by Adele Parks
“It won’t be specific enough in a field this size.” Jake takes a big gulp of his beer, lets his gaze fall on the dancers.
I try it anyway. Knowing she’s on the field would be some sort of reassurance. I mean, of course she must be. Why would she be anywhere else? Even so, I’d like the matter confirmed. “No joy. It just says her phone is off-line.”
“She’s probably out of power.”
“She was fully charged when we left the house.”
“But she’ll have taken loads of photos and been posting on Snapchat all night. That drains the battery.” Although it’s a brand-new phone with a huge capacity, I grab the thought anyway. I quickly look at her Instagram account. She last posted when the sky was still light. I tell Logan to check Snapchat, which I don’t have and I don’t understand. He does as I ask him, and I stand by, watching intently.
“Nope, nothing,” he says.
“Most likely she’s just switched off her phone,” says Jake.
“I told her to keep her phone on tonight.” The anxiety begins to swell and solidify. It grows into a throbbing apprehension, cementing in the base of my back, pulling me to the ground. I stagger a bit, prop myself up against a bar table. Legs and hands shaking, my brain behind my body. I breathe in, deeply.
“So our teenager doesn’t want to be found,” Jake says, grinning. “That’s not exactly breaking news. My guess is she’s sneaked off with some of her new friends. Probably trying dope for the first time.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” I snap.
“Of course it bothers me. I’m just saying most likely whatever she is up to, it isn’t Armageddon.”
Jake has always taken a looser position on drugs than I have. He sees them as inevitable, experiential. I really do see them as Armageddon. I force myself not to sound too frantic, but can’t stop myself asking, “So you do think something is up?”
“I didn’t mean that. Look, have a drink. Try to enjoy yourself, Lexi.”
“I can’t enjoy myself,” I insist.
“That’s half the problem,” he sighs.
I want to ask him what the other half is. I want to tell him what it is. I shiver, despite the sticky heat in the tent. The heat is intensified by the sentences that also hang in the air, half-formed. Too lethal to commit to.
“We should call Ridley and her friends, everyone in her school year. Everyone we invited from her old school and the new one. We have the new class list. I think I have it on my phone.”
As I scramble to open contacts, Jake places his hand over my phone. “Just take a breath, Lexi. She’s just out there, drunk and sleeping it off. Let’s not make a fuss. Blow this out of proportion. What sort of first impression are we going to make on the parents at the new school if we call and say she’s missing at her own party? If we call at this time of night, they’ll all worry about their own kids, half of which have gone home with different friends, et cetera. It would cause a panic.”
I glare at Jake, but reluctantly accept he might have a point. I leave Logan in the dance tent with Jake and go outside to look for Emily. I tell myself that most likely there is nothing seriously wrong, but my years of mothering mean that I do know one thing: if a child doesn’t want to be found, they probably should be.
The weather forecast was accurate. The night air has turned cold, and rain starts to splatter on the ground, mocking the British optimism in summer. Many people abandon the outside attractions and head for shelter, others call it a night and start falling into minicabs. Like a salmon heading upstream, I walk out into the blackness, scouring the crowds and the shadows for my daughter.
CHAPTER 35
Lexi
“Emily, Emily!” My voice pierces the night, and the sounds from the party fall away into the distance—the laughing, the noise from the fair rides, the music from the DJ. I don’t hear any of it. I only hear my heart beating against my rib cage, and my ears strain as I wait for her to yell back a response. I’ve scoured the entire party site and there’s no sign of her. I’ve asked everyone I’ve bumped into if they’ve seen her recently. I’m met with nothing other than blank shrugs and vague apologies that, no, they haven’t. Most people just want to get out of the rain, and I don’t think they really give my question much thought. “She was dressed as Zendaya as she appeared in The Greatest Showman.” A shrug. “You know, purple leotard thing.” I lose patience with their glassy eyes, their dumb indifference, and rush on with my search. I start to run. I’m not as fit as I should be. I’ve spent too many long hours behind a desk. My breath never makes it to and from my lungs; instead, it harbors in my throat and I’m suffocating.
