by K. L. Slater
I climb into the bath and settle back into the perfumed foam, closing my eyes for a few moments to savour the warmth and peace.
I hold the iPad up above the bubbles and double-click on each photo so it enlarges and fills the screen. They draw me in as much as repulse me.
The one I’m looking at right now is dated fourteen days ago.
It’s a picture of the removals van outside my old house, the back doors wide open while it’s being loaded. No people are visible, but I can clearly see the boxes I’d packed full of my personal belongings. I can even see the room markings on some of them.
She’s typed a narrative for the photograph – Moving day… the start of my new life with my gorgeous boyfriend and his adorable daughter – and underlined the words with a row of coloured hearts.
I still can’t take in the fact that, at some point during the day I moved in with George, she was right there, outside my house, boldly taking photographs and selecting one to post online.
Then there’s the picture she posted this morning. It’s of George’s back garden. The goalposts are there, and Romy’s new mermaid doll is on the patio table so I know it’s very recent.
Feel so lucky this is my new home!
I read it again and again and it still doesn’t sink in.
I scan through the other photos she’s posted since I met George. Curiously, there’s hardly anything there before that time.
The photographs aren’t all personal to me and George. There are lots of filler pics of coffee and food and animals. But dotted amongst them is the odd image that takes my breath away.
A picture of a car wheel and a partial shot of a door on the exact day George got a puncture at work and had to put the spare on before leaving. Oops! she’s written.
Some people call lilies the flower of death… but I love them! The front of a flower shop I bought lilies in the day after we moved in.
Further back: Carrot cake or red velvet? Can’t decide! The window of the coffee shop where George and I met up for the very first time.
And then my breath catches in my throat and I suppress a shriek. I didn’t spot this picture earlier.
Two weeks ago, Opal posted a photograph taken from the touchline of a football match at Harrison’s school. She must have been standing right behind me, because her view was the exact one I had.
So proud of my boy! she’s written, alongside a shot of a few of the players, including my elder son.
Now Maria’s gone I’m going to be there to pick the kids up from school from now on even though it’s a squeeze, but I’ve never even considered she’d target their after-school activities.
Fifty-Six
After school, Harrison ran onto the football pitch with the others and started warming up.
‘Knee raises! Higher… higher!’ Mr Porter yelled, demonstrating raises that were almost level with his chest. ‘Faster… faster!’
Harrison scowled as he reluctantly applied more effort. Mr Porter was just showing off to the mums again. At the end of footie practice, they all surrounded him, asking questions, staring into his eyes.
It was annoying, and embarrassing.
Fortunately, Harrison’s mum had never been one of those mothers. She didn’t usually stay for the whole after-school game, but she always got there in time to see some of it and to pick him up safely.
Harrison looked around the edge of the field as Mr Porter instructed them to pick up the pace. There were lots of adults here watching; some of his teammates had the support of both parents. But it was mostly the dads who came to cheer them on as they trained.
Harrison thought about his own dad, who would never be coming here or anywhere else to watch him play footie again, thanks to that stupid, cruel disease. He pushed himself harder still, trying to focus on the burn in his thigh muscles instead of the ache in his heart.
He liked George, he did. And he really liked Romy; she was OK for a girl. But George could never take the place of his dad. It annoyed him when Kane and his mum sucked up to him.
Yes, George had saved Kane’s life at the park, but how many times did you need to thank someone? Marcus Pett’s dad was a fireman, and according to Marcus, he saved people’s lives every week, because that was what firemen did, wasn’t it? It was their job.
Would George or Marcus’s dad go around saving lives if it wasn’t their job? He doubted it. Admittedly, George was off duty that day at the park, but if doctors or firemen saw someone was in trouble, they had a duty to help. Everyone knew that.
His own dad had sorted out I.T. problems for a job, but that didn’t make him any less brave. When it came to dying, he’d kept smiling, and when he held Harrison close, he whispered in his ear that it was his job now to look after his mum and brother.
Harrison wanted to make his dad proud. He wanted to step up and be a man, but it was hard. Since George had come on to the scene, he had been waking up in the early hours with a tight, prickly feeling in his chest. He worried that his dad would think he should have stopped his mum somehow falling in love with George.
He sucked in air, feeling a bit faint, just as Mr Porter’s shadow loomed over him.
‘I said you can stop now, Harry!’ he boomed.
Harrison stopped his manic knee raises and looked around. Everyone else had obviously stopped some time ago. The other boys clustered together and sniggered behind their hands. The adult spectators shrugged their shoulders and grinned at each other.
Heat rushed into his cheeks, and he felt a bolt of heat shoot up into his chest like white-hot lightning.
‘What are you all staring at?’ he screeched, a wave of temper enveloping him in a steaming red mist as his eyes swivelled wildly around the field. ‘Get lost! All of you!’
Mr Porter stepped forward and blocked his path like a man mountain, raising both hands in the air like stop signs, but Harrison dodged around him and ran full pelt back to the changing rooms.
He knew that one of the dads who helped Mr Porter run the team would follow him in, try to talk him down and back onto the pitch. They always did that when someone got upset if they’d been sent off for a bad tackle.
