The Stolen Child

by Sanjida Kay

  I hear someone calling my name. It’s Ollie, carrying Ben, running towards us. When he reaches us, he leans over to kiss me and Ben stretches out his arms.

  ‘I came as soon as I could.’

  I cuddle Ben and inhale the scent of his soft hair. He smells of Johnson’s baby lotion and Cheesy Puffs. Over his blond curls, I see Hannah’s mother, standing a few feet away, holding her clutch like a shield.

  ‘Come with me,’ says Jareed.

  He takes us through to the control room and sits down at a vacant terminal. He starts typing and scrolling through screens. He speaks to another security official, who joins him. Collier comes over.

  ‘They’re going through CCTV,’ he tells me.

  The wait is interminable. Ben wriggles and arches his back. When I can no longer hold him I pass him to Ollie.

  ‘Two flights left this morning,’ Jareed says. ‘There’s one more, connecting from Manchester. Boarding in five. There’s no one called Evie Morley on the plane and she wasn’t on the previous flights.’

  He looks up at me and then at Clegg.

  Collier says, ‘Search for a woman travelling with a child aged seven or eight – but no other companion.’

  ‘That will take time, sir,’ he says.

  ‘We haven’t got time!’ I shout. ‘The plane’s boarding in five minutes!’

  Jareed shrugs off his jacket. He has sweat patches under the arms.

  ‘Put a hold on the flight,’ says Collier.

  Jareed glances at an officer who’d been listening on the other side of the room. ‘Bit above my pay grade.’

  His superior holds his hand out to Collier. ‘Dave Ludlow. We need sufficient grounds. Is she a terrorist?’

  ‘How about child abduction?’ It’s Ruby. She’s out of breath; her dark curly hair is sticking out in all directions.

  Ludlow picks up the phone and dials through to the gate.

  I’m looking at the CCTV footage, not the one Clegg and a security guard are going through, but the live feed from the airport.

  Jareed asks me quietly, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any idea what name the woman who’s abducted your daughter is using? Any ideas at all?’

  ‘Try Hajar Abyadh.’

  ‘Can you spell it?’ He starts checking the flight details. ‘Nothing under that name for the flights that left yesterday.’

  My eyes flick from screen to screen. There are so many people. It’s hard to focus. Please let Evie be here, please let me spot her.

  ‘No one called Hajar Abyadh is on today’s flight either.’

  I look down at him. I was so sure that was the name she’d use.

  ‘What about Hannah White?’ says Ollie. ‘Try that.’

  I shake my head. ‘It’s not Hannah, she won’t be using Hannah. Can you show me the gate for Manchester?’ I ask Ludlow.

  He points to screen seven. ‘It’s that one, love.’

  It’s a small room, with four rows of seats. It’s packed. People are queuing down the middle, ready to board. I can’t see all the passengers who are standing and waiting, so I scan everyone in the seats. My heart is thudding, the beat pulses in my teeth. What if I miss her? What if I can’t see her and she gets on that plane? We might lose our daughter for ever. I’m looking for a woman in a hijab with a child; a woman with long brown hair like my daughter’s, and a child, my child, who I know so well. I know every inch of her body: the dimple in her right cheek, the freckles in the shape of a flower on her forearm, her bony collar bone, her elfin face, her wide-set eyes. There are so many women wearing shalwar kameez, draped in scarves, carrying or ushering children. I can’t see her. I can’t see Evie.

  I look round the office we’re in. Ben is crawling under the tables; the room is packed – there’s Collier, Clegg, a couple of other officers, and several security guards – all focused on the screens in front of them. The police alert with Evie’s photo is posted on the wall. Mrs Hardgrave is standing in the corner, the light from the CCTV screens flickering over her face, glinting on the gold cross round her neck.

  ‘You said you wanted to help.’

  ‘I do. It’s why I’m here.’ Her tone is clear and crisp but it doesn’t hide the tremor in her voice.

  ‘I don’t mean help Hannah, Mrs Hardgrave, I mean help Evie. You need to tell us Hannah’s name.’ Mrs Hardgrave is silent. ‘You said she changed her name but you weren’t talking about her Arabic name. What was her real name?’

  She hesitates fractionally. ‘Jane Hardgrave.’

