by Alex Lake
As she ran, she examined everything – every hedge, every fence, every parked car – but felt she was seeing nothing. She didn’t trust her eyes, didn’t trust that Anna might not appear where she had just looked, and so she found herself checking the same places two, three times before allowing herself to move on. Part of her knew it was unnecessary and irrational, but she couldn’t help it; the stakes were just too high, the consequences of missing her daughter – who must be somewhere nearby – were too awful for her to allow herself to make a mistake and miss what was – what might be – in front of her nose.
She’d heard that when the police searched for evidence, when they got one of those lines of people to sweep a field or moor or wasteland, they never let the people who were involved – that is, the people who were looking for their loved ones – join in. Apparently, if you were too close to whoever was lost your searching abilities were compromised in some important way. Perhaps it was that you wanted to find whatever it was too much to maintain the calm, patient detachment required.
Whether that was true or not, she certainly did not feel calm or patient. What she felt was panic, a panic that threatened to overwhelm her and leave her in a heap on the pavement. It took a monumental effort for her not to put her face in her hands, sink to her knees, and start to pray.
‘Oh my God,’ she muttered. ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.’ Then, for a moment, the panic rose and did take over and she stopped, her head craned forward, her gaze sweeping from left to right.
‘Anna!’ she screamed. ‘ANNA!’
She began to sprint. She had an image of Anna in The Village Sweete Shoppe, sitting on a stool by the window with a black liquorice stick staining her hand, her lips blackened with its juice. That was where her daughter was, she was sure of it. That was where Anna would have gone. There was nowhere else: Anna didn’t know anywhere else, really. At five, her world was the house and garden, school, the houses of some friends, and a few places that she visited with her parents. One of those was the sweet shop.
They went there sometimes after school. Julia didn’t give her daughter too many chocolates or crisps or ice cream or other junk food, but for some reason the stuff in The Village Sweete Shoppe felt different, more wholesome. It was the experience as much as anything: talking to the proprietor, weighing the various choices – pear drops, Everton mints, cola cubes – and counting out the price. It was old-fashioned, the way it had been when Julia was a child, when she had taken her pocket money on a Saturday morning and gone with her dad to the local newsagent and chosen the sweets she wanted, and she liked the thought that her childhood and her daughter’s shared something.
They went there, once or twice every month. They left the car parked outside the school gates, walked down the hill, and went to buy sweets. It was about the only thing they ever did straight after school, the only thing that Anna knew. And she loved it.
So she was there, Julia knew it and as she sprinted she knew she was going to get there and find her daughter and sweep her up into a protective embrace from which she thought she might not ever let her go.
The bell above the door jangled. Julia took a couple of quick steps into the shop, looking wildly from corner to corner.
‘Hello,’ the owner, a retired postal worker called Celia, said. ‘Can I help?’
‘Has my daughter been in?’ Julia asked.
The owner thought for a second, trying to place Julia. ‘Your daughter’s Anna, isn’t she? A dark-haired little girl? Likes chocolate mice?’
‘That’s her. Has she been in?’
The owner shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘She’s a bit young to come in on her own.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ve been here all afternoon. Hardly anyone has been in, and I’d remember her, especially if she was alone.’ Celia leaned forwards. ‘Is everything OK?’
Julia looked past the foot-long lollipops and chocolate rabbits to the street outside the shop window. Anna wasn’t here. She was somewhere out there.
Somewhere. Out. There.
Now the panic did take hold. She turned back to the Celia, her legs weakening.
‘I’ve lost her,’ she said. ‘I’ve lost my daughter.’
iii.
It happens to every parent, one time or another. Perhaps in a supermarket, perhaps in the library, perhaps in the back garden.
You look around and your child is not there.
‘Billy!’ you shout, then, a little louder. ‘Billy!’
And Billy replies, and comes toddling into view, holding a bag of flour, or a book, or with a worm in the grip of his pudgy hands. Or maybe he doesn’t, and you have that sudden lurch of fear, that tightness in the back, and loose feeling in your stomach, and you look around a little wildly, before running to the end of the aisle or to the kids’ books section or to the back gate, and there he is. Little Billy; safe and sound.
And you swear you’re going to make sure you don’t let them out of your sight again, not for a second, because a second is all it takes.
And a second is all it takes. In one second, a kid can step out from behind a parked car or be shoved into a van or even just walk round a corner and get lost enough that it takes you ten agonizing minutes to find them, which, although agonizing, is the best possible outcome. You find them sitting on a bench chatting to a kindly stranger or playing with some kids they met or just wandering about absorbed in all the things they are seeing on their own for the first time.
And then you really swear that you aren’t going to let them out of your sight again, because, in that ten minutes your mind races to the worst possible conclusions: they’ve fallen in the canal, they’ve been hit by a car, they’ve been abducted.
And that’s the one that bothers you the most. They’ve been taken. Picked off the street in a neglectful moment and taken. Gone forever. Alive or dead, it doesn’t matter. You won’t ever see them again, but you won’t ever be able to stop looking. And you won’t ever forgive yourself.
