The Trophy Child

by Paula Daly

  ‘She’s made these in her spare time. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I allow free drawing time – she must have made them then.’

  ‘Any idea who they’re for?’

  Miss Gilbert screwed up her face as she tried to think. ‘I can’t imagine they’re for a boy. Brontë seems very innocent to me, and not interested in boys. But I’ve only taught her for a few weeks, so I couldn’t say for certain.’

  ‘Bright, though,’ Joanne said. ‘Her mother says she’s a very gifted student.’

  ‘Bright?’ repeated Miss Gilbert.

  ‘Yes. Bright,’ said Joanne.

  Miss Gilbert looked uneasy at this, turning around to check over her shoulder as the classroom door was open.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not so bright, then?’ asked Joanne, surprised.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Miss Gilbert said, rather guiltily. ‘But she is a lovely, pleasant girl. Very quiet. And she has a problem with her hand at present, which I think has affected her confidence. I understand from her previous teacher that Brontë used to be more outgoing, more chatty. But she became a little withdrawn around the time Mrs Bloom clashed with her teacher over some issues, mostly to do with Brontë’s education. Mrs Bloom also abused the support staff on a number of occasions – to the point that she is now allowed to speak to a teacher or a classroom assistant only if there is a third party present.’

  ‘Can I speak to this teacher?’

  ‘She accepted a post in Germany.’

  ‘Have you had any run-ins with Karen Bloom yourself?’

  ‘Not yet, thank goodness. But she did make it clear at the start of term that Brontë’s education was a priority to her. She wants very much for her daughter to succeed and to do well at Reid’s. She told me she was prepared to do anything to ensure this and said she was happy to do extra work at home with Brontë. If I could provide her with some.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘I didn’t get around to it straight away, and so I believe Mrs Bloom employed a tutor for Brontë instead.’ Miss Gilbert closed her eyes briefly before exhaling. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘Karen Bloom is particularly motivated. Far and above any of the other Reid’s parents, I’d say. But to be honest, they all ask for extra work for their children.’

  ‘Who? The parents?’ asked Joanne.

  Miss Gilbert nodded. ‘The poor kids really don’t get a minute to themselves.’

  16

  KAREN BLOOM GLARED at the two detectives. Joanne could feel her thinking: Idiots. Both of you.

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ Karen said. ‘Love letters and hearts? Isn’t that what all little girls do? Scribble boys’ names and draw love hearts?’

  ‘Brontë’s never mentioned a crush?’ Joanne asked.

  ‘No, Brontë never mentioned a crush, because there was no crush. She’s ten years old. She doesn’t talk about boys. She’s not interested in boys.’

  Joanne took the home-made cards from Karen’s hand and slipped them inside a plastic wallet. Then she told Karen that, rather than hold a full press conference, DI Gilmore now wanted to have Noel and Karen interviewed in their own home. She wanted to record an appeal with only a couple of journalists, to get the message out straight away. ‘How do you feel about doing it this way?’ Joanne asked.

  ‘Fine,’ replied Karen.

  ‘We’ll need to run through it first, go over what would be best to say to—’

  ‘I’ve seen these things on television, detective. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘I know that, Mrs Bloom. But we do have a particular way we like these appeals to go, so if you wouldn’t mind—’

  Karen waved Joanne’s comments away with her hand. ‘Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. Just arrange it.’

  —

  Two of Joanne’s contemporaries were coordinating a search party which would begin at the recreation ground. She understood that there had been a good turnout – word had spread fast within the community, neighbours had turned up to volunteer, and both Noel and Karen wanted to be part of it. But Joanne had told them not to join the search party just yet. She needed them nearby for two reasons, firstly to record their statements so they could be circulated to the press, and secondly so she could observe their behaviour.

  Karen was not conforming to type. She was not acting in the way you would expect the mother of a missing child to act.

  Did this make her guilty of something?

  Absolutely not.

