She shrugged. ‘Fine, I guess.’
Sergeant Thomas put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Do we have a deal?’
Diana nodded.
Two days later, Sergeant Thomas called. She held her breath as he spoke, waiting for positive news. ‘We’ve identified the woman from the department store from the credit card she used for her purchases, and I’m sorry, Diana, but she did give birth to a son eighteen months ago. It’s not Noah.’
• • •
Winter ended. Spring brought new leaves to the trees and flowers to the plants in Diana’s garden, which bloomed despite their neglect. Christmas decorations appeared in shopping centres and supermarkets. Diana sat at the kitchen table one afternoon, flipping through a department-store catalogue and thinking about how she couldn’t face another Christmas without her son, when she came to a page full of prams. Her first instinct was to turn the page before she started to cry, but then she paused, a thought taking shape in her mind. Once a baby becomes a toddler, and no longer needs a pram, the natural inclination of most parents is to sell the pram; after all, prams were expensive and they were built so well these days that even after years of use they were still in a good enough condition for another family to use. Noah was nearly two now and probably wouldn’t be using a pram any more, so what if whoever had Noah put the pram up for sale? If it was the same one that had been taken from her, then it might be a way she could track down Noah. She briefly considered calling Sergeant Thomas to talk about her idea, but after their recent deal she decided against it.
With newfound resolve, Diana scoured the online sales sites daily looking for prams that matched hers, and every weekend she visited garage sales all over Sydney. Plenty of prams came up, many of them identical to Noah’s, but when she met the sellers under the pretence of examining the pram before she bought it, none of the fathers matched the description the police had put together of the man who had taken her son, and none of the children she saw resembled Noah.
One morning in February, after three months of searching, a pram exactly matching Noah’s came up for sale on eBay with the pick-up location a nearby suburb. She contacted the seller via email and asked questions about the pram and the child who had used it. Diana ascertained that the child was a boy and he was almost exactly the same age as Noah. Encouraged, she arranged with the seller a time when she could inspect the pram.
The next day, when she arrived at the seller’s house, her excitement started to wane. It was a nice house, in a nice neighbourhood. Surely these people couldn’t be kidnappers. She contemplated leaving without even knocking on the door, but the sight of a small blue bicycle parked on the front veranda changed her mind. She had to meet the man who was selling the pram, if only to rule out one more person from her search.
Diana stabbed her finger at the doorbell and waited impatiently, shifting from foot to foot, until she heard footsteps from within.
The man who opened the door looked exactly how she had hoped he would. Though she wasn’t good at guessing height he seemed to be the six foot two inches the police had estimated the kidnapper to be. He also had the brown hair they identified. He was wearing glasses, which the kidnapper hadn’t been, but that didn’t mean anything. So far, this was the most promising lead Diana had followed.
‘Hi,’ she managed to get out. ‘I’m here to see the pram.’
He frowned at her for a moment, as if something about her appearance confused him. She guessed that he was wondering why she looked so dishevelled and thought perhaps she should have made an effort to wash her hair and put on make-up before she left the house. But then he smiled and held open the door so she could enter the house. The pram was right in front of them, parked next to a wooden staircase with a white banister.
‘It’s still in great condition, take a look. Is it for you?’ he asked as he glanced at her flat stomach.
‘No, it’s for . . . a friend,’ Diana said. She glanced through a door on her right into what appeared to be the living room. She hoped to see a child or, at the very least, a photograph of one, but she didn’t have a clear view into the room from where she stood.
‘Is your son here?’ she asked.
‘He’s asleep. Why?’
‘No reason. I was just wondering because it was so quiet.’
He smiled and rested his hand on the banister. ‘That’s true, that definitely wouldn’t be the case if he was awake.’ He gestured to the pram. ‘What do you think? Feel free to push it around if you want.’
