by Jane Holland
Camilla spots the tiny movement and stares too, then exclaims, ‘Oh no! Did you spill something on your dress?’
There is a dark spreading stain on my right breast. It must be over four hours since he was fed.
I stand up, guilty and stirred by some age-old need to return to my child. ‘Harry,’ I murmur, looking back at the house.
Camilla is horrified. ‘Is that . . . milk? How disgusting.’
‘Camilla!’
I look back quickly. Treve is staring at his wife. She shrugs and turns away, making a face. Too much wine, I think, and try not to be offended.
‘I’d better go in and feed him.’ I fold my arms across my breasts, though it’s uncomfortable to do so.
I force myself to smile at Camilla. Jon is always urging me to be more polite to our friends. ‘Would you like to come too, Camilla?’
To my relief, Camilla grimaces. ‘Not really my thing, babies.’ Then she goes back to what she was saying before, which is explaining to Simon how flexible she was in sixth form, while her husband watches from across the table.
Treve looks sleepy, but his hand on the table top is curled into a fist.
I cannot tell if he is annoyed that his wife is flirting with another man, or merely checking that she does not make a fool of herself. Nor do I care. My mind is entirely focused on my son and his needs.
Back inside the quiet house, I tiptoe upstairs.
It’s dark on the landing. I grope for the light and switch it on.
To my surprise, Harry’s door has been left slightly ajar. I stand outside the nursery, head tilted to listen, but cannot hear any sounds from within.
I push the door to the nursery open and peer inside the darkened room.
‘Harry?’
The cot is empty. The room is silent.
Harry has gone.
Chapter Six
I burst out through the back door and into the garden. I’ve lost one of my heels; I’m limping, and under my bare sole is the damp, slightly prickly feel of dewy grass. It’s almost night now; the stars are beginning to come out, though it’s hard to see them with the faint city glow.
In my mind’s eye is the empty cot. The covers, rumpled, still warm from his body. The faint depression from an absent head, a strand of hair left behind on his blue flannel sheet.
Part of me is still hoping it’s a mistake. That I will find him outside, cradled in his father’s arms, perhaps, or peering up at Simon or Camilla with his big blue eyes.
I know there would be no logic in finding him out here, but my brain is so desperate for him to be delivered back to me, it tries to defy the facts, to return everything to the default setting. Which is Harry safe and well, wide awake, ready for his feed and his medicine. Or maybe Harry weeping and griping, his cheeks flushed, his high-pitched voice raised in protest at the emptiness of his stomach.
Harry is not here though. His father’s arms are as empty as mine, and there is no sign of a baby at the dinner table or anywhere in the darkening garden.
Jon has turned his head to stare at me. The others look round too, their expressions surprised, even shocked. Camilla is smiling incredulously.
That’s when I realise that I’ve been shouting.
‘He’s gone.’
I hear the words from a great distance, as though someone else is saying them. I’m panting like a sprinter at the end of a race. My gaze is fixed on my husband’s face as my chest heaves. I must look wild, almost insane.
‘He’s gone,’ I repeat stupidly, all other ideas temporarily lost to me. ‘He’s not there, Jon, he’s gone.’
They stare at me. Their baffled silence makes me want to scream and tear at my hair. But what good would hysteria do?
Camilla frowns. ‘What are you talking about?’
I force the sickness down, and concentrate on my husband’s face. It is important to be clear. Our child’s life could depend on it.
‘Harry.’
As soon as I say his name, my voice does not sound like my own anymore. Perhaps because I cannot connect my words with the reality of my life.
‘I went up to feed him but he wasn’t there. He’s not in his cot.’
‘What? ’ Jon is on his feet now.
‘I don’t think he’s even in the house.’
He looks into my face, frowning heavily, as if he’s in court, gauging the veracity of what someone is saying. Then he hurries past me into the house.
Standing up, Simon starts after him. He pauses beside me. ‘You’re sure he’s definitely gone?’
‘Of course.’
His lawyer voice too, sharp and incisive. ‘Did you search everywhere?’
