The Stolen Child Read online

  I touch my cheek with my fingertips, where his lips were. And I can’t help but be pleased he thinks we’re alike. I feel bereft without him. I try to put him out of my mind so I can think what to say to the adoption agency. When I reach our garden, I stop opposite the chestnut tree. The fence here is warped, as if Evie had been pushing it with her feet, her back against the tree trunk. I bend down and that’s when I see it. There’s a hole. Someone has cut the wire. It’s quite neat and the strands have been bent so that a person reaching their arm in – or out – would not cut themselves. It’s directly opposite the fissure in the tree. There’s something poking out of the hollow at its base. Inside the cleft, the earth is smooth where Evie has worn it flat. There’s a cup and saucer and a small plate with a glossy green leaf on it, as if she’s been playing tea parties. And next to them is a parcel, covered in pink sparkly paper. Maybe it was one of Ben’s presents that somehow got mislaid. I push my arm through the hole and pick it up. Bella nudges me with her cold nose but I ignore her. Could Evie have deliberately taken it and hidden it out here because Ben was getting all the attention last Saturday? But how many of the parents I know, even the most politically correct ones, would give Ben something wrapped in pink glittery paper? I turn it over in my hands. It’s light and knobbly. There’s no gift tag but instead a plain white sticker, the kind you’d use to readdress envelopes or paste on jam jars. It’s the same blue Biro, slightly smudged, and the identical handwriting that was on the card. It says:

  To my daughter,

  All my love,

  your daddy

  My breath catches in my throat and I shiver. I stand up and tear it open. Inside is a My Little Pony, the colour of a rose, shiny plastic hair for its mane and tail. He doesn’t know her, he doesn’t know her at all, I think angrily. She likes Lego – but not in kits – sharp, new pencils, polished stones... I march to the end of the bridleway; before I reach our road, I turn and look back. Her father must have been here, in our garden. Watching us. Waiting for us to leave, or to go to bed and turn out the lights. Even though I’ve been walking fast, I’m suddenly freezing.

  I hide it in the same kitchen cupboard that I’ve put the card. I fetch Evie’s case notes and ring the adoption agency. If we can trace her biological mother, she might be able to help us find the father. But when I finally get through after a long wait, I’m transferred to three different people. I grow increasingly anxious because, at this rate, I’m going to be late to pick up Ben. The woman I end up talking to is sympathetic.

  ‘You know Evie’s biological mother didn’t sign up to the letterbox scheme,’ she says.

  If both parties agree, the real and adoptive parents – or the child – can send a letter once or twice a year to an agency that will forward the letter on. Photos aren’t allowed any more, since it’s now too easy to track a child down through social media.

  ‘But if we sent a letter in, you could forward it?’

  ‘We don’t have her details. She didn’t leave an address when you adopted Evie. Even if she had got in contact, we wouldn’t have been able to match her to Evie. No one can access your daughter’s original birth certificate until she’s eighteen.’

  I know this already. I was hoping there was something I’d missed or forgotten.

  The woman reminds me that Evie’s father was never listed on the birth certificate. ‘There’s no way her biological father could trace your daughter through us since we can’t even link your child to her biological mother. Not until she’s eighteen,’ she repeats. ‘The man that’s sending Evie the cards and presents – you need to find out how he’s got hold of your address.’

  ‘I have to call the police,’ I say, more to myself than her, my breath quickening.

  ‘You do, love,’ she says.

  I check my watch. I’ll have to ring them on my way to pick up Ben.

  Evie runs straight past me and Ben when she sees us in the playground after school, standing beside Andy.

  I call after her. ‘We’re going to Sophie’s house. Had you forgotten?’

  She nods, but she doesn’t look particularly pleased. Sophie is her best friend. Evie doesn’t have many friends and usually she looks forward to Mondays and having Sophie to herself. Andy and Gill live nearby, on Queen’s Road. It’s a quiet, leafy street that seems a million miles away from the town centre even though it’s only a few minutes’ walk from the many shops and restaurants in The Grove.

