Little Girl Gone: A gripping crime thriller full of twists and turns

3

Six calls and messages to Ray had yielded no results.

Where the hell was he, and why wasn’t he answering?

He should know that she wouldn’t keep calling unless it was an emergency.

The rain was still heavy. She no longer cared that her hair looked like she’d just stepped out of the shower and that her eyeliner had left streaks down her cheeks. None of that mattered anymore.

Returning to the back of the car, she opened and checked the boot for a second time. She knew it was impossible that Carol-Anne could have figured out how to lower the rear seats and crawl through to the boot, but she was fast running out of ideas about where her daughter could have gone.

She’d never felt so scared in all her life. What if Carol-Anne had somehow managed to get out of the car, and rather than walking towards Alex had taken a wrong turn? What if a car had hit her? Or what if she was out there now, lost and alone and wondering why her Mummy had abandoned her?

Why hadn’t she just taken Carol-Anne to the ticket machine with her? That would be the first question Ray would fire at her, and he’d be right to blame her for the moment of madness. She’d thought she was doing the right thing. She’d locked the car so Carol-Anne would be safe. And then the alarm had sounded. She hadn’t looked away for any real length of time, she was sure of that.

She replayed the two-minute period over and over in her mind, hunting for any detail or clue that would help her see through the fog of uncertainty clouding her every thought. She was certain she had strapped the harness around Carol-Anne before they’d set off from home. She would have noticed otherwise, wouldn’t she? Even so, there was no way Carol-Anne could have figured out how to unclip the harness herself. God knew, it was struggle enough to put the damned thing on each time, how could a two-year-old manage to undo it? Why else wouldn’t she be there now? As ridiculous as it sounded, if Carol-Anne hadn’t unfastened the harness that could only mean someone else had, and Alex was doing everything in her power to keep those thoughts from her mind.

Realistically it was the most likely explanation, but to cave in to that conclusion was to invite a whole new world of pain. The urge to vomit was returning, and this time she stooped over and dry-retched.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she looked at her phone. Ray still hadn’t replied. He’d know what to do. He was always so much more pragmatic than she was. And given his experience in the force, he’d know what steps to follow. She desperately hoped – even though deep down she knew she was kidding herself – that Ray had stopped by, seen Carol-Anne alone, and he’d been the one to take her, and that was why she couldn’t now get hold of him. He was playing some kind of twisted game; that had to be it! He hadn’t been that keen on her coming for the interview, and so rather than supporting her decision, he was retaliating in the cruellest way.

Slamming the boot, she moved back to Carol-Anne’s window and stared in. When she had last turned to look at her daughter, there had been no sign to suggest the harness had been loose or not clipped together. She never would have considered leaving her alone in the car if she had thought there was some way Carol-Anne could have fallen from the seat.

How could anyone else have taken her?

She retraced her steps back to the ticket machine, playing the memory in real time. She had locked the car with the remote as she had darted through the rain. It had beeped as the alarm had cut in. And then when she’d got to the machine the alarm had sounded, meaning Carol-Anne had to have been in the car then.

She froze halfway to the machine, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end; what if Carol-Anne hadn’t been the cause of the alarm being triggered?

Alex had looked over at the car as the alarm had sounded. She would have noticed somebody lurking at the side of the car, wouldn’t she? And there had been no sign of anyone anywhere in the car park. She would have seen a stranger snatching her daughter, wouldn’t she?

Having switched the alarm off, she couldn’t have been by the ticket machine for more than twenty seconds – thirty at most – and then she’d hurried back. If somebody had opened Carol-Anne’s door, unfastened the harness, closed the door and snuck away, Alex would have spotted them. There had been no colour among the drab view of cars as the rain had thundered down; she was sure of that. There had to be something else she was missing.

Alex jumped as her phone burst into sound. ‘Oh, Ray, thank God, where have you been?’

‘Sorry, babe, I was in a team meeting. How’d your interview go? Do you think you got it?’

