by Jess Ryder
‘Peanut butter, but only if it’s crunchy.’ Chloe goes to her jacket pocket and takes out her mobile.
‘Hey! Don’t turn it on!’ Jade grabs her by the arm.
‘I’m not going to call Mum. I just want to check my messages. It’s been really weird having my phone off all day, like having a limb missing.’
‘If you turn it on, she’ll know where you are.’
‘No she won’t. She doesn’t track me.’
‘You think? I bet you she does, secretly.’ Jade sets her jaw. ‘All parents do it. They say it’s to keep you safe, but really they want to control you. Believe me. I know.’
Chloe gazes longingly at the handset. ‘I was only going to message Miranda.’
‘You can’t trust anyone, not even your best friend.’
‘Hmm … guess not …’ Chloe reluctantly rests the phone on a pile of shirts and follows Jade into the kitchen, where she watches her pop slices of bread into the toaster. ‘I expect Mum’s already been on to Dad. Do you think they’ll call the police?’
‘Probably. But don’t expect a nationwide search or anything. You won’t be on the news.’
‘Won’t I?’ Chloe looks vaguely disappointed.
‘No, because it’s obvious you’ve run away – you took half your bloody wardrobe with you. Hundreds of teenagers run away every day. The police can’t chase after all of them; they’re too busy with stabbings.’ Jade applies a thick layer of peanut butter to the toast. ‘If you want a lager, there are some tins in the fridge.’
‘Okay, ta.’ Her sister looks pleased to be allowed alcohol. She opens the fridge and takes out a couple of Foster’s. They carry their makeshift meal back to the lounge and sit on the sofa.
‘Mum will be in a right panic,’ says Chloe, biting into her toast.
‘That’s the point, isn’t it? You said you wanted to make her pay for what she did to me. This is how.’
‘What’s it called again, this thing you’ve got?’
‘Foetal alcohol syndrome.’
Jade puts the telly on and searches Netflix for a good horror movie, but Chloe’s more interested in hearing about her past. So Jade tells her about the expulsion from school, the fights, the run-ins with the law. She talks about her time living on the streets, the risky behaviour, the self-harming, the drug-taking that nearly cost her her life.
Most of it is true, or at least based on truth. Jade embroiders the stories with details borrowed from other lives: kids who were brought up in care, a guy at the hostel, a woman who runs a mental health workshop. Her account is more of an imaginative collage than a real-life history, accurate in spirit if not in fact.
Chloe finds it all very alarming and upsetting. Jade can feel her sister’s attitude towards her mum hardening with every word.
‘I’m sorry, I know it’s hard to listen to,’ she says. ‘The trouble is, if you’ve got FAS, you’re fucked. Once your brain’s wired up wrong, it can’t be put right.’
‘I hate her,’ says Chloe vehemently. ‘I don’t want to see or even speak to her again.’
‘Aww … It means so much to me to have your support. I’m really proud of you for running away.’ Jade gives Chloe’s hair an affectionate stroke. ‘You’ve had a tough day. Why don’t you go to bed?’
To her surprise, Chloe acquiesces immediately. She fusses about in the bathroom for ages, then emerges wearing a pair of childish pyjamas.
‘Goodnight,’ she says.
‘Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.’ Jade wonders for a moment whether there might actually be bed bugs.
Chloe goes into Mia’s room, shutting the door. Jade flicks on the telly and watches the closing sequences of a Mission: Impossible movie she thinks she might have seen before. After about half an hour, she eases open the bedroom door and tiptoes to the bed, navigating the trip hazards caused by Chloe emptying out her rucksack.
She doesn’t know how her sister has managed to fall asleep so quickly, given the unfamiliar surroundings and the dodgy mattress, but she’s very relieved that she has. It’s getting late and Jade has much to accomplish tonight. She leaves the room, closing the door behind her with a soft click. Then she picks up a dining chair and wedges it beneath the handle. She learnt this trick when she was a teenager because Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t allow her a lock on her bedroom door.
