The Stolen Children

by Oliver Davies

  “No surprise really,” I sighed. “Most adults can’t remember what they did last week, let alone ten-year-olds.” We’d talked to three of the kids and had two left. The housekeeper, who introduced herself as Vivienne when I asked, brought us a tray of tea and biscuits, which Stephen thoroughly enjoyed. I was too distracted to feel that hungry and just sipped at my drink, wishing that it was coffee.

  “C’mon, Darren,” Stephen said, nudging me lightly. “You can’t have had too high hopes for this. It was always a long shot.”

  “Yeah I know,” I conceded. “Can’t help being hopeful, can I?”

  “You? Optimistic?” Stephen teased.

  I rolled my eyes. “Aye and look where it gets me.”

  We settled back in to talk to the last couple of kids, both of whom were older and spoke to us without their parents.

  “I’m Stephen, and this my partner, Darren.”

  The little boy’s eyes widened. “Partner? Like, you’re married?”

  My face split into a grin, I couldn’t help it. “No, afraid not,” I chuckled. “We’re work partners.” I patted Stephen’s shoulder. “Stephen has a wife of his own.”

  “Oh,” the kid said, visibly disappointed.

  “What’s your name?” Stephen asked.

  “Alex.” He leaned forwards, his eyes bright and curious. “Are you investigating a murder?”

  “Ah, not today,” Stephen said. “But we are investigating something just as serious. We’ve got a couple of questions to ask you, how’s that sound?”

  Alex shrugged, but his casualness seemed like something of an act considering how interested he clearly was. “Sure.”

  Stephen nodded. “Two weeks ago, something bad happened to a girl that goes to your school, and it happened on the way that you walk home.”

  Stephen had been taking a more direct approach for questioning with the slightly older kids, and I trusted him, but I hope it wouldn’t make them scared to walk to school in the future. Though no doubt after this, their parents would want to drive them in. I would, if they were my children.

  “Really?” Alex said. “Like what exactly?”

  “Well, we were hoping you could tell us,” Stephen said. We’d been trying not to ask leading questions, in case the kids made something up, accidentally or not. “Do you remember seeing anything at all strange two weeks ago?”

  “Strange? Like aliens?” Alex said. I thought he was serious for a moment, before he grinned.

  I thought Stephen would respond playfully like he had with the younger ones, but his expression remained serious. “No. It’s right important that you try really hard to remember, Alex. A girl’s life could be in danger, otherwise.”

  Alex stared at us, looking abruptly worried. I shifted in my seat, frowning slightly.

  “We want you to do your best, that’s all,” I said, making my voice gentler than Stephen’s had been. “It’s not your fault if you can’t remember anything, or didn’t see anything. We wanted to ask you kids just in case, because we know you see things just as much as adults do.”

  Alex nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly, before staring down at the coffee table for a long minute. I opened my mouth to prompt him, but Stephen put a hand on my knee, stopping me with a shake of his head.

  A short while later, Alex looked up again. “Did she have brown hair?” I blinked, startled, and Alex took our silence for confusion. “The girl,” he prompted.

  I recalled the picture of Lydia Brown I’d seen back at the station and nodded.

  “And about my age? Eleven?”

  I tilted my head. “About there.”

  “With plaits?”

  “I’m not sure what hairstyle she had that day,” I said, before leaning my elbows onto my knees. “What do you remember, Alex?”

  “I told my mum when I came home,” he said defensively, as if we might get angry at him.

  “You’re not in any trouble,” Stephen said quickly. “Whatever you say, okay? We just want to help this girl.”

  Alex took a big breath, his narrow shoulders rising. “Okay,” he said. “My mum didn’t believe me, but I saw a girl disappear.”

  His gaze was glued on us, clearly willing us to believe him and so I carefully kept my expression neutral, even as my stomach sank.

  “I see,” I said. “How did she do that?”

