by Alison James
‘It looks that way.’
‘Have you managed to get a mobile number for her?’
‘We’ve traced a contract phone issued to her by Vodaphone, but the number’s out of service. Last used in or near her flat last Tuesday.’
Charlie is standing now, agitated. ‘So where the fuck is she? She’s got her! She’s got Bonnie!’
Stratton takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. ‘There is CCTV footage of her wheeling the buggy out of the hotel again with her luggage, then we lose her. The receptionist says Marian asked her something about parking a car nearby. Now, we know her car wasn’t at her flat in Hove, so that would tally. So we’ve currently got a special ANPR alert set up across all forces. As soon as it picks up her number plate – which it will – we’ll be able to trace her. And we’ll update the information on the appeal, using a photo of Marian, asking people to look out for her. Someone will see her.’
‘Oh my God.’ Charlie sinks down onto the sofa again, her legs suddenly giving way. ‘Please hurry up. Hurry up and find her.’
‘We’ll get your daughter back, I promise.’ Stratton echoes the words her father used to her on that Sunday. ‘With any luck we’ll have news in the morning.’
52
Marian
Despite only a few hours’ sleep, Marian feels relaxed, even elated.
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is playing on the car radio, and Saffron is sleeping peacefully. She’ll need feeding soon, so they can’t drive to their final destination in one go. They’ll need to stop, somewhere discreet where they can’t be spotted by the public. Hence the 4 a.m. departure, to reduce the number of curious eyes.
She drives for an hour and a half before selecting a motel-style lodging on the edge of a dual carriageway. The single storey chalet-style rooms are separate from the building that houses reception, and she parks some distance from it so there is no need for anyone to see her taking the car seat from the back of the car.
She fills in the form with her maiden name and an invented car registration, and pays in cash for two nights. The man at the reception desk tells her he still needs to see ID. Her heart thumping, Marian rummages through her wallet until she finds an old university library card in the name of M. A. Webber. The man glances at it and nods, pushing the key across the desk to her.
‘Room 104. It’s back that way a bit.’ He points to the far end of the car park.
Marian unloads Saffron and their belongings into the sparsely furnished, slightly grubby room. After feeding and settling the baby, she pulls her coat on again and heads out to the car park. It’s still dark, and very cold, and hers is only one of four vehicles. She stares at the number plate for some minutes, thinking. Before long, someone will discover that she has this car on loan, or the insurers will become suspicious. She is sure she has read somewhere that you can obscure a registration plate with a special spray, or even hair lacquer, neither of which she has access to.
Think, Marian, think.
She has a flash of memory, of driving along narrow country lanes on childhood summer holidays in Devon. Of her father, in his driving gloves, complaining about the tractors that obstructed their progress. ‘So much mud on their plates, you can’t even take a note of the number to make a complaint. Can’t read them, they’re so dirty, which is illegal.’
She squats down by the grassy verge and tugs at the turf with her fingers until she manages to dislodge a section. Beneath it is cold, sticky mud. She scoops up a generous handful and smears it thickly over the courtesy car’s number plates, first the back and then the front. Once it has dried, she tells herself, there’s a decent chance it will prevent a camera from identifying the car. Not a long-term solution, but it might just last until they reach their destination.
Which is little more than an hour away now. Almost there.
But Marian desperately needs to catch up on her sleep – she can barely focus on the road. She spends the rest of the day in the motel room napping while Saffron is quiet, and avoiding any source of news while she’s awake.
Once it’s dark, she loads up the car again and uses her phone to check the route, before powering it down and dropping it at the bottom of her bag. Saffron grizzles faintly from the carrycot on the back seat, as if disgruntled to be on the move again.
‘It’s okay, my angel, it’s not very far. And once we’re there, we’ll be safe, I promise.’
