Stolen Girl

by Sarah A. Denzil

  While the sedative starts to work, I go back upstairs into the chapel to dress my wound. It’s not deep, but the skin is ragged and torn from the uneven edge of the porcelain. There’s the sound of voices outside the church. A dog barks but I’m not afraid. My car is hidden beneath branches on the old driveway to the long-abandoned estate. My vegetable patch is far enough away from the usual walking path to not be noticed. Their voices aren’t too close to the chapel.

  It amuses me that a wanderer could come in and find the cage, the woman in it, the other woman upstairs with a bloody arm. I take a bandage out of the tin and start to wrap it around my cut.

  Of course, there have been times when so-called explorers have come into the church to take photographs for their blogs. When that happens, I hide in the crypts and throw a tennis ball at the ceiling. The noises scare them away within ten minutes or so. Once someone stared through a broken window and saw me. I hissed at them and they screamed. I thought they would tell someone, and a social worker or police officer would turn up to check on my safety. It seems no one cared because it never happened.

  Most people are too afraid to step into an abandoned building. There’s no safety guarantee. No building code or safety officer telling them everything will be OK. People need that reassurance. We live on a spinning rock with billions of people and almost all of them are following the rules because they’re too scared by the alternative. I used to be one of those people. Hugh showed me another way.

  Next to the bandage inside the tin box is a cardboard packet of pills. I reorder them, count the number of pills and nod my head. These are important. I’ve been saving these for a special occasion. I take a deep breath, knowing that soon all of this will be over.

  The barking fades away as the walkers move on. I had wondered if the dog might run into one of my traps, but there’s no yelp. The animal gets to live another day.

  I don’t stand up and I don’t leave the chapel, I just sit here, watching the sun come in through the tall windows. Mum’s voice pops into my mind as she talks about God, about heaven, about hell. For the first time in a while, I wonder whether any of those things exist. My mum is dead now. I got a phone call long ago about it. She died doing what she loved, taking drugs. I didn’t attend the funeral. Perhaps there’ll be another way for us to see each other again. We’d both be in hell.

  On the nanny cam, I watch Emma collapse. I begin to descend the steps to the cellar now that she’s finally asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  AIDEN

  While Dad’s on the phone with DCI Stevenson, I log into my Instagram account on Grandad’s computer. It’s there that I see the latest messages from Faith.

  FAITH: Will you meet me in York? There’s a park I like. It’s pretty, you’ll love it too.

  ME: I don’t know. Dad thinks you’re catfishing me.

  She starts typing. Then stops. Then starts again. Finally, a message comes through.

  FAITH: You told your dad about me?

  ME: He found my phone.

  FAITH: Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know me. He won’t understand us.

  ME: I know.

  FAITH: Will you meet me?

  ME: Yes. But not at the park. I want it to be private. Where do you live?

  My eyes scan the screen, waiting for what feels like an eternity while the same grey text pops up over and over. Faith is typing… Faith is typing… She must keep deleting her answer and typing it again. Finally, her response comes through. That’s even more perfect.

  She gives me an address and a time. I print it out, fold it up and put it in my pocket.

  When I go downstairs, no one suspects a thing. Dad is in the kitchen talking to Grandma and Grandad. My phone is on the pile of papers next to the sofa. While they’re distracted, I quickly snatch up my phone and erase the notifications of Faith’s most recent messages before replacing it.

  ‘Is this true, Aiden?’ Grandma comes into the living room, her fingers worrying at the sleeves of her cardigan.

  ‘Yes,’ I say simply.

  ‘Oh, hun. You can’t talk to strangers like that.’ She turns to Dad as he enters the room. ‘You can’t blame him, Rob. He doesn’t understand the way the world works.’

  I ignore them as they bicker, pick up the drawings from the bunker and take them to the dining table. There I spread them all out. A timeline of my life emerges as I move the drawings around the surface of Grandma’s mahogany table. Development through pencil that begins with scribbles and ends with portraits. There are bad line drawings of Mum and Dad when I was six. The house I grew up in. Then, the naked bulbs inside the bunker, cage bars, my bed. After ten, I started copying pictures from textbooks, sketching lions and tigers, or mountains and forests. I used the places Mum and I imagined before I was taken. I even drew Hugh. I remember him sitting and posing for me.

