by Kerry Fisher
‘Hey. It’s going to be okay. The police will find her.’ I said it as much for me.
Colin threw his arms round my waist. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if anything happens to her, I can’t stand it. Where is she? Why would she do this?’
Even in these circumstances, Colin’s desperation shocked and frightened me. I couldn’t think of any other time when he had cried rather than shouted.
I had no answers. ‘Come on, the sooner you speak to the police, the sooner they can do their job.’ I helped him out of his sodden jeans, then I pulled out the box from under the bed. I found my favourite photo of Bronte, taken after Christmas when it had snowed. She was sticking a carrot on her snowman’s face, her smile showing the gap where one of her teeth had come out on Christmas Eve, her hair corkscrewed into damp, snow-flecked curls. She looked relaxed, carefree, beyond her normal buttoned-up self. My eyes were sore. I had no more tears.
Colin came over to look at the photo. ‘She looks just like you there. Beautiful.’ His voice sounded tight. He pulled me close. His cheek was freezing against mine and we stood there for a moment, united in misery. Colin was so much easier to like when the fight had gone out of him. I squeezed his hand and went back downstairs. PC Tadman was looking at the noticeboard in the kitchen. When I walked into the front room, Mr Peters and Serena started talking loudly as though I’d caught them whispering about us. I didn’t have any room left to feel worse.
I handed the photo to Serena. Her face didn’t flicker as she looked at it. I don’t know what I expected. Probably that she would say she was the most gorgeous child she’d ever seen. To her, Bronte was just another face she’d have to scan onto the missing list.
11
Clover surprised me. When she finally picked up my message, she turned into a one-woman powerhouse. She organised a search of the woods and lanes surrounding her house, phoned every mother in Bronte’s class and brought Harley back from school for me. Once word had got out at Stirling Hall, Mr Peters thought it was better for him to come home. I hovered awkwardly on the front step, trying to find the words to thank her. Clover waved me away, her posh voice booming down the street. ‘Anything I can do, anything at all, just call.’ I felt as though she meant it.
Harley clung to me, his eyes huge in his face. I found it hard to hug him when my other baby was out there, somewhere, needing me more. Colin fetched Sandy to sit with Harley.
‘Maia, love, you poor thing. I’ll wait here in case she comes back. You get out looking or you’ll both go nutty-balloo, just sitting here.’ She sounded like the old Sandy I knew.
Colin was clicking the end of a pen. ‘I’m gonna drive round up by that new park where I took Bronte to ride her bike. That’s not far from the school. And that riverbank where we went swimming last summer.’
‘Good idea. You take the torch in case you’re not back before dark. It’s under the sink.’ I went to give him a kiss but he pushed me away.
‘Come on, let’s get moving, it’s one o’clock already.’
I watched the van screech away. I stood by the front gate for a moment, trying to focus on logic, not panic. I raked through the people she knew locally. Bronte was reserved like me. She’d never really mixed with the kids on the estate. She preferred to play on her own, pretending to be a teacher to her dolls or writing stories about horses. Some of the kids round here were old before they’d had a chance to be young, mini-louts in the making with their pierced eyebrows, swearing and tribal haircuts. I’d never pushed her to mix with them either.
Where could, where would a kid go on a gloomy rainy day? I was wasting time standing there. I set off, heading towards the recreation ground, a good half an hour’s walk away, on the other side of the estate. I hoped she’d have more sense than to go there. All those play tunnels were just asking for evil to hide inside. I shuddered.
The rec was deserted. In all the films I’d seen, no good had ever come from swings dangling in an empty playground. I ran to the big tunnels and forced myself to peer in, almost screaming anyway, even though there were only a few crisp packets and lager cans inside. I climbed the steps of the slide in case she was hiding curled up in the little canopy at the top. From my vantage point, I scanned the playground and beyond, shouting her name, but my voice blew back to me.
