‘I’m Sofia Bambaki. How do you do?’
I shook hands with him, trying to retain my decorum as Mama would have wished, but the bread was screaming my name. I broke a piece off and started eating. Oh, the taste of that freshly baked loaf! It was delicious. I told him how I’d escaped from the orphanage after they had beaten me, and that there were soldiers in our house. Then I almost cried.
A boy, about eight years old, dashed out of the bushes and stood before Markos, his brown eyes wide, staring at the loaf. Markos broke the remains in two and held one half out.
‘Take it!’ he ordered.
The boy stuffed a chunk into his mouth as he raced back into the bushes.
‘I’ve got to go to school,’ Markos said, still looking over at the bushes. ‘Why were you in the orphanage?’
I shrugged. ‘My family all died.’ It was so hard to say I stopped and stared at the ground.
‘Mine too,’ he said, and gazed at the earth in front of his feet. ‘Apart from my father. The British dropped a bomb on our house.’
‘Mine were in the theatre when it blew up.’
‘In the theatre . . .’ He frowned and chewed his lip for a moment, then thrust the rest of the bread at me. ‘There’s a soup kitchen in 28th Street. Get there before two o’clock or you won’t get anything. Take care, I’ll see you around,’ he said.
I watched him hurry out of the park. There was something about him – I didn’t know what, but as I watched him leaving, I knew I wanted him to turn around and come back.
‘You take care yourself, Markos Papas!’ I cried.
He looked over his shoulder and winked, then he was gone.
I was still staring after him, grinning like an ape, when a rustling in the bushes drew my attention. A thin girl, a little younger than myself, came towards me. Dressed in rags and clutching a skinny baby with big, vacant eyes, she stared at the bread. At that moment, my mother filled my heart. I felt all the pain Mama had experienced when she tried to help the starving people of Athens.
‘Please,’ the girl whispered desperately, opening her mouth.
I broke off a bite-size piece of bread and put it into her mouth. She chewed frantically then, like a mother bird, transferred it to the baby’s mouth. I almost wept.
I pushed it into her hand. ‘Here, take the bread.’
She threw a worried glance at the bushes and I wondered how many more starving children hid there. She hurried around the back of Lord Byron, where she continued to feed the frail infant, rapidly losing its grip on life.
CHAPTER 11
ZOË
Manchester, present day.
THE PASSPORT OFFICE PROVED A huge disappointment. Megan didn’t show.
Rain pelted down outside. They loitered in the lobby for an hour, Zoë’s spirits as damp as the weather. When the rain drizzled to a halt, she and Emily couldn’t find a taxi, and ended up jogging from station to mall, looking for Megan. Zoë’s heart leaped at the sight of the girl she had seen juggling the white clubs at Deansgate traffic lights, when she first arrived in Manchester. But on closer inspection, it clearly wasn’t Megan. She checked the time and realised school was out, so she phoned Josh, but he didn’t answer.
They peered at traffic lights, trotted down underpasses, checked the bus and coach stations. Exhausted and disappointed, they jumped onto a bus to Centrepoint, in Oldham Street.
‘Where can she be, Emily? Megan can’t have simply disappeared again. We’re so close.’ Zoë sighed. ‘You’d have to be a mother yourself to understand how dreadful this all is.’
‘I nearly had a kid once,’ Emily said. ‘I was pregnant.’ Then a startled expression flashed across her face. ‘I, hum, shit . . . Forget it.’ Her eyes darted in all directions as if afraid someone had overheard. ‘Anyway, it was ages ago.’
She threw a penetrating glance at Zoë, and in that instant, with Emily’s hard exterior gone, Zoë saw a vulnerable young girl.
‘What happened?’ she asked, keeping her voice soft.
‘My dad’s girlfriend made me get rid of it.’ She shrugged. ‘I was still using, see. Little bugger would have been an addict even before it was born. Best thing to do. No big deal. Dad’s girlfriend was pregnant too. They were getting married.’ She hesitated, her eyes flicking up to Zoë’s again. ‘She didn’t want me competing for my dad’s attention, did she? And I’d have made her a granny, for fuck’s sake.’ She screwed her mouth around to one side. ‘Best thing really. I mean, take a look. I wouldn’t be much of a mother, would I? I ran away just after.’
