Child Taken: A chilling page-turner you will be unable to put down

by Darren Young

  ‘I bet even – I don’t know, the best journalist in the world started out doing some filing.’

  Laura nodded without really listening. She wanted to tell her that she doubted she would ever do anything much more exciting than filing if it was up to David Weatherall, but her mother showed so much confidence in her, she thought better of it.

  Laura had to tread carefully when it came to her career choice. Her parents had both tried very hard to talk her out of journalism, citing the unpredictability, instability and even dangers involved, and she had fought them every step of the way. Her father had been determined to convince her to take a better path, maybe into medicine like him, but she’d dug her heels in, and eventually they had been the ones who’d conceded.

  So she could hardly complain now. But she had expected so much more when she completed her GCSEs with good grades and two A-levels before enrolling on a media studies degree course and after that another media course and then a separate qualification specific to journalism. It had taken four years, and her parents had become increasingly supportive as the time went by.

  But, when she finished studying, the excitement had been knocked out of her by the reality of the job market. The recession had hit the media sector hard, and when she went for a job – for even the most junior roles at small publications – she was one of hundreds of media studies graduates or unemployed journalists who applied, and in the first year she managed to secure only a handful of interviews, none of which ended with a job offer. She’d ended up taking part-time bar work to make ends meet.

  She knew it would have been easy for her parents to say they told her so, but instead they rallied behind her, buying her a car and not taking any payment for her keep, so that she could get herself a foothold. Her father, whose own parents had told him to forget his fanciful ideas of becoming a surgeon, even went to the local newspaper that had rejected her application six months earlier, and put in a word with the editor. Unknown to Laura at the time, David’s wife had undergone an operation to remove a cyst a few years earlier, and complications had set in during what should have been a routine procedure. At the time, late at night with a skeleton staff, the situation had escalated and she could easily have died, had it not been for a surgeon who had already left for the day but answered an emergency call and returned, refusing to give in until he’d pulled her through and, in all likelihood, saved her life.

  The surgeon was one Robert Grainger, M.Ch. and, although he was not a man to call in favours lightly, he had gone against his principles and done so on this occasion, prompting David to offer Laura a job as a trainee, on a low wage and with absolutely no guarantees but it was the foot on the ladder she craved. It was one of the reasons she didn’t object too strongly when the editor gave her so few leads and so many admin tasks. He was a proud man, and he wouldn’t have enjoyed having his arm twisted like that. And her mother was right: everyone did have to start somewhere and, unless you were amazingly lucky, that somewhere was usually at the bottom. And it had only been six months. If nothing else, it had given her a solid grounding and an insight into the less glamorous aspects of the role.

  ‘You’ll appreciate it more when you do make it.’

  Laura watched her mother put the pie into the double oven built into the units of the spectacular kitchen. Despite his struggles to convince his parents he could, her father had made it, and the house was testament to that.

  She sighed and took another sip of her wine. Having her father get her a job had been no fun for her either. It felt as if she had to prove herself to him and David, and as if she had to work harder than her colleagues to get the respect she deserved.

  She wanted to show her parents what she was really made of. If only David would give her a break from the dusty basement and hand her a real story, she’d show him too.

  She just needed that one chance.

  9 | Laura

  If Laura was going to get a chance to shine, it wasn’t that week.

  If the filing on Tuesday had been an unpleasant part of her junior role, by Friday she would gladly have taken any amount of boxes into that basement and spent all day there. Saturday evening couldn’t come soon enough for her.

  Wednesday started badly. Sue Montgomery, David’s trusted personal assistant and the only person in the world, Laura thought, who could possibly put up with him for as long as she had, came into the office with a face that was a ghastly shade of Wicked Witch green and by ten past nine she had already been sick twice in the toilets. This prompted David to ask Kelly Heath, one of the Gazette’s senior reporters, to drop her home on the way to her next meeting.

  Laura had never known Sue to be off other than the odd holiday, when she would organise a temp to cover her absence. But without warning David was lost without her, and he asked Laura to help him with some of Sue’s tasks. She quickly established that this meant taking on the less glamorous parts of Sue’s duties, and David started by dictating a letter he wanted her to type out, but did so at full ‘Sue-speed’ and Laura couldn’t keep up. She was too afraid to tell him, but when she had typed it and printed it for him he promptly tore it up and made her start again – and that, unfortunately, was as good as it got for the rest of the day.

  The following morning, Sue called to say she felt even worse, and Laura ended up with the editor again, despite her protests that there must be better options. Thursday was the day Sue put the weekly performance statistics together, and it was an exercise that should have taken no more than an hour. But it took David almost that hour to explain what he wanted, and when Laura started compiling the data it went fairly well until she made the mistake of suggesting an improvement that she thought might also save some time in future. David lost his temper, and she had to finish it off with a tense atmosphere hanging over them that lasted for the rest of the day.

