Stranger Child (11 page)

Emma walked towards the table, expecting to see Natasha sitting there, eating her breakfast. She looked over her shoulder to the other end of the room.

She stopped dead and turned round. The kitchen was empty.

Natasha had gone.

*

‘Oh God, where is she?’ Emma whispered to herself, trying to hide her anxiety from Ollie, who was resting on one hip as Emma made a tour of the downstairs rooms.

‘She must be upstairs. Must have gone up while I was dressing you, Ollie.’ Emma tried to rush up the stairs, but carting Ollie’s eleven kilos around was beginning to take its toll.

She pushed open the door to Natasha’s room. ‘Tasha,’ she shouted, her breath catching. ‘Are you there, love?’

No answer. But on Natasha’s past performance that meant nothing, so she was going to have to look. She dashed around all the upstairs rooms – even checking her and David’s en suite bathroom and walk-in wardrobe. There wasn’t a sign.

‘Where are you, Natasha,’ she muttered, taking the stairs down as quickly as she could without putting Ollie at risk.

She checked the places she hadn’t thought to look in downstairs – the cloakroom and even the understairs cupboard. But Natasha wasn’t here. She wasn’t in the house.

‘Shit,’ she muttered, glancing worriedly at Ollie. But he was too bewildered by all the rushing around to pick up on anything she said. Poor baby.

She hurried into the kitchen and looked out at the garden. It was empty of all but the builders’ rubble.

Grasping the handle to the back door, she jerked the buggy from the porch into the kitchen and pushed Ollie into it.

‘We’re going to have to go and look for her, sweetheart. Okay?’

‘Kay,’ Ollie smiled. He didn’t know what was going on, but he sensed excitement of some sort.

Leaving him where he was, Emma went into the back porch to grab her red fleece. It wasn’t there.

‘What the
hell
have I done with it?’ she said. She grabbed David’s dark-grey gardening fleece with the paint stains and holes in, and a blanket to put over Ollie. Shoving her feet into a pair of wellingtons, she went back into the kitchen and tucked the blanket around her son.

‘Stay under there, poppet. We’re not going to be out for long.’

Kicking the door wide with the heel of her left foot, she manoeuvred Ollie through the porch and down the back steps.

Running as fast as she could, she made her way along the side path by the impenetrable high hedge that bordered a narrow track into the fields beyond. They were halfway along the path when she heard a voice from the far side of the hedge. She heard four words.

‘It wasn’t my fault.’

She stopped to listen. It was Tasha’s voice. She desperately wanted to hear what else was said, but Ollie heard the voice too.

‘Ay, ay, Tassa,’ he called at the top of his little voice.

The talking stopped, and Emma started to run. She wanted to know who the hell was with Tasha. She raced along the path, Ollie bumping up and down in his buggy. But as she reached the side gate, Natasha came into view wearing Emma’s fleece, her face red, her eyes shining – but whether from anger or unshed tears, Emma couldn’t tell.

‘Who were you talking to, Natasha?’ she asked, trying to keep her tone as level as possible.

‘What?’ Natasha answered rudely, avoiding Emma’s eyes. ‘You must be hearing things.’

Emma left Ollie in his buggy and walked towards Natasha, aiming to get past her to check for herself. But Natasha leaned back against the gate, both elbows resting nonchalantly on the top.

‘Move,’ Emma said. Natasha’s mouth settled into a hard line and she shook her head.

‘Move
, Natasha,’ Emma repeated. The girl stared defiantly back at her.

Pushing Ollie to one side, where she could keep him in view, Emma ran along the path at the front of the house, down the drive and through the gate, never letting Ollie out of her sight. By the time she was in the lane, it was empty. There was nobody there.

She heard a mirthless laugh behind her.

‘Come on, Ollie,’ Natasha said, grabbing the buggy and turning it back towards the house. ‘Let’s go in.’

‘Leave him!’ Emma shouted. ‘Don’t touch him.’

Emma stopped dead.
Why had she said that?
She didn’t know, she didn’t care. But all of a sudden, she didn’t want Natasha to be alone with her baby.

19

‘Why did you let her out of your sight? You know how vulnerable she is right now. What were you
thinking
?’ David was pacing the kitchen floor, one hand repeatedly scraping the hair back off his forehead.

