No Longer Safe

by A J Waines

  ‘Nothing,’ I said too sharply.

  I’d been considering the fact that if there’d been a phone in our cottage, the police would have found out all about Charlie minutes after we’d found him. They’d have taken him away shortly afterwards. And perhaps taken me away too, by now.

  ‘Heard any more about the boy?’ I asked, not wanting to dwell on what might have been.

  He shook his head. ‘The police wanted to speak to me again – I don’t have an alibi for the time the boy went missing – but everything’s fine. They’re not about to arrest me.’ He laughed and I did too, but the noise I made sounded forced.

  ‘That poor little boy. I’m joining the search tomorrow morning. I should have thought of it before. Did you want to come?’

  ‘I’m already booked in for the 8.30 start.’ He reached down to pull up his sock. ‘We went out yesterday afternoon. I warn you – it’s not very pleasant. Every time you see a little mound of snow against a wall or catch sight of a fragment of loose rag or sack, you think: This is it.’

  ‘Are they assuming he’s dead by now?’

  ‘The police are double-checking sheds, outhouses, cellars – but it’s so cold and the snow is doing a great job of smothering everything and hindering the operation. It really depends on the reasons for the abduction. He could already be miles from here. Might even have left the country.’

  ‘It sounds well-planned doesn’t it? Someone waits outside a cottage where they know there are children and then swoops. It’s not like Brody got lost in a shopping mall or wandered off on his own.’

  He stroked the side of his glass. ‘I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.’ He had a line of froth on his top lip and I had visions of leaning over and kissing him. ‘The friends you’re staying with – do you know them well?’

  ‘Yes and no. I know them from University – especially Karen, but I’ve not seen them since. Karen was in LA for about five years, looking after rich people’s kids. It’s been a bit of a U-turn for her to be honest. I can’t believe she’s not working in medicine – it was more or less set in stone, but…’

  I was thinking back to when I’d looked Karen up online after she’d contacted me. I’d found no trace of her on Facebook, Twitter or any other online network. It seemed incongruous that someone who was so outgoing with friends galore wouldn’t have a presence on social media. Perhaps I hadn’t looked hard enough. I arched my hand up to my hairline, rubbing my forehead.

  ‘Head injuries can be a serious business, you know,’ he said firmly. ‘Had any blurred vision?’

  I shook my head. Now he mentioned it, there had been one or two times when I’d moved quickly and seen two of everything. Is that what he meant?

  ‘You should get it checked out – you mustn’t be flippant.’

  ‘I know. I will.’ I smiled at his concern. ‘As soon as I get back to London.’

  There was a moment when he looked like he was going to say something else, but he smiled at me instead.

  ‘You look lovely, by the way. I should have said earlier. That turquoise skirt really suits you.’ He let his eyes trail from my chin right down to my boots. He’d noticed.

  He ran his fingers across his jaw and I wondered how prickly his stubble would be against my skin. ‘I’m glad I came across you in the snow,’ he said.

  I grinned, daring to let my gaze linger on his cheeky, probing, mother-of-pearl eyes and silently thanked him from the bottom of my heart. I’d felt barely human, never mind feminine, these past few months.

  The next couple of hours rolled by more easily than I could have imagined. As long as we talked about the past or future, I could think in a straight line.

  I listened to the thick velvety tones of his voice, let his words sink into me along with the brandy. For a few minutes at a time I managed to shift Charlie’s body from centre-stage in my mind and move him to the wings. It was as if Stuart switched a light on inside me whenever I was with him. I liked him. I really did. But our time was running out. I didn’t want to do anything rash to spoil it, but if something didn’t happen soon, I’d be waving goodbye to him and would never see him again.

  It was late and he got up to find my anorak. I was wide awake now and didn’t want our cosy connection to come to an end, but I could hardly ask him back to the cottage. I couldn’t invite him into my bedroom – I just couldn’t, after what had happened there – and trying to engage in intimate conversation downstairs with Mark and Jodie popping in all the time, was out of the question. We’d probably all end up playing Monopoly. It didn’t seem right, either, to invite myself over ‘for coffee’ to his.

