me and my breath catches in my throat.

  I have to get her back. It’s all I can think. Adrenaline surges through me as I reach for my phone to dial 999. But as I take it out of my bag it pings with a text. A blocked number.

  You were warned. Harry is dead.

  What? My legs give way. No. A stab of pain sears through my panic. Up until now I’d clung to the hope that Harry was still out there but here is proof he is gone.

  Before I can even begin to process this there’s another text:

  You were warned. Ruby will be next.

  Terror fills me.

  Uncle Perry has used his killer to murder Harry. And to kidnap Ruby. The reality of it slams home: my daughter’s life depends entirely on what I choose to do now.

  Barely able to breathe, I stumble over to the table where Ayesha and the kids are sitting. I clutch at the back of the nearest chair, panic hammering like tiny fists at the inside of my skull. Ayesha is smiling, but the smile drops as she clocks my expression.

  ‘Franny?’ She stands up. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Another text. I stare down at it.

  Get rid of everyone at the table. Talk to ANYONE and Ruby dies.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I say, covering the screen with my palm. Rufus is staring moodily at the game he’s playing on his phone. At least he is all right. I must cling to that. Keep him safe.

  ‘Nothing?’ Ayesha frowns. ‘Where’s Ruby?’

  ‘She’s . . . er, she’s not well.’ I think fast. ‘She’s been sick. I think it might be a bug. I, er, I just came out to ask if you’d take Rufus back to yours for a couple of hours so I can focus on her, get her home without infecting everyone else.’

  ‘I thought you wanted us all to stay together?’ Ayesha frowns, drawing me aside. Around us the café is full of steam and chatter. ‘What the hell is going on? You look as white as the menu card. Is this something to do with going to the police?’

  I press my lips together, determined not to cry. I nod, not trusting myself to speak without breaking down.

  ‘What about Ruby?’ Ayesha goes on. ‘Should I call an ambulance?’

  ‘No,’ I whisper. ‘Please just take Rufus home, keep him safe till I get there. I promise I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can.’

  ‘Okay.’ Ayesha reluctantly turns back to the table. ‘Come on, kids, let’s go.’

  Rufus looks up. ‘We’re going home?’ he asks hopefully.

  ‘No,’ Ayesha says. ‘You’re coming with me and Lori back to ours. Mum’ll pick you up later.’

  ‘What?’ Rufus stands, facing me down. He’s only a little bit shorter than me now. ‘No way. What about what you said before, Mum?’

  He means about going to the police.

  ‘Please don’t argue.’ Tears prick at my eyes. ‘We’ll do . . . what I said, later. Right now Ruby’s not well . . . please, Rufus . . .’

  Rufus lets out an exasperated sigh but doesn’t resist any further. He walks away. Ayesha hurries after him. Lori gulps down the last of her milkshake. She looks across at Ruby’s unfinished drink.

  ‘Take it,’ I urge.

  ‘That’s okay,’ Lori says with a gentle smile. ‘I’m full. Tell Rubes I hope she feels better.’ She follows her mother and Rufus out of the café.

  I watch as they head to Ayesha’s car. I sink down into my seat at the booth and place my phone on the table beside Ruby’s milkshake. I touch the cool plastic with trembling fingers.

  Fifteen long minutes pass. I check each message again – there’s no way of responding to any of them. Another text arrives:

  Well done. First test passed. Now call the police and tell them you have nothing to say after all.

  I stare at the message. Is the sender watching me? He or she must be. How else do they know the others have gone? Are they close enough to hear what I’m saying? I stand up and look around the café. No sign of anyone behaving suspiciously. It strikes me that the person who has taken Ruby is most likely not the same person who is watching me and sending texts. It’s a bigger operation than just Uncle Perry and a single hired killer. I’m up against the entire might of PAAUL.

  I sink back into my chair, sick with panic. Another ten minutes tick by. What should I do? Call the police and retract what I said before, just as PAAUL has ordered? Or dial 999 and take the risk that Ruby will be killed before the police find her? Oh, God, how can I be sure Ruby is alive now?

  As if in answer to my question, another text comes through.

  Do as we say and Ruby will be returned early tomorrow.

