Stranger Child

by Rachel Abbott

  ‘You’re wasting your time, David. She’s a heartless little cow.’ She walked towards the table and leaned forwards, resting her hands on the smooth surface and pushed her face towards Natasha. ‘Your baby brother adores you, and you know it. Ollie shouted your name all the time. “Ay, ay, Tassa.” Do you remember? He wrapped his chubby little arms around your leg, and he kissed you before he went to bed. Those lovely baby kisses. He would have loved you if you’d let him – and this is what you do to him. How do you think he’s feeling now, with somebody who doesn’t know him? Somebody who isn’t cuddling him and laughing when he thinks he’s being funny? He won’t only be crying for his mummy and daddy, though, will he? Not any more. He’ll be crying for you, “Tassa” – the one who’s betrayed him. He’ll be missing you too.’

  Emma saw a distant echo of her own distress in Natasha’s eyes and couldn’t decide whether to push further against the girl’s defences or leave her with time to think. But Tom was waiting. She’d get back to Natasha later.

  ‘I’m going out,’ Emma said, pushing her arms into her coat.

  Two pairs of eyes swivelled towards her in surprise. Natasha jumped up and quickly ran her hands over Emma’s body.

  Bloody hell, she’s searching me. And she knows how to do it.

  Thank goodness she had left the phone upstairs. Her heart started to thump at the thought of how disastrous that could have been.

  ‘Don’t go,’ David said, looking wretched, still in his supplicant position. ‘We need you here, Em. We need to talk this through.’

  ‘No David – she’s not going to listen. She’s had all feeling drummed out of her. Anyway, how do we know she’s telling the truth? How do we know that anybody’s taken Ollie? How do we know that she didn’t do something to him when she took him for a walk, and that she’s made all this up to put us off the track? I’m going out to look for him.’

  Emma stared at Natasha.

  ‘Have you hurt him, Natasha? Have you left him somewhere out there? Have you hurt your baby brother?’

  Natasha turned away from Emma.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘I wouldn’t hurt Ollie. He’s safe. You’ll get him back – just do what we tell you. He’s not out there. I promise.’ Natasha’s voice faltered on the last word.

  Oh my God, she’s going to cry.

  David was by Natasha’s side instantly, reaching out to hug her – and the spell was broken. She pushed him away, face hardened once again.

  ‘You need to stay here, Emma,’ she said. ‘They won’t like it if you leave the house.’

  ‘Tough,’ Emma said, aware of David’s head shaking as if telling her not to go. ‘I don’t believe anybody’s got my son. I believe there’s only you, Tasha. So I’m going to check – to see if I can find my baby. I should have done it hours ago.’

  *

  Tom could hear rustling in the undergrowth and knew somebody was approaching along the leaf-strewn path. It was a small wood – not much more than a copse really – but it would provide some cover from the road. Becky was right, though. The weather was wicked, and Tom blew on his fingers, wishing he had remembered some gloves.

  Covering most of the torch with his fingers, he shone its diffused beam towards the path, and there she was.

  He wanted to say she had hardly changed, and he suspected that a week ago those might have been the first words from his lips, but today it wasn’t true. Her face was devoid of a scrap of colour, unless you counted the blue smudges underneath her eyes, and her tight ponytail made her pale face appear stark and angular, with none of the softness of features that Tom remembered.

  She rushed to Tom and he enveloped her in his arms, holding her close. Her arms round his back were like limbs of steel, as if holding him this tightly would relieve the pain. In his grief over the loss of Jack he hadn’t appreciated how much he had missed this woman. She had helped him draw closer to his brother, and for that he couldn’t thank her enough.

  ‘I’m so sorry about all this, Emma. It must be hell for you, but we’re going to do everything we can to get Ollie back,’ he murmured close to her ear.

  Emma pushed him away gently and glanced nervously over her shoulder into the blackness beyond the torchlight.

  ‘Do you think anybody will have followed me?’

