The Forgotten Child

by D. E. White

  Holly couldn’t breathe and her chest was hurting as she flicked on the light, calling his name. He must have gone down for a glass of water … Yes, that was it. She was being silly. But she still called his name and nobody answered. Maybe he was sick or had fallen with his cast? He was pretty good at going down the stairs on his backside, but perhaps he had slipped?

  ‘Milo!’ Her voice echoed around the house, the thud of her bare feet amplified by the emptiness. She checked the empty rooms, the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, the spare room, and opened the window, yelling his name, crying now, unable to believe he was gone. A dog was barking a few doors down.

  The front door was unlocked, no safety chain across, but she never locked up until just before she went to bed. She opened the door, peering into the road, squinting into the darkness.

  Now the back door – dear God, the back door keys were still in her bag. She wrestled with the door, screaming his name, yanking the door open and running out onto the grass. Her bare feet were icy in the mud, and her pyjamas flapped around her legs, but she barely noticed.

  Their garden backed onto woods via a wire fence. The gate swung out onto the narrow footpath that ran along the back of the woods. All the houses along this road had one, and it was a nice extension to their gardens. It wasn’t an area known for its crime, despite the proximity to the Seaview Estate, so the wooden gate was secured by nothing but a couple of bolts. Except it hadn’t been, had it? It had been banging in the wind for the past few days, unsecured and wide open.

  Holly could see nothing in the woods, but blackness amongst the swaying rain-filled trees, and she yelled again and again. Her throat hurt and blind panic sent her hurtling back across the grass. Panting back through the house, she ran to the front again, unable to believe it.

  ‘Milo!’ She hauled the curtains to one side, wiping the window with her sleeve and staring out of the living room window. But there was nobody in the road, apart from the odd car swishing past, headlights dazzling and fading as each vehicle passed.

  She dragged the front door wide. Her car sat parked neatly next to the pavement, along with numerous others. There were a couple of people hurrying along under umbrellas now, and a few more cars whizzed past, splashing up dirty water onto the glistening pavement. There was no sign of a child. Heart pounding, her whole body shaking with cold and fear, Holly ran back inside and scrabbled for her phone.

  But she was met only with her ex-husband’s voicemail. ‘Tom! Have you just been and taken Milo? Pick up the bloody phone.’ She could hardly speak, waves of terror breaking over her, making it hard to breathe. Emotion was clogging her throat, heartbeat loud in her head. She tried the landline.

  ‘Holly?’ Beth picked up, her voice high-pitched and anxious. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Milo’s gone. I need to know if Tom took him. Where the fuck is Tom?’

  ‘He’s … he’s out at a meeting. He said he’d be late, but he should have his phone with him.’

  ‘Fucking hell! I’ve just tried it but it’s switched off as usual. Come on, Beth, has he taken Milo?’ She was crying now, shaking violently, unable to hold it together, but sure that Tom had finally cracked and taken her son.

  ‘No! Why would he? You’re being crazy. Holly, is Milo really missing?’

  ‘No, I made it up for a laugh. My fucking son has disappeared. Somebody has taken him right out of my house while I was in the bath, and if it wasn’t Tom, I really don’t have …’ She dropped the phone. Niko, standing next to her watching her son play football. He had threatened her. Gareth, looking into her eyes with such evil he’d made her shudder and telling her to think of him in the darkness. Sara, passing her the back door keys, smiling and saying they must have been put in her bag by accident. Jayden, lurking in the shadows, watching his own son lying in hospital, definitely still grieving over the loss of his daughter. Could he have taken Milo to show her what it was like to lose a child?

  Picking up the phone, she ended the call to Beth and dialled Karen’s number instead. ‘Someone has taken my son! I need your help …’ She was sobbing now, gasping and trying to pull on her coat at the same time. Although she had no clue where she was going.

  ‘Holly? Taken by who? Are you at home? Holly! Calm down.’

  She managed to give details, although her teeth were chattering from the effort required not to just scream with terror. Afterwards, she opened the front door and began to run along the road in the pouring rain, still shouting his name, until the police arrived and their appearance cut through her hysteria. Milo’s coat hung on the hook next to the door, his wellies and trainers in a basket next to hers. Her mind was numb, and her clenched fingers scored red marks into her palms.