But, of course, even when you’re contemplating that horrific, tortured possibility, a still, calm voice at the back of your mind is telling you not to worry, that everything is ok, that it’ll all work out because it always does.
Except it doesn’t. Not always.
And you know that. Which is the most frightening thing of all.
Julia ran out of The Village Sweete Shoppe. She glanced left and right: the same choice again. Left into the village or right, back to the school. She turned left and jogged down the hill. If there was news at the school someone would phone her. At least this time her phone was charged.
A woman of her age, with short hair and an expensive-looking bag, was walking towards her. Without thinking, Julia caught her eye.
Julia, like many English women of her age and social class, had an aversion to both making a scene and bothering people that bordered on the pathological. She would no more have asked a stranger for help – to lend her money, perhaps, or let her use their mobile phone, or get assistance changing a car wheel – than she would have walked unannounced into their kitchen, opened their fridge, and made herself a salad.
This, though, was different. It was not a time to worry about social proprieties.
‘Excuse me,’ Julia said. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. She’s five, she has dark hair and a pink rucksack, and she’s in school uniform. Have you seen her?’
‘No,’ the woman replied. Her face took on an odd expression, a mixture of concern and sympathy that Julia found discomfiting. ‘Has she been missing long?’
‘Not that long. Twenty minutes. Maybe more.’
The expression deepened into a frown. ‘Gosh. That’s a long time.’
‘I know,’ Julia said. ‘Would you keep an eye out for her?’
‘Of course. I’ll help you.’ She gestured to the village car park. ‘I’ll look around the car park and check the library. There’s a playground round the back. She might be there.’
‘Thank you,’ Juli
a said. ‘Her name is Anna,’ she added. She set off down the slope. On the right was a pub; on the left a post office, although neither seemed the same as it had the last time she had seen them. Then they had been simple buildings, parts of the infrastructure of the village, communal places that offered warmth and light. Now they were threatening; places where Anna might be kept hidden.
She put her head around the post office door. There was a queue of four waiting for the one open booth.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, aware of her breathlessness. ‘I’m looking for someone. My daughter. Anna. Maybe you’ve seen her in the village?’
‘What’s she look like?’ a man in paint-splattered overalls asked.
Julia gave the description. It was already horribly familiar: dark hair, rucksack, school uniform. It fitted many five-year-old girls, but that didn’t matter, because there was one element that marked Anna out from all the others.
‘She’d have been alone,’ Julia said.
After a sympathetic pause – Julia was already starting to hate sympathetic pauses – followed shaking heads, murmured negatives: she hadn’t been in, and they hadn’t seen her.
Julia ran across the road to the Black Bear pub. It was dark inside, the windows grimy, the smell of smoke still lingering despite the ban on inside smoking. There were only three customers: an underage couple skulking in the corner and a man at the bar.
There was a woman tending the pumps. Julia walked over to her.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. She’s five.’
‘A bit young to be in here, love,’ the woman said. She was in her early fifties, Julia guessed, but looked older. She had heavily tattooed forearms and a lined face and was wearing a push-up bra.
‘I thought, maybe, she wandered in,’ Julia said. ‘I’ve lost her.’
The man at the bar looked up from his newspaper, his nose and cheeks red with broken capillaries.
‘Not seen her,’ he said. He patted the stool next to him. ‘I’ll buy you a drink, though, darling.’
The woman behind the bar – probably the landlady – shook her head in disapproval, but she didn’t say anything. She probably didn’t want to upset a regular. Couldn’t afford to. The pub was shabby; it didn’t look as if it was doing so well.
‘Can’t help you, love,’ she said. ‘Not seen her.’
Julia nodded thanks and left. She was glad to emerge into the sunshine. Next door was a bakery specializing in local dairy products and artisan breads. On the other side, a café.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for a little girl. My daughter.’
The man behind the counter raised an eyebrow. He had dark, curly hair and dark eyes, and huge, flour-dusted hands.
‘What does she look like?’ he asked, in a Scottish accent.
Julia told him. He shook his head, then leaned over the counter, addressing the café side of the building.
‘’Scuse me,’ he said. ‘This lady’s looking for a wee lass. Her bairn. Anyone seen a girl on her own?’
No one had, but one lady got to her feet.
‘I’ll help you look,’ she said.
Others joined her, and the patrons of the café spilled onto the main street of the village. They organized themselves and headed in different directions.
Julia looked around for somewhere else to search. A river ran through the bottom part of the village, and, where it disappeared into a copse, there was a small depression where the council had once put a few benches. It wasn’t obvious why; it was damp and dark and only occasionally occupied, at least during the daytime. The beer cans and cigarette butts that littered it suggested that it saw more action in the evening. It was just the kind of place teenagers would have been drawn to: a bit off to the side, away from the action, the fast-flowing river beside it conferring a hint of danger and exoticism.
Julia crossed the road and walked towards the railings at the edge. She didn’t think Anna would be there, and she wasn’t, but she leaned over the railings and looked down at the water anyway. The river had been artificially narrowed and the water sped up before disappearing into a tunnel under the main road. There was a damp crisp packet by her right foot. She kicked it and it fluttered down into the water, then was swept away.
