Child Taken: A chilling page-turner you will be unable to put down

by Darren Young

  ‘Laura’s the one who knows her,’ said Danni.

  ‘For, like, five minutes. You shouldn’t let her call all the shots.’

  ‘It’s just a plan.’

  ‘It’s Laura’s plan. Why not make your own?’ Sam’s eyes glistened, the way they did when she got the bit between her teeth on a subject, and Danni listened to see where it went. ‘From where I’m sitting,’ her friend said, ‘it seems that Laura is relying on Jessica’s mother too much.’

  ‘She is her mother.’

  ‘But even so,’ said Sam, ‘she’s been in that hospital for years and, besides, you have the answer in front of you.’

  Danni frowned.

  ‘Your dad!’ cried Sam. ‘He knows the truth.’

  ‘We talked about this. If I ask him, I rip us apart. Either way.’

  ‘So don’t ask him.’

  Sam outlined her own plan, and Danni admitted it was a plausible idea and one that wouldn’t do much harm, or necessarily interfere with Laura’s.

  ‘So go on, no time like the present,’ Sam said.

  Danni called her father. They hadn’t spoken since she had stormed out and there was a frostiness between them when the call started, but it began to thaw when she told him she was accepting the job.

  ‘They’ve asked me to send a copy of my birth certificate.’

  ‘Birth certificate?’

  Danni looked at Sam, who nodded encouragement. ‘Uh-huh. Can I come and get it from the flat?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Is that OK?’

  ‘I’m not sure what got taken into storage. Can you give me a day to look?’

  She asked if she could help.

  ‘No, I’ve got a deadline on an article, so I’ll have to do it tomorrow night.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ve not heard of a company asking to see a birth certificate before.’

  ‘That’s what they said.’

  They ended the call and Danni relayed the parts of the call that Sam hadn’t heard. Her friend thought for a moment.

  ‘It does sound completely normal. He’s moved house, there’s stuff everywhere, and not being able to lay his hands on it is not that surprising.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘If he doesn’t have it, and he never has had it, then he’s just bought himself a day to work out what to do.’

  ‘Or he’s just a bit disorganised.’

  At that moment, the key turned in the door and Sam’s mother walked in, wearily kicking off her boots in the hallway and calling out a tired greeting to the two girls as she went into the kitchen to empty her shopping bags.

  ‘Watch,’ said Sam and called into the kitchen.

  ‘Mum.’ ‘Yeah?’

  ‘If I needed my birth certificate, like, right now, could you get it for me?’

  ‘Why do you want it?’

  ‘Just because.’

  ‘I’ve just walked through the door.’

  ‘Could you get it?’

  ‘It’s upstairs in a safe place. Just give me a minute.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  They could hear Mrs Newbold cursing under her breath and Sam went into the kitchen to tell her mother she didn’t really need her to get it. Danni shrugged when she came back in. ‘Doesn’t prove anything,’ she said.

  ‘You know your dad is a hundred times more organised than my mum,’ Sam replied.

  ‘OK,’ said Danni, ‘so we’ll see what he says tomorrow night.’

  48 | Danni

  Danni walked to the beach and then along the sand until she reached her father’s apartment.

  It was a thirty-minute journey, at a brisk pace, but she wanted to stretch her legs. When she got there, just after nine o’clock, he was still in his pyjamas and dressing gown and looked shattered.

  ‘Did I get you out of bed?’

  Her father filled up the kettle, switched it on and tried to hide a yawn. ‘I was up until past two looking for that certificate.’

  He made her a cup of tea as he explained that he hadn’t had any luck, although she had guessed that the moment she walked in; it would have been sitting proudly on the kitchen table waiting for her if he had.

  ‘I’m stumped,’ he said. ‘And I can’t recall seeing it when I packed all the stuff up to go into storage, either.’

  ‘Is it worth looking, though?’

  ‘I don’t remember seeing it for ages. I keep all the important paperwork in a file and it wasn’t among it.’

  Danni sniffed feigning disappointment, but she was sure he was lying to her.

  ‘I’m sorry, love. Do you want me to email them to explain?’

  ‘No,’ Danni replied. ‘They’ll think I’m a child. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Surely it won’t affect the offer.’

  ‘Hope not.’

  Her father sat down and sipped at his tea.

  ‘Your mother would have known where it was.’

  Danni saw his eyes become watery and she hadn’t come here looking for an argument, so she changed the subject and they talked for another twenty minutes before she left. She took the beach route back to Sam’s and relayed what had happened.

  ‘Do you believe him?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘He could have lost it.’

  ‘It wasn’t what he said, it was how he said it, and the look in his eyes too.’

  ‘You think he suspects something?’

  ‘I know he does,’ said Danni. ‘But I’m at square one again. And I can’t push it now without being more direct.’

  Sam shook her head. ‘He told you what to do next,’ she said.

  ‘He did?’

  ‘You need to look in that file,’ said Sam confidently.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The file! The “important paperwork” one,’ she said making air quotes. ‘Because, even if your birth certificate isn’t in it, who knows what else you might find?’

  Danni thought about it and nodded. ‘You’re good at this.’

