The Forgotten Child

Chapter 2

Holly kissed Milo’s head, resting her lips on his now warm forehead for a long moment. He was still unconscious but the doctor told her the scans were clear. They just had to wait for him to wake up. His left leg was broken in two places, and the head wound required five stitches. It would leave a scar, which she knew he would be perversely pleased with. Her darling boy. Nothing else and nobody else mattered.

But even so, after checking her son was still sleeping, she wheeled herself away to ICU. The other boy was lying still and silent too. He was in a worse condition, with more severe head injuries and some swelling to the brain. She watched him through the narrow window, her brow furrowing, pressing her fingers to the glass.

Had she seen him at rugby? Or was he the kid who had a laugh with Milo in the queue at Tesco? Had she seen him at the pool? If he opened his eyes, if she could see his expression, it might fix that nagging feeling that she did recognise him. The big white clock on the wall ticked towards nine o clock. She had been up for almost twenty-four hours and her brain simply wasn’t working anymore.

The child’s long lashes and the slightly hollow cheeks gave him an air of vulnerability. She had supposed, and the doctors confirmed, he was around eleven or twelve years old, but skinny, with his bony hands lying neatly outside the white sheet. Almost too skinny for a boy his age, she thought. His dark brown hair lay tousled and greasy on the pillow around his face. There was a bruise on his cheek, and she knew he had stitches in the back of his head.

‘Who are you?’ she whispered. ‘Where did you come from?’ The dreamlike feeling of unreality had extended when Holly had been told that no missing children fitting this boy’s description had been reported in the area. He was a still a ghost child, or a phantom. Her heart wrenched to think that somewhere surely his parents were searching for him … Or was it more painful to think that they were not, that her first guess had been correct and somebody meant them to die?

Someone had dumped him in her car like an unwanted stray. It couldn’t have been premeditated, because who could have predicted the crash? Even if either of the reckless drivers from last night had intended her to drive off the road, how could they have counted on her swerving for the deer or known she’d be knocked unconscious whilst they popped another child in her car? None of it made any sense. Perhaps she was going mad. She tried to remember if she had seen anything out of the ordinary yesterday. But she was sure it had been no different to any other Sunday, right up until they drove down Mill Road.

Troubled, Holly took herself back to her son and with some difficulty transferred herself from the wheelchair to the armchair next to his bed. Her leg was bruised, with a possible torn ligament, and the wheelchair they had insisted on was only until a scan hopefully gave her the all clear. But the headache was back and she couldn’t sleep. Too many questions whirled in her brain, too many worries danced behind her eyes. She pushed back her long hair away from her face, tied it into a knot, and rubbed her sore eyes.

Holly’s phone vibrated and she snuck a guilty look at the other patients, before glancing at the illuminated screen. Messages from her friends and Aunt Lydia, but none from her ex-husband. None from her dad either, but that was hardly a shock. Lydia said she’d been round and told him what had happened. Holly knew her aunt had been hoping for a reconciliation between father and daughter for years. Donnie Hughes was slowly drinking himself to death, and hadn’t featured in her life since she’d walked out of the Seaview Estate as an emotion-driven teenager. She smoothed a thumb across the screen, thinking about her dad.

He’d tried to stop her leaving, even though he had seen what the trial did to her, seen how much she needed to escape the twisted memories and leave everything behind. Her exhausted mind drifted back to her teenage years.

‘You can’t just fucking walk away! You’re my daughter, and you’re the only one left who can take care of the business.’ Donnie had been waiting for her after the trial. It had always been ‘Donnie’. Never ‘Dad’. His voice was a pitch lower than it had been in her childhood, and he broke off to cough violently, peering down at her from under a greasy fringe. His face was ruddy, and his eyes bloodshot and hung with violet bags.

She’d gone into her room and grabbed her bags, already neatly packed and awaiting her final exit. But Holly was still shaking, still high on fear and grief, her mind replaying the judge’s words and her answers over and over, like a crazy recording she could never erase.

‘What made you think she was dead?’

‘When did you last see your brother?’

