I squint a little as I try to spot Anna. I walk a little to the left and run my hand through my hair, anxious now. I turn, and take a few steps the other way. Then I try to calm myself. Maybe she’s gone to check in? I hurry over to the desks for our airline but she’s not there – and neither can she check in without me being there: I have the tickets. I go back to the bathroom door. ‘Stay here,’ I tell myself. She’ll come back to where she last saw you. So I stand with my back to the wall outside the Ladies, and I wait, but all the while I wait, my eyes are searching, searching. Where are they?
I take a deep breath in through my nose, and exhale it slowly through my mouth. I repeat this three times, maybe four, trying to calm myself. Then I wonder if maybe Joe’s nappy needed changing. I imagine a poo so enormous it’s squelched out of the nappy and into the sleepsuit; Joe’s whole outfit needing a change. Maybe Anna’s locked in a cubicle, struggling to clean him up. I go back into the bathroom, but all the cubicles are empty.
‘Anna!’ I shout. ‘Are you in here?’
Silence.
I position myself back outside the bathroom and check my phone. No messages. I dial her number and raise it to my ear, still looking for Anna while the number rings and rings. Now I’m not just confused; I’m angry. Where the hell is she? She knows we have a flight to catch. This is ridiculous.
I cross the area in front of the Ladies and look left and right into places I couldn’t previously see; I look back at the Ladies from where I’m now standing, but it’s as if Anna was never here. Then I hurry towards the bank of check-in desks and crane my neck as I look in turn at each desk, more carefully this time. Maybe I missed her? The desks aren’t busy, and it doesn’t take long to see that Anna really isn’t there. Still, I look again, as if she might magically appear, and then I decide to go back to the Ladies and wait there, but this time I’m too agitated to stand still. I walk ten paces this way and ten paces that way. This way, that way. Up and down.
When my phone rings, I think I might vomit with relief. I rip it out of my back pocket but it’s not Anna, it’s Jake, just checking we reached the airport okay.
‘I was worried about you,’ he says and I hear a smile in his voice; relief that we’ve arrived safely.
‘I can’t find them! Anna and Joe – they’ve gone!’ The words explode out of me with a sob.
‘What do you mean “gone”? They’ll be somewhere. They’ve just gone to the bathroom, or for a walk or something.’
‘No! You don’t understand! I’ve looked everywhere! They’ve been gone ages. They’re nowhere. Something’s happened!’ I’m clutching at my head with my spare hand, trying to come up with a scenario that explains why my friend and my baby have disappeared out from under my eyes when we have a flight to catch. I’m panicking but also, all the while, holding out that stupid, ridiculous hope that it’s some sort of misunderstanding. A stubborn part of me still believes we’ll make the flight.
‘Calm down,’ Jake says firmly. I can tell from his voice that he’s gone into management mode. ‘Taylor! Come on, think logically. When and where did you last see them?’
I talk to him through sobs, my eyes darting left and right across the concourse.
‘Okay,’ Jake says. ‘But nobody’s going to abduct an adult woman and a baby from an airport. Why would they? Things like that just don’t happen. Someone would have noticed.’
‘Where are they, then? Where? You tell me!’ I shout. I pace frantically up and down outside the bathrooms, this way and that, scanning the crowds for a familiar flash of Joe’s apple-green car seat.
‘I don’t know, Tay! But they’ll be somewhere. I promise you! They can’t just have disappeared. Maybe they went to get something to eat. Or left something in the taxi. Maybe they’re outside calling the taxi back.’
‘Why isn’t she answering her phone, then? She’d tell me. I know she would. She knows I’d be frantic! Something’s happened. She said she was being followed. Maybe someone had it in for her… Oh my god!’ My knees go weak and I lean on the wall to stop myself from falling.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Jake says. ‘People like her don’t have enemies. This doesn’t happen in real life.’