‘I need you, Ray. Right now! It’s Carol-Anne … she’s-she’s-she’s …’ but Alex couldn’t bring herself to say the words as her eyes filled with tears, threatening to burst at any second.

‘Carol-Anne. What’s wrong? Is she okay? Has something happened?’

Alex tilted her head back, desperate not to burst the damn holding the tears in place.

‘Alex? What’s going on? Where are you?’

‘She’s gone,’ she managed, her voice barely a whisper, as the tears ran down her cheeks.

‘She’s what? I didn’t hear what you said. It sounded like—’

‘She’s gone, Ray. I think someone’s taken her. Oh God,’ she sobbed.

‘What do you mean someone’s taken her? Where are you, Alex?’

‘I came to town for my interview, and I was in the car park w-w-when …’

‘What car park, Alex? Tell me exactly where you are and I’ll come across straight away.’

‘The Woodside Road car park. Please hurry, Ray.’

The line disconnected, and Alex buried her head in her hands, willing Ray to arrive and save her fragile mind.

The sudden sound of a child’s laughter caused the sobbing to stop almost immediately, as she strained to hear where it was coming from. Scanning the car park once more, Alex saw a woman in a long, hooded jacket, loading something into her back seat. Setting off without a second’s thought, Alex splashed through the puddles in the uneven surface.

The hooded woman was now fewer than twenty yards away. She was closing the rear door of her estate car, and already had a hand on the driver’s side door handle. Alex had never been much of a runner, but from somewhere deep she found the drive to move her legs quicker, almost colliding with the car’s bumper, as she tried to steady herself. The woman jumped as Alex rested both hands on the bonnet; this woman wasn’t going anywhere with her daughter.

The woman pulled her hood down to reveal a mop of tight strawberry-blonde curls. Winding her window down, she leaned out and called to Alex. ‘Can I help you with something? Do you want my space?’

Alex sucked in lungfuls of air, as she tried to steady her breathing. Rather than replying, she stalked around to the rear passenger door, and tried to stare through the rain-covered and misted glass. A bob of fair hair could be seen in a child seat.

Alex pulled on the door handle, but it was locked.

‘Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ the woman demanded, now standing with one leg in the car and one outside. ‘Get away from my car.’

‘Give me my daughter back,’ Alex demanded, standing firm. ‘Open this door.’

The woman stared back at her, puzzled. ‘I’m warning you: get away from my daughter’s door. I’ll call the police,’ she threatened holding her mobile aloft.

‘Good,’ Alex fired back wide-eyed with anger. ‘Call them. Then you can explain to them why you took my daughter from my car and tried to drive off with her.’

The woman looked around the car park, as if she was expecting a film crew to appear at any moment and reveal Alex’s behaviour was all part of an elaborate practical joke. ‘I won’t tell you again: back away from my car so I can leave.’

‘Give me back my daughter!’

‘I don’t have your daughter!’ the woman screamed back. ‘That is my daughter in the car.’

Alex stepped back uncertainly. ‘Of course you’d say that.’

The woman’s anger boiled over. Straightening, she slammed the door behind her and stomped past Alex, opening the rear passenger door. ‘Take a look yourself!’

Alex hurried forward, stopping only when her eyes fell on the blue eyes of the toddler staring back at her, clearly worried by the raised voices.

Alex stared from the toddler to the angry mother.

‘Well? Satisfied now?’

Alex wobbled, before falling to her knees despite the wet ground, and allowing her terror to escape in a sorrowful scream.

The other woman closed and locked her daughter’s door, before crouching down beside Alex. ‘Are you okay, love?’

‘My-my-my daughter,’ Alex wailed. ‘She’s missing.’

The woman gasped, understanding the sheer terror that had driven Alex to behave so irrationally. Suddenly all the anger was gone from her voice. ‘Missing? You poor thing. When did you last see her?’

Alex couldn’t respond, as the sobs returned with a vengeance. The woman opened the front passenger door and manoeuvred Alex into it, before racing around and diving into her own seat.

