Emma's Baby

by Taylor, Abbie

  The footsteps faded. On the screen, an image lit up. A white hall, with double doors at one end. White metal and glass.

  'Watch now,' the woman at the computer said.

  Behind the glass doors, a shape loomed. Then the doors slid open and a man came striding through. He was tall, wearing jeans and a navy, short-sleeved shirt. An oval-shaped blur covered his face, breaking it up into tiny pink and yellow squares. The man was pulling a wheelie case and walking very quickly. In no time at all, he was past the camera and gone from the screen.

  'Wait . . .'

  Emma sat up. The film was moving way too fast. If the rest of it was like this, she wasn't going to be able to see it properly. But beside her, Lindsay was still focusing on the screen. Detective Hill, PC Gorman . . . everyone was busy watching the film. No one but her seemed to be having trouble following it.

  'Here come the woman and child,' PC Gorman said.

  Panicking, Emma jerked her eyes back. Her vision blurred. Now she couldn't see anything at all. Roughly, she scrubbed at her eyes. When she looked again, a woman, her face also obscured, was coming through the doors, holding something bulky in her arms.

  A child.

  Emma strained, using every muscle in her face to try to see the child. But it was impossible to get a proper view of him. The woman's body was turned away from the camera. All you could see of the child was a tuft of hair – darker, surely, than Ritchie's? – and a small foot, sticking out.

  'Look up,' Emma wanted to shout. 'Ritchie, if that's you, look up.'

  But it was the woman who glanced up instead. Although her face was covered with little squares, she appeared to be looking straight at the camera.

  The film froze.

  'Are you all right?' Lindsay asked.

  Emma was staring at the screen. Even taking the blurring of her features into account, this woman had nothing familiar about her whatsoever. Her hair was dark, tied back instead of down by her ears. She wore baggy trousers and some sort of hooded top. Very casual. Very different from the posh, horsey woman at the tube station.

  'I don't think that's her.' Emma chewed at her thumbnail. 'I don't think that's the woman who was in Mr Bap's.'

  'Take your time,' Lindsay advised. 'We haven't seen the child yet.'

  But Emma had lost her nerve. Face it. It wasn't them. It wasn't Ritchie. She should have known. The police could be looking for Ritchie some other way, instead of all of them just sitting here. Emma wanted to scream with frustration. She wanted to get up and run out of the room. This was a complete waste of everyone's time.

  She had her mouth open, about to say as much to Lindsay, when the film started again. The woman's face moved in jerky little squares. A second later, she turned her body towards the camera, and all Emma's thoughts flew away. There was the child in the woman's arms, in plain view for the first time. A solid little lump, a sheen of hair. Emma's head shot up, she felt herself lifted off the seat. Her body knew before she did. She was on her feet, pointing at the screen.

  'That's him,' she said. 'That's Ritchie.'

  Someone drew in a breath.

  'What . . . ?'

  'Did she say . . . ?'

  The exclamations faded. Emma was rising, floating in the room like a ghost. Oh, Ritchie, Ritchie, my precious baby, you're alive. You're alive! She wanted to touch the screen, to hold it, to take his head in her hands. It was real. It wasn't real. A cold drink in the desert which you couldn't feel in your throat. Her own breath filled her ears. Everything else, the people, the room, all had been subtracted. There was just her, breathing like Darth Vader, gazing down a quiet tunnel at her son. Here they came, the dark-haired woman in her hooded top, Ritchie in her arms. Ritchie had dark hair too now. How funny it looked on him. He was wearing a green top that Emma had never seen, and brown trousers. Brown boots, which made his feet look huge. His arms dangled at his sides. The only thing she couldn't see was his face, which was turned into the woman's shoulder. He was slumped against her, clearly asleep.

  'Emma.' Detective Hill's voice echoed down the tunnel. 'Emma.'

  Emma's ears popped. Dazed, she looked at Detective Hill.

  'Are you sure it's him?' Detective Hill asked. 'You can only see the top of his head. And this child has brown hair, not bl—'

  'His fringe,' Emma babbled.

  She'd cut Ritchie's fringe herself, the day before he was kidnapped. He wouldn't stay still, and the right side ended up an inch shorter than the left. There it was now, on top of his head. Right side shorter than the left. Exactly the same.