  I got up at the last minute to go to the loo and on the way back, I saw him standing in the corridor, my coat slung over his arm. He had his back to me and was hunched over his mobile as if he was finding it hard to hear the caller. I was about to tap him on the shoulder to let him know I was there when he spoke into the phone.

  ‘No – not yet,’ he said, ‘but I’m certain it’s him.’

  I turned quickly and hurried back to the bar area, hoping he hadn’t been aware of me behind him.

  On the journey back, we chatted about food we liked, films we’d seen, places we wanted to visit, but I was distracted by the tiny snippet of phone call I’d overheard.

  He’d told me he didn’t know anyone in this area, but it sounded like he was looking for someone. I opened my mouth to ask, but stopped myself. I was getting paranoid. He could have been talking about something on TV, or been referring to a friend or neighbour at home – anything.

  ‘See you tomorrow, first thing,’ he said, bobbing down to let me out of the Land Rover. I was disappointed he hadn’t walked me to the door this time. Perhaps I’d misjudged his interest. I waved and watched the Land Rover disappear into the lane, wondering if I was wasting my time hoping for anything more.

  I was surprised to find the kettle on the stove had already boiled early the following morning. Karen was outside when I set off to meet Malcolm at the end of the track. She had a fire going in a metal cage not far from the byre. As I came towards her, she had her hands on her hips and didn’t look particularly welcoming.

  ‘Is everything alright?’ I asked, looking from the fire up to the byre door and back.

  ‘Yeah.’ She said it curtly in a way that suggested, Why wouldn’t it be?

  ‘Where’s Mel?’ I asked, looking around for the buggy.

  ‘She’s fast asleep.’

  I hoped nothing was wrong, but Karen didn’t look concerned, so I left it. She was heaping flattened cardboard boxes onto the fire and I caught a glimpse of what was underneath them.

  ‘A stool?’ I said, crouching down. ‘You’re burning a stool?’

  ‘It was broken and getting on my nerves.’

  I remembered the one – it was small and three-legged, like an old milking stool. It had been in the corner on the landing. ‘But you can’t just burn it – it belongs to the cottage, to the landlady.’

  ‘She’s not going to miss it.’ She rocked on to one hip, staring at me. ‘And you’re not going to tell her, are you?’

  I shook my head, waiting for her to smile and cut through the bogus animosity, but it didn’t happen.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ I said, rubbing my arms, wanting to be on the move. ‘I’m going out to help look for the boy.’

  She was prodding the burning pyre with a garden fork. ‘Good luck,’ she said, without looking up.

  Just as Stuart warned, the search was demoralising. We started in the field next to Nina’s cottage and combed everywhere for the next two hours, checking sheep pens, drinking troughs, sheds, lean-tos – everything – on the way. We found a dead sheep, a man’s slipper and a rabbit that looked like it had been savaged by a fox. No little boy.

  Stuart said hello, but when he saw I’d arrived with other people, he joined up with a police officer, telling me he’d see me later.

  The police thanked us and a new team of volunteers gathered by the nex
t gate, ready to trawl through the adjacent hamlet for the next two-hour search. Nina invited me back to the cottage for a warm by the fire and a hot chocolate.

  ‘Malcolm said you might have seen the person who took him,’ I said.

  ‘Yes – a man – mid to late twenties, I’d say – I should have mentioned it, yesterday.’ She invited me to look out from the kitchen window. ‘It was getting dark and I was shutting the curtains at the back. He fled across that patch of land – there – and stopped to get over the stile. He was a rough-looking chap.’

  What she said next sent a dribble of sweat down my spine. She’d seen something quite specific.

  ‘He was wearing what looked like a brown bomber jacket. He seemed to be holding something against his stomach. Of course, it was only afterwards that I realised it was probably Brody he was carrying.’

  I was inwardly buzzing over the words brown bomber jacket.

  She was speaking again. ‘He had a blue or black woolly hat with a white stripe around the rim.’

