by Heidi Perks
Was that what she deserved?
On the crossing in front of her the little girl stopped, letting go of her mum’s hand to pick up a grey teddy she had dropped. The mother turned and scooped her daughter into her arms, kissing her on the head as she carried her the rest of the way over the road. Images of Harriet with Alice filled Charlotte’s head.
She could hear her friend’s voice begging her to believe her about Brian.
He was acting so oddly two days earlier when he’d turned up at her house; his focus on Harriet rather than his daughter had concerned her.
But could he really be the man Harriet described? Capable of such hidden abuse, bad enough to make her stage such an elaborate plan.
And then there was the story Brian told when he’d visited months earlier. When he’d calmly explained how Harriet had left Alice in the car while she renewed her passport at the post office.
Charlotte shuffled forward in her seat, rolling her shoulders. There was something niggling her, she thought, as she absently watched the mother and her little girl. Something in the corner of her mind, a fragment of conversation that felt important. Only she couldn’t quite reach it.
Charlotte checked for traffic wardens as she stopped on the zigzag lines outside the school. She didn’t expect to see any at this time of day, but it wouldn’t be the first time she was caught out.
‘I’m sorry, I got held up,’ Charlotte said as she ran into the office. Molly sat on a plastic chair at the far side of the room with a bowl on her lap and a teaching assistant’s arm hung loosely around her shoulder. Her face was washed white apart from the skin under her eyes that in contrast made her look like a panda.
‘Oh Molly.’ Charlotte had obviously ignored how unwell she was that morning in her rush to get out of the house. Her daughter fell into her arms, crying louder as she did so. Charlotte hugged her tight and then, holding her at arm’s length, looked into her face and wiped a stray tendril of hair away from Molly’s eyes. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’
‘She hasn’t been sick,’ the teaching assistant said, ‘but she feels very hot. You can take this with you,’ she added, handing her the empty bowl.
Charlotte placed a hand against Molly’s forehead, and agreed she was very hot to the touch. ‘Is there anything going round?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘I think I should call the doctor,’ she said. She’d usually have left it twenty-four hours but Charlotte was leaving nothing to chance any more. Not where the children were concerned. Picking Molly up she carried her back to the car, snuggling into her daughter’s warm hair. She couldn’t leave her like this.
On the way home Charlotte rang the doctor’s surgery and a nurse had returned the call by the time she pulled into the driveway. ‘Just a bug, I expect. Give her some Calpol and get her to rest but keep an eye on her,’ the nurse told her. ‘If she gets worse, call back.’
In the living room Charlotte laid Molly on the sofa, covering her with a crocheted blanket, and stretched out on the other one so she could watch over her for a bit while deciding what to do about Harriet. But no sooner had she lain down than her mobile started ringing.
‘Charlotte? It’s Angela Baker.’
‘Oh, Angela, hello.’ She’d completely forgotten to cancel her appointment with DCI Hayes. ‘I’m sorry. I meant to call and say I wouldn’t be able to come in after all.’ She looked over at Molly. ‘My daughter’s sick.’
‘I’m sorry, I hope it’s nothing too serious?’
Molly was sleeping soundly already; in fact some colour had already returned to her cheeks. ‘No, I think she’ll be OK. I just need to keep an eye on her,’ Charlotte said, realising she’d have to get back to the school and nursery soon to pick up the others. Maybe Audrey could collect them.
‘Well, I hope she’s better soon. I’ll let DCI Hayes know you can’t make it, but he’ll probably want to call you.’
‘Of course.’ Charlotte’s heart was beating so loudly she wondered how Angela couldn’t hear. She knew if she was going to say anything about Harriet, this was the time to do it. Any later and she’d be—
‘So can I arrange another time for you to speak to him? Maybe he could come to your house if you aren’t able to leave your daughter?’ Angela was saying, interrupting her thoughts.
She needed to tell her now. If she ended the phone call without admitting what she knew she’d be withholding evidence.