‘No, but—’
‘So you could be wrong?’
‘I’m telling you, he’s not there.’
He glances back at the other two: Treve, on his feet now, downing the last of his coffee; Camilla, still in her seat, staring at us with a frozen expression on her face.
‘Right, we’d better form a search party. Just to be on the safe side. Treve, Camilla, you check the gardens. Front and back. I’ll do a sweep of the downstairs.’ Simon hesitates, looking at me. ‘I was going to suggest you search the upstairs rooms with Jon, but you don’t look too good. Are you okay, Meghan?’
‘Where is he?’ I ask helplessly. ‘Where’s my little boy?’
‘I don’t know, but we’d better make sure he’s not in the house. That’s the first order of business. Then we’ll have to call the police and get a proper search organised. If Jon hasn’t already called them, that is.’
Call the police and get a proper search organised.
I say nothing, but I remember the newspaper report and feel sick.
The Cornish Snatcher.
I think of those missing babies. Their frantic parents. The general bafflement of the police. I’m still hoping it’s a mistake.
There must be another explanation. Maybe I didn’t look in the cot properly. It’s just possible, isn’t it? Perhaps Harry was crying and wriggled down inside the covers, and I just didn’t see him when I glanced in. It sounds unlikely. But it’s less fantastical than assuming that my child has been stolen by the Cornish Snatcher. That’s like thinking the bogeyman took him. And yet those missing babies are real. They were taken, and have not yet been found.
And now Harry is gone too.
I imagine Jon coming out into the garden with our baby, laughing at me for being such a fool. But a part of me knows that is not going to happen.
Simon disappears into the house. I see my shoe on the grass near the back door. It looks so forlorn, abandoned, lying there on its side. Like an open mouth, gaping with tragedy. I limp towards it over the damp grass, and bend over to pick up the shoe. Light-headed, I feel myself overbalance.
Treve catches me by the shoulders, brings me upright again, steadies me. ‘It’s going to be fine, Meghan. You hear me?’
I nod, but in a perfunctory manner. I can’t speak anymore. I can’t meet anyone’s gaze. I can’t even focus on what’s happening around me.
He glances back at Camilla, who is still sitting motionless at the dinner table. ‘Jesus wept.’ I’ve never heard him blaspheme before and it shocks me vaguely, even though I am not religious. But from him, it sounds like an explosion. ‘Help Meghan, would you? She needs to sit down. Maybe have something hot and sweet for the shock. I have to search out here for the baby. If you won’t come with me, then at least make yourself useful.’
Camilla sounds resentful. ‘Why on earth are you searching the garden? He’s only seven months old. He can hardly have crawled downstairs and out the back door under his own steam.’
‘Camilla!’
‘Well, it’s ridiculous.’ But she leaves her half-empty glass of wine and comes over to us. I don’t resist when she puts an arm around my shoulder. ‘Anyway, it’s almost dark, you won’t be able to see anything.’
‘There’s a torch,’ I say, ‘hanging from a hook behind the back door.’
Treve n
ods, and goes to fetch the torch.
‘All right, then.’ Camilla’s tone is cajoling and a little world-weary, as though she does not believe any of this is worth her time. ‘Come inside, and I’ll make you some tea. Though, frankly, I’m sure someone’s just playing a trick on you.’
‘Who would play a trick like this?’
She shrugs.
‘Wait,’ I say faintly.
I struggle to put my shoe back on, then walk slowly with Camilla back into the kitchen. Treve is already swinging the torch beam around the garden, parting shrubs with his foot, and bending to search along the dark paths, as though hunting for clues rather than a baby. It’s good of him to make the effort, but Camilla is right. Harry is not going to be in the garden. He’s not going to be in the house either.
WHO SNATCHED BABY TOM?
What if I’m right and this is another baby abduction like the ones in the newspaper report?
Again, I stop myself from pursuing that thought.
It’s too terrifying.
I wander into the kitchen, shaking violently. I wish Emily had not gone. I don’t know her very well, but she has such kind eyes.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Camilla says, and suddenly I am grateful that she is there at least. That I am not alone.
