by T. M. Logan
I wait until 7 a.m. to make the call. He picks up after three rings, answering with a single word.
‘Gilbourne.’
‘Hello, Detective Inspector, it’s Ellen Devlin.’
A moment of silence.
‘Ellen,’ he says, his voice rising with surprise. On the phone he sounds younger. ‘Hello.’
‘Sorry to call so early, but I need to talk to you.’
‘Everything OK?’
‘Erm, yes. I think so. For now, anyway.’
It’s not entirely true. I can’t shake the sense that someone is behind me, whenever I stand with my back to the room, whenever I’m near an open door, as if someone is going to burst through it any moment. The sense that someone is following me, watching me. Waiting for me.
‘Are you sure?’ he says. There is a rustling noise before his voice comes back clearer. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m at home.’
‘You’re safe?’
I feel a little glow of appreciation, that his first thought is for my well-being.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Is now a good time?’
There is another pause on the line. He’s breathing heavily, I realise, breaths punctuating each word as if he’s just climbed a steep flight of steps. I’m about to say more when his voice returns, cutting through the silence.
‘Sorry Ellen, can I call you back in literally one minute?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Of course.’
He rings off without another word and I stand in the middle of my kitchen with the phone in my hand, staring out at the empty garden. Another area that was always Richard’s domain, the mowing and weeding and pruning the little apple tree at the end. There’s a six-foot fence on all three sides. Was that how the intruder had got in, pulling themselves up and over a fence panel? I can’t see any obvious signs of damage, but one side borders the street – that would be the obvious place to come over. Dizzy sits on a fence post at the far end, surveying his domain, blinking slowly at me in the weak autumn sunshine. On a clear morning it’s the one place that always catches the sun as it rises between the trees.
A minute later, the phone vibrates in my hand.
‘Hello again.’ Gilbourne seems to have got his breath back. ‘What’s on your mind, Ellen?’
‘Sorry to wake you, inspector.’
He grunts with something like amusement.
‘I’m a long way from my bed, don’t worry about it.’
‘I need to ask you something first.’ I take a sip of coffee. ‘Am I still a suspect?’
‘The investigation is ongoing.’
‘But do you think I was lying in the interview on Tuesday night?’
There is a brief silence at his end of the line, an exhalation of breath or maybe cigarette smoke.
‘Officially or unofficially?’
‘Whichever is nearer the truth.’
‘Unofficially, no I don’t think you were lying. But we have to shake every tree to see what falls out of the branches, if you know what I mean.’ His voice lowers a little. ‘Apologies if Nathan came across as a little bit . . . over-zealous. He’s quite new to the team and he’s still trying to make his mark.’
I’m momentarily thrown by his honesty. I’d expected some kind of mealy-mouthed official line about keeping all options open; not that he would actually answer my question.
‘Thanks, Detective Inspector. I appreciate your candour.’
‘One of the upsides of being in your last few months in the job – your boss doesn’t bother to haul you over the coals anymore when you bend a few rules,’ he says, a smile in his voice. ‘Was there something you wanted to tell me, Ellen?’
I tell him about the previous night, the noises in my house and finding the kitchen door unlocked. My feeling that someone had been creeping around downstairs while I slept.
‘Are you sure you’re OK? Did you see anyone?’
‘I thought I might have seen someone through the kitchen window when I came down. A face.’
‘Can you describe them?’
I think for a moment, summoning the memory. In the early morning sunlight, it barely seems real. Had it been real?
‘I don’t know, it was fully dark outside, I had all the house lights on and I was a bit dazzled. A bit freaked out too, if I’m honest.’
‘Do you think it was a man or a woman?’
‘Man, I think. I don’t know. It was so fast, then they were gone. Sorry, I’m not being very helpful, am I?’
‘Don’t worry about it. Any CCTV on your house that might have caught him?’
‘No.’
‘Did he take anything?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Anything at all? Are you sure?’
‘My iPad was right there on the kitchen side, charging overnight. But they left it, they left everything.’
