Stolen Girl

by Sarah A. Denzil

  My mind buzzes as I follow Dad out of the B&B. How did Mum get in contact with Amy? Was there another ransom note? If there was, it might explain why she wanted me to stay at Dad’s.

  We get into the car and leave without saying goodbye. There’s no time for that. Dad drives quickly through the village, but not without caution. His movements and reactions aren’t as fast as they used to be, and he knows that.

  ‘Did she say anything to you?’ he asks on the way.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘She didn’t mention Amy contacting her?’

  ‘No.’

  He pulls over near to the house and mumbles, ‘Her car is still here.’

  The sight of it makes my heart skip a beat. Maybe I’m wrong. What if Mum drove home with Gina? Before Dad even has the handbrake on, I’m out of the car, pulling my keys from my coat pocket. They almost slip from my fingers, but I open the door; call out. Wait.

  ‘Emma?’ Dad shouts from behind me, limping into the house.

  Silence.

  I hurry into the lounge, then up the stairs and check her room, my room, Gina’s small bedroom. Nothing. That excited beat of my heart fizzles away.

  ‘She’s not here,’ I tell Dad as I meet him at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Right.’ He pulls his lips into a thin line. ‘Then we go to the Wetherington Estate and look for her there.’

  This is the longest amount of time I’ve spent apart from Mum since I came home from the bunker. We’ve never spent a night apart. A week away from Gina and now a night away from Mum. The more I dwell on it, the more I begin to panic. I feel myself slipping away from reality, desperate to go back to the silence. But I can’t do that. They need me.

  Out of the window, the green fields blur together. It’s a short drive but we’ve been travelling along the narrow road that connects some of the estate, wondering how to approach this search.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about why Amy would want to meet Emma here,’ Dad says as he directs the car over a cattle grid. His voice reverberates a little. ‘And I think I understand now. It all makes sense. Emma cutting her hair . . . the estate.’ He sighs. ‘For fuck’s sake, Amy. For that?’ He bangs the steering wheel with one hand.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There was a camping trip that ended up getting out of hand. A group held Amy down and cut off her hair. She was crying . . . it was pretty nasty.’

  ‘So Amy made Mum cut her hair?’

  He nods. ‘Maybe that was some sort of signal between the two of them. I thought Emma was just acting strangely but this makes more sense. And I think I remember where it happened.’ He pulls the car into a lay-by next to a stile. And then he sighs. ‘I’m not going to be able to get over that.’ He nods to the wooden step built into the wall.

  ‘I’ll go.’ I unzip my seatbelt.

  He grabs my forearm. ‘It’s not safe. We should wait for the police.’

  I gaze out at the field. There’s one old oak tree in the centre. It’s the kind of picture that would make pretty postcard art, with sheep and stone walls and the edge of the woods encroaching from one side. A shiver runs down my body. What happened here?

  After Dad hangs up his phone, he points to the tree. ‘That’s where they pinned Amy’s hair.’ His voice is slow and breathy. He sounds tired. ‘It was so long ago. She seemed to get over it at the time.’

  I’m quiet for a moment, and then the realisation hits me. Mum and Dad were there, and they didn’t stop this event from happening. I thought they were good people. It feels strange to know they were part of something like this.

  ‘Let me go to the tree and back,’ I say eventually.

  Dad sighs. ‘All right. Stay where I can see you.’

  I get out of the car and hop over the stile. The ground is still hard from the lack of rain, but there’s a chill in the air for the first time in over a week. I pull my sleeves down over my hands for warmth. The sheep go from curious to terrified in a matter of moments, scattering through the grass, letting out worried little bleats. Before the bunker I would have chased them, laughing. But now I could never bear to frighten them any more than I just did.

  As the sun tries its best to peek out from the cloud, I notice the glint of something metallic next to the oak tree. Stumbling on the uneven ground, I hurry towards the strange, alien object. Whatever it is, it isn’t supposed to be in this field. Fields are for mud, buttercups and dandelions. Not metal.