Holly had made it back down the stairs to find her dad leaning firmly against the front door, his mouth set in a scowl.

‘Get out of the way, Donnie. You didn’t even bother to come to the trial, and you don’t actually give a shit about anything except your business.’ She reached the door and extended her hand towards the handle. ‘I’ve got news for you. Your business is finished. The Nicholls have won, and all you’ve done is fuck everything up – Mum, me, Jay. You’re a sad, deluded old man.’

He didn’t move, didn’t speak. The towering giant of her childhood reduced to this shuffling, glowering creature. But as she moved forward, his hand wrapped around her wrist, sweaty fingers pinching the skin.

Holly pulled away, but he held on, yanking her closer. She turned her face away from the stench of his foul breath. ‘You don’t know shit, girl. You could have been something, taken us back to where we were, and yeah, even taken on the Nicholls brothers. I know what goes on with Nicholls Transport, and the human cargo that gets stashed in the back, the girls they bring down here to work in their brothels. It’s sick, and now you’re running away from all of us. Well, don’t ever fucking come back, you useless bitch!’ He spat right in her face.

She’d stood frozen in horror, just for a second, before she wiped the glob of spittle away, warm and wet on her cheek. ‘I won’t be coming back,’ she told her father.

As he raised a hand to hit her, she snapped her wrist away, and sidestepped, already up on the balls of her feet. Years of training had made her moves instinctive. His hand whipped past and he made another futile grab at her shoulder, tearing her shirt.

Holly moved her body, jabbing with an elbow, bringing herself nearer the door, throwing the man aside with effortless ease. The horror of her dad’s words, his attack, would sink in later. She was trying to leave it all behind, but Holly was a trained fighter, and she accepted that probably wasn’t ever going to change.

Donnie collapsed, panting against the peeling wall of the hallway, yelled a few breathless obscenities after her, and she cut him off by kicking the door shut.

The heat of late afternoon had blasted through her jeans and T-shirt, and she could feel sweat beading on her face, but she’d kept on walking.

***

A nurse rattled past with the drugs trolley, jolting Holly out of the past. She glanced quickly at Milo, reassuring herself before purposely keeping her thoughts in the present. Hell, it wasn’t like there was a lack of drama here either. And a whole load of swirling fears.

Whoever the other boy was, she had still been looking at her phone moments before the crash, and driving at the same time. The guilt and anger at her own stupidity in allowing herself to be distracted by her phone made her breath short now. She was always so careful! The vicious texts danced through her brain. They had only started a couple of weeks ago, and at first she had refused to believe that Tom would be so vindictive. But now, each time they arrived, she tried to make herself pick up the phone and confront him, and each time, so far, she had funked it. She could hardly tell the police her own ex-husband was bullying her by text. It sounded so stupid, and she didn’t trust the police anyway. Well, with her upbringing, why would she?

She woke to footsteps and the curtains around Milo’s bed being drawn apart. Holly blinked hard, pushing herself upright in the chair, trying to drag herself back to consciousness.

‘Mrs Kendal, I’m DI Harper, and this is DC Marriot. If you feel up to it, we just need to ask you a few questions.’ His voice was low, rumbling, and deceptively gentle.

She got a sick feeling deep in her gut at the sound of his name, at the sight of his long face, with its sharp cheekbones and prominent beak of a nose. This couldn’t be happening. How was he still on the scene? Surely he should have retired, leaving everyone in peace by now? The long, thin nose had a dent and was twisted out of shape.

‘And you fuck off, you bloody nosy copper! My wife has been murdered and all you can do is accuse me. Go and find out who did it, because if I get there first, I’ll string them up from that tower block …’

‘We are trying, Donnie, we just need to ask a few more questions. Perhaps you should come back down to the station with us?’

The sickening crunch as her dad broke the police officer’s nose had almost been drowned by his exclamation of pain. It was fair enough, Holly had thought at the time. Bloody Harper had been sniffing around for years, chipping away at her dad’s business interests. Luckily it was only the Nicholls’ dealers that got banged up, and they deserved it.

