i.
It is done.
You took the girl to a quiet lay-by on a dual carriageway about fifty miles away. You chose it a few days back, attracted by the line of trees that screen it from the road and the fields that stretch out on the far side. It pays to plan ahead. That way you can think things through, examine all the angles. And this was the best place to do it.
The lay-by is on a straight section of the road, so you can see a mile or two in either direction. When you were sure nothing was coming in either direction, you lifted her limp body from the back seat and deposited her in a bus shelter.
You left the girl sleeping in the corner of the bus shelter. She was stirring as you departed, not far from consciousness. That was good; it would not be long before she awoke and wandered into plain sight, where she would soon be found.
You pulled out and drove away, unseen again. You are not surprised by this. You have a talent for this kind of thing, a talent you have used before, when it has been necessary. It is a combination of planning and nerve, both of which you have in abundance.
There is one thing you feared, one thing left out of your control. What if the person who found her was not as honourable as you? What if they saw a lone girl – a girl who was already missing, and therefore could be taken without risk – and did not return her to the authorities? Unlikely, for sure, but possible. There are some disgusting people out there.
Not everyone is like you. Not everyone can be trusted to do things for the right reasons. It might appear to the outside world that you and they are the same; that you are both kidnappers or murderers, but that is not the case. They are crude, base criminals. What you do is different. It is great. It is necessary. It is right. But you can’t expect others to understand.
You considered staying in the vicinity so that you could ensure the girl’s safety, but that would have been too dangerous. No, you had to let her take her chances. It was a risk, but a calculated one. At that point all you could do was hope.
And hope you did. Because you need her home, safe and unharmed.
Because although this part is done, it is not over yet. You are not finished.
The important part is just beginning.
ii.
Julia was woken by a throbbing in her head. It felt like someone had set up a bass drum inside her skull and was kicking it with a steel-toed boot.
What the hell happened? Julia thought. Why do I have this foul hangover?
And then she remembered. The vodka and the sleeping pills. And then another memory, of a phone call. A phone call about Anna. From DI Wynne.
A phone call telling her that Anna was alive, that she’d been found.
She caught the rising excitement and held it in check. She’d been here before, dreaming that Anna was home. This time the memory was very clear, hardly dreamlike at all, but that was perhaps the result of the combination of alcohol and sleeping pills and her frantic wish for her daughter to be with her.
She glanced at the window. It was light outside, maybe late morning. So the pills had knocked her out all night. She closed her eyes against the light and tried to remember what had happened.
She was in bed. She had not been in bed when she had taken the pills, which meant someone had brought her up here. It also meant that there was water nearby, in the en-suite bathroom. It would be nice to have water. Clear, cool, life-giving water.
She’d get it in a minute. As she lay there images came back to her. Broken memories. The bitter taste of the pills. The burn of the vodka. The phone ringing, then ringing again.
DI Wynne’s voice.
Mrs Crowne, we’ve found Anna.
The dream again. She pushed it away but it was persistent. Fuzzy, clouded by the booze and pills, but persistent. And it felt real. Specific, tangible.
She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.
It was real. Anna was alive. She knew it somehow. Something in her body felt different.
Anna was alive.
She pushed back the covers and swung her feet onto the carpet. She stood up too quickly for her hangover to handle and the blood rushed from her head. Faint, she sat back down.
Downstairs she heard a laugh. It was man’s laugh, a laugh she knew well. It was her husband, Brian. The laugh came again. And again.
Brian was laughing, and there was only one reason for that.
‘Anna!’ she called. Her voice was high and croaky. She cleared her throat. ‘Anna!’
There was a silence, then she heard fast, heavy footsteps on the stairs. She recognized the footsteps; it had always amazed her that someone so light and delicate as her daughter could tread so heavily, as though she was stamping instead of walking.
‘Anna,’ she said, to herself. ‘Oh God, Anna. Is it you?’
She didn’t believe it – couldn’t believe it – until the bedroom door was flung open and there she was, fresh and smiling and beautiful and Anna, so perfectly Anna, her daughter, her child, the love of her life, there, in the doorway, then running across the carpet towards her and then, finally, in her arms.
Her daughter was in her arms.
It was like nothing she had ever felt before. Everything – the smell of Anna’s breath, the heat of her body, the taste of her tears, the sound of her repeated cries of mummy, mummy as she ran from the door to the bed – was hyper-real. It was as though Julia’s senses did not trust what they were presented with, and so had turned themselves up to a new, more intense level that allowed them to see and smell and taste more deeply so that they could not be deceived. She saw the cracks and valleys in Anna’s lips as they quivered, picked out individual hairs on her head, saw the tiny flakes of skin on her ears. And she loved every detail.
The closest she had come to this sensation was on the day Anna was born, when the midwife had placed this tiny, mewling, blood-and-mucus-coated, alien creature onto Julia’s newly empty abdomen, and Julia had fallen instantly in love with it. She could bring it back to mind still, as though the memory was minutes and not years old. It was the clearest, most significant, happiest memory of her life.
But it was nothing compared to this.
Back then, she had rejoiced in the gaining of something wonderful; now, she was regaining something wonderful. She had been as low as it was possible to be; had lost everything, had known the heights of being a parent, and fallen to the depths of having lost a child, a loss made worse by the fact it was her fault. She had been so low she had been in the process of killing herself, and now she had her daughter back. The swing from utter despair to rapturous joy was incredible. She was aware, as she held Anna, that she was one of the very few people to have known such extremes; one of the very few unfortunate enough to have known them.
She tugged her daughter against her chest and pressed her lips to her cheek. Anna was thin, her shoulders sharp and the bones in her face more prominent, but she was smiling as she hugged her mum; she was ok, she was alive and here and that was all that mattered.