It was so cold and damp. I made my way over to the flats on the edge of the estate in case she’d taken refuge in the stairwells there. By the time I’d done ten flights of stairs in six blocks, my legs were shaking with exertion. I sat down on the wall to gather my thoughts and get my breath back, indifferent to the stink of the bins.
It was nearly four o’clock. I hauled myself to my feet, trying to work out a methodical way to search the streets. I was convinced that I’d miss her by a hair, that I’d turn into one road just as she was going round the corner into another. I marched along, the rumbling in my belly reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. A silver Mercedes with blacked out windows crawled past me. It slowed about three hundred yards further up. I started to run, positive that they were going to throw Bronte out onto the pavement, tied up. Before I’d even got close, a boy, maybe a man, stepped out of the shadows and approached the car. I saw his hand reach through the passenger window and quickly out again. He slipped something into his pocket. I promised myself that one day I’d live in an area where Friday night’s entertainment came from a DVD rather than a jacked-up vein. I slowed my pace, hoping they’d been too busy swapping money and crack to notice me flying towards them.
Each street looked the same. Row after row of ugly sixties houses with overgrown front gardens sporting old mattresses, broken chairs and rusty bits of cars. Occasionally there would be a neat lawn with pots and bushes. I called her name over and over again until my throat was sore. Every time I looked at my watch another quarter of an hour had passed. By half past six, my feet were aching and my hands sore from the wind and rain. I forced myself on. I must have been on my fifteenth street when I came up to the community centre, a pre-fab building with pebble-dashed walls sporting the message ‘If you ain’t cool, you can’t rule’ sprayed in red and blue. The lights were on and the harsh tones of rap music blared out. By the door, a skinhead was snogging a girl up against the wall. Her black puffa jacket was wide open and the boy had his hands up her shirt, kneading her breasts like bread dough, oblivious to the rain.
I hadn’t been to the community centre since Bronte was tiny when some well-meaning health visitor did a session about caring for your toddler. When she started teaching us baby yoga, the women practically chased her out of the room, demanding extra benefit payments so they could keep their kids warm. At least back then I’d been able to keep Bronte safe.
I squared my shoulders and marched into the hall, past the gaggle of girls gathered inside the door. Their main purpose in life seemed to be to show lots of flabby flesh, untouched by exercise or fresh fruit. Some of the boys stared in my direction, like dogs who’d spotted a cat and were growling quietly, waiting to see if it dared to come into the garden or not. There was no point in looking for a friendly face. Kids on our estate didn’t do friendly so I took a gamble and walked straight over to a tough nut, who was stabbing away at an iPod. He had so many tattoos up his arms that they were like sleeves. With his black goatee beard and shaven head, he seemed a few years older than the rest, maybe eighteen, perhaps twenty.
‘Hi. Don’t want to disturb you but could I ask a quick question?’
‘Depends what it is.’ He glared at me, fiddling with the bar through his lower lip. Some of the other boys slouched closer. I hated myself for feeling scared.
‘My daughter’s missing. She’s nine years old. I wondered if anyone here had seen her.’
‘Christ, we never get any peace here. Something every week. Some kid goes missing and straightaway you’re in here pointing the finger at us.’
‘I’m not pointing the finger at anyone. I just wondered if anyone had noticed her hanging about. I’m asking everyone, I’m s
o worried,’ I said.
The boy couldn’t have looked less interested. ‘Why don’t you go and get the cops earning their money? They’ve got plenty of spare time on their hands, they’re always down here bothering us. Last week they were on about some bloody pirate DVDs, week before, some dodgy Es. We’re just trying to have a good time here, keep off the streets a bit.’
Frustration was bubbling up inside me like a saucepan of milk. I wanted to pull him into me by the ring in his eyebrow and shout in his face until he could feel my spit on his skin. I wanted to scream at him: ‘This is my daughter we are talking about, who could be frightened, shouting out for me, yes, even dying right now and you are telling me to get the cops? Do you think I haven’t already done that?’
He turned to the guy next to him with white blond spiky hair. ‘Don’t think we can help, can we? No girls hanging around here, ‘cept for them old slags out there and nine’s too young even for us.’