If that had been Anna, she thought, then stopped herself. She wouldn’t have come down here. She just wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have got this far, not on her own. She wouldn’t have dared. She must be closer to the school.
She headed back to the main road. As she reached the pavement, her phone rang. It was Brian.
‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘Have you found her?’
‘I’m in the village. And no. Where are you?’
‘I’m just arriving at the school. The police are already here, it looks like.’
‘Do you see Anna? Is she with them?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘She isn’t.’
‘What should I do, Brian? Should I keep looking down here?’
There was a long pause. ‘I don’t know. We need to talk. I’ll come down to the village and pick you up.’
She stood on the pavement. It was cobbled, and she could feel the hard curves of the stones through the thin soles of her shoes. It was the only thing that felt solid; the shops and cars and people that surrounded her seemed slippery, ungraspable, unreal.
‘Anna,’ she shouted. ‘Anna!’ It was as much a wail of loss as a call that she expected an answer to; she realized when she tasted the tears on her lips that she was crying.
Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number.
‘Mrs Crowne?’ a voice said. ‘This is Jo Scott. I was wondering whether you were still coming?’
For a moment, Julia could not work out who the woman was, then she remembered. The dog woman. The woman with Bella, Anna’s puppy.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Something came up. Can I call you back?’
There was a pause. An irritated pause, Julia thought.
‘Ok,’ the woman said. ‘Call me back. But I have to leave for work now, so it’ll have to be another day for the puppy.’
As Julia hung up a car pulled up next to her. It was Brian.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Get in. The police are at the school and they want to talk to you.’
iv.
They pulled up at the school and got out of the car. As they walked towards the door, Julia reached out for Brian’s hand. It was a while since they’d touched in any but the most perfunctory way and she was surprised how much reassurance it gave her, how much she needed to feel another human being.
She squeezed his fingers.
He looked at her, eyes narrowed, and pulled his hand away.
‘Brian,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘Now’s not the time,’ he said. ‘You need to talk to the cops.’
Mrs Jacobsen, the headmistress, approached them. She was accompanied by a uniformed officer. He nodded at Julia. He had a bustling, efficient presence. At the far end of the corridor another office was talking to a woman in jeans and a sweatshirt.
‘Mrs Crowne,’ he said. ‘I’m PC Davis. We received a report that your daughter is missing?’
‘Yes,’ Julia said. The presence of the police officer was as disturbing as it was reassuring. If the police were here, then this was real. She felt her legs weaken. ‘I don’t know where she is. Help me find her. Please.’
PC Davis nodded. ‘We will, Mrs Crowne. I’m sure that she’s close by. That’s normally the case in these situations. There are quite a few members of the school staff out looking for her,’ he said. ‘Now, you were in the village?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Anna – there’s a sweet shop she likes, that we sometimes go to after school. I thought she might be there.’
‘Is there any reason you thought she might have gone there?’ PC Davis asked. ‘Has she done this before? Walked away from the house, or the school?’
‘No,’ Julia said. ‘Never. She knows not to.’
&n
bsp; PC Davis nodded again. ‘Have you traced the route back to your house?’ he said. ‘Often when a child is missing from school they have simply gone home alone.’
‘She wouldn’t have done that,’ Julia said. ‘We live three miles away. I doubt she even knows the way.’
‘Maybe not,’ PC Davis said. ‘But children sometimes decide that they are ready for something when we don’t expect it. We need to check the route to your house.’
‘No,’ Julia said. She knew Anna, and she did not think for a second that she was merrily strolling home on her own. ‘I don’t want to waste time.’
‘Mrs Crowne,’ PC Davis said. ‘We need to check whether Anna left on her own. I understand your concern, but we have to be systematic in our approach. Could you give me your address?’
‘Of course,’ Brian said. He gave the address.
‘Thank you,’ PC Davis said. ‘We’ll send a car to drive the route.’
‘What else are you going to do?’ Julia asked. ‘Anna could be hurt, or in danger.’
‘We’re going to do everything we can, Mrs Crowne,’ PC Davis said. ‘But we have to take this one step at a time.’
Julia stared at him. She didn’t like him, this burly officer who thought of this as a process, as a problem that could be solved with a step by step approach, when it was her daughter, her only child, who was five-years-old and missing, now for almost forty minutes.
Forty minutes. Yes, she might be on the route home, or playing in a local park, but what if she wasn’t? What if someone had taken her? She could be forty miles away by now.
‘What can we do?’ Julia said. ‘How can we help?’
‘Call around,’ PC Davis replied. ‘Anyone you can think of. Anna’s friends’ mothers, relatives. Anyone who might have picked her up. Think if there’s anywhere else she might be? Does anyone else ever pick her up? A relative maybe?’
‘Her grandma, on Mondays and Wednesdays,’ Julia said.
‘Is there any possibility she came today, by mistake?’
‘No,’ Brian said. ‘I spoke to my mother about two p.m.. She was at home. The kitchen was flooded.’
‘Anyone else?’ PC Davis asked.