  ‘So do you know where it is?’

  ‘I know it’s in a box in the apartment.’

  ‘I thought he took it all to the storage place.’

  ‘He did,’ said Danni, ‘but not that one. I remember he was taking it with him to the new place.’

  Sam looked at her quizzically.

  ‘That morning, when we stopped to collect the letter about the job, he had already gone to the storage place, and I saw a box stuffed with folders and paperwork still at the house.’

  ‘Then you’ve got to find the box when he’s not there.’

  ‘You mean break in?’ Danni said.

  ‘Don’t you have a key?’

  ‘We haven’t exactly been on the best terms. But I know where he keeps the spare.’

  ‘There you go.’

  Danni began to consider how far she was prepared to go. It had seemed much easier when Laura was calling the shots and she was waiting to be told the next step. ‘Laura’s seeing Sandra this afternoon,’ she said. ‘She might—’

  ‘You can’t just rely on her!’ Sam said. ‘After twenty years, whatever Sandra says or thinks doesn’t prove anything. And, either way, your dad is still hiding something.’

  ‘If he finds out, our relationship is over.’

  Sam looked directly into her eyes and Danni knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.

  ‘So don’t let him find out.’

  49 | Laura

  ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Laura ended the call on her mobile phone. The wheels were in motion. In a little over twenty-four hours, Sandra would see the photograph of Danni, and that would tell her what to do next.

  Sandra had seemed a little offish, she thought, in their brief conversation, but she had agreed to see Laura anyway. Laura had told her that she wanted to follow up the interview with another article, in light of how well the first had been received and because it had awoken some local interest in the story, but she had perceived little enth
usiasm and she knew that Sandra was probably wondering what the point of it all was.

  The rest of the day was a typical Friday, with everyone at the Gazette, Laura included, trying to finish off whatever work they had on their list in time for the weekend. The paper had a skeleton weekend staff, updating the website with any news, while the rest of the staff started with a clean slate on Monday morning. But that all changed at four o’clock when the immigrant workers’ situation at the local factory took a turn for the worse. After reading the Gazette’s article and the whistle-blower’s account, a group of disgruntled ex-employees, who had been laid off and replaced by lower-paid workers, turned up at clocking-off time to protest, and it had quickly descended into a brawl. David got a tip-off just after it started and called in Kelly Heath for an impromptu meeting. Laura saw him nod in her direction and a few minutes later the Gazette’s star reporter was walking over to her. ‘David wants me to cover the factory story and suggested you could help me with some interviews in the morning.’

  Laura looked up from her laptop and over at David’s office. She bit her lip.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kelly. I’ve got plans I can’t change for tomorrow.’

  Kelly stood beside her desk, not sure what to do next. It was unheard-of for anyone ever to turn her down if she asked for help. And this story was escalating quickly and had the potential to dwarf the one about the missing girl in the shopping centre.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Kelly.’

  She watched as Kelly walked away without a reply and then went over to ask her usual sidekick to help her instead. She received, not a cold shoulder, but a distinctly cool one; no one liked being second choice. Laura felt Kelly’s eyes burning into her, and before she left for the evening there was an unmistakable look of disapproval from David and Sue. She felt as though she’d kicked a puppy rather than turned down some overtime. Tomorrow had better be worth it, she thought, as she walked out of the revolving doors.

  She was surprised to see a familiar car pull up in front of her.

  ‘Mum? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Quick, jump in,’ said Helen through the open window. Laura’s own car was in the car park at the other end of the high street, but there was already a small line of cars backed up behind her mother’s, so she opened the door and climbed inside.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ her mother said, and moved away from the kerb just as the driver in the car behind her lost patience and pressed on the horn. ‘OK, OK,’ she said, raising an apologetic hand.

  ‘So what’s this about?’

  Her mother took the next left without speaking and then the left turn after that, and they entered a quiet back street with a small number of shops and buildings that had been converted into, among other things, a dance studio, a ladies-only gymnasium and a tattoo parlour. Although she’d worked around the corner for years, Laura barely knew of the street’s existence.

  ‘Here we are.’

  Helen indicated and parked on the left-hand side of the street in a parking bay that said Customers Only. They were in front of the gymnasium, which was owned by someone called Snookie, according to the gold plaque over the door that Laura was reading.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Her mother smiled and took the can of defence spray out of her handbag. ‘You forgot it this morning.’

  ‘I didn’t. I only got it for when I walk the dog.’ Laura took the can and put it in her own bag. She had forgotten it.

  ‘Well, if you need a form of defence,’ her mother said, ‘I thought we’d do it properly.’

  ‘The gym? Are you mad?’

  Laura had joined a gym once, when she was nineteen, and had visited it twice and hated it enough to not go again after that, although not enough to cancel her monthly subscription for almost a year and a half.

  ‘They do a women’s self-defence class at six,’ her mother said, unbuckling her seatbelt. ‘And I’ve booked us both on to it.’

  50 | Laura

  Laura’s cheek struck the floor with a dull thud.

