by Linda Green
I don’t know if Dad’s going to be there. Mum probably hasn’t even told him and I can’t ask her because the ‘We don’t talk about your father’ rule still applies. I suppose I could tell him. I mean I’ve still got his mobile. But there would be a big scene if he went, and Mum would probably have a breakdown or something so I’m just going to keep quiet.
The trouble is, Nan dying means I’m like the only family Mum’s got left now (apart from Auntie Jennifer, and she’s in Middlesex so that doesn’t really count), which freaks me out a bit. I mean she is so in my face anyway, always wanting to know who I’m with or what I’m doing if I’m not at home or school. And now she’s got no one else to worry about she’s going to be fussing over me even more. Always in my hair and checking what I’m up to.
The whole uni thing has been hard enough. It’s a bit of luck Leeds had a course I wanted to do (and that Sparrow wanted to go there) because Mum wouldn’t hear of me going anywhere a long way away. She said she wanted me somewhere where I could be back home on a Friday evening. Maybe she thinks all the sex and drug-taking only happens at weekends or something.
And now I’m going to be on a massive guilt trip if I don’t come home every weekend because I know she’ll be on her own and she hasn’t even got anyone to visit or talk to any more (apart from Melody). Which means I won’t be able to be with Sparrow as much as I’d like but I can’t even complain about that because Mum doesn’t know about me and Sparrow. It’s gonna be a real pain in the arse. I hate having to do all this secret stuff and it’s going to get even harder now because Mum used to go and see Nan twice a day so I knew she was always going to be out in the afternoon and that was when Sparrow came round. Mum would go ape if she knew. It’s not like we’ve been shagging or anything. We just kiss and stuff. Nice stuff, but she doesn’t want to go any further than that at the moment, which is fine by me. I mean, fucking hell, it’s not like I’m gonna complain or anything, is it? Sometimes I just look at her and I can’t believe she’s actually lying next to me. I mean she’s so beautiful, proper beautiful, like in an old oil painting or a statue, not that fake beauty like the girls the other lads look at on their phones, all huge arses and tits and false smiles and faces plastered in make-up. She doesn’t wear make-up because she doesn’t need to. Her eyes are so dark and her lips are absolutely perfect, like the lips on a doll or something. And half the time I just lie there and look at her and wonder why the hell she bothers with a skinny geek like me. I mean she could have any of the lads at school if she wanted. They might pretend they’re not bothered when they see us together but I bet they wouldn’t say no to her. That’s why they take the piss out of me more when she’s around – they’re trying to show me up in front of her. She doesn’t care though. She really doesn’t give a toss about what they say. She says they’re all arseholes, which they are. Maybe I should get a T-shirt which says something like, GEEKS GET BETTER GIRLS THAN ARSEHOLES. No, actually, that doesn’t sound quite right. Anyway, what matters is that we’re together. I know Sparrow hates it as well, all this creeping around. She doesn’t let on, but I see her do this look sometimes and I just get the sense that she thinks I’m making it up about Mum, that she can’t really be that bad. I mean you can tell people about someone but unless they actually live with them, they can’t understand what they’re really like. And her family seem really nice, not that I’ve ever met them, mind, but the way she talks about them, they seem really laid-back.
I guess one day I’ll have to introduce her to Mum. I mean I can’t expect her to marry me or anything without actually having met my mum. I’ll wait till the last minute though. Like when we’ve got engaged, and then Mum won’t be able to do anything about it. She’ll just have to smile and say congratulations like everyone else. I suppose she’ll be on her own then. Maybe that’s what she’s scared of, although it’s stupid really because she spends so much of her time slagging off other people and saying how awful they are you’d think she’d actually prefer to be on her own, it would make life easier for her.
I shouldn’t say that really. I know it sounds a bit mean. And I know she only goes on at me because she wants the best for me – that’s what she always says anyway. But she does bang on so much about what a lovely little boy I used to be that sometimes I can’t help thinking that she didn’t want me to grow up, that she’d have preferred it if I’d stayed a kid for ever, like Peter fucking Pan or something.
Anyway, I guess we’ll get through this like we did with Dad going, and things will all settle down again. And in the meantime all I’m going to think about is Sparrow and how brilliant it’s going to be when we’re at uni together next year.
9
Lisa
I watch the light fighting its way through Ella’s curtains, signalling the end of the longest night of my life. I gave up trying to sleep at 4 a.m. and came in here. I wanted to be close to Ella. It is only a small room, barely enough space for a single bed and a tiny wardrobe. It’s the downside of being the youngest child, what Dad used to call the ‘last to arrive gets crappiest room’ policy whenever Tony complained about his. He got my old room when I moved out, of course. To be fair, Chloe did offer Ella her room when she went to university. Ella didn’t want it though. She said she liked her bedroom and she didn’t want to move. I remember saying at the time that she might change her mind when she was older. Now I don’t know if she’ll ever get the chance.