But Harrison was having none of it.
He stuffed his school uniform into his training bag, zipped it and snatched it up off the bench. Then he hot-footed it outside again, narrowly avoiding Linford Byers’ dad, who was striding towards the changing rooms.
‘Harry… hold up!’ Linford’s dad called, but Harrison kept running.
He didn’t know where he was running to. He just knew that anywhere was better than this.
Once he was out of the school gates, he dashed through a series of alleyways, emerging two roads further on. He stopped running then, dropped his bag and leaned back against a red-brick wall, sucking in breath. It crossed his mind that if he suffered from asthma like his brother, he’d probably need resuscitating now.
The awful feeling he’d experienced that day at the park when he saw his brother’s blue face and rolling eyes fluttered up through his chest. He did feel grateful to George for what he’d done for Kane; it was just that…
A small metallic-brown car crawled down the street and slowed to a stop in front of him. The passenger-side window rolled smoothly down and a lady in a headscarf and sunglasses leaned across and beckoned to him. It was hard to see her face properly. He looked up at the sky and wondered why she needed the glasses when it was a dull winter day.
‘Harrison, isn’t it?’ She smiled before he’d even replied. ‘Jump in. Your mum has had a bit of a disaster in yoga class and has asked me to pick you up. I’ll explain as I drive.’
Harrison hesitated for a moment. The warning that had been drummed into him since he could walk played on repeat in his head.
Never get into a car with a stranger.
But this was a woman who said she knew his mum, not a creepy-looking old bloke offering him sweets.
Lately, his mum had seemed more scatter-brained and confused than usual. And he’d overheard
his grandma and Aunt Steph talking about her in the kitchen the other day, of course. They were worried about her too and he’d overheard his mum and George saying there had been some kind of fall-out because of it.
So it made perfect sense that there had been a problem and she’d had to send one of her yoga ladies to pick him up.
He bent down further and looked into the car again so he could take a closer look but she looked down to glance at her watch and it was hard to see her face.
Harrison stepped forward and opened the passenger-side door.
Fifty-Seven
I sit for a moment on the side of the bath with the iPad still in my hands, staring at the condensation on the gleaming white tiles. The steam settles on my face, cloying and hot, and I start to feel a bit woozy.
Then I glance at the photograph of my son on the screen again and come to my senses, standing up too quickly and pressing my hand against the wall to steady me.
Harrison’s at football training right now and, after seeing Opal’s photograph, I have to get there to protect him as a matter of urgency.
After Joel died, I used to turn up and watch the whole game, because I knew Harrison would miss seeing his dad on the sidelines. But over time, as he has seemed to hurt less, and appears to barely notice my presence anyway, I’ve taken to going for the last thirty minutes or so. I’m always there to make sure he gets home safely, but in view of Opal’s increasing interest in our routine, I’ll make sure I’m there for whole thing from now on, even if it means taking Kane and Romy with me.
Shame trawls my stomach. I didn’t think anything of it, but now I can imagine that Harrison feels pretty torn up about my obvious waning interest, even if he hasn’t said anything.
I’ll go there now, get him out of Opal’s crazy camera lens, and I’ll commit to giving him more of a sideline presence in future games.
I step out of the bath and dry myself roughly with the towel, slipping on my robe and rushing into the bedroom without draining the water.
I feel a rising panic as I pull on my clothes. I need to get to school pronto, make sure Harrison is safe.
I call George and get his voicemail.
‘I’ve got to go and pick Harrison up from football. I found some photos online… I think he might be in danger from Opal. Call me soon as you can.’
I end the call and toss the phone onto the stairs while I grab my coat and stuff my feet into ankle boots.
I can’t believe that, after talking to Daniela, I decided to give Opal the benefit of the doubt. No more.
I know first-hand just how hard obsession can grip. It can make you do things that are totally out of your comfort zone. It can make you venture further out than your own moral boundaries ought to allow.
Fifty-Eight
It takes me ten minutes to drive to school. Kane and Romy are bickering in the back, both grumpy because I broke up their television viewing.
‘Wait here. Don’t get out under any circumstances, I’ll literally be five minutes.’
They start to complain but I don’t hang around to listen.
I lock them in and run through the open gates and on to the big field, relieved I can clearly see the car from here.
I scan the kids playing. I can’t spot Harrison, so I walk to the right to view the pitch from a different angle. I can see all eleven players for the school side, and Harry isn’t one of them.
I start to run towards Mr Porter, the team coach.
He doesn’t see me at first; he’s yelling instructions and jabbing his finger at one of his players.
‘Where’s Harrison?’ I ask breathlessly.
Mr Porter takes a step back and refocuses on my face.
‘Oh, it’s you, Mrs Hilton!’ He presses his lips together and I flinch as the title reminds me of my self-delusion that I was married to Joel.
‘We’ve been worried about Harry, his behaviour was totally out of character.’
‘What? What behaviour?’