Diana took the pram and pushed it down the hallway, glancing into the living room as she walked past the door. There was no-one in there, but she noticed a series of photo frames on the mantelpiece. They were too far away for her to focus on the faces, so she turned her attention back to the pram. It did look like hers, but her pram wasn’t the only one of that brand that had a blue pouch underneath. There must have been hundreds, maybe even thousands of people with the exact same pram in Sydney. And yes, the man did fit the image of the man from the CCTV footage, but tall brown-haired men weren’t rare. She desperately wanted to see a photo of the child.
‘Sorry to trouble you, but do you mind if I have a glass of water?’ she asked. ‘It’s so hot out there and I stupidly forgot to bring a water bottle with me.’
‘Of course, follow me. The kitchen’s just through here.’ The man led Diana through the doorway of the living room. She stayed there while he walked on to the kitchen, which was at the opposite end of the open-plan room. As he filled a glass for her, Diana scanned the faces in the photo frames on the mantelpiece. One photo jumped out at her: a small brown-haired child, with thick curls and a dimple in his right cheek. The photo looked more like Noah than any of the photos she had collected of young brown-haired boys over the years. All except for the boy in the department store. Was it the same child? Those eyes; it had to be him. Diana was his mother; every instinct screamed at her that this was her son. She took a sharp intake of breath as the man appeared next to her, holding her glass of water.
‘Here you are,’ he said as he handed her the glass.
Diana looked down at the glass, then up at the man. She searched his face for a sign that this benign-looking man could be the one who kidnapped her son.
‘Do you have any use for this?’ the man asked as he walked over to the pram and reached into the pouch underneath. He pulled out a blue-and-white striped baby bag, the type used to store nappies and bottles. ‘I forgot we had it; my wife uses a different one. I just came across it when I was up in the attic the other day. I don’t think it’s ever been used.’
‘I’ve got to go.’ Diana set her glass of water on the coffee table with trembling hands and backed out of the living room. ‘Thanks for the water, but I’ve just remembered that I’m meant to be somewhere.’
‘Wait, what about the pram?’ the man called after her. ‘Do you still want it?’
‘I . . . I’ll think about it,’ she called as she fumbled with the front door. ‘Thanks for your time.’
She ran down the street towards her car and as soon as she was seated, with the door closed behind her, she called Sergeant Thomas’s direct line. ‘I’ve found him! I’ve found the man who took Noah. He had my baby bag, the one that was taken with Noah’s pram. He fits the description you came up with and the pram is identical. Please, you have to look into this straightaway.’
Diana could hear Sergeant Thomas’s sigh through the phone. ‘You said you weren’t going to do this any more.’
‘Forget what I said, this is him, it’s Noah!’ She stared at the front door, which was visible from her car, and felt her pulse racing as panic took hold of her. She shouldn’t have run off like that; what if the man realised who she was and left with Noah before the police could arrive?
‘Diana, please calm down,’ Sergeant Thomas said. ‘Now, tell me who this man is.’
She explained everything as clearly as she could through her excitement. There was a moment of silence after she finished and Diana worried t
hat Sergeant Thomas was going to dismiss her, but then he spoke. ‘I’ll check this out for you, but will you promise me this is the last time? You shouldn’t be out scrutinising strangers like this. And if this is him, then it’s not safe for you to go to his house alone. He could be dangerous.’
She thanked Sergeant Thomas and relayed the eBay account and address details to him. He agreed to call her as soon as they had investigated it.
• • •
For the next two days, Diana didn’t leave the house. She tried to distract herself with housework, cleaning months of dust from underneath furniture and on top of shelves where it had accumulated as a thick, woolly layer. She cleaned windows until they gleamed and reflected a desperate-eyed woman staring back at her. She watched inane programs on television without bothering to follow the plots. Mostly, she sat staring at the phone, willing it to ring with news of Noah.
On the second day after her conversation with Sergeant Thomas, the phone rang as she was pulling a load of clothes out of the washing machine. She let the clothes fall to the floor as she ran to answer it.
‘Diana? It’s Sergeant Thomas.’
‘Was it him?’
