Little Girl Gone

by Stephen Edger

  Daring to open the first message, she was relieved to see it was from a Facebook friend – a woman she’d been to school with – offering sympathy, telling her that she too had lost a daughter and understood the pain that Alex had to be feeling. Alex felt her shoulders relax considerably. That wasn’t so bad.

  As she opened the next one, nothing would have prepared her for what it said:

  You ought to be locked up you reckless bitch! Women like you don’t deserve children. I hope social services take her off you!!!

  Alex was typing a response before she could stop herself.

  How dare you be so cruel! You don’t understand what happened! Carol-Anne should have been safe. She was strapped into a child seat in a locked and alarmed car. I only looked away for a moment. Nobody can hate me as much as I hate myself right now. What gives you the right to pass judgement on me? I’m a good mother who doesn’t deserve to be feeling this pain.

  Alex was about to press send when another notification flashed onto the screen. And another. And another.

  It was clear that the news was out there, and Isla had been right: it was spreading like fire. Locking the screen, she buried the phone under the seat cushion and reached for the soup. She’d only managed two spoonfuls before she could hear the phone vibrating again. Pulling it out she unlocked the screen, shocked to see the number of notifications had almost doubled. This time she opened the Twitter app to try and delete her account, and that’s when she saw her name trending along with the hashtag #shitmum.

  @alexg200 left her child alone in a car park #shitmum

  #mumoftheyear @alexg200 should be locked up #shitmum

  Who leaves their child alone in a car? #shitmum

  If I ever meet @alexg200 im going to teach her how to be a proper mum #shitmum #southampton #pieceofmymind

  #shitmum did @alexg200 have something to with her daughter’s disappearance #Carol-Anne

  This kind of abuse wasn’t right. Where was Isla? She should have been back by now. Weren’t there laws against threats to life? Couldn’t these vile people be prosecuted for such horrid rants?

  She searched through the settings, looking for anything that would allow her to delete her profile, but nothing jumped out. She’d never been particularly savvy with technology, and unlike Sophie, Alex had little by way of social media presence. She’d only set up the accounts so she could see what old school friends were now doing, so how had so many strangers found her, and so quickly? Trent had promised hers and Ray’s names would be kept out of the press, and there had definitely been no mention of their names during the appeal. Who had leaked it?

  With no other way of stopping the constant alerts, Alex uninstalled the two apps. She knew it wouldn’t stop the onslaught of messages. Until Isla was back and could explain how to delete the profiles, she would just have to bury her head in the sand. If she couldn’t see or hear the abuse, she could almost convince herself it wasn’t there; at least, she hoped she’d be able to.

  Searching through her contacts, she tried Ray’s number again. It rang and rang until the messaging service cut in.

  ‘Ray, it’s Alex, where are you? Please call me ASAP. Our names are out there. The world now knows Carol-Anne is ours. Please call me. I need you.’

  She hung up, and was about to switch off her phone altogether, when she saw a message notification on her email app. Opening the app, she saw an urgent message from the office manager of the company she’d been heading to yesterday afternoon. It had been sent at nine this morning, asking Alex to get in touch, questioning why she’d failed to attend the interview, and asking if she wished to withdraw her application for the role.

  Alex was amazed they’d even got in touch. No employer would be interested in someone with all this emotional baggage right now, particularly given the campaign of hate slowly building towards her. Yet, it was a job she’d been keen on taking, and the fact that they had messaged her indicated she hadn’t blown her chance of still securing the role. As she tried to compose a response in her head, her mind kept wandering back to what she’d read on her Twitter timeline.

  She finally gave up trying, deciding she’d give it another bash in the morning, or better still would phone the office manager and try to explain what was going on. They deserved her honesty, and it would be easier to deliver that verbally than in written form.

  She was about to close the email app when she saw a second message had come through, from an hour ago. She didn’t recognize the sender’s name, but opened it, wondering whether another potential employer was interested in interviewing her. As the message opened, and a photograph of Carol-Anne filled the screen, she nearly dropped the phone as she read the message that had come with it:

  Simon Says …

  If you ever want to see Carol-Anne, all you need to do is kill a man.

