The Forgotten Child

by D. E. White

  She dropped her son at school and called Dev on the way home. Despite his teenage years running dealers’ supply lines, he’d never touched the stuff himself. He’d seen what the drugs had done to Jay and countless other kids on the Seaview, and had known not touching the goods was the only way he’d get out of the estate. But Dev agreed she should get advice from her solicitor, and made it clear she should also refrain from going round and confronting Tom until she’d calmed down.

  ‘Any news from Bailey?’ Holly asked before she rang off.

  ‘No. It’s like he’s dropped off the planet. I’m seriously worried.’

  ‘Yeah. Have you got his wife’s number?’

  ‘I’ve been ringing his mobile and his home number for the last couple of days, and I found out his address so I went round, but it looks like the house is all shut up, like they’ve gone already.’

  ‘Maybe he got cold feet and just took his family and ran?’ Holly suggested.

  ‘No, I don’t get that feeling. He was so determined to help take down the Nicholls … We’d got too close to give up.’

  ***

  Having extracted Milo from his after-school club that night, Holly drove home, put him to bed, then took a deep breath and picked up her phone. Her rage had been festering all day, and she realised she should have fitted in a quick trip to Shoey’s to work off her anger.

  Tom wasn’t answering his mobile, so she tried the landline.

  ‘Hi, Beth, is Tom there?’

  Beth’s voice was wary. ‘Yes he is.’

  ‘So can I talk to him please?’ Holly made her words exaggeratedly polite. She had a glass of wine on the table next to her, and she wrapped her fingers around the stem, pressing the cool glass so hard that her fingers turned white.

  Tom took ages getting to the phone. ‘Holly? Is Milo all right?’

  ‘He’s fine. Look, Tom, I need to discuss something with you. Can Beth hear what I’m saying?’

  A moment, and his breathing came quicker. ‘Let me take the phone into the office.’ He put a hand over the receiver and she heard him call something to his girlfriend about legal divorce stuff.

  ‘Okay, Tom, I’ll make this quick. Milo told me that he caught you snorting coke. Firstly, what the fuck did you think you were doing? Secondly, we need to talk about what happens next.’

  There was a long pause, then: ‘You fucking bitch.’

  He was like a cornered animal, furious but unable to hurt her now. ‘Bad choice of words. Tom, I can’t believe you snowed me like that. Were you using the whole time we were together?’

  ‘Of course not! And “using” is such a pathetic word. I’m not some addict on the streets in a cardboard box or some loser from the Seaview.’

  ‘If you are taking drugs it doesn’t matter if you’re on the street or on the lecture circuit staying in five-star hotels. You’ve got this wrong, Tom, it isn’t where you are, it’s who you are.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Depends on you. I want a deal. You leave Milo to me and stop trying to go for full custody. Stop the shitty texts and threats, and keep paying child support. In return, I’ll get Milo’s evidence, and mine, all filed away neatly with my solicitor, and you won’t hear about it again. Neither will Beth.’

  ‘And if I don’t? Don’t forget I’ve got stuff on you too!’

  ‘Not anymore. I told you it was a mistake. I’ve already told the police. Do you get it? The message was never passed on, so I wasn’t involved in Larissa’s murder at all. And before you start, I have someone who would swear it in any court, so no, you have nothing on me. You took drugs in front of our child, Tom. Nothing else matters to me except Milo. You should know that by now. I’ve got this great journalist friend too, and I bet he’d love the story …’

  ‘All right! I’ll speak to my solicitor tomorrow.’

  Satisfied, Holly put the phone down. Horrifying though it was to think her child had been exposed to drug-taking, she had no wish to go through with her threats and hurt Milo in the process. As long as the messages stopped and the threat of a custody battle vanished, she’d stay quiet. Tom would have to get help in his own way, if that was what he needed. How had she married a drug user? After everything she’d seen and done, it stung, painful and sour in her middle. Was she really that blind? She had no doubt he would try to get some little petty revenge, but with this evidence she could destroy him and everything he cared about. His status and the adoration and flattery would all take a nosedive if it ever came out that he had taken drugs in front of his eight-year-old son.

