by Sanjida Kay
‘What’s the last thing you and Evie said to each other?’ she asks gently.
My tears come faster.
‘She said she hated us and she wanted to go and run away and live on the moor.’
Snot is dribbling over my lip. Ruby hands me some kitchen roll.
‘Did you talk any more on the way to school?’
I shake my head. ‘Not really. I tried to speak to her when we got there but she ran off. I mean, ran into the classroom.’
Ruby gets up to make me another cup of tea. She asks about Jack: how long Evie has known him, if she likes him, how often he’s babysat for us. I keep looking at the clock. Why hasn’t Ollie phoned back? The nurse said she would tell him to ring me straight away and it’s been ages. I rub a piece of spider silk off my elbow.
Ruby leans towards me.
‘Do you trust Mr Mitchell?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Evie loves him. He lets her ramble on for hours, or helps her build elaborate sculptures. He never minds the mess she makes.’
Five years of caring for my daughter. It must count for something, surely? I do trust him but why hasn’t he phoned me?
‘He’s not so good with adults.’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Ruby, and her voice sharpens.
‘He’s so focused on the child – on children – he doesn’t have time for all the things that parents like, you know, discussing their child’s homework or SATs. But I always thought that was a good thing.’
Ruby isn’t wearing a wedding ring; she probably doesn’t have kids and so she hasn’t yet got lost in the minutiae of life in the school playground to the extent where, suddenly, every conversation is about them and you no longer know how to relate to anyone who doesn’t have a child.
‘He’s a suspect?’
‘Yes. He was the last person to see your daughter. He hasn’t returned our calls and we have no idea where he is.’ She takes a deep breath and fixes me with her large dark eyes. ‘But the reality is that primary suspects in cases like this are usually the parents. Especially as Mr Mitchell said that your husband collected Evie from him.’ I’m about to protest, but she forestalls me. ‘I know that must be difficult to hear, but we have to eliminate that possibility, get it out of the way now, so we can concentrate on finding out who really has your daughter.’ She looks at her watch. ‘He’ll be here any moment.’
‘Who?’ I ask.
‘Your husband. A patrol car went to the hospital to pick him up.’
I look outside but it’s dark and all I can see is my own pale reflection. I shudder. Is Evie out there, alone? And if she’s with someone, who could it be? Ruby is right: Collier, Clegg and Ollie arrive a few minutes later. Ollie comes over and folds me in his arms.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t get your message earlier. And then the police arrived. There was hardly any signal on the way here and I thought I’d be here soon so there was no point—’
I pull him tighter to me so that he can’t read in my eyes how hurt and angry I am with him.
‘You should have called,’ I say.
Just a simple phone call – the sound of his voice would have been reassuring – to know that we’re going through this together.
‘We’ll find her,’ he says, his voice hoarse.
There’s a lump in my throat. ‘How’s Ben?’
‘He’s okay. He’s sleeping. One of us should go back as soon as we can, in case he wakes up.’
I think about Ben in that ward, surrounded by beeping machines and crying children, his body ensnared by tubes and wires, waking up on his own.
‘What does Dr Kapur say?’
‘He says it’s too early to tell for certain whether there will be any lasting effects. They diagnosed the toxin and treated it in time and it’s reversible. But they won’t know if he’s suffered damage to his kidneys or his brain yet.’ He reaches for my hand. ‘He said kids bounce back.’ His tone is hollow.
Collier clears his throat. ‘Sooner we get on with this, the sooner you can get back to your son,’ he says.
We all sit down, apart from Ruby who is making more tea.
‘Kate Stevenson has called all the parents of children in Evie’s class and I’m afraid no one said they took her home. I’m sure FLO Patel has briefed you on what we’re doing already,’ Collier says, ‘but I want to assure you we are taking this extremely seriously, even though there’s every chance we’ll find Evie with someone she knows and there’s simply been some sort of miscommunication. We have two teams of officers driving round looking for her; we’ve got officers visiting every one of the families who has a child in your daughter’s class, as well as all the teaching staff. There’s a team in the station who are locating the CCTV cameras in the area and going through that footage as we pull it in.
