Little Boy Found: They Thought the Nightmare Was Over...It Was Only the Beginning.

by LK Fox

  ‘You have the licence-plate number,’ she said.

  Ella

  I stayed on Aunt Charlie’s boat for another couple of weeks. During that time, she made a number of calls to the clinic, but she wouldn’t tell me anything about them. I got the feeling she was watching me, making sure that I had told the truth about Gabriel and my feelings towards him.

  One evening, as we sat on the deck of the barge with our mugs of thick, dark coffee, watching the shadows swallow the canal, she spoke. ‘I suppose you want to know what Marleena told me.’

  ‘I guess she’s still very angry,’ I ventured.

  ‘Yeah, you could say that. Well, disappointed, mainly. I told her who I was. But I said I hadn’t seen you.’

  ‘She’ll know you lied, she’ll check with my father.’

  ‘Honey, she’s leaving the clinic. She’s not very well.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘She broke the law for me. She gave me a name. I think she has bigger things to worry about right now.’

  ‘What name?’

  She sipped her coffee. ‘Summerton.’

  ‘Just that? One word? There must be thousands of people with that name.’

  ‘Were you expecting her to give me their full address? She’s not a fool, Ella. I think she guessed I was in touch with you and just wanted you to be reassured.’

  ‘But it doesn’t tell me anything. I still don’t know if Gabriel will be all right.’

  ‘I guess you just have to trust her.’

  ‘I want to be sure.’

  ‘You really do have your father’s stubbornness,’ she said, setting down her mug. ‘If his new parents had been looking to adopt a child for some time, they probably contacted other agencies and family planning clinics in the area. That’s where we start looking.’ She swung up out of her chair and headed below deck.

  ‘So what do we do?’ I called.

  ‘We need to go and see Uncle Ron,’ she shouted back. ‘Let me talk to him first. He may not want anything to do with it. On the other hand, he likes to keep his mind sharp. He’s very good at research.’

  It seemed unlikely to me that anyone who would admit to being called Uncle Ron could be related to us. It turned out he was a portly drunk with a complexion like trodden strawberries. He reeked of whisky and rolling tobacc, and sat propped on the wall outside the Hunting Dog Lodge looking like a farm labourer from another century.

  ‘I know he doesn’t look like much, but don’t underestimate him,’ said Aunt Charlie, reading my mind as we approached. ‘He’s had a tragic life. He lost both his children, a boy and a girl. They were living with their crazy mother in India. A truck hit their car head-on. His wife survived, but she never came back to England.’

  ‘We’re not really related, are we?’ I asked.

  ‘No, in this case, I think you could say that “uncle” is a river term,’ Aunt Charlie assured me. ‘Before he lost his family, he was a very good political journalist, one of the old school, crocked by midday and still capable of breaking a big story before the last edition went to press.’ She raised her hand to him in greeting. ‘This is Ella, my niece,’ she said.

  I ducked away as Uncle Ron reached over to ruffle my hair. ‘So this is your brother’s daughter,’ he said. ‘Lovely little thing.’ Turning to Aunt Charlie, he fixed her with a bloodshot eye. ‘If I agree to help her, there are certain things she should know. There’s no point in pretending.’

  ‘Then tell her to her face,’ said Aunt Charlie, jabbing a finger at me. ‘We don’t talk about people as if they weren’t there, Ron. Ella is an adult now.’

  He turned and focussed on me. ‘I’ve done some checking. Only the child can trace its real parents, and then they have to be over eighteen in order to make enquiries. Hang on.’ He turned a page on a grubby notebook that was still an extension of his hand, a habit from his years as a journalist. ‘The provisions of the 1976 Adoption Act entitle certain parties to information on the original birth certificate. But you need to know which court or agency handled the adoption, and it may not have been the one where you gave birth. Parents don’t usually want their adopted children to be able to trace their original names or the identity of their parents.’

  I waited while Uncle Ron took a swig of ale from his pint mug and checked his notebook once more. He may have been a red-faced drunk, but he knew his stuff.