  She sat up, rubbed her jawbone and glared at her mother, who was standing in jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt, applauding as a five-foot-tall Chinese girl effortlessly dispatched Laura’s feeble ‘attack’. Luckily the floor was covered with thick padded matting, so no significant harm was done to anything other than her pride.

  ‘That was fantastic!’ beamed the instructor. A thirty-some thing named Joanna in a tight vest top and even tighter shorts, she had a tendency, Laura had quickly noticed, for exaggerating her praise when someone did well and patronising people when they got it wrong. Laura snorted, but the rest of the group seemed to share Joanna’s appraisal.

  ‘Next one up. Helen, isn’t it?’

  Laura shuffled to the side to wait her next turn, trying to slot into a different place in the queue to avoid coming up against the Chinese girl, who felt as though she was built entirely of muscle. By contrast, Laura already felt beaten up. Less than forty minutes into the class, she had spent most of that time silently cursing her mother for bringing her – and a spare gym kit – here to begin with.

  To be fair to her mother, who did as little by way of exercise as Laura did, she had picked it up much more quickly; she put her would-be assailant on to the ground with ease and confidence. Laura grinned at her mother and held both thumbs up as Joanna jumped in with an overly exuberant reaction and then used Helen to demonstrate a slight variation on the move they had just practised.

  ‘I was going to drop out and leave you to it after the first session,’ she said as she joined Laura afterwards, ‘but I’m really enjoying myself.’

  Laura raised her eyebrows. Joanna called for their attention as she started the next part of the class. After an hour, and no further face-on-mat encounters, the instructor called a halt to their night’s work and told them to give themselves a round of applause, which Helen forced a reluctant Laura to join in with.

  ‘Well, what did you think?’ Helen asked her afterwards as they headed out to the car.

  ‘I think I’ll stick with the can.’

  ‘You can make fun, but you should complete the course. You got easily knocked about in there, you know?’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  Laura rubbed her jaw again and felt pain on her thigh and elbow. She had no intention of setting foot in the place again, but she didn’t say so.

  ‘Want to get a drink?’ Helen asked, smiling at her. They threw their bags into the back of the car and walked around the corner to the coffee shop that stayed open until eight o’clock. Laura fetched them both a latte, topped with whipped cream; she thought they’d earned it.

  ‘Admit it: you had fun tonight,’ her mother said.

  Laura smiled and rubbed her jaw. ‘That Joanna was a bit much. And it was painful, even with the mats. Plus I think my jaw is fractured.’

  Helen looked at her face and shook her head. ‘But apart from that?’

  They laughed.

  ‘It was OK.’

  ‘Seriously, though,’ Helen said, her face turning very sober, ‘you should learn to look after yourself.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘This threat thing has shaken me up. And I don’t like you travelling up and down the country on your own either.’

  ‘I’m just doing my job.’

  The previous evening had ended with an agreement to disagree. Laura hadn’t quite convinced her parents that it was a good idea to continue with the story, but they had admitted they understood why she wanted to. The sticking point had been her lying to them, and to her boss; she’d promised she wouldn’t do it again.

  ‘I just wish you’d stay more local.’

  ‘You sound like David.’

  ‘And not take risks like this.’

  ‘Now you sound like Dad.’

  Her mother nodded. ‘He’s just very protective. We’re your parents; we can’t help it.’

  Her mother patted her hand and Laura smiled. She wouldn’t reall
y want it any other way.

  51 | Laura

  ‘You know the worst part?’

  Sandra sat in her favourite chair, the only place Laura had ever seen her sit, and she guessed that no one at High Cliffs, patient or staff, had ever tried to take it since she’d made it her own. She was staring out of the window, predictably, her eyes scanning the sand, although Laura hadn’t seen a single soul on the beach during any of her visits.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I didn’t even want to go to the beach that day.’

  Laura’s new voice recorder was switched on and sitting on the table in front of her. Her bag had a folder with the photograph of Danni inside, but she held it back, waiting until she felt Sandra was ready to see it.

  ‘No?’

  Sandra shook her head; her weak smile was sad and full of regret.

  ‘Me and Todd had a row the night before, a bad one. We almost came to blows. But the kids had been asking us to take them to the beach so we got up the next day and pretended nothing had happened.’

  ‘All parents have to do that for their kids at times.’

  Sandra shrugged. ‘I think that’s why Todd was so hard on himself, afterwards. He was sulking that morning and reading his paper. If he hadn’t been, he might have seen where she went. We paid a heavy price for that argument.’

  ‘All couples fight. Can I ask what it was about?’

  Laura looked at Sandra but the woman showed no sign of reciprocating and gazed straight ahead, pausing for a few seconds as she seemed to wrestle with herself on how far she wanted to go with this part of her story.

  ‘Jessica. Well, not in as many words, but it had been an ongoing fight since she was born. He was fine with Stuart but he’d been different with Jess. Moody all the time and with the shortest fuse you could imagine. It was like a male postnatal depression. These days he would get signed off work, but at the time I just thought he was a miserable bastard.’

  ‘What was different?’

  Sandra hesitated before answering. ‘He didn’t want another baby. It drove a wedge between us. When I told him I was pregnant, he was so mad.’

  ‘So it was an accident?’