Holly studied the familiar police officer now, this tall, gaunt man, with white tufted hair and hollows under his eyes. Fuck. Of all the people to turn up. Detective Inspector Harper. He’d clearly landed a promotion since they last met. He stood a little apart from a serious-looking blonde woman, whose thin lips were currently pursed with apparent disapproval as she glanced down at her phone.

Feeling Holly’s gaze, she looked up and smiled. It was a cool, professional smile and it didn’t reach her glacial blue eyes. The DI was talking again. ‘We understand your son is doing well? A broken leg and some concussion, I think the doctor said.’

Holly pulled the regulation blue and white hospital gown tighter around her body, and blinked sleep from her eyes, wishing Lydia would hurry up and get here with her clothes. Her aunt had come straight to the hospital last night when Holly called, but went home around eleven when she had been reassured that her niece and Milo were not in any life-threatening condition.

‘He’s still unconscious, but the doctors say he’s going to be fine. I guess he’ll be furious about having his leg in a cast though …’ Why was she babbling like she was guilty of something? Best get it out in the open. She had told the uniformed PC last night, but she needed to explain, to make them understand that it was wasn’t her fault. ‘There was a car behind that was far too close, and then another car came the other way and nearly hit us. I had to go on the verge and …’

‘It’s okay, Mrs Kendal, we’ve read your statement,’ DC Marriot told her, cutting her off mid-sentence. ‘We can talk about that later. For now, we just have a few more questions.’

Holly nodded, uneasily, her eyes still on the man. They didn’t care. They wanted to know about the other boy. Well, that was okay, because so did she.

DI Harper nodded. He stood next to the window, arms folded. Did he recognise her as she did him? Of course, she was Holly Kendal now instead of Holly Hughes, but surely he must know. And wasn’t it odd that a DI would come for a chat with a car crash victim? But it was a car crash with a twist, and she figured he knew all right, and he was as curious as hell.

His grey eyes were faded now, sunk deeper under bushy grey brows, but he still had that aura of energy, alertness, and that distinctive voice. Her mum had always said he was clever for a copper. She had instructed both her children to keep away from the police who came snooping around their family home. But that was in the past, and with a dad like Holly’s it was no wonder her mum had been cautious. She could never have known that this ‘clever’ copper would be the one who investigated her own death. Investigated, but never bloody found out who did it. Holly switched her thoughts quickly back to the present. It was like being dragged through a mud bath, the past swilling over her, sticking in patches, reminding her she might have walked away but she could never completely escape.

‘Did you find out anything about the other boy?’ Holly asked tentatively now. She passed her tongue nervously over sore lips.

It was the woman who answered. Her voice was sharp and what Holly’s Aunt Lydia would certainly call a bit posh. ‘No. As I’m sure you’ve been told he is still in a critical condition.’

Holly was still struggling to get her head around the accident, let alone the fact she had, somewhere between leaving the road and waking up in the woods, acquired another child. Someone had given her a child. Now this man, with his cool grey eyes and air of officialdom, was back in her life, and suddenly, as other memories stirred it was all she could do to prevent herself from bursting into tears. The DI still hadn’t met her eyes. ‘What about the driver who was behind me, or the idiot in the van who drove right at us?’ she asked quickly.

DI Harper exchanged a quick look with his colleague. ‘Obviously there are no cameras after the Mill Road turn-off, and several vehicles followed you off at Junction 10, but we have no way of telling if any of them took the first exit, as you did. There is also the possibility that the driver behind you joined Mill Road later on, from either Hill Lane or Silver Lane. I do appreciate it must have been hard, but the vague description you gave us of both vehicles doesn’t give us much to go on.’

‘It was dark, and pouring with rain, and I was afraid I was about to be carjacked. You try memorising details in that situation,’ she shot back at him, a flare of confidence returning. The other police officer raised her eyebrows at this show of anger, but said nothing.

‘I’m not trying to insult your intelligence, I’m just telling you we are examining every possibility,’ he said. There was a flash of something that might have been amusement in his grey eyes, before his expression returned its usual sombre mask.