‘We’ve scaled up the investigation since Ruby got here, and instigated a country-wide alert using the photograph of Evie that Mrs Stevenson gave us. All our airports and ports have been notified. No one will be able to leave the country with her. Our number one priority, though, is to track down Jack Mitchell, since he was the last person we know of to have seen Evie. But we do need to ask you a few routine questions, Mr Morley, so that we can eliminate you from our investigation.’
‘And take a formal statement from you both,’ chips in Clegg.
Ollie nods reluctantly.
‘Take us through your day, Mr Morley – from 12.15 when your wife first heard that Ben was poorly.’
I should be with Ben, I think. Ollie can answer these questions on his own. I look across at him, wondering whether to interrupt. Ollie runs his hand through his hair. It’s his trademark gesture but today his hair is greasy and it stays in a rumpled quiff.
‘I was in a meeting. I didn’t see Zoe’s call or texts. I had my phone turned off. I got her messages at about four and I called her and then went straight to the hospital. We talked to the doctor about Ben, and then Zoe took a cab to the school to collect Evie. I stayed on. With Ben. That’s it.’
‘Airedale Hospital?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time did you arrive?’
‘About five p.m. It took ages. The traffic was terrible.’
‘A long meeting.’
It’s a statement rather than a question.
‘What?’
‘From before twelve to four.’
‘I had two. Back to back. It’s not unusual.’
‘And you didn’t switch your phone on in between?’
‘No. I forgot. Look what is this? My daughter is missing, my son is in ICU, and you’re asking me about my phone?’
‘The meetings were in your office? Where you work?’
Ollie nods, swallowing his anger. Collier leans back, his hands resting on his knees. Ruby brings a tray across. She’s managed to find the half-empty bag of sugar at the back of the cupboard and some digestives, the boring biscuits we never get round to eating. I wonder if Ruby waited for this moment to intervene. Her skin is the colour of black tea; when she passes me a cup, I notice her hands are so dry, her knuckles are starting to crack.
Clegg says, ‘Thank you, Mr Morley. We appreciate it’s distressing for the parents of a missing child to be interviewed, but we can start to move on now.’
I see what they doing – a good cop, bad cop routine – Collier, older, grumpier, with his brusque, broad Yorkshire accent; Clegg, the junior partner, kinder, easier to talk to. There’s an innocence, a naivety about him. A lot of women have probably opened up to him. He’s safe. Not a man who’d hit on you or act aggressively; a beta to Collier’s alpha male. Or maybe I’ve just watched too many detective box sets while Ollie was at fancy parties.
‘So what are you doing about finding Jack Mitchell?’ Ollie asks.
‘Mr Mitchell’s got his phone switched off, but I’m confident he’ll turn it on or we’ll find someone who knows exactly where he is in the Lake District,’ says Collier. ‘I’ve notified the Cumbria Constabulary and they have officers searching for Mr Mitche
ll’s car.’ He looks at us both carefully and says slowly, heavily, ‘He’s a prime suspect, and I know I’ve asked you this already, Mrs Morley – Zoe – is there anyone else you could think of who might have your daughter?’
He means, anyone who could have picked her up from Jack, someone kind and benevolent, but Ollie answers: ‘Her father.’
The two officers stare at him. Ruby is watching me, gauging my reaction. I’ve been trying to avoid thinking or saying it, as if by willpower alone, by not paying it any attention, I could make it untrue. But I can’t. The words are seared on my mind: ‘I’ve been searching for you ever since you were stolen from me.’
My heart squeezes painfully tight.
‘Evie is adopted,’ says Ollie, not looking at me. ‘Her father recently contacted her. Look,’ he says.
He goes into the kitchen and comes back with the card, the pink unicorn in its garish wrapping, the presents I found in the attic, the red prayer book he’d been too angry to look at when I eventually told him about it. He piles them all on the coffee table in front of Collier and Clegg. Something changes imperceptibly in the room. The focus of attention has shifted from Ollie and it’s as if we are all on the same side now.
