The Stolen Child

by Sanjida Kay

  All this time I’d been imagining Evie’s mother as a white junkie prostitute from Leeds. But she could be anyone. A respectable young Muslim woman from Bradford, for instance. I think of Yasira. Haris’s sister.

  ‘We need to tell Collier. They haven’t been searching for a woman. Or a couple,’ I say.

  Ollie’s mobile rings.

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate it,’ he says. ‘Yes. Yes. Okay. Got it. Gill,’he tells me. ‘She says that one of the registration numbers is valid. The other doesn’t exist. The car belongs to a man living in Ilkley.’

  The impact of what my husband’s just said is overwhelming. That car is registered to someone living here, in this town. Is it a wild goose chase or could Evie really be here, in Ilkley? A darker thought intrudes before I can stop myself. If she’s still alive.

  ‘What did Collier say?’

  ‘He didn’t answer. I left him a message.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Ollie holds out the scrap of newspaper. The address is Panorama Drive. My stomach falls away, as if I’m in a lift dropping ten floors at once. It’s the other end of Ilkley from where we live; the road that runs parallel to the moor and ends by Heber’s Ghyll and the reservoir. The car is registered to Mr G. Hardgrave. It doesn’t seem to stack up. Hardgrave is a proper, old-fashioned Yorkshire name; very few ethnic minorities live in Ilkley, and Panorama Drive is one of the most exclusive parts of the town. You’d have to have bought a house years ago, or be extremely wealthy to live there. What are the chances that a young Muslim woman owns a house on the edge of the moor? But maybe she lives with or is married to a G. Hardgrave who could be Evie’s father? I keep thinking of her as young, but I have no idea. It’s impossible to tell thanks to the graininess of the photo and her niqat.

  ‘I know where this is. I’m going now,’ I say.

  Ollie shakes his head.

  ‘I won’t leave it until the morning. Not when Evie could be there!’

  ‘I don’t want to wait either – but shouldn’t we hang on until Collier checks it out?’

  ‘I’m going,’ I say, shrugging on my coat and putting my phone in my pocket.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Ollie says. ‘It could be dangerous, you have no idea —’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I say. ‘I have to know. I have to be there if she is, if she is—’ I can’t finish the rest of my sentence. ‘Besides, it’s late.’ It’s almost midnight. ‘If a strange man turned up on the doorstep at this time of night, they might not open the door. But a woman on her own – I’ve got to go!’

  ‘Take Bella with you.’

  If this weren’t so serious, I’d laugh. The idea of Bella protecting me is ridiculous. But it’ll help keep me calm to have her in with me. I call her and she comes trotting over.

  ‘Ring me as soon as—’

  ‘I will.’

  I unlock the car and Bella jumps into the passenger seat as if she knows I won’t protest. It’s not as cold as it has been; the air smells moist, of decaying leaves. There’s a silver-gold smudge where the half-moon is obscured behind a dense bank of cloud. My hands are cold, but damp with sweat. I’m tamping down my hope, but it’s surging through me, threatening to explode. What if Evie is there? A sparse couple of miles away from me. I don’t want to think about what state she’ll be in. If they really are her mother and father… Even if they’ve looked after her well physically, she’ll still be missing us, wondering why we abandoned her. Will she ever forgive us? Something like this could scar a child for life, couldn’t it? I don’t want to think about what might have been done to her. If it’s a man and a woman posing as her parents…

  I don’t drive into town; I keep to the top road, skirting the edge of the moor. I can’t see it but I know it’s a dark, brooding mass is behind the tarn, the trees, houses, a hotel. At the end of Crossbeck Road, we rumble over the cattle grid and turn onto Wells Road, and now there is nothing between us and the moor.

  A small light, somewhere in the centre of the heath, flickers and wavers: Haris’s house. The stand of pines that shield him from the town are blowing in the wind and obscuring, then revealing, the light. I wonder what he’s thinking. He must have been released this afternoon, no longer held on a charge of child abduction. He’ll have spent the time pacing his croft, reclaiming it for himself, like a predator in his lair. He’ll have strode up the path to his studio. Run his hands along the smoothest shafts of metal, an old plough share, the teeth from a digger, spinning orbs from bike cogs – and then he’ll have ripped down all the photos he took of me and burnt them. He’ll have rued the day he first laid eyes on me – the obsession that led to him being cast as a kidnapper or worse.

