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‘I … um …’ I put my keys in the lock. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not going straight home. I need to collect my daughter from nursery and—’
‘Elise, isn’t it?’
My breath catches in my throat. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Lovely name. Quite old-fashioned but that’s all the rage these days, isn’t it? My daughter-in-law wanted to call my granddaughter Ethel. Ethel, for God’s sake.’
‘How do you …’ I study her face again but there’s no spark of recognition in the back of my brain. I don’t remember ever seeing this woman before. ‘I’m sorry, have we met?’
She cackles, a low sound that gurgles in the base of her throat, and holds out a hand. ‘I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself. I’m John’s mum, Paula. He lives just down the street from you. I’ve seen you and your little girl getting into your car in the mornings when I take my granddaughter to the park. I look after her sometimes. I’m from Taunton. I don’t get into Bristol often.’ She glances meaningfully at my car.
‘So am I OK for a lift? Now you know I’m not a serial killer?’
I am frozen with indecision. I don’t know anyone called John but it’s a long street. To say no to a lift would be rude, and I don’t want to make an enemy of any of our neighbours, not when it’s such a lovely street, but this isn’t something I do. This isn’t part of my routine.
‘Please,’ she says, ‘I’m babysitting tonight and John will be wondering where I’ve got to.’
I make a split-second decision. It will be quicker to give her a lift than say no and risk wasting more time with a discussion about it. ‘OK. But I’ll have to drop you at the nursery. It’s not far from Brecknock.’
‘Cheers, love. Really appreciate it.’
She waits for me to unlock the driver’s side door then rounds the car and gets in beside me. I put on my seat belt and put the keys in the ignition. Paula, in the passenger seat, doesn’t reach for her seat belt. Instead she runs a hand over the dashboard then squeezes the latch on the glove compartment so it drops open. She rummages around inside, pulling out CDs, receipts and manuals, then reaches down and runs a hand underneath her seat.
I stare at her in disbelief as she twists round in her seat and looks into the footwells in the back seat. ‘Can I help you with something?’
She ignores me and clambers into the back seat and feels behind and beneath Elise’s car seat, then lifts the parcel shelf and peers into the boot.
‘Paula.’ I unclip my seat belt. ‘Could you stop doing that, please?’
She snaps back round to face me, her lips tight and her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t tell me what to do, Jo.’
The transformation is shocking, all trace of her cheerful, friendly demeanour gone. She lied to me. She doesn’t have a son called John who lives on our street. She’s never strolled down to Perrett’s Park with her granddaughter. And I never told her my name.
‘I want you to get out of my car,’ I say as steadily as I can.
The smallest of smiles creeps onto her lips as she straightens her jacket and settles herself into the back seat. She reaches out her left arm and drapes it over Elise’s car seat.
‘Pretty girl, your daughter,’ she says under her breath but loud enough so I can hear it. ‘Isn’t she, Jo?’
The malevolence in her eyes makes me catch my breath.
‘Get out,’ I say again. A man has appeared at the end of the street. If I open the door and shout he’ll hear me. Paula sees me looking.
‘Now, now. No need to be rude. I’ve lost something. That’s all. And I think your husband might know where it is.’
I stiffen. ‘Max? What’s this got to do with Max?’
Paula glances over her shoulder again – the man has reached the car behind mine – and pulls on the door catch. ‘He’ll know what it’s about. Just tell him to get in touch. Oh, and, there’s something else.’
She digs into her pocket with her free hand.
‘You should keep an eye on your daughter’s things,’ she says as she places a small, soft, multicoloured glove on Elise’s car seat.
‘And your daughter,’ she adds as she gets out.
Charter 2
Max Blackmore sighs as his mobile phone judders to life, vibrating on the smooth wooden desk that separates him from his editor. He snatches it up and looks at the screen. Jo, again. It’s the third time his wife has called him since he left for work at 8 a.m. and he’s already had to reassure her that yes, he does think it’s OK for Elise to go to nursery with a bit of a cough and yes, he will stop by at the chemist to get more Calpol before he gets home. He’s been ignoring his home mobile for the last half an hour and now she’s ringing his work mobile instead.
His editor Fiona Spelling leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. She’s doing ‘the face’, the one that signifies that her genial mood is on the cusp of switching to irritable. ‘Do you need to get that?’
He tucks the phone into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘It can keep.’
‘Are you sure? Because you know she’ll ring me if she can’t get through to you.’
Max grimaces. He should never have given Jo Fiona’s direct line. It was meant to calm her – so she could check he was OK if he couldn’t answer his mobile – but she rings the number so often she now has it on speed dial. Literally speed dial, programmed into her chunky, ancient Nokia. One for him, two for her mother, three for nursery, four for her boss and five for Fiona. He’s begged her to delete Fiona’s number but she won’t have it.
‘It’s her agoraphobia,’ he says. ‘It makes her overly anxious.’
‘But she works at the university as a student support officer, doesn’t she? How bad can it be if she can hold down a job?’