Yet there was still that thought niggling at her. Something wasn’t right and if she let them take Harriet away then what would happen to Alice? What if her friend was telling the truth?
‘That’s fine,’ Charlotte said, her heart banging so hard it almost burned through her skin. ‘I’ll be able to come in later.’
‘OK. Thanks. Before I go, have you ever heard of a friend of Harriet’s, a Tina?’ Angela asked. ‘Harriet knew her in Kent.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Angela didn’t answer, and Charlotte couldn’t help herself asking, ‘Has she heard from Harriet? Do you think she knows where she is?’
‘Possibly. She may have gone back to Kent. Somehow I don’t think she’s gone too far.’
‘Really?’
‘She won’t have fled the country anyway,’ Angela said.
The memory she’d been trying to grip on to felt closer. ‘Why not?’ she asked, but in that moment she already knew the answer.
‘Harriet’s never had a passport,’ she murmured at the same time as Angela spoke the words.
Harriet
I waited at the cottage as I’d told Charlotte I would, though I didn’t know whether she would come. Five years I’ve had to confide in my only friend and I didn’t, so I doubted I’d got across what I needed to in five minutes. I didn’t know if she believed me – I couldn’t blame her if she went straight to the police – but I had no choice but to wait.
Had I made another grave mistake by calling her? My plan was already so feebly held together. I had proved that by the frantic way I was ripping it apart. I was becoming my own undoing and, now that I had reached out to Charlotte, I might well have given her the rope that would hang me.
But I hadn’t known where else to turn. I needed help and the only person I hoped I could trust was possibly the one I should have confided in at the outset.
Will you come, Charlotte?
The minutes ticked by on the grandfather clock as rhythmically as the metronome that sat on my music teacher’s piano at school. Back then it had lulled me into a trance when I’d waste large chunks of lessons staring out of the window, dreaming of a different life. Now, with each sharp tick, a fraction more hope evaporated.
Tick. You still don’t know where Alice is.
Tock. The longer you wait, the worse it will be.
I fidgeted impatiently in the armchair by the window. I got up and paced the floorboards in the kitchen. I went upstairs and looked out of the front window on to the lifeless lane below. Everything remained morbidly still. Even the branches of the trees were immobile, captured in a moment of time.
How long would I wait? Hours? Days? There would come a point when I needed to do more than scratching about the inside of an empty cottage. When I needed to call the police myself.
What would be the tipping point?
I stood at the window, my hands splayed against the net curtains as they pressed against the glass. My heart burned with the crushing realisation that whatever happened now Alice would undoubtedly be taken from me, but all I wanted was to see her. I would risk everything to know my daughter was safe.
‘Come back, Alice,’ I called into the silent room and, as if in response to my plea, a shard of sunlight pierced through the window and flickered on to the patterned carpet. In a moment of clarity, I knew I had to take back control and consider what I would say if the police arrived or it got to the point I needed to call them.
Searching in my bag for my notebook downstairs, I took out the Elderberry Cottage business card I kept in the b
ack pocket. I turned it over and stared at the blank space. Then I grabbed a pen from a jar on the mantelpiece and sat back in the armchair, chewing on the end of the pen as I thought. Carefully, in an impression of my father’s loopy scrawl, I wrote a short note on the back of the card.
It was crude and doubtfully sufficient, but as I read over it I figured it was better than nothing. I tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans as the grandfather clock chimed six.
If Charlotte had walked out of her door the moment we’d hung up, she could be here by now. I set myself deadlines. I would go back to the payphone and call Charlotte again if she wasn’t here by seven.
I would call the police and tell them everything if my father and Alice hadn’t returned by eight.
At half past six I peered out of the window again but the same quiet, motionless scene lay outside. The little lane lined with hedgerows, the tall trees dappled by the sun. I wished something looked different just so I could see there was still life out there.
My stomach grumbled with hunger, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so I searched the kitchen cupboards. There were a few tins and a loaf of bread, a half-eaten packet of crackers, and a variety box of cereal with three boxes missing.
