Beth chewed at her thumbnail as she stared at the clothes that were carefully folded in the bottom of the rucksack. Was she doing the right thing? Yes; there’d be no harm done, and no one need ever find out. This was not a big deal. Still she gnawed, worrying at the nail.
The thirteen-year-old suddenly yanked her thumb from her mouth. She must remember not to chew it tonight; it looked as if she was sucking it, like a baby. Tonight, she needed to show that she was grown-up, no longer a little girl.
Right, had she remembered everything? Yep, it looked like it.
It had taken ages to choose both her outfits. One for her parents; one for her secret. She slipped a jumper on and smoothed down the Minnie Mouse picture on the front. It was a firm favourite of her mum’s so it was the obvious choice, even though she didn’t like the childish top herself any more. Everything was perfect for tonight – and her parents would never guess in a million years.
A huge grin on her face, Beth glugged a glass of milk and set it down on her dressing table. Then called out: ‘Mu-um. You ready to go?’
A laugh floated up from downstairs. ‘Isn’t it normally me asking you that?’
Beth hurried downstairs with her rucksack, her dad making the usual joke about ‘a herd of elephants’. She gave him a peck on the cheek and a big hug, which he returned, but peered around her at the television.
‘Ooh, offside,’ he groaned.
‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Have a nice night, Beans.’ He grinned as he used her nickname, but continued watching the football, casting her only a sidelong glance.
Minutes later, Beth and her mum were wrapped in their hats and coats, and striding along with Wiggins by their side. The russet cocker spaniel held his nose high, tail swishing casually from side to side, catching various scents on the cold January air.
‘Hey, wouldn’t it be amazing if we could smell things the way Wiggins does? We could follow scent trails!’ Beth said.
She linked arms with her mum as they took the left-hand lane from the village crossroads on which they lived, towards the home of Beth’s best friend, Chloe.
‘Like a superhero? You could be called Dog Girl,’ her mum joked.
Beth wrinkled her nose. ‘Yeah, on second thoughts… The name’s not great, is it?’
‘What other superpowers would Dog Girl have?’
‘Well, okay, she could take all sorts of things from nature. Like, she could have echo-location, like a bat, so she could find her way in the dark. That’d be handy now!’
They giggled.
‘What are you up to with Chloe tonight, anyway? Pamper night? Watching a film?’
‘Yeah, we’ll probably watch a film. Not sure about the pampering – Chloe might not have any face packs.’
‘We could nip back and get some. There’s a couple in the bathroom cabinet.’
‘No. It’s fine. We’ll probably watch a film and eat a lot of chocolate.’
‘Want some money for a pizza? It’s a Friday night, you might as well treat yourselves.’
‘Ooh, great!’
Her mum stopped abruptly, waving the tenner at the sky before handing it over. ‘Look how big the moon is tonight.’
‘Is it a supermoon?’ Beth asked, gazing upward too. There had been one a few months earlier, and her dad had told her about how it was special, being closer to the earth and bringing bigger tides. That had been really cool.
‘Don’t think so, but it’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘I can see the man in the moon ever so clearly.’
Given that they had stopped, it seemed as good a time as any to try…
‘So, I might as well walk the rest of the way alone.’
‘No, I’ll walk you to the door. It’s dark, Beth.’
She gave her mum her very best puppy dog eyes look. If the plan were to work, her mum couldn’t take her to Chloe’s house. Despite her parents thinking she’d be spending the night there, she had no intention of setting foot inside the place.
‘I’m a teenager. I’m not a baby. Pur-lease, Mum!’
After a second or two, there came a reluctant nod. ‘Be careful.’
‘I will!’
‘I love you to bits and whole again,’ Mum added.
Beth felt her nose prickle with guilty tears. They had been saying that to each other since she was about four. She remembered it vividly, being cuddled on her mum’s lap; her feet tucked under Dad’s legs to keep them extra toasty warm. One hand twirling a piece of hair round and round and round her fingers as Dad read to them. She’d loved to hear the sound of his voice, but no matter how hard she’d fought, her eyelids had grown heavier and heavier and…
The sensation of weightlessness had woken her, as Dad carried her upstairs. When he’d tucked her in, he had stroked her face and kissed her forehead.