  If you kill Jack, I will give her back.

  Refuse to comply and Carol-Anne will die.

  3 days.

  22

  The rain splashed against the window as Ray stared out. The sun was low in the sky and barely visible through the thick cloud surrounding it. As weeks went, he couldn’t remember any worse, even those difficult days following the miscarriage. At least back then he and Alex had handled it together. They were now in virtual isolation, and while he accepted that that was his fault, he couldn’t bring himself to bridge the rapidly growing gap between them.

  Despite himself, Verity’s words kept dancing around his head: what if Alex had suffered a relapse? He couldn’t remember when she’d last had an appointment to see the counsellor. She’d said the meetings with him hadn’t helped, though she’d agreed to continue seeing the guy. Now that he thought about it, though, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen a reference to the appointments on the calendar at home. If she’d stopped going to counselling, what else was she keeping from him? Was she off her medication too? How much didn’t he know about?

  In truth, he hadn’t been at home as much as he’d once been, finding it easier to bury himself in his job than actually deal with the destabilizing effect of the miscarriage on their relationship. If it weren’t for Carol-Anne, he suspected they wouldn’t now be together.

  ‘Is it okay if I drop you here?’ she asked, her accent barely noticeable anymore.

  He looked up, only now realizing they’d reached his road. ‘Yeah, I guess that’s for the best.’

  ‘Safer this way. Sorry, I know you’ll get wet before you reach your door.’

  The rain didn’t bother him as much as the prospect of having to look at Alex with the burden of guilt hanging heavy in his heart.

  He reached for the door handle, and she tugged on his arm. ‘Aren’t you at least going to kiss me goodbye?’

  ‘Someone might see.’

  ‘Not if we’re quick,’ she said, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

  He’d agreed to see her to try and cool things off, to explain that he needed to focus on his family, to support Alex and get Carol-Anne back. She’d taken the news far better than he deserved, and had gently massaged his shoulders, helping to relieve the tension. Before he’d been able to stop himself they’d been tearing each other’s clothes off as he’d searched for anything to distract him from the pain of not knowing how to find his daughter. Now, though, the guilt of spending any time without Carol-Anne at the centre of his thoughts was eating him up inside.

  ‘Perhaps it’s not a good idea anyway,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been a real downer today.’

  She looked away, clearly hurt by his rejection. ‘I understand. You need some space.’

  He grabbed the handle and pushed the door open, waiting until she’d pulled away from the kerb before jogging along the pavement in the direction of home.

  There was no sign of Isla’s car on the driveway, and he wondered whether Alex had evicted her for the night.

  He was just putting his key into the lock when the door burst open, and Alex grabbed him by the hand, dragging him inside.

/>   ‘What’s going on?’ he managed to splutter, as she dragged him through the hallway and into the lounge, not even bothering to close the door.

  ‘Look,’ she said, pointing at the laptop screen.

  Moving closer he stared at a picture of Carol-Anne. ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’

  ‘The picture: someone emailed it to me.’

  He wasn’t following why a picture of their daughter had caused Alex’s cheeks to flush quite so much. ‘Back up a minute. Would you mind filling me in? Somebody sent you a picture of Carol-Anne. Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t recognize the guy’s name. I thought at first it was from one of the recruitment agencies I’d joined. When I opened it, I saw the picture and message.’

  ‘What message?’

  She scrolled down and read aloud the words he was reading on the screen. ‘“Simon Says … If you ever want to see Carol-Anne, all you need to do is kill a man. If you kill Jack, I will give her back. Refuse to comply and Carol-Anne will die. 3 days.”’

  ‘Who’s Simon?’ Ray asked, unable to keep the frown from forming.

  ‘I have no idea. The person who snatched Carol-Anne presumably.’

  ‘You think it’s from the abductor?’