  I snatch up the phone first. It’s Mum’s, and when I press the power button, I see the display picture of our family. Me, Mum, Gina and Dad, grinning wildly. Gina had chosen it. She chose one with Dad in the photo because she wants Mum and Dad to be together. The sight of the phone makes my stomach lurch. I close my eyes and take a deep breath in the way my psychologist advises me to when I feel overwhelmed. Closing my eyes makes me want to fade away into myself. I pull myself back.

  The phone goes into my pocket. Then I kneel down to examine the other object nestled in the grass. I recognise it immediately as one of our kitchen knives. Mum brought this to protect herself, but she didn’t use it. Maybe she didn’t get a chance to use it. Amy stopped her, and then she took Mum with her, wherever she went.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  AIDEN

  When Dad sees the knife he shakes his head, leans over the steering wheel and starts to cry. At the same time, a memory of Dad flashes into my mind. Him when he was young, with a can of beer in his hand, eyes glued to the television. There was some sort of football final on the TV and I think I had on a child’s version of the kit. One of the players missed the goal they were supposed to score, and Dad’s face crumpled in disappointment. He brushed a tear away from his eye and then looked at me. ‘You didn’t see that.’ Then cleared his throat and carried on.

  Men aren’t supposed to cry but I don’t really understand why. Hugh used to cry sometimes. Dad cried in the hospital when he heard me talk for the first time. He also cried when Mum was found not guilty of killing Jake. But I haven’t cried for a long time and I don’t know what to do or say to comfort him. Since Gina’s been missing, I’ve seen Mum cry a lot and I always stand there staring, in a swirl of emotions, not knowing what to do about them.

  Finally, he sits up, rubs his eyes, wipes his nose and coughs. ‘We need to get back to the house. The police want to speak to us.’

  I nod, placing the knife in the glove box for safe keeping.

  ‘There’s no blood on it at least,’ Dad says.

  ‘I didn’t notice any blood around the tree. It must mean she’s still OK.’ I rub my palms against my jeans as Dad starts the car. ‘Do you think I should have left the knife where it was for the police to find?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Dad pulls out of the lay-by and begins to drive back towards the village.

  ‘I brought her phone, too.’

  ‘OK,’ Dad says. ‘Let’s tell the police everything we’ve found.’

  I know that we’re both subdued as we make our way back to the B&B, even though I’m not good at noticing these changes in atmosphere. This time it hangs thickly over us.

  ‘What else do you know about Amy?’ I ask to break the silence, and at the same time try to follow a thread in my mind. A vague memory taking me back to the bunker. To Hugh.

  ‘Well, she was picked on at school. But after the camping incident, she actually came out of her shell. She used to invite herself along to the pub, drink a lot, flirt with some of the lads. She liked me. A lot.’ He shakes his head. He lowers his voice to little more than a whisper. ‘I didn’t tell anyone about it. I think I hurt her back then. But this . . . She must be so sick inside.’ He hits the steering wheel in anger, and I decide not to ask any more questions. I’m not sure it’s helping anyway.

  There’s a police car in the driveway of the B&B and Dad parks next to it. I make my way around to his side to help him with the walking stick. Dad leans on me, weighing less than I imagined. He seemed so big when I was little.

  ‘I’ve
got it,’ he says as he positions his weight a little better and limps his way up to the house.

  Grandma hurries out of the front door.

  ‘Any news?’

  Her slipper catches on a stone and she swears beneath her breath.

  ‘We found some things in a field that belong to Emma,’ Dad says, his voice straining. ‘Her phone and a knife. We think Amy must have met her there and forced Emma to go with her.’

  Grandma’s eyes are wide, and her face is bloodless. She moves in jerky motions, full of anxious energy. ‘The police are here.’

  Dad nods.

  ‘DCI Stevenson too. He seems angry.’

  It should be a relief to know that the police are here, but I can’t help thinking about how they leaked the ransom note information. Maybe Mum was right about not trusting them. I itch to message Faith, to talk to her about everything that’s going on, but I can’t right now.