‘Oh god, oh god,’ I moan, and the whole sorry story comes tumbling out. How Anna felt she was being watched; how someone was sleeping in her shed; how she suspected it might be Simon.
Jake goes quiet. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’d never have let you go with her! What were you thinking?’
‘So you’re blaming me?’ I snap.
I hear Jake take a deep breath, and picture him running his hand through his hair. ‘No. Look. Let’s keep calm. Why don’t you go to an information desk and ask them to put out a call for Anna? I’m sure they can do that.’
So I go over to the information desk. The lady there calls over another lady in a smart suit with an airport tag. She listens to me, nodding, then calls for a police officer. I explain to each of them in turn as calmly as I can that my friend and my baby have gone missing but, having handed me over to the police, the airport official gently melts back into the terminal, and, while the police officer is kind, I can see in his eyes that what he sees is a panicky new mum, a misunderstanding and a potential waste of his time as he asks me for a description of Anna and Joe.
‘She’s about five foot six, blonde hair, wearing a blue coat… No, hang on. She didn’t have that on today… It was the Zara one. Oh god, just, like, a grey coat like this…’ I try to show with my hands how long the coat was, how it did up with buttons. ‘Umm, jeans, sneakers. Dark-blue Converse, I think.’
‘And the baby? Can you describe him?’
‘Six weeks old. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Oh my god, it’s nearly time for his feed!’ Fresh tears spring to my eyes. ‘He’s a baby, what else can I say?’
‘What’s he wearing? Any identifying marks?’
I shake my head. ‘A sleepsuit. A navy one with white stars. A white blanket. He’s in a car seat. At least he was. A Maxi-Cosi, you know the newborn car seats that you carry?’ I mime holding it. ‘Black and apple green, quite bright. They’ve been taken! I’m sure of it. She was being watched!’
The officer’s writing everything down but nothing’s actually happening. I want to shake him till his teeth rattle – make him realize the urgency of the situation. It’s like a nightmare: one of those dreams when you want to run but your legs won’t move, only this is real life and my mouth’s dry and my words aren’t coming out right, I’m gabbling, and I’m aware of how unstable I sound; how hysterical I look as I repeat myself. Then my head goes woozy and I’m out of my body, looking down on myself in the airport terminal, struggling to be taken seriously as I keep trying to get it through to the officer that my best friend and my baby have been snatched, but all he’s doing is making notes and telling me to calm down, and I’m standing there at the information desk, scrubbing at my eyes with the back of my fist and, all the while, my baby’s getting further and further away from me.
‘Oh for god’s sake! I can’t stand here doing nothing!’ I sob, snapping back into my body.
I spin around and run towards the check-in zones, my head swivelling left and right, searching for that flash of apple green.
‘Have you seen a blonde woman with a baby in a green car seat?’ I scream, my voice coming out thinner and reedier than I imagine it will. Still, the crowds part around me, a sea of startled faces and shaking heads. The airport’s so big, there are so many people – I feel utterly hopeless, aware, too, that somehow the abductors might have fake passports; might have got Joe through security to the departure lounges, where the rest of the world lies in wait like a hungry wolf, jaws open to swallow him up.
I might never see Joe again.
The enormity of the thought overwhelms me and my legs give out, forcing me to sink to my knees, head in hands like the weight of what’s happening is too heavy to bear. Footsteps thud. The officer kneels down in front of me.
‘Mrs Watson.’ He offers an
arm but I ignore it. ‘Mrs Watson, if your son is here, we will find him.’
‘But you’re not doing anything! Every minute is a minute he’s further away. Don’t you understand? They’ve been taken! Kidnapped. Abducted. Whatever you call it. Someone’s taken them. We need to catch them before they leave the airport. What if they get on a flight? Can they stop them before they board? Can you tell all the airlines to watch out for a blonde woman with a small baby? Please? You’ve got to.’ I tug at my hair. ‘What about sniffer dogs? I’ve got luggage they can get a scent from.’
‘We’ll make enquiries.’