The front door key is under the mat, just as it always used to be. The first thing that strikes her is how cold the place is. Of course it is; it’s the beginning of December and there’s no central heating. Yet the reality of it – of the chill damp air that pervades every inch of the place – is still a shock. That and the fact that there’s no food at all, bar a dried-up jar of instant coffee, a bottle of English mustard and a tin of spaghetti hoops. Saffron, sensing the chill and the isolation, starts to wail forcibly for the first time in the last thirty-six hours. There’s enough formula left for three more bottles, and only half a dozen nappies. Marian had forgotten how quickly a new baby can work through them.
Someone has left some wood in the log basket, but it’s so damp that despite repeated attempts, she can’t get it to light. In the end she abandons her efforts, and after feeding Saffron with unheated formula, takes her into her own bed. It’s unaired, but there are plenty of quilts and blankets that she heaps in a deep pile over them, using her own body heat to keep the child warm. They stay like that until it grows light.
In the morning, Marian goes downstairs and makes a more thorough investigation of the kitchen. The fridge isn’t working, but the kettle is, allowing her to make a black coffee from the dregs in the jar, and warm a bottle of formula. She finds a hot water bottle in the bedroom chest and fills it, placing it in Saffron’s carrycot and tucking the baby in next to it. The sudden increase in warmth sends her into a contented doze. As soon as she’s asleep, Marian tugs on coat, boots and hat and sets off on foot to the shop in the nearest village. Even if she weren’t reluctant to draw attention to herself by pushing a buggy she wouldn’t be able to propel it over this terrain: all swamp grass and rutted tracks. It makes her anxious leaving the baby unattended, but she has no choice.
It takes her nearly thirty minutes to reach the shop, where she buys basic food supplies like milk, bread, teabags and firewood. She still needs nappies and formula, but doesn’t want to buy them here in a tiny general store, with the shopkeeper noting every single purchase, gossiping to the villagers. By the time she’s walked back again, Saffron is just starting to stir, taking in her surroundings with her unfocussed gaze. Marian picks her up and holds her close, feeling the tiny lips move against her neck.
‘It’s okay, I’m here. You knew I wouldn’t leave you for long.’
She lights the fire with the new, dry firewood, and soon warmth is permeating the air, along with an amount of smoke. Clearly the chimney flue has not been cleaned in years. After hoovering and sweeping, Marian makes herself a cheese sandwich and administers the last of the formula to Saffron. She’s barely eaten in the last few days, and the waistband of her skirt is feeling loose. That’s a good thing, she tells herself, especially since the weight loss has resulted from having someone other than herself to take care of.
This is the way it is supposed to be.
‘Right, you’re coming with me this time.’
Later that afternoon, Marian tucks the baby into the buggy and lugs it out to the car. She can no longer use her phone to access the internet, but she’s sure she remembers passing a big supermarket on their way there the previous evening, just a few miles away. Sure enough she finds it, and it’s big enough and busy enough for her to push Saffron around it in the buggy without looking conspicuous. Better that than risk her being spotted alone on the back seat of the car. She fills a trolley with ready meals and baby supplies, even adding a few pot plants, cushions and throws from the home goods department.
‘We’ll soon have our new home feeling and looking cosy,’ she tells Saffron,
putting more firewood into the trolley. So far their wood supplies are only what she could carry that morning, and they will need plenty more.
‘What a lovely baby,’ the cashier comments as she swipes the shopping through the till. ‘Isn’t she bonny?’
Bonnie. That name again. Marian grimaces and looks determinedly away from the woman, refusing to fall into conversation.
‘That’s £173.69,’ the cashier says. ‘Card?’
‘Cash,’ Marian tells her firmly, counting out the notes. She checks her wallet anxiously, trying to work out how much money she has left. Several hundred pounds still, enough for the time being, but she will have to watch her spending carefully. Using a cash machine is as good as planting a flag on a map these days.
Outside in the car park, a man from a mobile car washing service is wheeling his cart towards her car. ‘Is dirty,’ he says in broken English, grinning. ‘You want I clean?’ He takes the jet washing nozzle and points it at her mud-caked number plate.
‘No!’ Marian says, angrily. ‘No, leave it alone. I don’t want it cleaned.’ She jabs the washer away with one hand.
