The Stolen Child

by Sanjida Kay

  I shake my head. I can’t bring myself to speak.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s not better news,’ she says, touching my arm.

  ‘How are you?’ I ask after a moment.

  She stops as if seriously considering my question. I doubt she gets asked very often by the families she helps, but it can’t be an easy job.

  ‘I’m tired, but I’m doing all right.’ She gives me a weak smile.

  ‘You don’t want to complain in front of me and Ollie. You think anything you might be going through will seem trivial in comparison—’ I can’t finish the sentence so I start again. ‘But it’s okay. I need to hear something normal, something everyday too.’

  She ruffles Ben’s hair and passes him his caterpillar toy, pulling it on its string in front of him.

  ‘’Pillar,’ he says.

  ‘Well, okay. Cases like this are hard. Emotionally and physically – long hours, and it’s quite a commute from Bradford. I don’t mind though. What’s important is Evie, I can catch up on sleep later – finding her safe and well is what keeps me going.’

  ‘And you live with your parents?’

  ‘Yeah. I like being busy. Less time for them to tell me I’m too old and bossy to find a husband. My sister has a little boy. A year younger than your Ben. They live two doors up the road so my mum is distracted. Not on my case quite so much.’ She hoists her bag onto her shoulder. ‘I should go. Call me if you need me.’

  ‘Are you Muslim?’

  She stops in front of the door, with her back to me. For a moment she doesn’t say anything. She puts her hand on the handle and I think she’s going to leave without answering, but then she says quietly, ‘Evil has no religion, Zoe.’

  I pick Ben up and we watch her walking down the garden path, bantering with the journalists, who are drinking cheap coffee from Styrofoam cups, which they bought from the garage at the bottom of the hill, and eating Pukka Pies. The kind of journalists that don’t hang around outside our front door, but have been inundating Ollie and me by email with requests for interviews, no doubt get their takeaway coffee from The Bar.

  Ruby probably hates me now. She’ll think I’m another prejudiced middle-class housewife. I don’t care. I had to ask. I still don’t know if it means she’s biased against us or not. For now, I have to trust her. I wonder what Ruby knows, or think she knows, about Haris and me. She’s certainly known that I knew Haris since the day we walked across the moor together and found his car. When was that? I can’t remember. The days have blurred into a grey-green misery.

  I answer a text from Hannah – no, there’s no news. She’s going to work, she says, but she can come over later if I need her to.

  I write: ‘Thanks. We’re OK.’

  I can’t summon the strength to engage in small talk, even in a text, but she replies: ‘It will be hard being at school without Evie. Thinking of you. Hx’

  I want to turn my phone off so I won’t notice any more texts, but I can’t risk it. Collier might call. I carry Ben upstairs. Instead of dressing him in his bedroom, I go into Evie’s room. I feel as if someone has punched a hole in my chest. I miss her so much. I lie down on Evie’s bed and bury my head in the pillow. I inhale her smell. Ben thinks it’s a game and comes barrelling over. He climbs on top of me and sits on my stomach and bounces up and down, giggling and dribbling. I start laughing and crying at the same time. At least he seems a bit more like himself.

  My mobile rings. I sit up quickly, tumbling Ben to one side. It’s Ruby.

  ‘Zoe, we’ve found Jack,’ she says. She’s out of breath. ‘Evie is not with him. He says her dad picked her up. He’s sticking to what he told you on the phone. I don’t know any more than that. He’s being questioned right now. I can call you when I know more. Zoe?’

  ‘Where was he? Why didn’t he ring?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll get back to you as soon as Collier finishes the interview.’

  I text Ollie to let him know and lie back on the bed. I didn’t think Evie would be with Jack, but as long as we didn’t know where he was, there was hope he’d be able to explain what had happened to her. I don’t understand why Jack is trying to put the blame on Ollie, though. I know Haris is Evie’s father and I know he’s taken her. I can feel it in my gut, just as I know that scrap of ice-blue fabric is the Frozen dress Haris must have given her. How could I not have seen it? He manipulated me, manipulated Evie and now he’s manipulating the police. I have to find evidence. Where has he hidden her? Could Yasira be in on it too? Could she be sheltering Evie? I should have searched her house while I was there.