  ‘Jane Hardgrave. Travelling with a child,’ I say to Jareed.

  And at that moment I see her. Even though she’s swathed in fabric, her petite frame shrouded in a voluminous shalwar kameez that hides her curves, and she has a scarf tightly wrapped round her face, I recognize her. The long straight hair showing underneath, which she dyed brown last night, those pale green eyes, the small straight nose, her soft, plump cheeks; for one moment she seems to be looking right at the camera. And my heart starts to break because I see then, for the first time, how like Evie she is… there is no question about it, Evie looks like her mother. Her real mother. Hannah drapes the scarf over her face and disappears into the throng, dragging a small girl behind her.

  ‘Evie!’ I shout.

  ‘Jane Hardgrave,’ Jareed says, reading from the screen, ‘travelling to Peshwar with her seven-year-old daughter, Mary Hardgrave.’

  Collier is bellowing but Ludlow is already on the intercom, and while we all watch the screen, two of the check-in staff peel away from the desk and walk down the room towards Hannah White, née Jane Hardgrave.

  Collier, Clegg and Ludlow run to the gate. Ruby commands an electric car and demands Jareed drive it. Ollie, Ben, Ruby, Mrs Hardgrave and I climb aboard. Ben is entranced by the flashing lights and the siren, and stands on Ollie’s lap to try to touch them, screaming with delight. Ollie, clutching him to his chest with one hand, reaches over to hold mine with the other. His face is wet with tears.

  ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe we’re going to see her in a minute—’

  I grip his hand tightly. ‘It’s like she’s been missing forever.’

  I can almost sense the imprint of her body, how she’ll feel when I hug her. I can’t believe that Mrs Hardgrave is with us too. She’s sitting directly behind me. I want to slap her; I even start tensing my fist, but Ben plants a spitty kiss on my cheek. I lift him onto my lap.

  ‘I really thought she’d have flown under her Arabic name, Hajar Abyadh,’ says Ruby, frowning, ‘especially as she’s dressed as a Muslim.’ Mrs Hardgrave looks at her as if she’s an imbecile. Ruby’s eyes widen. ‘Of course! It’s difficult and expensive to get a fake passport and she had a copy of Evie’s birth certificate, so she used her original passport and got Evie one in the name she gave her when she was born.’

  Jareed takes a shortcut closed to the public. We barrel through a door and back out into the main body of the airport. We’re surrounded by people. The noise is overwhelming. Jareed puts the siren back on and tourists, wheeling vast suitcases and hauling bags with travel pillows bursting out of them, move slowly and with bad grace, out of our way. We must be so close to the gate, I want to leap out of the car and sprint towards my daughter. I know I can’t – we’ve been given strict instructions to stay put until we get to the departure lounge, since we haven’t cleared Security.

  ‘She must have been planning it for years,’ says Ollie. ‘Tracking Evie down, getting a job at the same school as her, befriending our daughter so she would trust her—’ He chokes on his words and can’t continue.

  I take the prayer book out of my handbag and slap it into Mrs Hardgrave’s lap.

  ‘Your daughter might need this where she’s going.’

  She flinches but says nothing.

  We’re at the end of the departure lounge and the gate is in front of us. The place is so crowded, the car is moving slowly. I leap out and start running towards the entrance. Two airport officials step forward but Ruby is be
hind me. She flashes her badge at them and they back away and I’m inside.

  ‘Evie!’ shouts Ollie. He’s behind me, holding Ben.

  She’s there, sitting on the seats at the side with a female police officer. She’s wearing a beige shalwar kameez with a dark brown chiffon scarf, edged in gold embroidery, draped around her face and neck. She doesn’t turn towards us and I falter for a moment, and then I’m next to her, crushing her against me and whispering, ‘Evie, Evie, my love,’ over and over again. She’s unresponsive and when I look at her properly, she stares up at me, wide-eyed; her pupils are pinpricks and her irises are glassy. Hannah would have had to give her sedatives over the past few days to keep her quiet and to get her on to the plane.

  ‘Evie!’ Ben screams. He wriggles out of Ollie’s grip and comes toddling over, his arms outstretched. ‘Evie!’

