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Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
Copyright © Bryony Pearce 2021
Cover design © Claire Ward, HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
Cover photographs © Evelina Kremsdorf/Trevillion images (girl), Shutterstock.com (all other images)
Bryony Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008441845
Ebook Edition © April 2021 ISBN: 9780008441852
Version: 2021-02-22
Dedication
To my husband, Andy, and to my children, Maisie and Riley.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
The girl is …
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
The girl is …
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The food comes …
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
She’s been in …
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
‘You can’t go …
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
The room is …
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
It isn’t a …
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Sometimes the film …
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
The little girl …
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
The little girl …
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
‘What’s your name?’ …
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
The girl is curled into such a tiny space that it seems she wants to disappear. Her feet are tucked so far up that her knees touch her narrow chin. Her trembling hands are wrapped around them. She’s been shivering for a long time.
There is little light but, somehow, she has found it and it picks out her tear-stained face, cruelly highlighting the lines of her misery. One of her arms is hurt; she is wearing a bandage and cradling it carefully. The fingers of this hand do not hold her knee as tightly as those of the other. She has sock marks: ridged indents and a tan line that begins just above her ankle bone and vanishes under a pale yellow dress. She has old scabs on her knees and a fresh cut on one skinny elbow. There is a scar on her forehead, a faint smile of white skin, a little puckered. Her dark hair has been cut short but her eyes could be any colour. They are tightly closed, as if she is wishing herself away.
And she is crying. Her tears sparkle in the dusty glow and soak into the primrose material, darkening her collar and sticking it to her skin. But she is crying silently. Sniffing into her elbow, desperately keeping quiet. She is not calling for her mother. She isn’t calling for anyone.
Chapter 1
The District Line is closed, Euston impenetrable. Commuters, who know where they are going, are attempting to hustle around tourists, who don’t. They crowd the centre of the concourse, forming an obstacle course of suitcases and swinging rucksacks.
The noise is making my already aching head pound: tinny announcements, parents shouting for their kids to behave, to get back here, the raucous laughter of a hen-party wearing sashes so pink they hurt my eyes. A row breaks out on my right; someone has trodden on someone else. It is all too much. I want to be home.
My belly wobbles as I up my pace, the jelly-like, post-baby jiggle unabated despite my vows to get back into pre-maternity clothes. I resolutely refuse to buy new work outfits and now my waistband is torturing me, cutting me in half, despite two unhooked buttons. With each step the yoke pulls tight over my wobbling backside.
I keep my head down, pushing towards the escalator, too-high shoes ticking on the floor, sweat tickling my body, exhaustion hanging off me like my unseasonal winter coat. My fingers keep loosening on my bag, as if my body has decided to just shut down and stop, regardless of my location. I lift the case higher and use it to batter my way towards the stair. If I miss this train, I’m facing a half-hour wait till the next one. Midnight before I can drop into bed and another day without feeling Grace’s fingers around mine or looking into her eyes. I’ll see her in the middle of the night when she wakes for a feed, and maybe in the morning, but she is like her mum; a grumpy waker, offended to have been dragged from her dreams by the demands of her stomach.
Just the thought of dreams makes my eyes shutter closed. I groan and start past a couple with a pram, my thoughts once again turning to my own baby and the Bugaboo I won’t be using myself until the weekend.
‘Excuse me, Miss? How do we get to the Underground?’
It hurts too much to look at them. I don’t want to see their, no doubt sleeping, infant when I haven’t seen Grace since the night before. I mutter something half-formed, refuse eye contact, point vaguely behind me and hurry on.
Finally, my feet hit metal and I sway to a stop, letting the moving step sweep me upward, my eyes on a pink chunk of bubble gum fingerprinted underneath the handrail, as if someone had wanted to leave evidence of themselves behind. The pressure of humanity eases slightly, and I relax, for a brief moment, just in time to be shoulder-barged by two teenage boys who yell as they race past, as though it is my fault, as though I too should be running full tilt. I stagger into the rail and a hand from behind steadies me.
‘All right?’ An impression of kind brown eyes, a turban. I nod and drop my head again, rubbing my shoulder with one hand, staring at my scuffed shoes. God, what a day.
I turn my thoughts once more towards home as I stumble through the ticket barrier and onto the platform, taking another breath as the queue is forced into single file by the machine that counts us through. The train is already here, and I adopt a shambling run, ignoring my aching feet. A wail of a siren from beyond the fence triggers the prickle of my let-down reflex. A whistle and the doors start to slide shut. ‘No!’ I wail, hurling myself faster, off-balance, tottering.
