S is for Stranger (13 page)

‘Nope, quite the opposite.’

My heart lifted. ‘They’ve found her? They know where she is?’

Fiona frowned. ‘Sorry. No, not that good.’

‘Oh.’ My shoulders fell.

‘The CCTV footage. There’s been some developments.’

‘Developments?’

‘That’s all I know.’

I headed upstairs to change, to ready myself for whatever came next.

CHAPTER 15

DI Ward met us on the steps to the station. As we approached, I watched her suck the life out of a cigarette and drop it to the ground, stamping it out with her boot. She didn’t look happy.

‘The CCTV,’ she said brusquely, ‘you heard there’s been developments?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s walk and talk.’ She addressed Fiona. ‘Give us five?’

We walked away from the building.

‘We think we found Paul on the CCTV footage.’

‘Really?’ I smiled, triumphant.

She sighed. ‘From the day before.’

‘Oh.’ My face fell. ‘What was he doing at Acton Park the day before?’

‘He says he was picking up your birthday present, purely coincidental.’ She pressed her lips together. ‘It doesn’t prove much but we’re talking to the guy he bought your present from.’

I furrowed my brows. ‘I never got a present.’

DI Ward stopped walking, nodded. ‘OK, Paul says he gave you a necklace.’

I raised one eyebrow in response.

We joined Paul and Tom Dixon outside the pressroom. DI Ward nodded to Paul and opened the door. We were late: there wasn’t time for small talk. Paul shot me a questioning look. He probably wanted to know why we had arrived together, what we had been discussing. I broke off eye contact and joined DI Ward on the platform. Paul sat to my left. I wanted to speak to him alone.

I stared at the ground, until DI Ward invited me to speak.

When I looked up, I spotted the man who had asked about my drinking and my mouth went bone dry.

‘We so desperately need to find Amy,’ I said. ‘Our lives are falling apart. She’s my little girl and none of this makes any sense.’ I nodded, went to say something else but I didn’t.

Paul picked up where I left off. He surprised me by grabbing my hand and squeezing it tightly. ‘We need our daughter back. Please if anyone knows anything, get in touch.’

DI Ward nodded. ‘Any questions?’

The same man stood up. My stomach turned.

‘I’ve come to understand that there are some discrepancies between the mother and father about where they were on Saturday afternoon. Is that right, Detective?’

DI Ward looked at him. ‘I am not able to comment on that.’

The journalist continued unabashed. ‘Ms Fraiser, is this true?’

I glanced at DI Ward but she didn’t miss a beat. ‘Please, Sir, I told you already. We are unable to comment on such matters.’ She scanned the room. ‘Anyone else?’

A woman raised her hand and got to her feet. ‘Ms Fraiser, I’m so sorry to hear about what happened.’ She paused and I smiled gratefully. ‘But do you think there’s a possibility that your daughter has run away? We are reporting a
kidnap but I understand that your relationship with your daughter was, um,’ I watched any kindness dissipate, ‘difficult.’

My stomach turned and DI Ward was about to interject, but I put my hand up to silence her. ‘I love my daughter very much and just because I don’t live with her doesn’t mean I don’t do everything in my power to protect her.’

‘But mightn’t she have run away?’ The journalist now aimed her question at DI Ward.

‘We are looking into all possibilities. Whatever the case, a young girl of eight is missing.’ DI Ward nodded her head, and added, ‘Please remember that.’

We were marched out of the room and once outside DI Ward turned to us, her jaw clenched. ‘Right, I need to know now, have either of you talked to the press?’

‘What?’ I jerked my head back. ‘No, I haven’t.’ I looked at Paul. ‘Have
you
?’

His eyes widened. ‘What? You think I’ve been talking to the press?’ He shook his head. ‘You really are mad.’

‘Well, how the fuck did that man find out that we can’t agree on being in the same place at the same time? And more importantly, how did he come to think I was lying?’

Paul just looked at me, blinking. ‘Did he actually say that? That you were lying? Do you think you might be getting a bit paranoid?’

Anger flared inside me and I brought my face inches from his own. He looked at the ground. ‘You cannot do this. You cannot make out to everyone that I’m delusional.’