  But it did stir Joanne’s interest because, as yet, Karen Bloom had not lost control. Sure, the woman was frayed and frightened, barking out commands at anyone within hearing range, but she’d not yet openly cried for her child.

  Perhaps it would happen when she was on camera. Because, with the exception of one, maybe two, Joanne had never witnessed a parent of a missing child make it through to the end of an appeal without breaking down. Not that Joanne wanted to break this woman. She just thought her behaviour odd. And of course, if she thought it odd, so might the general public.

  Which is what made these appeals risky.

  Ultimately, though, what choice did they have? A child was missing. The appeal would have to go ahead whether Joanne deemed Karen Bloom suitable for the job or not.

  The telephone rang and Karen shot out of the kitchen to answer it.

  ‘Wait,’ said Joanne, and Karen looked at her, appalled.

  ‘Wait?’ Karen said. ‘I won’t wait. What if it’s Brontë?’

  ‘You can answer, Mrs Bloom, but put it on speakerphone.’

  Karen nodded and picked up. Before saying hello she switched on the speakerphone and held the handset out in front of her, practically brandishing it at Joanne.

  ‘Hello?’ she said shakily.

  And the caller could be heard: a throat clearing.

  ‘I’d like to speak to Mr or Mrs Bloom, please.’

  A woman. A woman with a low, gravelly voice and an accent Joanne couldn’t immediately place. Norfolk, perhaps? Joanne wasn’t sure.

  ‘Who is this?’ Karen asked.

  ‘Am I speaking to Mrs Bloom?’

  Karen looked to Joanne for direction and Joanne nodded her assent.

  ‘This is Mrs Bloom,’ Karen said, holding the handset nearer to her mouth now, to make certain the caller could hear her clearly.

  ‘I have important information for you regarding your daughter, Mrs Bloom.’ At this, Karen started to shake. Her hand vibrated so violently that Joanne stepped forward, ready to take the phone from her if necessary.

  ‘Go on,’ managed Karen.

  ‘My name is Deena Morgan, and let me say how sorry I am that you and your family are suffering in this way.’

  The caller paused, and there was a moment of silence. ‘Thank you…?’ Karen said cautiously.

  ‘I have received information about the whereabouts of Brontë, and—’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Mrs Bloom, I—’

  ‘Where is she? If you know where she is, don’t make me wait. Please,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘We really can’t wait any longer.’

  ‘I understand how terrified you must feel, and that’s why I felt compelled to speak with you.’

  Joanne took out her mobile phone and pressed record. She made a circling action with her left index finger, instructing Karen to keep going, to keep the caller on the line.

  The caller said, ‘First, I must tell you, Brontë is alive.’

  And Karen’s eyes spontaneously filled. ‘Thank God!’

  ‘She’s alive, but she is very scared, Mrs Bloom. And it’s important that you get her home quickly.’

  ‘I want to. I need to. But where is she? We don’t know where she is.’

  ‘She is surrounded by trees.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘She is alone and surrounded by trees and she is very scared, Mrs Bloom.’

  ‘Help me find her, please! That could be anywhere. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to look. If you know wh
ere she is, then you must—’

  Karen stopped. Then she frowned.

  ‘There’s water nearby,’ said the caller hurriedly. ‘A small body of water in which I can see Brontë’s reflection. She’s calling out to you, Mrs Bloom.’

  Joanne let her arm fall to her side just as Karen’s face hardened.

  She brought the phone closer to her mouth and spat out the words: ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Mrs Bloom,’ the caller stammered, ‘I’m here to help. I can locate your daughter, I’m certain of it. But I need something of hers – clothing, a hairbrush, a favourite toy—’

  ‘Drop dead.’

  ‘Mrs Bloom, please, I—’

  ‘Get. Off. The. Fucking. Line.’

  ‘I know I can find her.’

  ‘Get off the line, you stupid, crazy bitch. Get off the line before I find out where you live and shove your crystal ball down your throat!’

  Karen replaced the handset with a trembling hand and turned to Joanne.

