by Adam Croft
I ponder this and many other things, but nothing seems to help. There’s nothing that will bring Ellie back other than looking for her and I can’t even do that. All I can do is lie here and feel shit and sorry for myself. Because it’s my fault. I was the one who left her in that car. Tasha’s right. She’s always right. If I’d just taken her back inside with me, or even manned the fuck up and told her she could take the picture in tomorrow, we’d all be sitting around the dinner table right now talking about our days. As it is, I haven’t eaten since breakfast, the dining room’s in darkness and Miss Williams still hasn’t got her picture.
I’m not too bad with technology, but it does get in the way of real life sometimes. The text messages and phone calls are endless, with friends and family phoning one after another. I appreciate their support and want to get the word out about Ellie as much as we possibly can, but no-one’s come round to the house. No-one actually wants to do anything more than fire off a quick pseudo-supportive text. The most depressing fact is that most of them probably found out through Facebook.
I’ve become quite adept at cancelling the calls that come through from numbers I recognise. I’ve changed my voicemail message to say that I’m passing calls from friends and family to voicemail as I need to keep the line free in case the police call. This is partially true, but I also don’t want to speak to anyone right now.
A few have taken to emailing me instead. My iPhone’s email icon has a red blob telling me I’ve got nineteen unread emails. I can’t cope. I can’t keep up. Messages of support are all well and good, but the only message I want is one that tells me Ellie has been found safe and well and is on her way home.
As I’m looking at it, the phone pings like a hotel reception bell and the number changes to twenty. The alert message at the top of the screen shows that the new email’s subject line is Ellie, but the name is one I don’t recognise: Jen Hood.
Must be another friend of Tasha’s, I think, but then why would she be emailing me? I haven’t opened any of the other emails, but then I know who they’re from and I can almost guess word for word what they’re going to say.
There’s no way in hell I could have guessed what this email from Jen Hood says, though. I open it and read it three times, just to be sure my mind isn’t playing tricks on me.
ELLIE IS SAFE. YOU CAN HAVE HER BACK AFTER YOU KILL YOUR WIFE.
13
Nick
I must have read that email a hundred times over the past few minutes. I’ve stared at every word, every letter, willing them to say something different. I’ve looked for the deliberate joke, the typo, the sign that it might have been sent to the wrong person.
Perhaps it’s been sent to the right person, but it’s just a bad joke. I’m sure I heard somewhere that this happens in cases like this. Troublemakers – trolls, they call them – like to prey on people when they’re at their lowest ebb.
I look for signs of some sort of mistake. There’s nothing. Maybe this really is an email from someone who wants me to kill my wife to get my daughter back. But why? What the hell can Tasha have done for someone to want her dead? It makes no sense.
Is there some ex-lover I don’t know about? Someone she’s shafted at work? Both are perfectly plausible in Tasha’s case, but she tends to upset people through her self-centred ignorance as opposed to any sort of deliberate malice. For someone to want her dead, she has to have done something pretty serious. But if someone wanted her dead that much, why not do it themselves? Is this some way of getting at me? In order for any of this to make any sense, I need to find out who this person is.
I march into my office and flip the lid up on my MacBook. Fortunately, it starts up about ten seconds after I press the power button, and twenty seconds after that I’m staring at the Facebook login screen.
I’ve only ever used Facebook about five times in my life, so I struggle to remember my username and password, but I’m lucky on the third attempt and I’m greeted by a newsfeed showing me pictures of my own daughter, shared by family and friends from around the country. I try not to look at the photos and instead click the ‘Search’ bar at the top of the page and type in Jen Hood.
There are so many results, I don’t know where to start. There are Jens, Jennys and Jennifers. There are women with Hood as their married name and some with it listed as their maiden name. There are even some Jens who live in towns called Hood or work for companies or went to schools called Hood. Most are from America, but there are a couple in Scotland, Ireland and even France.
None of them are friends with Tasha, or even have any mutual friends with me whatsoever. This person is a complete stranger.
I pick up my phone and go to start calling the police. But I stop. I need to get things into perspective. There are some fucking sick people in the world. People who prey on the families of victims, trying to wind them up. Trolls. Finding my email address online probably isn’t difficult, so someone’s clearly found it and decided to try and get kicks out of our despair. If that’s what this is, do I really want to have the police wasting time tracking down a fifteen-year-old keyboard warrior instead of finding the person who kidnapped my daughter?
I need to make a judgement call. I’m ninety-five percent certain that this is some sick bastard trying to wind us up. And if that’s the case, I want to mete out my own brand of justice. Never mind a caution from the police; people like this deserve to feel exactly how they make their targets feel. For that, though, I need to play along and get closer to this Jen Hood person.
I look back at Facebook. Where do I start? I can’t just send them all messages saying Did you kidnap my daughter? I grab my phone and look at the email again. It’s come from a Gmail address: [email protected]. No clues whatsoever as to where the person lives.