  On the way there, Evie resolutely ignores Sophie and walks with Andy, chatting to him. I’m relieved – I don’t want her out of my sight even for a moment – but I worry the girls have had an argument. I look around. Now that we’ve left the roads near the school, it’s quiet. There’s hardly anyone here. I still have a shivery sensation that creeps along my collar bone. Are we being watched? Behind us is an elderly couple. He’s leaning on a stick and she has her arm in his. She smiles at me. On the other side of the road is a man, maybe in his thirties. He looks across when he catches me staring. Evie’s father could be anyone. He could be anywhere.

  I walk faster so I can be closer to Evie. She’s describing what she did at school, which she never tells me.

  ‘Do you believe in magic?’ she suddenly asks Andy.

  He stops so he can concentrate better on what she’s saying.

  ‘What kind of magic?’

  ‘All kinds. The kind where you wave a wand and make a spell and your dreams come true?’

  ‘What do you think?’ he asks her.

  Sophie is waiting for us up ahead, swinging round a lamp post and looking impatient.

  ‘I expect magic doesn’t exist,’ she says. ‘No one is going to make my dream come true.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’ Andy glances back at me and raises his eyebrows. ‘How about you tell me what your dream is?’

  Evie shrugs and runs off. When she reaches Sophie, she starts spinning round and round, her arms outstretched, her head thrown back, until she gets dizzy and collapses on the pavement, screaming with laughter. It’s so shrill I want to put my hands over my ears. She seems so unstable. I wonder with a sick feeling if this is the first card and the first present she’s been sent, or if there are more and we have missed them. Missed the impact they’re having on our daughter.

  We reach Andy and Gill’s house – it’s modern, surrounded by lush grounds and feels palatial – although Andy, Ellen and Sophie frequently create a small tsunami of mess that Gill complains about. Andy butters scones for all of us and makes a pot of tea. After the kids have eaten and been wiped down, Evie and Sophie run upstairs and we barricade Ben and Ellen in one corner of the sitting room by pushing the sofas together. I splodge jam on our scones and top up our mugs.

  ‘I found a present today,’ I say.

  The girls are out of earshot, but I still keep my voice low.

  ‘A present?’ Andy says, smiling.

  ‘Yes.’ I swallow uncomfortably. ‘From Evie’s biological father. In the tree in the garden. And a card on Saturday. He’s cut a hole in the fence so he can hide them for her.’

  ‘Oh God. That’s stalking! How the frig could he have tracked you down? Have you spoken to the adoption agency?’

  I nod. ‘They say there’s no way he can trace her through them. Ben!’ I retrieve him. He’s pushed Ellen over and is lying on her head. Fortunately, she thinks it’s funny.

  ‘And there’s nothing on the birth certificate?’

  ‘No. Not that we’re allowed it until Evie turns eighteen. The girl, Evie’s biological mother, was a drug addict so I don’t know, I’m guessing she slept around, maybe she didn’t even know who the father was. She could have been a prostitute. I mean, by the time you’re an addict, you’ll do anything for drugs and cash, won’t you?’

  Andy says nothing. I’m probably starting to sound too right wing for him.

  ‘I guess what I’m saying is I have no idea who her father could be, or what sort of man he is. No one we would know. I mean, what kind of man sleeps with a drug-ad
dled prostitute? Not anyone that would wind up living in Ilkley, that’s for sure.’ I rub my hands over my eyes. ‘I just don’t know what we’re facing. How dangerous he could be. How much it’s going to upset Evie.’

  Andy still hasn’t said anything. I wonder if I’ve offended him. Back in our university days he was going to be a poetry-quoting rock star and Gill was training to be a human rights lawyer, and now here they are – Andy is a house husband and they live in a demi-mansion bought with the proceeds of his wife’s career in corporate law. Usually it’s only after a few drinks that Andy gets piously liberal. But then, I have no right to talk. Back then I dreamed of winning the Turner Prize; being a ‘commercial’ artist whose art matches people’s cushion covers was a total sell-out.

  ‘I slept with a prostitute once,’ he says, gripping his mug with both hands and staring into it.

  ‘What?’ I spill tea on my jeans. I pull Ben off the back of one of the sofas, just before he nosedives onto the wooden floorboards.