‘We reported this to the police already. It looks as if you didn’t do your job thoroughly the first time round.’
‘I thought the name Morley rang a bell. Aye, I do remember this case,’ says Collier.
Ollie ignores him. ‘Do you mind if I go? Someone needs to be with our son.’
It should be me. I want to be with Ben. I don’t want to be left here on my own, without our daughter. I open my mouth to speak.
Clegg jumps in. ‘Mind if we take your phone, Mr Morley? And laptop. Just a routine check. Yours too, Mrs Morley.’
Ollie looks furious and mutters under his breath. He’s about to protest and then thinks better of it. He slides his phone onto the table. He hugs and kisses me.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll find her,’ he tells me as he leaves. ‘She’ll be at someone’s house, having a whale of a time.’
His words lack conviction.
I’m going through everything, all over again, with Collier and Clegg, for my formal statement, when the doorbell rings. I leap to my feet, spilling my tea across the table.
‘It’s the sniffer dog,’ says Ruby. She looks at me apologetically. ‘We need to do another sweep of the house. To be sure.’
I sit back down. Clegg lets them in: two officers and an Alsatian. Bella barks and crawls under my seat and whines, her tail thumping the chair leg. I can hear them walking around over our heads.
‘What happens now?’ I ask.
‘Our teams are doing all they can and more than likely we’ll find her soon,’ says Collier. ‘We’ll keep searching through the night. Tomorrow morning, officers will start going door to door. We’ll speak to everyone in Ilkley. We’ll trace the route she could have taken home from school, in case she tried to come here by herself, and look through all the sheds, outbuildings, garages. But,’ he sighs heavily, ‘the moor is another story. You said you had an argument in the morning and the last thing your daughter said to you was that she was going to live on the moor.’
‘It’s just one of those things that children say! She’s seven! Of course she didn’t mean she was going to run away.’
‘We can’t rule it out at this stage, Mrs Morley,’ says Clegg. ‘The head teacher showed us a story Evie wrote today in her schoolbook, about a little girl living on the moor. She seems to write lots of stories where witches and giants roam around out there.’
I put my head in my hands. So they think it’s my fault? Surely there’s no way Evie would have tried to hide on the moor?
‘We also have to consider the possibility that she’s been abducted,’ Collier continues, ‘and if it’s not Jack Mitchell, or his accomplice, the moor could be where the perpetrator has taken her. A wilderness like that, right next to a small town — it’s the perfect place to conceal a child. So if we don’t find her tonight, there’ll be a large-scale search, with dogs, police officers, volunteers, tomorrow morning. Across Rombald’s Moor.’
‘We still hope we’ll find her soon, though,’ says Clegg, and he pushes my statement towards me to sign.
After they’ve left, along with the two officers and the sniffer dog, Ruby says, ‘I know it’s the last thing you want to think about right now, but we won’t be able to keep this out of the news. In fact, it could be to our advantage. Collier will ask you and your husband to speak to the media. Does that sound like something you’d be willing to do?’
I close my eyes. This is too serious. I can’t believe this is happening, to us, to me, to Evie. It’s after nine o’clock. Evie has been missing since mid-afternoon. Someone has taken our beloved child. I nod.
‘Anything. Whatever it takes.’
It’s odd having a stranger in my house, using my kitchen. She’s clearing up the tea cups, carefully stacking them in the dishwasher, replacing the sugar in the cupboard, wiping down the surfaces. She knows her way around already.
‘Do you live locally?’
She shakes her head. ‘Bradford.’
I wonder if she’s Muslim or Hindu; if she lives with her parents. Would she know anything about the prayer book – what it means?
‘It’s best if you’re not on your own tonight,’ she says. ‘Do you mind if I sleep on the sofa?’
‘There’s a spare bed upstairs, in my studio.’
‘Well, if you’re sure. Don’t get up. I can make the bed myself.’
I start to explain where the sheets are and then I realize that she already knows. Around ten, Ollie calls from a payphone.
‘Any news?’ he asks in a low voice.