  'They've dyed his hair,' she said. 'But I know it's him. I know what the rest of him looks like. He's in France, isn't he? They've taken him to France. What happens now? How do we get him back?'

  Detective Hill scratched the back of his head. He said to PC Gorman, 'Haven't we got any proper views of his face?'

  'No,' PC Gorman said. 'It's the same in all the pictures. He's got his head in her shoulder the whole time.'

  'She's trying to hide him,' Emma said, caught between joy and exasperation. It was so obvious. 'A child that age wouldn't stay asleep that long in a noisy place like an airport. Ritchie definitely wouldn't. He'd wonder what was going on. He'd be trying to get down, get into everything.'

  'Then maybe it isn't Ritchie?' Detective Hill suggested.

  'She's drugged him,' Emma said grimly. 'It is him.'

  Detective Hill opened his mouth, but PC Gorman got there first.

  'She's got a point,' she said. 'My granddaughter's the same. You'd have to drug her to keep her quiet in an airport.'

  A ripple of chuckles from behind.

  Detective Hill said, 'All right, then. We'll check them out. We'll get on to it straight away.'

  'What will you—' Emma began again, but Detective Hill had already left the room.

  The fluorescent lights came on. Emma blinked. She couldn't see the screen so clearly now. Five days ago, that video had been taken. Today was Saturday. Five days ago, while she had been weeping in their flat and answering a million questions about Oliver, Ritchie had been in an airport, wearing a strange green top and sleeping on this woman's shoulder. While Emma had lain in bed, clinging to Gribbit, Ritchie had boarded a plane and flown almost directly over her head.

  Around her, people in navy jumpers with badges on the shoulders were stretching in their grey plastic seats. Some of them were still chuckling over the comment the woman had made about her granddaughter.

  'Hurry up,' Emma wanted to shout at them. 'Time is passing. Get back to your jobs and find him.'

  Five days. Ritchie could be anywhere by now. Her happiness at seeing him was replaced again by fear. She couldn't feel her legs. She had to sit down.

  Outside the station, she was still having trouble believing it. Had that really been Ritchie in there? It was hard to keep still. She pulled at the zip of her fleece, tugging it up against the cold, then down again, shifting from foot to foot on the steps. The urge to do something, anything, was overwhelming. It was after eight, but the traffic was still flowing. Saturday shoppers on their way home. The headlights picked out the trees in the park and cemetery across the road.

  'You did so well,' Lindsay kept saying. 'What an amazing breakthrough.'

  'You do believe me, don't you?' Emma asked anxiously. 'That it was him? You are going to follow it up?'

  'Of course we are. This is wonderful.'

  'It doesn't mean he's OK now, though.' Emma was still agitated.

  'But it's much more likely,' Lindsay said. 'That footage was taken nearly twenty-four hours after he disappeared. And he looked OK, didn't he? Things are looking more hopeful for him now, really they are.'

  'No thanks to you.' Suddenly, Emma was very angry. 'What were you all waiting for? Why has it taken this long for us to get anywhere? I'm his mother. You should have believed me from the start.'

  'We never didn't believe you, Emma.' Lindsay sounded troubled. Her smooth, beautician's face gleamed in the lights from the cars. 'It's just that .
. . with Dr Stanford . . . We had to think of every . . . I admit it would have been helpful if we'd had more CCTV evidence. But the cameras at Stepney Green tube station had been vandalized. They'd been having trouble there recently with gangs of schoolkids messing about. Two of the lenses were painted over. Someone was supposed to come and sort them out. And the street outside Mr Bap's had no CCTV at all.'

  Emma said bitterly, 'That's funny, because I heard that in London the average person gets caught on camera three hundred times a day.'

  'Well, they're not all police cameras,' Lindsay said. 'But you're right. I've heard that too. Just, unfortunately, not in the one place where we needed a camera to be.'

  She turned to face Emma. She tucked her green bag under her arm and put her hands on Emma's shoulders.

  'Look,' she said, 'after all this, we're definitely on the same page now, aren't we? What's happened this evening is wonderful. Really it is.'

  Emma chewed again at her nails.

  'What will the police do now?' she asked.