‘Please, can you just ask your mates? She’s got dark hair like mine. Wearing a red skirt and green blazer. She’s got quite dark skin, sort of Spanish looking.’
The goatee man looked at me, hooded eyes unfriendly, considering. Then the boy with the blond spiky hair leaned in close to me.
‘I know you.’
On our estate, those three words usually signalled a punch in the mouth. I pushed down the flutter of panic. I kept myself to myself so it was hard to see how I’d rubbed someone up the wrong way. The boy laughed, showing a chipped front tooth.
‘You’re the woman who called the ambulance that day I split me head open. I think me brains would’ve emptied out on the pavement if you hadn’t come along.’
It was then I noticed the spiderweb half-hidden by the collar of his shirt. ‘Tarants?’
‘Cor, you even remember me name. Is it your little girl who’s gone AWOL?’
‘Yes. She was there the day you hurt yourself, do you remember her?’ He didn’t answer for a moment. I wanted to shake him. Think! Think!
‘No, but I think I seen her around. She got an older brother, blond, yeah?’
I nodded, feeling like I had all day, that I was wasting my time and that some other place, somewhere I hadn’t thought of yet, would be better.
‘What about today? She’s been missing since this morning.’ I tried to keep the impatience out of my voice.
‘No, don’t think so. There ain’t too many kids round this way in that uniform. It’s that posh school, innit? But you’re from here, right? What’s your kid doing there then?’ Now his brain had made a few connections, he’d revved up a gear, lost that dopey look.
‘It’s a long story. Will you double-check with your mates, though? Please?’ I dug my hands deep into my jacket pockets to stop me grabbing his shirt and pleading with him.
‘You leave it with me, love. I got friends all over town. Is it that school with all them cricket fields, up near the Royal Oak pub? Me cousin runs in a gang over that way. I’ll see if he’s seen her.’ He ran his hand over his spikes as though to check they were still standing to attention.
The goatee boy was twirling the stud in his nose. I sensed my welcome was on a countdown but I wanted to tell Tarants where I lived, scribble my mobile number down and ask him to call me. I was caught between knowing how our estate worked and how I wanted it to work.
‘C’mon, you going to put the music on or what?’ said the goatee boy, nudging Tarants.
He shoved him back. ‘Have a bit of fucking respect.’ He turned back to me. ‘I’ll do what I can, darling.’
‘I live at 95 Walldon, second to last house on the left.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll find you. You’d better get going, you know how impatient people are round here.’
I left, repeating 95 Walldon to him as I walked away and received an irritable nod in return. By the time I’d walked two blocks I was shivering. The rain had stepped up and was bouncing off the pavement in front of me. Cold needles of water pricked my scalp. My hands were so cold they hurt. I shoved them under my armpits. I couldn’t go home while my baby was out there. My jeans were dragging down, so heavy with water it was an effort to lift my feet. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, wincing as the thick wet cotton scraped at my freezing skin. I glanced at the screen for messages but it was black. I stabbed at the buttons, desperate to produce a sign of life. Nothing. I’d been walking for nearly six hours. By now, Bronte would normally be snuggled up with Colin on the settee, laughing over some DVD. I would have to go home to find out whether there was any news. I trudged a different route back, not bothering to move out of the way as cars sent sloshes of dirty water across the pavement. My pace quickened as I got close to the house. It was 7.30. Maybe, just maybe, she’d be wrapped in a blanket in the front room with her thumb in her mouth, which she still sucked when she was upset.
One look at Sandy’s face told me that was not the case. She rushed off to get me a towel and to put the kettle on. Colin wasn’t back yet. I didn’t want to phone him. Didn’t want to hear the defeat in his voice. Didn’t want to have to be strong.
‘Where’s Harley?’
‘He was wiped out with crying. He took himself off to bed about twenty minutes ago.’