  As I turn some of the pictures over, Grandad leans in.

  ‘There are some plans here.’ He picks up a page and examines it. ‘For a room, is it? I can’t make it out.’

  Dad and Grandma come closer.

  ‘That’s the one I remember him giving me after he’d been talking about the second bunker.’ I’d drawn a self-portrait that day. Thin face, straggly hair, deep-set eyes. ‘He said something about how it wasn’t working, and he had to start again.’

  ‘We should take these to the police,’ Grandad says. ‘They might need to get an expert to look at them.’ Grandad peers at the blue lines on the thin paper. Every time he moves the paper, my sketch shows through on the other side. ‘The shape of it reminds me of a church. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes.’ Grandma adjusts her glasses. ‘I think so too.’

  ‘Churches have plenty of underground space. They usually have some sort of crypt or vault. But they aren’t exactly inconspicuous,’ he says. And then he sighs. ‘Aiden, are you sure that Amy is linked to this second bunker idea.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know.’ And it’s true. I don’t know anymore. Nothing makes sense.

  Grandad glances at me and then at Dad. ‘I didn’t want to say this before, but I can’t say nothing.’

  ‘Just say it, Peter,’ Grandma insists.

  ‘Why would a young woman want to keep a child in a bunker?’ he says. ‘Hugh took a great risk because . . .’ Grandad’s face pales but he carries on. ‘Because of who he was. Amy isn’t Hugh, is she? So what made Emma so sure it was her?’

  ‘Mum thinks it’s revenge,’ I say.

  ‘She doesn’t need to use this,’ Grandad slaps the paper with the back of his hand, ‘to get revenge. Kidnapping a child is revenge. Taking Emma is revenge.’

  ‘You think this is a waste of time?’ I say. I snatch the pages up. ‘You think I’m stupid.’

  Grandad watches sadly as I roll the pages up. ‘No, I don’t think that.’

  ‘You do. You all think I’m an idiot who doesn’t understand the world. You think I’m obsessed with this, don’t you? You think I can’t stop thinking about Hugh.’

  ‘Mate.’ Dad places a hand on my shoulder.

  I pull away from him. ‘Fuck off.’

  Dad’s eyes widen. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Aiden, sweetheart,’ Grandma starts.

  But I turn around and walk out of the house with my papers from the bunker.

  At Mum’s house I charge up Mum’s laptop, spread the papers across the kitchen table and busy myself by tidying the kitchen. Because the house is so quiet, I put the radio on just so I can hear voices again. That’s when I realise how much I’m starting to change. I want to hear the sound of voices.

  While poking around on Mum’s laptop, I come across a few emails from private detectives. Most are emailing to tell her that they haven’t been able to find anything, or they can’t take on the work, but there is one that catches my eye. It came through the day Mum disappeared.

  Hi Emma,

  I had a stroke of luck. While putting out some feelers, I came across a friend of a friend who reported to the police th
at they may have seen Amy Perry in the background of their photograph. Could you take a look at the image and let me know if this is Amy?

  I open the attachment and pull in a deep breath. The picture is blurry, but I can just make her out. Amy Perry, a baseball cap trying to conceal her features, pushing a trolley in a supermarket. There’s no date or location, but it must be recent. It has to be. Why else would she be wearing a hat inside a shop?

  My fingers hit all the wrong keys as I hurry to send a reply back to the investigator using Mum’s email account. I have to explain who I am, because obviously Mum is currently missing. When I’m done, I sit there anxiously tapping my fingernails on the table for the fifteen minutes it takes to get a reply.

  The investigator confirms that he sent the photograph to the police and goes on to tell me that the young woman who sent the photo to him took it in the Midlands, which is pretty much halfway between London and York. The girl is a backing singer in a local band on tour around the area, which means she doesn’t remember which town they were in at the time. He knows that the shop is a Co-op, but that’s it.