‘Have you seen them since?’
She shook her head.
‘So you have a father, a stepmother and at least one little half-sister or brother?’
Emily’s head jerked up. She blinked and frowned as if she hadn’t thought about that before.
‘Have you considered paying them another visit?’ Zoë said. ‘They’ve had time to settle down. People do change.’
She frowned again and glared at Zoë, chin thrust forward, shield up – but Zoë saw a chink in her armour.
‘Why would they want to see me? They’d rather I was out of their way.’
‘We all make mistakes, Emily – parents, teachers, probation officers, even magistrates. Your dad might be missing you. Maybe he worries about you every day, wonders where you are, like me with Megan.’
‘And maybe he doesn’t,’ Emily said.
She had a point. ‘You’ll never know if you don’t give them a chance.’
‘Megan must be totally fuckin’ mad,’ the girl muttered.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘She thinks you don’t care about her at all – but you do. If you were my mum . . .’
She lowered her eyes, grabbed her left hand in her right and gnawed on a fingernail.
Zoë held back an urge to move Emily’s hand away.
‘After they’d nabbed me and took the bag,’ Emily said quietly, ‘they called me Megan because we look alike. It gave me this mad idea – well, if you thought I was Megan, I could . . . Stupid plan, wasn’t it?’ Her eyes flicked to Zoë’s before she turned away. ‘Do you really think my dad would . . . ? Nah, it’d never happen.’
‘I’ll tell you something, Emily. When you grow up, you grow away from your parents and gain your independence. But parents grow towards their children all their lives. A parent’s love continues to grow, even when their kids are independent and grown up. You can’t imagine that right now, but one day you’ll understand.’
Emily stared at her, then huffed and glugged her Coke.
‘Give over, will you? I said I’d help you find Megan, not put myself up for therapy.’
‘Right, okay, none of my business.’
They had no luck at Centrepoint. Afterwards, Zoë’s shoulders slumped under the weight of disappointment. She stood on the pavement, lost for a moment, weary from all the emotion, and wondering how Josh was coping.
Emily softened her voice as she joined her. ‘Do you want to see where we slept the night before I got nicked? But first, we need to grab a torch and batteries. It’s too dark in there.’ She bit her lip.
‘Okay, where’s the nearest shop?’
Fifteen minutes later, they were on their way again. Zoë held the torch and Emily held a three-pack of gum, which Zoë hoped would stop the nail-biting.
Emily led the way. Desperate to see where Megan had slept only forty-eight hours earlier, Zoë broke into a jog, almost tripping over rubbish in a dirty alley in her haste.
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Emily panted, struggling to keep up. ‘It’s just a scabby dosshouse.’
Still, a ridiculous thought overwhelmed Zoë. She wanted to place her hand on the spot where her child had slept, sense the warmth of her body, breathe the same air. They ran into another alley, near a hot dog van, and together they shifted a heavily vandalised door.
They tumbled inside the building. In the dark, Zoë fumbled to turn on the torch, a big orange t
hing with a handle on top. She shone it around and gasped as the beam bounced over appalling detritus. She had never seen anything so disgusting.
There was a terrible stench – then something moved in the far corner and she turned the light that way. At first, Zoë thought it was a heap of rags and empty bottles, but the bundle turned over to face the wall, muttering obscenities. It was a man. An empty wine bottle rolled off his chest and clattered onto the concrete.
‘It’s okay,’ Emily whispered. ‘He’s Pissed George. Harmless. Follow me. We’re going up the steps at the back.’
‘Here, Emily, you take the torch and lead the way,’ Zoë said.
The girl gave her a crooked smile. ‘All right.’
There was a new tone in her voice. Despite Zoë’s obsession with Megan, or perhaps because of it, she realised she was becoming fond of this wild kid.
They reached the floor where Megan and Emily had slept.
‘Please, Emily, re-enact everything that happened in this room?’
Emily shrugged. ‘Sure, but I don’t see how it’ll help.’