  I don’t know how I feel about Haris now. I believed that he was Evie’s real father. When he couldn’t recreate his original family – his blood-daughter and me, the wife of his prison dreams – I was convinced he’d poisoned Ben and taken Evie to destroy me. But now? I know Collier doesn’t believe that Ben was deliberately poisoned, but it seems too convenient – that Evie was taken just at the moment when Ollie and I could not be with her. But maybe Collier is right and that is far-fetched – after all, if I’d managed to get hold of Andy or one of my mum friends, Evie would have been safe. None of them would have allowed her to walk to a parked car without checking who was in it. And there’s no need to invoke a poisoner – as Collier pointed out, spindle trees grow all over Ilkley. Ben could have grabbed at one on the way to school without me noticing.

  I can’t think about any of this though, because I’m on Panorama Drive, and I’m almost with my daughter! I feel as if Evie is calling me. She’s just metres away now. I imagine I can smell her, that particular odour of little girl, like suncream and mushrooms. As I’m driving – too quickly – I can almost see an image of myself running supernaturally fast up the hill, my arms outstretched, calling, ‘Evie, my love, Evie!’ I imagine myself holding her tightly, feeling her ribs, the sparrow-flutter of her heart.

  ‘Mum, your heart is the same size as your fist,’ she told me once in delight, and we both made our hands into fists and held them against our chests and bumped them together: hands as hearts.

  The road is narrow and dark and tree-lined. On one side is the wood I walked through with Haris. The Tarmac is slick with a mulch of dead leaves. I force myself to slow down. The houses here, as I remember from my walks across the moor to the Swastika Stone, are large, set back from the road, with huge gardens front and back, surrounded by high fences, above which you can make out the tops of trampolines and stately shrubs. There is one like a sixteenth-century manor house, with mullioned windows, another that’s modern: a glass wall and two verandas face towards the moor.

  I glance down at the piece of paper in my hand. The address is number one, Panorama Drive. I’ve passed eight and six; the numbers are growing smaller as I go further. It must be the last house on the street. I’ve never been this far – I suppose I was always so desperate to get off the road, I’d have slipped down that public footpath between two old stone walls to get to the moor, or gone the other way – woven through the wood to return to town.

  I park just before I reach the house and call Bella to come with me. This house is different from the others. It’s square and solid, with a short stone wall in front of it; it’s so close to the road, it has barely any front garden, but behind it; is a large expanse of lawn. It’s made of millstone grit, like ours, but it looks austere. The door is set in the middle, a window either side. It’s three stories high, with two attic windows that have their own little roofs. They might have been the servants’ quarters in former times. Could Evie be here?

  There’s a single shrub in one corner, near the gate. There are no lights on and it’s hard to see as the nearest street lamp is some distance away. The road ends abruptly just past this house, in a steep, grassy wall. The reservoir must be on the other side. It’s not a place I’d want to bring up a child, I can’t help thinking – the moor out the back, a wood in front, a sheer-sided reservoir
to the left, all at the end of a lethally steep and narrow street without a pavement. It’s exposed – the wind hits me as I step away from the car, whistling straight off the heath.

  The flagstones leading to the front door are slimy with algae and, in my haste, I nearly slip and fall. I ring the doorbell and hear it clang and echo. I wonder if Evie can hear it too. Is she sleeping? I look up at the windows, but they’re shrouded by curtains and there’s no movement of the fabric. I ring again and again, and when still no one comes to the door, I bang on it with my fists. What if they’ve left already? Put Evie in the car and taken her somewhere? I try the door but it’s locked. I keep knocking until I feel the skin on my knuckles split. I’m about to go round the back, when a light blazes above my head and the door opens. My heart misses a beat.

  An elderly man is standing in front of me. He’s wearing paisley pyjamas and a burgundy dressing gown and slippers. His white hair is ruffled and his pink scalp shines through.

  ‘What on earth do you want? Making all this racket.’

  ‘I’m looking for Mr G. Hardgrave.’

  ‘This is he. What do you want at this time of night?’ His voice is loud, as if he’s slightly deaf or was a headmaster before he retired.