After a few long seconds he met my gaze. ‘Soph, you know better than anyone what’s going on.’

‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.’

‘You were the last to see Amy.’

‘Paul, you know nothing about me.’ I swallowed hard. ‘Not any more, anyway.’

‘Sophie,’ he whispered hotly, ‘just get some help. Find our daughter.’ He strode off.

Tom caught up with him and I heard the FLO say, ‘The detective wants a word.’

‘About what?’ Paul said, his voice fading as the door closed slowly behind him.

Tom looked as if he were trying to pacify Paul and, as they re-entered the building, I heard Paul whisper angrily, ‘It was a long time ago, so what? She can have my consent but there’s nothing to see.’

I watched them mount the stairs, straining to catch their conversation but soon they had gone, the only sound their heavy footsteps on the linoleum staircase and corridors that made up the labyrinth of the police station.

CHAPTER 16

I listened to the sound of the kitchen clock. I had waited for hours for the detective to ring me, tell me that she had finally forced him to admit the truth. Surely that was why the detective had wanted to talk to him. She had some information that allowed her to back him into a corner. Fiona had driven me home and, after much persuasion, left me alone on one condition – I called her if I needed anything.

‘Anything,’ she had repeated, giving me a big hug. ‘Remember, I’m here for you.’

I looked at my watch: it was 11 pm. Now that Fiona was gone, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought briefly about food but decided I wasn’t hungry; sleep, but my mind raced with facts and snippets of information. I needed to go out, to walk and think.

I strode into the front room and peeked out the curtains. Half or dozen or so news crews remained but there was no movement. They appeared to be asleep in their vans.

I craved air, I felt trapped in my own home, and I decided to face the mob outside. Pushing down any anxiety, I wrapped myself up warm in a duffel coat, a scarf and a beanie hat. I’m not sure why, but I felt safer in the knowledge that most of my face was covered either by the scarf or the hat.

I stepped out and waited for a reaction but, when there was none, I slipped past the vans, headed right at the end of my drive and, by the light of the orange street lamps,
walked briskly away. I strode fast around the block and when I crossed back, decided it was better to make the return journey on the other side. I waited a few minutes, stuffed my hat and scarf in my pockets and headed back. The reporters still hadn’t appeared to have noticed my escape as I dipped in and out of the unlit sections of pavement. I eventually sat on a wall, away from the street light, and looked at my own house. Strange to feel your own house was as much a lion’s den as the outside world.

I scanned the other windows and my eyes came to rest on the top floor of another Victorian semi. The large windows were lit up and the occupant hadn’t bothered drawing the curtains.

A woman stood silhouetted against the light and I watched as she talked and laughed. She appeared to be cooking: perhaps for a guest. Moments later, as if she could feel my eyes on her, she came to the window, peered out. I froze feeling like a Peeping Tom. She shook her head and drew a curtain across one window and looked out briefly again before doing the same with the second.

I stood up and prepared myself to head back. But something out the corner of my eye stopped me in my tracks. I backed up a couple of paces, glancing behind me as I went to ensure I didn’t collide with my neighbour’s recycling box or step into the street lamp’s light, and turned my head fully to the right.

There was a person, in an old Ford car, watching my house.

A cold prickly sweat worked its way over my body and I moved half a step back in order to get a closer look. The person’s dark clothing, and the reflection from the street lamps, made it impossible to make out their features or build. I needed to get closer and I edged toward a small wall dividing the two houses.

From here, I could see it was a man.

I moved one further inch to my right, my eyes never leaving the car.

My mind worked quickly; I knew I couldn’t do anything sudden as he might drive off. A cat wandered up to me, mewing. The animal was moving in circles around my legs and it lazily made its way up to the house’s porch.

The man looked in my direction now and I stood stock-still. He started the engine and moved off and, without thinking, I took a deep breath and started to run after the car. Blood rushed in my ears and I squinted, desperately memorising the number plate.

Panting hard, I ran to the end of the street and watched as the retreating car easily sped off toward the river.

I snuck back inside, my mind buzzing as I tried to figure out who the man could have been.

I phoned DI Ward. She answered right away. I could tell she had not been asleep yet.