  Ben grows bored by my lack of response and slides to the floor. He loves Evie’s room. He pulls out a box of Lego and tips it out. He glances up at me, delighted by the noise and chaos, wondering if I’ll tell him off like I normally do. I get up and I start looking at Evie’s things. It’s the only way I have right now of feeling close to her. I run my hands through the clothes hanging in her little wardrobe. On every surface there are objects she’s collected: pebbles and shells, a tiny princess in a blue dress that you can take apart, a heart-shaped ring, pine cones, Moshi monsters and minute drawing pads, bead bracelets and a cupcake-shaped eraser. I find a shoebox full of torn sheets of paper – it’s her box of spells. She’d written one for me too. She’d drawn snowflakes and ice crystals and a penguin wearing a crown.

  ‘It’ll make you Queen of Antarctica,’ she’d said, pressing it into my hand. ‘You must keep it somewhere very safe.’

  ‘I’ll be a bit cold there,’ I’d laughed.

  She’d looked at me with a serious expression and said, ‘But, Mummy, your heart is so warm you’ll never freeze.’

  It occurs to me that the answer could be here somewhere. Evie’s a hoarder. She hid the presents from me. I take her room apart. When every bit of modelling clay, every fragment of scrap paper and fabric, every piece of plastic, felt-tip pen and naked doll, is on the floor, I stop. I have a chaotic, artist’s impression of my daughter’s life: a magpie-like collection of anything that can be turned into a sculpture or a collage is here; her quirky seven-year-old heart laid bare.

  I start to pull out some of her books. I can’t believe I ever thought reading to her was a chore. I’d sit here some nights, fidgeting, thinking of all the things I needed to do, my voice hoarse, reluctant to read ‘just one more chapter’, wishing I could escape to my glass of wine. What did I have to do that was so important? What could be more important than reading my daughter a bedtime story?

  I take down Charlotte’s Web. I can’t remember where we’d got to: as usual, my mind was on other things. I open the book at random and wish I hadn’t as a line springs out at me: ‘After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die.’ I snap it shut. I feel something trapped between the pages. It might be a bookmark; now I’ll know what the last words I ever read to Evie were. It’s a card. I turn it over. On the front is a picture of an orange flower, like a flat-petalled marigold. It has a home-made feel to it, as if the sender has printed a photo and cut it out himself. Inside it says:

  My darling daughter,

  Not long now until we can be together! Wait for my signal and then you’ll know it’s me.

  All my love,

  Daddy

  I drop it on the floor to stop myself from crumpling it into a ball and hurling it at the wall. Ben lets the doll he was playing with fall and comes running over, hand outstretched to grab it. I snatch it back up again and he starts to howl. I have to take it to Collier. It’s proof – further proof – that Haris was communicating with her. I’m outraged. Collier and Clegg searched Evie’s room and they missed it. I missed it too. There must be another letter, telling Evie what the signal was – and then we’ll know how he persuaded her to leave with him. I go through everything all over again.

  But there is nothing here that can tell me what the signal was or where she is now.

  I hoist Ben on my hip and slap the card down on the table in front of Colli
er. ‘I found it in Evie’s room.’ I can’t keep the accusation out of my voice.

  Collier pulls on a pair of latex gloves and balances his glasses on the end of his nose. They’re gold-rimmed and their studiousness is at odds with his appearance: he looks like a gruff miner. After he’s read the card, he puts it in an evidence bag. ‘But you found nothing else?’

  ‘No – nothing to say what the signal was.’

  ‘Have a seat, Mrs Morley. I’m glad you’ve come in. Ruby, would you get Mrs Morley a cup of tea and some juice for the lad? And we could do with a top-up and some biscuits.’

  ‘I know he took her,’ I say, refusing to sit. ‘Can’t you see – the card’s from him?’

  Ben slides out of my grasp and I put him down. I’ve left Evie’s room exactly as it was, as if it has been ransacked by a cat burglar, and driven to the police station. I tip a bag of toys out for Ben but he heads straight for Clegg and tries to tickle him with his pudgy fingers.

  Collier sighs heavily. ‘It pains me to say it, because the man’s clearly a devious bastard – sorry,’ he inclines his head towards Ben, ‘but his alibi checks out. He says he went to Leeds City Art Gallery about a commission. He stayed with friends, who vouch for him, as does the curator of the gallery. And we’ve got him on CCTV entering and leaving. His meeting finished at ten to four on Friday, so it’s conceivable that he could have driven to Ilkley in time to pick Evie up from Jack Mitchell.’