I ran my fingers over the cereals trying to work out which ones had been eaten. Had Alice had a packet that morning? When was the last time she’d been in the house? It could have been days ago, I thought, with a surge of sickness rising through my stomach and up into my throat. I slammed the cupboard door shut just as there was a loud rap on the front door.
Automatically I froze. It felt too good to be true that it could be Charlotte. But if it wasn’t her, who was it? The police?
Slowly I crept towards the front door, peering through its obscured window, but not even a shadow flickered behind it.
I opened the door a crack and looked out, pulling it open wider. With a plummeting sense of disappointment, I realised there was no one there and that deep down I had thought it would be my friend. Closing my eyes to stem the threat of tears, I felt a heavy sense of despair. I should never have expected Charlotte to come.
I began pushing the door shut when I felt the slightest puff of breath against the back of my neck. The hairs on my arms pricked up; goosebumps splattered across my bare skin.
Someone was behind me.
I felt him. I smelled the woody scent of his aftershave. He was inside the house, standing in the hallway, his breath blowing against my neck. I would have screamed if the sound hadn’t frozen in my mouth.
‘Hello, Harriet,’ Brian murmured, his mouth so close against my ear I could almost feel the brush of his lips.
My hand shook violently against the knob of the door as his arm reached over my shoulder to gently close it. ‘Surprise,’ he whispered.
Slowly I turned around. Brian’s face was almost pressed against mine, skewed into a smirk though it couldn’t hide the anger in his empty eyes.
‘Brian? What—’ I tried stepping away from him but there was nowhere for me to go as he’d trapped me against the front door. He must have gone down the side of the house and crept in through the back.
‘What am I doing here?’ he asked, with his head cocked to one side. ‘Is that what you want to know? But where did you think I would be, Harriet?’ He held out a hand and took a lock of my hair within it, winding it slowly around his fingers as he stroked it with his thumb.
I shook my head with the slightest of movements. My heart pounded, reverberating in my ears. He must have been able to hear it too.
‘Maybe I should be asking what you’re doing here, don’t you think?’ he said. He tugged on my hair and even though it wasn’t hard I could feel its pull on my scalp. ‘Not found Alice yet?’ He gave me a smile that knifed through my chest.
‘Where is she?’ I exhaled the question in one tight breath.
‘What a funny question.’ Brian’s eyes travelled up to the top of my head as he tenderly stroked my hair. ‘And how do you suppose I would know what’s happened to my daughter?’
‘What have you done to her, Brian?’ I cried. ‘Where’s Alice? Please, you’re scaring me.’
‘I’m scaring you?’ he snarled. His face contorted into the pained shape I had seen so many times. Every one of my questions was angering him more.
I wanted to turn away but I resisted the urge, keeping my eyes on him. ‘If you’ve done something to her—’
‘You’ll what?’ he snapped. ‘Because the funny thing is, you’re the one who’s done something to her, aren’t you, Harriet?’ With a sharp tug on my hair Brian twisted my neck down with it. The pain shot through my shoulders and up into my head. ‘Letting me believe my daughter was kidnapped.’
‘Is she safe?’ I pleaded. ‘Just tell me she’s safe.’ His aggression shocked me, not least because Brian was never physical – but then I had never seen him this enraged before.
‘Oh, isn’t she here?’ he said, arching his eyebrows, leaning back and casually looking around him.
‘Please, Brian—’
‘Shut up, Harriet.’ He took his other hand off the door and pressed his palm flat against my mouth. ‘Stop your questions. Don’t you think I have a few of my own?’
The sound of my breath was unbearably loud as I was forced to breathe through my nose. I didn’t know how long I’d have to endure his torment before he’d tell me what had happened to my daughter. Or how he had found me.
When he removed his hand Brian gently took hold of my bottom lip, squeezing it between two fingers. ‘And stop biting your lip,’ he said. ‘You’ll make it bleed.’ He rubbed his finger across it and then let go of me with both hands and casually strode off, sitting down on the sofa.