I imagine her unconscious, choking on her own alcohol-induced vomit. I imagine her cold, wet, alone. The woods loom in the background of my every thought and breath, shadowy, threatening, overpowering. She’s nowhere to be found at the party—I need to head into the woods next and search there. The trees are dense, some fat and ancient, others scrubby and slight, saplings, really. Their combined canopies block out any moonlight that the clouds haven’t already stolen. I stumble around, possibly in circles because there are no clear paths, and even if there were, I wouldn’t know how far to follow one, or in which direction. Brambles rip at the thin cotton of my costume and soon my legs and arms are scratched. I wish I was wearing jeans. I wish I’d just spot her lying asleep under a fat tree. I wish I had kept her by my side all night. I wish we’d never had a party. I wish so many things. My slashed calves are the least of my problems.
Even using the torch on my phone, it’s too dark to see anything much. I decide I need to go back to the party and rouse security. They can help me search—we need to do this systematically. I run back to the dance tent. I only realize how long I’ve been searching when I notice that the music has stopped. The DJ has packed away, is probably back on the motorway by now. The dance floor looks like a crime scene, pocked with spilled drinks and shards of crushed plastic glasses. The colors from the party popper streamers have bled into the puddles caused by wet and muddy footprints. With the lights up, the scene that had seemed thrilling just a short time ago now has the dank, grubby quality of a public toilet. No one is tidying up. The staff are too exhausted to bother to paint on smiles when they see me. They sag and slouch, suppress yawns and reach their arms into coat sleeves, no doubt very glad of the decision we made to clean up tomorrow in daylight. The guests have thinned out to a few stragglers. Jake is still deep in conversation with one of them. I don’t recognize whoever it is he’s talking to. I spot Logan, asleep I think. He is slouched on a tall stool, his head resting on the bar. “I can’t find her,” I yell. “Jake, Jake, we need to get security. We need to call the police. I can’t find her.”
Of course, this draws everyone’s attention. The staff immediately swap their exhausted demeanors for ones of alertness, curiosity or panic. The laggard guests fight through their drunkenness and stare at me with confusion and the sort of ghoulish interest rubbernecks give car accidents. Jake walks swiftly toward me. He moves me away from the fray by placing a determined hand on the base of my spine. In the past this gesture has felt tender and territorial—now I feel the manipulation. His first priority seems to be avoiding causing a scene. Avoiding anyone else becoming upset or alarmed. Anyone other than me, that is. I don’t give a damn. All I want to know is where Emily is.
“I’ve looked everywhere for her. No sign.”
“She’ll turn up.” He smiles. If he’s trying to be reassuring, I just find him arrogant and annoying.
“When?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“It’s obviously not.”
We are talking in splintered sentences that stutter out like gunfire: abrupt, deadly. Jake takes a deep breath. Waves goodbye to the last few guests, tells the staff they can go. Why is he letting people slip away? We need these people to help us search for her. I feel drained and powerless, a flat, sput
tering battery because I don’t throw out contradicting instructions. I let him have his way. “You know what, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I bet our first guess was right. I bet she’s with Ridley.”
I want this to be true. I wouldn’t care. I really wouldn’t. Him or any boy. The rich, pompous ones who arrived with vodka and attitudes, or the scruffy, meaty ones who arrived with bad haircuts and acne. Right now, I’m desperate for it to be this level of deceit. Praying for it. “Have you seen Ridley?” I demand of no one in particular, but the entire room.
“Someone asking for me?” I turn, and there he is, head hung, looking for all the world as though he wants to vanish rather than be brought into the limelight. I pounce on him.
“Have you seen Emily?” He shakes his head slowly.
“Not at all? Not all evening?”
“Well, a bit. Earlier.” He’s clearly reluctant.
“When? What time?” His eyes are glassy and red. Drink, drugs, tears? I don’t really care. I just want him to answer my questions.
“About eight.” Over five hours ago. My heart sinks.
