by Ruth Dugdall
“We have Ellie,” Amina said, slowly, so as to be fully understood. “And we want to bring her home, but it is difficult. They will see our van. Can we meet somewhere, not Luxembourg? Do you know Saarburg?”
Auntie reached forward, she grabbed the phone from Amina, holding it in the air, her fingers wrapped around the buttons protectively. “Not there!” she hissed, “We cannot risk seeing Jak!”
Amina stared at Auntie, and realised her mistake. She took the phone from Auntie and drew a breath to speak, but it was making a single flat tone. In the fumble the connection had been lost, a button accidently pressed, and the line was dead.
Amina’s courage had deserted her and she dared not try a second time.
Ellie
It was as though her spine was broken, the way she could no longer lift her head. She had lost track of the days. Why should they let her live? But why are the keeping her here?
Nothing was left to her, only the thin rags of childhood wishes: Father Christmas, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny. She would sell her soul for something to believe in.
Ellie closed her eyes and prayed.
“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
She lost herself in the words.
“Ellie?”
Ellie stopped the muttered words from long ago and opened her eyes. It was the girl, Amina.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to disturb your worship, but the food is hot.”
It was the food that did it, a steaming bowl of soup. Soup, for comfort and sickness. Her mother would make it, when she was a child. Oh, God, let me be a child again. Oh Mum, please find me. And the tears came again, fierce and bitter now. Ellie could see no way of stopping them, as her body heaved and she felt the loss more keenly than she had in what felt like a long time.
Amina placed the tray on the chair that they used as a table and knelt down beside Ellie. She did not touch her, but Ellie could feel her closeness. “I can get you something, if you like? To make you calm.”
Ellie looked through tear-soaked eyes at Amina. “Drugs?”
Amina flinched. “The tablets Auntie crumbled in your milk helped you relax. It is good medicine. I take it too, sometimes, and so does Jodie. Would you like some?”
“No. No more drugs.” Though Ellie realised that was why she was feeling so much worse than she had before, her feelings and emotions were no longer masked.
The two teenagers sat together silently. They could hear the road outside, a lorry thundering past.
“Where is the other girl?” Ellie asked, thinking back to when she first saw Jodie, at Schueberfouer. How, later, she had smiled at Ellie and how that had made her wander over, as much as Malik it was the girl who interested her.
“Jodie does not work in the house. She is more useful to Jak.”
Ellie remembered seeing the girl walk away with the middle-aged businessman, the way she had led him into a dim alleyway. An unbearable sadness came over her, for Jodie and for Amina. Most of all for herself. Ellie couldn’t imagine ever leaving, her only future was working the streets like Jodie or in domestic slavery like Amina. Or worse.
“Would you like me to go, Ellie, so you can pray to your god?”
Ellie sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and shook her head. “I don’t believe in that shit anyway. My dad used to take me to church in Heidelberg all the time, and when we first came here he took me to all of the cathedrals: Luxembourg, Nancy. Metz was the best. It was so nice in there, so cool and quiet. I was just trying to get that feeling back, that’s all.”
Amina reached for the soup. She handed it to Ellie.
“Eat,” she gently instructed. “And tell me about this cathedral. I have never been in one, and I should like to know what it is like.”
Ellie sipped the soup and considered Amina, who was leaning forward, her large brown eyes curious and attentive. Ellie knew that the girl was only trying to help, by distracting her from her plight, but it was also a moment of friendship. She forced herself to smile and began to speak.
Bridget
Now back at home, Bridget could not smile. The muscles of her mouth had shortened, it seemed, so the heaviness at the corners could not be fought. What was there to smile about anyway?
Achim was jubilant, still animated from the adrenalin high of the press conference. He kept rubbing his hands, pacing the hallway, and saying how it would change things. “Did you see the BBC were there?” he asked, for the tenth time. “They can’t ignore media pressure. And that scene you caused will mean they’ll have to put more effort into finding Ellie now.”