‘Sophie?’

‘There was a man,’ I spoke fast, ‘outside my house. Watching my house.’

‘Are you sure?’ DI Ward was typing on a computer as she spoke, I could hear the clickety-clack of keys being struck. ‘What were you doing outside? I thought we told you, for your safety, you need to stay inside the house.’

‘I needed air.’

She sighed. ‘Sophie, I’ll look into it. Don’t worry yourself. Get some sleep.’ She cut the call.

I stared down at the phone in my hand. DI Ward clearly thought I was delusional, that there could have been no one watching me. Despair washed over me. If the police didn’t take me seriously, then how were we going to find my daughter?

I spotted a USB stick on the side and remembered it was the video of Amy’s first school play Paul had sent me. I hadn’t been allowed to attend, even though I had asked if the rules could be bent just this once. Paul, out of pity I suspect, had sent me a video of it. I imagined Sarah and Paul sitting near the front, proud as punch at Amy’s delivery of her lines. I clenched my stomach at the thought of Sarah watching Amy like she had given birth to her.

I sat at the kitchen island, my old laptop (this one had been released back to me, the others were still with forensics) whirring as I watched the video on loop. Paul zoomed in on Amy’s face; she had that nervous habit I had, of nibbling her lower lips as she waited for her turn to speak. Then, irritatingly, I noticed how Paul turned the camera toward Sarah who, as I had suspected, looked on delightedly at
my
daughter. But I didn’t want to see Sarah’s face over and over again, that’s not why I watched the video on loop. It was because at the very front, I thought I had imagined it but then I saw her again and again and again.

The woman walking down Oxford Street, the woman at the fair, was sat watching my daughter act for the very first time. The back of the woman had a ghostly familiarity about it and she was wearing that black coat again: it was undeniably her. Every time I saw the silhouette of her shoulders and head, my certainty grew. It was her, there was no denying the woman had been there that night. I tapped the play button three times before I allowed myself to watch it again, and again. I would show DI Ward in the morning, and prove to her that I wasn’t mad. I felt sick that this woman had been in our lives all along. She must have been laughing at us, the way we ignored her clues.

The weather took a turn for the worse overnight but I stayed up, moving to the sofa instead. At some point, I registered it was half four in the morning and I woke up
suddenly. The laptop had slid in between the cushions and I had developed a painful crick in my neck. I manoeuvred myself off the sofa, albeit slowly, and tried to shake off the grogginess.

It was only then that I realised there was a light on in the kitchen. Had I left it on? No, I clearly remembered turning it off. I rose quickly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention. Noiselessly, I grabbed the empty vase from the centre of the coffee table and tiptoed toward the kitchen. My legs wobbled beneath me. The previous night’s events flashed through my head and I gripped the vase even tighter.

The door was within arm’s reach. I could just about make out the sound of someone’s deep breathing over the ticking of the clock and I counted to three. Adrenaline pumping fast around my body, my heart beating crazily, I charged into the kitchen. Barely thinking, I swung the vase to and fro.

‘What the hell?’ a voice shouted.

I froze, grabbing the vase to my chest and gasped. ‘Oli!’

He was stood up against the counter, his face pale. ‘Bloody hell, woman.’

‘How on earth? What are you …’ I started before I burst into laughter, placing the vase on the side. ‘I thought you were …’ I broke down. ‘You …’ I couldn’t form any words.

‘You silly woman, you nearly killed me,’ Oliver said, catching his breath, his face tight with panic.

‘What the hell are you doing back? How did you get in?’

‘You left the door unlocked.’

I tried to remember if I had. ‘Why didn’t you knock?’

‘I did.’ Oliver looked at me. ‘You can’t have heard me.’

‘Why are you back?’ I said again, trying desperately to soften my voice, push down the fluttering in my stomach.

‘I was worried about you.’

‘Why?’ I was still on the defensive.

‘Because you haven’t been the same recently. It feels like we’ve gone back twenty years and your head is all over the place. I can’t walk away from you, Sophie, I never have been able to. Especially now, when you clearly need someone. I want to be here for you. Let me be here for you.’

I nodded slowly. My phone buzzed. It was DI Ward.