‘Anything in your house that might identify them? Anything they might have dropped on their way out?’
‘No.’
‘They didn’t force entry? You’re able to secure the property, are you?’
‘I think they must have picked the lock on the back door. There’s no damage, I’m going to buy some deadbolts to put on it today.’
His voice takes on a slightly brisker tone.
‘OK, Ellen, you should call 101 and make a formal report, I can give a nudge to a couple of the lads on the burglary team to make sure they follow up with you. They can give you a crime number for the insurance claim if you discover anything has been damaged or stolen.’
‘I don’t want to make a claim, it’s not about that.’ I pause, not sure how to proceed. ‘That wasn’t why I was ringing.’
He clears his throat. ‘So what’s on your mind, Ellen?’
‘This is . . . it’s going to sound a bit mad.’
Instantly, his voice takes on a reassuring neutral tone again.
‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that, Ellen.’
‘I just feel like – sorry if this sounds crazy, but I’ve been going over and over it in my mind for the last few hours. I think whoever came into my house was looking for Mia.’
There is another pause on the other end of the line.
‘OK. What makes you say that?’
‘It can’t be a coincidence.’
‘Go on.’
‘What I mean is, I’m forty-one years old and I’ve never had my house broken into. Not once. Not in this house, not in our flat in Highbury, not in my place before that. Not in service accommodation in the navy, not even in three years at university when I lived in some quite dodgy areas.’
‘You’ve been lucky.’ On his end of the line I can hear the sound of his footfalls, distant traffic noise, as if he’s outside. ‘But I get it, I think it’s understandable. Ellen, the baby’s on your mind, it’s a pretty intense experience you’ve had. I can see why you might want to see a link between the two things.’
‘Barely twenty-four hours after this thing happens with Kathryn and Mia, someone gets into my house and is creeping around in the dead of night? There must be a connection, don’t you think? What are the chances of that just being coincidence? The guy who abducted me, he took my phone, he knows where I live. He told me he’d find me if I talked to the police.’
‘Can you stay somewhere else for a few days?’
‘I’m not running away. And if I’m in danger, then so is Mia, right?’
He is silent for a moment.
‘I’m not really sure what you want me to say, Ellen.’
‘Do you really not think they’re connected?’
‘I suppose it’s possible.’ I can hear the sound of a car door slamming shut and the line at his end is suddenly quieter. ‘But honestly? I can’t imagine what the link would be. Unless he just got a kick out of frightening you, which is why I’d urge you to stay with a friend for a few days.’
I lean against the kitchen worktop, looking out of the window. Dizzy has jumped down from the fence and is stalking a magpie that sits in
the highest branches of the apple tree. There is one question, the only real question that needs an answer, pushing all others from my mind.
‘Why would he be looking for Mia?’ I say. Finally voicing the suspicion that’s been growing in my mind with every passing hour. ‘Is Kathryn her mother, or is she a nanny or something? Are her parents famous, or rich? What does Dominic want with her?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘But you know, do you? You know something?’
‘I . . . I’m afraid I can’t discuss that with you either, Ellen. But I can assure you that she’s safe.’
He tells me he has a meeting with his boss, so I ring off and sit in my silent kitchen. I was hoping that he would be able to reassure me that my instincts were wrong, that I was overreacting, putting two and two together and making five. Maybe that they had arrested Dominic, or identified the weirdo from the train. But the conversation with him doesn’t reassure me at all. In fact, it only prompts new questions. I pull up the single picture of Mia on my phone, stare at it for a moment until I feel a lump start to build in my throat, an ache in my chest. It’s like a drug, an addiction, I know it’s bad for me but I can’t stop looking at her face.
Stop. Just stop.