‘For God’s sake, David, she’s thirteen years old. She’s not a small child who’s going to wander out onto a busy road, and I would have thought the last thing she would want is to be treated like a prisoner. We don’t know how she’s been treated in the past, but that would seem to me to be counterproductive if we want to bring her into this family.’

‘What do you mean,
if
we want to bring her into this family. She
is
in this family.’ David had stopped pacing and was glaring at Emma. She silently cursed herself.

‘Sorry. That was a bad choice of words. Of course she’s part of this family, but I meant that if we want her to
accept
that she’s part of this family.’

‘Well maybe if you stopped treating her like a stranger it would help,’ he said, his voice petulant.

Emma was about to launch into her own defence when her frustration evaporated. Irritating and irrational as David was being, she couldn’t imagine how he must feel at the moment. And she couldn’t in all honesty ignore her own negative feelings – however fleeting – about her stepdaughter.

She took two steps towards him and reached out her hand for his.

‘Let’s stop this, and we should try to keep our voices down. Ollie’s asleep,’ she said, turning to look at her son. ‘He was so upset by all the shouting. It’s taken nearly the full hour since I phoned you to get him settled.’ To Emma, even in sleep Ollie looked fretful. He kept moving his head from side to side, and his cheeks were so red. She needed to calm everything down for his sake, if nobody else’s.

‘The important thing is that Tasha came back,’ Emma said, squeezing David’s hand gently. ‘She said she wanted a bit of fresh air and so she’d gone for a walk down the lane.’

‘You said she was talking to somebody. What if the people that took her had grabbed her again? What then?’ David said. Emma could feel a slight tremor run through his body, and she gently pulled him towards her and put her arms around his waist.

‘That’s exactly why I ran after her,’ she said. ‘Look, I’ve thought about this a lot. Somebody must have brought her back.’ She paused at his impatient look but made herself go on. ‘Think about it. How could she have got here on her own? That afternoon when she appeared in the kitchen, she wasn’t wet. It hadn’t stopped raining all day, so she can’t have walked here. I really think they must have decided to let her go, for reasons that we don’t understand yet, but we will. And yes, I did think I heard her talking to someone out in the lane but I wasn’t fast enough to see who it was, and I could have been wrong.’

She pulled David closer and he rested his cheek against hers. ‘There’s so much we don’t understand. Why won’t she talk to us? She’s my daughter.’

As Emma searched for some words of comfort, their momentary silence was interrupted by the strident peal of the front door bell. She glanced at David and raised her eyebrows in question.

‘I’ll get it,’ he said. ‘And I’ll get rid of whoever it is.’ He smiled at her – the first normal smile she had seen in days - and she felt a layer of anxiety fade away. But it did nothing to eradicate the underlying fear that had no name – the one she couldn’t even voice to her husband.

She could hear David’s footsteps coming back along the hall and could immediately tell that he wasn’t alone.

The door opened. ‘It’s the police,’ David said, ushering Becky Robinson and Charlotte Hughes into the room. ‘They want to talk to Tasha again.’

*

Becky sensed a slight change in atmosphere when she entered the Josephs’ kitchen. Emma and David appeared more in control, no longer reeling from events. She felt sure she was about to disrupt their fragile peace.

‘Inspector Robinson, what can we do for you?’ Emma asked, a puzzled expression on her face.

‘I’m sorry that we have to disturb you. I know we promised to leave you alone for a couple of days, but something’s come up with regard to Natasha, and we need to bring you
up to speed. And please – call me Becky. This is Charley. It will probably make Natasha more comfortable if we drop the formality.’

‘Do you mind if we go into the other room,’ Emma said. She nodded her head towards Ollie, and Becky smiled at his cute face. Babies were at their most adorable when they were asleep, as far as she was concerned.

‘Of course. Is there somewhere with a table?’ she asked.

David led the way into a formal dining room that Becky hadn’t seen before. She couldn’t imagine it was used much, given they had such a huge table in the kitchen cum living room, but maybe the less friendly environment would suit her purposes.

David indicated that they should all sit down and slowly, with as much detail as possible, Becky explained what they had seen on the CCTV on the train and at the station and the conclusions they had drawn.

‘Are you sure it was Tasha?’ David asked.

‘Yes, we are – although of course we’d like your confirmation.’