  ‘Don’t you? He says he has her.’

  Ray raised his eyebrows sceptically. ‘It’s probably just some crank who saw the appeal on the news.’ He stepped away from the screen dismissively. ‘Oh, my sister phoned me today, by the way. You’ll be relieved to hear that I persuaded her not to drop everything and visit.’

  ‘I couldn’t give two shits about Verity right now!’ she shouted back, clearly annoyed at his attempt to change the subject. ‘You need to find whoever sent me this message.’

  ‘Oh come on, you don’t really think this is from the person who took Carol-Anne?’ he said in disbelief. ‘It’s obviously just from some crank looking to take advantage of your delicate emotional state.’

  ‘No, Ray, you’re wrong! I’m telling you it’s from him.’

  Verity’s concern about Alex’s emotional state flooded to the front of his mind again. Taking Alex’s hand in his, he led her back to the sofa, sitting on the cushion next to her.

  ‘You need to calm down, Alex. I’ll tell you why I’m pretty sure this isn’t from the person who took Carol-Anne, shall I? For starters why would a child abductor reach out to the distraught mother? What’s his motive for doing so? What does he gain? Secondly, how does he – or she – even know who you are? As far as the investigative team are concerned, the abduction was totally at random, so how does the abductor know you’re the mother or what your email address is?’

  Alex buried her head in her hands. ‘You’re wrong, Ray. The whole world now seems to know that Carol-Anne is our daughter. I know they didn’t mention us by name in the appeal, but someone somewhere has leaked the information. My name is trending on Twitter for fuck’s sake!’

  Ray’s shoulders tensed. ‘It is?’

  Alex opened a new page on the screen and inputted her username and log-on. ‘Facebook’s the same. I’ve deleted both apps from my phone because it wouldn’t stop alerting me to new messages and abuse. It’s horrible, Ray. Some of the things people are saying about me are so cruel and untrue. They’re saying I’m an unfit mother, that I should be charged with neglect, and that Carol-Anne is lucky not to be with me anymore.’

  Ray instinctively put an arm around her shoulder as she began to sob. ‘This email is just another one of those things. Vicious; some sicko with nothing better to do with their time than prey on the defenceless. Forward it to DI Trent, and then put it behind you. And you should definitely delete your social media accounts. I’m surprised Isla didn’t suggest that to you.’

  Alex pulled away, her sobbing suddenly stopping as she reached for the laptop and forced it onto his lap, the fans blowing warm air onto his damp trousers.

  ‘The appeal didn’t go out on the news until just after six. Before that time the only people who knew about the abduction were you, me, the investigative team, and the person who abducted her. Look at when the email was received: 17:47; a full fifteen minutes before the appeal went out. I’m telling you, Ray, this isn’t a crank. You need to find out who sent us this message!’

  He stared at the timestamp on the open email message, and couldn’t ignore what she was suggesting. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, standing and carrying the laptop to the dining table. ‘I’ll call Trent now and we’ll get this message to the tech wizards. Hopefully they’ll be able to trace the IP address of where the message was sent from, and then we should know who sent it. I’ve never known a child abductor taunt the parents for no obvious reason. Did you hear they made an arrest earlier today?’

  Alex nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Isla wasn’t able to tell me much about who it was other than he had a criminal record.’

  Watching her, Ray couldn’t bring himself to share what Owen had said about Thornby and the photographs from the park. The room blurred in and out of focus as the sound of the ticking clock echoed off the walls. He hadn’t shared what was driving his need for distraction: missing children not found within seventy-two hours rarely return home alive.

  23

  Alex squinted towards the television, determined to put the real world out of mind for just a moment, yet no matter how hard she concentrated, her eyes kept falling back towards the laptop. Ray had switched it off and closed the lid, promising he would forward the message to Trent and have the team confirm it was just the cruel workings of another troll. He’d been on the phone in the kitchen ever since, and from his muffled raised voice, she sensed the conversation wasn’t going well.