I need to get out of the house. I kill an hour walking to the high street and buying a couple of deadbolts from the little hardware store, sticking to the busy roads on the way back and checking over my shoulder every few hundred metres. Back home again, I’m glad of something else to think about as I measure and mark up and put the screws into the top and bottom of the kitchen door, feeling marginally better as I slide both bolts home with a thunk of metal on metal. I make another pot of coffee and look for something else to distract me. My eyes fall on a stack of unopened mail that I have piled on the kitchen table and I sift through it. A handful of flyers for takeaways and local tradesmen. A thick letter from Richard’s solicitor and a thin one from mine. Two utility bills. A credit card statement. I don’t bother to open any of it. All mundane, pointless, meaningless.
I push the stack to one side and sip my coffee, thinking back to where this all started. A train carriage. Mia. Kathryn. A strange guy sitting down opposite me, taking pictures. It wasn’t a coincidence that he had suddenly appeared – there had to be a connection. At the time, my first instinct was that he was following me. Because that was a natural assumption, wasn’t it? Photographing me. But I was wrong. Mia’s the key. She was the reason. All of the strange things, all the craziness started the moment I took her in my arms.
The fresh jolt of caffeine clears my head a little. I find a pen, turn over one of the junk mail flyers and begin to write.
Train guy – photographs – why? – follows – how does he know Mia?
Dominic – father? – GPS tracker – who is tracking? Didn’t harm. Burglary?
Police – Gilbourne/Holt – know Mia’s ID – burglary not connected? Theories?
Kathryn – gives baby away – mother? Or not hers? Doesn’t trust police – still missing
And below that:
Mia – who is she? Why do they want her? Parents? Family?
I stare at the list until my coffee cup is empty again, trying to draw links and connections. But it’s like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle when half the pieces are missing. I hold the flyer in both hands, squinting at each word, willing my caffeine-infused brain to make the leap. Thinking back to another piece of paper I had held in my hands on Tuesday afternoon, a scribbled note left for me to find. Black biro on white paper. Ten words, nothing else. The detectives told me to recount the words precisely, exactly, for any clues that might help them.
I said at the time that I didn’t have anything else to tell them. Except there was something else. There was one other piece of information that I didn’t think to mention. It hadn’t seemed relevant at the time. The note had been written on the back of a receipt, an A4 delivery note like you got with a gift when you ordered online. What was the name of the company? I close my eyes, coaxing the memory to the surface, reaching for it.
BabyStuff? BabyLove?
BabyCool.com. That was it.
I reach for my mobile and find the list of recently-dialled numbers. My thumb hovers over the call button next to Gilbourne’s name. But did he believe me about the stranger in my house? Was his concern real? Or is he starting to think I’m just a bit mad? It’s understandable, Ellen, the baby’s on your mind, it’s a pretty intense experience you’ve had.
I put the phone down again. This is probably nothing. But I can check it out, then let the police know either way. I unlock my iPad and go to Google.
24
I close my eyes and clear my mind, the way I’ve done since I was a little girl trying to remember the last day with my dad. Reaching out for the memory, trying to visualise again the piece of paper I had pulled from Kathryn’s bag. It was a delivery note, a computer-printed list of items: a sling, a packet of muslin cloths, a tin of powdered baby milk, a few other items. All the stuff in the bag that she’d been carrying with her. I’d only glanced at it for a second; it hadn’t seemed important at the time. Now I try to summon the other details to mind, dragging fragments of memory to the surface. I remember the paper was crumpled, the top left corner torn off where a staple might have been, the vague outline of a dirty shoeprint across it. A delivery address in the top right. One of those quaint village names with ‘Little’ in front of it, like they have on Morse or Midsomer Murders. I feel like it’s M-i something. Two or three syllables. Miston? Milhaven? I try to focus, try to find the stillness that I use to block everything else out. Take a deep breath in, hold for five, deep breath out, hold for five. Repeat.
Little Milton? I open my eyes and google it. There is a village called Little Milton south-east of Oxford. That seems like it might be a possibility. But it’s tiny and out on a limb, only a few hundred people, and doesn’t seem like the kind of place someone of Kathryn’s age would choose to live. I write the name on the pad next to me, then delete the search term one letter at a time until other results appear.