“What’s going on?” asks Jennifer. I’d been so intent on interrogating Ridley, it’s only now that I notice he is flanked by his mother and father. He looks protected, defended. My daughter is absent, Jake’s and my inadequacies bite. And although I hate Jennifer, loathe her with a base, visceral certainty, at this moment I just remember that she’s known Emily since she was a baby. Thoughts clash about my head, pleading for attention. Jennifer once drove us at breakneck speed to the hospital because Emily had fallen out of a tree that she, Ridley and Megan had been climbing. Jennifer makes separate gravy for Emily because Emily is veggie; so few people bother to do that. She has always sewn the name tags onto Emily’s and Logan’s school uniforms for me, because she has a sewing machine and it takes minutes, whereas hand sewing swallows hours. She has driven to my house with medicine because my kids were running fevers, Jake was away and I was housebound. She’s plunked a sunhat on my daughter’s head when she’s spotted her running in the garden unprotected. She taught Emily to sail. Jennifer might have fucked my husband, but right now I don’t care. All I care about is finding Emily, and I think that will happen sooner if the people who love her are galvanized. So I tell her, “Emily is missing.” I see Jennifer’s face crumple in horror. I feel vindicated that she sees the agony as I do.
“Has someone taken her?” she asks.
I gasp. A new horror. “You think that’s possible?” I had not thought of that. My fears just ran to alcohol and accidents.
“Well, you are so wealthy now. She might have been kidnapped.” My knees start to shake, and I stagger. Someone lowers me into a chair. I let them.
“I’m guessing she’s just passed out somewhere,” adds Jake. I see Jennifer’s face change, suddenly relieved.
“Well, that would be better,” adds Fred.
I know it would. A teen in turmoil, a teen in a sulk, a teen drunk and lawless is infinitely preferable to a teen who’s been kidnapped and held for ransom, but I suddenly feel a deep despair crawl through my being and I’m certain Jake is wrong.
“Yes, that will be it,” says Jennifer. “I noticed she was drinking earlier on tonight. I’m sure it’s nothing serious at all.” I hate Jennifer for instantly siding with Jake, for instantly accepting his version of events and diminishing my fears, dismissing them. But of course she would. Sucking a man’s dick trumps putting a sunhat on a child’s head in terms of allegiances and commitment. I feel sick with anxiety and can’t be bothered with either of them. Now that Jennifer has put the thought of kidnapping in my mind, I’m delirious with fear. Even whilst I looked for Emily and imagined her choking on her vomit, cold and unconscious, part of me doubted it, couldn’t accept it. She’s not the sort to allow herself to get into that much of a mess. She would have found help, and even if she didn’t want us to see her hideously drunk, she could have gone to her friends or her brother.
“Where is she, Jake?” Jake doesn’t respond or move. I want to rip his head off with my bare hands. Why isn’t he more concerned? “Where is she?” Obviously, he doesn’t know. I realize that, but I want something from him. Anything! “Who has taken her?”
“We don’t know anyone has taken her,” he mutters impatiently, dismissively. He clearly thinks I’m being hysterical. He moves toward Ridley. “Ridley, mate. I know you think you are being a friend to her by covering, but you’re not,” says Jake. I am embarrassed for my husband that he called Ridley his “mate.” On no level is this appropriate, and it’s so obviously a desperate attempt to ingratiate himself and pretend he’s somehow cool and down with the kids. Embarrassment flourishes into disdain when I consider that, specifically, he wants to be down with the kid who broke his daughter’s heart. “Just tell us where she’s hiding out and we can all go home to bed. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do. You’re just not telling us,” says Jake a little more firmly.
“I don’t.” Ridley’s gaze is bolted to the floor.
I sigh. I fear he probably doesn’t. I watched him during the earlier part of the evening, and from what I could gather he didn’t seem in the least bit interested in Emily. She trailed after him like a devoted dog, but he kept moving along. If he was at the Ferris wheel, over she’d saunter, only for him to leg it to the bouncy castle. When she turned up there, he went to get something to eat. Always with the girl he brought along. He seemed pretty focused on her, not interested in Emily at all. It was heartbreaking to watch. I was fuming with Jake for inviting him here and allowing him to rub Emily’s nose in his new relationship or fling or whatever it is. I believe him when he says he doesn’t know where Emily is. It’s just not what I want to hear. My desperation makes me focused, hostile and disapproving all at once.