  Presumably, Trent would be keen to know why this updated information was coming from Ray directly and not Isla; as Family Liaison, it was her responsibility to be the bridge between the investigative team and family. She had yet to return from collecting her things. She’d said she’d be back within the hour, and it was now well past that.

  Alex glanced at the laptop again, chiding herself, and turned up the television volume instead. It was some sort of crime thriller in the prime-time slot, and although she recognized one of the lead actors, she couldn’t quite determine if he was supposed to be the good guy or the bad. Maybe that was the point of the programme and why she couldn’t work out what was going on. It seemed to be set in London, judging by the tall buildings and high volume of traffic, yet could just as easily be Manchester or any of the UK’s other larger cities.

  Ray hated watching shows where the police were portrayed as non-stop crusaders for justice.

  ‘It isn’t realistic,’ he would say. ‘These TV police never seem to sit still, lurching from one crisis to another. There’s a lot more sitting around and contemplating than they show.’

  Of course, a room full of detectives staring blankly at screens and out of the windows wouldn’t make for a tightly plotted and fast-paced show, and Alex was usually happy enough to suspend disbelief. This was just too much for tonight, though. Pulling up the onscreen guide, she flicked through the menu until she spotted a rerun of Friends and put it on.

  Her eyes returned to the laptop yet again, and this time she caved, leaning forward and dragging it from the coffee table onto her lap. Lifting the lid, she booted it up and inputted the password. The emailed image filled the screen once more. It was definitely Carol-Anne, but those weren’t the clothes she’d been taken in. She’d been wearing black leggings, a white frilly Tshirt and a red anorak. The police hadn’t shared that information with the public, so maybe that’s why she was dressed differently in the image. Staring closer at the screen, Alex couldn’t escape the fact that it looked familiar: the way Carol-Anne was staring playfully away from the camera; the way the sunlight seemed to catch on the wall behind her. Alex felt like she had seen this picture before. And that’s when it hit her.

  Opening a fresh internet page, she logged into her Facebook profile, ignoring the flashing message windows, and cl
icked on the folder of uploaded photographs. She wasn’t someone who posted a lot online. She did share the occasional image of Carol-Anne so that friends and family could see how much she was growing. And there it was, the fifth image down: Carol-Anne in the same outfit and pose as the message that had been sent.

  ‘Ray!’ she screamed at the top of her voice.

  Ray came bundling into the room a moment later, eyes wide, anxious and searching all about the room in an effort to identify whatever imminent danger had threatened. The phone hung in his hand. ‘Wha-what is it?’

  Alex turned the laptop screen round, and pointed. ‘He must have got the photo from my Facebook page. Look! It’s the same image.’

  Ray moved closer, snatching the laptop up and dumping his phone onto the cushion next to Alex. ‘I told you to stop looking at this.’

  He was angry with her, but why couldn’t he understand what she was trying to tell him? It didn’t matter that she’d gone against his wishes, finding the source of the photograph was an important step.

  She took a deep breath. ‘There was something about the picture that I recognized. I knew I’d seen it before, and there it is on Facebook.’

  He glowered, his eyes narrow. When he spoke again his voice was more even. ‘So the picture is one you or I took? I don’t recognize it.’

  She shook her head. ‘Do you remember a few weeks ago I took Carol-Anne to that toddlers’ get-fit workshop? It was all about encouraging infants to be more active and educating parents on acceptable levels of television and computer games. You must remember!’

  It was clear from his face that he didn’t remember as he stared blankly back at her. Alex could have sworn she’d told him about that day, and she was certain she’d showed him the image.

  ‘There was a photographer there – hired by the people organizing the workshop – to take pictures of the children playing and having fun for them to use on their website. All the parents had to sign some consent form to say we didn’t mind our child’s image being used as part of their advertising campaign. This was the picture they wanted to use of Carol-Anne and I didn’t see the harm so I agreed. They put it on their website and Facebook business page, and tagged me in it so I could download a copy.’