The guard sees me and sighs. He knows me. He should; I am here every day, Monday to Friday. I’d even introduced him to Grace when I brought her into work a few months ago, her tiny wriggling body still scrawny from the birth. He puts one hand out and holds the door beside him, waving me forward. I half sob my gratitude as I reach the step. He catches me with his other hand as I stumble. ‘Careful.’
I nod, too tired to form words, my lips numb.
He tugs me on board and I almost sag into him, but he settles me on my feet and points. ‘I saw an empty window seat two carriages down.’ He winks.
I nod my thanks again, feeling a little like the Churchill dog. His eyes say he understands, and he lets me go. The train lurches and I grip the doorframe, then the top of seats as I pull myself along, fighting the sway, mumbling half-apologies as I touch greasy hair, or slip and grab a shoulder by mistake. Too much humanity. Too many people leaving bits of themselves all over the place.
Two carriages seem impossibly far. I hold my bag in one hand and try not to bump elbows with strangers as the aisle grows longer with every step. I force my way past a group who have chosen to stand in the gap between carriages, passing round a bottle of Schnapps. Someone offers it to me with a giggle, I shake my head and, eventually, I see it: the empty seat. Empty because the one beside it is occupied by a man two sizes too big for the space between the arm rests. He overflows. I don’t even consider standing. My feet can’t take it, but I can take being pressed against cool glass.
‘Excuse me,’ I have to think before verbalising; remember the shape my lips are supposed to make. I gesture towards the seat and the bristly velour that will itch even through my trousers.
The man raises his head and his brows, then sighs and makes a big deal of standing, forcing me backwards as he edges into the aisle, thick thighs making the table creak. Sweat stains the cotton of his shirt, as though even clothes cannot contain him. Opposite, a young woman looks up and then back down again, her expression unchanging. She is wearing headphones and the light from her phone cools her face, brightening her chin and dulling her eyes. Beside her a kid, with a graphic novel and acne, sniggers as the fat man flushes.
I nod my thanks yet again and inhale as I squeeze into the seat, dump my bag on the table and sigh. For one moment my whole body relaxes into the welcome chair, then the man sits back down.
I can tell he is trying to make himself smaller; the boy opposite catches my eye with a smirk, but I ignore him. How awful to know what everyone around you must think. The man pulls his elbows into his sides; even his face is pinched, his features appearing squashed into the centre of a space too large for them. His forehead wrinkles, his eyes darting from side to side as if daring me to comment. I say nothing, only lean against the window as his forearms bulge into mine and his flesh presses against me, one hairy wrist tickling my own.
I pull into myself, turtle-like, curl my hands into my lap, and make myself as small as possible. His eyes go to my breasts, by now straining and pneumatic, and remain there.
The window is cool against my forehead. I turn towards the dark glass. My reflection stares back at me as if in shock. Dark hair, frizzing out of the ponytail I hurriedly constructed with an elastic band at lunchtime, skin white, eyeshadow smudged, so that, with the bags beneath my eyes, it seems as if I’ve recently lost a fight. My lips remain full and, so Tom says, kissable, but the lipstick has long since bled away, leaving patchy colour, like sickness.
The way I’m sitting emphasises the beginnings of a double chin that I’ll have to diet away as soon as I can face it. This is my post-baby face; the stranger’s features which covered my own like a mask, after Grace. Gone the bright eyes, the healthy flush, the carefully applied make-up, the definition. Hello to a doughy, fleshy almost-me. A washed-out version of myself, like a watercolour dissolving in the rain.
I close my eyes, pushing the image away, trying to remember who I’m meant to be: Senior Manager in a London research agency, university graduate, party girl, fun wife, dutiful daughter, but my thoughts keep skittering away, to a sleeping Grace and to Tom, who’ll be watching the telly with a beer and a bag of crisps by now.
My consciousness starts to slip, so I check my phone. Fifty minutes and we’ll pull into my station. With fumbling fingers, I set an alarm: forty-five minutes. I can’t risk sleeping through my stop, not again.
Last time Tom had been forced to wake Grace and they’d both come to collect me from the end of the line. Neither of them had been happy about it. I leave the phone on the table and lay one hand over the screen, as if I am protecting it, or it is protecting me. I’m not sure. I lean my head on the window.
‘Good idea.’ The fat man meets my eyes in the black glass, and I blink at him. Is he really trying to start a conversation? My fingers twitch on my phone. I close my eyes again, but sleep doesn’t come. This has been happening more and more often. My body is so tired that I feel as if I don’t hold on tightly enough, I might float away. But I can’t stop thinking.
Always there is guilt over leaving Grace for so long, even though she is with Tom and we’d agreed that it made the most sense, financially, that I be the one to go back to work. There is the worry that she’ll always love him best, and then remorse at such a selfish thought. Why shouldn’t she? Just because I carried her, suffered unbearable backache, nausea and heartburn, endured contractions for two days, transition for over an hour, eighteen stiches, mastitis when she was first feeding, did Tom deserve her love any less?