  He hurls himself at her, his arms wrap tightly around her stomach. She looks down and gives a goofy smile of recognition. When she tries to touch him, her hands are floppy, as if she has no control over them. Then she holds out her arms to me and starts to cry.

  ‘Mummy,’ she says. ‘My mummy.’

  They drag me away from you. I hold on to you for as long as I can, but they prise my fingers from your arms, from your clothes. I’m screaming. I can’t breathe. The pain is so intense. It takes two of them to hold me. A large man comes over, his face is red, his eyes are grey. He’s accompanied by a younger police officer, tall and thin with ginger hair. I try to look past them, to you, but they bar the way.

  The older man clips handcuffs on me. He says, ‘I’m arresting you, Hannah White, née Jane Hardgrave, for attempted child abduction. You have the right to remain silent when questioned. Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law—’ And when he’s finished reading me my rights, he leans forward and whispers, ‘The sentence is seven years. We’ll be pushing for the maximum penalty.’

  I start to cry. How much have I gone through to get here, to this moment? Leaving my parents and my home town, everyone and everything I knew, giving up my identity, travelling to the other side of the world to a country that was alien to me. Under that harsh sun my pale skin burnt; my hands, unused to manual labour, blistered. As the drugs left my system, I had hallucinations, convulsions; I thought I was going to die. But what kept me going was the image I had of you: my baby girl. My daughter. One day old. Stolen from me.

  I swore that I would get you back. Whatever it took. However many years. And I did it. I defeated the drugs. I became a valuable member of the community in the Hunza Valley. I converted to Islam. I made a pilgrimage to Mecca. I prayed to Allah for my little girl to return to me. I struggled through university. I searched for you.

  After I’d graduated I came home to see my parents for the first time in five years. My mother broke down and apologized for helping to take you away from me. She told me she’d seen the woman who adopted you, and that she was a blonde artist from West Yorkshire.

  ‘She had the same horrid accent as those children you used to play with at school,’ she told me.

  When I did some research, I found Zoe Butterworth, and then I knew Allah was on my side, because she had moved back to Ilkley with her two children and her husband. I was trying to find out her address when I saw you playing in a park by the river; I’ve told you this bit already, haven’t I? How the shock of recognition was so strong, I thought my heart would stop. How I knew who you were immediately. My flesh and blood. My daughter.

  I tried and tried to get a job at your school. I waited an entire year for a vacancy. I spoke to the head repeatedly. In the end, I buried my pride and told my father, your granddad. He talked to the school’s board of governors, and in September I started work as a teaching assistant in your class.

  Even then, when I was so close to you, I had to be careful. I couldn’t show you any favouritism. I couldn’t sit you on my lap and sing to you. I couldn’t buy you a birthday present. I had to wait and watch and plan and pray. I researched poisons. It had to be something that couldn’t be linked back to me and was commonplace in our part of Yorkshire. It was your granddad who gave me the idea: I watched him pruning the stupid shrub in our front garden and when he saw me, he used it as an excuse to give me a lecture on the spindle tree. He has a PhD in chemical engineering. Talking at me is his way of trying to be fatherly. He must have thought it had worked for once. I baked the berries from our tree into biscuits. It wasn’t that I wanted Ben to die; it was just that I didn’t care if he lived. Please remember that he is nothing to you. He is not your brother.

  I pretended to be your father. I sent you cards and gifts from your ‘daddy’ so that no one would suspect. No one would be searching for a young woman with pale green eyes and blonde hair. It worked even better than I had hoped: that stupid bitch, your fake mother, had an affair with a man who was perfect as a suspect. I knew then that it was another sign that Allah was on our side. And you accepted my explanation: that I would be your mother and father. I would be your all, your everything.

  My plan succeeded. I’ve had four days of bliss and one night of hell, when you were lost on the moor. But even then, I found you. I know you better than anyone else. Better than you even know yourself. We were reunited. My daughter. The love of my life.

  ‘Let me speak to her!’ I say to the officer. ‘Please! One last time. Let me say goodbye.’

  He shakes his head and signals to the men holding me. They drag me away. I look back over my shoulder, hoping for one final glimpse of you. Your head is bowed, your hands clasped together on your lap. You’re dopey with drugs. I had planned to stop giving them to you once we reached Pakistan and we were safe. But even so, even though you’re sedated, I want you to acknowledge me.