Once again, that same feeling hits me: the feeling of not knowing. Someone has sent me this email and I don’t have a clue who it could be. Is Jen Hood even her real name? Could she be one of the women staring out at me from my MacBook screen right now? If so, who? Does she actually have Ellie or is this some sort of cruel trick?
No. I’m still sure it’s a trick. I remember from reading some crime thrillers that a problem police often have is weeding out the cranks from the real information and clues they get. There’s a whole subsection of society that gets its kicks from trying to interfere in police investigations and sending idiotic letters and messages claiming to be responsible. It’s all part of the desire to be seen as powerful and in control. It’s a psychological disorder, and a dangerous one, too.
I vaguely recall reading about the investigation into the Yorkshire Ripper in the seventies. After ten women had died, the police received letters and phone calls from someone with a Wearside accent claiming he was the Ripper. The police took it seriously and focused their search on Wearside. In the meantime, the real Yorkshire Ripper carried on and killed three more women.
In a way, I hope that’s what this is. It would be the sickest possible prank to play, but at least it would mean that its contents weren’t real. Though, as much as I try to deny it, something about the message seems all too real. I don’t know if it’s a sixth sense or what, but I can almost feel the sincerity and determination behind those words. But that leads me to one enormous question: Why?
Tasha’s not the most likeable person in the world, but I can’t see anyone actively wanting her dead. She’s not purposely vindictive. She’s just . . . clueless. She only thinks of herself. I rack my brains, trying to think of a time she might have done or said something that would make someone want to kill her. If she did, the person would have to be completely mentally unhinged to make that sort of leap. You hear about it all the time, though, don’t you? Psychopaths who take one word the wrong way, or think someone is the devil incarnate. They think they’re doing the world a favour. Is that what this is? Or does Tasha have some huge secret in her past that I don’t know about? I doubt it, but right now I can’t discount the possibility.
Presuming it is re
al, what can I do? Sure, I can go to the police with it, but then it’d either be taken seriously or treated as a potential hoax. If it’s the former, what can they do? Odds are it will have been sent from an internet café or some sort of anonymous server. And if they’re just going to treat it as a hoax, I can do that myself. Overall, though, I don’t want to take any police resources away from finding Ellie. Deep down, I know that there’s another reason why I don’t want to alert the police to the email just yet, but that’s not something I’m willing to entertain.
No. I need to find out more about this person, lead them into a trap and discover who the hell thinks this sort of shit is funny. And if it’s something I’m going to need to go to the police about, I need more information first. I need to make sure this isn’t a hoax.
I do the only thing I can do. I hit ‘Reply’ and start typing.
I delete my words so many times, I can’t even remember what I’ve written before. By the time I’ve finished it’s boiled down to just three words, which I look at again before pressing ‘Send’.
Who are you?
14
Tasha
I’ve been up all night worrying. I knew I would be. The warning signs are all there from before: the breathlessness, the constant dark thoughts, the unshakeable desire to hide away from it all.
There’s nothing I can do. Nothing. It’s self-perpetuating. My cognitive behavioural therapist reckoned it was to do with a perceived lack of control. He taught me to try to accept that some things are out of my control. And I can, to an extent. I no longer get anxious in traffic jams and I don’t flip out so much when my computer crashes. But there’s no way I can just let this go. Not knowing where Ellie is, whether she’s safe. Knowing that I could have been in control. I could have not gone to that conference. I could have stayed at home and been there.
The last time I felt so completely desolate was about a year before Ellie was born. We’d tried conceiving naturally, we’d tried IVF and we were left with nothing. I can’t describe what that felt like. To know I’d probably never carry my own child was devastating. Most women take it for granted. Many spend their young adult lives trying to avoid it. But for me, my whole life ended when I found out that I couldn’t have a child of my own. It was yet another thing I couldn’t control. Something I couldn’t predict or influence.
It’s the only time in my life I’ve taken more than a day or two off work. I couldn’t face the world. I couldn’t even open my front door. My friend Emma recommended that I see one of the GPs at the practice where she works. Nick and I had been seeing a GP there for a little while with regards to the IVF and trouble conceiving, but after the failed IVF Emma recommended we see Dr Mirza. Working on reception, Emma was able to ensure we could get an appointment that suited us and she confided in us that Dr Mirza had had a similar history herself, which might make her the ideal doctor to speak to.
I can still remember walking into the waiting room that afternoon, which is bizarre as everything else from that time feels like an indistinct blur – images crossing over and merging into one another, nothing clear or distinct. I remember Emma’s professionalism as she marked me in and told me to sit down in the waiting area. I remember the benevolent smile on Dr Mirza’s face as she welcomed me into her room and sat me down beside her desk. And I remember it all coming out, a jumble of words, thoughts and feelings, watching Dr Mirza’s brow furrowing as she smiled and nodded – a gesture she’d no doubt practised a thousand times before.
She recommended counselling, told me they worked in partnership with a very good service that helped couples who were struggling to deal with being unable to have children. She told us we could adopt – every bloody person we spoke to told us we could adopt, as if it had never crossed our minds. I told her we didn’t want to adopt. I told her I didn’t want to speak to any counsellors. I didn’t want to speak to anyone full stop. I wanted to hide and forget.