‘I’ll never let you go again, Anna,’ she said. ‘I promise. I’ll never let you go again.’
iii.
‘Julia?’ Brian’s voice came from outside the bedroom. He had not – at least, as far as she knew – crossed the threshold of their former marital inner sanctum since Anna had disappeared.
‘Daddy,’ Anna said, lifting her head from Julia’s chest. ‘Come in and cuddle. We can all cuddle together.’
There was a long pause. ‘I don’t know,’ Brian said. ‘I—’
‘Come on, Daddy!’
Brian stepped into the room. His eyes were still sunken and surrounded by dark circles, but there was a lightness in his expression that had not been there since the day Anna disappeared.
‘It’s ok,’ Julia said. She shifted herself to one side of the bed. ‘Sit down.’
Brian took a few hesitant steps across the room, then lay on what had been his side of the bed, propped up on his elbow. He reached out and put his hand on Anna’s hip; she turned from Julia and flung her arms around his neck.
‘I love you, Daddy,’ she said.
‘I love you too,’ he murmured. ‘So much.’
For a moment Julia wondered whether she had judged him too harshly, whether he was a better, kinder, fuller, husband and father than she had given him credit for. Had she expected too much of him? Had she been blinded by the glare of what she wanted him to be, left unable to see the muted light of Brian’s qualities, qualities that might have found – might find, still – a fuller expression away from the sunless undergrowth around his mother?
She put her hand on his forearm and smiled at him.
‘Brian,’ she said. ‘She’s back.’
He turned his shoulders so that his forearm twisted away from her.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s amazing. Like a dream.’
‘Where was she?’
‘They don’t know. She woke up in a bus shelter this morning and walked into a newsagent in Tarporley. No one saw her until she was nearly there.’
This morning. While Julia had been drinking on the couch her daughter had been returning to the world. She looked at the alarm clock. Three p.m. So she’d been out six hours.
But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Anna was here. ‘Is she ok?’
‘Fine, physically. The police said … ’, he paused, and nodded at Anna,. ‘can we talk about this later? It’s better, I think.’
‘Ok.’
‘You should come downstairs. DI Wynne is on her way. You need to get dressed.’
Anna rolled away from Brian. ‘Can I stay up here with you, Mummy?’
‘Of course.’ Julia put her hands out and folded them around Anna. She was so warm, so present, so alive. Julia had not expected this, had not believed that she would ever see her daughter again. She had accepted that Anna was gone, taking with her the only thing that gave Julia’s life meaning and purpose. Julia had faced what that meant, had stared at a life lived without her daughter and with the knowledge that she was to blame for her loss and decided that it was not a life she could live.
She felt goosebumps prickle on her arms. She hugged Anna tighter, grateful for the throbbing in her temples and the pain at the back of her eyes. It meant she was alive; here to welcome her daughter back to her home.
But, despite her joy, a thought nagged at her.
Someone, for some reason, had abducted her daughter. They had taken the risk of whisking her away in broad daylight, had found a way to keep her hidden during a national – an international – hunt, only to return her a week later.
It was a huge risk; if they were caught then the implications for them were obvious. If they had had killed her or sold her on then Julia could understand why they had done it – they presumably got whatever pleasure they got from killing, or they got paid, and then they disposed of the body. As long as the police had no leads then they were safe. The motive was also obvious: a random poaching of an unwatched child. It was an old story, well understood.
But that was not what had happened. Whoever had done this had taken all that risk, and then they had taken some more: they had returned Anna. Why? What did they gain? It didn’t make sense. There was something missing, something Julia did not understand.
And it worried her. What if it was not random after all? What if they had selected Anna – specifically Anna – for some reason?
Anna wriggled against Julia. Julia squeezed her hard against her chest.
‘Mummy,’ Anna said. ‘You’re squashing me.’
‘Sorry,’ Julia said. ‘But I just don’t ever want to let you go.’
And she didn’t, because if they had selected Anna, if there was some reason for this, then it might not be over.
And whoever had done this was still out there, with whatever reason they had done it for still known only to them.
And they might be watching right now, planning their next move.
iv.
‘Mrs Crowne,’ DI Wynne said. ‘What fabulous news. I’m so pleased for you.’
Wynne’s smile was the first truly genuine expression Julia had seen on her face. She was always the same: steady, professional, measured. Bland, almost. So bland that it had to be an act. No one without passion could do her job, but no one who could not control their passion would be able to stick at it. If you let yourself get too involved, it would devour you, Julia could see that.
And the smile: relaxed, relieved, full, was proof that DI Wynne was human after all.
‘Thank you,’ Julia said. ‘For all you did.’
She, Brian, and DI Wynne were sitting in the living room. Julia’s hair was wet from the shower; she felt cleaner, but her headache was still sharp, despite taking two doses of ibuprofen. Still, it didn’t matter. The world had taken on a soft glow. Anna was sleeping, her head on Julia’s lap.
DI Wynne shrugged. ‘I wish I could say that we’d done more, but this was really not down to us. She just … well, she just showed up.’
Brian had filled her in on what she had missed. Despite the magnitude of the events, there really wasn’t all that much: the police received a call around nine a.m. from a newsagent in the Cheshire village of Tarporley to say that a girl calling herself Anna Crowne had walked into the shop, declared she was hungry, and asked for her mummy. The shopkeeper gave her water and a Crunchie bar, then called the police. By nine fifteen Anna was in the hands of the local police; by ten a.m. she was at the police station with DI Wynne and Brian. Her mum was passed out at home, but nobody needed to know about that.
