It was seven when I arrived back home. DS Clarke had insisted I sip on a sugary tea to get my blood sugars back up before that PCSO, Teddy Carson, drove me back home. Teddy had spent the whole car ride making inappropriate small talk, clearly not wanting to remind me that my daughter was missing … as if I would forget such a thing. Still, DS Clarke had been nice about the fainting. He’d even given me his Snickers bar to give me a boost.
I opened the window in the kitchen, hoping the fresh air would obscure the smell of police investigation. A shiver shot up my spine, as I caught sight of the smeared blotches on the laminate kitchen floor. They’d found traces of blood, right there next to my feet. I’d cooperated and given my blood sample at the station once I’d recovered from my fainting episode. I had no choice, I had to, especially after I told them I had cut my finger with a knife.
My mind wandered to the revelation of Ray’s identity, and anger bubbled up inside me at the thought of it. How dare he force his way into her life like that without even letting me know? He may have even been telling her not to tell me, worried that I would stop the contact. My brow furrowed. He’d been encouraging her to keep secrets from me, and now look where those secrets had gotten her. Typical Ray.
I looked around at the mess. A week ago it had been spotless. Well, almost. Teigan’s clothes had been strewn around, and my Norfolk County Council paperwork had covered the majority of the surfaces, but it had been home. Our home. I stared at Teigan’s favourite flowery cereal bowl, which was still left on the kitchen work surface from Thursday morning. She’d left it there just moments before she’d found the iPad, and we’d argued. I tried to force my mind back, waiting for an epiphany to come showing me how that argument had ended. Nothing. Just darkness.
I traced my fingers around the edge of the bowl before picking it up and going to put it in the dishwasher. I froze as I went to place it in. Washing it up and putting it back in the cupboard would be acknowledging that the day had passed, that despite Teigan not being there, time had moved forward, anyway. I put it back on the side, exactly where it had been moments before.
I saw my reflection in the glass of the oven. God, I looked awful. My hair still hadn’t been washed since Thursday, the leftover hairspray leaving it stiff and sticky. My face was pale, and my tired eyes looked like they were bulging out of my head. I knew I should take a shower or perhaps a calming bath, but I couldn’t stand the normality of it.
The texts from the ‘xoxo’ sender spun in my head. Can’t wait for this weekend, babe, it’s going to be mint. Our little secret, though, yeah?” I was chewing on my nails again, staring at my zombie-like reflection in the oven. Whoever this guy was, he’d convinced her to go away somewhere. And somewhere, deep in my gut, my motherly instinct knew he wasn’t planning to bring her back for school Monday morning. The fact that he’d destroyed her phone proved it. He was cutting her off from her world, and God knows what else he was planning for her. My heart started to race again. I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit back and hope the police would find her. As I went to run through to the middle room, I tripped over something soft.
“Meow!” It was Tonks. I’d trodden on the poor thing. He looked up at me with big eyes and meowed again in protest. I momentarily wondered if he’d been licking the forensic residue and hoped that, if he had, it wouldn’t do him any serious harm. I fixed him some food and water. The last thing I wanted to do was kill the cat.
I made my way to the cupboard under the stairs and dragged out the box-files filled with various child sexual exploitation journal articles. There was a painful, bitter irony in it all. The research I’d spent years pulling together, the money and time I’d ploughed into The Walker Foundation — only for my own daughter to become a victim of the very thing I was fighting against. The hopeful voice within me reminded me that I didn’t know that for sure, but the cruel part of me asked what had I expected? My own selfish need to be the perfect social worker meant that I rarely got home before seven, leaving Teigan to her own devices for several hours after school every day. Even when I was at home, I was often thinking about the children I worked with.
Shit, that reminded me that I’d promised Carly I’d get her brother’s address for her on Monday. I rubbed the fragile, tired skin around my eyes. I’d have to pass it on, along with everything else. I needed to focus on my own family, which is what I should have been doing all along.
My head was fogging up with stress. I needed to do something, get some air. As I went to stand up, I noticed the old family albums tucked in the corner of the cupboard under the stairs. They were covered in dust. I pulled out the green and blue patterned one, a spider crawling across the cover as I opened it up. It was one of the oldest, from when Teigan was tiny. I hadn’t looked at it for years. I slid back down onto the floor and started to flip through the story of our life. There were pictures of when Teigan was born, how fragile she had been then — only five pounds, eight ounces. She had dropped down to five pounds, two ounces, in that first week, and I’d panicked that I wasn’t going to be able to keep my baby girl alive. The health visitor had assured me that all babies lost a little weight at first, but I’d still become obsessed with how much milk she was taking. Then there were the pictures of that dingy old council flat we used to live in. We’d been there until Teigan was five, when I finally got my social work qualification and was able to earn a decent wage. It was cramped, the storage heaters never worked, and it was impossible to avoid mould in the bathroom with the lack of an extractor fan. But it had been my own place, and for that I’d been thankful. I had been so incredibly happy and so unbelievably nervous at the same time. A nineteen-year-old with her new daughter — no partner, no parents. I was all alone in the world. It sounded like a tragedy, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
In fact, I had made sure that was the case.