She prescribed me fluoxetine and temazepam. The temazepam was to help me sleep, and I later discovered that fluoxetine is better known as Prozac. I still remember the words she used, though. She said it was an SSRI, to take the edge off of things. At the time, I didn’t care. Most of me wanted to curl up and die, and another part just wished everything would go away. Taking the edge off would be a good start. I was back at work not long after, the medication helping me to at least function. That was all it did do, though. I certainly didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel anything much. And then four months later I discovered I was pregnant. Eighteen weeks and three days later, to be precise. I took five tests – a second one straight away, and then three on each consecutive day thereafter. I had to be sure. We’d waited so long.
I took my last dose of fluoxetine a few hours before that first positive pregnancy test. I’d been cycling on and off of temazepam as and when it was needed, and that also stopped the moment I knew I was pregnant. I was going to do nothing to put this baby’s life at risk. I didn’t need chemical stimulation to get me through the day. Excitement and pregnancy hormones more than got me through.
Last night, I contacted Emma. She said she would book me an appointment to see Dr Mirza, but that she was out on house calls in the morning. I told Emma a house call would be best – I need to stay at home in case Ellie comes back. Even the thought of leaving the house at the moment frightens me. Sitting in a waiting room full of people, watching the clock tick by, is completely unthinkable.
I jump as I hear the car door close and I get up to look out of the window. I see Dr Mirza walking up the driveway. I go to the door to meet her, and ask her to come through to the living room. As soon as she asks me what the problem is, I break down and it all comes out. A long, rambling string of words that don’t even make any sense. It’s like history being repeated all over again, Dr Mirza’s brow furrowing as my eyes mist over with tears, not even hearing my own words.
She asks me how long Ellie’s been missing, what the police are doing, how Nick’s coping with it all. I answer all of her questions as best as I can. The fact of the matter is that everything is blurred. My whole concept of time is gone. I don’t know what the police are doing. I don’t know how Nick’s coping with it all. These are all things I should know. I’m super-organised, super-efficient, a supermum. And today I’m far from being any of those three things. For all I know, I might not even be a mum any more.
This thought has me panicking, my heart racing as I start to hyperventilate. Dr Mirza tries her best to calm me down. ‘I know there’s nothing you can do, but I can’t sleep,’ I tell her. ‘I can’t think straight, I can’t eat. I can’t function.’
She prescribes me diazepam and tells me a district nurse will be round later to deliver my prescription. Even in the state of mind I’m in now, I know this isn’t something they usually do. Doctors are very pushed for time and can’t always do home visits, never mind get medication delivered to you the same day. I can’t help but think that perhaps Dr Mirza’s own past experiences might have influenced her decision. I don’t make out that I know anything – I never have – and I tell her I’m incredibly grateful to her. This sets me off again. I try to steady myself, knowing that the medication will start to take the edge off of things. Knowing that there’s someone there to help me get through this. After all, the one person I should be able to rely on seems to be falling apart himself.
15
Nick
I barely slept a wink throughout the night, and the worrying got even worse. Ellie’s been missing for almost twenty-four hours now, but it feels like so much longer. Once Tasha had come home and the police had called off the search for the night, the sheer panic reached its apex.
Not only was she still missing with no-one out looking for her, but it was dark and cold and we had no idea where she was or if she was safe. Bizarrely, the only thing that kept me vaguely sane was the ransom note I’d had earlier in the evening. At least if I convinced myself it was genuine then it meant Ellie was alive and safe. The fact that I’ve not had a re
sponse yet is starting to worry me, though.
We had all the usual lines from the police. The vast majority of missing people return home safe and sound within forty-eight hours, if not twenty-four. If I had a pound for every time I’d heard that since yesterday, I’d be a millionaire.
We’ve had an officer camped out on our doorstep all night. We’re not quite sure why. The official police line is that they want to protect us from any undue media attention. In my paranoid state, I’m convinced they want to keep an eye on us. I’ve read enough crime books to know that close family are always the first to come under suspicion. Statistically speaking, they’re the most likely to be guilty.
The local BBC radio stations are running the story on their news bulletins, and Tasha’s Facebook status has been shared almost a thousand times. There are huge great posters of Ellie being put up around the neighbourhood. It’s both comforting and oddly disconcerting. By now, everyone in the town and the area is more than aware of Ellie and still no-one has seen her. That’s both a worry and a reassurance, in that it means she’s probably not in the area and that she’s probably with someone. Again, it’s the not knowing who that’s the problem.
Tasha’s downstairs on the phone to her parents, and the police are out doing their door-to-door enquiries while I sit here on the bed, not knowing what to do. That’s the worst part of it.
My phone vibrates on the bedside table and my heart stops as I see the words on the notification.
Jen Hood
Re: Ellie
I unlock my phone and jab the email icon. It seems to take an age to load, but I finally open the email and read the message.
Hope young copper stood outside your house isn’t there for ‘protection’.