Concerns about my most recent client bob to the surface. They keep moving the goalposts, requiring changes to the project and that will mean more late nights in my future.
I remember that I promised to have Mum over for dinner and worry about the hours I’ll have to spend tidying up before she arrives.
My mental screen flicks to an argument I had with a girl at university, who has almost certainly never thought of me again. She makes a comment about me stealing Tom from her friend Trish. The things I said and the things I should have said.
That is crowded out by memories of the mess the baker made of our wedding cake and how I should never have paid her the full amount.
And I desperately need my roots done.
And I wonder whether Tom has done the washing up or if it’ll be waiting for me again.
Then, over it all, an old Taylor Swift song which winds around and around my brain, digging its claws in until I want to scream.
My eyes flinch open, but my body remains heavy, immovable.
We are rushing by a station. One of those unidentifiable places with nothing but a platform and a dirt carpark, an unmanned ticket machine and a bench. The sign is black lettering on a dirty background, too fast to read. A sound like rushing water as the train hurtles past the platform. Opposite me, the girl opens a packet of biscuits and the fat man’s eyes tear from my breasts.
Where are we? I force a glance at my phone: twenty-five minutes in. I fire off a text to Tom: On the train. Back soon. Hope she went down okay.
The phone beeps at me. Unable to send message.
No signal.
I sigh and press my forehead against the window once more. This time I gaze beyond my reflection, peering into the murk at flashing streetlights and glowing cars. Another platform is coming up. I strain my eyes, trying not to think about lyrics and seeking to banish the bouncy tune that rattles around my brain: Everything will be all right, if we just keep dancing like we’re twenty-two …
My eyes blur.
A white van is parked by the platform, no markings, the paintwork a flag against the darkness. From a weathered concrete post, a single light glows, illuminating a little girl. She sits on a case outside the shuttered coffee booth, kicking her heels against the leather. She can’t be more than six. Where’s her mum?
The train doesn’t slow. We aren’t stopping. We are going to burn past, leaving her behind in a swirl of leaves and dust.
I blink. And men are there, two of them. They lift the squirming girl to her feet, haul her towards the van … and then we are past.
I bang my palms on the window.
‘Did you see that?’ I strain to look back, but trees are flashing by and now a row of houses, long gardens backing onto the rails. ‘Did you see?’ I turn to the young woman sitting opposite.
She barely glances up from her phone. ‘See what?’
‘The girl. You must have seen her!’ I look at the boy. He doesn’t even acknowledge that I’ve spoken, but they are both facing the wrong way anyway. I grab the fat man’s arm. ‘You saw, didn’t you? You saw the girl … and the men?’
He blinks at my hand and then lifts his eyes to my face. ‘Huh?’
‘The girl at the last platform, you saw her?’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s dark out there.’
‘I know, I—’ I grab my phone. ‘I have to call the police.’ I stare at the screen. No signal.
The train clatters on.
I drop the phone back on the table and leap to my feet, wobbling with the movement on the rails. ‘Did anyone else see? Did anyone see the girl? The van?’
People glare at me.
‘There was a girl.’ I am screaming, my voice hoarse and cracked. ‘At that last station, a kid. Come on, one of you must have seen her!’
The fat man puts his hand on my arm. ‘Are you all right?’
The young woman opposite is gaping with wide-eyed alarm.
‘We’ve got to do something. One of you must have seen her too.’ I pinpoint the woman sitting in the same seat as me, a table behind, a blonde I occasionally see doing the same morning journey. ‘You saw her, didn’t you?’ My finger lifts, trembling. ‘You must have.’
She slides slightly sideways, as if my finger is a loaded weapon, and shakes her head.
‘You then?’ I turn to the student sitting next to her. He shrugs and looks uncomfortable. He whispers something to the girl sitting opposite. She giggles.
I want to shake shoulders until someone says yes, they saw her. I am trapped in my seat.
‘Please, just speak up. We can call the police together.’
Sniggers. Mutterings. A rustle of papers as commuters tuck their eyes back into their Metros or bury their faces in books. A couple of kids lift their phones, videoing me. The lights from their cameras gleam.
‘Wasn’t anyone looking out the window?’ I plead.
‘It’s dark out,’ someone yells.
‘Sit down, you crazy cow.’ An older teen, gel in his hair, leather jacket, laughing with his mates.
‘You’re embarrassing yourself.’ The fat man’s eyes are filled with sympathy. ‘I don’t know what you saw, but no-one else was looking. Sit down.’