  Three cars, with uniformed officers, plus Karen in a separate unmarked vehicle pulled up outside. Holly showed them in, trying to be as quick and lucid as possible. Every second counted.

  Karen was efficient, wasting no time in greetings, and the uniformed officers spread out to search the house.

  ‘I already looked …’

  ‘Standard procedure. We’ve had missing kids crawled in wardrobes, hiding under beds before now. Before you say anything, I just need to tick it off, and then we’ll start outside. How long were you in the bath for?’ Her face was a mask of concentration, energy crackling from her fingertips as she took notes on her iPad.

  ‘Maybe forty-five minutes … I had the door shut but not locked, just in case Milo needed anything. I had music on, but not too loud. The TV was on downstairs, but again it wasn’t loud. When I went to check on Milo after my bath …’ She gripped the edge of the sofa, clenching her jaw to stop herself from screaming.

  ‘You said on the phone you thought your ex-husband might have taken him. Why do you think that?’

  ‘We’ve argued a lot. He thinks Milo would be better living with him. He … he’s been sending me abusive texts late at night saying that I’m a bad mother and not fit to have a child.’ She couldn’t stop shaking, and icy sweat made her face wet to touch. The metallic taste of blood in her mouth told her she’d bitten her lip.

  ‘Does he give any reason for this?’

  ‘What?’

  Karen leant forward, holding Holly’s forearms gently. ‘Holly, I can’t imagine how tough this is but you need to focus and help us find Milo.’ She repeated the questions.

  ‘He denies sending them, but they came from his bloody phone! I found out that Tom took drugs whilst he was supposed to be looking after Milo. Milo told me, and I … I rang Tom and told him if he didn’t tell his solicitor to back off I’d tell you and his boss about his drug-taking.’ Holly didn’t care about anything else now. Everything was blown apart and she would do or say anything to get her boy home safe.

  DS Steph Harlow came into the room, gave Holly a quick greeting and sat down next to her colleague. Karen continued, ‘This happened yesterday, you threatening to expose him?’

  ‘Two days ago. I made an appointment for me and Milo to see my own solicitor tomorrow afternoon. I don’t know what’s going on with Tom, whether he’s taking drugs on a regular basis, and I don’t care. I just knew that Milo shouldn’t be exposed to that.’

  ‘Has he ever taken drugs before?’

  ‘Yes. I caught him once when I was pregnant with Milo. I swear if I knew it was a regular thing I would have left him straight away, but he said it was a one-off and we were at a party. I believed him. How fucking stupid am I? Do you know I was so angry when Milo told me he had seen what Tom was doing, but when I realised I could use it to get him off my back, I was that relieved.’ Holly felt her own temper flare, a welcome flame to keep her going. ‘He was furious, of course, but I haven’t heard anything from him since.’

  ‘Does anyone else know about the drug-taking and your threats?’

  ‘Devril Mancini. I saw him yesterday. Cathryn, my best friend. Not Lydia yet …’

  Karen gave her a quick, unreadable look. ‘You say you spoke to Tom’s girlfriend, Beth, this evening?’ />
  ‘Yes. Tom was the first person I rang, on his mobile, then his landline and Beth answered. She said he was in a late meeting on campus.’

  ‘In your opinion, does she have any idea that Tom is a regular drug user?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say.’ Holly found she was hunched forward, hands clasped tightly together, shivering. More than shivering, she couldn’t stop shaking. ‘Why is that important?’

  ‘It might not be, but we’re trying to get as much information as we can. We have sent a car over to the university to locate your ex-husband, and we have officers interviewing Beth at the moment.’ Despite her encouraging words, Steph looked grim. ‘Can you think of anyone else who would want to harm you or Milo?’

  ‘Niko Balinta threatened us,’ Holly said promptly. ‘He says that if my brother is alive, he owes him money and if he doesn’t pay he wants me to. Gareth Nicholls was with him on the beach and he told me to watch out for him.’

  ‘Okay. Tell me exactly what they said to you.’