  I pause. I’m not sure what to say now. This isn’t what I expected – although he does look like a typical resident of Panorama Drive.

  ‘My daughter has gone missing —’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. But I haven’t seen any unattended children. Goodnight.’

  Mr Hardgrave starts to shut the door.

  ‘Wait! You might have seen it on the news. She went missing on Friday. After school.’

  ‘I don’t watch the news any more,’ he booms. ‘Certainly not the local news. I’m sorry about your daughter but I fail to see why you’re bothering people at night.’

  I’m so desperate, I step forward, ready to push my way into the house. ‘Do you own a car with the registration—’ I unfold the piece of newspaper Ollie has written the number on.

  He cups his hand behind one ear. ‘You’ll have to speak up. This blasted hearing aid is on the blink.’

  I read out the number as clearly and loudly as I can without shouting at him.

  ‘Yes. It’s parked in the garage round the side. What has that got to do with your daughter?’

  ‘She may have been picked up from school by someone driving that car. A Muslim woman. There might have been a man in it too.’

  ‘Utter rubbish. That is my car. My wife and I drive it. You can clearly see I’m not Muslim and my wife certainly isn’t either. I’m not in the habit of lending my car out, before you ask. Now goodnight.’ He slams the door shut.

  I stand for a minute in the garden and I want to weep. I was convinced that Evie was here, in this house. Did we get it wrong? It was so hard to see what the letters and numbers were. Maybe our best guess was not the real registration number of the car in Anita’s photo. I walk to the end of the road; my feet sink into the mossy turf round the edge of the reservoir. I climb to the top of the slope and look down. Its black surface is scarred with ripples from the wind. It’s impossible to tell how deep it is. I stand and stare at the moor. The wind keens and the clouds scud across the sky, shades of shale and slate. There are no stars. I stand there and I cry as if I will never stop.

  The lights are out in our house when I return, but, as I let myself in, I feel Bella shiver against my leg and thump her tail. Ollie is sitting on the sofa in the dark. He gets up and hugs me tightly. I’m surprised by the fierceness of his embrace. I let myself lean against him, take comfort in the familiar contours of his chest. He kisses me on the top of my head.

  ‘I was worried about you.’

  I’m grateful for this moment of care when he wants to know about Evie above all else – and why she’s not with me.

  ‘I called Collier straight after you’d gone. He said the car belongs to an elderly Caucasian couple who’ve lived at that address for thirty-odd years. He’s going to send someone over to interview them in the morning, but it looks as if we got the number wrong. I emailed him the photos. They might have some software that could decrypt it.’

  I nod. I feel utterly defeated: emptied, hollowed out. Ollie takes my hand and we walk upstairs together. As we go, I see a photo next to my laptop on the dining-room table. It looks as if it’s an abstract work of art, slices of dark and a band of light; a fragmented pattern. And then I realize – Ollie’s printed Anita’s picture. It’s the reflection on the car window and, beneath it, a woman’s face: the woman who might have taken our daughter.

  We go into the bedroom and climb, exhausted and spent, into bed. Ollie rolls onto his side so he’s facing me.

  ‘Do you remember when we first brought Evie home?’ he says. ‘She was so tiny. Her whole fist was the size of my thumbnail. And her eyes were enormous, as if they were too big for her face.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘Such a strange colour. The green was starting to show through the blue already so they looked kind of cloudy.’

  He reaches for my hand and laces his fingers between mine.

  ‘She was so still. Do you remember how worried we were? She never cried and she hardly moved. Just lay there and stared and stared.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It’s like a story he’s telling me. Like the ‘Story of You’ that I tell Evie – only this is the parents’ version.

  ‘We were shattered. We’d been in the hospital with her constantly, watching her in that little Perspex cube. What was it called – an incubator – like she was a creature from Outer Space, growing in a laboratory—’

  ‘Or a princess in a glass box—’

  ‘—when really she was a drug addict. She must have been so tired from fighting the addiction – her poor little system – and when we took her home, she was so fragile and so silent! And then, do you remember the day your mum came round? We were both worried, all we’d been doing was frowning at Evie, and your mum just held her and smiled and smiled at her—’

  ‘And she smiled back.’