  ‘He didn’t use the pickup though – as that was parked outside his friend’s house the entire weekend,’ says Clegg, tickling Ben back, ‘and the Fiat was stolen, driven across the moor and torched by joyriders. We found the boys who were responsible – two fifteen-year-old lads from Ilkley Grammar.’

  ‘His mates are artists – they work with metal like himself – and he was making one of his sculptures in their studio,’ Collier continues. ‘He was there after the meeting with Leeds City Art Gallery, and most of the weekend, emerging only in the evenings to have something to eat and a few drinks. Several people dropped in to the house and called round at the studio; they all confirm his alibi. So, like I say, there’s a possibility, but it’s looking highly unlikely.

  ‘The handwriting expert says there’s only a twenty per cent chance the cards are from him. There’s no fingerprints on them other than yours, your husband’s and your daughter’s.’

  ‘What about the writing in the prayer book? That was different.’

  ‘Our guy says it’s written by the same person. The perpetrator used his left hand to address the parcels and make them look messier, more childlike. Maybe to deflect suspicion or make it harder to identify him by his writing.’

  Collier slides his glasses into his jacket pocket.

  ‘Haris says Evie isn’t his child – and we’ll find that out tomorrow one way or the other. He denies taking her, or being involved in her abduction in any way – he would say that, wouldn’t he? But he has been remarkably forthcoming about other aspects of his life – like his obsession with you – volunteering information that doesn’t put him in a good light.’

  ‘Such as?’

  I slide into the chair opposite Collier. Clegg is now distracting Ben by bouncing him and down on his lap and letting him almost fall to the floor and Ben’s shrieking with laughter.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve been honest about your relationship with Haris Agni,’ Collier says, folding his arms across his belly and leaning back.

  Ruby returns with a tray filled with mugs of tea and a packet of biscuits.

  Ben holds out his hand and shouts, ‘Biscuit, biscuit.’

  I move the squash she’s brought out of his way and put his sippy cup on the table, but it’s too late and he starts asking for ‘Juice’.

  ‘You still haven’t found my daughter!’ I say. ‘I’m not the person you should be investigating!’

  ‘Is it all right if the lad has one?’

  Ruby mouths ‘Sorry’ at me.

  My heart is pounding. Collier hands Ben a Garibaldi and takes one for himself.

  ‘I hate these bloody biscuits.’ He dips it in his tea anyway and says, ‘Haris says you went to his house.’

  ‘Yes, with Ben. I told Ruby that when we found his car.’

  I can’t actually recall what I said at the time. I remember thinking how much I wanted to be in his house, locked away from the media maelstrom, hidden in the heart of the moor.

  ‘Haris says you and Ben got into difficulties on the moor and he came and rescued you. Took you back to his house to dry off. Gave you clean clothes.’

  ‘That’s right.’ My breath is speeding up. If Haris has told them we had an affair they’ll be distracted – they’ll view him as my lover and stop seeing him as our daughter’s kidnapper.

  ‘Quite the knight in shining armour.’

  ‘It was stupid of me to have gone out on the moor that day with Ben. I hadn’t even brought waterproofs. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t turned up.’

  I’m cradling my tea in my hands. I haven’t taken a sip yet. I should tell them what happened once I got inside. They’d understand what manner of man they’re dealing with. But then I’d have to admit to almost having an affair with him and Ollie will find out. I don’t want Ollie to be distracted by this too.

  ‘Do you know how he knew where you were?’

  ‘What?’

  It’s not what I expected Collier to say.

  ‘He followed you. Watched you and the lad, saw you getting into trouble. But he didn’t help you. Oh no. He left you on the moor. He went home. Got his car, drove along Hangingstone Road. Waited a little while longer so you’d be soaked good and proper. And then he took himself across the Dales Way to meet you. To rescue you.’ There’s a long pause. ‘He thought you’d fall in love with him,’ says Collier finally.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ I’m no longer surprised by anything I hear about Haris. I lean across the table towards Collier. ‘He used me. He used me to get at Evie.’

  ‘He was obsessed with you. He stalked you. He risked you and Ben getting hypothermia so he could “save” you. But I doubt he took your daughter. It was all about you, Zoe.’