  She did, trying to remember the conversation word for word. When she was done listing pretty much everyone she knew, Steph, without the slightest hesitation, added Sara and Jayden to her possible suspect list. And Dev … Holly tagged his name along too. She couldn’t afford to trust anyone.

  Another uniformed officer came in through the open front door and there was a rumble of conversation as his colleagues updated him. Holly watched, fidgeting with her phone, waiting for something to happen, for the call from Tom to say he’d taken her boy, that he was safe at least.

  ‘Holly, we’ll do everything can to find Milo, but anything you can think of, even if you don’t think it’s relevant, may help,’ Steph said.

  She studied the other woman’s boots, unable to lift her head suddenly. ‘Just find him and bring him home safely,’ she said. Suddenly she remembered Lydia sobbing after Larissa’s death, saying the same thing about Jayden. But her brother was an adult – a liar, a thief and a cheat. Milo was an innocent child.

  Karen was talking to another officer, occasionally glancing in Holly’s direction as she spoke.

  Steph glanced at her notes. ‘Niko wants you to pay back some debt, is that correct?’

  She nodded.

  ‘How much money did Jayden owe?’ Steph’s voice was low enough to be lost in the general buzz of conversation and crackle of radios, but her gaze raked Holly’s face. Her attention was focused entirely on Milo, and Holly felt a thud of emotion, of gratitude. They would find him. It would be okay.

  ‘Fifty thousand. Niko says whilst he was doing time, Jay cleared out this bank account he had set up as his “getting out” fund,’ she said. She glanced down at her phone as she spoke, quickly texting everyone she knew, asking Cathryn to start people looking on the Seaview. Her thumb hesitated when she got to Donnie, but she hit ‘send’ anyway. After all his comments about family he could bloody well prove his own family values now. ‘I told Niko to fuck off, of course. I don’t have any cash. The Nicholls think I’m going to set up business with my dad, and they’re worried about a turf war.’ Holly bit her lip again, still shivering. Things were so complex, this was the best way to describe things quickly.

  ‘Okay.’ Steph went over and spoke quickly to Karen, gesticulating and nodding at her colleague’s replies.

  Holly’s temper, fuelled by terror, made her snap at them. ‘So go and arrest Gareth! Or Niko. Or get Tom or do something to find my son, instead of asking me about some fucking money!’ she said, raising her head from her text messages.

  Karen stepped back into the kitchen. ‘Holly, we are trying to establish whether this is an abduction, possibly initiated by your ex-husband, or if another player could have planned Milo’s kidnap. If it’s the latter we should be hearing from him, or whoever took Milo fairly soon, demanding money as a ransom. That’s why the money is relevant, because according to you, the Nicholls and Niko believe that in some form, you owe them. This may be a way for them to get it back.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Holly whispered, biting down hard on her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming. Her phone was ringing, but it was Cathryn.

  ‘Babes! What the fuck is happening?’

  At the sound of her best friend’s voice Holly burst into tears again, but managed to gasp out the essential information.

  ‘All right. Look, do you want me to come over? I can get Colleen round?’

  ‘No. Thanks, Cathryn, just get everyone out looking, spread the word. Go to Aisha’s and tell Josef – he’s got his dogs still, hasn’t he? If I hear that bastard Tom has got him I’ll let you know where …’ Holly was suddenly aware of Steph listening to her call, hastily remembering she wasn’t in any position to tell Cathryn to get the Seaview boys to ‘do him over’ if they found her ex. ‘I’ll let you know if anything happens.’

  ‘On it, babes. Love you!’

  Donnie’s number flashed up. ‘Holly? What happened to the boy?’

  Too distraught to protest that he had a name, Holly explained.

  ‘Bastards. I’ll get things started my end, and go and have a little chat with Gareth. And I won’t go on my own. You never told me he threatened you, or Niko. They’ll regret fucking with the Hughes family again. Sit tight, girl, and I’ll find him.’