‘Sleep tight, Beans. I love you to the moon and back,’ he had murmured.
Beth had stirred sleepily. ‘To the moon? That’s a really, really, really long way.’
‘It is, but I love you so much that it would easily stretch all the way there and back again – and more.’
The next day her mum had walked her across the road to school, holding her hand. As Beth slipped from her grasp, her mum had pulled her back, into a bear hug.
‘Love you to bits,’ she’d whispered.
Beth had paused in her squirming. ‘To bits and back?’ she’d checked.
Her mum had laughed. ‘Er, yes, I suppose. To bits and whole again.’
Ever since, that saying had stuck. Hearing her mum use it now, Beth wanted to call a halt to her plan. To throw her arms around her and confess everything. She wanted to go home. She wanted to curl up and watch telly with Mum and Dad, while Wiggins did sneaky trumps that they all tried to blame on each other, laughing, even though they knew it was the dog. She wanted to tell her mum she’d love her forever and ever and ever, to bits and whole again.
Instead, she grinned cheekily, turned and skipped away like a little girl. Taking the mickey was easier than trying to articulate all of those feelings.
The wind plucked at her ponytail as she flew from sparse light pool to light pool between lamp posts until they ran out completely. The darkness swallowed her. Ahead she could feel her fate waiting for her and she rushed towards it eagerly. Tonight was going to be a big night.
The hysteria I had been trying to keep at bay bubbled up again as his name came up on my mobile phone. I pressed dial. The words needing to be said crammed into my mouth, clogging it like dry crackers, but I didn’t stop running. Eyes darting everywhere, but seeing nothing.
Ringing. Ringing. Come on!
‘Hello?’
‘Jacob, she’s gone. She’s gone!’ My voice quivered and cracked, face crumpling. ‘What if someone’s got her? What if she’s hurt? Maybe she’s run away?’
‘Calm down.’ Your father sounded firm and certain, Beth. It was exactly what I needed. ‘What’s happened?’
‘No one knows where Beth is. She never arrived at Chloe’s house last night. I only found out just now, when I called to see when she’d be home. Her mobile is switched off…’
‘Don’t panic, it’s going to be okay. I’ll come home; we’ll look together. Just breathe.’
Calm. It’s going to be okay. Breathe.
Hearing it said out loud, I believed it. I believed that you weren’t really missing, Beth. That you would soon be home, with some silly excuse as to why you hadn’t been where you had said you would be and your phone was switched off.
Yet even while telling myself that, I hadn’t stopped running. My chest still felt as if it would burst.
‘I’m coming to the house now. Stay where you are,’ said Jacob.
The line went dead.
I should have turned back to meet him at home, but knew he would be twenty minutes or so, and panic urged my legs on. There was nothing to be calm about.
My little girl was missing. My baby. My world.
I shouldn’t have let you make your own way to your friend’s house. But you are thirteen, Beth; old enough to be trusted. Aren’t you? And Fenmere is a village where nothing ever happens. The most exciting thing to have occurred recently was when neighbours Bob Thornby and Phyllis Blakecroft fell out over Bob’s untrimmed garden hedge narrowing Phyllis’s driveway. Do you remember the hoo-ha over that?
So again, I repeated Jacob’s words silently… Calm down. It’s going to be okay.
I looked at my watch. Noon. No one had seen you since I’d dropped you off at the bottom of Holders Lane; Chloe’s house is at the top. That was at 7 p.m., seventeen hours ago.
Seventeen hours! What had happened between that wave goodbye and Chloe’s front door?
Anything. Anything could have happened in that time.
I cursed myself; I should never have let you out of my sight. I should have insisted on delivering you right to the front door. But you had begged to be allowed to walk alone.
‘I’m a teenager now,’ you had insisted. ‘I’m not a baby.’
Not stroppy. You had been pleading. The breeze blowing across the fields of cabbages had plucked at your hair, creating a halo that made you look younger than you were. Still, I had relented because, despite my urge to wrap you in cotton wool, the slow, painful process of giving my daughter responsibility had to start at some point. That had seemed as good a time as any.