Anna was fine, Brian said. Lost some weight, but unharmed and quite cheerful. She was very interested in the police station and asked to see the cells; a woman police officer took her down there. When she came back she was eating a choc ice from the canteen. She declared to Brian, DI Wynne, and the doctor who had showed up that she was going to be a policeman when she grew up.
Or a policewoman, DI Wynne said.
No, Anna said. A policeman.
I’m afraid it might be my fault, the woman police officer said. I told her that I didn’t eat many choc ices but that the male officers ate them all the time.
So Anna was fine, except for one thing: she had no memory of what had happened to her. She had no idea who had taken her or where she had been. All she remembered was waking up in the bus shelter and then walking across a field to the buildings she could see, because she was cold and wanted to get warm. DI Wynne pressed gently, asking whether the person was a man or a woman, tall or short, had a nice voice or a nasty voice, but there was nothing. She didn’t have any memory of the events at all.
Julia asked how that was possible.
‘She was probably given some kind of memory inhibiting drug,’ DI Wynne said. ‘There are plenty about.’
Julia wondered, briefly, – before she forced the thought from her mind, although she knew it would intrude again, late at night or first thing in the morning – what had been done to Anna that was so bad it needed to be erased from her memory. She could think of a few things, and none of them were anything other than awful.
‘A child psychologist will have to see her’, DI Wynne told Brian, ‘but there don’t seem to be any signs of emotional trauma.’
There were also no signs of sexual abuse. It didn’t mean there hadn’t been something, but if there had it was not violent or invasive and it had left no trace. Julia found this both reassuring, and disturbing. She didn’t want there to be signs of sexual abuse, but she also wanted to know for sure that there hadn’t been any. The thought that someone might have abused her daughter so cleverly that they left no evidence of having done so was cold comfort.
‘So you don’t know who took her?’ Julia said. ‘Was there anything on her clothes? Fibres? DNA?’
DI Wynne shook her head. ‘Nothing. Someone did a very thorough job of removing all traces of themselves. Her clothes had been washed. My guess is that whoever did this handled them with gloves from the moment they took them from the washing machine. Then they put them on Anna before leaving her in the bus shelter this morning.’
Julia nodded. ‘So you have nothing?’
Wynne sipped her tea. ‘Very little.’
‘And will you keep the investigation open?’ Brian asked.
‘We will,’ Wynne said. She glanced up at the ceiling; it was an odd, evasive gesture. She looked back at Julia. ‘We are still interested in finding the person who did this.’
‘In case they do it again?’ Julia said.
‘That,’ Wynne said. ‘And also … well, this is a bit of a confusing situation. I’ve never come across something quite like this. I’d be happier if we had the perpetrator behind bars.’
‘Right,’ Brian said. ‘The child rarely shows up. If they do it’s often years later.’
He was an expert now, Julia thought. It was an unpleasant thing to have needed to become an expert in, but at least now it was just knowledge, and not his own experience.
‘Exactly,’ Wynne said. ‘But to just return the child, unharmed, well, it’s unheard of.’
‘Perhaps they felt sorry for us,’ Julia said. ‘Maybe they saw our press conference.’
‘It’s possible,’ Wynne said, although it was clear she didn’t think that was the case. ‘But we don’t know for sure. We don’t know much. Why they would do this, for example. Why they would take such a risk, when there’s nothing in it for them.’
‘So you think there is more to this?’ she said. ‘You think there is more to come? Are we at risk?’
Even if this was over, she thought, she would never know. She would have to live for the rest of her life with the fear that it might happen again.
‘It can’t have been for no reason,’ DI Wynne said. ‘That’s what worries me.’
‘But what would the reason be?’ Julia said. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s – I dunno – like a game to them. Maybe they want to create the hardest possible conditions in which to kidnap a child – I mean, we’ll watch her like a hawk – and then prove they can do it.’
The sense of powerlessness was overwhelming. How could she protect her child against some unknown, unquantified, unguessable threat? If, at that moment, DI Wynne had offered her a new identity in Australia she would have taken it without a moment of hesitation. She just wanted to get away, to be able to raise her daughter in safety. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it?
‘We’ll put a squad car outside your house,’ Wynne said. ‘At least until we have more certainty about what is going on.’
Julia nodded, partially – for the moment, at least – reassured. ‘And the press,’ she said. ‘Are they still out there?’
‘No. We moved them on. You need your privacy at a time like this. I can’t say they won’t be back eventually, but hopefully all this will have died down a bit by then. There’ll be another story for them to sink their teeth into.’
‘Some other poor bugger’s life to ruin,’ Brian said. ‘Bunch of bastards, the lot of them.’
On her lap, Anna stirred. Julia looked down at her daughter’s face, her mouth slightly parted, her eyeballs twitching as she dreamed.
What are you dreaming about? she thought. Are you seeing whoever did this? Are they in your mind at this moment, right there in front of me but totally inaccessible?
She looked up at DI Wynne. ‘So what’s next?’ she said.
‘Well,’ Wynne replied. ‘We’ll be carrying on with the investigation. I’d like you to monitor Anna closely, see if she says anything that might give us an indication of where she’s been. The memory is a strange animal. It can throw things up at the least likely moment.’ She looked at Brian. ‘And if you hear from your father, we’d be interested to speak to him. But other than that, try and keep things as normal as possible.’
Brian started to get to his feet. DI Wynne motioned him to stay seated.
‘I’ll see myself out,’ she said. ‘You stay there.’ She walked towards the door. When she reached it she turned around. ‘And Mr and Mrs Crowne? I want to let you know how happy I am for you that your family is back together. Have a good night.’
v.