Bridget stared at him. “Don’t you get it, Achim? We’ve lost her.”
He grabbed her shoulders, shook her hard, just once. “You are free. And now we have the international press on our side. So why are you giving up?”
Bridget hung her head low. “My friend has abandoned me. Cate…”
“She supports you! She was at the conference.”
“No, she changed her mind, Achim. And somehow I thought she was the one who would find Ellie.”
She cried, then, and again he didn’t comfort her. He hadn’t asked why she had been arrested. He didn’t know the details about Jak. And she couldn’t tell him, couldn’t talk to anyone but the daughter that lived in her mind, the one she spoke to constantly now. He didn’t ask why it was that Cate Austin had stopped helping.
Bridget heard the front door slam, and went to the window to watch her husband walk away from the house.
Dear Ellie,
It is late. It is one week too late.
I have tried telling the police, and it got me locked up. I thought I had friends, but I have been abandoned. I can’t say it any more loudly than I did today: I need you to come home.
I don’t even think you can hear me anymore. I fear I am talking to myself, like the mad woman the police believe me to be.
I fear I won’t see you again.
Cate
Cate was back in the flat, waiting for the phone to ring or someone to arrive. It was just a matter of time until one of three people she had let down that day arrived to berate her. No doubt Bridget would have called Eva, who would be furious that Cate had turned her back on Bridget. Bridget herself may come, beg her again to assist, but Cate was determined to refuse. The words Bridget had spoken, her confession in the park, It’s true, it’s all my fault, had shocked Cate to the core. She wanted nothing more to do with the woman.
The third candidate was Olivier.
What the fuck do you think you are doing?
His words reverberated around her head. She was thinking now of how to save her relationship. She would confess all of her meddling to Olivier, she would tell him that Bridget had confessed to her too, in the park, it might be enough to get her arrested again and put Ellie’s safety in the hands of the police, where it belonged.
As it happened, the first caller at her door was none of those Cate had expected. When she opened the door to the flat she felt a jolt to see Achim Scheen standing before her.
His face was grey with fatigue and his eyes were flat, deeply depressed. Although he was wearing a suit jacket, the same one he wore earlier at the British Embassy, it was now crumpled and his shirt had a sweat mark around the neck.
“I’m sorry to bother you. I was hoping we could talk?”
Cate stood aside, letting him pass, noting his hunched shoulders and realising that everyone had somehow forgotten his loss.
“Can I get you a drink, Achim?”
He sat heavily on the sofa, his hands running through his hair, and shook his head. “No, thank you.” The poor man looked like he didn’t just need a drink, but food too. She could see he’d lost weight since she last saw him, and that was only a few days ago when she collected Gaynor for school.
Cate sat next to Achim on the sofa, wondering what he wanted but deciding that he had to find his own words. They sat in silence for several minutes and Cate found herself not uncomfortable, Ac
him was so engrossed in his own private nightmare that she simply felt invisible; they were sharing a physical space, but that was all.
Suddenly he coughed, struggled to clear his throat.
“I’ll get you some water.”
Cate was glad to have a few moments, just while she ran a tap and filled a glass, to breathe. When she handed Achim the glass he drained the whole thing in one long gulp, as if suddenly realising that he was in fact very thirsty.
“More?”
“No.” He held the empty glass tight in his hands; she could see the moisture on the glass from his sweat.
“Achim?” She felt her hand rest on his arm.
“I don’t know what she’s told you,” he said, clearly trying hard to keep his voice even, “but I have my suspicions. And I can see how devastated she is since you argued earlier today.”
Cate breathed deeply, she couldn’t tell whether he knew that his wife had orchestrated his daughter’s kidnapping.
“What I want to say to you,” he said, “is that since Ellie went, I have come to think that Bridget has some information she is keeping from me, and this has given me hope that Ellie will come home. But whatever happened today, with you, it has taken that hope away. So I’m here to ask you, to beg you, that whatever it is you need to do to bring that hope back, then please do it. Please, Cate.”