  ‘No. We’ve had a good look around and there’s nobody watching the house. If anything, they’ll be watching the exit points to the lanes that lead from here. Becky’s paying David and Natasha a visit now with some fabricated new information about the boy on the train. She’ll keep them there, and if there are any problems she’ll call, so don’t worry.’

  Emma’s eyes widened. ‘Becky knows? What if you’ve got a mole or something inside the police?’

  Tom gently held Emma’s arms and looked down into her troubled eyes.

  ‘It’s okay. We have a procedure for this. Nearly every kidnap begins with the words ‘Don’t tell the police’ and we know exactly what to do. At the moment only four people know – me, my boss, Becky, and the guy who came to check out the bugs earlier. We’re putting together a team, but until we know what we’re dealing with we’ll keep it small and on a need-to-know basis.’

  Emma nodded and sank back against Tom’s broad chest, wrapping her arms around him again. He could feel her body shuddering slightly, whether from cold or fear he didn’t know, but he tightened his hold, wishing he could pass some strength from his body into hers.

  She pushed back again, unable, it seemed, to stay still. He felt the cold hit his chest where he had held her against him and pulled his coat more tightly across his body.

  ‘Tell me everything that’s happened.’

  ‘There’s not much that you don’t know already. I guess you’re up to date on Natasha’s reappearance? She’s been incredibly distant since the word go. She’s refused to tell us where she’s been living, how she got back, whether she’s been unhappy. She clearly blames David for not being with them that night. It’s as if she wants to make him suffer – as if he hasn’t punished himself enough.’

  ‘Has she given you any hint at all of what’s going on?’

  Emma shook her head. ‘She says there’s something that we have to do, and we’re going to be told soon. Then we can have Ollie back.’ Her voice broke on a sob. ‘She’s just a kid, Tom. How is this possible?’

  He didn’t have the heart to tell her about the number of young criminals he had to deal with on a regular basis, most of them every bit as tough as their adult counterparts. And anyway she didn’t want a response. She wanted to talk, to try to find some release by sharing her fears.

  ‘David pleads with her. He doesn’t want to yell and scream, because he thinks she’s damaged. But I’ve made a bit of a breakthrough, I think. Ollie absolutely adores Natasha, and although she tried to keep herself distant from him, he’s a lovely baby and I saw her face soften a few times when he was trying to get her attention. I’m hoping that might be what breaks her – God knows, something’s got to.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Listen, Emma, we don’t know how the next few hours or days are going to pan out, and my view is that we should take you all to a safe place and negotiate Ollie’s safe return.’

  Emma grabbed Tom’s arm.

  ‘No, Tom. No. I know that by telling you I’ve broken their rules, and that was a huge risk. But I need them to think we’re going along with what they want. That’s what David wants us to do – agree with everything, and just get this thing over.’

  ‘Okay, but you need to remember the house is bugged – the kitchen, the sitting room and your bedroom – so if you do decide to tell David at any point about your contact with me you need to make sure you’re not overheard.’

  Emma nodded and let go of Tom’s arm.

  ‘So how are you going to get Ollie back? They haven’t asked for any money yet. How long are they going to wait?’

  Tom didn’t feel this was the appropriate time to tell her that it might not be money they wanted. That
would scare her even more.

  ‘We’ve got some ideas and we’re going to be very cautiously checking them out. But we’re not talking about a random gang of chancers, so we need to handle it with care. We’re trying to track down the lad Natasha recognised on the train. If he’s part of the same gang, he might lead us somewhere.’

  ‘What can I do – should I be trying to sort out some money?’

  ‘Don’t worry about money. Leave that to me. Forget it and focus on trying to get Natasha to tell you anything at all. Every little bit of information you can glean from her could be useful. Tell me anything – however trivial. Until then, just act as if you’re following instructions.’

  Tom put his hands on Emma’s shoulders and looked down at her tear-streaked face.

  ‘You’re doing great, Emma. Keep plugging away at Natasha’s conscience. You might get through to her.’

  Emma nodded, leaned in to give Tom a final hug and whispered, ‘Thanks,’ in his ear.