  ‘What the hell happened there?’ she asked, and Joanne said, ‘I should have answered. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But how did she know how to reach us?’

  ‘You need to expect more of these,’ Joanne said. ‘It’s normal.’

  ‘Normal? How can that be normal?’

  ‘These kinds of cases attract all sorts of oddities. She won’t be the last.’

  ‘But how did she get my number?’

  Joanne shrugged helplessly. ‘I assume they comb the regional news agencies looking for stories and track people down via the BT website. Like I said, there’ll be more. The best you can do, Mrs Bloom, is ignore them. Treat them like telesales callers – which is essentially what they are. That woman will be calling someone else by now, someone who’s lost a dog…or a wedding ring.’

  Joanne thought about forewarning Karen Bloom about the religious zealots who’d be busy copying out passages from the King James Bible, ready to send along for her to read. But, for now, she decided against it.

  —

  Almost twenty hours since Brontë had disappeared, and Joanne was preparing Noel and Karen Bloom for the broadcast. ‘Firstly, you appeal for your daughter’s return,’ Joanne began, ‘and this is better if it comes from you, Mrs Bloom.’

  Karen nodded.

  ‘You want to keep it open. You want to look into the camera and ask Brontë to come home, as if you are speaking directly to her.’

  ‘But she hasn’t run away.’

  ‘Even so, tell her she’s not in any trouble and you just want her back safe with her family.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Mrs Bloom, this is how we need you to do it. Once you’ve asked Brontë to come home, then you appeal to the public, say that if anyone knows where she is, please could they contact the police. Say whatever comes naturally to you at this point. Say you’re desperate to have her home, but in your own words. Then DI Gilmore will make a short statement assuring anyone with information that they need not give their name to the police.’

  ‘Okay,’ replied Karen. ‘I can do that. But what if I become too upset to speak?’

  ‘Dr Bloom can take over. To be frank, though, Mrs Bloom, if you become tearful you’ll attract the attention of viewers, and that’s really what we want right now. We need people to stop what they’re doing and watch. Keep it simple. Tell Brontë you love her and you need her home.’

  Which is exactly what Karen did.

  Joanne had harboured doubts about Karen Bloom’s ability to appear like an average mother, desperate for her child’s return. She’d thought her aggressiveness might surface and that she might very well lose it. But she remained calm, tearfully requesting the general public’s assistance in the safe return of Brontë, doing exactly as she had been instructed. It went more smoothly than expected, and the segment would be aired on the one o’clock news. It was all going according to plan, all going so well, until Oliver Black found Joanne and gave her the news. She was on the phone in Noel Bloom’s home office, on a call about a potential witness.

  ‘Joanne, we have a problem.’

  Joanne raised her finger, signalling to Oliver to wait a moment, while she copied down the details being given to her. House-to-house had turned up a woman, an elderly woman, a resident of Applemead Cheshire Home, who had information on the disappearance of Brontë.

  Oliver stood in the doorway, his head dipped slightly, his face grave.

  ‘What kind of problem?’ Joanne asked, putting down the phone.

  Oliver beckoned her to follow him.

  Joanne caught sight of Karen. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said to Oliver, and rushed across the lawn. Oliver told her he’d tried to pull Karen away, but to no avail.

  Karen Bloom was surrounded by TV people. Someone held a microphone beneath her chin, and Karen’s face was flushed and contorted as she spoke. There were three cameras on her and Joanne did not want to be in the shot, so she tried to catch Karen’s attention, gesturing from behind the camera people. It was fruitless. It was a one-woman show. Karen was staring down the lens of a camera, the merest hint of madness in her eyes. She was speaking directly to the viewers, just as Joanne had instructed her to when pleading for the safe return of Brontë.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she was saying. ‘You’re thinking we’re one of those impoverished families you see on the news. Appealing for help when, all the while, they’ve hidden their child’s battered body in the shed. Or the attic. Well, we are not one of those families. We love our child. This is not some council-estate case. This is a cherished child who’s gone missing.’