I clutch Ella’s dressing gown tighter to me, bury my face in it, trying to breathe her in – what I have left of her, at any rate. And the thing I can’t get over is the complete ridiculousness of the situation. I am lying in my four-year-old daughter’s bed and I don’t know where she is. She’s not even started school and I don’t know where she spent the night. How can that even be possible? Yesterday I was playing with her in the park and today I do not know if she is dead or alive. How did that happen? I don’t know the answer. I don’t have answers for any of the questions in my head. All I have is an ache deep inside me, a feeling like morning sickness and an empty bed belonging to my daughter.
I sit up, trying to fight away the images I have in my head, but they keep coming. More than anything I am worried that she is scared and suffering. Or that she was scared and she did suffer – if she is no longer alive. If you offered me a quick death for Ella without suffering and without her knowing what was going to happen to her, I would take that right now. It is the idea of her being subjected to things that no child should be subjected to which is killing me. I think I might be about to throw up.
I run to the bathroom and retch over the sink. There is very little to come up, probably because I haven’t eaten since midday yesterday. All that is left is liquid fear, and I appear to have that running through my body. I wash my face and stare at the mirror. I look like shit, which is hardly surprising in the circumstances.
I go back to our bedroom, which is empty – clearly Alex couldn’t sleep either – and pull on a pair of jogging bottoms and a fresh T-shirt. I am about to go downstairs when I have the urgent need to check on Otis. I push open his door and shut it quietly behind me. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. Otis used to get woken up by the light in the mornings when he was little so we got him blackout curtains. I can’t make out his body on the bed. There is no head on the pillow. I feel a slight breeze on my arms and remember that Otis insisted I leave the window open a little last night, even though it was raining. The realisation hits me so suddenly I hear myself gasp. Someone could have taken him. Maybe the same person who has taken Ella. Perhaps they have been watching us; perhaps all this has been planned. I feel my way along the bed, patting the mattress and duvet as I go. He is not there. He has gone too. They have taken everything I have. The gasp becomes a faint whimper. My legs buckle beneath me. And then I come to the pile of scrunched-up duvet at the bottom of the bed, and my hand finds something hard. I pat my way along it, feeling feet, knees and at last a head, tucked right into the bottom corner against the wall, O
tis curled up like a foetus in a duvet womb.
I start to cry, while inside the torrent of relief meets the dam which is the knowledge that no amount of patting Ella’s bed will bring her back. I pull down the duvet slightly and stroke Otis’s tangled mass of hair. I wish he could sleep until all this was over. I don’t want him to wake up and find his sister still not here. I don’t want to hear the questions he is going to ask and I don’t want to have to find the words to answer them.
I hear the door open and a second later feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up to find Alex standing there. He puts his hands under my arms and helps me to my feet, guides me out of the room and into our bedroom, shutting the door behind us, before allowing me to sink to my knees and sob.
‘I thought he was gone. I thought they’d taken him as well.’
‘It’s OK,’ he says, kneeling down next to me and putting his arm around my shoulders. ‘Otis is fine.’
‘Yeah, but Ella’s not, is she? Ella’s still out there. If she’s still alive, that is.’
‘Hey, come on. You mustn’t talk like that.’
‘Why not? It’s what I’m thinking, it’s what you’re thinking, it’s what Mum and Dad and Tony are thinking, but no one fucking says it, do they?’
‘We have to keep positive.’
‘Why? How is that going to help anyone?’
‘Because we need to keep functioning for Otis’s sake if nothing else. Come on, come downstairs. Let’s let him sleep while he can.’
He lifts me to my feet again. I’m conscious of the softness of his dressing gown against my skin. I’ve never been able to understand how he can wear something like that in hot weather, but he doesn’t sweat, not when he’s at the gym and not when he’s under pressure. He has a secret reservoir of coolant somewhere in his body. I wish I had access to it right now.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and Alex leads me though into the kitchen and sits me down at the table. His laptop is open in front of him; there is a picture of Ella on the screen, and both of our mobiles are on the table.
‘No word?’ I ask.
‘Nothing from the police. It’s all over the Internet, mind. And your phone’s been beeping like crazy with messages.’
Alex puts the kettle on. I pick up my phone. There are sixty-three unread texts and a hundred and three messages on Facebook. I know without looking that none of them are important. If something important had happened we’d have had a call or a knock at the door.
I put my phone down and scroll through the story on the BBC News website on Alex’s laptop. It’s like reading about someone else’s life. Or watching one of those three-part dramas on TV. I wonder who would play Alex and hope fleetingly that James Nesbitt isn’t available. I have no idea how this became real, how the story became us and our daughter.
Alex strokes my arm.
‘It still doesn’t make sense,’ he says. ‘I just don’t think she would have gone off with someone she didn’t know, not without shouting and screaming her head off.’
‘I know, I keep going through it all too. Maybe she hid somewhere on the other side of the park, so I wouldn’t have heard if she’d screamed, even if I hadn’t been on the phone.’
‘I told you, stop blaming yourself.’