  She turned to go, leaning forwards as if the pain racking her body was making it difficult to stand upright.

  ‘Emma,’ Tom said softly. ‘I’m so sorry about the way Jack treated you. I’ve never understood it and I’d always thought I’d have the time with him to force him to explain it to me. I never expected the daft bugger to die like that. Did you ever understand why?’

  Emma’s body straightened, but she didn’t turn round.

  ‘Why he dumped me, or why he died?’

  Tom frowned. What did she mean, why he died? Emma didn’t wait for his response and half turned back towards him, not meeting his eyes.

  ‘Do you know he dumped me by email? Did he ever tell you that? No – I bet he didn’t. We’d rented a place in Croatia for a year if you remember, and Jack had come over to England to work on one of the random projects he’d taken on since selling his business. That’s when he met Melissa – the woman he left me for. So it was one brief note, and goodbye me.’

  ‘Bloody hell. What a dreadful thing to do. I’d never have expected that from Jack. You two always seemed so close.’

  ‘We were. We had our issues – what couple doesn’t after ten years? But nothing that couldn’t have been sorted out with a bit of compromise on both sides. I absolutely never saw it coming.’

  ‘Did you ever hear from him again?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Emma lifted her head, staring past Tom as if she could see something in the far distance that was only revealing itself to her. ‘I heard from him once more – the day before he died. It was as if I’d lost him twice.’

  This time the pause was longer, and Tom somehow knew her next words were going to hurt. She turned her head until her eyes met his.

  ‘The reason I haven’t been able to see you since then, Tom – the reason I’ve ignored you all this time – is that I couldn’t see you without telling you. Now I think I must. Jack wrote to me the day before he died to say goodbye. I’m sorry, but the truth is, his death was no accident. Jack killed himself.’

  27

  The road seemed to stretch endlessly before Tom as he walked quickly, head down, back towards where he had left his car. In the open air he felt exposed, unable to focus his thoughts as he struggled to come to terms with all that Emma had told him. He knew he should be concentrating on the missing baby, but he made a deal with himself. A few minutes – that was all – to try to adjust and to reconcile everything he had ever thought about Jack’s death with the truth.

  Emma had turned to leave after she had broken the devastating news, but Tom had reached for her arm and held her there – perhaps unfairly in view of everything the poor woman was trying to deal with.

  ‘I know this is the least of your worries now, Em, but is there anything else you can tell me? What did he say?’ Tom could hear the despair in his own voice. Suicide had never been something he had found easy to deal with in his job. It spoke of a level of hopelessness that was outside his comprehension. Even in the bleakest moments of his life he had managed to retain the hope that each day, things would get a little better.

  Emma had reached forwards and rested the palm of her hand against Tom’s cheek, to his shame adopting the role of comforter when her own life was in such turmoil.

  ‘Jack said he’d made many mistakes in his life and that the day of reckoning had finally arrived. He’d made a decision that he knew was going to cause pain, but as far as he was concerned it was the only way out of an existence that had become unbearable. I’m so sorry, Tom.’

  Tom had wanted more than anything to keep Emma there and ask her more questions, but one look at her face – concern for him mixed with desperation and fear for her baby – had jolted him back to reality.

  ‘Thanks for telling me,’ he’d said, covering her hand with his own and gently removing it. ‘It’s a lot to take in, but there’ll be time for that when we’ve got Ollie back. Go, Em. Get back to David and keep in touch. We’re going to find Ollie and bring him home. I know it’s wrong of a policeman to make promises, but I’ll move heaven and earth to get you your baby back.’

  With a last swift hug they had parted, Emma walking back towards her home, and Tom moving in the opposite direction to exit the small wood at the far side a few minutes later.

  His car was in sight now, and his fast walk turned into a slow jog until he was able to press his remote to unlock the doors and slide into the driver’s seat. It felt like reaching sanctuary, a place where he could pull his thoughts together.

  Tom leaned forwards, his head resting on arms folded across the steering wheel.