  ‘Tractor,’ he says with delight and starts smashing the toy into the skirting board.

  ‘I’m not proud of it,’ Andy adds, as I return to my seat. ‘It was when I wasn’t with Gill—’

  ‘But you two met at university—’

  ‘Okay, well, we took a break, if you remember. When Gill was doing her final year of training, I went off the rails a bit. Tried drugs I’d never done before. And other things.’

  I’m too stunned to know what to say.

  ‘I’m telling you because it means Evie’s father could be anyone. Sure he could be some pimp from Leeds, but he could equally well be someone like—’

  ‘You?’ I say.

  ‘I was going to say, someone like our neighbours. The man across the street. Who happens to live in Ilkley. It’s not as uncommon as you think, Zoe, middle-class men sleeping with prostitutes.’

  I slump back on the sofa. I can’t seriously believe that someone like Andy could be Evie’s father. I try not to think of Andy, the Andy I know with his dark wavy hair and a pot belly, the Andy with fantastic legs from five-a-side football once a week, with a propensity to get drunk and quote Oscar Wilde, whilst looking as camp as a rugby forward – that Andy, sleeping with a call girl. I shut my eyes and an image of Ollie comes into my mind. My Ollie, who’s become obsessed with celebrities and stardom, who has a tendency to have one too many glasses of red if anyone semi-famous is buying; my Ollie, from whom I also took a break towards the end of university. It was more than a year after we graduated before we got back together.

  ‘I’ve called the police.’

  Andy puts his hand on my shoulder and he’s about to say something when there’s a loud wail and Evie runs over and throws her arms around me, sobbing loudly and dramatically in my ear, smearing tears on my top.

  ‘Evie cry,’ Ben says and comes toddling over.

  ‘I want to go home.’

  Andy and I exchange glances. The girls are always so tired after school: Sophie deals with it by becoming almost catatonic and flopping in front of CBBC, whilst Evie goes for melodrama.

  ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘It’s Sophie,’ she wails. ‘She’s not my friend any more.’

  This also happens, usually about once every six weeks and then it all blows over and they’re inseparable again. I start gathering myself, ready to prise Ben away from the train set he’s now bashing, steeling myself for a long conversation on the way home with Evie about who said what to whom.

  ‘She said I’m not part of the family. Only Ben is your real child. Only Ben is a Morley.’

  There’s a single moment of silence. Evie breaks it with a hiccup and then Andy, as angry as I’ve ever seen him, stands up and yells, ‘Sophie! Sophie, come here right now!’

  I make cheese on toast for Ben and Evie when we get home. After I’ve cleared up the tea things and got them both bathed and put Ben in bed, and then back in bed several times, I go up to Evie’s room. We’re reading Charlotte’s Web again, but tonight I keep the book on my lap instead of opening it.

  ‘How are you feeling about what Sophie said?’

  Evie shrugs. ‘Okay, I guess.’

  ‘It was a hurtful thing to say but I’m sure she didn’t mean it.’

  ‘She said sorry. She’s still my friend. Are you going to read the book?’

  ‘In a minute, love. I don’t want you to be upset by what Sophie said. You are a Morley. You’re just as much a part of this family as Ben is. In fact, you’ve been a Morley for a lot longer than him.’

  ‘Six years!’ she says triumphantly.

  ‘Well – seven minus two is?’

  She shrugs again. ‘We’re on chapter five.’

  Once the children are in bed, I stand in the window with the sitting-room lights off, watching the empty street, too agitated to settle to anything. It’s all perfectly normal, a quiet, suburban cul-de-sac, with neat front gardens, but I see it differently now. Is he out there, hiding behind the manicured shrubs? Crouching in the shadows of the parked cars? Watching us? Ollie walks up the path to our house, his head bowed. He doesn’t see me in the dark. He looks weary. We could all do with a break, a proper holiday. Perhaps after the exhibition we could go somewhere warm. Try and rekindle our marriage. He gives me a kiss when he sees me standing waiting for him.

  ‘I found a present outside in the tree,’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  The two lines above the bridge of his nose deepen.