Max smiles ruefully. He thought the same as Fiona once: that you’re basically housebound if you suffer from agoraphobia, but it’s not as ‘simple’ as that – something Jo has explained to him countless times. She isn’t afraid of going outside, she’s afraid of situations where she can’t escape or get help.
‘It’s bad,’ he says. ‘Really bad. Jo works part-time but she won’t take Elise to the park or the zoo. She won’t even go food shopping any more, not since she had a panic attack in the corner shop because she thought someone was looking at her strangely.’
‘Wow.’ His boss arches an eyebrow.
Fiona doesn’t know the half of it. He and Jo haven’t had sex for over a year. They had a dry spell before, when she was so afraid of getting pregnant she wouldn’t let him anywhere near her, but then they’d conceived Elise and he’d assumed that everything would go back to normal. It didn’t. It got worse.
‘Anyway, Max,’ Fiona says, gesturing towards her screen. ‘Congratulations. I’ve read your story and it’s good. Very good. How does it feel?’
‘How does what feel?’
‘To get a conviction off the back of your investigation? Five years, he got, didn’t he?’
Max smiles for the first time since he sat down. He would have loved to see the look on Ian White’s face when the police turned up to arrest him. Evil bastard. He’d set up a national chain of money-lending shops that charged single mums, pensioners and people on benefits ridiculous amounts of interest and then turned up at their home and threatened them with violence when they couldn’t pay it back. Coercion, drug-taking and violence were rife. Max had witnessed one of Ian’s goons shoving an old man up against the wall of his own home when he said he wouldn’t be able to eat for a week if he paid up. He couldn’t react. He couldn’t stop him. All he could do was pray that the tiny camera in his glasses was getting enough footage to convict the bastards.
‘And you weren’t worried about your cover slipping? No one at Cash Creditors suspected you?’ Fiona asks.
‘There were a couple of sticky moments but I talked my way out of them.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me in the least.’ His boss smiles tightly. ‘So, are we going to have to start calling you Donal MacIntyre now then?’
‘Nah.’ He waves a dismissive hand. ‘He’s old hat. Max Blackmore will do fine, although if you want to call me “sir” that would be fine too.’
He stiffens as Fiona’s smile slips and she raises an eyebrow. Shit. He always takes a joke one step too far.
Charter 3
The second the buzzer sounds and the door is un-locked I fly through the nursery, dodging coat stands, a papier-mâché homage to The Hungry Caterpillar, and several members of staff.
‘Elise?’ A bead of sweat trickles down my lower back as I fumble with the catch of the gate at the ‘twos room’. Half a dozen pairs of tiny eyes look up at me in interest and alarm as I step into the room. None of them belong to my daughter.
‘Everything OK, Jo?’ Sharon, a woman with a tight ponytail and an even tighter smile, looks up from her position in front of the children, a picture book in her hands. Another of the nursery staff, a sweet eighteen-year-old called Bethan, looks up from the table she’s cleaning. She smiles a hello but there’s confusion in her eyes.
‘Jo?’ Sharon says and I search the faces of the children again, just in case I missed one.
‘I can’t see Elise. Where is she?’
I don’t wait for her reply. Instead I open the door to the garden. It’s empty; the sandpit abandoned; an array of brightly coloured plastic tools lying on the sand, illuminated by the security light.
‘Jo?’ Sharon appears beside me, an irritated expression on her face. ‘What’s the matter. I’m sure Elise is in—’
‘Mummy!’
The plaintive cry from across the room makes me turn. And there she is, my tiny little girl with her dark blonde hair still in the bunches I tied this morning, clutching the hand of Alice, her key worker. I like Alice. She’s kind and gentle and she doesn’t give me lectures about timekeeping if I’m five minutes late.
‘I did a wee wee,’ my daughter says proudly as I dash across the room.
‘In the toilet,’ she adds as I lift her into my arms and press my face into the soft warmth of her neck.
‘It was her idea,’ Alice says. ‘She said she didn’t want to wear nappies any more.’
‘My God.’ I hold my daughter tightly and stroke her hair over and over. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Jo?’ The tone in Alice’s voice changes. ‘Is everything OK? You look very pale. Is it your stepdad? Did something happen?’
I want to tell her that I have just driven across Bristol at breakneck speed, certain that the woman who tricked her way into my car had somehow harmed my daughter. I rang Max over and over again but he didn’t pick up. Neither did Fiona, his boss. I tried to call the police but I couldn’t breathe, never mind talk, and I ended the call before it connected. My hands were shaking so much it took me three attempts to get the keys in the ignition and the car started. I want to tell Alice all these things but, more than anything else, I want to get Elise home. We will both be safe there.
‘Jo!’ Alice shouts as I hurry through the nursery with Elise’s legs wrapped around my waist and her small face buried into my neck. ‘You haven’t signed her out. And you’ve forgotten her coat!’
I fumble with the door latch. Other parents are waiting to be let in, watching me through the glass panel. Their smiles turn to frustration. I can’t get my fingers to work properly, I’m shaking so much. Finally, Sharon appears beside me. She thrusts Elise’s bag and coat at me and then opens the door with one swift turn of the latch. I mutter an apology to the other parents as they part to allow me out of the door.
