by Parks, Adele
‘I see. Was that by any chance his excuse for tracking you down?’
‘Well, yes.’ I think of the stress Katherine has been put through, we have all been put through. Is this woman saying that this was unnecessary? Something begins to stir through my body: outrage. Pure rage.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Annabel.
‘Katherine is biologically yours. Olivia is biologically ours.’ I state this plainly, because I no longer know what to believe, who to trust. Annabel nods. ‘And you knew that.’ She nods again.
‘We discovered as much during, and as a consequence of, my treatment. The family all wanted to donate blood in case of an emergency during one of the procedures.’ She sighs. ‘Not necessary, really. I think they all simply wanted to feel useful. Olivia’s blood group didn’t seem to match, so we had genetic tests done. I regret that.’ Something flickers across her eyes. Grief? Guilt? ‘Once we discovered the mix-up, it became apparent that Tom and I had very different views with regard to how we should react.’ Annabel stares at me unapologetically as she reaches for Olivia’s hand and squeezes it. ‘I didn’t want to track down you or Katherine. Olivia is my daughter. I love her. She’s more than enough: she and Callum and Amy were all I wanted. I know you understand.’
I’m impressed by her clarity, her confidence, her bravery in saying what she believes. For her, it’s clear cut, as it was for me. Parenting is not about the biology. Parenting is about the care.
‘Yes, yes, Katherine is—’ I can’t finish.
‘Your everything.’ I nod gratefully. I’m not even sorry for Olivia, although she is in the room and can hear my confession. She doesn’t need me. She has Annabel. It’s a relief; not that I’m off the hook, more that she’s OK. I can stop worrying about her. She has her mum. ‘However, Tom disagreed. He had a very different take on the situation. He had this big thing about genetics. His blood and all that. Laughable, really, when you think what small effort their contribution to baby-making is, compared to ours.’ Annabel glances at Jeff, almost a wink, almost a joke. In another world, we’d all laugh. She’s talking to me mostly, though. She’s a girls’ girl. She wants to be my ally. My friend. She’s here to help.
But her help has come too late.
‘When did you find out? About the swap?’
‘Four years ago. At first I persuaded Tom to ignore the results but as soon as I was well, or at least in remission, we started arguing about what we should do next. He was adamant that he wanted to track down and have a relationship with his other blood daughter. I disagreed. I just wanted to let sleeping dogs lie. We rowed about it, a lot. Soon we were rowing about everything. My going back to work, the kids’ attitude to school, money.’ She sighs. I stare at her mouth, concentrating on every word that comes from it. Trying to understand this new version of events I’m being presented with. Annabel ploughs on, determined.
‘It was almost as though Tom couldn’t deal with me getting well. Does that sound insane? He had been so wonderful throughout my illness, eyes glittering with concern, offering himself up to serve my every requirement – really quite amazing – but everything changed when I got well. This is going to sound strange, but it was as though he resented my recovery.’ Annabel glances regretfully at Olivia. She is still staring at her trainers. Her stance is one that shows discomfort is scratching her very soul, but she doesn’t contradict her mother.
‘He’d become addicted to me needing him for everything. I had for so long, you see. I’d needed him for lifts to the hospital, a shoulder to cry on when I felt vulnerable, to remember my medication, to hold my hair when I vomited after chemo and then to cut it off when it started to fall out. On some level, he liked my neediness. He lost interest in everything else during my illness. Stopped seeing his friends, or playing sport. He said he wanted to spend every moment with me. At first I was grateful, flattered, then it became too much. He became a bit of a moody bastard, if I’m frank. I felt guilty. He even gave up his job, which meant we had to manage on the insurance money, but it wasn’t enough. I had to get back to work pretty sharpish. He didn’t like that, but he couldn’t find a new position so there was no choice.’ She pauses, rubs her hand absent-mindedly across her belly. ‘I think he was having a breakdown, but we didn’t realise it. He was living under so much stress, we all were. What’s normal behaviour under circumstances like those we had endured?’ Jeff refills her water glass. Her story grabs my heart and squeezes.