Now I reached Holders Lane again, deeply regretting my decision. Chloe’s home was the lone building far off at a right-angle corner of the road. It was painted a soft shade of lilac, so stood out easily from the patchwork fields of cabbages and warm brown fallow earth topped with white frost. On either side of the lane ran large ditches, for drainage. Looking at them, a horrible idea formed in my mind.
Hands curled tight in my pockets to fight the tension roiling through my stomach, I forced myself to peer over the edge and focus my panic-blinded eyes.
Twisted limbs. My little girl’s body broken on impact by a car bonnet, then flung aside by a hit-and-run driver. So much blood.
That was what I expected to see. Instead, there was coarse grass, mud and a smear of frozen brown water.
Every step I took made my heart jolt. Maybe this would be the step when my worst fears came true. The adrenaline coursing through me screamed hurry, hurry, hurry. My mind forced me to slow down. I couldn’t risk rushing and missing you. Progress was painfully plodding.
When I finished one side, I crossed and searched the drainage ditch on the other side.
Despite my measured gait, by the time I was done I panted as if I’d run a marathon, the cold hitting the back of my throat and making me cough.
If you weren’t here, where were you, Beth?
Once again I started to run. Shouted your name, tears streaming, taking in only snapshots of houses, gardens, hedges, the playing field. The low winter sun in my eyes making everything sparkle cheerily in the frost. Soon I was back in the centre of Fenmere, where most of the village’s houses were huddled. At the main crossroads was our house, along with the church, primary school, general store, café and the most popular of the two pubs, The Poacher.
‘Melanie!’
Someone shouting my name made me whirl round. Jill Young stood in the doorway of the Picky Person’s Pop In, Fenmere’s general store. The ‘c’ had fallen from Picky some months earlier, making it close enough to ‘pikey’ that villagers had sniggered guiltily until it was rapidly fixed.
‘All right?’ asked Jill. The owner showed the economy of language that marked out true villagers from incomers. Why use twenty words when one sufficed?
‘Have you seen Beth? She’s been missing since last night.’ Saying the words again ripped something in my soul.
Jill’s mouth set. Her squat body reflected the flat fens; she was a woman of horizontal lines: frown, mouth, folded arms.
‘I’ll spread the word. Get the lads out looking.’
Relief spread through me. Jill knew everything that happened in Fenmere. Her network of informants would put MI5 to shame. A woman in her sixties, she ruled her family with a rod of iron, and still called her four forty-something sons ‘the lads’, despite some of them having families of their own.
If anyone could discover what had happened to you, it was Jill Young.
‘Thank you. You’ve got my number?’
When she nodded, I pushed off again. Chest hurting, throat burning. I was not a gym bunny, and my legs were resisting my urge to run. Gathering what little breath was left, I stood in the middle of the village and screamed your name.
Curtains twitched. People appeared in doorways, then gravitated towards me. Everyone talking, but with nothing useful to say.
‘You called the police?’ It was Martin Young, one of Jill’s lads. A farmer as no-nonsense as his mother, but with his late father’s dark hair, dark eyes and swarthy skin. Chunky, capable and balding beneath the woollen hat he wore almost permanently.
I shook my head, unable to speak.
‘Get home.’ His head jerked back the way I’d come. ‘We’ll look, you sort that.’
It made sense. But I stood still, head turning this way and that. Torn.
‘Go on, Melanie. We’ll find her.’ Martin’s voice softened but remained insistent.
He was right, I had to go home. You would be there, I was suddenly sure. I would tear a strip off you for scaring me, for making me look stupid in front of the whole village, for panicking over nothing.
Your father’s car pulled into the drive as I crossed the hundred yards or so from store to house. He jumped out, looking at me expectantly. Chin down, eyes serious.
‘Any sign?’ he called.
An impatient shake of my head as I strode past him and pushed the front door open, hoping, hoping. ‘Beth? Beth! Are you here?’