Offering a packet of tissues, she said, ‘Is there anything I can do? Can I call someone for you?’

‘My husband is on his way,’ Alex replied, through stilted breaths, accepting one of the tissues and blowing her nose, embarrassed by her outburst and accusation.

‘When did this happen?’

Alex did her best to steady her breathing, but she might as well have not bothered. ‘Just now … I left her in the car while I went to get a ticket … one minute she was there, and the next …’ Her eyes stung as further tears threatened to fall.

‘Oh my, you poor thing. Have you called the police?’

Alex nodded. ‘My husband’s in … I mean, my husband is a detective.’

‘You’re welcome to wait here until he arrives,’ the woman offered. ‘What does your daughter look like? Was she wearing a coat?’

‘She has blonde hair and the cutest face … she was wearing a bright red anorak.’

The woman’s eyes darted left and right as she too began to search helplessly for any sign of Carol-Anne. ‘She can’t have gone far. Have you tried heading out to the main road in case she wandered off?’

Alex shook her head.

‘That’s probably what’s happened,’ the woman concluded, trying to sound positive for both of their sakes. ‘I know what kids can be like. My little one wandered off in a supermarket once. Scared me to death, she did. I was searching everywhere for her, and when I returned to the trolley there she was, totally oblivious to the years she’d shaved off my life expectancy. I’m sure your daughter will turn up too. The important thing is to remain focused.’

Alex looked up at the woman through clouded eyes. ‘I’m sorry about what I said—’

‘Don’t be silly. I imagine I’d have been far ruder in your situation. I’m sorry I was so abrupt with you initially.’

‘How old is your little one?’ Alex asked.

‘Eighteen months,’ the woman replied, turning and smiling at her daughter to reassure her. ‘And yours?’

‘Two years.’ Alex paused. ‘What kind of mother would allow her daughter to be snatched like this?’

Neither answered the question. Alex stared back out into the rain-washed car park, her paranoia going into overdrive.

4

Ray was still squeezing the phone as Owen returned to his desk.

‘Everything okay, Ray?’

Ray took a deep breath, trying to suppress the blizzard of questions racing through his mind. ‘Um, no … I don’t know …’

Owen frowned at his colleague. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s going on?’

Ray blinked several times, his mind in limbo somewhere between reality and disbelief. ‘That was Alex … she said that someone has taken our daughter … I need to go.’

Owen’s eyes widened at the admission. ‘Someone’s taken her? Like, as in, taken her?’

The computer on the desk blurred as Ray tried to focus on where he was and what he needed to do next. Nausea swept through him as the room began to spin. Reaching out for his chair, he steadied himself.

Sensing the seriousness of the situation, Owen lowered his mug to the desk and grabbed a set of keys from the tray on one of the cabinets. ‘Come on, I’ll drive you.’

Ray allowed Owen to lead him from the office, down the double set of stairs and into the yard where the team’s unmarked squad cars rested.

Holding the key aloft, Owen pressed the remote and looked to see which unlocked, nodding towards the Focus. ‘That one,’ he said, as he grabbed Ray’s arm and put him in the passenger seat.

It was like he was watching a film of his life, with some not-so-attractive actor playing him. He knew what was happening, but had no control over where the script would take them.

Among the questions to be considered was whether he should report the phone call to DI Trent immediately, but he needed to assess the situation first. It wouldn’t be the first time Alex had overreacted to a simple situation.

Things hadn’t been right with her since the miscarriage, and he’d urged her to see a counsellor after the loss. She’d assured him she didn’t need it, and had focused her attention on Carol-Anne and then hunting for a new job. But she’d been on edge, flying off the handle at the littlest of irritations, constantly lethargic. And then two weeks after it happened, he’d found her in what would have been the nursery holding a knife. She insisted she’d been washing up and had become distracted by the sound of crying, which is why she’d climbed the stairs. Thankfully, Carol-Anne had been with him at the shop, and was oblivious to her mother’s delicate state of mind.