Jon comes downstairs at a run, and I hurry to meet him, thinking it’s over, that he’s found our baby. But he stops at the bottom, staring at me. His eyes are wide and blank. ‘Not there,’ he says shortly. ‘I emptied the cot. Even looked underneath and down the sides in case he had somehow . . .’
‘But where is he? How is it possible that . . .’
His voice is bitter. ‘I don’t bloody know. All I know is that he’s gone.’
Simon comes out of the lounge. His face looks very sombre. ‘The front door wasn’t locked,’ he says quietly. ‘I checked. First thing I did. It was left on the latch.’
He looks at Jon, then away again, as though uncomfortable at being the bearer of bad tidings.
I stare at them both, piecing together what he is insinuating. ‘But I always lock the door. I’m sure it was locked. I . . . I locked it after Emily left. I made a point of . . .’
Simon shakes his head.
My mouth is having trouble forming words properly. ‘You mean, while we were out there . . . having coffee . . .’
I’m slurring my words like I’m drunk. Am I drunk? No, I haven’t been drinking. It’s the shock, that’s all. The shock of losing my baby.
He is nodding. ‘Anyone could have walked in off the street, taken Harry out of his cot, and left the same way without us even being aware of it.’
I feel physically sick. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Hey, come here.’ Simon puts an arm around me, hugging me close. ‘It’s okay, it’s not your fault.’
I gaze at Jon, longing for some physical comfort from my husband, something to reassure me that things are not as bad as they seem, but he’s not looking at me anymore. His face is abstracted. He’s gone inside his head to find a solution, I realise. To work the problem. Like it’s a puzzle he could solve if only he can figure out how all the pieces fit together.
Treve comes in from the garden. His shoes are damp from the grass. ‘No sign.’ He looks grim. His gaze seeks out Jon’s. ‘You’ve run out of options, mate. Next step, ring the police. Let them take over.’
Jon nods.
‘But where is he?’ I ask nobody in particular. I simply can’t believe what is happening to us. I’m caught in a nightmare, and I keep wishing I could wake up. That it will all turn out to be a bad dream. ‘Where is Harry? I don’t understand.’
‘The police will sort it out,’ Treve reassures me.
The police.
I fumble for the phone handset and nearly drop it. Jon takes it away from me. ‘Go and sit in the lounge,’ he tells me firmly. ‘I’ll ring the police.’
‘I want to hear what you’re going to tell them.’
‘You know what I’m going to tell them.’
‘No, I don’t.’ I try to snatch the phone back, suddenly frightened. ‘I need to do it. You won’t say it right.’
He looks at Simon, who steers me away.
‘Sorry, so sorry.’ I’m babbling but can’t seem to get myself under control. I look up at the man who’s trying to get me into the lounge while I’m trying equally hard to stay in the hall. ‘I’m sorry, Simon.’
My husband sits down on the first stair. His face is pale but determined. ‘Meghan, I want you to go and drink . . . I don’t know, some brandy. Something to calm you down.’
He starts to punch the number keys. Three numbers only.
I say, ‘No.’
‘Let me do this,’ he insists, not looking at me.
‘But what will you say?’
‘That while we were having dinner outside in the garden, our seven-month-old baby son disappeared from his cot upstairs.’ He listens to the ringtone. His tone is heavy, curt, bordering on the dismissive. ‘That’s all I can tell the police, Meghan. Because that’s all I know.’
Chapter Seven
The space between Jon’s calm, level-toned call to the police and the arrival of the first car with its blue flashing light is only about ten minutes. Yet it feels much longer in my head. It’s as though an eternity has passed while I sit in our lounge, flanked by Simon, who insists on holding my hand – largely to stop me getting up again, I begin to suspect – and Camilla, who has helped herself to a large glass of brandy too and collapsed on the sofa beside me.
Treve has been standing by the window, watching. ‘They’re here,’ he says flatly, and leaves the room.