  By Friday, the editor had become utterly miserable and seemed to be on a mission to make everyone suffer. Two reporters had called in with the same sickness bug that Sue had, which worsened his mood, but mercifully, Laura thought, Sue was back at her desk, although not looking at all well; an obvious fact that David pretended not to notice.

  Laura found herself in his office just before lunch when she took in some work she had finished off from the previous day, and he kept her there to explain, in precise detail, how disappointed he was with her recent performance. When she tried to argue that she had been covering Sue’s absence and should be judged on her own work, he said he was referring to that as well, so she gave up, took her medicine and got an empathetic smile from Sue on her way back to her desk. Laura had learned, early on in her employment, that you didn’t engage in a debate with David when he was in this kind of mood. It was well known that he liked to give someone a proper dressing-down to make himself feel better, so Laura had at least spared everyone else in the office an afternoon of criticism, and she got a few nods of approval from them afterwards.

  ‘Thanks for taking one for the team.’

  Laura hadn’t noticed that Kelly Heath had come back to the office while she was in with David. She smiled. ‘Glad to help.’

  ‘Want to help even more?’

  Kelly was a rising star at the Gazette and could do no wrong in David’s eyes. She always seemed to get the best stories and, even if she didn’t, she often turned them into better ones than they started off as being. Laura asked her what she needed. ‘Jane’s off sick and we had a few interviews lined up for tomorrow,’ Kelly told her.

  Jane was Kelly’s usual partner on any stories that required more than one reporter.

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Means giving up a bit of your weekend. And David’s not the quickest at paying for overtime.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll help.’

  Laura noted that Kelly seemed surprised. ‘Great. I owe you one.’

  Laura smiled as Kelly gave her the details for the next day and left the office. Laura watched her suspiciously. People like Kelly Heath rarely did anyone any favours
unless there was something in it for them.

  The next day was a more sobering experience than Laura had anticipated. She had always read Kelly’s stories with a sense that she lived the life of a proper journalist: close to the edge, skirting danger and meeting lots of interesting characters. But they spent half of the day hanging around waiting to interview people who didn’t want to talk to them, and the other half waiting for a protest march that was cancelled at the eleventh hour after last-ditch talks between the local residents and council officials.

  ‘Does this happen a lot?’ she asked as they walked back to Kelly’s car.

  ‘What? Non-stories?’

  Laura nodded.

  ‘More than you’d think,’ Kelly said as she opened her door. Laura got in the passenger seat so that Kelly could drop her off at her own car. ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s not as exciting as you thought, is it?’

  Laura shrugged. ‘At least it shows David I can handle more than filing.’

  ‘I’m sure he knows that.’

  ‘He thinks that’s all I’m good for, and if it weren’t for my dad I probably wouldn’t even be doing that.’

  Laura had never mentioned her father’s influence in her getting the job, and she presumed the others didn’t know either. Kelly smiled but didn’t press her to say more, and Laura was grateful. She already regretted saying as much as she had, about her father and her job. Kelly was such a favourite of David’s, she couldn’t say with certainty that anything she said wouldn’t get back to him.

  ‘Well, if you want a long career at the Gazette,’ Kelly laughed as they pulled away, ‘you’d better get used to days like this one.’

  10 | Laura

  By the time Laura left Kelly and made the short drive home, she was already running behind schedule, and she gave her mother her phone and asked her to send a text message to her friends to tell them.

  ‘I’ll run you in,’ Helen called to her as she ran up the stairs.

  ‘I can get a cab.’

  ‘It’s no problem.’

  Laura almost ran through the shower rather than spending any time under it and quickly got changed into her least journalist-looking clothes; she had never been one for dresses or anything flashy, so she made do with a black sweater and jeans.

  ‘They said they’ll be in Gordon’s,’ her mother shouted over the drone of the hairdryer as she finished getting ready. ‘Is that the new wine bar they’ve just opened?’

  Laura smiled. She knew her mother liked to think she knew all the places in town but if she was honest it had been ten years since she’d set foot in any of them, and this ‘new’ bar had opened more than twelve months ago.

  A few minutes later they were in Helen’s car and driving down the hill towards the small town centre. It was a very quiet place every other night of the week, but it had garnered a reputation as a good place to go on a Saturday, and hundreds of people between the ages of sixteen and sixty flooded in from the surrounding villages. Since the relaxation of pub opening hours it had become quite a lively centre, and there were large groups in the streets as Helen tried to find a spot to drop Laura off.

  ‘There’s a lot of lads about.’

  ‘It’s Saturday, there always are.’

  ‘Well, be careful.’

  ‘Mum!’

  They pulled up in a parking space outside the mini-supermarket so that Laura could get some money from the ATM before she walked the short distance to Gordon’s, a refurbished bar that had once been called a wine bar but now considered itself far more sophisticated; it also had by far the most expensive price list in town, so the plan was to have one drink there and move on afterwards.

  ‘I mean be careful who you talk to.’