‘No,’ I say, and I choke and start crying, great gulping sobs, with snot and tears running down my face. ‘Where is she?’
‘I’ll come home tomorrow morning,’ Ollie says. ‘If they don’t find her tonight, I want to be there to search for her.’
‘What about Ben?’
‘They believe he’s recovering, but like Dr Kapur said, they can’t be completely sure. It’s going to take time. His kidneys are working though.’
But they don’t know about his brain, I think. How can you tell with a two-year-old? How certain could you ever be? Like Evie, you can’t predict what your child might have been – could have been – if their brain had not been damaged when they were a baby.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m going to try to check Ben out of the hospital if I can.’
‘I don’t think we should risk it.’
He’ll need to be monitored. I can’t imagine Dr Kapur will want a child who’s been poisoned to leave hospital so early. And what if anything goes wrong? But I want to look for Evie and I want Ben here, with me. I can’t bear the thought of him in that ward, surrounded by beeping machines and distressed children.
‘I’ll only take him out if the doctor says it’s okay,’ Ollie reassures me. ‘Is there anyone we can ask to look after him? Andy and Gill?’
‘No, Ben might still be too ill for them to care for when they’ve got Sophie and Ellen to think about as well.’
We’re both quiet for a few moments. A child is crying in the background.
‘You really think it could be her biological father? Who’s taken her?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says reluctantly. ‘But he knows what Evie looks like, where we live. It wouldn’t be hard to find out what school she’s at – he’d only have to follow you in the morning —’
‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘Stop.’
I know he’s been watching us. How else was he able to leave the gifts and card without us seeing him? What other explanation is there for the strange sensation I’ve had walking along the bridleway or on the school run? I’ve led him right to Evie’s school. He took her. And we let it happen – if I’d managed to get hold of Ollie earlier, he could have picked her up, or if he’d stayed in hospital with Ben, I would have fetched her. Either way, on
e of us should have been with her every moment of the day she was not at school. I should have tried harder to reach Ollie. He ought to have left his phone switched on. Or checked it. That’s the whole point of having a mobile, isn’t? It’s not to play Candy Crush on the train or look at the stock market – it’s in case there’s an emergency. He should have protected her and he didn’t.
After I’ve hung up, I force myself to think practically. If Dr Kapur does let us take Ben home, who could care for him while we search? Hannah White. She got on well with Ben when she babysat for us before, and she would know what to do if he showed any signs of needing a doctor. If she came to our house, Ollie and I could both look for Evie together. I’m too upset to call but I send her a text.
She replies almost immediately:
Of course. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. You WILL find her. See you in the morning. Hannah x
I go upstairs to Evie’s room and stand looking out of her window onto the moor. It’s hard to see anything beyond the black shape of the chestnut tree, the darker outline of the hillside, but then something moves, just beyond the garden. There’s no moon and the sky is cloudy. I press against the glass and strain to see. Whatever it is, out there, is now still. It’s about the height and shape of a man, standing waist-deep in bracken. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. Could it be Harris? Watching us. Watching me. Or the person who took Evie? I’m cold. My breath mists the glass. My heart starts to thump. I should wake Ruby. Go out there to check. I sway slightly and squint. I can’t make it out. I must be mistaken. There is nothing there. Slowly my heart rate returns to normal. It’s just a bush, stirring gently in the wind.
You’re with me. We’re together at last. I have tears of joy in my eyes because I have you in my arms, my darling daughter. I can touch you without censure, cuddle you, kiss you, stroke your soft, dark hair. You were so pleased to see me when I picked you up. You thought it was a game, a special treat, just for you. And it is, of course it is. I keep hugging and kissing you. I can’t stop. I’m making your favourite meal: garlic bread and pizza, with ice cream, strawberry sauce and marshmallows. Fortunately, my limited cooking skills are just about up to it. You scream with delight when I tell you. You’ll have a bath, really deep with tons of bubbles and a pirate ship, and then we’re going to watch your favourite movie, Frozen, and eat popcorn. We’ll stay up late. We’ll watch the stars rise in the heavens and thank Allah for our new life together.