The front door clicked shut and the house was silent. It seemed to Julia that it was the first time in a week that the house had been truly quiet: yes, there had been plenty of moments when there was no sound, but the lack of sound had almost been a noise; a reminder of Anna’s absence. And, in any case, whether there was noise or not had made no difference to the clamour inside Julia’s skull. Her mind had whirred, cogs flicking her thoughts from memories of Anna to wretched fears about where she might be to lacerating feelings of guilt.
Now, though, with her daughter’s head in her lap, there was peace in the silence.
‘Are you going to take her up to bed?’ Brian asked.
‘I suppose I should,’ Julia said. She looked again at Anna’s sleeping face and fell in love all over again with her daughter. ‘But I can’t bring myself to let her go.’
‘I know. I can’t believe she’s back. I didn’t think – I mean, I hoped, but I just didn’t dare think she’d – you know. Come home.’
‘I know,’ Julia said, aware of the exact feeling he was trying to describe – a mixture of disbelief and wonder with the feeling you get when you realize that you nearly ran into a car or made some huge mistake but just missed it, the feeling of being simply lucky – but equally unable to put it into words.
There was a long pause. It grew heavy and pregnant.
‘We need to talk,’ Brian said.
‘About us?’
‘About us. But also about you.’
‘What about me?’
‘I found you passed out on the couch, Julia, surrounded by sleeping pills and vodka. I’m worried.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.’ A bit embarrassed, Julia thought, but fine.
‘You tried to kill yourself,’ Brian said. ‘I’d hardly call that fine.’
Julia shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. That’s not what happened. It wasn’t … I didn’t try to kill myself. I just wanted some sleep. A break.’
Brian did not look convinced. Julia felt indignation swell in her throat.
‘Brian! I didn’t try to kill myself! I can’t believe you think that!’
‘If you say so,’ he said. ‘But it looked a lot like that.’
‘If I’d tried to kill myself I would have done it,’ Julia said. ‘I would have taken more than two sleeping pills. I would have taken them all.’ She shook her head. ‘This is ridiculous. The worst thing is that I thought about it, but there was no way I could have done it. Not while there was a chance Anna was still alive. And she is, Brian. That’s what we should be talking about, not some imagined suicide attempt.’
Brian nodded. ‘Ok,’ he said. ‘It’s your business. I have something else I want to say.’
‘Go ahead,’ Julia said. ‘Get it off your chest.’
‘We need to make arrangements. For the separation.’
‘Do we have to do this now?’ Julia said. ‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No,’ Brian said. ‘Now’s best.’
‘Ok.’ Julia kept her eyes on Anna’s face. Nothing could bother her while she had her daughter in her arms. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘That I would leave. Go to Mum’s, maybe. We’d sell the house. Split the proceeds. Or you could buy me out with your share of our money and stay here.’
Julia was ready to accept that Brian and her were over. She wanted her and Brian to be over, but this was not the time. They did not need the disruption of a messy divorce hot on the heels of Anna’s disappearance and miraculous return.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I know things aren’t great between us, but couldn’t we put this off? I think Anna’s going to need us both. She’s going to need the stability of a familiar home and both her parents.’
‘Our relationship is over, Julia. After what … ’ he paused, uncertain about whether to carry on, then gave a little shrug, as though reconciled that whatever he was going to say needed to be said, and carried on, ‘what you did, there’s no hope of it working between us. You told me you wanted a divorce; that the life I offered wasn’t enough for you, and then you didn’t bother showing up for Anna. The fact that it turned out ok in the end doesn’t justify it, and I don’t forgive you. For either thing.’
‘I get it,’ Julia said. ‘And I don’t expect us to stay together forever. I just think we could hold on before we tear everything apart. We can sleep in separate rooms. It might be miserable for us, but at least Anna will have stability. I mean, it’s not perfect, but we’ll hardly be the only couple with a shitty relationship who stay together for the sake of their children.’
Brian hesitated. ‘How long for?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. Six months. A year, maybe. Whatever it takes until it feels like it’s the right time to do it. And don’t worry. You can see other people, do whatever you want. I don’t care. I just want to protect Anna.’
He reddened. ‘That’s not what I want,’ he said. ‘This is not about seeing other people.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s so typical of you to think that it is. You always find a way to see me in the worst light. I just thought it was for the best.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She realized she was about to manipulate him, but didn’t care. ‘If you want to do what’s for the best, then stay, for a while at least. That’s all I’m asking. Do it for Anna.’
‘Fine, I’ll do it. I’ll stay.’ He sat upright, his shoulders squaring in an attempt to keep his pride. ‘But I’m only doing it for her. Not for any other reason. Not for you.’
Julia sighed. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ She cinched Anna tighter to her, then levered herself to her feet. ‘I think I will put Anna in bed. She can sleep with me tonight. See you in the morning.’
She left him downstairs, the bitterness hanging between them, but she didn’t care. As long as she had Anna she didn’t care about Brian or her marriage or her career. She didn’t care about anything. As long as she had Anna everything was ok.
vi.
The psychologist was not what Julia had expected. He was in his early fifties, had a pot belly, wore black nail varnish on his left hand, and finished every sentence by slightly tilting his head and saying ‘y’know?’
He sat next to Anna on a faded, sagging couch. On the table in front of him were some children’s books and toys. Julia sat in an armchair, a little off to the side. There had been a suggestion that Anna would go in alone, but Julia had not agreed.
‘So,’ he said to Anna. ‘My name is Robert, but you can call me Rob, Robbie, Mr Robbie, Bob, Monsieur Bob, or, if you really want, Dave.’
Anna giggled. ‘Can I call you Thomas,’ she said. ‘Like the train?’
Robert – Rob, Robbie, Bob – nodded. ‘If you wish. ‘Do you like trains?’
‘A bit.’ Anna paused. ‘But not a lot. Boys like trains.’