I glare at him, every centimetre of my body emitting loathing.
“Are you sure you haven’t any ideas, son?” asks Fred, his tone jovial, too. We’re the sort of parents who have read all the books telling us not to get riled with our teens because they simply shut down and you hit a wall. Better to create an environment that suggests safety and belief. Right now, I want to climb down Ridley’s throat and haul out his tongue to force him to spit out any words that might help.
“I’m not her babysitter,” Ridley mutters sulkily.
But I am. His response slaps me. Because, in fact, I am more than that. I am her mother, not even a substitute. I should have been here. Watching over her. Taking care of her. Not with Toma. At that second my phone buzzes. I think it’s going to be a message from Toma, that I’ve somehow conjured him up by thinking of him. I glance at my screen. At first I don’t understand what I am looking at. But then I do.
It is a photo of Emily. I can’t see much of her face—there is duct tape wrapped around her eyes and mouth, leaving just her nose free. Her neat little nose is slimy. Tears, snot. Her hands are tied behind her back, her legs are tied at the ankles, her long coltish legs look bruised, battered. She’s still wearing her purple leotard. It clings to her body and I am beaten by the thought of her vulnerability. “We need to call the police,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
As the words leave my mouth, another message comes through. Don’t involve the police or we will hurt her. There’s an audio clip. I play it.
“Mum, Mum, please.” She’s sobbing, gasping. “Do what they say. I’m frightened, Mum, please.” Then there’s the sound of a scuffle. Then nothing. It goes dead.
CHAPTER 36
Emily
I can’t see anything! I can’t see anything so everything I feel, smell and hear is magnified and terrifying. I feel a man’s rigid grip around my forearm. It’s too tight. He’s hurting me. I can smell his sour breath. I freeze. Recoil. You think your instinct is going to be to kick and fight. But I don’t. I can’t. How can I, blindfolded and bound? How can I escape? Then anoth
er man roughly picks up my legs and I have no chance. I know I have no chance. They carry me between them as easily as a bag of shopping.
Are they going to kill me? They are going to kill me.
The second man’s hands on my bare legs is like a slap and suddenly I am flinching, writhing, but the more I struggle the tighter he grips. I’m not thinking straight. A vision of Logan and Ridley as small boys poking caterpillars with tiny sticks for no other reason than the amusement of watching them loop and coil, crashes into my head. They were not usually cruel boys, but I always hated it when they did that. It was nasty. The prodding could hurt the caterpillar, injure it, kill it. I wanted to see it left alone to become a butterfly. Just let it become a fucking butterfly! I force myself to go limp even though every instinct is screaming to do the opposite because I think they might want me to struggle. For me to writhe and wriggle in their hands. For my leotard to ride up my backside. For them to get to feel my bare thighs, arms and the thin silkiness of my costume, which only just covers the rest of my body. They are talking to each other. Foreign voices, speaking a language I don’t recognize, which makes it harder for me to work out how many there are. There are two carrying me and there’s another man who has the tone of someone speaking on a phone. Sometimes he seems to bark out orders at the two carrying me. The boss. The worst one. They are going to kill me.
They throw me into the back of a van. I land on my shoulder. I’m winded and sore everywhere, but the pain I’m feeling doesn’t frighten me as much as the pain I’m anticipating. The metal doors slam behind me. Then I hear them climb into the front. They set off at speed.
Because I’m tied up and there are no seats, let alone seat belts, I roll around the floor of the van every time it goes around a corner. I bang my head, my back, my knee. Eventually I orientate myself enough to sit up, I crawl backward on my bottom, shuffle into a corner. Then I consider a van’s layout. By pushing myself into a corner, I am either moving closer to the seats they must be in, or the door. I think of leaning against the door and somehow opening it, it swinging open and me falling onto the road. Would that be better? Probably not at this speed but I don’t know. I might die but there are fates worse than death, aren’t there? Mum would say not. She always says you can come back from everything but that. So I lie flat again and get thrown from one side of the van to the other.