‘Just humour me.’
By the time Emily was stealing Megan’s bag, Zoë was fighting an inner battle against tears. She sat on the filthy windowsill and stared around the room. In all her years as a lawyer and a youth magistrate, she had come across so many kids who had slept rough, but the reality had never penetrated her middle-class world. Now it hit her like a ton of bricks. What could make any child live like this? How could society allow it? Even Pissed George was some mother’s son.
Zoë grieved for them all – and for her own shame and her regretted ignorance.
‘. . . so I just grabbed the bag and ran,’ Emily said. ‘Honest to God, I’m really, really sorry I scaved her stuff. I wouldn’t do it again, swear down I wouldn’t.’
Zoë had an urge to hug her, but she simply nodded. ‘I believe you. Do you think she’ll sleep here tonight?’
‘By herself?’ Emily shook her head. ‘No way. Why? You’re not going to stay here overnight, are you? It’s not safe after dark, Zoë.’ She shone the torch over the filthy mattress. ‘No, she’ll probably sleep at a shelter if she can.’
‘I have an idea. Give me your gum, Emily.’ The girl reached into her pocket. ‘No, the one you’re chewing.’
Zoë pulled out her notebook and started writing.
*
Back in the hotel room, Zoë logged on to AMBER Alert EU.
‘I’m just going to check on the missing kids website. Won’t be a minute, then we’ll have something to eat.’ Emily pulled a chair close and watched, then grinned when Zoë said, ‘Three cases closed.’
‘Great!’
The optimism of youth, Zoë thought, hoping Emily was right. She opened the first case.
A nine-year-old girl was found dead on . . . She read through all three cases. Bad news. She glanced round at Emily, who gaped at the screen.
‘Christ,’ she muttered.
‘Every day, more of the same. Look, here’s another one, just up.’
UPDATE – The Czech Child Alert that had been issued in the early morning of Wednesday 8 April 2015 has been cancelled. The 10-year-old boy from Brno, Czech Republic, has been found safe and unharmed. The boy was missing from 7 April. Thank you all for being on the lookout.
‘There are some happy endings,’ said Zoë softly.
She logged off, and looked around the hotel room.
‘That’s your bed, Emily. You take the first shower while I call my son. Think about what you want to eat. It’s getting late and I want an early start tomorrow.’
‘There’s a chippy round the corner. I could go while you phone.’
‘I’m not stupid,’ Zoë said.
Emily shrugged, disappointed. She stared at the floor, then at Zoë.
‘I won’t run, I swear. I, well . . . I’ve had lots of chances to scarper and I’m still here, aren’t I? You can trust me. Honest.’
Zoë stared into the girl’s eyes and thought she glimpsed something new. That need to be trusted – but should she trust her? There was no rule book guidance for the situation. She just had to make up her mind. She took a twenty-pound note from her purse, hesitated, and then shoved it into Emily’s hand. Was she lowering the boundaries too soon?
‘Fish, chips and peas for me, and whatever you want.’
Emily’s eyes widened and the crooked smile appeared for a second. She made one swift nod.
‘Let me down, Emily, and I’ll make your life hell, I swear.’
‘You don’t have to threaten me,’ she said quietly.
Zoë watched her leaving. Before the door closed, she called, ‘Don’t be long!’
CHAPTER 12
SOFIA
Athens, 1945.
BEHIND THE CHURCH, I STOOD in line at the soup kitchen. Like everyone else, I didn’t care if the food was tasty or nourishing, so long as it staved off the belly cramps for a while. The youngest children were crying, and the rest of us looked as miserable as we felt, eyes dulled by malnutrition, hair thin and matted. We no longer played or laughed, but wore serious expressions and stood still, only moving when we had to, conserving our energy like old men.
Desperately hungry, I gripped my tin and spoon against myself, but the cauldron was scraped clean before I reached the front of the queue.