The only reply was the scrabble of claws racing across hardwood floors. Wiggins appeared, wagging his tail. He reared on his back legs, placing his front paws on my thighs. I pushed him down impatiently, calling for you again, my daughter.
‘Melanie…’ Jacob trailed off. His face reflected my fear.
Standing in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, all the pounding adrenaline, the fluttering panic for you solidified into something new. Something worse.
‘Someone’s taken her, Jacob.’
Wiggins jumped up again. I pushed him down. He jumped up and your dad grabbed his collar.
‘Who? Come on, we just need to call some friends—’
‘I called everyone. I phoned all her friends. She’s disappeared.’
‘What about our parents?’
Damn, I should have thought of that myself. Perhaps you’d got it into your head to catch the bus to see one or other set of grandparents. It would be the first time you’d ever done it, but you were, after all, at that age where you were starting to want to push the boundaries. No longer a child, not yet a young adult.
We both made the calls round family, me on my mobile, your dad on his. Brief conversations that lanced the hope that had risen in us. We both signed off with the same thing: ‘Call us on the landline if you hear anything.’
Jacob looked at me, his usually clear blue eyes looking dangerously pink.
‘I think it’s time to call the police,’ he said, voice thick.
I nodded. Hung onto his arm, toddler-like, as he dialled 999.
‘Shit. Okay, umm, I want to report a missing person. My, my daughter appears to be missing,’ he said, reluctant to say the words that would make this nightmare a reality.
A faint reply could be heard from the other end of the line. Jacob spoke again. ‘I was at work when my wife called and told me. I told her not to be hysterical.’ He gave an embarrassed laugh – you know how he always does when under real pressure. I squeezed his bicep, let him know we were in this together.
More questions and answers. Listening to the one-sided conversation was frustrating.
‘What’s going on? Why don’t they send someone?’ I stage-whispered.
Jacob frowned, shaking his head at me, and started giving a physical description of you.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ I hissed.
‘Just get off the phone and send someone!’ Jacob sounded agitated now, so unlike his usual calm self. If he was worried, that made me all the more worried. Extricating his arm from my grip, he ran a hand over the blond stubble of his closely cropped head. Frowned again. ‘What, outside now?’
My head shot up. I ran to the front door, flung it open expecting to see you, Beth. A squad car was pulling up. Jacob stood beside me, phone still in his hand, hanging loosely at his side. A faint voice came from it. I took it from him and hung up.
Uniformed officers stepped from their car and started up the garden path. But with every footfall, the strength that had carried me this far seemed to erode.
This was actually happening. To me. To my beautiful daughter. To my perfect, happy family.
The world began to narrow into a dark tunnel. My knees gave way, as if someone had kicked me at the back of the joint. A shout from the police and they rushed forward, hands reaching as I fainted.
They were guarding me, I realised. Jacob beside me on the sofa, his fingers woven with mine, studying me intently. With no fat on his face the muscles and bone structure showed clearly, and the clenching and unclenching of his jaw could be seen by all. Wiggins was on the other side of me; ears back, tail tucked firmly down, body pressed up tight against mine. Man and dog equally worried since I had fainted.
Two police officers sat in front of me now, their uniforms making them strangely anonymous, drawing my eyes away from their faces. Five minutes after meeting them, their names were forgotten. Nothing mattered, except them finding you.
‘We’d like to take some details from you, if you feel up to it,’ one officer said.
‘Of course.’ I nodded forcefully to show I was up to the task.
‘How old is your daughter?’
‘Beth’s thirteen,’ Jacob replied. ‘She went to stay with a friend last night, but didn’t arrive. We only discovered this morning. Someone must have taken her.’
‘Could she have stayed with another friend?’
‘No. No, she’d have told us. We’ve called round friends and our family. No one has seen her.’
‘Why do you think she was abducted?’
‘I have no idea. When we woke up this morning everything was normal, then my wife realised she wasn’t at Chloe Clarke’s. I… we looked everywhere. Beth wouldn’t just go off on her own, she’d tell us… She tells us everything, we’re very close. Something must have happened.’
‘Okay, how tall is she?’