  ‘Chrissie, would you mind putting the kettle on?’ Stevenson is saying to one of the PCs as we make our way into the lounge. With two coppers in uniform, DCI Stevenson and me and my family, the room is crammed with people. Stevenson turns to us, his expression tired. ‘Rob. Aiden. Let’s sit down shall we? There’s a lot to go over.’

  ‘All right,’ Dad says, finding a spot on the sofa. I sit next to him. Grandad is already in his chair, and Grandma goes into the kitchen to help Chrissie the police officer.

  ‘Emma contacted me yesterday,’ Stevenson says, jumping straight in. ‘She’d received a letter from Amy asking her to meet her on the Wetherington Estate by an oak tree.’ The place I found the knife. ‘The letter asked her to go alone without police or anyone else. But she was scared to go alone. She reached out and I arranged a team.’ He sighs. ‘Amy caught wind of this. She didn’t show. We came back and I put a few officers on surveillance to make sure Amy didn’t try anything.’

  ‘Emma agreed to meet her later, without the police. Didn’t she?’ Dad leans forward and places his head in his hands.

  ‘It seems so,’ Stevenson admits. ‘She must have slipped out. Her car didn’t move, so she obviously walked. When I checked on her this morning, there was no answer. And then your mum called to say she was missing.’ He sighed. ‘I wish she hadn’t taken things into her own hands like this. But we’re going to do what we can to get her back. Emma gave us access to her security camera app. We’ll check that to confirm that she left of her own accord. There was someone monitoring it during the night, but they didn’t see anything suspect at the time. If Emma decided to sneak out of the house, she made sure she wouldn’t be seen.’

  ‘She did go back,’ I say. ‘She sent me the message.’

  ‘We’re assuming it was her,’ Stevenson replies gently. ‘But that message could have been written by Amy, or Amy forced your mum to write it. But, for what it’s worth, I think you’re right. Emma went willingly to try and save her daughter.

  ‘I guessed that the tree would be important to Amy,’ Dad says. ‘We went there this morning and we found Emma’s phone. And a knife.’

  Stevenson’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘What did you do with them?’

  ‘We brought them back,’ Dad admits.

  Stevenson sighs, but then says, ‘Well, we know who took her anyway. Forensics might not be that useful to us right now. What we need to figure out is where Amy might have taken Emma. Do you have any ideas? Either of you?’

  I shake my head. Dad does the same.

  ‘All right. I’ll get a team out searching the area. We’ll check Amy’s old house again, though it seems unlikely that she left any clues. I’ll have people on the roads and checking the woods.’ He sighs again. ‘If Emma had called me earlier, we might have been able to find Amy before all this happened.’ When he stands, I notice that he does it slowly. I can see that he’s worn out, and I can’t help but wonder if he has the energy left in him to find them.

  They don’t notice me sneak away from the room and disappear into the bathroom. At least no one watches me when I leave.

  Sitting on the edge of the bath, I take my phone and load Instagram, going straight to my direct messages.

  ME: She took Mum.

  ME: I don’t know what to do.

  But Faith doesn’t reply straight away. She’s not online. I put the phone back in my pocket and leave, running the taps and flushing the toilet on my way out so as not to arouse suspicion. It seems stupid, but I do it anyway.

  Back in the lounge, after several lengthy statements are taken, both Mum’s and my phones given over, I get mine back once copies of her final message are taken, the knife is also handed to the police. Neither me nor Dad feel like we can sit around doing nothing. He calls around Mum’s friends first. And then he calls Amy’s friends. Only a phone call from Josie Barratt provides interesting information. Mum asked her to search through Hugh’s papers and see if there was anything else suspicious that may have been overlooked during the first investigation.

  ‘Your mum thought Hugh was connected somehow. What do you think?’ Dad asks.

  With his eyes staring at me, the expectancy on his face and the people in the room, my throat feels clogged. I wrap my arms around my body, wanting nothing less than to talk about this. But it might help Mum and Gina.