  Alex sat back, his face set into a frown. “You don’t believe me.”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “Police officers have to collect all the evidence before deciding. Can you tell us what exactly you saw?”

  Alex sulked for another second, before he released a breath. “Fine,” he said, his tone making it clear that he was doing us a favour. “I was walking home, down the long street with the park on the side. There’s always dogs there, and I was watching them.”

  If he’d been an adult, I would’ve prompted him to stick to the point, but I kept quiet, and so did Stephen.

  “And then I saw the girl, on the other side of the road.” His eyes were focused on a point past my left shoulder. “She was wearing colourful socks, that’s what I noticed.”

  I nodded encouragingly when he paused, making a note of what he was saying. It might come to nothing, but taking extra notes was never a bad thing, whereas not taking notes and forgetting the details could lead to missing something important.

  “How did she disappear?” Stephen asked, when Alex stayed quiet for a bit.

  Alex put up a hand. “Shush, I’m thinking.” He had his eyes closed, and Stephen and I shared a bemused look.

  His eyes snapped open again. “The van was white.”

  I tensed. “Van? What van?” Stephen had refocused, too, his broad shoulders gone rigid.

  Alex perked up under our renewed attention. “She walked along the same as me, but on the other side of the road,” he said, and I waited impatiently. “But she walked a bit faster. She went behind a van, a big one, right? I was trying to make it, so I was in front of her when she walked out again, but she- she never did!”

  My stomach had gone tight as he talked and Stephen and I shared a shocked look. If I’d been honest with myself, I’d thought this a long shot, too, but this sounded scarily like a real piece of evidence.

  “You believe me now?” Alex said eagerly.

  “Yeah, yeah, I do,” I said. “Alex, we’re going to need absolutely everything you can remember, okay?”

  He nodded quickly, his face flushed with excitement.

  I flipped to a new page in my notebook. “Tell me exactly where this happened.”

  Fifteen

  I looked around the street that Alex had led us to, taking in the parked cars and the row of expensive houses, though they weren’t as extravagant as the Brown’s.

  “It was here!” Alex said.

  “You’re sure?” Stephen asked.

  Alex nodded. His dad had joined us to keep an eye on things and had his arms folded across his chest. Alex moved ahead, leading Stephen towards the spot where the van had been parked, according to Alex’s memory.

  Alex’s dad fell into step beside me. He was an older guy, though there wasn’t a trace of grey in his inky black hair, which made me think he probably dyed it. “You really believe all this?” he asked me.

  I sent him a questioning look. “You don’t?”

  “Nah,” he said. “He’s an imaginative boy. He’s enjoying the attention. I’d take it with a grain of salt.”

  I kept my opinion on that to myself and made a noncommittal noise. “We’re being thorough.”

  “Oh yeah, ‘course,” he said quickly. “I always admired the police, y’know? Important job you do. Wouldn’t fancy it myself.” He laughed, not seeming to mind that I wasn’t paying him much attention. “The salary for a start, ouch! Am I right?”

  I sent him a cold look and walked ahead to catch up with Stephen, who was bending down to talk to Alex.

  “Any luck?” I asked them, my voice peppy despite my annoyance at Alex’s smarmy father.
r />   Alex pointed in front of him. There was a blue ford fiesta parked in the spot now, but Alex was certain that’d been where the van had been.

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked, not exactly disbelieving him, but impressed by his apparent certainty.

  Alex scoffed. “It’s easy,” he said. “I just remember.”

  I raised my eyebrow and wondered whether maybe Alex was a bit too confident.

  “Did you see anything else?” Stephen asked gently. “Does being here remind you of anything?”

  Alex looked around, before shaking his head. “I already said everything.”

  “So you don’t remember the driver?”

  Alex looked faintly annoyed. “I told you, I couldn’t see into the window, there was a reflection.”

  “Okay,” Stephen said, placating. He continued to chat with Alex, trying to get any extra details he could, while Alex’s dad stood scowling, leaning against the park fence.