  Another flash of fear as he ended the call. He was taking on the Nicholls and the war was starting. But she didn’t care, didn’t care about anything except her son. As soon as she could, she would be out there looking with the rest …

  Over by the door there was a hurried conversation and Lydia ran into the room, blinking in the light. She went straight to her niece and put her arms around her. Holly rested her head on her shoulder, breathing in hairspray and that knock-off Chanel perfume that Lydia adored. ‘I only went up to have a bath!’

  ‘It’ll be okay, love. I’m sure he’s with Tom, and if not, I’ll have the whole bleeding estate out looking for him.’ Lydia’s eyeliner was wonky, her lipstick bleeding into the wrinkles around her mouth, but her brown eyes were flashing. ‘Family’s the only thing that matters, love, and we’ll find him.’ She gave Karen a scathing glance.

  But the radio crackles informed them that Tom had been located and denied all knowledge of seeing Milo today. He rang Holly’s mobile and all trace of the bastard ex-husband was gone. His voice was shaking with emotion. Tom added that he and Beth would come straight over, and much as she hated them both, Holly agreed. She would have teamed up with the devil himself to get Milo back.

  The police were now busy with search teams, and the dogs were already out in the woods behind her house. Every call, every crackle on the radio grazed her nerves like sandpaper on an open wound. She felt raw and bleeding, and was surprised when she looked down and saw her skin was actually intact. The helicopter was whirring overhead, powerful beam of light illuminating the wooded areas around her house.

  Texts made her phone buzz, but they were all messages of support. The residents of Seaview, all feuds pushed aside, were apparently searching along Beach Road and across to the end of her street. Holly mentioned this to Karen, who shrugged, but said nothing. Clearly she wasn’t stupid. Whatever anyone thought of the crime-riddled, drug-soaked community that bordered the coast, they would band together for a missing child. There was still a strong sense of family, and community and for the second time, Holly felt a twinge of positive emotion towards the Seaview.

  There were no texts from her dad, or from Devril. A chill ran along her spine and she stood, forehead pressed to living room window. Jayden. Jayden and Devril. What if she had been wrong to trust Dev, and he and Jay had taken her boy? She spun from the cold glass, and pushed her way through knots of people to the door.

  There were police everywhere, and a few groups of bystanders. She studied the latter carefully, and noted camera equipment being unloaded from a white van. Press. Although her stomach clenched at the thought of reporters crawling all over her story, it was good. The word would be spread quickly. Holly found she was searching the crowd for fam
iliar faces.

  If her brother was still around, he would surely hear what was going on? And what would he do? Wrapping her arms around her, Holly acknowledged the fact that her own brother might well have taken her son. After all, if Jayden thought he knew she had betrayed him, and he was back for revenge, what better revenge than to take a child?

  Chapter 27

  Desperate for progress, Holly found Steph and explained her theory on Jayden. ‘You need to check Jayden’s son is okay too. He’s only been out of hospital a couple of days and you said that foster care was the answer. What if Jayden is furious with me for not taking him in?’

  ‘Holly, calm down. Sorry, I hate it when people say that to me, but you’ve got to stay in control. We’ve got the team going over everything you’ve told us, following up every lead, not to mention searching the town and beyond. This is a massive operation, and we are very aware that Milo is our number-one priority. I will check on Jayden’s son, but bear in mind if something had happened his foster carer would have called us. The last we heard, he was still unable – or refusing – to talk.’

  ‘Okay.’ Holly wanted to say more but she could hear familiar voices.

  Tom and Beth had arrived and were quickly brought into the living room by Lydia, who shot them a murderous look before marching straight back into the kitchen and bustling around making cups of tea for everyone.

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened,’ Tom said. His face was ashen, his tie askew, and his hand in Beth’s was shaking. ‘I hope this isn’t anything to do with your family, and I hope you one day know exactly what it feels like to be ripped out of a meeting and told not only that your child is missing, but to be interrogated like a suspect as well.’

  Shocked that he could still be playing the arrogant wanker when his child was missing, Holly told them, going through everything that she’d already said to the police, watching Beth more than her ex. The girl sat knees together, shoulders back, her lips pursed. She didn’t look especially pregnant, but she was wearing a loose-fitting jumper dress over expensive boots, so Holly gave her the benefit of the doubt.