There was a pause on the other end of the phone and then Sergeant Thomas spoke again. ‘I hadn’t told you this yet, because I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but we’ve been following a lead for the past few weeks, based on a report from a hospital that there was a discrepancy with a child’s medical records. You wouldn’t believe it, but it turns out it’s the same child you enquired about.’
She clutched the phone tighter. ‘What does that mean? What are you telling me?’
‘Diana, it’s Noah. We’ve looked into it and we know that for sure now. We have him; we have your son.’
Diana felt the world stop turning. She tried to remember how to make her mouth form words. ‘It’s him? You’re sure?’
‘We’re sure. We found out the man you met had a prior criminal conviction, and the details in his criminal record matched the details we’ve pulled together during our investigation. When my officers went to check him out, they confirmed it was the guy we’ve been looking for.’
Diana sank to the floor, still clutching the phone to her ear. ‘Oh my God. You have him? And you have Noah? Where is he?’
She could hear the smile in Sergeant Thomas’s voice. ‘He’s at the hospital getting checked out.’
She sat up straight, alert. ‘What happened? Was he hurt?’
‘No, he seems absolutely fine, it’s standard procedure to do a medical and psychological assessment for this type of situation. There’s a process we need to go through before we can release him – mainly legal stuff – but I’ll drop him over as soon as I can.’
‘When will that be?’ Diana asked.
‘Shouldn’t take too long. Later this afternoon, most likely. You’ll have your son back with you before you know it.’
Diana’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely hang up the phone. She stared at the front door, overcome with a mixture of disbelief and rapture. After six hundred and thirty-eight days of hell she had only hours to wait before her son, her baby, would come through that door, back home to her.
15
CATRIONA
Saturday, 1 February 2014
Catriona and James had decided they wanted to throw a party for Sebastian’s second birthday. Partly because they knew Sebastian would enjoy celebrating his birthday with his friends, but also because it was James’s fortieth birthday a week later. They had it all planned: they would have a lunchtime party for Sebastian with his day-care friends and then, after the kids went home and Sebastian was asleep, exhausted from the onslaught of food and presents, they would put on a barbecue dinner for James, a party for grown-ups.
They had been planning the joint birthday celebration for a month. The invitations were out, the jumping castle had been ordered and the menu had been finalised. Fairy bread, finger sandwiches, mini meat pies and sausage rolls for Sebastian’s party; pig on the spit, sausages and steak with salads and plenty of alcohol for James’s party.
The only person on the guest list who had caused some conflict between Catriona and James was Spencer. After what ended up being two months staying with them, Spencer found a job as a groundskeeper for the Auburn Botanic Gardens, nine hectares of parks and gardens in Sydney’s west. He said the role suited him perfectly because they didn’t ask questions about his criminal record and he got to spend his days outside in the sunshine, a luxury he had sorely missed during his years of imprisonment. It appeared that Spencer had remained true to his word that he would stay on the right side of the law this time; no more schemes, no more law-breaking. Given his turnaround, and the way Spencer had behaved while he was staying with them, Catriona would have happily invited him to Sebastian and James’s party. It was his new girlfriend she didn’t like.
Not long after he moved out of Catriona and James’s home and into a small apartment in the western suburbs of Sydney, near the botanic gardens, Spencer met a girl named Jessica. Jess. She was the type of woman Catriona despised; a clingy, demanding and dependent partner who seemed to rely on Spencer to dictate her mood and make all of her decisions, even if the decision was as minor as what to order from the menu at a restaurant. It got to the point where even her appearance annoyed Catriona. Jess was in her mid twenties, but she dressed like a teenager in short skirts, tight pants and sheer tops. Catriona never felt that she dressed conservatively but she did dress her age, and next to Jess she felt like a veritable grandmother.
Not surprisingly Jess, who had quickly moved in with Spencer, didn’t seem to bother James, and he had tried to force a relationship between Catriona and Jess by organising a series of dinner parties, restaurant outings and barbecues. But the more time Catriona spent with Jess the less she liked her, and James had eventually given up. That was until James insisted that Spencer and Jess should both be invited to his birthday party.