He watches her, confused, as she stows the carrycot and dumps her shopping in the boot, before driving off at speed.
53
Paula
Paula and Johnny meet Big Tony at a pub in Whitechapel called the Wheatsheaf.
It’s a typical yellow-brick Victorian establishment with a piano for East End singalongs cheek by jowl with a pool table and Sky Sports on the TV over the bar. Big Tony is sitting at a small circular corner table, so small that he can’t fit his huge legs underneath it and has to sit with them splayed wide.
Tuesday afternoons don’t bring in much trade and the place is quiet. Paula phoned Calum that morning and told him she needed to take leave for personal reasons. He was less than pleased, especially after she has just been off sick.
‘Jody can’t manage the front of house, and help me, not for more than a few hours. We need notice if you’re not going to be here, so I can get temporary cover.’
‘I’m really sorry, Calum,’ she had muttered, meaning it. ‘I wouldn’t do this unless it was extremely important.’ She was about to tell him that her absence was related to the missing baby in the news, before checking herself. That would sound dodgy, and risk him asking questions, even calling the police. ‘I’ll explain it all to you eventually, I promise.’
So she’s self-conscious and feels guilty about finding herself in this setting halfway through what should have been a work day. Johnny, on the other hand, is quite relaxed, all back slaps and hand clasps. In his element.
‘Tone, always a pleasure. What can I get you, mate?’
Big Tony, who is at the bottom of a packet of crisps, licks the salt from his fingers and holds up his empty glass. ‘Pint of Truman’s,’ he says, grunting in Paula’s direction, which she takes to be a greeting. Johnny comes back from the bar with the pint of stout, lager for himself and a gin and tonic for Paula, along with more crisps.
‘So, what can I do for you?’ Big Tony mumbles into his glass, ripping open one of the bags of crisps.
‘Great work you did for us, last time, Tone.’ Johnny rubs his hands. ‘Really brilliant. Exactly what was needed. The things is, though, we need something a bit more… involved now. A bit more technical.’
‘Such as?’ Big Tony’s sausage-like fingers rummage in the crisp packet.
‘We need to try and track someone who’s deliberately gone missing. Through whatever means we can. Phone records, financial activity: anything. Any way her location can be nailed down.’
‘You’re talking hardcore.’ Big Tony sucks his teeth. ‘Dark web stuff. Not the sort of thing my police contacts necessarily get into.’
‘But you know someone? Come on, Tone, you always do.’
He’s shaking his head slowly. ‘There is someone I know of, yes. Someone who specialises in that stuff. It’ll cost you, though.’
Paula glances nervously at Johnny, who remains unperturbed. ‘Of course, whatever they need. But it’s urgent. We need this person finding yesterday.’
Tony drains his glass and stands up, his bulk almost knocking the table over. ‘Come on then. No time like the present.’
‘Where are we going?’ Paula asks. She’s barely started her own drink.
‘Taking you to meet Spider. He’s the best there is.’
The three of them cross Whitechapel Road and head east towards Stepney.
After ten minutes they come to a drab block of flats built from soot-stained brick, with a dank stone stairwell and a lift so tiny that the three of them can’t fit into it together; Johnny and Paula take the stairs to the fourth floor, leaving Big Tony to cram his huge frame into the lift. They are admitted, wordlessly, to a dark, airless flat whose windows are all obscured by lowered blinds. Several cats weave their way across the hall and between their legs, meowing for attention. At least the animals acknowledge their presence. Their owner says nothing.
Spider is as thin and emaciated as Big Tony is corpulent. His face – all hollows and shadows beneath the shaved head – resembles a skull. It’s impossible to discern his age, which could be anywhere between twenty and forty. He leads them into the flat’s cramped sitting room, which resembles an Aladdin’s cave for the twenty-first century hacker. Every available surface is covered with micro-PCs, motherboards, filters, radio receivers and USB sticks. On a large table that takes up most of the room there are several laptops, satellite phones, mobile handsets and a huge tangle of Ethernet cables. Faint wisps of marijuana smoke hang in the chinks of light that escape around the edges of the window blinds.