‘Girls too,’ Robert said. ‘Girls like trains too, y’know.’
‘I know,’ Anna said. ‘But mainly boys do.’
Julia stopped herself jumping into the conversation and explaining that she and Brian had tried to avoid gender stereotyping as much as they could, but, despite their best efforts, Anna had still picked up the idea that girls and boys liked and did different things. It was infuriating to Julia – she was sick of pink fairies and princesses – but there seemed to be little she could do about it.
The conversation went on. Robert asked Anna what she liked to do, who her friends were, where she went to school. He asked if she had been anywhere new recently, if there were things she didn’t like (spiders and broccoli, apparently), if she ever felt unsafe or worried. She answered his questions freely, and, at the end of the half hour, he clapped his hands gently and smiled at her.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was every interesting. I enjoyed meeting you, Anna. Would you like to see me again?’
Anna nodded. ‘You’re funny.’
‘OK. Well, I’ll arrange it with your mum. But other than that, we’re done for the day.’
In the lobby Robert asked the receptionist to take Anna to choose a sticker from the basket they kept behind the desk. He shook Julia’s hand.
‘I’ll write up a full report,’ he said. ‘But she seems fine. No signs of trauma. Chatty, confident, relaxed. A very happy little girl. I’ll meet with her once a week for a while and see if that changes, but for now it seems things are well.’
‘Thank you,’ Julia said. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that.’
‘I have six of my own,’ Robert said. ‘From twenty-two down to ten, so I know how you feel. There’s no worry like the worry you have for your kids. I find it physically painful.’
‘And with six there must always be something to worry about.’
‘There is with one,’ Robert said. ‘And you can only worry so much. With six you just spread the worry around more.’
‘I don’t even want to think about that,’ Julia said. ‘I don’t know how you manage.’
‘Manage?’ Robert said. ‘Who said I manage? With six kids I just focus on survival.’
The receptionist walked over, holding Anna’s hand. ‘She wanted two stickers,’ she said. ‘Normally we only allow one, but I let her have both.’
Anna was going to get that kind of special treatment for a while, Julia realized. It came of being the little girl who was abducted.
‘Which did you get?’ Robert asked her.
‘The unicorn and the butterfly,’ Anna said.
‘Not the train and the racing car?’ Robert said.
‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I told you. Trains are for boys. And racing cars. I like animals. And the big doll’s house.’
‘OK,’ Robert said. ‘Have it your way.’
Julia paused. She looked at Anna and replayed what her daughter had just said. There was something odd, something out of place.
‘What big doll’s house?’ she asked.
Anna titled her head upwards. She frowned. ‘The big one,’ she said. ‘The one I slept in.’
Julia’s heart rate increased. ‘When did you sleep in a dolls’ house?’
Anna didn’t answer for a few seconds. When she did, she looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘What was it like?’ Robert’s tone was exactly as it had been before: calm, measured, playful, but there was an urgency underneath. ‘Tell me about the doll’s house. I love doll’s houses.’
‘No you don’t,’ Anna said. ‘You’re a boy.’
‘You have an appointment starting,’ the receptionist said. ‘Mr Newall.’
‘Could you let him know I’ll be a few minutes late?’ Robert said. He addressed himself to Anna. ‘I love them,’ he said. ‘Boys can love them, too. Tell me about yours. The big one.’
‘I can’t really remember it,’ Anna said. ‘I just remember that it was big, and I slept in it.’
‘How could a doll’s house be big enough to sleep in?’ asked Robert. ‘Surely that would make it a house for people?’
‘No,’ Anna insisted. ‘It was a doll’s house. But it was very big.’
‘Do you remember where it was?’
Anna shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was a dream.’
‘Maybe.’ Robert looked at Julia. ‘Let’s have a chat,’ he said.
Julia and Brian occupied the couch in Robert’s office. DI Wynne sat in the armchair. Robert stood by the door.
‘She said she had slept in a big doll’s house,’ Julia said. ‘That was what was strange to me. She was very specific. She said she had slept there. Not played with it: slept in it. It’s not the kind of thing she would make up.’
‘Take me through what she said,’ Wynne urged. ‘Try and get it as close as possible to her exact words.’
Robert drummed his fingers on his upper lip. He recounted the conversation. He talked slowly, stopping every few words to make sure that what he was saying was as close as possible to what he remembered.
‘So,’ Brian said. ‘What do you think?’
‘Well,’ said Wynne. ‘It could be nothing. A dream, a figment of her imagination—’
‘I don’t think it is,’ Julia said. ‘It’s not like Anna to make things up like this.’
Wynne nodded. ‘If it’s true, then it tells us that Anna was in a place with a big doll’s house. Big enough to sleep in. So we need to find places with something that fits the bill.’ She got to her feet. ‘I need to get started,’ she said. ‘Find manufacturers of doll’s houses, speak to places that sell them, start the team digging on this.’
‘It doesn’t seem much to go on,’ Brian said. ‘Just a doll’s house.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ DI Wynne replied, a sharp, hunter’s look in her eye. ‘If we can get some telling detail then we can start to track it down. Assuming it’s real, we already know it’s big, big enough to sleep in. So we find places that sell big doll’s houses, ask them how many they’ve sold, who bought them. If the buyer used a credit card, then we can trace them easily; even if not, a sales rep might remember something. A lone man buying a doll’s house – might have stood out.’
‘Sounds good,’ Julia said. ‘What can we do to help?’
‘Speak to Anna,’ DI Wynne said. ‘Ask her what else she remembers. Anything at all: smells, voices – a man’s voice or a woman’s voice – sensations, feelings – was she scared? Happy? Sad? Was it light or dark, day or night? Did anyone touch her? Were they strong? Wearing rings? A watch? Any details on clothes they were wearing? Anything at all.’