She pulls on her jacket and boots, then picks up Chloe’s phone and puts it in her pocket. She leaves the flat, securing it with the deadlock for good measure. This way, even if Chloe wakes up and manages to get out of the bedroom – both of which are very unlikely – she’ll still be stuck.
‘It’ll be okay,’ she mutters to herself as the lift hits the ground floor. ‘She’s out for the count, won’t even know I’ve gone.’
The bus stop is ten minutes’ walk away. Jade has already worked out what number bus she needs to catch. Its circular route takes an hour and a half, which means she has to send the message at the halfway point, when she will be furthest away from the flat. If Chloe’s phone has got a tracking device, it will mislead everyone nicely.
Luckily, the bus arrives on time. She climbs aboard and goes upstairs. There are only four other people on the top deck, and none of them look dangerous. She doesn’t usually go on night buses, finding them scary. Mad people stay on them all night, drunks fall asleep and then go mental when they miss their stop. People get shanked just for minding their own business.
She sits down and takes out Chloe’s phone, tossing it between her hands as the bus stops and starts, stops and starts. Its slow progress is painful, and Jade feels increasingly impatient. She composes and recomposes the text message in her head. The key is to make it sound like it’s coming from Chloe. If not, it will alert suspicion, as they say in crime dramas.
How do fourteen-year-olds think these days? More importantly, how do they text? When she was a teenager, everybody used text speak – LOL, CU2moro. Do they still do that? She’s not sure they do.
She presses her face against the window to see beyond her reflection. The bus is moving but the scenery doesn’t change. Rows of shuttered shops and piles of rubbish in the street. Only a few people are still walking about, but there are plenty of cars on the roads. The traffic never, ever stops, she thinks. Not even on Christmas Day.
The landscape becomes bleaker and more industrial as they reach the halfway point. Jade’s insides flutter and she turns Chloe’s phone on. To her relief, it’s not password-protected, so she can get straight in. Got to be quick, though, just in case the police are standing by. She imagines patrol cars screaming around the corner, sirens blaring, screeching to a halt in front of the bus. It makes her palms sweat and the phone nearly slips out of her grasp.
Unsurprisingly, there are heaps of missed calls and text messages, most of them from Erin, but some from Thomas and Oliver and a few from Miranda. Jade doesn’t have time to read them. Instead she dives into Chloe’s old messages to her mother. It looks like she doesn’t use text speak and signs off with her initial and a single kiss.
She starts to type.
Hi Mum, I am safe and well, no need to look for me. Back v soon. Love you C x
That should put everyone off the scent, she reckons, immediately turning off the phone. She returns it to her pocket and spends the rest of the journey going through her next moves. One: throw the handset into the builder’s skip by the bus stop. Two: flush the SIM card down the loo. Three: work out what to do with Chloe.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Erin
May 2020
The text arrived while I was asleep on the sofa. I’d been determined to stay up all night waiting for news but exhaustion had got the better of me and I’d dozed off briefly. Chloe had sent it half an hour ago, at 00.42. I immediately tried to call her, but the phone went straight to voicemail, so I left yet another message telling her I loved her and wanted her to come home.
I stared at her words in the dim lamplight of the sitting room. It was a huge relief to hear from
her, and the news that she was safe and well made me feel ecstatic for about thirty seconds. Then the doubt crept in.
Had she written the text herself, or had she been forced? Either she was genuinely okay or she was in greater danger than I’d first imagined. No need to look for me – that was the phrase that made me feel uneasy. It made me want to do the exact opposite: to get in the car right then and start scouring the streets.
But where could she be? She’d pushed the boundaries on many occasions – missing dinner, coming home later than the agreed time – but she’d never stayed out all night without our knowledge and permission. Reluctant to spy on her, I’d agreed not to install a tracking device on her phone in return for regular text updates. Now I regretted trusting her. When she came home, things were going to have to change, but in the meantime, I just wanted to find her.