  ‘It was the most amazing smile I’ve ever seen. All gums and huge eyes – and she was happy!’

  ‘So happy! As if she’d suddenly realized that she was okay. It was going to be okay.’

  We lie, our legs and arms intertwined, holding each other tightly.

  ‘It’s going to be okay,’ whispers Ollie into my hair.

  WEDNESDAY: FIVE DAYS AFTER

  In the early hours of the morning, I wake. I lie rigid with tension. Ollie’s arm and part of his leg are still draped over me and I feel as if I’m being crushed. I manoeuvre his arm from my chest and he grunts in his sleep and rolls over. What if the woman was working with Haris? He poisoned Ben to get us out of the way and then he left for Leeds – to set up his so-solid alibi. Meanwhile, she took Evie and is waiting for him – perhaps she thought they’d be together on Monday but the police delayed their rendezvous. But now – now that he’s been released… I won’t be able to sleep with this turning over in my mind.

  I get up and shower and dress. Collier is not going to re-arrest Haris simply because I’ve had an idea at 4 a.m., or search his house again the day after he’s let him walk out of Ilkley police station a free man. He’ll need something to convince him. If I knew who this woman was, or what the connection is between her and Haris... I decide to ask Jack and go to the school and see if anyone knows who she is. If someone has been stalking Evie, then one of the teachers might have noticed her before – or maybe it’s a coincidence and she’s a friend or relative of one of the parents and not involved in our daughter’s disappearance at all.

  It’s too early to call anyone. I make coffee. I scrub Ben’s high chair. Ollie fed him last night and it’s still smeared with fromage frais and sticky with orange juice. The area around the table looks like a small bomb in a cereal factory has detonated. Ollie only polished the kitchen cupboards. I end up cleaning the entire room. When I open the fridge, it’s almost empty. There’s the milk
, yogurt and juice I bought yesterday; margarine, the rind from some parmesan, a wizened chilli, and half a can of baked beans. I could go to Tesco – it’ll be open in ten minutes when nothing else in town will be – and get back in time to give Ben his breakfast before I call in on Jack and go to the school. Leaving at this time means I won’t bump into anyone I know. And I can’t sit here doing nothing.

  Tesco at the best of times is soulless – but it’s so much worse at six in the morning. It’s not as empty as I thought it would be. Who the fuck shops at 6 a.m.? The fluorescent lights flicker. The shelf upon shelf of coloured cans make my eyes go funny. Everything is hard and shiny and there’s so much fucking choice. Why do I have to choose from thirty kinds of granola? Do I want Country Crunch or Rude Health? Raisins and almonds or tropical? Goji berries and chia seeds or Strawberry Surprise? I’ll just buy the Tesco range – that’ll be easiest. No, wait, there’s Tesco Finest*, Tesco Everyday Value and Tesco Free From. What can be so damn fine about granola? You eat it every day and what could it be free from? It hasn’t got anything unhealthy in it! What could one possibly take out? Actually, we don’t need any fucking granola. We can eat Weetabix. I drop a box into my trolley.

  I start to feel waves of panic wash over me: I have no idea what we do need. I don’t give a shit about what we eat. I don’t even want to eat. I don’t know where anything is. I can’t make sense of the chaos in my head – it’s as if a fog has descended and I’m incapable of joining up the dots – that if we need Weetabix, we’ll need milk. Then there’s lunch to think of and tea and after that more lunch and tea and snacks – food for Ben; food for Ollie. An endless circus of meals. I grip the handle of the trolley and try to focus. I wish I wasn’t here. Shopping for me and Ollie and Ben. Not Evie. If Evie were with me, what would she choose? My mind goes blank. Beyond fish fingers I can’t think of anything. She’s been gone for four days and five nights. I panic, thinking I can no longer remember what she likes to eat. And then I do. Evie’s favourite meal is garlic bread, the tear-and-share kind that Tesco’s does in a tray; pizza, peas and sweetcorn, ketchup, followed by vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce that you have to squirt from a plastic bottle and it always emits that farting sound, which makes her squeal with laughter, blow raspberries and pour even more syrup over her dessert. Topped with marshmallows – if I’m ever soft enough to buy them for her.