by Sam Hayes
Fleetingly, Robert had an image of Ruth, a faceless girl, dissolving into thin air before his eyes. Then he thought of Erin and Ruby’s vanishing act.
‘I’m sorry,’ he found himself saying but really he meant it about his own situation. ‘Have the police done all they can?’
‘Of course. The investigation was over and done with many years ago.’ Mrs Wystrach took the knitted tea cosy off the pot and stirred the contents. ‘More?’ Robert held out his cup; he needed to prolong the meeting to prise out information. ‘She’s been gone thirteen years. There’s nothing else to be done.’ She tapped the spoon on the side of the teapot. ‘They say she’s probably dead.’
Robert sipped his tea, anything to distract his body from mirroring the involuntary twitches that consumed Mr Wystrach as he fought internal conflict, refusing to believe his wife’s resignation. Common sense told Robert to get up and leave, that to be wrapped up in the old couple’s story was both misleading and dangerous, that he might learn something that would steer him away from the truth about his wife, that he might learn something that would make him more obsessed.
‘Mr and Mrs Wystrach, do you know anyone called Erin Lucas? Does the name have any connection with this locket?’ Louisa asked, placing her teacup on the coffee table, glancing at Robert briefly.
‘I have a photograph of her,’ Robert said. He took his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open, offering it to Mrs Wystrach. She took a look, leaned against her husband and clapped a hand to her forehead. Her head bobbed vigorously and her lips suddenly pursed as if a drawstring was tightening around the words that wanted to come out.
‘He says do we know this woman,’ Mrs Wystrach said to her husband, trying to control herself. She was acting as if he had suddenly become deaf or dumb.
‘We don’t know her,’ he replied too swiftly. His face tightened at the sight of Erin and colour leaked into his broad cheeks, revealing doubt, distrust and certainly regret. A faint grimace curled at one side of his mouth like a leaf preparing for autumn. Robert glimpsed the pale blonde wisps of Erin’s hair as Mrs Wystrach held the picture in trembling hands. He recalled taking the photo in a high wind on Anglesey. Erin had one hand at her neck and the other brushing back her flyaway hair.
Mr Wystrach pushed his fat fingers through what remained of his greasy hair and sighed. ‘Have you lost someone too?’ he asked, the tight accent receding a little, the signs of recognition ebbing, as if he had taken control of his feelings. Mr Wystrach, for some reason, was striving to give little away.
‘Possibly. I’m not sure yet.’ Robert realised he sounded stupid – either someone is lost or they aren’t – but the man’s evasion, despite his obvious recognition of Erin, had thrown him. ‘It’s my wife,’ he added, although they weren’t listening. Mrs Wystrach was whispering excitedly in a foreign language to her husband and they both smiled and frowned, as if a small valve had been released but with a great pressure behind. Whatever they were hiding, Robert was reluctant to reveal anything about Erin. She was still his wife.
Mrs Wystrach crossed herself and stood up. ‘You wait a moment.’ She shuffled from the room, her rubber-soled slippers making no noise, and soon returned clutching a box file to her chest. ‘We’d like to show you some things about Ruth.’
The old woman placed the box on the coffee table and carefully opened it, a light spray of dust scattering off its top in the sunlight. As she fingered through the many papers it contained, Robert could see that most were newspaper clippings. Louisa leaned forward, a shaft of sun filtered by the nets dappling her hair. Their bodies were close, their thoughts closer still.
‘This is Ruth. And this one and this one.’ Suddenly Robert and Louisa were wrapped in newspaper clippings and photographs as Mrs Wystrach handed them all over in an excited flurry. Her breath and anticipation were hot on his skin as Robert shared the pictures with Louisa.
Staring up out of the yellowed newspaper was an insipid girl with vacant eyes against a pale blue swirly background in what was obviously a school photograph. Above it, the simple headline stated: Schoolgirl Missing.