  There’s a link to a video beside the text. I click on it and suddenly Ruby’s there on film, eyes closed, murmuring. She’s clearly been sedated. God, she will be confused and scared and . . . I grit my teeth, fury and fear both building inside me. I study the video: she’s on a couch that’s been covered with a white sheet. Nothing else is in view except the edge of a piece of purple-and-white fabric, just above the couch.

  I play the snippet over and over, losing myself in my daughter’s face. She looks hot, her hair has come out of her plait and sticks to the side of her face.

  Please let her be okay. Please.

  The café is more crowded than ever. It’s heaving with a mix of after-school teens and old ladies who seem to have just tipped noisily out of some bingo hall. There’s no way I can keep track of who is coming and going and who has been here all along. But I’m certain I’m still being watched.

  It seems wrong not to involve the police. Wrong and stupid. I don’t want to retract my earlier call to DS Smart. If anything I want to call him again and urge him to get the whole of the Met looking for Ruby. Is there any other way to get her back? A direct appeal won’t work. I think of Uncle Perry’s contemptuous face earlier – and Dad and Jacqueline’s refusal to believe in his guilt.

  Who can I turn to?

  Lucy. She at least believes Uncle Perry is behind Caspian’s death and all the other PAAUL murders. And poor Harry.

  Fingers trembling, I make the call, but as soon as I hear my sister’s timid voice on the line I know I can’t burden her with the truth. It’s too horrific. I pretend I just wanted to have another go at convincing Dad that Uncle Perry is a murderer. Lucy tells me Dad and Jacqueline have gone out for the night – she doesn’t know where they are or when they’ll be back. She says she can hear something awful has happened from my strained voice, but I refuse to talk about it.

  Instead I ring off and dial DS Smart’s number. Even as the phone rings I don’t know what I’m going to say.

  ‘Hello?’ The police officer’s tone is brisk and efficient.

  I hesitate, still battling with myself. Recant and go without police support? Or talk – and risk losing Ruby forever?

  One thing I know for sure is that PAAUL is capable of cold-blooded murder. And whoever is watching me is almost certainly still here, waiting for me to carry out PAAUL’s instructions.

  ‘It’s Francesca, Jayson Carr’s daughter,’ I say. ‘I left the message for you earl—’

  ‘Yes, I was going to call you back,’ DS Smart says. ‘You’ve got new information? Something you’ve remembered about Simon Pinner? I’m afraid we don’t have any new leads, so anything you can tell me . . .’

  I hesitate, the image of Ruby’s face filling my head. I should tell the detective that she has been kidnapped, that Harry is dead, that my Uncle Perry is a monster, a murderer.

  ‘It’s not about Simon Pinner . . .’

  ‘I see. Er, is it to do with your husband’s death?’ DS Smart presses.

  I look around the café again. Whoever Perry sent must still be
looking at me, listening to me. I don’t have any choice. I have to do what Perry . . . what PAAUL has ordered. I can’t take the risk of speaking out, not with Ruby’s life at stake. Once she is safe I will tell the police everything.

  ‘No, in fact I made a mistake before, I was wrong about what . . . what I said.’ My voice sounds hollow. ‘I’m sorry I bothered you.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ I can tell from DS Smart’s tone that he doesn’t know whether to believe me. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what it is? Sometimes it’s the little things that are the most important.’

  ‘No, I was wrong,’ I repeat. ‘Thanks for your understanding.’

  I ring off and stare outside. A soft drizzle is settling on the tarmac outside the ice cream parlour, glistening in the lamplight above. I feel like it’s almost midnight but it’s still only five thirty in the afternoon.

  Another text comes through.

  Well done. Ruby is fine. You’ll see her tomorrow.

  So I am still being watched. I glance around the ice cream parlour, a shiver snaking down my spine, then stare helplessly at the text again. Tomorrow? I want her back now. Is she really okay? How on earth am I going to last until tomorrow?

  Another half hour passes. I’m in a daze, numb with fear.

  ‘Francesca?’

  I look up. My sister is standing beside me, her eyes full of concern. ‘You sounded so upset earlier that I called Ayesha. She told me she was worried about you, that you were taking Ruby home ’cos she got sick at Mariner’s. But I went to your house and you weren’t there, so I thought I’d try here and . . .’ Lucy looks around. ‘You’re sitting here on your own, even though you were supposed to leave an hour ago. And . . . and where’s Ruby?’ She frowns. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Oh, Lucy,’ I sob, the tears that I’ve been holding back now sliding down my cheeks.