‘Maybe make it a game,’ Robert said. ‘Lie down, eyes closed and play make-believe that she is taking you on a trip to the big doll’s house with her. Get her to describe it to you. That might help jog her memory.’
Julia was reluctant to do anything that took Anna back, even if it was only in a game, but she nodded.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘We’ll try.’
She tried that night, lying beside Anna in bed. Anna was freshly bathed and ready for bed and the smell of her filled the room.
‘I was thinking,’ she said. ‘About getting you a special treat.’
Anna stiffened with excitement. ‘What kind of treat? A present kind of treat?’
‘Maybe a doll’s house,’ Julia said. ‘If you want one.’
‘Mummy,’ Anna said. ‘Of course, I want one!’
‘One like the one you slept in?’
‘No!’ Anna said. ‘I would like one with doors and tables and chairs and lots of dolls. ’
‘That one didn’t have those things?’
‘No. It didn’t have anything.’
‘What did it have?’
Anna shook her head. ‘I don’t remember, Mummy. It was dark. And I was sleepy.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Mummy!’ Anna rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I want to talk about the doll’s house you are going to buy for me!’
‘OK,’ Julia said. ‘Let’s talk about that.’
She lay back and listened while Anna rattled off all the things her doll’s house would have. There were a lot of them – it was going to be more like a doll’s castle than a house – and Julia was glad that her daughter did not seem traumatized by whatever had happened to her.
She, on the other hand, could hardly bear to hear the words doll’s house. It reminded her that someone had kidnapped Anna and held her captive, reminded her of the utter anguish she had gone through.
And it reminded her that whoever it was had not been caught. Maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe this really was over. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there was more to come, some sinister plan that Julia could not even guess at.
So she was glad when Anna fell asleep, and she could lie in the silence and hide away from her fears.
vii.
It was late when Julia woke up. Anna was already out of bed, the duvet pulled back, the pillows in disarray. Anna’s favourite monkey was lying face down by the headboard. Julia put her hand out; the bed was still warm.
Downstairs, Edna was sitting at the breakfast table, the remains of two boiled eggs in front of her. Anna was in the living room, skimming through photos on her grandmother’s iPad.
Edna sipped her coffee.
‘I sent Brian for the paper,’ she said. ‘I don’t normally read them, but he needed the fresh air.’
Typical Edna. A robust, common sense solution for every situation, which normally involved exercise, fresh air, pulling yourself together, or all three. She’d have made a good Victorian schoolteacher, although she might have been a bit too harsh and unforgiving for even that environment. Not for the first time, Julia felt sorry for Brian, although it was now mixed with relief that trying to please her mother-in-law was no longer going to be required of her.
‘Good,’ Julia said. ‘He’s a lucky man, having you to take care of him.’
‘He is. And he’s going to need it when he leaves his home.’
‘That won’t be for a while, at least,’ Julia said.
Edna was, as always, sitting totally upright, but she still managed to straighten in her chair. ‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘Brian’s staying here. Until things settle down.’
Edna nodded slowly. ‘I see. And how long will that be?’
‘I don’t know. Six months. A year. However long it takes, I guess.’
‘However long what takes?’
‘I don’t know, Edna,’ Julia said. ‘It’s not one specific thing. It just doesn’t feel like now is the right time for him to leave. It might unsettle Anna, for starters.’
‘Anna will be fine,’ Edna said. ‘Children are more robust than we give them credit for.’
‘Right. Of course.’ This was another of Edna’s firmest beliefs: children were tough and were only damaged by mollycoddling. They needed to learn that there was bad as well as good in the world and how to deal with it. Insulating them from it only meant that, when the lesson finally came, it would be harder to learn; far better for them to develop early the skills they needed to cope with disappointments and failure.
Julia happened to disagree. If her daughter could live in a cocoon in which only good things happened then fine. There was plenty of time for misery and upset later. She’d never bothered to argue the point with Edna – it would only have created a problem – but now she had nothing to lose.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think they are. I think they are fragile and delicate and need our love and support. Divorce is disruptive and confusing for children, and I don’t think now is a good time for Anna to suffer through it. There’s too much other stuff going on.’
‘Nonsense,’ Edna said. ‘Thousands of—’
‘You know,’ Julia said. ‘I don’t really want to discuss it. What Brian and I do is our business, and we’ll decide between us what course to take. Whether you agree with it or not is really not of interest to me.’
‘It should be,’ Edna said. ‘I have a lot of experience—’
‘Of what?’ Julia said. She was uncontrollably angry; she wanted nothing to do with Edna, and the more she could insult her the more chance there was she would leave Julia alone. ‘Of failed marriages? Of how to drive away your husband? Because that’s what happened, isn’t it? You were so awful that Jim found comfort in the bed of another woman and left.’
‘So,’ Edna said. ‘That’s what you think of me. I’m glad to see your true colours at last. They might not be all that impressive, but at least now you can claim the virtue of honesty. Maybe, anyway. You don’t have much of a track record in the honesty department, after all. And you’d know a thing or two about providing comfort to married men. What was the name of the man whose marriage you destroyed again?’
Julia stopped herself replying. She could see Edna wanted an argument, wanted them to end by shouting insults at each other. Then she could use this as evidence of the unsuitability of Brian staying at home. Julia could picture her now, shaking her head at Brian, saying how can I set foot in that house again, after what she said to me. She couldn’t make the decision herself, so she wanted to create conflict, drive an even deeper wedge into their marriage so that the few remaining bonds were torn apart.
Julia didn’t want to let her have that, so she shook her head and walked into the living room. She sat next to Anna and pulled her close to her.
‘Want to read a book?’ she asked.