‘You see, without my illness to focus on, he turned his attention instead to the baby swap. He became obsessed with it. Looking back, I see we should have got him some help.’
‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing,’ mumbles Jeff.
‘Yes. We moved out of London. I agreed to it because he talked about a new start for us all, and it made financial sense. We could buy the same-size house but bank a bit of money, too. It was helpful. One less pressure. We picked Warringdon because Tom said he had a job here. The job never materialised.’
I interrupt, ‘But he does work in Warringdon, at the branding agency.’
Annabel shakes her head. ‘He’s unemployed. Has been for four years, on and off. He gets casual jobs easily enough when he sees a need, he manages to get by. He’s been a van driver and worked in several pubs. He’s very charming at interviews but he can’t or won’t keep any job.’ Who is this man? ‘It took me months to realise that he’d tracked you down. That he’d instigated the entire move from London to be nearer to you guys. Well, to be nearer Katherine.’
Jeff leaps in. ‘When was this? When did you move to Warringdon?’
Annabel looks apologetic. She knows she’s causing distress. ‘Just over three years ago. I’m sorry.’
The thought of Tom stalking us for three years causes me to quake. Jeff puts his arm around my shoulders. I’m glad. Without it, I get the sense I might float away, up, up and away. This is insane.
‘For a long time he maintained it was just a coincidence. Then he swore that he wasn’t going to get in touch with you. He said it was enough to know that his daughter was nearby, but that so obviously wasn’t what he thought. I kept telling him I wouldn’t stand for it if he tried to make contact. I suppose it kept him in check for a while. We spilt up almost two years ago. It was hard, horrible, but we just couldn’t see eye to eye on anything.’ She pauses, sips her water, allows us time to digest. ‘I have a new partner now and although this wasn’t planned –’ she glances at her bump – ‘it is a blessing. Five years ago I thought I was going to die, now I’m bringing life on to the planet. How wonderful is that?’
‘But that’s not how Tom saw it.’ Frantically, I’m doing the maths. Annabel appears to be about six months pregnant. She probably told Tom about her pregnancy three months ago. That’s why he finally knocked on our door.
‘No, no, not at all.’ She shakes her head with genuine remorse. ‘He’s never accepted our divorce. Naturally, he misses the kids. They all live with me.’
‘They do?’
‘That explains all the occasions you didn’t turn up to the meals and things we invited you to,’ Jeff says to Olivia.
‘You invited me to stuff?’ She looks up from the floor, interested.
‘Often,’ I assure her. ‘Your father told me you didn’t want anything to do with us, that we had to cool it.’
Olivia’s gaze bounces from me, to Jeff, to her mother and back again to me. ‘He told me you weren’t interested in getting to know me.’
‘Fuck,’ says Jeff. ‘The man’s insane. Cruel.’
‘He had to keep the kids apart because, obviously, soon enough they’d mention Annabel. Do you remember that one time when Olivia did talk about her mum in the present tense? We thought it was grief. And fireworks night, when I saw Callum.’ I turn to Annabel. ‘Did you all go to Elizabeth Park to watch the fireworks?’ She nods. I begin to comprehend the enormity and complexity of this deception. Tom’s been determined and thorough. Ruthless and cunning. ‘You know Amy told Katherine that Tom was keeping your
children distant because he didn’t want them becoming attached to someone they might lose.’
‘Oh, that poor girl,’ says Annabel.
‘That’s why she rushed into taking the test.’
So many layers, so many lies. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea he had got in contact with you. He got the kids to swear they wouldn’t tell me. He managed to convince them all that it would upset me. The doctor has told me to watch my blood pressure, it’s a bit above average; not surprising when you think I’m thirty-seven, but the kids have been concerned. So they went along with his plan.’
‘Well, he is my dad,’ says Olivia defensively. ‘You know, whatever.’ She looks terrified, mortified.
‘Understandable,’ reassures Jeff. ‘This isn’t your fault.’
‘But that doesn’t explain why none of the children mentioned you were still alive,’ I point out.
‘Did Tom ever talk about my death in front of them?’
I think back. ‘No, not exactly. He talked about you being gone.’
‘He’s very clever.’