  I wandered away, walking along the pavement that Lydia would’ve walked on, if what Alex said was correct. I pictured the van where Alex had told us it was and stopped, glancing around me for cameras, even though I knew there weren’t any.

  With the van blocking the view from the park, only the houses beside the pavement would’ve had a view of Lydia being taken into the van. Stephen came over to my side as I was looking up at them.

  I glanced over at him, but Alex wasn’t by his side. “No kid?”

  Stephen shrugged. “His dad got fed up and towed him home.”

  I frowned. “Nice bloke.”

  “Poor kid,” Stephen muttered.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. No wonder the boy had been so thrilled by our interest in his story. His mum had dismissed him, and his father treated him like a nuisance. It wasn’t exactly criminal negligence, he seemed perfectly healthy, but it did make me sad.

  “So, what do you think?”

  “I’m not sure exactly.” I turned away from the house, looking up and down the street. It was pretty quiet now, and there weren’t many people around.

  “We could try knocking on the doors?”

  “Aye, why not?” I sighed.

  Since there were only, at a reach, three houses that might’ve overseen Lydia’s abduction, we didn’t split up this time, taking the left-hand house first. They hadn’t seen anything and didn’t seem particularly interested in helping, either, so we moved onto the middle one pretty quickly.

  “Second time lucky,” Stephen muttered.

  We walked up the drive, and Stephen knocked on the door while I looked around. But no-one came to the door, and we were left standing on the doorstep. I turned around to look down on the pavement, tilting my head. It was a clear view, and I frowned, wishing that someone had been looking out of the front window when it’d happened and could tell us everything we needed to know. Surely if they had, they would’ve come forward, though.

  We gave up after a long minute, and I walked back down to the pavement, frustrated. Stephen came down the drive of the house, moving around the expensive BMW in the driveway which had been reversed in.

  “Stephen,” I said.

  He came down to meet me. “Yeah?”

  I was already walking away, towards the car windscreen, tilting my head this way and that to see better through the reflective glass.

  “Mitchell? Fill me in here.”

  “Dashcam,” I said triumphantly. The car was parked across the drive-in parallel to the pavement, and I wasn’t sure if it even filmed when the car turned off, nor if the pavement was in its range of view, but it was a possibility.

  The house door opened with a click, and Stephen and I looked up.

  “Oi,” a guy in a dressing gown scowled down at us. “What’re you doing with my car?”

  I started walking towards him, Stephen following quickly. “We’ve got a couple of questions for you, sir.”

  He looked startled. “W-what?”

  “We’re going to need the footage from that dashcam,” I said, pointing. The man opened his mouth, his brow scrunched up, and I knew he was going to be a pain. “We’re concerned that someone’s been eyeing up your house for a burglary,” I said. It was a little white lie, but if it helped us catch Lydia, it would be more than worth it. Stephen shot me a sideways look but didn’t say anything.

  “A burglary?” he repeated, looking taken aback. “They want my car?”

  I pulled a sympathetic face. “We’re not sure. Does the camera film when the car’s off?”

  To my relief, the man nodded. “Yeah, captures everything. Top of the range.” He puffed up his chest slightly, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  “Could you fetch us that footage?” I prompted. “We take people’s security very seriously.”

  The man nodded. “I knew this was a good area to move to,” he said, sounding smug. “Just wait here, I’ll go and copy it for you.”

  “We want at least the last two weeks,” I said, as he was turning away. “To be thorough, you understand.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  Once he’d walked away, Stephen turned to give me an unimpressed look. “Really?” he said quietly. “Burglary?”

  “So?” I said. “You think he would’ve cared more about a kid he doesn’t know than his precious car?”

  Stephen pressed his lips together. “Maybe he likes kids,” he said.

  “Sure he does,” I said, unconvinced.

  The man came back a minute later with a memory stick in his hand. “Here you go. There’s the last month on there,” he told me. “After that, it deletes itself.”