  ‘What does Jack say?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s sticking to his story,’ says Clegg. ‘Says Evie left him just before five to go to her daddy.’

  Collier shoots him a look.

  ‘Mr Mitchell says he was climbing in the Lake District. He’d been camping with a friend, somewhere with no mobile signal. He’d turned his phone off. He drove back on Sunday night – during the night – intending to go straight to work. We picked him up at his house. We’re waiting for his lawyer so we can continue our interview. We’ll let you know as soon as we’ve questioned him further.’

  Ben slides from Clegg’s knee and comes running over towards me, his arms outstretched, his face crumpling. My time is up: his attention span has run out. I could tell them the whole story, but I see now that would still not be enough. I need proof.

  There’s a poster of Evie on the door of the newsagent’s between the police station and the school. I choose a plain cheese sandwich for Ben. It’s the only thing I can find that’s vaguely healthy and that he will eat. I need to keep him occupied for a little longer. I pass the news-stand on my way to the till and I’m shocked to see a picture of Ollie on the front page of the Mirror. I pick it up. The headline is one word: ‘LIAR!!’ The article quotes an expert who says that it’s usually the father who is responsible for abusing and killing missing kids, particularly in cases where the child is not biologically his own. The journalist has plotted Ollie’s route from work to the hospital and ‘proved that Mr Oliver Morley had a window of opportunity to seize his adopted daughter’. I shove the paper back quickly before I can read any more. There’s no way Ollie could have missed seeing this when he arrived at Leeds station this morning.

  The girl behind the counter is watching me surreptitiously; her greasy fringe covers pallid skin and she has a line of red spots on the ed
ge of her jaw. She twists her mouth as if attempting to smile and ducks her head so her fringe hides her face. I feel sorry for her: the awkward self-consciousness, the painful pimples – and then my eyes fill with tears. I hope one day Evie will be like this; that Evie will live to be a teenager, no matter how shy or acne-ridden.

  Once back on the road, I follow the line of the moor, past the Cow and Calf rocks, until I find the turning that will take me across the heath to Haris’s house. The spot where his Fiat was burnt is black and greasy, the rush-filled verge flattened and scored with tyre tracks. I drive slowly, my car bumping and grating over the stones. The sky is dark grey – it looks as if it’s about to rain. Am I clutching at straws? Did Evie really walk along the path between Haris’s house and his studio, or was it some other little girl in a shiny blue dress? Could Haris have taken her? It makes sense. If Haris was so obsessed with me and I chose to end our relationship, it’s no wonder he tried to destroy my family. I think he poisoned Ben. He wanted to kill my son. But when that didn’t work, he used Ben being on life-support as a distraction to take Evie.

  The police must have finished the forensic work on his house, because when I reach it, there’s no tape, no officers standing guard. I park as close to it as I can and leave Ben in the car. The first drops of rain hit my cheek. The wind is bitterly cold. I try the door. It’s locked, of course. I stand in the lea of the doorway and watch the rain start to fall in sheets, slicing through the heather.

  Ilkley, so far below me, looks tiny. How did Haris feel, when he stood here? He must have enjoyed an untrammelled sense of freedom, after his years inside, with this wilderness around him, suburban domestication at his feet. Entitlement, too, a feeling that he was master of all he surveyed. Collier said that if Haris isn’t Evie’s father, they wouldn’t be able to hold him any longer. He’ll be released tomorrow, pending the DNA results. I want him locked up. Forever.

  I wave at Ben and make a funny face through the window. He’s scattered grated cheese over himself and wiped margarine down the sides of the car seat. I don’t want to leave him, even for a minute, but it’s raining hard now. I’ll be quick. I glance at him over my shoulder as I run round the side of the house. Screening it from the rest of the moor is the stand of pines – the reason why you can’t see the studio from here. There is a garden though. I can’t imagine Haris is much of a gardener. He’d rather let it run wild. I peer over the mossy tumbledown wall. As I suspected, it’s almost as much a part of the moor as the land outside. The grass is cropped short by the sheep and there’s the odd shrub, grown leggy, since they haven’t been pruned. It’s an odd combination: moorland trees, like rowan, next to a dying lilac. I could imagine him hacking it down out of sheer spite, since its beautiful scented blossom doesn’t belong here.