‘What brought you here?’
‘Olivia saw that Katherine had gone missing because of a post on Instagram.’
‘A post from Katherine?’ I’m fleetingly hopeful.
‘No, I’m sorry. If it had been, I’d’ve mentioned that first.’
‘Of course.’
‘Just some moronic generic teen thing. You know: “OMG, like, Katherine Mitchell is MISSING. I once saw her play a game of lacrosse, sad face, sad face”.’ Annabel hands me a tissue. I blow my nose and blot tears; she then clasps my hand, seemingly unconcerned about the snot and my emotion. My mind is like a Newton’s Cradle desk toy, the one that was popular in the nineties: one ball hits another and has a consequence; one thought connects with another. He took her. He has her. This dangerous, unhinged man has my daughter and she thinks he can be trusted.
‘He has my baby girl.’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Oh my God.’ Jeff picks up the phone and I hear him ask for Inspector Davis. I stare at him, but it’s as though we’re swamped in a fog. He’s not quite real or steady, nothing is. How can it be?
I can’t believe it. Any of it. ‘He telephoned me. He said he was searching for her.’ Something clicks in my head. The fog parting. ‘Oh God, he mentioned the Costa Coffee on Bridge Lane. I hadn’t told him about that.’
‘The bastard,’ says Jeff.
‘I don’t think he’ll hurt her.’ It’s Olivia who offers me this lifeline.
‘He’s insane,’ I assert, momentarily forgetting that I should probably try to be tactful in front of Olivia. Her admirable realism shines through again.
‘Yes, I think he might be. He certainly needs help, but I think he loves her. In his own way.’
Will that be enough to keep her safe? I didn’t feel safe with him last night. I stand up and stretch out my arms. For a moment, I wonder if Olivia will resist, even now. But I think she sees that my need to hold someone is so great and cruel that she acquiesces. She falls into my embrace. I cling to her, tightly, tightly, and cry silently into her warm neck, a neck I once briefly snuggled many years before.
37
We are now a high-risk case. Jeff and I hardly talk to one another. We have no words to describe our distress.
They search Tom’s house. We want to go with them but the police won’t allow it. It’s a potential crime scene. I imagine their white gloves, those overalls and the mask. I imagine them moving stealthily, seriously. I imagine the area being cordoned off. Neighbours, nosy and concerned. We wait in our home, with Annabel, Callum and Olivia. We all agreed it’s too stressful a place for Amy to be; she’s at home with Rory, Annabel’s partner.
We are hopeful, anticipating what they might find. We are horrified, terrified as to what they might find.
She’s not there. Nor is he. Just Mozart: alone, hungry.
‘He’d crapped on the floor. Cruel,’ comments the young male police officer.
‘Yes, it appears that this man is cruel,’ mutters Jeff. He looks like he loathes the young policeman’s bluntness, his clumsiness. But it’s Tom he loathes. What does it mean that he left the dog alone? That he’s coming back soon? That he’s totally heartless?
‘What’s going to happen to Mozart?’ I ask.
‘We’ll take him to the pound for the time being. Once things sort out here, this dog will be easy enough to rehome. Very popular, chocolate labs are.’
I want to know what he means exactly – ‘Once things sort out here’ – but I don’t ask. I doubt he could give me a straight answer; no one knows. ‘We’ll have him,’ I offer.
‘Are you sure?’ The officer looks doubtful. This possibly isn’t the best time to adopt a dog. I imagine there are procedures and paperwork. It infuriates me.
‘He’s Katherine’s dog,’ I insist. ‘She’ll want him here when she gets home.’ My tone is such that no one dares disagree with me. They bring him to me, with his basket, lead, food and water bowl. I think that’s touching, thoughtful, that they brought along his things. He bounds about the house, paws slipping on the wooden floors; I get the feeling he, like the rest of us, is looking for Katherine. I pull the dog close to me, nuzzle my face into his fur and whisper to him, ‘Did she go willingly, Mozart, or did he steal her away?’ The dog just pants; hot, doggy breath.