Anna looked up at her and smiled. ‘Can we read The BFG?’ she said.
They’d read it twice a few months back and Anna loved it. Julia would not have chosen it again, but she didn’t care. She would have her read the ingredients on a toothpaste tube. She was just glad to be reading to her at all.
They were just arriving at the BFG’s cave when the front door opened. Brian came into the living room, carrying a newspaper and a purple box of chocolates.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘The BFG. My favourite.’ He made a puzzled face and put on a deep West Country accent, which, Julia remembered, was his BFG voice. ‘Where’s my Snozzcumbers? Human beans is very tasty beans.’
Anna giggled. ‘Daddy,’ she said. ‘You’re so funny.’
Brian waggled his eyebrows. ‘I trys me best,’ he said, still in his BFG voice. He held out the box of chocolates. It was about two feet square; Julia wasn’t sure she had ever seen such a large box. Anna reached out and took it.
‘For you,’ Brian said. ‘Some choccies.’
Anna pulled the lid off the box. Her eyes widened. ‘For me? All of them?’
‘All for you.’
‘You can have one, Daddy,’ she said. ‘Or two.’
‘Or three?’ Brian said.
‘Two,’ Anna clarified. She looked at Julia. ‘And you can have two as well, Mummy.’
Julia took a chocolate. She bit into it; it was a rose cream. She hated rose creams. ‘It’s delicious,’ she said. ‘Thank you, darling.’
Brian picked a chocolate from the box. ‘I’ll take one for grandma,’ he said. ‘She loves chocolates. Then I’ll be right back for mine.’
He went into the kitchen. Julia heard him put the newspapers on the countertop, then tell Edna he had a surprise for her.
‘So,’ Julia said. ‘Were there chocolates in the doll’s house?’
Anna paused. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Just dust.’
‘Oh?’ Julia said. ‘Was it an old doll’s house?’
‘I think so,’ Anna said.
‘Did it smell new or old?’
‘Mummy,’ Anna said. ‘You can’t smell old! It’s not a thing, like flowers. It doesn’t smell.’
‘I know,’ Julia said. ‘But sometimes things smell stale if they’re old. Like dust. You mentioned dust.’
‘Oh,’ Anna said. ‘The dust wasn’t in the doll’s house. It was on the floor.’
‘What floor?’
‘The floor of the room the doll’s house was in.’
Julia tried to act calmly, despite the adrenaline flooding her body. ‘What room was it in?’
Anna pursed her lips. ‘I don’t know. A dark room. It was a bit cold, as well.’
‘Like a cellar?’
‘What’s a cellar?’
Julia thought for a second. ‘Was the floor hard? Like stone?’
Anna nodded.
‘Were you standing on the floor, looking at the doll’s house?’
‘Maybe,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t really remember. Mummy, don’t ask me any more questions. I don’t like it.’
‘One more, darling. Can you think what colour the doll’s house was?’
‘I think red,’ Anna said. ‘Or blue, maybe.’
‘Red,’ Edna said. She was standing in the doorway, watching. ‘Or blue, maybe. I think you may be wasting your time.’
‘Thanks for the words of support, Edna,’ Julia said. ‘But since it’s my time I feel as though I am free to waste it all I want.’
‘Very good,’ Edna said. ‘I have to leave.’
She smiled at Julia. It was a strange smile, although Julia could not work out exactly what it was about it that was odd. It was forced, somehow, almost mocking.
‘Bye,’ Julia said. ‘See you later.’
‘Yes,’ Edna said. ‘You will.’
viii.
Julia let the hot shower course over her body. She understood why religious ceremonies of rebirth often took place in water; the idea of washing away the sins of the past wasn’t simply symbolism – there was a definite physical sensation that things were changing, that the old was sluicing off and making space for the new.
And who knew what that would be?
She’d left Anna with Brian and The BFG. Anna was folded at the waist with laughter at her dad’s funny voices; Julia had been both delighted and puzzled by it. Delighted, because her daughter was home and happy, and puzzled because she couldn’t quite work out how she had missed the strength of Anna’s love for her father. Maybe her own disillusionment with Brian had clouded her view, and she had assumed that Anna too found him tedious and uninspiring, but that was emphatically not the case. Seeing them together that morning she had realized that Anna adored him, that she found him the funniest and kindest and strongest man in the world.
And it changed her view of him, too. Not completely; she still didn’t get a thrill at the thought of him, didn’t see him as the rock she could lean on through the rest of her life’s journey, but enough to make her wonder whether she had misjudged him, whether the root cause of her disenchantment with life was not Brian but something inside her. Maybe she was unfulfilled because of her approach to life, or her job, or the lack of adventure in her character. And if that was the case, then breaking up the family would not solve her problem. Taking up scuba diving or adopting a baby or learning the piano might, but not breaking up the family.
So she was glad to have the chance to keep them all together for a while. It would allow her to figure things out, to see whether her newfound admiration for Brian was just part of the general euphoria at Anna’s return or whether it really was a change in her view of him. And if it was the latter, then maybe it signalled a change in their relationship. Maybe they had a future together, after all.
Maybe. Maybe not. But at least she was going to have the opportunity to find out.
She took a bit of time getting dressed. Applied a light perfume. Wore a pair of jeans that hugged her hips and butt, which she knew Brian liked. She wasn’t planning to seduce him, but there was no harm in raising her game a little. If their relationship was to have a chance at all then she owed it to them both to fan whatever tiny flame there was.
He was coming upstairs as she crossed the landing, Anna in his arms.
‘She crashed out,’ he said. ‘Fast asleep. Too much BFG and too much sugar. You know how it goes: big high, sudden low. I’m going to put her down. I’ll put her with me in my bed. I need a nap too.’