Robert’s heart knotted in his chest as he stared at a much younger Erin. In his mind, there was no mistaking that the girl in the newspaper had matured into his wife. He wasn’t sure whether to leap up and hug the old couple – in case they really were his parents-in-law – or keep the discovery to himself in case they clammed up. From body language alone, Robert was certain they knew more than they were letting on and he didn’t want to put up a road block. He would tread carefully; contact them again if necessary.
Either way, Robert couldn’t help imagining that it was Erin and Ruby who never came back, that it was their pictures he had supplied to the police and the newspapers, urging the nation to search for his missing family. A line of sweat prickled underneath his shirt, dampening the length of his spine.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he found himself saying, hardly able to look at the young girl. She had already sent a jolt through him. ‘It must have been very hard.’
Robert heard Louisa mouthing the words of the accompanying report of the missing girl, noticing only key words as they left her lips – runaway, abducted, plea, police . . .
‘She was only fifteen. A child.’ The old woman’s voice contained a thread of hope, ridiculously, as if Robert, a complete stranger, had been delivered to relieve them of their loss. ‘She was everyone’s favourite little girl.’ She placed a worn-out hand on her husband’s back. ‘We were a close family.’
At this comment her husband stood and moved to the window, angling his oversized and ageing body into the column of sunshine that struck across the room. ‘One day she was here. Then she ran away.’ Mrs Wystrach joined her husband in the light and they stood staring out of the window, leaving their visitors to riffle through the clippings.
There were several copies of the same newspaper, containing articles about the missing girl. One clipping had come from a national daily. All dated from the same month – January 1992.
‘What do you think?’ Robert lowered his voice, as if that would make his words unintelligible to the old couple.
‘I was about to ask you the same question.’
‘Look at the mole. Look at the cheekbones. I know the hair’s different, but the foundations are there.’
‘I have a mole,’ Louisa whispered and pointed to her temple. ‘It doesn’t make me the girl in the picture.’
‘This girl could never be you.’ Robert held up the black and white photo again. ‘But it certainly could be Erin.’ If he’d been alone, Robert would have whispered to the girl directly. She looked as if she had a secret, the way her eyes were stilled with fear and her lips sat slightly apart with the story they wanted to tell. Did she know that she had been in all the newspapers?
‘Uh-uh. Sorry,’ Louisa chided. ‘This girl was fifteen years old in nineteen ninety-two. That would make her twenty-seven, twenty-eight, depending on her exact birthday. How old is Erin?’
‘Thirty-two. OK, Sherlock. I’m just telling you what I see. There is a very strong likeness between this young girl and my wife.’
‘You’re being suggestible, just like the old couple when you showed them the locket.’ Louisa sighed and sat back. ‘Rob, I can’t see it. Don’t hang out on this.’
Robert didn’t respond to her scepticism. While he had the chance, while the Wystrachs’ backs were turned, he removed several pages from one of the newspapers, folded them tightly and tucked the wad inside his shirt.
‘She may yet be found,’ he offered the old couple. ‘Never give up hope.’
They both turned in unison. ‘But the locket,’ Mrs Wystrach pleaded. Her eyes were dots, shrunken from the sunlight. ‘You must tell us where you got it from. Ruth’s grandmother gave it to her for her tenth birthday. She always wore it. The picture in the locket is Edyta Wystrach, the mother of my husband, Vasil, and his brother Gustaw.’
‘Perhaps you could tell us more about your daughter’s disap
earance,’ Louisa’s direct approach flicked a switch in the woman.
‘Ruth wasn’t just a runaway.’
‘Irena, don’t.’ Vasil Wystrach placed a warning hand on his wife’s arm and shook his head.
‘What harm can it do? The press told the world back then anyway.’ Irena shrugged off her husband’s touch. ‘The police believe that Ruth kidnapped a baby when she ran away from home.’
‘Why would she do that?’ Louisa edged forward and withdrew a pad and pen from her shoulder bag. ‘Why would a fifteen-year-old want to do such a thing?’
The woman hesitated before answering, swallowed away what she really wanted to say. ‘This is what we said to the police but it seems that they have their evidence and it all points at our Ruthie.’ The skin on Irena Wystrach’s face paled, ageing her further. She swallowed several times. ‘We don’t believe our daughter did such a thing, do we, Vasil?’