  ‘It sounds like you got a really good look at him,’ I said huskily.

  ‘He went over the brow of the hill after that and I lost him. The police have been over the whole area to try and find out where he came from – and where he went – but that’s all I saw of him’.

  Malcolm appeared in the doorway. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, touching her cheek. ‘You did your best.’

  I found it hard to keep my attention on the conversation after that. I couldn’t stop thinking about the man Nina had described. Could it have been Charlie? The bomber jacket sounded a bit too much of a coincidence.

  I was keen to leave after that and, thankfully, Malcolm saved me the long trek back and gave me a lift. There was something urgent I needed to check – then I’d know for certain.

  Chapter 26

  On my return, I hovered on the landing, listening to the gurgles and splashes coming from the bathroom as Karen bathed Mel.

  Mark and Jodie were up in their room, so I snuck my head around Karen’s door and spotted her keys on her bedside cabinet. I removed the ones for the byre, just in case she needed the others in the meantime, and left. I intended to tell her what I was doing anyway, as soon as I was sure.

  I had no desire to go anywhere near Charlie’s festering body, but Nina’s description of the hat felt too important to ignore. We’d already checked Charlie’s pockets, so I knew the only place to check now was his backpack – only Karen had rifled through that. We’d left it tucked next to his body under the layers of plastic in the byre.

  I slid the smallest key into the padlock and it snapped open. The door moaned as I nudged it ajar and I slipped inside. As I crossed the concrete floor, something small darted away from the pile of snow and scurried into a recess at the back. A rat. I stood still, determined not to scream. Another one headed the same way. I turned around. I couldn’t do this – I had to get out. But, I didn’t hurry towards the door, instead I leant against a bench waiting for my breathing to stabilise, talking to myself. It’s okay. Nancy Templar used to keep a pet rat at home, remember? A cute little white one. You were fine with it. This is just the same. It won’t hurt you.

  I straightened up, my hand pressed against my breast bone. I forced myself to move it down to my belly. My therapist had taught me a technique to control any panic attacks: to breathe from the abdomen in the way that mothers are told to when they’re about to give birth. It was a good idea in theory, but so far, when the attacks had struck I’d found it hard to put into practice. They’d happened so fast, it felt like someone else had taken over the control panels to my body. The trick was getting to my body before the panic attack got there first and firing off a few techniques to fend off the ‘beast’ before it could take hold.

  In – out – nice and slow. You can do this. You’ll be out of here in less than five minutes. Then it’ll all be over. In – out. You can do this.

  I picked up an empty tin from the bench and tossed it towards the mound of snow. There was another rustle and scuffle, then silence.

  I walked right up to our makeshift icy tomb; the snow had in turn melted a little, then re-frozen, creating a ridge of ice around the edge. Wearing my gloves and pull my scarf over my mouth, I found the rim of the cover and gingerly peeled it away from the floor. Due to the hole in the roof, the light was good enough, but all I could see was Charlie’s sleeve. I had three goes, shifting position, before I saw what I was looking for: the grey canvas of his rucksack. I pulled it towards me and opened the buckles on the top. Focus on the rucksack – just look inside.

  I pulled out a thin book about Rome, local maps, his passport and a bottle of water. Then it was in my hand. I’d found it. Charlie’s hat. Exactly how Nina had described it; woolly, dark blue, with a white stripe round the edge. Exactly the same.

  I was about to stuff it back inside, when I decided to check further to see if there might be details about where Charlie might have been staying or who he could have been working with. There was no mobile phone, no notebook, no scraps of paper with names or numbers on them. I flicked through the guidebook, looked for markings on the maps: nothing. He had certainly covered his tracks.

  Only now did it occur to me that, for someone heading off to Europe, there wasn’t much in is backpack. It was mostly empty – no clothes, toiletries. He must have been going somewhere else first.

  I fastened the bundle, before thrusting it back under the plastic sheet. Blood was pumping into my throat like a resounding drum and my hands were hot and slippery inside my gloves. I felt waves of vertigo, but had to focus. I needed to get this job done and not make any stupid mistakes.