‘Right,’ Julia said. ‘Sounds like a good idea.’
He looked at her. ‘Are you going out?’
‘No. Just wanted to spruce up a bit. After the last week.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because before I go to sleep I want to discuss something with you.’
There was briskness in his voice, an air of decisiveness, of a mind being made up. She got the impression he had something important, no, crucial, to tell her. Something like the possibility that their marriage may not be over after all. Julia felt her stomach contract with anticipation.
Look, he would say. I know things have been bad – awful – between us. But perhaps this whole episode with Anna has been good for us, in a strange kind of way. Maybe losing everything made us see what we have.
Hmm, she’d reply. I know what you mean. So what should we do?
He’d get a slightly nervous expression, like a teenager asking a girl out on a date that he thinks will make or break his existence, before continuing. Well, I know it won’t be easy. But perhaps we should give it another chance. See if we can make it work.
OK, she’d say. I think you’re right. Let’s try.
And then … what? They’d hug? Kiss? Make love? Take a nap together? Or just separate, her going make a cup of tea and him going to lie down with Anna. Probably the latter, which would be fine. There’d be plenty of time later to work out the details, to decide when and whether to move back into the same room, or to rekindle their sex lives. Maybe they’d go away on holiday for a week, snuggle up as a family. It would be good to get away, use a fresh place to get a fresh perspective. They could put Anna to bed in the evenings and then they could sit down and sort it all out.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in the living room.’
He came down a few minutes later. Julia was sitting at one end of the couch. She gestured to the other end. He ignored her and remained standing, by the door.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Earlier we talked about staying together, in the house, for Anna’s sake.’
‘Right,’ Julia said. ‘Keep the family intact.’
‘That’s kind of the thing,’ Brian said. ‘The family is not intact. Pretending it is, is – it’s ridiculous, Julia.’
She blinked. ‘It’s just for a while. So Anna can settle back in.’
‘I don’t see the point. It’s over. We should just accept it and move on.’
‘So, what are you saying?’
‘I think we should stick to our original plan. I move out and stay with Mum.’
‘I don’t believe this. We agreed that it was best for Anna if you stay here!’
‘Things changed.’
‘What changed?’ Julia held up her hand, her palm facing Brian. She didn’t need to ask. ‘Don’t answer,’ she said. ‘I know what changed. Edna. She told you off for not doing what she wants and you jumped into line. I should have known.’
Brian blushed. ‘That’s not what happened.’
‘No? So how come we agreed something last night, then Edna shows up, finds out, has a chat with you, and mysteriously you change your mind? Mummy told you what to do, Brian, and you’re doing it.’
He was standing back on his heels. He folded his arms. ‘Not at all. It’s my decision.’
‘Yeah? Then what happened to it being best for Anna if you stay? I thought we were going to do what was best for her, not each other?’
‘We are. And it’s best for Anna if we go through this now. There’s no point in her living in a miserable household for a year, watching us argue, wondering whether it’s her fault, and then seeing us separate. It’s better just to do it now. It’s like removing a plaster. It’s better just to rip it off.’
Now she knew he’d been influenced by his mother. The ‘rip-off the plaster in one go’ philosophy was pure Edna. It might as well have been her speaking.
‘This is pathetic, Brian, you know that? We make a decision as parents that we both agree is for the best, and then you change your mind because you don’t have the balls to stand up to your mother.’
‘That’s not true,’ he said. ‘That’s not how it is.’
‘You keep telling yourself that,’ Julia said. ‘Maybe you’ll convince yourself one day. Until then we’ll both know the truth.’
‘So I’m going to go,’ he said. ‘This Monday. We’ll have the weekend and then I’ll be gone.’
‘Fine. You do whatever makes Mummy happy.’
He shrugged and left the room. Julia rubbed her temples. So that was that, then. Anna was going to have to suffer her parents’ divorce on top of everything else. Fucking Edna. She had to win, whatever the cost. There was no point arguing, either. Edna was always right. If she thought it was best for Anna to do this quickly and immediately, then no amount of argument or evidence to the contrary would work. Once Edna decided something it was decided forever. The problem was she was so convinced of the superiority of her intellect that she could not accept that other people’s experience was valid. For example, she didn’t believe in depression; she saw it as weakness and so could not imagine herself ever succumbing to it. As a result she dismissed all those that did as malingerers who needed a sharp kick up the backside. No amount of expert opinion could change her mind. If shown – as Julia had once done – a medical opinion that claimed depression to be an illness with a physiological basis, she would simply dismiss it. Of course, they think that, she’d say. That’s exactly the problem. They allow these people to think they have an illness, when what they have is an attitude problem.
And Brian shared Edna’s belief in her infallibility, so he would parrot her opinions. It was one of the things about him that infuriated Julia.
So there would be no appealing to arguments about Anna’s welfare, and there would be no convincing Brian his mum was wrong.
Still, at least one good thing had come of this: she no longer harboured any illusions that she and Brian might get back together. The last few minutes had reminded her exactly why she had wanted out in the first place.
So fuck him. He could go. He could limp back broken-winged to the safety of the nest, and good riddance to him. She’d stay here with Anna, and together they’d make the life they deserved. It wouldn’t be that bad; tough at first, maybe, but then she’d been ready for that anyway. She’d make it work.
She smiled. Perhaps Edna – the interfering old bitch – had done her a favour. If she hadn’t intervened Julia might have tried to keep it going with Brian, might have been fooled into thinking it could work. And who knew where that would have ended up? She might have wasted months, years, before she finally started on her new life. Or maybe she would never have done it, and ended up a bitter old woman in an empty house and a loveless marriage.
So yes, maybe this was for the best after all.