  ‘Some agencies allow birth parents to leave their details on file. These can be made available under certain conditions of application. The General Register Office runs something called an Adoption Contact Register, and there’s an organization called Birthlink that might help you. But you’ll have to be a bit crafty.’ He sniffed disgustingly and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘You’ll need a damned good reason for making an application. I’m willing to help you as a favour to your aunt, so long as you don’t try anything stupid. And you need to know up front, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to do anything to get your son back legally now. That ship has sailed. This isn’t a matter for the courts any more.’

  I had thought that if I could prove I was capable of looking after him I might still have a chance, but if an adoption was going through it would be a fight. ‘I just want to make sure that he grows up in a happy, loving environment,’ I said, trying to sound reasonable.

  He shot me a searching look. ‘You’ve been tried by the system and shut out, young lady. If the purpose of finding your boy is purely to give yourself peace of mind, maybe I can help, but if you have any other motive I’ll have to say no. I can’t be party to an abduction.’

  ‘I promise I’ll behave.’

  ‘All right, then.’ Uncle Ron grinned, revealing a partial set of teeth. ‘We’ll see what we can do.’

  I stayed with Aunt Charlie for a few more days, but it was clear that she was hoping to move on before the weather got worse. I had a little bit of money in a savings account and my father’s credit card, the lifeline he had not cut off. I figured I could get by for a while if I was very careful, but then I would have to find a job. I called Harry late one night, but Karen answered so I hung up.

  In the weeks that followed, I began to realise just how difficult it would be to trace Gabriel. I had written down a common British surname, Summerton, but it led nowhere. I also had the addresses of various organizations that either refused to help or were forbidden from doing so. I had lost everything, and there was nobody left to take my side beyond a well-meaning itinerant and a drunken old reporter.

  I realised that I would never see Gabriel again, and not a day went by when I didn’t punish myself for what had happened. I called the Dentworth Clinic but chickened out when the receptionist started asking too many questions.

  And that was where it all would have ended, if it hadn’t been for Facebook. In the evenings, I’d taken to surfing through various Summertons, family after family of smiling faces, Spanish holidays, meal tables, sports events, grandparents in sunlit gardens, children in parks and on beaches. After I’d exhausted all the ones in the immediate area, I tried looking further afield, searching the counties in order of proximity, but for all I knew the family might have travelled from the other end of the country to adopt.

  It wasn’t enough to scan the front page of each entry; I had to at least open the photographs and look at pictures of children. After a while, they all started to appear the same, until I came to Angela Summerton. Her entire page was smothered in insipid congratulations from friends on her new son, but there were no photographs of him. I soon discovered why; she’d been advised not to post his picture on social network sites. I could only assume it was because her son was adopted.

  It took me about thirty seconds to find her address. She lived virtually on my doorstep.

  Nick

  Whatever I had said to Kaylie, I had absolutely no idea how to go about tracking a licence plate.

  I opened my web browser and looked for online databases that would do the job. It would have been easier if I’d still
been part of a large organization, with regular contacts and the security checks all in place. I figured I’d have to pay up front with a credit card. I found a site and tried to run the plate, but they needed to confirm my payment details via email first. This was the sort of thing a hyper-efficient TV cop would manage to do in a flash, whereas I messed around for ages and eventually gave up. It was pretty much what you’d expect from a man with a rare species of paphiopedilum on his phone’s screensaver.

  The rain had eased enough to let me slow down the windscreen wipers. I drove instinctively, without any clear idea about what I was really doing. I had two missed calls from Matthew at the office, but I wasn’t ready to speak to him yet.

  The cul-de-sac at Long Lane Elementary had several empty spaces, but a formidable traffic warden was still prowling about and she looked like she might beat my car up if I double-parked it. I got as close as I dared to the school gates and kept the engine running. The entrance was locked and the pupils were still sealed inside. They were due out in about fifteen minutes, and the first parents had started to gather on the pavement. I could hear some children singing to a poorly tuned piano in an upper room.