  Ollie has always looked youthful – permanently stuck in his twenties or early thirties. But I realize that he has aged – he still has plenty of floppy hair with no signs of baldness – but now he has these deep furrows in his forehead, fine lines around his eyes, creases running from his nose to his mouth. When did that happen? How did I not notice?

  ‘From Evie’s father. It’s the same writing as the card.’

  He rubs his hand over his eyes. ‘Did you give it to her?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A pink pony.’

  He snorts in disgust. ‘Have you spoken to her about it?’

  I shake my head. ‘Not yet. I didn’t want to get her worked up just before bedtime.’

  ‘Good. Don’t tell her. It’ll only upset her. Where was it?’

  I tell him about the hole in our garden fence and he swears.

  ‘We ought to call the police. What if he tries to speak to her?’

  ‘I have. And the adoption agency. There’s some food in the oven.’

  I’m trying not to think about the awful possibility that Evie’s birth father has already talked to her. She said she hadn’t seen him when I asked her about it on Saturday.

  Ollie comes back after a couple of minutes and sits next to me, his plate of shepherd’s pie balanced on a tea towel on his knee. He forks in a mouthful of food. It’s too hot and he exhales sharply. I bought a ready-made one. I’m feeling guilty at the amount of time I’ve been spending with Harris; the amount of time I’m spending thinking about Harris.

  ‘What did the police say?’

  ‘They’re going to come round and speak to us. I phoned this afternoon so I expect they’ll come tomorrow.’

  ‘And the agency?’

  He hadn’t expected they’d have anything useful to say and when I explain that they can’t give us any information and haven’t passed on our contact details to anyone, he nods.

  ‘That’s what I thought. Her birth mother said she didn’t want to stay in touch with Evie. She made that abundantly clear. But how the hell has her father found us?’

  I don’t have an answer. He jabs at the remote and turns the ten o’clock news on. I want him to talk to me about it, what it means, what we should do, how we should reassure Evie, but Ollie is tired and hungry and has already tuned out. I remind myself that this is how he unwinds – by watching TV late at night.

  I think about my conversation with Andy today, how he slept with a prostitute when he separated temporarily from Gill
. Ollie and I have never really spoken about the time we split up. It was in our third year when the pressure of our finals and my end of year exhibition all seemed too much. I met someone else – I’m sure Ollie did too. I know he partied hard for those first few months in London when he started working as a trainee accountant. He told me he’d dabbled in cocaine and Ecstasy for a bit. I look at him out of the corner of my eye. Could Ollie have slept with a prostitute? Is Andy right, is it something a lot of men do? I try to push the thought away. Even if Ollie had, he wouldn’t have been unfaithful when we got back together. He’s just not the type. Is he? I would never have thought Andy was either. It’s a coincidence that Ollie has the same strange clumsiness as Evie. He’s so precise in some ways – with numbers, figures, oven dials, Lego instructions – but physically he’s the opposite. He can suddenly overbalance, knocking someone’s glass out of their hand, plates slithering to the floor, as if he isn’t quite aware of where he ends and the rest of the world begins. It’s always endeared Evie to him – she looks like a sprite and is as uncoordinated as he is.

  I take his plate and my wine glass through to the kitchen. It’s dark and Ollie is in a bubble of blue light from the TV at the far end of the house. I don’t think he can see me. I can’t help myself. I stand on a chair to reach the highest cupboard in the corner where I’ve hidden the pony. I take the garish parcel down and peel back the scrunched paper. It’s actually a unicorn, not a pony. It’s intended for a fairy-tale princess; its mane falls to its hooves, there are flowers and stars on its rump. It’s revolting and I thought Evie would hate it when I first saw it. But now I’m not so sure. I think of her story of the princess, all the illustrations surrounded by hearts and magic wands. If I gave this to her, she’d love it. Perhaps we don’t know her as well as we thought we did.

  TUESDAY

  ‘Could you hold the strap?’

  I hold it out to Evie. It’s a lead that’s attached to the buggy. You’re meant to loop it round your wrist in case you let go of the handle and your precious baby rolls away from you.