  It was at least the third time she'd asked that, but Lindsay didn't seem to mind.

  'We'll give the passport details of those people to Interpol,' she said. 'Copies of their photos as well, from the passport office. The French police will start looking for them over there.'

  'But if they used false passports?'

  'We'll still find them. There'll be cameras in the airport at the other end. We'll be able to see who met them, how they left the airport. From there, we'll know where they went. We know who we're looking for now,' Lindsay said. 'That's the difficult part. Once we're on the trail, it's hard to get us off.'

  'What time will they look until?' Emma asked.

  'Who?'

  'The police. What time do they work until?'

  'All night if we have to, Emma.' Lindsay was patient. 'You know that.'

  Emma did. But she still needed to hear it said.

  'We'll find him,' Lindsay repeated. 'Hey.' She gave Emma's shoulders a little shake. 'We will.'

  Emma knew that Lindsay was trying to get her to look at her but she couldn't make herself do it. It wasn't that she didn't want to, but her eyes seemed to be moving around by themselves, very fast, taking in the street, the steps, the people walking past with their bags and coats. She didn't seem able to focus on just one thing. Lindsay pulled her in for a hug. Emma let her. Lindsay patted her on the back while Emma stood there, awkward in the unfamiliar embrace.

  'Will you go and look with them?' she asked Lindsay. 'I'd feel better if there was someone there I knew.'

  'Why don't I come home with you for a while?' Lindsay suggested. 'It'll be hard, waiting on your own.'

  'I'll be all right. I don't want to go back to the flat just yet. I'd like to go for a walk. Buy some things for Ritchie. Food and stuff.'

  'It may be a while before you can see him,' Lindsay warned.

  Emma stiffened.

  'If he's in France, I mean,' Lindsay reminded her. 'Plus, he might need to be seen by a doctor. You know, to be checked over.' Then she added, 'But I'll tell you what would be helpful. If you got some stuff together in a bag for him? Some of his favourite toys, and a change of clothes. When we find him, we may need to take whatever he's wearing.'

  Emma nodded. 'Phone me the minute you hear anything,' she begged.

  'I'll do that,' Lindsay promised.

  They said their goodbyes. Emma went on down the steps of the police station. Checked over. What did Lindsay mean by that? She'd said it was less likely now that Ritchie would be hurt.

  She walked on, keeping her hand in her pocket, curled around her mobile phone. She had to keep moving, keep doing something, even if all she could do was cling to the phone and wait for it to ring. She walked quickly, hardly noticing where she went.

  She turned left on to the Fulham Road and kept going. The further she walked, the buzzier the street became. The pavements were packed with people her age, all heading out for the night. Lights and noise and smells radiated from the bars and restaurants. Some of the restaurants had their windows open to the street. Rows of bottoms faced outwards in the dusk. People jostled around her. She crossed to the other, quieter side of the road so that she could walk undisturbed.

  Scenes chased through her head. One minute she was imagining the reunion. Ritchie calling in his clear little voice, 'Muh. Muh,' with his arms out, and she grabbing him, pulling him to her. Then she remembered that they hadn't found him at all yet. How would they get him back? Would they have to break down the door of the house where he was? Would there be guns? Would the kidnappers try to kill him?

  Her mobile rang, buzzing against her hand. Emma jumped, fumbling in terror to pull it out.

  'Hello? Hello?'

  'Emma?' The voice was familiar. 'It's Rafe Townsend here.'

  'Rafe.' Emma stopped. She never would have thought it, but he was exactly the person she needed to hear from right now.

  'Rafe,' she blurted. 'The Bergerac thing. I saw the tape from the airport. It's him. It's Ritchie.'

  'What?' The phone crackled.

  A crowd of people, men in jackets and polo shirts, girls in tight, pastel coats had all arrived together outside an Italian restaurant. Emma put her finger in her ear. She shouted into the phone, 'That was Ritchie at the airport. They're going to track him down in France.'

  'Jesus.' Rafe sounded stunned. 'That's fantastic.'

  'Yeah.' All of a sudden she was smiling. 'Yeah. It is.'

  The maître d' of the restaurant had opened the doors. The men and girls were crowding into the warmth. Emma could smell garlic. She saw red and yellow lights along the inside walls.