  ‘Do the police have any leads at this stage?’ a female reporter asked.

  ‘None,’ she said. ‘As of yet, they have no idea what happened to my daughter, and I can only assume Cumbria police are woefully unprepared for this type of incident. It’s a shambles. An absolute shambles.’

  Joanne thought she could feel rain.

  17

  NOEL KNOCKED TWICE and waited.

  When there was no reply, he called out her name, softly, so as not to spook her. Verity had gone back to bed. She had not gone to school today.

  Still no answer, so he knocked again before trying the handle. The door gave way and Noel stepped inside, into the darkness. He couldn’t yet make out the shape of the bed, the desk whose sharp corner was in the habit of attacking the side of your leg if you strayed too close.

  Noel stood glued to the spot, hesitant to advance further.

  ‘Verity, love,’ he whispered. ‘You still in here?’

  Verity’s room caught the morning sun. This hadn’t bothered her until she turned fourteen and then she had declared it impossible to sleep in. He’d had blackout blinds fitted, expertly, evidently, as he could barely make out the bed as he made his way towards it.

  ‘Verity,’ he whispered again, reaching out and patting the covers, finding what felt like his daughter’s leg.

  Now there was movement. And a second later, light, the room suddenly illuminated as Verity switched on the bedside lamp.

  Earbuds in, Verity looked at him, her expression wary, frightened. He gave her a reassuring smile, mouthing, ‘It’s okay,’ as she cut the sound from her iPod. Her cheeks were flushed a baby pink and he suspected she’d been lying with her duvet pulled right up, covering her face, in an attempt to shut out the world.

  ‘You’re hiding up here, then?’ he asked, and she nodded. ‘Okay if I sit down?’

  Verity wriggled herself into a sitting position. She was still in her pyjamas, her hair in a tatty knot. She looked just like her mother. Jennifer used to fashion her hair in a similar way: piled high on top of her head, sometimes secured with a pencil.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ asked Noel.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should, you know. You should really try to—’

  ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked accusingly.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘…Can’t face anything right now.’

  Verity hung her head. ‘Me neither
.’

  There was so much he wanted to say. His daughter was in pain, and he wanted to fix it, take it all away. He wanted to say, ‘Don’t worry. It’ll turn out okay,’ like he usually did when she was distressed. ‘In a week or two you won’t remember what you were worrying about,’ he would say, and this would bring her comfort. Because, usually, it was true.

  ‘They blame me,’ Verity said.

  ‘No,’ replied Noel. ‘It’s not that. Karen and Bruce are not blaming anyone. They’re scared.’

  ‘They blame me,’ she said again, crying now.

  What could he say? They did blame her.

  ‘They’re right to blame me,’ she went on. ‘I shouldn’t have left her. I should have stayed with her. What if Brontë never comes home? What if—’

  Noel put his arm around his daughter. ‘Shhhhh,’ he whispered. ‘Stop this.’

  ‘She’ll be so scared, Dad. She’s not used to being without one of us. She’s going to be so frightened…I read about a girl and this freak took her and locked her in a cellar and made her do—’

  ‘When did you read this?’

  ‘This morning. I searched “kidnapping”, and don’t tell me I shouldn’t have, because I know I shouldn’t have, but I just needed to know something. I needed to know what could have happened to her.’

  ‘No. No, you don’t need to know that.’

  ‘I feel so bad. I feel like I’ve got this huge stone in my stomach. But I feel like if I know what she might be going through, then maybe it won’t be quite so bad for her. Like I’ll be able to understand…and, maybe, if she does come home, I might be able to help her.’

  Noel held Verity a little away from him. ‘Promise me you’ll stay away from that stuff. You have to, Verity. Promise me.’

  ‘But what if she’s already dead?’ she cried. ‘What if she’s dead and we don’t know it?’

  ‘She’s not.’

  ‘But she’s so small, Dad.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She’ll be so frightened.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What if they don’t find her?’

  ‘They will.’

  He held on to his daughter again, as she wept in his arms.