Little Mill? Another small village, this one near Pontypool. Kathryn’s accent had been flat, southern, Thames Valley. No Welsh intonation. And it was a long way away, hours by car or train. I write it on the pad anyway and go back to the search results.
Little Minster? A hamlet to the west of Oxford. Nearer to London. I stare at the results for a moment, write it on the pad and delete the search term. It doesn’t sound right either.
Mia’s muslin cloth is there in front of me on the kitchen table. I pick it up, roll the creased fabric between my fingers, remembering again the way she had clutched it. I hold it to my cheek for a second, inhaling the soft baby smell, feeling for a moment as if I’m back on the train with her warm in the crook of my elbow. A memory bobs to the surface and I put my hands back on the keyboard, adding one letter to the search term.
Little Missenden?
It’s in south Buckinghamshire. A Wikipedia page describes it as ‘a village and civil parish on the River Misbourne in the Chiltern Hills, situated in between Great Missenden and Amersham.’
Great Missenden has a direct rail connection to Marylebone station in London.
I feel a tingle of recognition, of excitement. This one. This address. In my mind I see the address on the paper more clearly now, although whether this is just hope filling the gaps, I don’t know. But it feels right, this place. It fits. If I can talk to Kathryn’s family, I can find out what’s going on and if she’s OK. I need to tell her what happened myself and get answers to some of my own questions, closing the loop on this strange couple of days in my life. I need to know that Mia is safe. There is a whisper at the back of my mind too – you just want to see her again, to hold her in your arms one more time – but I push it away.
According to Google Maps, Little Missenden is about twenty miles north-west, outside London, beyond the M25 towards Oxford. Forty minutes or so by car. I select the satellite image and study the layout
of the village. Two pubs, a cricket club, a church, an infant school, a crossroads. A scattering of houses stretched along the two roads, running east–west and north–south, the whole thing surrounded by cultivated fields, brown and green in the satellite image. The curve of the Chiltern Rail line just to the north, parallel with the main road as it snakes its way south-east towards London. I can’t remember a street name from the delivery note but the village looks like one of those small places where everyone goes to the same pubs and knows everyone else’s business. I could just ask around, find someone who knows her. I find myself wishing I still had her white rucksack, the one she’d left on the train – it would have been a useful starting point for conversation.
The thought gives me an idea. I change into work clothes, a mid-blue trouser suit and white blouse, cover the healing cut above my eye with concealer as best I can. I rummage in the back of the wardrobe until my hand falls on the handbag that my former mother-in-law bought me last Christmas. Garish purple and black leather, not really my thing at all but I didn’t have the heart to take it to the charity shop. I pull off the label and throw a few things inside, a packet of tissues, some pens, a couple of lipsticks that are almost used up, a pack of paracetamol, an old purse full of receipts and expired train tickets. I send the Google Maps directions to my phone, put some dry food in Dizzy’s bowl and grab my coat and keys. I check all the windows are closed, upstairs and down, go out the back to check the side gate is bolted, then lock the back door and push both of the new deadbolts across again, top and bottom. I triple-check that my front door is locked, rattling the handle to be absolutely sure, then look up and down my cul-de-sac too, scanning both ways for any suspicious parked cars I don’t recognise. Nothing.
The roads are busy but the worst of rush hour has passed, and traffic is merely heavy rather than gridlocked. It helps that I’m travelling against the flow, going out of London rather than in, and I make good time. Twice I think I spot a dark BMW following me, turning with me, staying two cars behind. But just as I’m squinting in the mirror to make out who’s behind the wheel, the car slides smoothly down a slip road. Ten minutes later I wonder if I’ve seen the same car in traffic behind me, only for it to pull past with a roar, a woman behind the wheel. I tell myself that BMWs are not particularly rare in this part of the world, and make an effort to stop looking in the rearview mirror. The sign for Little Missenden – Please drive carefully through our village – appears at the roadside just before 11 a.m.