I tried to imagine where she might be right at that moment, at half past one in the morning. Somehow I couldn’t imagine her bedding down in a doorway along with rough sleepers and drug users. My daughter liked to think she was streetwise, but it was all talk. She was far more likely to be somewhere with an en suite bathroom and a socket for charging her phone. I’d already rung around all her friends and spoken to their parents, but nobody knew anything beyond the fact that she hadn’t been at school. I hadn’t checked with Tom, but I was certain he would have contacted me if Chloe had turned up at her grandmother’s house. Which left just one possibility – she was with her sister.
I started to feel angry. Jade came across as young, but she was in her mid-twenties, eleven years older than Chloe, and she should know better. She should have dissuaded Chloe from running away, or immediately informed me of her whereabouts. The very least she should have done was call to tell me Chloe was safe. I wasn’t totally blaming her, but I was disappointed in her. There was a chance, I reflected once I’d calmed down, that she had tried to reason with Chloe. It could have taken her until the middle of the night to persuade Chloe to put my mind at rest. However, the tactic hadn’t worked. It had only made me more determined than ever to find my daughter and bring her home.
How was I going to find her? I started googling to see how to track your child’s phone when you hadn’t installed an app. Apparently, as the phone was registered to my email account, I could use a facility to find the location of where it was last used. Given the timing of the text, I reasoned that this should give me Jade’s address.
After some irritating fussing about with forgotten passwords, I was finally getting somewhere. I had a location, although the arrow seemed to be pointing to the middle of an expanse of blue. Expanding the map, I saw that this was a large collection of reservoirs and waterways north of Walthamstow. A chill ran through me. This matched with Jade living in east London, but what had Chloe been doing out there in the middle of the night? Lurid possibilities started to swirl around my head, panic taking hold. Without another thought, I called Tom.
It took three attempts to wake him. ‘Whaasit?’ he mumbled.
‘Chloe’s run away.’
‘What? Why didn’t you call me before?’
‘I don’t know … I didn’t want … I was hoping she’d lose her nerve and come back.’
‘Have you called the police?’
‘No, I thought you had to wait twenty-four hours to report a missing person.’
‘That doesn’t apply to under eighteens.’
‘Oh, okay … I’ll call them then.’
‘How do you know she’s run away?’
‘She took a load of clothes and her overnight stuff. And she’s just sent me a text.’
‘Saying what?’ I read it out to him. ‘Hmm … that sounds like she’s okay, but it’s still not good. Let me call her, see if I can find out what’s going on.’
‘I’ve been trying all evening. She turned the phone on to send the text, but now it’s off again.’
‘That’s so annoying. Are you sure she’s not at Miranda’s?’
‘Yes, I spoke to her mother earlier, they haven’t seen her. I’ve tried all her friends, but no luck.’
‘Then where the hell is she?’
I paused. ‘I think she might be with Jade. I don’t know for sure, but …’
I heard him groan. ‘What? Are you kidding? I thought she’d gone away, didn’t want anything to do with you.’
‘Chloe traced her via social media. She brought Jade home last night and insisted she stay over. I didn’t feel very comfortable about it, but I was trying to please Chloe. I dropped her off at school this morning, but apparently she didn’t go in. She must have come straight home and packed a bag.’
‘Something must have happened. Did you have a row?’
‘No, not at all. It was weird but sort of okay.’
‘I’m not having this selfish behaviour,’ he said. ‘We’ve got enough shit to cope with as it is. Give me Jade’s address, I’ll go over there right now and pick Chloe up.’
‘I don’t have it. Don’t have her mobile number or anything.’
‘Erin!’
‘She lives somewhere in east London, that’s all I know. I traced the location of the text. It was sent from an area called the Wetlands, in between Tottenham Hale and Walthamstow.’
‘Well it’s a start, I guess. You call the police. I’ll drive over and see if there’s any sign of her.’