  I zoom in and zoom out. There’s water and chocolate in the trolley she’s pushing. There’s something else, too. My heart sinks. A red toy dragon.

  After replying back to the investigator to thank him, I hurry upstairs and rummage through Mum’s boxes of things for a camera. Without my phone, I can’t take snaps of anything. Finally, I find an old digital camera that needs charging. It takes another twenty minutes to find the right charger, and an hour to charge it. Meanwhile, I keep staring at the plans on the table. Every now and then the landline rings. Dad, probably. I ignore it.

  After the camera’s charged, I take photos of every single plan, upload them to the laptop, and send everything to Josie. If anyone can help us track Hugh’s final plan, it’s her.

  Then I check the time. I don’t know where it went; it’s 2 a.m. now. So as not to get an unexpected visit from Dad, I send him an email to say I’m fine, that I’m staying at Mum’s house, and that I’ll see him tomorrow. Then I get into bed to get a few hours’ sleep.

  The next morning, before sunrise, I get up, walk to the bus stop and wait. Once on the bus, I unfold the piece of paper and check the address again. Leaving Mum’s house early was crucial, because I knew I had to work fast before Dad checked up on me, which I know he will. I had planned to sneak away from Dad’s after dark, but the argument meant I didn’t have to do that in the end.

  I watch the sunrise as the journey continues. I wish I had my phone. Without it I feel unarmed and vulnerable.

  This is my first time alone on a bus. I hadn’t known how much it would cost, but luckily Mum left her bank card behind before she met Amy, so I used the scanner to pay, saying nothing to the bus driver before I found a seat at the back. I checked how many stops the bus would take online and now I watch and count to make sure I get off at the right one.

  It’s the twelfth stop, forty minutes away from Bishoptown. I press the bell, say thank you, and step onto the pavement. This is the part I’m most worried about, but I wrote down the directions carefully. The air is still cool at this time in the morning. It doesn’t smell like Rough Valley woods here. There are brick-fronted houses everywhere, but as I walk, as I follow my own directions, the roads become lanes. The houses become sparser. It reminds me of the outer areas of Bishoptown.

  Finally, I come to a detached house fronted by a gate. I press the buzzer on the gate post and it opens to allow me in.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  EMMA

  It soon becomes exhausting trying to stay positive, especially considering the groggy feeling of being drugged. There are no time references here. I can’t peer out of a window and see if it’s morning or afternoon. I talk to myself until Amy brings me food and then I fall asleep again.

  I don’t know how long she left me here alone, but I know she came in the cage to take away the porcelain shiv. What she didn’t realise was that I’d snapped my original piece in two, stashing one inside my mattress. Then, while she’d been upstairs, I’d kept my body angled to obscure my actions and retrieved that small, but sharp, final piece, sliding it gently into my pocket.

  When Amy comes down the stairs carrying another tray of dry cereal, I assume that it’s the next morning again. Would that make it Wednesday? She places the tray down and goes away again. She won’t engage with me. Not after I sliced her arm. I see the bandage, the way she holds it, like it still hurts. There’s the faintest scarlet shadow signalling the blood seeping through the fabric.

  I feel disgusting. My hair is greasy and limp, my clothes are stale. I’ve splashed cold water on my body, but that’s about it. The vault stinks because there’s no flushing toilet. If Amy wanted to degrade me, she has. She’s turned me into an animal, dehumanised me, taken away all the civilities of modern life.

  I move closer to the bars. When she emerges again, I have my fingers wrapped around the metal.

  ‘Where’s my daughter?’ I say. It has become my catchphrase. It’s the first thing I say to her whenever she comes to feed me.

  This time she has three litre bottles of water in her arms.

  ‘Move back.’

  I take one step away.

  ‘More,’ she says.

  Another step. A small one.

  She holds her arms out as she pushes the water bottle into the cage. As I watch her, hot anger flushes all along my skin. Neck, face, arms. I’m hot all over, but I’m composed. What she doesn’t know is that inside I’m coiled up tight.