  'How did he look?' Rafe asked. 'Did he look OK?'

  'He looked as if he'd been drugged.' Emma tried not to think about it. 'And she'd dyed his hair. And put different clothes on him.'

  For some reason, even with Ritchie being given drugs and having chemicals put in his hair, the thing that really bothered her was the new clothes. She kept coming back to them. She'd been picturing Ritchie all this time as still in his elephant fleece.

  'But the clothes looked warm,' she had to admit. 'Clean. He looked . . . comfortable.'

  'I can't believe it,' Rafe kept saying. 'I can't believe it.'

  'I thought he might be dead,' Emma said in a low voice. 'I really did. Part of me thought that. I never thought it would really be him.'

  Rafe said, 'But it was.'

  The customers had all gone in now. The street had quietened. The restaurant doors were closed.

  'You couldn't see his face properly,' Emma said. 'On the film. Detective Hill kept saying, are you sure it's him, you can't see his face.'

  'But you were sure,' Rafe said.

  'Yeah.' Happiness filled her. 'Yeah. I can't wait to see him.'

  Again, she pictured Ritchie, trying to run to her with his funny little waddle. His delighted beam when he saw her. Or would he cry? Would he be so traumatized he wouldn't be able to smile at all? Would he have to go to hospital? Once more, her gut clenched. God. Was this ever going to end?

  'It's going to be fine.' Rafe seemed to be thinking the same things she was. 'Stay positive, Emma. You'll have him back with you soon.'

  She held the phone, letting the words slow her heart. It was so good, hearing them. Knowing he was interested in what was happening. Having him there.

  'I'd better go,' she said at last. 'They might be trying to reach me.'

  'Ring me any time you want to,' Rafe said. 'Any time you want to talk. You know where I am.'

  Even though Lindsay had said it would be a while before she saw him, Emma stopped in at Sainsbury's to buy things for Ritchie. Rusks. Milk. Strawberry yoghurt. The sticks of mild Cheddar cheese he liked to carry about with him. Choosing the familiar items calmed her. The child's bright colours on the pots in the fridge; the comforting shuffle in the queue with the other mothers. The whole routine of it made Ritchie's coming home seem more real.

  Lindsay had said there might be a delay, but as it turn
ed out, things moved very swiftly over the evening. Lindsay phoned several times, each time sounding more and more excited. Now they had an address in France. Interpol was involved. A team was going to the address straight away. Lindsay would phone as soon as the British police heard back.

  Emma hung up, her heart racing. This was really it. She was really going to see him. She spent the next hour and a half cleaning the flat from top to bottom. She turned on all the lights and kept her head down, scrubbing the kitchen, hoovering the carpets, scouring the bath and sink. She made up Ritchie's cot for him, covering the mattress with clean, lavender-smelling sheets and smoothing out his fleece blanket with the green and purple Barney on it. She sat Gribbit right at the top, and arranged Ritchie's five soothers in a circle around him.

  And then, suddenly exhausted, she sank down on to the edge of her bed, still with her hand on Gribbit's soft, green, semi-chewed head. She let her head droop, resting her forehead against the bars of the cot.

  'Did you hear, Grib?' she whispered. 'Did you hear? He's coming back to us.'

  It was after midnight when the intercom finally sounded. Emma flew to answer it. Moments later, Lindsay arrived at the flat, dressed much less formally than usual in a pink shirt and jeans. She was out of breath, her cheeks shiny and red. Her hair stood up in straggly wisps around her face. Clearly she had some news.

  'Did you find them?' Emma managed to ask. 'Were they there?'

  'Yes. They were there.'

  Oh, thank God. Emma's whole body relaxed. Thank God. Her muscles had gone loose, as if someone had taken a wrench and opened all the bolts. At last. At last it was all over.

  'So where is he?' she asked. 'When can I see him?'

  Lindsay came into the flat. She closed the door behind her.

  'Why don't you answer?' Emma was surprised. Then something struck her, and a needle of ice slid into her throat.

  'Is he hurt?'

  'It's not that,' Lindsay said quickly.

  'Well, what then?' Emma was confused.

  Lindsay said, 'Why don't we sit down?'