‘Enquiries! I don’t want enquiries. I want my son. You don’t get it. This has been building up for weeks. It’s a carefully orchestrated plan. I know it. Where are the police? Look!’ I fling my arm at the terminal where no police are to be seen. ‘Where are they? Why aren’t they searching the terminal? If you’re not going to do it, I will.’ I stumble back to my feet and launch myself back into the fray, aware at a base level as I do so that I’m making a scene; that people are turning to look while others are scurrying away, heads down, not wanting to be a part of this; not wanting trouble to smear itself across the start of their holidays.
‘Has anyone see a blonde woman with a baby? He’s in a green car seat?’ I scream. ‘I’ve lost my baby. Help me!’ But the officer grabs me.
‘Mrs Watson. Please. The best thing you can do right now is to assist us with our enquiries. Please come with me.’ He speaks into his radio and then leads me across the concourse, through a door marked ‘Private’ and down a back corridor until we reach a small room, which he indicates I should enter, and all the while I’m thinking how will this help? How will I find Joe if I’m stuck in a room, but the fight’s going out of me as I realize that what’s happened is bigger than me – bigger than me just being separated from Joe and Anna – and that I’m going to have to trust the police to do their job.
Inside the room there’s a small sofa that’s seen better days, a table and a couple of hard chairs. The officer leads me to the sofa and gets me a paper cup of water from a cooler. He sits on one of the hard chairs.
‘I’m just waiting for a colleague, and then we’ll ask you some questions. Is there anyone we can call for you?’
‘My husband,’ I whimper. ‘Jake.’
Forty-one
In a few minutes, the door to the room opens again, and a policewoman enters and introduces herself as PC Manning. I instantly like the look of her: she seems brisk and capable – as if she deals with things like this every day of her life.
‘Right,’ she says with a small smile, ‘I know this is a difficult time but, in our experience, a positive and constructive parental response in the first twenty-four hours is critical to success in finding missing minors. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s some sort of misunderstanding, but we need all the help we can get from you. Do you think you can do that?’
I nod. She brings one of the chairs over and sits so she’s facing me. The original officer, whose name I still don’t know, remains at the table.
‘Just to let you know, the CCTV is being checked as we speak.’
‘Okay,’ I say, overwhelmed that this is my life, not a television show.
‘Now, who was with your son when you last saw him?’ PC Manning’s pen is poised over her notepad so I reel off Anna’s name, address and phone number.
‘She’s my best friend. She was with me for the birth. I can’t imagine what’s happened for her to disappear with him. Something terrible…’
‘We’ll also need your address just to check she hasn’t gone back there for some reason,’ she says, and suddenly I imagine Anna realizing she’s forgotten something vital to the trip and nipping home to pick it up. Hope leaps through me, its flames licking my heart and then extinguishing as I realize that’s highly unlikely: she would have just waited for me to come out of the toilets and told me. Surely she would.
‘Right,’ says PC Manning after I’ve told her our address. ‘Now we need to get as much background information as we can. Anything you think that might help with the search. I need to know about who’s had contact with your baby: friends and family who’ve visited the house and so on.’
I lean forward, focused and eager to impart as much information as I can.
‘My son is six weeks old. As I said, he was with Anna. We were travelling to the States together – she was helping me with the baby then going off on her own holiday. But – and I don’t know if it’s relevant – but for the last few weeks – months maybe? – she’s been telling me she feels like she was being watched.’
PC Manning tilts her head. ‘Okaay…’ she says slowly. ‘Anything concrete?’ And there’s something in her voice that puts me on edge. I’m aware that, from the outside, I must be sounding a little mad to this sensible, capable woman, but isn’t the proof in the fact that Joe and Anna have gone missing? That’s not something that happens every day. I take a deep breath to fight down the defensiveness springing up inside me. PC Manning represents my chance of getting Joe back. I need her to be on my side.