Everything seems to happen in slow motion from that point. Perhaps it’s the blue strobe effect of the light from outside, flashing off the walls of neighbouring houses, that makes it feel so strange. But when I get up and stare out of the window, I see Jon and Treve approaching the police. They seem to walk jerkily, like the marionettes in Thunderbirds, and I hear their voices echoing along the street but cannot catch a word they are saying. Except that I keep hearing my own name.
Meghan.
I wonder what the neighbours are thinking. I see a few curtains twitching.
‘I can’t stand this,’ I mutter.
I want to go outside too, to hear what the men are saying to the police, but when I go to the lounge door, Simon touches my arm. ‘Better wait here,’ he says, and I hear Camilla mutter an agreement from the sofa. ‘Come back and sit down. Let the police come to you.’
‘But I need to talk to them. To give them a statement. Don’t you see? I need to do something. I can’t just sit around . . .’
The door to the lounge opens, and it’s Jon. He’s accompanied by a well-built man who looks to be in his thirties, tall and clean-shaven, his face very earnest. One of the police, I presume. As he turns towards me, I see he has a scar on his left cheek, running from his eye to the corner of his mouth. It’s deep but old, not a recent injury, fading to silver. I wonder how he got it.
The officer smiles. ‘You must be Meghan.’
I break away from Simon at once. ‘Yes, that’s me. I’m Harry’s mother.’ I’m talking too quickly again and try to slow myself down. ‘Have you . . . found him?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
I stare at the policeman, and feel despair at those words. A despair that drowns me in a sea of hopelessness, that leaves me no hope of reprieve.
He comes further into the room. ‘Perhaps you’d better sit down.’
‘I don’t want to sit down,’ I tell him defiantly, though my legs are unsteady. ‘I want to find my son. I want him back.’ I blink away tears. ‘I want an explanation.’
Another police officer comes in after him. A woman this time. She’s about my age, blonde and very slender. Dressed severely in black, with one of those hourglass figures men seem to love. The policeman nods to her, almost imperceptibly, and she comes towards me, smiling, holding out her hands.
I back away but she catches hold of my arm.
‘Here,’ she says, pulling me down on to the sofa beside her. ‘Let’s sit you down, Meghan, get you comfortable. Then we can go through all the details. These things can take a while.’ She turns to Camilla, who has shuffled along the sofa to avoid being crushed. ‘Sorry. Are you family or friends?’
‘We’re the next-door neighbours,’ Treve says from the doorway, standing just behind Jon. ‘She’s Camilla. I’m Treve, her husband. We live at number nine, that side.’
He points in the right direction for their benefit. Then folds his arms across his broad chest, his gaze returning to my face. He looks like a rock of dependability, like he would do anything for me in that moment.
‘You okay, Meghan?’ he asks. ‘We’re here for you.’
‘Thanks,’ I manage to say.
The policewoman smiles winningly at Camilla, and receives only an irritated look in return. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea, Camilla?’
‘I suppose so,’ Camilla says, looking resentfully at her as she gets up and leaves the lounge. ‘I could do with a hand though.’
Treve glances at me.
‘It’s all right,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sorry about this. You’d better go. Jon and I need to . . .’
My voice tails off.
I cannot believe my baby is gone.
Treve catches a look from Jon, and follows his wife out of the lounge. Simon looks at us hesitantly, though trails out after them. There isn’t really much room for everyone anyway, the room is too small. Jon pushes the door shut, but leaves it slightly ajar. Outside, I can hear more police arriving, orders being given, the tinny chatter of police radios. More blue lights flash in the street.
Without my friends, I feel abruptly bereft. As though it’s only now coming home to me what has happened, that my boy is gone.
The earnest policeman introduces himself as Detective Sergeant Dryer, and the female officer as Detective Constable Gerent. She smiles and takes out a notebook.
There’s a strange whirring sound in the distance. A helicopter? It grows louder as it approaches, then is suddenly deafening, hovering above the house. Why on earth do the police need a helicopter to find a lost baby?
I wonder if the local newspaper is still in the kitchen.