  Emptying the last of the wine into her glass, she made another call, but the phone went straight to voicemail. After a second’s hesitation she left a message. ‘Hi, Dev, just checking to see if you wanted to meet up tomorrow. I … I’ll try you again in the morning.’

  It didn’t feel right to leave any details of her conversation with Tom, although she felt like celebrating. To have the threat of losing Milo lifted was like winning the lottery. Shame she couldn’t manage that too, then she could keep the house.

  Outside, the wind had worsened and the back gate was banging again. She really must find those bloody back door keys. Frowning, Holly glanced back down at her phone as it buzzed. There was a message on the screen:

  You haven’t won. You have no idea what might happen next.

  Tom’s threats didn’t bother her as much now, but for some reason she thought of Gareth and his cold, soulless eyes. Moving quickly around the house she checked the doors and windows as usual, emptying out two drawers in the kitchen cupboard in an effort to find her keys. But there was nothing but the usual muddle of receipts, broken pens and sticky rubber bands. At least the door was locked, she reasoned with herself. She may not be able to open it, but nobody else could either.

  ***

  Holly’s next shift was an early one, so she made sure Milo’s lunch was done the night before. Lydia was coming over at six to take over whilst she snuck out of the house and drove to work. Whilst she drove, she put in a quick call to her solicitor, leaving a message saying she wanted an appointment booked in for tomorrow afternoon. She was fairly confident she could coax Milo into repeating what he had said for the record, and then it was done, and ready to be used if Tom ever turned nasty again.

  The rain was pelting down, bouncing off slick roads, and clogging her windscreen with torrents. After very little sleep, her mind was bouncing around all over the place. Niko, Gareth, Jayden and Tom’s faces were jeering at her, and she almost perversely enjoyed getting soaked on the short walk from the car park to the main building.

  Holly’s phone rang, and she frowned, surprised as Donnie’s number flashed up. Since when did he call her? ‘I’m just going into work.’

  ‘Won’t take long. I need to know if you’ve had any thoughts about my offer?’

  ‘Plenty, but I’ve got a lot on at the moment. Don’t push me, Dad.’ It seemed safer, with the Nicholls hounding her, to hedge her bets. There wasn’t a chance in hell she was going back to run a drugs op on the Seaview, but if playing along got her access to her brother, and kept her in Donnie’s confidence, she could at least keep up a pretence.

  He was laughing. ‘Well, that’s a turnaround. Or are you just keeping me sweet for another reason?’

  Nobody’s fool now he was off the bottle. ‘Whatever, Donnie. I need to go. Have you spoken to Jayden?’

  ‘No, but he’ll have his reasons. I went to see my grandson in hospital, though. I saw him just before they took him to that foster carer.’

  ‘Why?’ Donnie hadn’t ever bothered with his other grandson, and she was indignant on Milo’s behalf. She was also freaked by the thought that her dad was all excited to play happy families, without knowing that Jay and his son weren’t actually related to him. Clearly Jay hadn’t thought it was necessary to tell Donnie this little detail.

  ‘Just to see him. It’s nice to have family again isn’t it?’

  Holly couldn’t decide if he was be
ing sarcastic or not, so she muttered about going to work and killed the call. So if Jayden hadn’t contacted anyone since the crash, what was he doing? And Bailey was missing too … Could there be a connection?

  Dragging herself from her tangled thoughts, Holly realised she still standing outside in the pouring rain. Her hair was soaked, and she was going to be late. She dived into the toilets to sort herself out, dragging a comb and some make-up from her bag to repair the damage.

  ‘Hi, Holly. What are you staring at?’

  She was leaning over the sink trying to rub foundation under her eyes to cover the dark shadows.

  ‘Hi, Rubes, how’s it going?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, got my little trainee to keep me company again today.’ Ruby winked, and added another layer of mascara to her own thick black lashes.