Becky opened her briefcase and took out four large still images, grabbed from the footage. They were the best shots of Natasha’s face and body.

David looked at the images, and then up at Becky. He didn’t need to confirm anything – his face said it all.

‘But I don’t understand why you’ve assumed this has anything to do with drugs. You’ve got a thirteen-year-old girl on a train – something I expect lots of kids do to get to school – and she gets off and talks to somebody and forgets her backpack. Why drugs?’

Becky decided not to comment on the fact that they had no evidence to suggest Natasha had ever attended any school – travelling by train or otherwise.

‘Well, I don’t want to scare you – but initially British Transport Police thought it was either drugs or guns. We’re now reasonably certain it’s drugs because of where she was going and the station she got off at. They’ve been monitoring that line for a while, and the pattern’s been consistent. The trouble is, they don’t want to arrest the kids – they’re no use to them really. They want the bastards who are controlling the kids, and that’s a bit harder to achieve.’ Becky looked at the faces opposite and saw nothing but confusion. They deserved an explanation.

‘Somebody will have been using her as a runner – maybe regularly, maybe only this once, we don’t know. Kids like Natasha are used as mules – but it doesn’t mean that she was
managing any kind of drugs operation herself. It does suggest, however, that wherever she’s been living there was an association with gangs or maybe an organised crime group.’

David’s skin had turned pale and waxy. ‘Why would these gangs use kids to do this? Tasha only turned thirteen a couple of weeks ago.’

‘They need to be creative, it’s too easy for us to catch them otherwise. Look, we’re trying to track down the boy she left the backpack with, and I’m confident we will. Then we should know more.’

Becky saw David’s expression. Images of the life his daughter had led, a life he had failed to protect her from, must be haunting him.

‘Can we talk to Natasha now, do you think? Of course this sadly means she is a suspect in a crime, so you should stay, David.’

Emma stood up.

‘I’ll tell Tasha to come down and then I’ll go and sit with Ollie. I’ll leave you to it.’

David’s arm shot out and he grabbed Emma’s hand in his.

‘No, Em. It’s time Tasha started to see us as a unit – we’re both supporting her, and we’re on the same side. If Ollie’s awake that’s fine too.’ Becky saw the doubt in Emma’s eyes, as did David it seemed. ‘Please, Em?’

She gave him a smile full of such understanding and warmth that Becky felt a stab of envy.

David tried to make conversation with Charley and Becky while they waited. He was clearly distracted, listening for signs of his family coming downstairs, but none of them heard Natasha enter the room. She was so slight that, walking barefoot, she hadn’t made a sound, and then suddenly there she was, standing stony-eyed in the doorway.

For a moment, the sight of this strange girl silenced them all, but the trance was broken as they heard Emma approach along the hallway and she followed Natasha into the room, clutching a sleepy Ollie in her arms. He immediately leaned sideways to clutch at Natasha’s jumper, trying to attract her attention. She ignored him.

‘Sit down please, Tasha,’ David said. ‘Becky and Charley want a chat with you.’ David looked towards his wife, who was heading back towards the door. ‘Em? Are you coming?’

‘I’ll be there in a second – I’m just going to make a drink for Ollie and Tasha.’

Becky smiled and said hi to Natasha, neither expecting nor getting any response. Sitting down, Natasha pulled the sleeves of her jumper down over her hands and, head bowed, she
played with the same loose thread as she had the last time they had seen her, watching more of the sleeve unravel.

Becky turned the photos of Natasha back over and pushed them across the table.

‘Can you take a look at these photos, Tasha,’ Charley said, her voice gentle.

Natasha raised her eyes to Charley’s and for a second Becky was sure she glimpsed a vulnerability, a plea for understanding, before the shutters came back down.

She lowered her head to look at the pictures, and Becky didn’t need to be a child psychologist to recognise the expression that passed over her face. Even with her head down, Becky saw Natasha’s eyes open wide for a second, the top teeth come down over the bottom lip. And now she wouldn’t meet anybody’s eyes, staring instead at a teapot in the centre of the table.

‘Do you want to tell us about this, Tasha?’ Charley asked. There was no answer.

‘What was in the bag. Can you tell me that?’ Becky continued. ‘We’re asking you to tell us the truth, Tasha.’