“Achim,” Cate whispered, “I don’t know what you’re asking me to do.”
“To be Bridget’s friend,” he said, so plaintively that she felt the hairs along her arm bristle. “I know that my wife is mentally unwell, and she may end up in prison, but if she loses your support then I’m frightened for her stability.”
“So you do it!” Cate said, suddenly angry. “You support your mentally ill wife. I’ve said I’ll look after Gaynor tomorrow, so she can see her solicitor, and I’ll carry on doing the school run. But that’s where my involvement ends. You have to help your wife.”
His response was quick, heightened with emotion. “Don’t you see, that’s what I’m doing by coming here? Bridget won’t tell me anything, but I think she’s told you.”
“Maybe you’re lucky not to know,” Cate said recklessly. But Achim didn’t flinch. “She’s the prime suspect, Achim. I would be risking becoming an accomplice…”
Achim gazed at her, his eyes were intelligent and shrewd. Bridget may not have given him many details, but he knew that she was connected to the kidnapping.
“If there is something that you can do to bring my daughter back home, I swear to you, I will defend any action you take. I won’t let the police blame you, Cate. I’ll take the blame. Blame me. Blame Bridget. But please, save my daughter.”
After Achim had left, Cate went straight to her bathroom to run a hot bath, dropping in eucalyptus oil and lavender. She hadn’t showered since yesterday morning, and a lot had happened since then. She undressed, dropping her creased floral blouse to the floor, tugging off her trousers, her designer shoes. Finally, she removed the engagement ring, placing its glittering self onto a smudge of foundation from a bottle that had been left upturned when she was getting ready, just yesterday. Just yesterday, and now she was engaged, with a fiancé who was not speaking to her.
And she’d so nearly pulled it off. Last night in Nancy she had been polite and attentive. Neither Josephine nor Roland could declare her unsuitable, and they adored Amelia. Well, Roland did anyway.
But what was that worth now that she had let Olivier down? He may be able to forgive her for reading his paperwork, for going to the press conference, but he would surely not forgive the fact that she had not been able to believe him. To simply let him do his job. All along, she had thought Bridget was innocent and she’d acted accordingly. And she’d been wrong.
And now Achim wanted her to help Bridget anyway. To continue on a wild-goose chase across the city.
In the steaming hot bath she saw that the fake tan, so flattering just forty-eight hours ago, now looked like a skin complaint, brown patches peeling away from mottled pink skin underneath. Her gel nails had started to grow out. Beauty Asiatique. She knew she couldn’t go back there now. Not for Bridget, not for Achim.
Cate sank lower in the water, telling herself she would stop thinking about Ellie, her mouth would remain shut, just as etiquette demanded when a woman finally has a good man who wants to marry her, if he still did.
What the fuck do you think you are doing?
And the truth was that Cate didn’t know anymore.
Bridget was involved in her daughter’s kidnapping, but that didn’t mean that love was entirely absent.
She thought then of her own parents, of the court case. How abuse and love could co-exist.
Stop it, Cate. Stop thinking about it. Focus on this new life you have. Try not to ruin it all again.
Still submerged under the water, she heard the doorbell. Achim again? Or Bridget? Don’t move, ignore it.
It rang again, as Cate knew it would. Sighing, Cate dried herself quickly, wrapped her dressing gown around her and went to open the door.
Seconds later, Eva was inside the flat.
“God, I really shouldn’t be here. I told the school that I had a dentist appointment this morning, I couldn’t miss the press conference. But I really don’t have time for this!”
Cate refused to feel guilty. She hadn’t asked Eva to call.
“Poor Bridget! She called me, from the park, where you left her. How could you, Cate? She was devastated.”
Cate tried to keep her voice as level as possible. “She should be devastated, Eva. She asked a man to take Ellie that night at Schueberfouer. Did you know?”