Spider sits down at the table, resuming smoking the joint he abandoned in order to open the door. He still says nothing.
‘These good people need your help, Spide,’ Big Tony tells him.
Spider merely narrows his eyes, blowing smoke at the ceiling.
‘They need you to find someone.’ Big Tony nods at Paula. ‘Tell him.’
‘She’s called Marian Glynn,’ Paula starts. If Spider recognises the name from recent news bulletins, he gives no sign of it. ‘She’s fifty-seven years old, permanent residence is in Hove. Used to live at twenty-one Ranmoor Road, London N10.’
There’s still no response. Paula shrugs helplessly at Johnny, who adds, ‘She owns a car, but she’s not driving it at the moment. Probably has another vehicle, though. We can show you a photo of her.’
He reaches into his coat, but Big Tony stops him. ‘No need,’ he says. ‘Spider can access images of her before you can say “data breach”.’ He grins, pleased with his own joke.
‘How much will it cost?’ Paula asks anxiously. She scrapes by on her wages and the maintenance Dave pays her, but has nothing in the way of savings.
Spider speaks for the first time. ‘That depends,’ he says. His voice is surprisingly deep and resonant, in contrast with his slight frame, his accent educated. ‘Depends how deep and how fast.’
Johnny reaches in his coat again, but this time it’s Spider that stops him. ‘Settle up afterwards. When I’ve got results.’
‘And how will you tell us what you’ve found out?’
Spider reaches into the clutter on the table and extracts a basic mobile phone with a charger attached. ‘Keep this charged and switched on. I’ll send you real-time updates.’
Paula turns the phone over in her hand, as though it has magical powers. ‘Do you think there’s any chance you’ll be able to find her?’
‘Of course.’ Spider’s face forms something approaching a smile, his skin stretching tight across the bony contours of his face. ‘I can find anyone.’
54
Charlie
‘It’s now four days since baby Bonnie Glynn was snatched from this block of flats, and so far her whereabouts are still a mystery, as are those of Marian Glynn, the woman who is believed to have taken her. The Metropolitan Police spokesman said this morning that they remain hopeful that the three week old is still
alive, and they are following up leads following a huge response from the public. Even so—’
Vanessa reaches out and takes the remote from her daughter’s hand, switching the TV off.
‘Enough now, darling. Don’t keep torturing yourself.’
‘But I need to know. I can’t not know.’
‘Take a break at least. You’re not doing yourself any good by focussing on Bonnie all the time.’
Her mother is right; Charlie knows it. Her physical health is starting to suffer. Her back aches, as does her neck and her jaw. The state of constant tension is affecting her physically as well as mentally. She sleeps, somehow, but relaxing is impossible. And now she has become a mother herself, albeit only for a brief time, she understands her own mother’s instinct to fuss over her. To try and fix things, make things right for her.
‘Is this my fault, Mum?’ she asks, miserably. ‘Because I was thinking of getting rid of her. Of having a termination. Am I being punished? Only I wasn’t sure I wanted her, and now she’s gone.’
Vanessa wraps her arms around her tightly. ‘Of course not, Lottie. You mustn’t think that way. Your dad and I are so impressed with what a great mum you are. It may not be what any of us had planned, but you’re doing so well.’
‘I was.’ Fresh tears well up in Charlie’s eyes. Just when she thinks she can’t possibly produce any more of them, more arrive.
‘Why not go for a walk? Or go over to Hannah’s for a bit? She keeps messaging me to ask how you are.’
‘Because the police might come round.’
Fifteen minutes later, when the doorbell rings, Charlie hurries into the hall, her expression once again wrestling with hope and fear.
‘I’ll get it, darling,’ Vanessa tells her, bustling to the front door. ‘You go and run yourself a bath. If there’s any news, we’ll come and tell you right away.’ She opens the front door. Their family liaison officer, DC Teresa Sanchez, is standing there.