Inspector Davis seems almost elated by Annabel’s news. I see her professional antennae twitch. ‘It’s a very tangible lead,’ she declares cheerfully. ‘You have to look on the bright side. This is a good thing.’
Yes, it’s a good thing. Annabel is not dead, Katherine can’t have inherited a mutated gene that will kill her prematurely; we now know that, in all probability, she’s with Tom; she has not been abducted in the street, she has not been lured away by a paedophile ring.
But then, Tom is a pathological liar. He’s desperate, unhinged.
She’s not here by my side, is she?
The people on our street are getting used to police cars rolling up our drive, men and women in uniform tramping in and out of our house. We are shown some clothes they’ve found in Tom’s house. A young woman’s clothes. ‘Do you recognise them? Do they belong to Katherine?’
‘No.’ I’m categorical. We’d never let her buy a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes. Olivia reaches out to the too high, too strappy, red-soled shoes and tries to stroke them, almost lovingly, despite the fact they are in a plastic evidence bag.
‘These are every girl’s shoe-goal. They’re to die for.’ She puts her hand over her mouth and gasps at the expression she’s used.
‘Are they yours, Olivia?’ I know the answer but grasp at straws anyway. She shakes her head.
‘Size 37,’ observes Inspector Davis. ‘What size is Katherine?’
‘Thirty-seven,’ I admit. ‘Do you think he bought them for her? Do you think that, between them, they’ve decided not to tell me?’ What other secrets might there be?
‘I’m surprised she left those behind,’ comments Olivia. ‘They’d have been the first thing I’d’ve packed.’
‘They might belong to a woman friend of his,’ points out Jeff. ‘After all, we don’t know anything about him for sure. He might have a girlfriend. Several.’ My scalp itches. I haven’t told Jeff about Tom’s pass on Friday night. I haven’t told the police. I don’t know how to. It isn’t relevant, it’s just confusing. I can’t bring myself to hurt Jeff further: isn’t he dealing with enough?
Inspector Davis does not speculate. ‘And what about these?’ She picks up another plastic bag. Inside this one there is a pair of shorts. She holds it up. They are so tiny they look like something a young child should wear.
‘I couldn’t fit my thigh in the waistband,’ says Olivia. It’s not strictly true, but we all understand her point.
‘You don’t recognise any of them?’ The inspector points at the other items lying in evidence bags on our kitchen table.
I shake my head. Olivia intercepts. ‘Hang
on, that top is familiar.’ It does look like something Olivia might wear: plunging neckline, very tight-fitting. Olivia starts to tap her phone. ‘There!’ She shows us a picture of Katherine, explaining, ‘It’s a screen grab of a snap chat she sent me.’
Any hope that the clothes belong to Olivia or a girlfriend of Tom’s vanish. Katherine is wearing the plunging, clinging top. I stare longingly at the photo. For a moment she’s here in the room with us. Wide smile. Sparkling eyes. ‘What did she say in the snap chat?’ I ask.
‘She said her and Dad had been shopping; she said she wished I’d been there.’
‘When was this?’
‘Last Saturday.’
‘You didn’t know?’ Inspector Davis directs her question at me and Jeff.
‘We know when she spends time with him, but I had no idea they’d ever been shopping together,’ snaps Jeff. He turns to me. ‘Did you know? You spent much more time with him than I did.’
‘They were supposed to be taking Mozart to the vet last week for his annual check-up. That’s what he said.’ My tone is altogether more regretful. How have I let this happen?
‘I thought she was being a bitch, showing me what my dad had bought her, because, you know, by then, things were terrible between me and him.’ Olivia looks stricken. ‘What if she really meant it? What if she did want to be my friend?’
‘She does,’ I insist. I hate the way Olivia is using the past tense.
The inspector assures us that, since they are now pursuing a particular suspect, much more can be done to locate Katherine. For a start, there are 69,000 cash machines in the UK and they can all be monitored, live, so the moment Tom takes out any cash the police will be alerted. They have every right to search his house, his laptop, his bank and telephone records, as well as all his social-media accounts. They are looking for hard evidence as to where he might be, as well as beginning to build a psychological profile: ‘So we can have some idea what we are working with,’ says Inspector Davis.