Eva stood her ground. For a second Cate thought she was going to deny it, but then she gave a tense nod. Small and solid with dark beady eyes, she looked like a pug. “It was a moment of madness.”
“A moment of madness,” Cate repeated, awed at Eva’s delusion. “Eva, she didn’t just forget her purse, she organised the kidnapping of her daughter.”
The message seemed to get through, Eva looked mollified. “Don’t you think I realise that? It’s a fucking mess. And only a matter of time before the police arrest her again.”
“Exactly.” Cate was thinking they were finally in agreement. “Bridget is crazy.”
“Which is why she needs us more than ever,” Eva said, a quick turnaround that proved they were in fact miles apart in their thinking.
“What Bridget needs is her daughter back. And how can we help with that?”
Eva looked furious. She pursed her lips, fixed Cate with a stare of unbridled disappointment and waited. She looked like she would wait for ever if she needed too.
Cate stared back at Eva. “This is for the police to investigate. I will help with Gaynor, I’ve already said I’ll have her tomorrow, but that’s where my assistance ends. Eva, I think you should be going now. The school will think something has gone wrong.”
Eva did not move, she remained fixed in the same pose, though her lips now relaxed into a contented smile. Despite the craziness, Cate felt a wave of affection for this earnest young woman, a recognition of herself a decade or so ago.
Eva’s face loosened, her eyes no longer fierce but softened with pain. “I told you once that I worked in Brussels, in the mayor’s office?”
“Yes, I got the feeling that you weren’t happy there.”
“Well, I was, at first. Before, as the Americans say, the shit hit the fan. When everything was smooth, it was a good place to work. But, Cate, do you know of Sabine Dardenne?”
Cate shook her head.
“Sabine was kidnapped when she was twelve years old. And she was not the first, or the last, victim of Marc Dutroux. Of him I think you most certainly know?”
“Was he the guy who had several girls held in his house? For years, and the authorities kept missing chances to catch him?”
“This, I think is an understatement. One man doing evil is horrible, but the police, the authorities, failing those girls is to me far worse. They
had so many chances to save them, but the police failed. These were questions that could not be answered.”
“What happened to them?” asked Cate, hardly daring to hear the answer.
“A police officer called at the house where the girls were imprisoned to investigate another matter. Because information had not been shared, he did not know the address was under suspicion. He heard two girls, crying. Dutroux’s wife said it was schoolchildren, playing outside, and he accepted that. He left, without doing anything.”
Eva paused, waiting for Cate to ask the inevitable question.
“Those girls, they starved to death. And he could have saved them.”
Cate’s hand flew to her mouth.
Eva nodded solemnly. “Dutroux was in prison at the time. The wife, she fed the dog, but not the girls.”
“That was why you left the mayor’s office?”
“It was why I was asked to leave. Because I said too much, I criticised the police. I asked too many questions.”
“And Sabine? Did she die too?”
Eva allowed herself the whisper of a smile. “Sabine was very strong, she demanded things. She asked Dutroux for a friend, for company, and he took another girl. And this was his undoing. Both girls were saved and Sabine, she is a true survivor. The thing is, Cate, I know Ellie. And she is like Sabine. She is strong. And so I think that, wherever she is, she will be fighting.”
Cate was caught in her optimism, wanted to believe it so much.
Eva grabbed Cate’s hands, covered them with her own. “Whatever you think about Bridget, and she did a bad thing I know, we cannot let Ellie down. We cannot trust the police to find her. And I cannot be like that policeman, who heard the screaming and did nothing.”
Alone again in the flat, Cate felt like a boxer who has just been knocked out in two successive rounds. Punch-drunk she paced around the space, wondering how she had deserved this. Still, though, she might have been able to refuse Achim’s request to help. She might even have been able to dismiss Eva’s. But then the phone rang.
“We have Ellie,” the voice said. “We could meet, though not in Luxembourg because our van may be seen. Do you know Saarburg?”