  ‘Are you seeing him properly, or just playing around?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve seen all of him, and he’s gorgeous,’ Ruby confirmed with a wicked little grin. She added a slick of scarlet to her full lips and smoothed her long black ponytail. ‘It’s not serious, but I’m happy with that. Last thing I want is a proper relationship after all that shit with my ex.’

  ‘Fast mover.’

  ‘Of course. How’s your girl doing?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sleeping with her. She’ll be fine. She’s a bit nervous, but she’ll get there.’ Holly added lip gloss and pulled a face in the mirror. She still looked like shit.

  ‘Glad to hear it. You’ve got enough on your plate at the moment. Come on, we’d better move it.’

  They swiped into the control room and found empty desks next to each other. Noah pitched up with five minutes to go, clutching a cup of coffee, his wet hair flopping over his eyes.

  ‘Can anyone take a red call?’ The team leader was looking down the table, poised for action.

  ‘I can, I’m logged in now,’ Holly answered, and then wished she hadn’t.

  ‘Okay, it’s a hanging. A twenty-year-old male.’

  The red telephone was used for queue-jumping calls when the operator was given sufficient information to make the caller high priority. The red calls were generally CPR ones, and Holly went straight into her triage, adrenalin pumping.

  ‘My brother is hanging from the banister rail. Oh my God, help me!’ The pain and horror in the caller’s voice made her indistinct as emotion took over.

  ‘Listen to me carefully …’

  After the crew had arrived at the address, Holly killed the call and typed up her notes. She felt emotional herself, now, her throat a bit choked, her heart still pumping. ‘I need a break.’

  ‘You okay?’ Her team leader was Alex today, and he was a sweetheart. ‘That was a tough one. Take ten minutes.’

  Ruby, next to her, was in the middle of a complex mental health call, with Noah listening in and taking notes, but she had clocked was happening and stretched out a hand to squeeze Holly’s shoulder.

  In the break room, Holly made another coffee and opened a packet of crisps. The adrenalin rush was slowing now, leaving her drained and exhausted. It was important to move on after a call like that, to not dwell on what might have been, or hear the screams in your dreams. You couldn’t afford to let it get to you, but it was okay to take time out to recover. After all, if you didn’t care, you shouldn’t be working for the ambulance service.

  It had been said many times before, and Holly was used to dealing with horrific trauma calls, she just needed a bit of time and space. But today tears were running down her cheeks, and she hastily wiped them away.

  Sara drifted in, her red curls soaked and dark, her coat dripping water onto the floor. ‘Hi, Holly! Oh, are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be all right, thanks. You?’

  ‘I’m fine. Before I forget, are these yours?’ She was rooting around in her bag, which was the exact match of the brown leather bag that Holly owned. ‘I found these keys after the last shift and I wondered if you had shoved them in my bag by accident …? All the bags get thrown under the table don’t they, and it would be easy to muddle them up.’ Her eyes were bright, her expression the usual mix of slightly anxious and eager to please.

  Holly watched as she dangled the keys, with their silly black cat LED and the random ball of green fluff. ‘They’re mine. They’re my back door keys.’

  ‘Oh! Oh, I’m sorry, but our bags are so similar, aren’t they?’ Sara was still smiling, apparently unaware of the awkwardness of the situation.

  ‘Thanks.’ Holly held out a hand and caught the keys neatly in one fist as Sara chucked them across the room. All thoughts of her last call were banished from her mind, and she watched Sara as the girl went into the little kitchen area, unpacking her meal for later, boiling the kettle for tea. Had she really put her keys in the wrong bag, or had Sara taken them? It was … weird.

  But then Holly let out a long breath and forced a smile as the girl came back into the room with a mug in one hand. Perhaps she was just jittery with everything that was going on at the moment. Sara wouldn’t nick her keys, and if she had, she clearly hadn’t done anything with them. Did she even know where Holly lived?

  Exactly ten minutes later, she was back at her seat, sharing a packet of dolly mixtures with her side of the desk. ‘Ambulance service – is the patient breathing?’