‘The evidence they had suited the police and the grieving mother of the stolen baby. What they didn’t realise was that we were grieving too.’ Vasil’s voice was thin, cautious.
‘What evidence did the police have that your daughter took this baby?’ Louisa jotted a few notes. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not a journalist but we think that your missing daughter may have something to do with someone we are trying to locate.’ She smiled in just the right place.
Irena riffled in the box of papers again and retrieved some later clippings. ‘Read this and see if you think it is evidence. If they thought our Ruthie was a kidnapper, then they should have tried harder to find her.’
Robert pressed close to Louisa, who removed her glasses to read the new thread in an otherwise routine missing teenager story.
ABDUCTED BABY LINKED WITH TEEN RUNAWAY
Police suspect a link between the teenage runaway, Ruth Wystrach, last seen by her parents Vasil and Irena at her home on 4 January, and the abducted baby Natasha Jane Varney.
The infant was kidnapped from her mother’s Renault 5 while parked in a Northampton supermarket car park also on 4 January.
Several witnesses have made statements to the police claiming that they saw a young girl matching the description of the missing teenager. Two witnesses were able to give an exact time and good description, stating that they saw a female youth running through the car park carrying a baby. The suspect was said to be in a distressed state. Another witness reported sighting a teenager with a baby hitching a lift on the M1.
Detective Inspector George Lumley, the officer in charge of the case, said, ‘We are following up all leads but would particularly like to speak with the runaway teen so that we can eliminate her from our inquiries. The mother of the abducted baby is naturally very distressed and will be making a statement to the press shortly. Anyone with any information should contact the Northamptonshire Police on . . .’
‘Whoa,’ Robert said when he had finished reading. ‘Somewhat circumstantial, don’t you think?’
Then the knife dug deep in his heart.
‘What they print isn’t necessarily everything they know.’ Louisa handed back the clipping. She replaced her glasses.
‘Just tell us where you got the locket. It could only have come from our Ruth. She would never have given it away.’ Vasil Wystrach coloured with his demand.
Robert stepped in. ‘Most likely my wife bought it at a flea market. I’m guessing she gave it to my stepdaughter as a present.’ Robert pulled on the knife that was lodged in his heart but it wouldn’t come out. ‘Have you considered that your runaway daughter might have sold the locket? She would have needed the money.’ The pain in his chest didn’t ease. ‘Was she into drugs, Mrs Wystrach? Was your Ruth an addict?’
‘Rob,’ Louisa interjected.
‘Did your Ruthie have some terrible secret that forced her to commit this crime? Perhaps your daughter wasn’t the girl you thought she was. Have you considered that?’ Robert shifted uncomfortably.
Vasil balled his fists and made to move but his wife halted him. The first flicker of their daughter in thirteen years and she wasn’t going to have it end in a fight.
‘Take another look, will you? Have a good look at Ruth.’ Mrs Wystrach fluttered a different faded picture of Ruth in front of Robert.
He steadied the picture and stared into the vacant teenage eyes. He glanced at the date at the top of the page – Saturday, 11 January 1992. He controlled his rapid breathing and tried to recall what he might have been doing on such a day. Of course he couldn’t, and wouldn’t expect anyone to.
All Robert knew for sure was that he would have been twenty-four years old and fresh out of law school, and Erin would have been only nineteen. Ruby would have been barely born; an unwanted gift for such a young, troubled mother. He shook his head as the knife dug deeper. Robert removed his stare from the pleading eyes of the teenager. Erin’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t recognise your daughter,’ he lied, trailing his finger over Ruth’s mousy fringe and long hair. Robert refused to reveal anything about Erin. Not until Louisa had researched the story further. There was something, he sensed, that the couple was hiding. ‘She’s pretty,’ he offered as consolation. ‘She’d be a grown woman now.’ He didn’t care if he upset them. He needed a cigarette and a chance to think. He stiffened his legs, as if to stand, and handed the clipping back to Mrs Wystrach. ‘We should go.’ He addressed Louisa and gave her a look that told her not to protest.