‘Well who else can I blame? It happened on my watch, didn’t it? If you’d been looking after her I’d be screaming blue murder at you; the only difference is that you’re too bloody nice to do it.’
The kettle boils. The steam which rises feels like it is coming from my ears. I want to scream again, a massive scream like the one I produced in the park. I can’t though, in case it wakes Otis.
‘For what it’s worth,’ says Alex, ‘and I know you won’t believe me because you’re too busy beating yourself up as usual, I don’t blame you. I blame the bastard who took her.’
I look up and frown at him. ‘You think she’s been abducted too?’
He shrugs. ‘I’m trying really hard to think of another scenario, something innocent, but I can’t think of one. I think our best hope is that she followed the balloon, but I still don’t think she’d go out of the park without you.’
‘We’re not going to get her back, are we?’ I say, my voice breaking. ‘Think of all those little girls who have been abducted. Their parents never got them back, did they? I can’t think of a single one who was found alive.’
Alex puts a mug of coffee in front of me and sits down opposite with his head in his hands. I stare at the mug. It is the one Ella made me at the pottery shop for Mother’s Day. Alex catches my eye and realises.
‘Shit, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
Before I can say anything my mobile rings. Sergeant Fuller’s name comes up on the screen. I look at Alex and back at the screen. I have never wanted to answer a phone call and not answer it so much in my life.
My hand reaches out and picks it up, seemingly acting entirely on its own. I swipe the green arrows and put it to my ear.
‘Mrs Dale?’ I try to work out from the tone of his voice if it is bad news, but I don’t know if they put a voice on to disguise it if it is.
‘Yeah,’ I manage.
‘It’s Sergeant Fuller. Still no news, I’m afraid.’
I shake my head at Alex and watch him trying to decide whether to be pleased or gutted.
‘We’ve got alerts set up at all ports and airports. As soon as it’s a decent hour we’re going to start house-to-house calls, radiating out from the park. What we’d really like to do later is a press conference. You don’t have to be there – we can simply read a statement from you if you’d prefer – but if you are up to it, it would create more media interest to have you there.’
‘We’ll do it then,’ I say.
‘OK, thanks, that’s great. We’ve got a family liaison officer for you. Her name’s Claire Madill. She’ll be with you in half an hour and will keep you up to date on what’s happening.’
‘Sure,’ I say.
‘And she’ll be your point of contact from now on.’
‘Right, thanks.’
I think I hear a note of relief in his voice. That he won’t have to be the one who tells us. I do not blame him in the slightest.
*
Even though I have been warned to expect her, I still shudder when the knock comes and I see the figure of someone I know to be a policewoman through the glass in the door. As I go to open it, I hear a woman’s voice call out.
‘Hi, Lisa. It’s Claire. Stand behind the door and open it out of view. There are photographers outside.’
Are there? I had no idea. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. I do as I am told and pull the door back in front of me.
A tall woman with a blonde bob steps into the hall and immediately shuts the door behind her. She smiles briefly in a way which suggests there is no need to force myself to smile back, holds up an ID card and offers her hand.
‘Claire Madill, I’m your family liaison officer. I’m here to offer any support I can. Like keeping you out of the way of that lot.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, shaking her hand. ‘I hadn’t even realised they were there. How do they know where we live?’
‘Are you on the electoral register?’ she asks.
‘Yeah.’
‘There you are then. There’s a box you can tick on the form to keep your details off the public register, but most people don’t even notice it. Mind you, it probably wouldn’t make that much difference these days. You can find out pretty much anything about anyone through Facebook.’
Alex comes into the hall and introduces himself. Claire shakes his hand.
‘Did you know there are photographers outside?’ I ask him.
‘No. I haven’t even drawn the curtains. Are they allowed to do that?’ he asks, turning to Claire.
‘I’m afraid so. As long as they’re not on private property or obstructing the public highway, which they’re not.’
‘So there’s no way we can get rid of them?’
&nb
sp; ‘The best way is by having a press conference. Once they’ve got their pictures of you, they should leave you alone. And we’ll be making it clear later that any media organisation which uses photographs taken without your consent will not be invited to future press conferences. That usually does the trick.’
I stare at her, still not able to take it all in. I am not ready for this. All I want to do is get Ella back. I don’t want photographers outside our house, everyone knowing our business.
I blink back the tears. Alex puts his arm around me.
‘Come on,’ says Claire. ‘Let’s go and put the kettle on and you can ask me anything you want to know.’
Alex leads her through to the kitchen and closes the door behind us.
‘Our son’s still asleep,’ he says.
I glance around. Yesterday’s breakfast things are still on the counter, the debris of a life put on hold scattered all over the place. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ I say, hurriedly clearing a corner of the kitchen table.
‘Don’t be daft. I’m here to help you, not inspect your kitchen.’
I manage a hint of a smile and sit down.
‘Tea or coffee?’ Alex asks her.
‘Coffee, but I’ll do it. The last thing you need right now is to be looking after strangers in your own home. Just show me where everything is – you can never find anything in kitchens these days – and I’ll get on with it.’