  I nodded, accepting the pen drive. “Thank you for your help.”

  “You’ll be in touch?” he asked as we were turning away.

  I forced a tight smile. “If we have any security concerns, we’ll let you know right away.”

  “Appreciate it!” he said, as we headed off down the drive.

  With the memory stick safely stashed in the inner pocket of my coat, we walked back to the Brown’s house to thank them for letting us talk to the children.

  “Did you find anything useful? Did Alex know something?” Rochelle asked, her dark eyes fixed on mine.

  “We’re not sure yet,” I said evasively, not wanting to get their hopes up before we had confirmation.

  “We’re looking into it,” Stephen assured her.

  “Mrs Brown, Mr Brown,” I said, remembering the start of Alex’s account. “Do you remember how Lydia was- how her hair was when she left that day?”

  Both parents looked at me in surprise. “I did her hair,” Oliver said. “It was…” He frowned, before he looked up sharply. “Pigtails. I thought it looked too young for her, to be honest,” he said, grimacing slightly. “But she was determined that was what she wanted.”

  Stephen and I shared a look. That part of Alex’s story stood up, then.

  “And her socks?” I asked.

  Oliver shrugged apologetically. “I don’t know. They should’ve been the school black ones, but sometimes she put on different ones. I didn’t always notice.”

  I nodded. “Alright. Thank you. We’ll be in touch as soon as we know something for sure.”

  Rochelle showed us out and bid goodbye at the door. We drove back to the station in near silence, both of us thinking.

  “Alex had a good memory, even if he only saw Lydia and made up the last bit.”

  “Aye,” I agreed. “He seemed like a bright kid. We’ll have a look at the camera and see if it holds up. Fingers crossed, hey?”

  Stephen smiled and crossed his fingers. “Here’s hoping,” he said.

  At the station, Stephen made us both hot drinks while I booted up my sluggish computer and jabbed the memory stick into the port on the side.

  “Anything?” Stephen asked, putting my mug on my desk.

  “Thanks.” I picked it up and took a scalding sip. “And no, it’s loading.”

  He huffed, visibly impatient, and sat down in his own seat. He pulled out his phone while we wa
ited for my computer to get itself sorted out and flicked through his messages.

  “Your wife?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No news is good news,” he said, putting his phone down.

  We waited another couple of minutes while the computer downloaded the files and then I could open them up.

  “This is too far back.”

  “Yeah I know,” I said, flicking through them towards the newer stuff. I finally found the date on which Lydia had been taken and clicked to open the file. Stephen was leaning forwards, his chair wheeled close to mine, and so did I.

  The footage started when it was dark, at the turn of midnight. I put it on fast forward, and we watched as dawn arrived.

  “That’s a van!” Stephen blurted out, as a pale coloured van pulled up in front of the pavement on the black and white footage.

  “It sure is,” I said quietly. No-one got out, and I watched as the hours ticked towards the end of school. My heart was beating quickly, and I rubbed a hand over my face. Still, no-one got out of the van, nor did it move and we waited for half-past three, when the kids got let out.

  “Nothing,” Stephen muttered.

  “Give it a minute. She has to get her stuff together and walk over.”

  “I know, I know,” he said, all wound tight.

  I swore quietly, startling backwards when the van door was suddenly, violently thrown open. A small figure was visible at the very edge of the camera’s range. A bulky man jumped out of the van’s open door and grabbed the child, swinging them into the van, all in less than a second. The child didn’t even kick.

  Stephen inhaled, his face blanched of colour when I looked over at him. The camera’s line of sight didn’t reach the other side of the street where Alex would have been walking. However, it did record him crossing the road to peer down the pavement, clearly looking for where the child had gone. He stayed there for thirty seconds or so, looking everywhere, and I held my breath. Even though I’d seen him just today and knew that he was safe and well, I couldn’t help but be afraid for him on the film, knowing that he was less than a couple of meters from at least one kidnapper.