  ‘Mary!’ I shout. ‘Mary, my darling!’

  This is what hurts the most: you do not cry. You do not call ‘Mummy’. You do not even turn your head in my direction.

  FIVE MONTHS LATER

  MARCH

  When we walk in, the place seems more spacious than usual. My pictures are large against the white walls. Jenny has spotlit them perfectly, offsetting their austerity with garlands of fairy lights over archways and around the central desk. There are flowers everywhere, tall vases in the corners, packed with velvet-green moss and vibrant pink peonies, their blowsy flowers in full bloom. The preview for my exhibition is going to be tonight. This afternoon, though, is all about Evie.

  ‘Sweetheart, these are my paintings,’ I say, leading her in.

  We’re going to have a quick look round and then go for ice cream. I hope it’ll feel like a special, grown-up treat to her. She holds my hand tightly and doesn’t say anything. I wanted to bring her this evening but Ollie refused. He said we shouldn’t disrupt her routine. Ollie isn’t coming either. He didn’t want to leave the children with a babysitter. I understand – of course I understand – it’s only five months since Evie was abducted. I can’t bear the idea of leaving her and Ben with anyone. But I did want them with me. And I wanted Ollie to come.

  Evie and I walk around together, stopping in front of the pictures. There are a couple of men still working, hanging the paintings, and a caterer, setting out wine glasses and jugs for water. Evie doesn’t let go of my hand. She is silent.

  ‘What do you think of this one?’ I say, with forced jollity.

  The paintings don’t even look like mine: there’s something distancing about seeing them in a gallery. But it’s not just that – it’s the tones I’ve used, the darkness, the depth of despair. It’s as if someone else painted them. This one is called: I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy.

  ‘Good,’ says Evie, with a little shrug.

  I remember when we found Evie again; hugging and hugging her as if I would never let her go, lifting her up and clutching her floppy, drug-limp body to me, feeling her raspy breath against my neck. And over her shoulder, I saw Mrs Hardgrave standing watching us, clasping her clutch squarely in front of her with both hands. She hadn�
��t demanded Jareed drive after the airport police when they led Hannah away. She’d remained where she was, a few metres from our little family, her eyes fixed on Evie. Of course, I thought, it was always about Evie. The granddaughter she’d lost. The little girl she’d have done anything for – even concealing her hiding place, lying to the police, to me, tinkering with her husband’s hearing aid. Would she have flown to Pakistan, too, telling Geoffrey she was off to ‘see the sights, one last time’? I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment and snap them open. I try to focus on being here, now, with my daughter.

  ‘So when you’re a grown up, you can be a sculptor and have your work in galleries like this one.’

  My voice is high and bright.

  Evie doesn’t reply. Ollie is right – she needs routine, stability, love. She’s lost both her teachers. She found her real mother and then her mother abandoned her for the second time. She thought she’d discovered her real father, but he was a lie. It’s easier to say what Evie won’t do now, rather than what she will do.

  She won’t sleep without a light on.

  She won’t go on the moor.

  She won’t go anywhere unless it’s been planned and we’ve told her about it several times.

  She never plays with dressing-up clothes.

  She can’t stand the sight of anything to do with the Frozen movie.

  She no longer plays with other children at school.

  She won’t speak to adults apart from me and Ollie.

  I can’t stop her from biting her nails until her fingers bleed.

  She won’t leave my side when we go out.

  She won’t hug or kiss us; when she thinks I’m not watching, she pinches Ben or pulls his hair.

  She won’t talk about what happened.

  The child therapist we spoke to said not to push her. Occasionally Evie will ask questions. She was with Hannah/Jane for five days but much of that time she was on her own, because Hannah was with us, or at school, or driving to and from her empty apartment by the Wool Secretariat. The police let us see Hannah’s flat. Every time I think of Evie locked in that tiny, cold attic on the edge of the moor I want to bite my own fingers until they bleed. Hannah, herself, hasn’t spoken since her arrest. The trial is next month. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to go. Ollie will be there. He’s withdrawn his application for partner of the firm and he’s already booked time off work.