He was still fucking annoying, Holly thought, remembering suddenly that he inserted the word ‘possibility’ into just about every sentence. Nothing was ever ‘confirmed’, or ‘definite’, with him.

‘Moving on, you already mentioned when you were interviewed last night that you have no idea how this other boy came to be in your car. We have checked he doesn’t match the description of any missing children in the local area, but we are circulating his details further afield. Obviously a missing child generates an extensive search operation and we are working in close contact with our neighbouring forces.’ DC Marriot was scrolling through her iPad. ‘We did receive another call to the ambulance service at 17.22. It was a male caller who said he had just driven past a crashed car. He gave your location, but said he didn’t know how many people were involved. He then rang off. The phone number was untraceable.’

‘You think that was the driver behind me?’ Holly said, confusion making her brain heavy, her thoughts sluggish.

DI Harper frowned. ‘At this stage we aren’t sure. Your call came in at 17.31. It is a possibility that the initial caller wasn’t involved at all. Do you recall anything unusual about the afternoon? Anyone who might have been at your son’s rugby game who wasn’t usually there? Or perhaps someone who might have spoken to you when you stopped for petrol?’

‘No! Do you think I haven’t been going over and over this all night? I have no idea how that child came to be in my car and, to be honest, it hasn’t been the best of nights. I’m sure you can understand that.’ She was glaring at the DI now, willing him to react, but he kept his eyes averted.

‘Try to think. I appreciate how distressing this must have been for you,’ DC Marriot said, her voice soothing. She had a slightly pointed face, and small pointed ears, like a pixie. Her make-up was immaculate.

Holly scowled, but allowed her mind to run back over the events of yesterday. ‘Milo always has rugby practice on a Sunday in the winter. Unless they have an away match, it’s always at Prince Edward’s park from two till four. It ran on a bit yesterday because one of the coaches was late, and then I had a coffee afterwards whilst Milo played in the clubhouse with his friends.’

‘So you left rugby at four-thirty, you said?’

‘Yes … I think so, because I remember hoping I wouldn’t catch the rush-hour traffic, and then realising it was Sunday so I didn’t have to panic.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘We stopped for petrol at the next service station. I know the route well, and I often stop there for fuel and groceries.’

‘Did you speak to anyone in the services, notice anyone paying you particular attention?’ DC Marriot pressed her.

She shook her head. ‘No. It was just normal, quite busy but normal.’

‘Now just to recap – you didn’t stop at all when you left the motorway? You didn’t pick up any hitchhikers or see anyone on the side of the road?’

Holly shot him a look of disbelief. ‘Don’t you think I would have mentioned that? Of course I didn’t see anyone else! Everything seemed to happen at once – the deer and Milo shouting, and the headlights of the car behind … I was just so scared.’ Her hands were shaking again as her mind replayed the moment they had left the tarmac, tumbling down the hill.

They watched her some more, clearly waiting, but Holly had no more to say. Actually, she felt a twist of nausea rising in her stomach. It was just too weird. She felt a sudden urge to go back to ICU and reassure herself the boy was still there, still alive … Who the hell was the tailgating driver, and more to the point who was the child who had been left, unconscious and injured?

DI Harper gave a barely imperceptible sigh. ‘We spoke to your husband …’

‘Ex-husband,’ Holly corrected wearily.

‘Sorry, ex-husband. Obviously he is away at the moment, but there is a possibility he might be able to help with our inquiries. He may recognise the child, perhaps.’

Holly looked up, nausea fading away, as anger returned. ‘Tom hasn’t got a clue who Milo sees, or who I see. He’s the last person who would be any help. When I phoned him about the accident he just assumed it was my fault, and as soon as he heard Milo was given the all clear, he said he would carry on with his lecture tour. He’ll pitch up in a couple of days, I expect.’

They both looked hard at her, and Holly squirmed. Too much information, but she was so fatigued that her mouth was running away with her. DC Marriot spoke again. ‘Mrs Kendal, can you think of anyone at all who you might have spoken to recently, who may have been connected with this child?’