  ‘Why, Jack?’ he muttered.

  For all Jack’s wayward behaviour, he’d had a wicked sense of humour, and had relentlessly ‘taken the piss out of life’, as he had put it himself. In spite of his success and his obvious brilliance, Tom had known there was a darker side to his brother and although he had never understood it, he had always believed that Jack lacked confidence. He had mockingly called Tom ‘White Hat’ – when he wasn’t just calling him ‘little brother’ – because he always thought Tom was one of the good guys – Jack’s polar opposite.

  Realising that understanding Jack’s motivation for taking his own life was not going to come to him in a flash, Tom leaned back, his head against the headrest, and closed his eyes.

  Whatever it was, why didn’t he come and talk to me about it?

  It was no good asking that question now. He would never know.

  Opening his eyes, he leaned forwards again and put the key in the ignition. Time to think about the baby now – to focus on the living and not on the dead.

  28

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ The words burst from David as Emma walked into the kitchen. Deep lines of stress were etched into his usually smooth forehead, and she could see he hadn’t coped well with her absence.

  ‘I walked down as far as the wood. There’s a bit of tree trunk that some kids must have dragged into the clearing to use as a seat, so I sat there for a while.’

  David looked horrified.

  ‘But it’s dark out there. Weren’t you frightened in the wood on your own?’

  Emma closed her eyes.

  ‘My child has been kidnapped. I can’t imagine any single thing that would be more terrifying than that. I’m not sure I’ll ever be frightened of anything normal – like rats, or hurricanes, or marauding gangs of youths – ever again.’

  She was being hard on him and that wasn’t fair.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone out. We’ll only get Ollie back if we do exactly what they say. So stick to the rules, please, Emma. And then, when it’s all over, we can get help for Tasha. We just need to hang on in there.’

  Sometimes she thought of David as an ostrich, burying his head in the sand and forcing himself to believe that all would be well. It was one of the few things about him that she found frustrating. It wasn’t so much optimism as an inability to face reality and a tendency to look for the easy way out.

  It wasn’t going to work this time. There was no easy
way out.

  On her walk back to the house after meeting Tom, Emma had decided on a two-pronged attack on Natasha, the aim being to confuse her. She knew David would be cajoling her, which she was fairly certain Natasha would be able to resist. What she might find less easy to resist was kindness, the feeling of a home into which she was welcomed. And then, just as she was slightly thrown off-guard, Emma would introduce Ollie back into the picture.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Nobody in this house has eaten a thing since this morning. Whatever’s going to happen, we can’t be fainting by the wayside – so like it or not, we’re going to eat.’

  She pulled a Bolognese that she had made a few days earlier from the freezer, and stuck it in the microwave to defrost. She wanted life in this house to feel good to her stepdaughter, like a real home should feel. Then she might be less inclined to rip it apart.

  David said nothing and set about laying the table. She saw him head towards the wine.

  ‘Sorry, darling, but I think it’s a really bad idea. What if you have to drive somewhere tonight and you’re stopped by the police?’

  A look of irritation crossed David’s face.

  ‘It’s tomorrow,’ Natasha said – the first bit of information she had volunteered.

  ‘What’s tomorrow, Tasha?’ David asked, adopting a nonchalant tone as if this were an ordinary conversation.

  But she merely tutted and raised her eyebrows.

  David and Emma exchanged a glance and carried on with what they were doing. They ate dinner in virtual silence, all three of them pushing their food around their plates. As a strategy it had failed completely, and the thought of food actually made Emma feel sick. There was one more thing she wanted to try, though.

  At the end of the table sat Emma’s laptop. She pulled it towards her, making sure that the screen was visible to everybody at the table, and tapped the space bar to bring it to life. She clicked an icon on the screen, and suddenly the room was full of Ollie – laughing, crawling. Emma remembered shooting this video on her phone. She knew what was going to happen next and she swallowed the vast lump that was lodged in her throat. She couldn’t cry now – it would ruin the moment.