He frowns. ‘Didn’t you get the message? He stormed off before the match started. I sent one of our volunteer dads after him, but he ran away. The office said they’d called you and left a voicemail.’ I pat my pockets down, sweat trickling down my spine. I was in such a rush to get here, I never picked up my phone.
‘Where is he now?’ I look towards the car.
‘I don’t know – as I said, he ran away. The volunteer gave chase, but… Well, Harrison’s an agile ten-year-old lad, and we have to have a certain number of official bodies present at the match by law, you see, so the dad rightly came back. I checked with the school office, and you’d signed that he’s allowed to walk home alone, so we assumed that’s what he’d do.’ He hesitates. ‘He’s been gone about forty minutes, I think.’
‘But that was before… I signed that ages ago!’ My voice rises and I feel sick. I’d completely forgotten about the permission form I signed at the beginning of the school year in September. Back then, I hadn’t even met George. Back then, Opal wasn’t on the scene.
It’s a fifteen-minute walk at the most from school to home, so Harrison should have arrived back at the house even before I thought about leaving to pick him up!
Mr Porter glances back to the pitch and then calls to another man. ‘Eric, take over here for a minute, will you?’
He guides me away from the side of the pitch.
‘Let’s go to the office together now. Hopefully someone will still be there.’
‘No! No, I have the kids in the car. I’ll drive around to the front of the school and pop in from there. Thanks anyway.’
I rush back towards the car and vaguely hear him calling out to me to let him know when Harrison is home safe, but I don’t stop to listen. I jump back in the car.
‘What’s happening?’ Kane grumbles. ‘Where’s Harry?’
‘He’s not there,’ I say breathlessly, ramming the car into gear and pulling away. We pass by the side roads I know Harrison would have taken if he’d walked home but there’s no sign of him.
‘Damn and blast,’ I curse out loud and in the mirror I see Romy press her hand to her mouth and giggle.
I’m furious I didn’t bring my phone to call George and now I’ve got to call in at the school office, wasting precious time. Right now, literally every second counts.
We’re at the front of the school again and I pull over, not turning off the engine but just giving myself a minute or two to clear my head.
This is what it feels like to be utterly helpless. I haven’t a clue where my son is… or who he’s with.
‘Where’s Harry, Mum?’ Kane whines. ‘When can we go back home? I’m going to miss—’
‘Kane, pipe down! Your TV schedule isn’t important right now. Your brother’s missing.’
I hear his sharp intake of breath and I feel guilty panicking him like that.
‘I’m sure he’s fine but we just have to make sure,’ I add unconvincingly. ‘We can’t go home until we find him.’
* * *
The receptionist lets me call George while the kids wait in the car again. Tearfully, I explain everything and I’m not sure it makes sense but George’s voice is calm in my ear.
‘I’ve already left work for a meeting so I’ll come straight to the school now. Stay put.’
‘Can I get you a cup of tea, Mrs Hilton?’ the receptionist asks, offering me a box of tissues through the glass hatch.
‘It’s Miss,’ I mumble. I take a tissue and dab at my face. ‘Thanks but no tea. My partner is on his way so I’ll wait in the car.’
She hesitates, as if she’s debating whether to say something. ‘If you… if you need to ring the police, we can do that for you here.’
I garble my thanks and rush back out to the car.
‘Do you know where Harry is yet?’ Kane asks, his voice far from casual now. ‘Will he be all right?’
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine, sweetie,’ I say as confidently as I can manage. ‘George is on his way and then we can decide what to do.’
>
I press my back into the car seat. Despite the cold weather and my lack of warm clothing, I can feel a big damp spot at the bottom of my spine, and my hands are clammy and slightly slippy on the steering wheel.
I must go into a bit of a daze, thinking things through, wracking my brains where Harrison might be when a black Audi pulls up directly in front of mine.
‘Stay here,’ I bark at the kids yet again and rush to George as he gets out of his car.
I fall into his arms.
‘It’s Opal,’ I sob. ‘She posted a photo online taken at his football practice. Why would she do that unless she wanted to send me a warning? I know she’s got Harry, I can just feel it’s her.’
‘I’m sorry, Darcy.’ George sounds contrite. ‘I should have listened. You tried to tell me and…’ His voice wavers.
I look at him and he looks terrible.
‘Are you OK? Has something—’
‘Just work. People making my life difficult.’ He frowns. ‘But forget that. Harrison’s safety is the most important thing and I should have listened to you.’
‘This is not your fault, George. Opal’s crazy… and frighteningly plausible, as I’ve found out to my cost.’
George seems to gather himself then, throws back his shoulders.
‘Well she won’t win. Whatever it takes, we’ll get Harrison back.’
‘We should ring the police before we do anything,’ I say, battling back the waves of fear rolling into my throat.
‘We can.’ George hesitates. ‘But once we make that call, we’ll just get caught up in a big tangle of red tape. And I doubt they’ll do anything at all unless we can prove Opal has taken him.’
‘We can show them the photograph she posted of his football match.’
George frowns. ‘But anybody is allowed to go and watch a match, aren’t they? It doesn’t mean anything, really, only to us. That’s how she operates, under the radar.’