‘She looked a bit wired,’ a woman says, sotto voce, but loud enough for me to hear, as I step out onto the street.
‘Probably a couple too many glasses of wine at lunch,’ someone comments and a chorus of laughter follows me out onto the street.
Back home I pause as I reach the living room, Elise’s cup of milk in my hand. Outside in the street a woman is laughing – a loud, throaty cackle that makes all the hairs go up on my arms. Paula knows the name of our road. She’s seen me take Elise to the park. She’s probably watched us leave the house. I’ve already checked – twice – that all the doors and windows are locked but I dart to the front door anyway and jiggle on the handle to make sure. Still locked.
I hurry back into the living room where my daughter is still on the sofa, staring at the TV, a blanket over her legs, and Effie Elephant, her favourite soft toy, clutched to her chest.
‘Milk,’ she says as I cross the room, peel back the curtain and peer outside. Two women, both of them dark-haired, saunter down the street. The one on the right cackles again and her friend punches her playfully on the arm. It’s not Paula. But that doesn’t mean we’re safe.
‘Here you go, sweetheart.’ I force a smile as I hand the cup of milk to my daughter. Her gaze doesn’t flicker from the screen. She’s entranced by Makka Pakka placing rocks, one by one, into a wheelbarrow. She’s relaxed and happy … I just wish I felt the same.
‘Mummy’s just going to pack a few things so we can go and visit Granny and Grandad for a few days. I’ll be back in a second. I’m just going upstairs.’
I move quickly, running from room to room, gathering up clothes, nappies, toys, toiletries and medication, freezing whenever I hear a strange sound, shouting down to my daughter to check she’s OK. I throw everything into a large wheeled suitcase and then return to Elise’s bedroom. I stand in the middle of the room with my hands on my hips as I scan the shelves for anything I may have missed. I can’t believe Max did this to us. He swore to me that he would never put our family in danger. He reassured me over and over again that we would be safe, that no one would come after us as a result of his investigation. And I believed him. I don’t know who was more naïve, me or him. Our marriage has been on its last legs for a while. I’ve tried to keep it going, for Elise’s sake, but I can’t do this any more. I can’t spend my life with a man who puts his career before his family’s safety.
I return to my bedroom and zip up the suitcase then open it again. Have I got absolutely everything I need for Elise? It doesn’t matter if I’ve forgotten something of mine but we’ve got a problem if I forget something of hers. I can’t ask Mum to leave Andy’s side to go to the shops for me. And if I go …
I grip hold of the chest of drawers and take a steadying breath. I can do this. I’ve driven up to Mum’s loads of times and nothing has happened. I know the route: M5, A41, all the way up. Approximately three hours. It’s nearly 7 p.m. now and Elise will probably sleep the whole way.
‘Sweetheart!’ I bump the suitcase down the stairs, abandon it in the hall and step back into the living room. ‘Mummy needs to put a nappy on you before we go. Just in case you fall asleep and have an accident.’
Elise looks at me and shakes her head.
I hold out a nappy and give her an encouraging smile. ‘Let’s just pop this on now and then we can go. We’re going to see Granny and Grandad.’
‘No.’ Her bottom lip wobbles. ‘No nappy, Mummy.’
‘Elise, please.’ As I sit down on the sofa I hear the sound of keys being turned in the front door.
A second later my husband flies into the room, his cheeks ashen and his eyes wide. He takes one look at Elise and scoops her up into his arms, pressing a hand against her back as he holds her tightly against his chest. He notices me watching.
‘Why didn’t you answer your phone?’ he says through gritted teeth. ‘I thought Elise was … I … you can’t leave a message like that and then NOT ANSWER YOUR PHONE.’
Elise yelps in shock as his shout fills the living room.
‘Sorry, sorry, baby.’ He strokes her hair, his wide palm cupping the back of her head. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘Max,’ I say, keeping my voice as steady as I can. ‘Can we talk about this in the kitchen, away from Elise?’
‘I’m sorry!’ Max says, the second we step into the kitchen. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I was just … fucking hell, Jo, you really scared me.’ He rubs his hands over his face, peering at me through the gaps in his fingers.
‘You were scared? Where the hell have you been? I rang you. I called you as soon as it happened.’
‘I was in a meeting with Fiona.’
‘Seriously?’ I can’t keep incredulity out of my voice. ‘Have you got any idea what I’ve—’
‘I’m sorry. OK. Just tell me what happened.’
He listens, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, as I tell him about being followed down the street, about Paula getting into my car, about the threat she made to Elise. I pause when I reach the end, waiting for a reaction, but Max doesn’t say anything.
‘What?’ I say. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘I …’ He runs a hand over his hair. ‘I’m shocked I guess. I’m … trying to make sense of what happened.’
‘Make sense of what? A stranger got into my car, started rooting around for something and then threatened Elise. And she knows you, Max. What is there to make sense of? We need to ring the police.’
‘The woman said her name was Paula?’
‘Yes.’
‘Paula what?’
‘She didn’t tell me her surname.’