‘He’s my best mate,’ James said. ‘Do you really expect me not to invite him?’
‘You can invite him,’ Catriona said. ‘I’m happy for Spencer to come. It’s her I have the problem with. Can you imagine what she’d wear to Sebastian’s party? She’ll look like a prostitute. My friends will be thrilled with her parading around in front of their husbands.’
James let out an animated groan. ‘She’s not that bad. Honestly, the way you talk about her you’d think she doesn’t wear any clothes at all. She’s still in her twenties, give her a break.’
‘Yeah, and that’s the other thing,’ Catriona said. ‘How do you think people will react to seeing a forty-year-old man with a girl in her twenties? It’s pathetic, that’s what. He’s a stereotype for a man going through a mid-life crisis.’
‘Leave him alone, he deserves a bit of happiness.’
‘Yeah, well, he’s definitely found himself a bit of something.’
Catriona ended their argument as Sebastian toddled into the kitchen. Upon seeing his mother he sped up his pace and hurtled himself against her knees, laughing hysterically. Catriona picked him up, balanced him on her hip and shot a final comment to James as she started to prepare Sebastian’s lunch.
‘Well, don’t expect me to talk to her at the party. She can come, but I’m not going to talk to her and neither are any of my friends. She’ll just have to entertain herself.’
James rolled his eyes. ‘That’s really mature of you. Aren’t you about thirty years too old to be giving someone the silent treatment? Are you going to get someone to pass her a mean note at recess as well?’
Catriona thought about what James had said while she cut the crusts off Sebastian’s sandwich. With an audible sigh she acknowledged to herself that he was right, she was acting like a little girl, but she couldn’t bear to be in the same room as Jess. She had no idea what Spencer saw in her, apart from the obvious physical attraction. But even that bothered her. Why was it that men never stop desiring young girls? She would look like a fool if she dated a
twenty-something boy, but men seemed to be able to get away with it. The double standard was infuriating.
Sebastian broke Catriona out of her reverie by tugging at her sleeve and pointing at the sandwich and apple she was holding just out of his reach.
‘Sorry, honey,’ she said, carrying him to the table and placing the plate in front of him.
As he ate they performed their usual routine, during which Sebastian bombarded her with questions about everything in their living room. He had only a smattering of words and phrases in his repertoire so far, but ‘What’s that?’ was a well-used one. Catriona liked that he was inquisitive, but there were only so many times she could explain what a vase was before she lost her patience.
‘What’s that?’ Sebastian pointed at a tall lamp behind the couch.
‘It’s a lamp. It helps us to see when it’s dark.’
Sebastian cast his gaze around the room before settling on a silver frame containing a photo of Catriona’s parents. ‘What’s that?’
‘Who’s that?’ Catriona corrected. ‘That’s your Nanna and Pa. You know them. You’ll see them again at your birthday party.’
Satisfied with the response, he turned his attention to his lunch instead. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s an apple, you know that. Stop stalling and eat your lunch.’
Sebastian rewarded her with a toothy grin before shovelling a piece of apple into his mouth. Catriona sighed and ran her hands through Sebastian’s hair, which made one of his curls stand on end. She adored him, but he drove her crazy with his noise and relentless questions. She sometimes found herself longing for the calm and quiet of the life she and James had before Sebastian. It seemed a distant memory.
• • •
The morning of Sebastian and James’s joint birthday party brought with it an unwelcome surprise. When Catriona climbed out of bed, parted the curtains and looked out the window she could see an infinite stretch of dark grey clouds. It was an ominous sign on what was supposed to be a day of celebration. They had set up a small marquee in the backyard the night before in anticipation of the less-than-desirable weather that had been forecast, but if the rain was heavy enough that it collected in the roof of the marquee then it was likely to collapse on them all.
Claiming Noah Page 16