‘There was a little girl.’ I thump back into my seat, pulling my coat around me. ‘I–I think she was being kidnapped.’
The man shifts awkwardly in his seat. ‘Are you sure?’ he whispers.
I nod, then jump as my phone beeps: Message sent. For a long second I am unable to work out what it means. Then I grab for the slick handset, fumbling so it skids away from me.
The man stops it sliding and pushes it back towards me. ‘You’re really going to call the police?’
‘I have to.’ I clutch the phone like Grace gripping Frankie-Lion.
‘They’ll want to question the whole carriage,’ he hisses. ‘Maybe the whole train. People won’t be able to get home.’
For a shameful second, I hesitate. How awful it would be to draw all this attention, to cause all this trouble, to make all this noise. Not something that nice girls do.
I bite my lip. ‘It was a little girl,’ I murmur. ‘They’ll understand.’
Chapter 2
I stumble up the steps on trembling legs and try three times to get my key into the lock. When it finally slides in, I lean my head on the paintwork, trying to muster the energy to force the door open. The door creaks, letting out a sliver of light as I sprawl inside. Tom catches me.
‘Are you drunk?’ He glares at me with narrowed, bloodshot eyes. ‘Because if you are, you’re not going in to see Grace. She’s been up for the last fifty minutes and I’ve only just got her back to sleep.’ He scrubs at his chin, three days’ worth of stubble, and holds me at arm’s length. ‘You sent me a text three hours ago saying you were on the train. What happened?’
‘Please, Tom,’ I murmur. ‘Let me sit down.’
He sighs and helps me over the stoop. ‘Seriously, Bridge, you look awful. Are you all right? I tried calling, but your phone must have died … I even rang your mum.’
‘You didn’t!’ The expression on his face stops me from saying more. But now I have another concern: Mum will be up worrying until she hears from me. ‘I’m sorry.’ I drop my bag in the hall and wrap my arms around my chest. ‘I couldn’t call. I wanted to …’ I tail off.
His expression shifts from annoyance to concern, his blue eyes darkening. ‘What would stop you from letting us know where you were?’ His voice lowers. ‘We can’t go through this again. I mean I thought the anti-depressants were working. I mean when Doctor Lewis prescribed them, she said they would help.’
I nod. ‘It’s not that.’ I clutch at his arm, wondering how much to tell Mum. ‘I have to get off my feet – please.’
He guides me into the living room and, despite exhaustion that makes me lean my whole weight on his shoulder, I track the mess: his laptop and scriptwriting course books, two empty beer bottles, an empty packet of Tyrells crisps, a crumpled blanket, a cushion on the floor, Grace’s baby bouncer, her playmat speckled with crumbs, and a dirty nappy thrown into a corner, the smell a ripe blend of shit and spilled milk.
I close my eyes, but not before Tom has traced them to the nappy. ‘I had to change her before I put her back down.’ Defensive. ‘It’s not been there that long.’
I nod and kick off my shoes with a groan. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Obviously it does.’
I force my eyes open, make myself look at him. ‘Don’t. Please. I’ve been with the police.’
‘The police?’ Tom pales. ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’ His face hardens. ‘Has someone hurt you, Bridge?’
‘No, it isn’t that.’ I grip his hands. ‘It was horrible. And no-one else saw. Only me. But the police made everyone stay on the train until they’d taken their details. They were furious. The people on the train, I mean.’ My words stumble over one another, as clumsy as my feet. I lean over to pick up Frankie-Lion. His beanbag body sags over my palm and he smiles up at me. I put him to my cheek. He smells of Grace: baby smell and milk, and a little bit of Tom’s aftershave. Frankie must have been crushed between them at nap time.
‘What happened?’ he asks again, this time rubbing my back in small circles. ‘Can you tell me?’
‘There was a little girl.’ I look at Frankie again and choke on a sob. Did the girl have a Frankie too? Was she terrified and alone and desperate for comfort? ‘Oh, God!’
Tom looks stricken. ‘What happened, Bridge?’
I peer at him through tear-blurred eyes. ‘We went past a station – I don’t know which one. The police kept asking but we went by so fast – you know what it’s like – you can’t read the signs … but I saw a little girl.’
‘By herself?’ Tom frowns. ‘At that time of night?’
‘That’s what the police said too.’ I swallow. ‘She was sitting on a suitcase. I saw that much. I don’t know why, or where she was going or … or where her mum was. Maybe getting a ticket, I don’t know. She was about six I think, just sitting there on the suitcase.’ I frown. ‘She was wearing a school uniform, a blazer like your niece’s. It was almost like she was looking right at me, but she couldn’t have been.’ I look at my hands. Frankie’s arms and legs dangle on either side of my palm. ‘These two people grabbed her.’