  I’d dislodged ridges of snow in the process, so I found the spade we’d used before and scooped the snow back over the pile, hiding the liner as far as possible.

  Then I left the spade where I’d found it and ran.

  Karen was in her bedroom with Mel, but it didn’t matter – I’d already decided to come clean about the keys, especially as it gave us some useful new information. I tapped and waited.

  ‘Just hold on,’ came Karen’s voice.

  She opened the door a fraction as if she had no idea who might be on the other side. Her expression said that whoever it was, they weren’t welcome.

  ‘It’s only me,’ I said. Her expression didn’t change. ‘Can I come in? It’s a bit delicate.’

  She stood back letting me in, vexation in her laboured movement. ‘What’s delicate?’

  ‘I went to the byre again.’

  She pressed her fingers into her browbone. ‘And what made you do that?’

  ‘Nina – a woman I met – she’s staying at the far side of the lake. She saw the guy – she thinks – who kidnapped the little boy. Her description was…well, it fits Charlie exactly.’

  ‘She cut me off with a loud, ‘Shush – keep your voice down.’

  I shifted from one foot to the other. ‘She described him,’ I went on in a whisper, ‘his build, his bomber jacket and she mentioned he was wearing a hat. Well, I went back to his rucksack to check – and there it was – the same one, matching her description precisely. It was him. Charlie took the baby.’

  I was waiting for an expression of astonishment to flood her face, but she snorted.

  ‘Just because he was wearing a bomber jacket and a hat…’

  ‘But she said the hat was blue or black – woolly – with a white stripe around the rim – and Charlie’s is exactly like that. It’s too much of a coincidence. He must have taken the child. But the issue is where is little Brody now?’

  ‘Stop using the boy’s name – like you know him.’

  I was smarting at her rebukes. Karen was stressed and knackered, because her baby wouldn’t settle. I understood that, but this was important and I was making sense.

  ‘Charlie might have taken him somewhere, hidden him somewhere – in another byre, a pig sty, a hut – wherever – but he isn’t around now to take care of the baby anymore, is he?’

  The words
came gushing out as the realisation that we might have played a part not only in ending Charlie’s life, but also the life of an innocent infant began to hit home.

  ‘Who’s looking after him now?’ I tried to stop my words rising in pitch and volume. ‘Did Charlie take the boy, hide him and never go back for him?’

  She hissed at me, prodding her finger into my shoulder. ‘Keep your bloody voice down, will you? And think this through.’ She pulled me down beside her on the bed. ‘If Charlie was the one who took the child, he would have passed the kid on in a matter of hours and certainly before the end of the day. These people don’t hang around. He broke into our place during the night on Tuesday. If Charlie took the child on Monday at 5pm – I can’t see him sticking around with a small infant, changing nappies, feeding him, singing sweet lullabies for longer than he needed to. Can you?’

  I thought about it. ‘I suppose not. People are going to notice a baby crying – and the police have checked everywhere around here.’

  She softened and cupped her hand over mine. ‘The family I was with in LA were paranoid about this sort of thing happening to them. They used to follow stories of abductions in the news and got a clear idea of how it worked. Charlie wouldn’t have been snatching the baby for himself – you just needed to look at him to see that – he would have been one link in an organised chain.

  ‘Someone arranges everything, another finds the target, someone else – Charlie – makes the grab for the child and then passes him on to another person, who gets the child out of the country. Brody was probably a million miles away by Tuesday evening, being transported to a couple in the States who are rich and infertile.’

  That’s what Stuart had said.

  ‘You’re right,’ I concluded. ‘He had a ticket to go to Europe, but there was no baby passport in his bag. No baby gear. From what we saw of him he didn’t look like the settling down type.’

  ‘He was a loner out to make a fast buck,’ she said. She put her arm around me and pulled me close. I could smell baby milk on her collar. ‘You can’t say anything about this,’ she went on. ‘We’ll both be in big trouble if you do – the police will know what we…you…did.’