‘Umm, she’s, what, about an inch shorter than you, Mel?’
‘About that. About five two.’
One officer asked all the questions; the other scribbled notes. ‘Right, so she’s about five feet two inches. And is this the most recent photo of her that you have?’
I leaned forward, instantly the proud parent despite the circumstances. ‘Yes, this was taken at Christmas. It shows her eyes, they’re a beautiful colour – grey with a hint of green to them, like the sea. She gets her hair from both of us.’ My gesture took in Jacob and myself. ‘But it’s much paler. Like spun gold, with just a touch of strawberry blonde.’
I could almost see you rolling your eyes at my description, Beth, furious with embarrassment. The officer seemed to agree, repeating only: ‘Green eyes. Long blonde hair.’ You wanted to have your long hair cut, but so far I had resisted your entreaties. I wanted to keep my little girl for a bit longer.
The constable took the photo back from me. ‘Okay. You say she’s about five feet two inches tall. Do you know how much she weighs?’
Jacob and I exchanged a helpless glance. ‘Uh, probably, I believe she was… I don’t know. I’m not sure. She’s slim. Very slender,’ he offered.
‘She’s only about seven stone,’ I guessed.
‘Right. Do you remember what she was wearing last night when you last saw her?’
‘Uh, before she went out I believe she was wearing blue jeans and a red jumper?’ Jacob’s voice went up at the end of the sentence, unsure.
‘Yes, a red jumper with Minnie Mouse on the front.’
‘You believe?’ The policeman had picked up Jacob’s uncertainty too.
‘No, we’re sure,’ I confirmed. ‘She had her winter jacket on, too – it’s black, padded and has a reflective strip in the shape of a chevron front and back. It’s quite distinctive.’
Scribble, scribble, scribble, it all went down in the notebook. ‘Are there any friends you might not know about? Has she ever run away before?’
‘No, Beth’s a good girl.’ We talked over each other, saying the same thing. Jacob nodded at me, giving me the go-ahead.
‘She tells us everything. She’s a joker sometimes, but she’s also caring, sensitive, sensible; she would never let us worry like this.’
Then we both explained the last time we had seen you. My voice caught as I told how Jacob had been watching football, so I’d walked you part of the way to your best friend’s house. In the morning, I’d only called Chloe’s house because I had wanted to go food-shopping and had wondered if you’d want to come, or stay a bit longer with Chloe. I’d spoken to Chloe’s mum, Ursula.
‘When it became clear Beth had never arrived…’ My whole body convulsed as the tears came again. Jacob clutched my hand, staring at me so fiercely, as if trying to absorb my pain. After a minute, I managed to get myself together again. ‘When it became clear she’d never arrived, I called Jacob. And then we called you.’
‘This is just a routine question,’ the officer apologised, ‘but where were you both last night?’
‘Here. Together. All night,’ said Jacob.
I opened my mouth, but the constable’s next question blew all thoughts away.
‘Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt your daughter?’
‘Good grief, no! No way!’
‘Okay. Could we have a list of your daughter’s friends?’
We compiled the list, then another of our friends, family members, pretty much everyone we came into contact with. We had already got in touch with them all, but the police insisted they needed it anyway.
‘What about hobbies? I’m just trying to get a clearer picture of what Beth is like.’
‘Nature. She’s nature-mad.’ The officer waited, clearly wanting more. ‘You know, watching wildlife, all that kind of thing. She loves going to the woods to look for signs of badgers and foxes, or to the marsh to watch birds. She wants to work in conservation when she grows up.’
I couldn’t hide the pride in my voice.
‘Could she have gone out into the countryside to do some nature-watching? Or to play alone?’
‘No.’ I shook my head, certain.
‘I think we have everything we need for now. Thank you.’ The officers stood in unison at some unspoken sign.
We were left alone, uncertain of what to do next.
Not for long, though. A knock on the door came. Then another and another. The house soon filled. Family, friends, villagers, all coming together to help the search for you, our missing girl. In a small community such as Fenmere we all know each other, and are always there for one another in times of trouble. It heartened me; surely it wouldn’t be long until you were found.