He knew I wouldn’t run because he had things I wanted to hear and, as always, Brian was in control. He knew I would follow and sit opposite him in the armchair.
‘I never thought you had it in you, Harriet,’ he said. ‘You took Alice and made me believe the worst.’ He shook his head, making the light reflect the moisture in his eyes. ‘Why did you do that to me? I was nothing but a good husband to you.’
When I didn’t answer, he carried on. ‘Only it wasn’t just you, was it? It was your daddy. Come back from the dead.’
‘How did you—’ I stopped. ‘Where’s Alice?’ I said again. What did it matter how he knew so much; finding out what he had done to my daughter was more important.
‘What did I ever do to make you hate me so much, Harriet?’
‘You ruined my life,’ I said, turning my head so he couldn’t see the tears in my eyes. ‘You manipulated me and made me think I was going mad. You told me you’d take Alice away from me.’ I couldn’t let him get away with it any more. Not if he’d done something to her.
‘No, Harriet. I never did,’ he said firmly. ‘I would never do that.’
‘You’re doing it now,’ I murmured. ‘Please just tell me where she is.’
‘I said if you ever left me I would find you, and look –’ he gestured about himself ‘– I have.’ He forced a smile that made him seem incredibly pleased with himself as he clasped his hands together between his knees. ‘I won’t let you go, Harriet. I can’t ever let you leave me. I love you. I love you both too much for that.’
‘No. You don’t love me, Brian,’ I said.
‘You, you think you’re so clever,’ he snapped, his hands unclasping and waving in the air. ‘Trying to get one over on me. Well, look about you, my love. You’re not really, are you? Because I’ve foiled your plan and look where you are now. Sitting in this godforsaken cottage with no clue what’s happened to your daughter.
‘Did you hope I’d get arrested for it?’ he went on. I shook my head as he snorted. ‘But you will now, won’t you, Harriet? They’ll lock you up for what you’ve done. I could have told you your stupid idea would never work.’
‘Where’s Alice?’ I asked him again. I knew by now I had no chance of fighting for my own freedom.
‘Don’t you want to know
how I found them?’ Brian said, still ignoring me. ‘Your notebook. A little bit stupid,’ he continued, pinching his fingers together to emphasise the word ‘little’, ‘to write so many things in there.’
But I hadn’t ever written my plan in the notebook. I had only kept a diary of the things Brian told me and the way I believed them.
‘I have to say, I’m quite surprised you allowed him to bring her here.’ He screwed his nose up as he looked around the living room. Then he turned and smiled at me, ‘Ah, you’re wondering how I found the book, aren’t you?’
Of course I wanted to know, but I needed to see my daughter first. ‘Just tell me what you’ve done to her. Tell me you haven’t hurt them.’
‘You see, no one knows you like I do, Harriet. Since Alice went missing, there’s been something about your behaviour that didn’t quite fit. It was more than Alice, you were acting strangely, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then two days ago I saw you pouring a pint of milk down the sink before telling me we’d run out and you needed to buy more.’
I slumped back into the chair. Brian was always watching, loitering in the last place I expected to find him.
‘I followed you. I waited until you’d turned the corner at the end of the road and I came after you. When you went into the phone box and came out again ten seconds later I knew you couldn’t have made the call you wanted, so as soon as you’d disappeared I went in after you and hit the redial button.’
My fists clenched tightly at my sides. How could I have been so stupid? I played back the memory in my head, but knew I’d been so intent on calling my father I would never have noticed Brian following me.
‘He answered thinking it was you. “Hello, Harriet,”’ Brian said with a snarl, failing to imitate my dad’s voice, ‘“I’m sorry I didn’t pick up but Alice was hanging upside down on a tree at the end of the garden.” When I said nothing, he spoke again, a lot more nervously this time. “Harriet, is that you?”’ Brian laughed and shook his head. ‘Eventually he hung up and when I called back he didn’t answer. So that, my love, is how I found out you knew where your daughter was.’