  The man in the BMW must have been waiting for his chance to call Gabriel over that day. Perhaps he was the father of another pupil, someone Gabriel had seen outside and felt safe talking to. Someone who had cultivated his friendship behind my back. I looked about for the CCTVs but couldn’t spot them, even though I knew they were there, behind the trees.

  Parents weren’t allowed across the threshold into the playground. We were made to stay on this side of the railing. I looked along the empty street, searching for anything that would give me a fresh clue to what had occurred.

  Long Lane Elementary School was a sturdy old building, dismally Victorian even on the brightest days. Parents liked it because it protected their children in what could be a rough neighbourhood.

  It occurred to me that someone might have seen the sideswipe yesterday morning. There had been plenty of parents standing around.

  I got out but stayed close to my idling vehicle. I thought I recognised one woman: attractive, in her late twenties. Short dark hair framing a heart-shaped face, friendly eyes. She looked bored enough to talk. I raised my eyebrows at the school and smiled, in that vaguely friendly manner people use when they share a common purpose.

  ‘They won’t be long now.’ She smiled back at the grey wall of classrooms, the steamed-over windows. ‘I always get here too early, just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘I’m waiting for my son,’ I lied.

  ‘I’m picking up my sister’s little girl.’

  ‘I had an accident when I was dropping him off yesterday morning. I sideswiped a grey BMW, right around here.’

  ‘Oh, I saw that. I think we all did.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘The road’s too narrow. They’ve been campaigning to build a car park for years.’

  ‘You saw it happen?’

  ‘Well, yes, it made quite a noise. Everyone turned to look. That counts as excitement around here. I didn’t think it was your fault, if that’s any help. It was him. He didn’t look before he pulled out. I was seeing my one in so I wasn’t really concentrating. She’s quite a handful.’

  ‘Did you get a good look at him? Only I didn’t get his insurance details.’

  ‘Really, he didn’t give them to you?’

  ‘No, he was quite rude.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’ She concentrated now, enjoying a break from her usual routine. ‘Well, I did notice him, because he didn’t have a child with him. You have to watch out these days, you know? So I was kind of keeping an eye on him. He looked like a businessman, in a suit and tie. Actually, I didn’t see your child—’

  ‘What was he doing?’ I asked hastily.

  ‘I thought he was behaving a bit weirdly, to be honest. I was standing right beside his car. He got out for a cigarette and was looking for a light. You’re not supposed to smoke anywhere near the school; they tell the parents that, so I guess he wasn’t a parent. Then it started to rain harder and he got back in his car.’

  ‘Was there anything odd about him?’

  ‘Well, when I say I saw him, I wasn’t really looking.’

  ‘Was he tall, short, black, Caucasian, thin, stocky – what?’ I didn’t mean to sound aggressive, but I needed to know.

  ‘I don’t know, let me think. Short black hair, I think, but he had a cap on so he could have been bald on top for all I know. I’m just going by the moustache. I always think they make men look a bit dodgy. Wait, there was a bit of hair sticking out of that hole caps always have at the back. Black hair, definitely. Very pale skin.’

  ‘You’ve just described a third of the men in the country.’

  ‘Well, you’re pushing me, and I honestly can’t be sure. Except he didn’t look like a father.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He just had that single look. You know, too single. Those clothes, maybe. It’s hard to put into words. You just know.’

  Not a natural witness, I thought, but what did I expect? I could tell I was flustering her. ‘Please,’ I said, ‘take your time. It would help me.’

  She gave it another go. ‘Quite short, weird-looking. Polished shoes. The red baseball cap had a really curved peak so I didn’t see his face properly. The suit, it was like one my dad used to wear. He got his stuff from second-hand shops. Driving gloves. I remember thinking they looked funny because his sleeves were pushed up, and who wears gloves with bare arms? Except in old Michael Jackson videos.’

  ‘Did you hear him say anything?’