  ‘I think it’s likely,’ I reply. Again, my mind drifts back to a throwaway comment I heard Hugh say in the bunker, about wishing there was another place, somewhere closer. I feel like it’s an important memory that I’ve buried somewhere deep in my subconscious, but I can’t seem to access it no matter how hard I try. As I got older, I knew that Hugh wanted a replacement for me; I remember that much. I think he might have told me part of his plan to do it. But it’s all entwined with the things I’ve made myself forget. But if Hugh wanted a replacement, did that mean he wanted a new location, too?

  ‘Stevenson.’ Dad stands and nods over to the detective, who is at the back of the room speaking with the other PC who isn’t Chrissie. I’ve already forgotten his name. ‘We’re going to Josie Barratt’s house. We think there’s a connection between what’s going on with Amy and Hugh Barratt’s past.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he says.

  On the way out of the door, I check my phone for a reply from Faith, but there’s nothing. She hasn’t seen my message. In the back of the car I keep refreshing the app but there’s still no reply. I have to remind myself that there are times when Faith doesn’t reply for several hours. She once said the internet connection is patchy where she lives.

  When we arrive at Josie’s place, I realise that I’ve painted this house many times. Not as often as the bunker, or Mum’s childhood home, but still many times. Every now and then the memories resurface, and I get to view them with the benefit of hindsight. The happy evenings with the adults having dinner together. Sometimes Hugh or Josie would read a story. Hugh told a lot of jokes, especially to me.

  I trusted all of them completely, because why wouldn’t I? And this house was a place of happiness for me. I’d actually ask to come here so that I could spend time with Uncle Hugh and Aunty Josie.

  This is the first time I’ve been here since the bunker and I don’t know what this house is anymore. It’s beautiful. As buildings go, I’ve had limited experience, but I know it’s expensive, clean, big and fancy. It has a doorbell that sounds like a real bell, and a large door with a handle in the centre.

  Josie’s eyes are red-rimmed and flaky. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ears as she leads us through to the kitchen.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she says, for the second time. ‘I thought we were safe. That it was over. First Gina . . .’ After speaking, she glances guiltily at me and smiles. It’s an apologetic smile. I remind her of what her husband did, and that isn’t comfortable for either of us. ‘This village is . . . well, it’s rotten.’ She wipes her face, sniffs loudly. I watch her. Is this genuine? Mum loves Josie like a sister but I don’t know if I feel the same way. She was married to Hugh for years; how did he not rub off on her like
he did on everyone else? Amy. Jake. Hugh was friends with both. I think he fed their evil.

  But Josie is immune?

  ‘Would anyone like a drink?’ She hovers near the kettle, half-heartedly gesturing to it.

  ‘We don’t want to take up too much of your time,’ Stevenson says with a smile. I get the sense that he’s smoothing over some awkwardness. Josie doesn’t want us here.

  She doesn’t offer us a seat either at the dining table or through in the living room. Dad leans against the wall. Stevenson stands up straight, his notebook out ready to jot down information. I cross my arms and watch her with interest.

  ‘You mentioned on the phone that Emma was interested in learning more about Hugh’s finances. What do you think she suspected?’ Stevenson taps a pen on top of his notebook.

  ‘That he had a plan for a second kidnapping once Aiden turned sixteen,’ Josie says, her finger tracing a line along the kitchen counter.

  The words send a shiver down my spine. Gina is the second kidnapping. But Hugh is dead so what’s the point?

  ‘I searched through his paperwork, but I don’t know what I’m looking for,’ she says.

  ‘Would you be willing to turn over Hugh’s documents to the police?’ Stevenson asks. ‘Hugh also had an office in London that he shared with his brother. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ Josie admits. ‘There could be important paperwork there too.’

  ‘Perhaps I could send a team there. We have forensics who are experts in finances. If there’s anything important hidden in Hugh’s papers, then I’m sure they’ll find it.’

  ‘I don’t know what it could be,’ Josie says. ‘I inherited everything. Surely I would have noticed any hidden properties.’

  ‘Another bunker?’ Stevenson asks.

  The word is a punch to the gut. Another. The room fades away and I’m in my cage, sat on the floor at Hugh’s feet. He’s stroking my hair. It would be so much more convenient. He isn’t talking to me in particular, more to himself.