‘No!’ She was surprised how insistent they were being. ‘I’ve been back to look at the poor boy and I keep trying and trying to think if I recognise him, but I don’t. I’m not saying I haven’t ever seen him before, but he’s just another kid. He might have been at rugby that afternoon, or karate last week, or even in the queue in Tesco last month, but I can’t say for sure!’ She was getting agitated, raising her voice, breathing heavily, and they were watching her warily.

‘Thank you, Mrs Kendal.’ The woman police officer nodded politely now, but her eyes remained on Holly’s face. She placed her iPad carefully on the table next to Holly. ‘Can I show you something? This is CCTV footage from the BP station where you stopped on your way home.’

Bewildered, Holly leaned over, focusing on the grainy picture. She saw herself and Milo in the long queue, waiting to pay, then a man approaching the empty till at the bakery. He glanced over at her, and she frowned. Something about the tilt of his head, his profile, was familiar. In the footage she was fumbling with her credit card. She remembered the contactless hadn’t worked so the transaction had to go through again.

The place was busy, but amongst the crowd, the camera picked out Holly and Milo leaving, with the man fairly close behind.

‘And then this is the CCTV next to the toilets,’ DI Harper said, scrolling across the screen.

The man was standing, smoking, half facing the wall, apparently waiting in the queue for the toilets. Holly’s heart thumped painfully hard against her ribs, and her head was spinning.

‘Do you recognise him?’ DC Marriot asked.

Holly swallowed hard, her heart beating uncomfortably hard as a shot of adrenalin coursed around her body. It had been years, but of course she knew who he was. He was part of the past, the same past that had killed her brother, her mother, and had been bathed in bloodshed because of who she was. Her voice cracked with emotion. ‘That’s Devril Mancini.’

Chapter 3

‘We believe so,’ DC Marriot said. Her voice was cool and slightly mechanical in its reassurance, as she noted Holly’s reaction.

DI Harper was watching her closely now. ‘Have you had any contact with Devril since the trial?’ There it was. Bang, the past hitting them full on with him staring right at her.

Holly found her hands were shaking like she was back in the courtroom, waiting for the assembled crowd to hear her crimes. ‘No.’

‘Really? Not in eleven years?’ He was clearly sceptical. But then he would be. Harper had stalked their family her whole life.

Holly tried to speak, but her throat was tight and raw, and her eyes stung with tears. She cleared her throat, annoyed at betraying so much emotion. ‘None. You know exactly what happened and why I wouldn’t ever want to go back. I moved on, went to university, got married and had a kid. There would never be a reason to go back. But just for the record, do you really think Devril would have tried to run me off the road?’

‘We’re not saying that all. I’m just pointing out that he was at the garage at the same time you and Milo stopped for petrol on your way home. And as far as I know, he’s been away from the area a long time. It seems a strange coincidence for him to show up again now after all these years. I only recognised him because of our connection.’ He was admitting it now at least. ‘I do appreciate that this is difficult, Holly, but you must see that we have to consider all the possibilities.’ The earnest look of concern, that almost paternal voice and the gentle mannerisms could fool anyone without half a brain into thinking he actually cared. ‘You know Niko Balinta was released last month?’

Another ghost emerging from her nightmares. ‘I do know. So what?’ It came out defensive and snappy. She cleared her throat again, picking up the glass of water from the bedside cabinet. Her mouth stung as she sipped. The tiny glass cuts she had acquired in the accident stretched from her lower lip to her forehead. God, she had been so lucky. She glanced at Milo, sleeping soundly. They both had.

DI Harper nodded slowly, and then echoed her words. ‘So what, indeed. Anyway, our primary concern at this moment in time is to find out who the boy is, and why he was in your car, but apart from that … well, I’m keeping an open mind.’

She scowled at him now. ‘You haven’t mentioned Jayden.’

A quick, bright look from under the bushy brows. ‘Do I need to mention your brother? As you say, it would be raking over old and painful ground. You know how sorry I am about the whole affair. I tried so hard to help him.’