Robert realised she hadn’t finished with the old couple but he wasn’t sure how much more he could hear; wasn’t sure how much of the story Louisa had pieced together herself yet. Until he was somewhere safe, until he could let it come out, Robert would not allow himself to think of Ruby or her uncertain future. For now, the knife remained lodged in his heart.
He turned to Mr Wystrach. ‘I’m sorry about your daughter.’ Robert removed a business card from his wallet and left it on the tea tray. ‘If you think of anything, if you want to talk, then call me.’ Robert nodded at Irena Wystrach and showed himself out through the rear door, praying that Louisa was following.
He walked around the side of the house and bleeped the Mercedes unlocked, waiting without looking back until Louisa was beside him. He didn’t want to hang about any longer than necessary in the drab, concrete-lined street.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ Louisa buckled up. She swapped to her sunglasses, allowing Robert to glimpse his reflection in stereo.
‘I have,’ he snapped and belted the Mercedes to the limits of each gear.
Robert called Louisa on his mobile even though she was in room 224, the one right next to his. He hadn’t planned on staying the night in Northampton and he hadn’t planned on bothering Louisa again. They’d both agreed an early night was needed and parted in the corridor after a hasty and tasteless hotel meal.
He let his head sink into the dough of the fresh pillow while the phone rang. It hadn’t been easy booking them into separate rooms when the receptionist assumed they were partners. Partners in crime, he’d said. God.
‘You’re still awake then.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’ It was still early but Robert knew she was sleepy and fuzzy from the wine they had shared.
‘Natasha Jane Varney is what’s up.’
‘We’ve been over this, Rob. Goodnight.’
‘Wait.’
‘What? I’m tired. I’m only staying the night so that we can visit the local register office in the morning. Then you can get whatever’s in your system out of it.’
‘I want you to find the abducted baby’s mother.’
‘Her name was in the newspaper report. Why don’t you look in the phone book?’ Louisa yawned. ‘Let me sleep, Rob. You won’t like me tomorrow otherwise.’ She hung up.
Robert smoothed out the newspaper pages he had taken from the Wystrachs’ house on the bed. He felt like a historian piecing together someone’s missing past, only in this case he’d been handed the entire puzzle on a plate, each piece of the jigsaw numbered clearly a
nd fitting perfectly. Strangely, miraculously, tragically, he was the only person in the whole world who could see the picture it made, the consequences it bore.
BABY SNATCHED FROM CAR PARK
Northamptonshire Police have launched a massive hunt for a baby abducted from a supermarket car park on Saturday, 4 January.
Natasha Jane Varney, aged 8 weeks, was left in a vehicle while her mother went into the shop. On returning, Mrs Cheryl Varney, 23, discovered her baby had been taken and raised the alarm.
Detective Inspector George Lumley is treating the case as an abduction and asks the public to be vigilant and report anything they think may be of use.‘The infant was wearing a pale pink Babygro and a white woollen hat and wrapped in a matching blanket.We are concerned that the baby be reunited with her nursing mother as quickly as possible. Needless to say, parents Andrew and Cheryl Varney are extremely distressed and call upon the public for help.’
Such a small square of copy for a life-changing event. Heading the story was a picture of the infant and Robert stared long and hard at her shiny jet hair and depthless eyes. Her long fingers curled round the edge of the blanket and her newborn gaze was distant, a coincidence caught in the split second the shutter opened and closed, but so similar to Ruby’s distant stare, when her mind seemed to wander off to that other place. The baby’s mother, Cheryl Varney, was barely discernible in the picture.
Fighting the paranoia in which Louisa would claim he was drowning, Robert reached for the telephone directory that sat squarely next to the phone and flipped to the Vs. There were only a handful of Varneys and only one with the initial C. Robert entered the address and number into his phone and snapped it shut.
He didn’t think telephoning was appropriate to let someone know that his stepdaughter was their kidnapped baby.
Oh yes, he thought, making a lunge for the minibar. He could see exactly what had happened back in January 1992 and suddenly possession being nine-tenths of the law had never seemed so wrong.