Hunger was a beast in my belly, biting chunks out of my insides, howling and clawing its way up to my throat. Apart from a throbbing pain, my head was empty, spinning, so light it almost lifted my feet off the ground. My legs felt hollow too and I trembled as I tried to walk. Sit down, I told myself, save your energy. There was a restaurant nearby in Saint Cathryn Street. I knew they kept the food scraps for their chickens, but perhaps something edible would be thrown out.
A smooth pebble near my feet caught my eye. Could I fool my stomach for half an hour? I rubbed it on my skirt and popped it into my mouth. Instantly, the memory of Big Yannis’s barley sugar filled my mind. Oh, that sweet, syrupy taste. Saliva rushed into my mouth and I licked my dry, cracked lips.
Oh, let me die now, while I’m happy and free of pain.
But too quickly reality returned. My mouth dried and the barley sugar went back to a useless pebble. I walked slowly, arms hanging limp, head bowed, until I reached a taverna with EL GRECO’S painted in gold and white over the entrance. The door opened and the tantalising smell of baking wafted into the street. A kitchen woman stepped out and tipped a bucket of waste into the bin. The moment she returned inside, I raced over and scrabbled in the rubbish for food.
There was nothing but used wax paper!
Tears of desperation pricked my eyes – and then, a flash of snow white caught my attention. Icing sugar and flakes of baklava were stuck to the paper! Clutching the crumpled baking sheets in my arms, I backed into the next doorway and licked furiously at the cake remains. I ripped a damp patch out of one sticky sheet, crumpled it and stuffed it into my mouth, chewing and sucking to retrieve every last speck of delicious sweetness out of the paper. Fixated on what was in my mouth, it was a moment before I sensed a new scent in the air. Fresh, yeasty bread. I looked up to see the baker across the street filling the wooden shelf outside his shop with round brown loaves.
The baker had a flat, straight back and a protruding round front, reminding me of a tortoise we called Apollo that my brother once owned. But the baker stood upright and seemed to wear his shell on the front. Like the tortoise, his face had a slow, sleepy look to it.
The first of the morning’s shoppers were out on the street, and various food stores were opening, bringing their goods onto the pavement. Outside the dairy a woman called, ‘Milk, cheese, yoghurt – fresh today!’ At the butcher’s shop, a man in a red striped apron came out and yelled even louder, ‘Belly pork, sausage, sheep’s innards, calves’ hooves, marrowbones!’
My brain was singing and my mouth watered.
In a manic frenzy for food, my eyes returned to the bakery. I blew the ball of paper out of my
mouth and crouched like an animal. The baker emptied his wicker basket onto a plank set on two tea chests outside his shop. He returned inside to refill it. My heart clanged like the church bell. Now was my chance! Even if he saw me steal the bread, he would never be able to catch me. I leaped to my feet, ran across the road and grabbed a loaf.
I would have escaped if the grocer, a tall, strong man, a few doors before the corner, hadn’t seen me and stuck his broom out. I went flying. Cursing, he grabbed my hair and lifted me off my feet.
‘Dirty little thief!’ he yelled and slapped me hard on the face.
I didn’t know if it was his palm, or the shame of stealing, that burned my face so fiercely. Crying, I wriggled and kicked while keeping that bread clutched to my chest.
‘Please, I’m starving, I’m starving!’ I sobbed.
He drew his hand back to slap me again, but the baker reappeared and shouted, ‘Stop! She’s just a child. Bring her here.’
The greengrocer complied, holding me out at arm’s length but keeping a grip on my hair. He plonked me in front of the baker and stood facing us with his other fist on his hip. All eyes were on me. It was then I spotted Markos, the boy from the park. He came up behind the grocer. Markos met my eyes, placed a finger over his lips, then scooped up a large watermelon from outside the grocer’s shop. He stealthily returned the way he had come and disappeared around the corner.
The action seemed to energise me, as if we were a team. My face still stung, and tears ran down my cheeks, but I felt a kind of glory that I’d helped to stave off someone else’s hunger.
All this happened in a matter of seconds. Then the grocer turned me around to face the baker.
‘I’m sorry, sir, truly sorry – but I haven’t eaten for two days. I couldn’t help it, honestly. I’ve never stolen anything in my life before. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘Where are your parents, child?’ he asked.
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