‘Okay. If you find her, don’t be too hard on her, please. Just tell her we love her and want her back.’
His tone suddenly softened. ‘I will. Try not to worry too much. It’s all just attention-seeking. I’m sure she’ll be okay.’
‘Thanks, Tom,’ I said. ‘Sorry to wake you.’
* * *
I felt a little better knowing that Tom was on the case. He hadn’t blamed me for Chloe’s disappearance – not yet, anyway – and for that I was grateful. Despite all the recent horrors, underneath it all we were still a good team, especially when it came to the children. Between us I was sure we’d find our daughter. In her text she’d said she loved me. Maybe, I thought, with a spasm of wild optimism, she’d done this deliberately to bring us back together. It could be the catalyst to starting the healing.
I dialled 101 and reported my daughter missing. When I said she’d run away, they advised me to do all the things I’d already done – ring around her friends, try to contact her, send her a text saying I wasn’t angry, even if I was. They understood my concerns but didn’t seem to think Chloe was at high risk. I was told a constable would come over as soon as one was available.
‘Don’t worry,’ the officer on duty said. ‘Most of the time they come home a few hours later, cold and hungry, with their tail between their legs.’
But if Chloe was staying at Jade’s house, she wouldn’t be cold or hungry. How long was she going to keep this torture going? I tried calling her again, but her phone was still turned off, so I sent yet another conciliatory text, begging her to let me know she was okay.
I was so exhausted and strung out I could hardly stand. I tried to nap before the police arrived, but it was impossible. My thoughts kept straying into dark, scary places. I imagined Chloe standing on the banks of the reservoir, staring down into the cold black water. Surely she wouldn’t have done anything stupid … She wasn’t the depressive type. You always knew what Chloe was thinking and feeling; it was Oli who kept his emotions tucked away. Although she’d been angry with me for not telling her, she was excited about having a big sister. She’d gone out of her way to find Jade and welcome her into the family; she’d been strong and decisive. Running away didn’t make sense.
Something must have happened to make her leave, but I couldn’t work out what it could be.
* * *
DC Leah Gonzales didn’t look much older than a teenager herself. She was very sympathetic, though, and kept reassuring me that if Chloe had texted that she was safe and well, then she most probably was. Even so, it was upsetting having to provide a current photograph and even worse to be asked for her toothbrush so they cou
ld take a sample of her DNA. Although the fact that she had packed her toothbrush was taken as another good sign that she wasn’t in danger.
‘So … if I can just get this straight,’ said the detective, writing rapidly in her notebook. ‘You think Chloe’s gone to stay with her elder sister, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right … What’s her name?’
‘Jade. Jade Fernsby, she’s twenty-five.’
‘Oh! A lot older.’ She looked up at me and I could see her making a quick calculation in her head.
‘I had her when I was very young. She’s actually Chloe’s half-sister.’
DC Gonzales put down her pencil. ‘Um … So, sorry if I’m being thick here, but if Chloe’s staying with your other daughter, she’s not actually missing, is she?’
‘I said I think she’s staying with her – I don’t know for sure. It’s the only solution that makes sense. Chloe wouldn’t roam the streets – she’s only fourteen.’
‘You’d be surprised how many fourteen-year-olds we pick up. And younger.’
‘She’s not like that; she’d be too scared.’
‘Hmm … So what did Jade say when you called her? Did she deny it?’
I felt myself redden. ‘I didn’t call her – I don’t have her number. Don’t know where she lives either, or anything much about her, to be honest. She was a secret, if you must know. Chloe only found out she existed a couple of weeks ago. It’s all very fresh and raw.’
DC Gonzales raised her beautiful black eyebrows. ‘Oh, right … I see. Interesting … How did Chloe react when she found out?’
‘She was upset at first, everyone was. But actually, she’s the one who’s coped the best. She tracked Jade down after we thought we’d lost her and seemed very keen to bring her back into the fold.’
‘So you think she’s gone off with her so they can get to know each other properly or something?’