  When she reaches out with the third bottle, I’m faster. My arm comes out and grasps hers. She gasps, tries to pull back, but I dig my fingers into her flesh. I come closer and get my other hand around her arm. She fights me, yanking away, pulling me into the bars, but I won’t let go. Sweat rolls down my scalp. I won’t let go.

  I pull the weapon from my pocket. Amy starts shouting, get off, get off, get off! She produces something from her pocket.

  But this time I’m quicker, I knock it from her hand. The metal clatters as it hits the stone floor. Both of us stare at the needle, watching as it bounces into the cage. She tries to move first, but I press my fingers into her wound. With my nails digging in, refusing to let go, I bend down to snatch the syringe, but I can’t reach.

  She pulls back, shoving me face first into the metal. My cheekbone hits it hard and pain explodes there, but I only dig my nails deeper, gritting my teeth, watching her howl. This time, when I bend down to snatch the needle, I reach. She tries to block me when I lift it towards her. It’s awkward, but I stab her, managing to plunge the metal into her forearm.

  The needle remains there, wobbling back and forth, as she finally wrenches free from my grip. I try to keep hold of her for longer, but she woozily staggers away from me.

  ‘No!’ I scream, watching as she steps back out of my reach.

  ‘What are you going to achieve, Emma?’ Amy says, her voice slurring, the sedative kicking in already. ‘You’ll never get out.’

  I hate her so much.

  Her eyes begin to droop, but she continues to talk. ‘I won’t be out for too long. You’ll still be there when I come back.'

  ‘You don’t know that,’ I say. I wipe sweat from my forehead and watch as Amy loses consciousness, dropping hard onto the stones below her feet.

  Chapter Forty

  AIDEN

  This isn’t where I pictured Faith living. I assumed she was like me, and that she came from a modest home, not a mini mansion. There are two stone lions, one on each gatepost, staring at me with cavernous mouths and sharp teeth as I walk through the gates onto the slate-grey driveway.

  This is a place cut off from the world. A place to hide away. Does Faith live here alone? She never mentioned family to me, but she’s my age, so how else could she live here? Her parents must live here, too.

  And then it strikes me. Faith never told me how old she is. She never mentioned her family, her house, her age, or anything like that.
My dad’s words play on a loop in my mind: How do you know Faith isn’t Amy? I gaze up at the house. Could this place be connected to Hugh? A second home he hid away for his girlfriend, Amy? There’s only one way to find out. This is why I came in the first place, to get answers.

  I press the doorbell next to the wide, blue-painted door. From a distance, the door has a feel of grandeur to it, with panelled wood and the stone steps beneath. But when you come close to the place you begin to notice the disrepair. The paint is peeling. I press my fingers against the stone-clad exterior of the house and some dust crumbles down. This is a beautiful house, but it’s neglected.

  The longer I wait by the peeling blue paint, the harder my heart thuds. Just as I lift my fingers to press the button again, I hear a key scraping the lock. The handle turns and the door opens.

  A woman stands in the doorway. She seems frazzled. Her greying hair is damp and stuck to her forehead. She has a full face of make-up on, but it isn’t precisely applied like my Grandma’s, it’s smudged at the corners of her eyes and lips. When she smiles, I see more of it on her teeth. She wears a long, cream dress that fits too snugly around her soft abdomen. I’m not the best at estimating ages, but I would place her at around fifty years old.

  ‘Can I speak to Faith, please?’ I ask.

  The woman’s chest rises and falls quite quickly, as though she has been hurrying from one side of the house to the other. She’s breathless when she answers. ‘Come in.’

  There’s something about this woman’s appearance that makes me want to turn around and run away. The strange, formal dress, the sweaty hair and smudged make-up. None of it seems normal. But I need answers. I need to stay. I step over the threshold and into the house.

  ‘You’re early. I didn’t have time to finish getting ready.’

  I don’t understand, because she already seems far too dressed up for a Wednesday morning. She beckons me further into the hall and then slams the door shut. An old-fashioned key appears between her fingers and she locks the door behind me. The sound of that door slamming, the scrape of the key, it’s all too familiar. My skin feels hot all over.