A Family Liaison Officer was assigned by the police, too, making sympathetic noises and trying to explain what was happening. She introduced herself as Britney Cooper. She seemed nice enough, but I couldn’t take her seriously. Not with a name like Britney. And she was so young! Only in her early twenties, with round eyes that seemed to match her round face. Her ginger bob accentuated her childlike features too. I wanted someone with gravitas. Someone I knew had the skill and experience to find you. Not a child.
With every second that passed you seemed to slip further and further from me. I couldn’t take in a word anyone said to me. They were the whirlwind; I was the still centre, sitting on the sofa, crying.
My own mum, your Granny Heather, enveloped me in a trembling hug that did nothing to soothe me. I didn’t want my mother’s tears, and didn’t want to use valuable strength fighting irritation. After longing for the police questioning to be over, now I felt redundant. I stared at the thick woollen rug, my eyes following the twisting strands; the previously homely and warming deep orange colour looked like a warning sign. The air felt too thick to breathe properly, and our home was too hot, with the radiators on full and so many people crammed inside. A pressure built inside me. Any minute I might explode.
Boom.
It propelled me from my seat and my mum’s arms, across the room full of people huddled together, having conversations in low voices, and into the kitchen.
Now what?
At a loss, I put the kettle on. I didn’t want a drink, but other people might and it gave me something to occupy myself. Mum bustled in behind me, clearly loath to leave me alone.
‘Want a hand?’ Her face was so soft with concern that it hurt me to look at it.
‘Could you ask who wants what, please? Tea, coffee, whatever.’ The excuse to get rid of her came in a flash.
Alone at last. I leaned against the counter and sighed. The corkboard in the kitchen was opposite me, full of important appointment cards, invites to birthday parties for you, bills to pay for me and your dad, silly notes to one another, drawings and photographs. It was a huge thing, yet still crammed, and each pin held so many bits of paper that the points were not driven in far, everything precarious. Peeling back the layers would have been an archaeologist’s journey back in time.
The reminder to pay for your guitar lessons was most prominent. You had only started them a couple of months before, as an early Christmas present, and were just coming down from your initial enthusiasm. Your dad and I weren’t sure if you would do them for much longer. When we asked about them, you just shrugged.
A note from your dad to us stood out too. Do you remember it? It started with him saying he was nipping into town, so not to worry that he wasn’t around, and ended with him going on about how much he loved us. You had scrawled Sloppy devil. Love you loads too! at the bottom, and approximately a hundred kisses.
Below it was a photo of you and your dad, faces smushed together, pulling silly expressions at the camera. That had been taken on Saturday, exactly a week ago.
‘We have a perfect life together. Untroubled, full of laughter. We are not the kind of family this sort of thing happens to: police, drama, worry, this isn’t us. We’re close, have no secrets,’ I said out loud to myself. A mantra against what was happening.
Closing my eyes, my mind’s eye burrowed deeper into the detritus of the noticeboard, into the precious memories hidden beneath the surface.
The drawing you had done of a ballerina when you were six. That had gone down in the annals of family history, a source now of much hilarity. The ballerina doing impossible splits; her thighs weirdly lumpy where the green felt-tip pen had wobbled in inexperienced hands; her face, unintentionally, a grimace of shock; her smile more of a round ‘o’. Every time we looked at it we all laughed, your own giggles always giving permission to mine and Jacob’s. You didn’t like to take yourself too seriously.
I bit my lip, though, remembering how proud you had been when you first drew it, jumping down from your seat at the kitchen table and running over to me, holding the picture high like a streamer. I had lifted you up, so tiny, so light in my arms, and given you the biggest hug.
Please God, let you be okay. Please let us find you quickly. I can’t cope…
Grief crushed my chest. I needed air. Stumbled to the back door, threw it open and dragged in lungfuls. The late January cold felt like a slap in the face, clearing me of hysteria.
I clutched the door frame, not to keep myself upright but because it was something solid in a world suddenly as unreliable as a mirage shimmering in a desert heat haze. Looking to my left, over the low f. . .
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