  ‘No, I don’t think—’

  ‘I did.’ Another of the young women came over. This one was pushing a baby buggy filled with groceries. She saw me looking. ‘Don’t,’ she warned. ‘I’m like Easyjet. Drop off one lot, fly back with another full load, always trying to make up the time. You have to keep an eye out for anyone hanging around the school. That lady over there had someone follow her little girl all the way home last week.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘She took a photo of him and uploaded it to her Facebook page. He was very upset. It turned out he ran the Chinese restaurant at the end of our street. But you never know. Parents aren’t always here to meet the little ones, or they’re late. They say there’s CCTV, but so what? I’d rather see a good old-fashioned policeman about.’

  ‘There’s supposed to be a community officer on this road,’ said the first woman.

  The Easyjet lady caught a bag of shopping just as it began to slide out of her buggy. ‘Yes, but he’s only pretend police and you hardly even see him around. It’s a snake pit by these gates. Some of the mothers are so busy checking out each other’s clothes they forget all about their kids. That man in the baseball cap and the cheap-looking suit, I heard him speak. He was talking to himself, that’s why I noticed. You know how sometimes you think people are talking to themselves and it turns out they’re on their phones? He had a white cord poking out of his ear so I figured he was on a call. You have to keep an eye out for nutters, so I made a point of listening.’

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked.

  ‘He was talking quite loudly, and I remember thinking, That’s weird, and looking over at one of the other mums.

  ‘Can you remember anything specific?’

  She twisted her head to one side and fiddled with an earring. ‘The words didn’t make sense. Why did I think he was a sailor?’ She turned to another mother. ‘Why did I think he was a sailor?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’

  ‘Oh, I know. It was something nautical. That was it. Something about the docks. He said he was on his way. He was going to see Mary. I’m not one hundred per cent sure, but that’s what it sounded like. I wasn’t really concentrating. Then he left and you crashed into him.’

  It was the type of nebulous recollection I felt sure I should have been able to interpret, but I couldn’t make any sense of it. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It wa
s kind of you to try and help.’

  She looked anxious to please. ‘I’m glad we could do something,’ she said, as if wanting to accept my appreciation on behalf of all of them.

  It was all I was likely to get. I got back into the Peugeot and flicked on the satnav, waiting for an image of the surrounding area to load. Then, under ‘search’, I typed ‘Mary’ and – the only other thing I could think of – ‘Docklands’. I figured the woman with the buggy might have overheard a destination but hadn’t been able to make sense of it.

  Nothing came up. Then I remembered St Mary’s Dock, back when it was full of old warehouses, before it was rebuilt and filled with poky, overpriced riverside flats.

  It wasn’t far away. It was worth trying.

  Ella

  The temperature was falling fast.

  I stamped my boots on the wet tarmac and kept watch. It was my second evening of waiting outside the house. I had stupidly underdressed and was frozen to the bone. I didn’t have any gloves. There was a light on in the bay-fronted lounge and another on the first-floor landing. Every once in a while, I saw a woman – overweight, mid-thirties, dressed in a tight brown sweater and jeans, her dark hair tied in a top-knot – passing across the room with what looked like a blue cloth in her hand.

  There was no sign of Gabriel.

  I came closer and pressed myself against the wet green wall of hedge, trying to sense the presence of a child in the room – but there were no toys on the floor, no baby buggy. Checking my watch, I guessed that the woman’s husband would not be home for another hour. Last night he had pulled up just after 7.30 p.m. I didn’t think it was very likely that he’d taken Gabriel to work with him. My son had to be in the house somewhere. I needed to act now. Rubbing my hands briskly against each other, I smoothed back my hair, took a deep breath and headed for the front door.

  Angela Summerton was a lot older than I’d first thought. Up close, I could see she was in her forties. She had tiny eyes that she accentuated with liner, and she clearly didn’t expect people to call without giving at least a few hours’ notice. She eyed me coldly and raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Yes?’