Then there was what had happened in Manchester with the girl at the park. He’d insisted on counselling after that, and she’d had no choice but to go, though he couldn’t remember the last time she’d talked about her progress, or even the last time he’d seen her take the medication the GP had prescribed.

Calling to tell him someone had taken Carol-Anne: could her mind have finally snapped? Alex was many things, but could she really have done something to put their daughter’s life in danger? Ray desperately hoped he was misjudging his wife, although only time would tell.

‘Where are we headed?’ Owen asked as he started the engine.

‘The car park off Woodside Road, down from the Civic Centre.’

‘I know the place. Belt up.’ Owen nodded, engaging the lights built in to the grill. ‘What else did Alex tell you?’

Ray tried to recall the conversation. Usually his memory was good; however a flurry of questions interrupted every time he tried to hear Alex’s words again. ‘She was going to town for an interview. She was supposed to be dropping our daughter at a crèche, heading to the Civic Centre for the interview, picking up Carol-Anne and then coming home.’

‘What time was the interview?’

‘At three, I think.’

Owen noted the time on the dashboard display. ‘Well she either didn’t make it, or it was the shortest interview in history. Do you think someone took your daughter from the crèche? I mean, do you think it could be a simple mix-up? Like the supervisors gave the wrong child to the wrong mother?’

Ray could only hope it was that simple, but the anxiety in Alex’s voice had suggested something far worse had happened.

‘Either way,’ Owen concluded, ‘we should probably call it in. You know how vital the first hours are in abduction cases. At the very least, we should see if there are any units in the area. If someone has snatched your daughter, we should get a description out there as soon as possible.’

Owen put the radio to his mouth and called it in, requesting backup at the car park.

‘I really appreciate your support,’ Ray said when the radio quietened.

‘Listen, mate, you don’t need to say thank you. You know we take care of our own. And if some nutcase has snatched your daughter, we’ll do everything to get her back.’

Ray appreciated the sentiment, even if it was scant consolation. He couldn’t stop picturing a future where a tiny coffin was lowered into the ground, and it was all he could do not to break down.

The patrol car was first on the scene, swiftly followed by Owen and Ray, with a third joining moments later.

‘Do you see Alex?’ Owen asked, scanning the immediate vicinity.

Ray couldn’t, at first, surprised at how busy the car park was. ‘There’s her car,’ he said, recognizing the registration number and pointing at the hatchback.

Owen brought the car to a halt immediately in front of Alex’s, and the two of them jumped out. Noticing that Alex wasn’t behind the wheel, he pulled out his phone and called her, and she was soon running over to them, throwing her arms around his neck.

‘Oh, Ray, thank God, I only looked away for a moment, and …’

Ray wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her still for a moment, knowing that he needed to be pragmatic. Now wasn’t the time for emotion. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Alex steadied herself before recounting the story, retracing her steps, explaining her actions throughout. ‘I couldn’t have been looking away for anything more than twenty to thirty seconds, I swear to you.’

Owen was examining the door handle, shining his phone’s torch on it, looking for any obvious fingerprints or smudges. ‘And you said the car was locked?’

‘Yes. The alarm sounded while I was at the machine, but I couldn’t see anyone, and assumed it was Carol-Anne moving about that had caused it.’

Ray remained standing in front of the car, scouring the horizon for potential security cameras that might have captured what had happened, only spotting one some distance behind the car park.

For the first time his blood ran cold. His little girl – his bundle and joy – was out there alone and needed him more than ever.

Ray called Owen over as his training kicked in. ‘Do me a favour: get Alex out of this rain; put her in the back of our car and take her to get a cup of tea or something, will you? There will be a mountain of questions to scale, and she needs to be calm and rational.’

Owen nodded and moved over to Alex. She looked at Ray as Owen spoke to her, and he gave her a nod to confirm she should go with Owen. Waiting until the car had pulled away, he instructed the uniforms to set up a perimeter, preventing access to the car park, and to take the names and identification of anyone returning to collect their vehicle. And then with trembling fingers, he searched for Trent’s number, placing the phone to his ear.

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