  ***

  It was better getting home at seven in the evening than seven in the morning. She always looked forward to the bedtime routine, and as Milo got older it got better. He was an amusing companion now, and although he still insisted on her reading him a story as he drifted off to sleep, she could see that soon he would be all grown up. Although there was a little pang, when she looked at baby photos, or held someone else’s newborn, she had never wanted another child, and almost looked forward to the time when Milo was an adult and she could see what he had become. Unless he turned out like the rest of her family, of course.

  Her mind drifted back to her teenage self being told the news about her mother. The police had been arguing with her dad, which wasn’t unusual. But this time the chaos wasn’t familiar, it was devastating

  Donnie, forcibly taken down to the police station and questioned, had maintained the ferocity of a caged bear during his interrogation. He said Sian had gone down the Bingo for a few hours. But she had not been at the Bingo, or anywhere in town that anybody could trace. Rumours were rife that she had a lover, but it was never proven. Suppose Donnie had found out about Jay’s parentage, and had one of his men take her out of play?

  But Donnie had spent a few months ordering beatings and pulling in all his contacts to try and find out who had killed his wife. In the end, though, he had no more luck than the police.

  Holly and Jayden, once so close, had drifted apart after their mum’s death. Jayden took on a more active role in the family business, shoving a lot of coke up his nose in the process, and Holly spent her time in the gym with Shoey and Dev. Cath, previously slightly distant, had been with her constantly when she needed it, instinctively leaving her alone when she needed to grieve.

  The local families had been supportive, too, and banded together to help out. That was the side of the Seaview she missed, the side that outsiders would never see. Alongside the crime there was a staunch loyalty and a sense of belonging.

  Smiling a little sadly to herself now, Holly remembered that even Niko had slipped an arm round her shoulders one night when he found her crying and punching the fence on the footpath. It had been weird and a tiny glimpse of the person Niko might have been if he’d not had Mason as a dad, perhaps. She’d been so sure he was going to try something, but his solicitude seemed to have been genuine.

  Niko’s dad was a bastard, but his mum, Bev, had been okay. Cathryn in particular adored her, because she was always glam, in full make-up with loads of jewellery and expensive sunglasses. She’d had a good heart and was always a shoulder to cry on for any of the kids.

  Bev had been one of her own mum’s best friends, and six months after Sian had been killed, Bev had
taken off with another man. Nobody blamed her, and Mason just moved one of his junkie girlfriends into the house.

  What would her mum think of her current situation? What would she think if she knew her secrets had been exposed to Holly? Sian had never been the type of mum to tell her kids she loved them. She’d been kind of guarded and careful around all her family, including Donnie.

  As she poured a glass of gin and tonic, Holly looked at the bank of family photos arranged on the dresser. She only had a couple of her mum, and her favourite was a back view of the two of them, standing on the beach on a grey day. Their arms were around each other and their dark hair was blowing in the wind. Her mum’s charm bracelet glinted on her wrist. Holly must have been about twelve.

  Holly touched the photo with her fingertips, lightly, smiling again at the memory. It still hurt but she had learnt to live with the hurt. There were some good memories, and it was better to hang on to the good than the bad. Right now, she needed some chill-out time. She padded upstairs, checking on Milo as she went. The luminous numbers on the clock in his room said eight-thirty. He was snoring peacefully, so she went into the bathroom, closed the door and put some music on. It was her ritual.

  She pushed away the thoughts of Jay and his son, the stress of work, the worries over her finances, and hid under the bubbles from the faces that danced through her mind in endless repetition. The music soothed her, and the drink made her sleepy.

  The water was cold by the time she hauled herself out, an hour later. After dragging on her pyjamas she untied her hair from its bath-time knot and shook it out. She wandered back downstairs, peeking in on Milo again, as she always did. He generally slept curled into a ball, his soft toys gathered around him.

  Her eyes adjusted to the light and she peered carefully into his bed, seeking out his pale little face. But there was only a tangle of duvet and a mountain of soft toys. Her heart began to beat faster, scanning the bed, the room, pulling away the covers. Milo wasn’t there.

  Chapter 26

  Several teddy bears tumbled to the floor, as she spun round, checking the room, glancing stupidly at the tightly closed curtains.