  ‘I’m not twelve, Mum.’

  ‘I’m just saying.’

  Laura had known the offer of a lift into town would not be without motive. Her mother wasn’t that keen on her being out at night, and the longer she could spend with her and know she had arrived safely, the better she would feel. As it was, Laura rarely ventured out in the evening, and into town even less, preferring to stay home and read or go to the cinema on the retail park. But she had also promised her friends that she would have a night out with them and she couldn’t cancel again – she’d done it twice already. And with the week she’d had, she was actually looking forward to some girl talk and putting her job to the back of her mind.

  One of the problems with the town was that there were so few people her age living there. Nearly all her schoolfriends had left for jobs or further education and not come back after university. One of her favourite remarks when asked about the town by outsiders was to say the busiest place was the funeral directors; there were three of them in a row on the high street, just to prove her point. At work, the next-youngest person was six years older than her, and nearly all the staff were married with children or about to start families. She found she had very little in common with any of them. So she enjoyed the rare opportunity to catch up with people her own age and recall some of their university antics.

  As planned, they had one expensive drink in Gordon’s and then moved to a student bar that sold cheap cocktails all night, before settling at a third place, a large pub that played music into the early hours and attracted a large crowd. They decided to stay there until closing time or when they’d had enough; whichever came first, but, as they weren’t seasoned drinkers, by midnight all three of them were showing signs of being ready to go.

  ‘Let’s have one more,’ said Laura, letting the alcohol in her do the talking. It was also her turn to buy and she didn’t want them to think she didn’t pay her way, so she went to the bar to order another round.

  ‘Laura,’ a voice said from behind her as she stood trying to attract the bartender’s attention. ‘I thought it was you!’

  She turned, but she already knew who the distinctive and overly confident Australian accent belonged to. Brian Hales had been one of the more interesting aspects of her media studies course and she’d sometimes spent a quarter of the lecture or more just observing him. He was a few inches over six feet, with naturally wavy light brown hair and a smile full of glistening white teeth. His mannerisms could be mistaken for arrogance but, as Laura had watched him and later got to know him, she had realised it was simply confidence. He had an annoyingly strong ability to always know what to say, and was always the centre of attention. He towered above most people, and his smile could light up rooms on its own.

  ‘Brian!’

  They hugged a little awkwardly, or certainly it felt awkward for Laura, as she realised, mid-hug, that he had seen her naked on probably more than a hundred occasions.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said, blushing.

  She had been attracted to him from the first lecture, and her friends had been too, but none of them had spoken to him until three weeks into the course, when he had come over to her in the canteen and introduced himself and then begun flirting outrageously with her, and she’d found herself reciprocating against her better judgement.

  And just like that they had clicked, skipped their afternoon lectures and gone to the cinema and then back to her student flat. After that, without having a conversation about it, they had developed a mutual understanding that they would meet once a week at Laura’s flat after her last lecture of the day and Brian’s rugby training session and have sex, usually in the shower, as there was more room than in her single bed.

  They had never become a couple and the relationship had never developed beyond that arrangement, even though they enjoyed each other’s company when they were together. Laura had known she had way too much on her plate for a full-blown relationship, and Brian was arguably even busier than she was, as he combined studies with playing so much sport. When they graduated, the arrangement had ended, again without them talking about it, and they hadn’t stayed in touch.

  ‘Rugby match,’ he shouted over the music, and nodded to his right, where a group of young men with perfectly to
ned torsos were play-fighting in a much-too-small corner of the bar and making a lot of noise.

  ‘Did you win?’

  ‘By forty points.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Laura said. Brian Hales didn’t lose at many things. She watched as two of his team mates downed their pints with ease.

  ‘Who are you here with?’ he asked, and she pointed over at her friends.

  She tried to keep the conversation going above the shouting and music, but it wasn’t easy although Brian managed to tell her he was doing well at a mobile communications company and had been promoted to a new post in London. Laura nodded, a little impressed but more confused at what that had to do with media studies and a little jealous too. Brian was a male version of Kelly Heath, for whom being successful came very easily. If he’d wanted to be a journalist, she thought, he’d probably have had a great job with a great publication land on his lap rather than have to work his way up by doing years of filing. He asked about her job, so she told him about the paper but found herself talking up some of the details so that it sounded as though she was Kelly’s main rival for the top stories, and then she realised her friends were waiting for their drinks and went back to them before he could ask any more questions.

  At just after half-past midnight, the three girls stood outside the bar and said their goodbyes as the next taxi rolled forward from the queue. They had told Laura to get in, but, as she gave them a final hug, Brian Hales called her name.

  ‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to say goodnight to Brian.’

  They looked at her, pulled knowing faces, got inside instead and waved as the taxi drove away. Brian was a little more drunk now, and flirting again, and they picked up their conversation, talking about university and who they’d kept in touch with: Brian, virtually everyone who played sport, and Laura, just the two girls who had just left in the taxi.