‘I met Anna at a walking group in Croydon,’ I say. ‘We were both new to the area, and I joined to meet people – she was there and we hit it off.’ I check to see that PC Manning is following. ‘But we both also met a guy called Simon that day. Anna said that she started feeling like she was being watched ever since then, which was in early December.’ I pause, wondering if that sounds like I’m accusing Simon and that by doing so, I might be giving the police a red herring because I honestly don’t know if it was him, but PC Manning just waits for me to carry on.
‘I don’t know if it’s relevant,’ I shrug. ‘I don’t know if it’s him or not, but Anna never felt comfortable around him. She thought he had, I don’t know – an agenda of some sort?’
‘I see,’ says PC Manning. ‘And did you share the same feeling about him?’
I exhale through my teeth. ‘Oh god… I don’t know. He’s odd. You can’t deny that. But I thought he was harmless – just lonely? But Anna pointed out all these things, like he knew where I lived when I didn’t think I’d told him. And I… I thought she was overreacting. She’d had a bad experience in the past and was suspicious of everything so I didn’t take her that seriously.’ I shrug. ‘Maybe she was right.’
‘Okay. I’ll get his details and we’ll make some enquiries. Anyone else you can think of?’
I start to shake my head but then I remember how Anna felt Caroline had something against her too, so I mention that.
‘She’d have a motive for taking Joe,’ I say, ice suddenly running through my veins as I remember her taking him from me at the hospital. ‘She lost a child about a year ago.’
PC Manning nods. ‘Okay, well, we’ll check her out and we’ll also need to know if there’s anyone else who might wish you ill will – conflicts with neighbours, arguments, bitter exes, whether you’ve noticed anyone strange hanging around the house, following you… anything you can think of that might be relevant? Anything at all, however small you think it is.’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t think of anything. God, this is all to do with Anna, isn’t it? Maybe someone had it in for her and Joe just got in the way?’ I picture Anna murdered; Joe left squalling in the car seat, dumped in bushes, cold and hungry.
‘What about Anna’s passport? Who has that?’ PC Manning asks, blocking that rabbit hole.
My heart skitters. ‘She does.’
‘And who bought the airline tickets?’
‘We each bought our own,’ I say, as the realization of what PC Manning’s getting at oozes into my mind. ‘We coordinated about the flight, but she booked her own ticket.’
‘Did you ever see her passport?’
‘No…’
PC Manning shakes her head. ‘You didn’t see her name on it?’
I shake my head in silence and PC Manning’s lips form a straight line. ‘Okay.’ She taps her pen on the notepad and sighs while I try to ima
gine Anna planning all this but I just can’t. There has to be some other explanation.
‘Right. One last thing,’ says PC Manning. ‘Do you have a picture of her we can circulate?’
‘Sure.’
I take a few deep breaths and start to scroll through the camera roll on my phone, realizing with the surety of lead sinking that I don’t actually have a single photo of Anna. Not one. I go to her Instagram account but nothing comes up.
‘I can’t find it,’ I say, stabbing at the phone with my finger. ‘It’s not loading.’ It takes me a minute to comprehend why it’s not loading: because the account no longer exists. I flick to Facebook and type ‘Anna Jones’ into the search window but her familiar avatar isn’t there and her page doesn’t come up. I stare at the screen, uncomprehending.
‘What is it?’ PC Manning asks.
‘I can’t find her Facebook. Or Instagram.’ I try Twitter but it’s the same story. Anna’s been wiped off social media.
I look up at the officer. ‘There’s nothing,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Absolutely nothing. Everything’s been deleted.’
Forty-two
They find Anna’s phone in a bin close to the toilets. A uniformed officer brings it in for me to identify while I’m still with PC Manning. She puts the phone on the table and asks me to ring the number to confirm, but I hardly need to. I’ve seen Anna’s phone with its crack at the edge of the screen and its aqua-and-red watermelon case lying on the dining table so many times it’s as familiar to me as my own.
I Know You Page 21