I ran upstairs to see him. He was asleep, grey shadows under his eyes, hands behind his head as though he was sunbathing. I loved the trusting face he had in his sleep, wide open to the world. I stroked his hair and kissed his cheek. Next to him lay Bronte’s toy gorilla, Gordon. I eased it out and buried my face in its matted black fur, breathing in hard. I could only smell the plastic of its hands and feet. I tucked it back in next to Harley, wondering whether I’d ever been more miserable.
I was wriggling out of my wet clothes when the phone rang. I flew down the stairs in my bra and jeans and snatched it up.
It was Mr Peters. He told me that the police would call but he had heard ‘unofficially’ that there’d been a sighting of Bronte in the shopping centre, a twenty-five-minute walk from school at about one o’clock in the afternoon. Which meant that seven hours ago she’d been alive. One of the officers had been going through CCTV footage and had captured a picture of her Stirling Hall backpack.
‘Was it definitely her? Was she alone?’
‘They’re pretty certain it was her because her hair is in a plait down the back. It’s difficult to tell whether she was on her own because she’s going into a shop. They’re still searching for other images to see if they can work out which way she went when she came out.’
‘Which shop was she going into?’
‘A fashion shop, H&M, I think. The police are trying to contact the manager of the store at the moment.’
I sighed. I was so bone tired. I wanted to feel positive that she’d been seen after she’d left school but anything could have happened in the last few hours.
‘Ms Etxeleku? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘Don’t give up. I understand how exhausting this is. This is a concrete step forward. I’m sure they will find her. I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself that you already knew this piece of information when the police call. I wanted to put you in the picture as soon as possible. You will contact me if there is anything I can do, won’t you?’
I wanted him to come over and hold me and tell me that it was all going to be okay. I’d run out of coping. I needed someone else to take the strain. Better still, I wanted him to turn up at the door with Bronte and a plan for how to live the rest of my life after this without turning into a raving loony every time Bronte was out of my sight for five seconds. But it seemed like a big ask even for Mr Peters so I just thanked him and sank into the settee. My teeth were chattering. Sandy stood over me, her face a question mark. I repeated the conversation and saw her features relax, the deep wrinkles of night shifts, twenty a day and Co-op vodka reaching up for air.
‘See. I told you she’d be all right. She’s a survivor, that Bronte. Like her mother. You better get yourself into some dry togs before you
catch your death. S’pose you better ring Colin and let him know, he was looking proper stressed before he went off.’ She was right. But I didn’t want to deal with him. I knew I should go back out into the rain and keep searching. Though I also wanted to hear firsthand from the police what they knew. It might be worse if I shot off like a headless chicken, especially with a dead mobile. I stuck it on charge.
‘Sandy, be a love and give Colin a ring for us. I’m going to get dry. His number is, hang on, let me write it down for you.’
‘It’s okay, I’ve got it.’
Upstairs I pulled on the thickest jumper and socks I could find. I was psyching myself up to get back out on my lonely search when there was a knock at the door. It was Serena. My first thought was that she’d have phoned to update me unless Bronte was dead. My belly lurched as though I’d drunk neat lemon juice. She must have read my face because she put her hand on my arm as she stepped inside and said, ‘I think we’re making progress, Ms Etxeleku.’
The way her hair was scraped back so tightly was at odds with her kindness. I led her through to the front room where she filled me in on what they’d discovered so far.
I almost wished Mr Peters hadn’t phoned me. Keeping my face ready to look surprised was stopping me concentrating. Sandy was acting as though she had a bit part in some cheesy police drama, coming in and out with tea and nodding knowledgeably, muttering stuff like, ‘They always say it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch,’ until Serena asked her to give us a bit of privacy.
‘Has Bronte any history of shoplifting?’
‘No, not at all. She’s never taken anything.’ I knew I sounded defensive.
‘It’s just that when we spoke to the store manager tonight, she remembered Bronte very well because she had tried to steal a sequinned top. Put it on under her school uniform.’ A surge of fury shot through me. I almost forgot Bronte was missing. I hadn’t brought up my daughter to be a common little thief. Serena probably thought I’d been too lazy to teach her right from wrong.