The Stranger on the Train Page 5

  • • •

  Detective Inspector Hill wanted to know everything about Ritchie. He asked for Emma’s permission to view Ritchie’s medical records from the GP.

  “Are you sure you’d never seen the woman at the tube station before?” he asked. “Did anyone strange call to your flat recently? Approach you or Ritchie in the street? Follow you when you were out and about?”

  Emma had recovered enough to answer all of these quite definitely. No one had followed her. No one had called to the flat. She had never seen Antonia before.

  “Does Ritchie’s father have any contact with him?” Detective Hill asked.

  “No.”

  “Is that by his choice or yours?”

  “His.”

  “Would he have tried to take him, do you think?”

  “No.” Emma shook her head. If only she could think it was Oliver. At least then she’d know Ritchie was all right. “I know he wouldn’t. He’s not the type.”

  Detective Hill gave her a cold look, a look that said: I’ll be the judge, thank you, of who is the type. For some reason, it was as if he’d decided he didn’t like Emma very much. He wrote something into his notebook and said:

  “We’ll need to talk to him anyway.”

  Once, Emma would have been ashamed at the thought of Oliver knowing she’d been incompetent enough to lose her child. Their child. She didn’t care now. In less than twenty-four hours, all thoughts of Oliver had been wiped from her mind as completely as if he’d never existed. She gave Detective Hill his sister’s phone number in Birmingham. Oliver wasn’t close to his family, but presumably Sasha would at least have some idea of where he was.

  The questions continued.

  “Do you have a boyfriend? Someone you’ve been seeing?”

  “I haven’t been with anyone since Oliver.”

  “Who else do you know in London?”

  Emma thought.

  “My ex-flatmate, Joanne. But we’re not that friendly now.”

  “What about your neighbors here?”

  “I don’t really know any of them.”

  Behind Lindsay, two of the policemen exchanged glances. Emma caught them and said angrily: “Why do you keep on and on asking me about people I know? I told you, the woman who took Ritchie was a stranger. I’d never met her before.”

  “I’m sorry, Emma.” Lindsay touched her arm. “I know the questions are upsetting. But just at the moment, we can’t rule anything out.”

  “What are you doing to find Ritchie?” Emma jerked her arm away. “Apart from asking me questions, I mean. What are you actually doing to find him?”

  Lindsay said patiently: “We’re doing quite a lot, Emma. We’ve spoken to some of the witnesses at the scene earlier—the tube station, and the street outside Mr. Bap’s—and we’ll do our best to find and talk to as many more as we can. Your table in the café wasn’t cleared after you left, so we’ve taken the coffee cups you and Antonia used. Antonia might have left some of her DNA on hers. Also, we’re checking to see if any CCTV cameras are in operation on the street outside the café. If so, we might get some pictures of who took Ritchie and which way they went. The tube stations, at least, will have cameras, so we’ve put an urgent request in to look through those. And we’ve passed Ritchie’s details to all the newspapers. You saw the late evening edition.”

  She had. A short paragraph on page five: “The alleged snatching of a toddler from . . .” But why hadn’t they put him on the front page? Put him on TV? It all seemed so passive. So . . . so . . . Surely in films they did more to hunt for lost children. Emma floundered, lost for what else to ask.

  “What about dogs?” she said. “Helicopters?”

  Lindsay repeated: “Anything that’s appropriate, we’re doing it right now.”

  Emma wanted to argue, but her breathing was coming too fast again, the way it had in the hospital. She put her hands to her mouth, trying to get it under control. More exchanging of glances between the policemen.

  “My son does exist,” she said, and her voice came out as a sob.

  “I know he does,” Lindsay said gently. “I know.”

  • • •

  She had to get away. All these people in her flat, asking about Ritchie, and none of them knew him at all. He was just another job to them. She felt like a goldfish, frantically swimming around and around in a bowl, trapped and banging off the sides, while these calm, trained people looked at her from the outside and took notes.

  The only private place was her room. She took Gribbit the frog from Ritchie’s cot and crawled into bed, holding him in her arms. She wrapped them both in her duvet and lay there, exhausted, yet unable to slow down her thoughts.

  What are they doing to my child? That was one of the worst things, nasty, ugly, lodged like a roll of barbed wire in her stomach. Lindsay had said she was sure he was being treated well, but then, she had to say that, didn’t she? The truth was, none of them knew who’d taken him or what was happening to him. She pictured Ritchie drugged, breathing in a loud, obstructed way, his eyes rolled back, waiting in a van or a shed somewhere for . . . what? Or shivering in a corner, eating things off the ground and crying because no one had changed him and he was dirty and sore. She pictured him with tears rolling down his cheeks, emitting little high-pitched hiccups of distress, wondering what he’d done for her to leave him like this. To ease the horror of it, she concentrated on trying to send a hug to him. She focused on him; the bed swam away and there was just Ritchie, sitting by himself in a cot in a darkened room. He looked up, puzzled, the tears still on his cheeks. Emma felt a fierce tenderness and joy. Her arms went around his fat little body and he gave a glad cry and snuggled into her. She soothed him, weak with thankfulness; felt the way he trembled as he clung to her, wanting her to bring him home. The sensation was powerful enough to wake her, jerking her back to the bed. It wasn’t Ritchie she held, it was Gribbit, his wide, stitched-open eyes blank with misery. Emma wept with the pain of it. She wasn’t with Ritchie, she was here and he was God knew where, all alone. Crying for her. What were they doing to him? What was some sick, twisted pervert standing over him doing to him?

  Emma writhed in agony. She couldn’t take much more of this. Why? Why had she taken her child for coffee with Antonia? A complete stranger! She’d been so naive, so desperate for someone to talk to. Why had she gone to the bathroom and left her small child—her baby—with a woman she’d never seen before? What sort of mother was she? Why had she let Ritchie get trapped on the train? Why hadn’t she been watching him properly? Again and again she saw him there, standing in the doors. Over and over she replayed it in her mind: that strange tug on the harness, the sense that something was not quite right. But her bag was an inch out of reach, so that she spent that extra fraction of a second groping for it before she turned around.

  She could never have that moment back. It had come and gone, and when it mattered most, she had chosen a bag of vests and trousers over her son.

  • • •

  If Emma slept at all, she didn’t remember it. The hours dragged as she lay in the bleak silence, that barbed-wire coil in her stomach. At six in the morning, she abandoned the farce of trying to sleep and got up again. The phone hadn’t rung once. She picked it up to check there was a dial tone. There was. Lindsay had left a note written in thick, black marker on a Post-it, stuck to the receiver: “Here’s my number again, just to make sure. I’ll be back tomorrow. Or sooner if there’s any news.”

  Emma was still wearing her jeans and jumper from the night before. She left her bedroom, trying not to look at the cot under the window. She made herself a cup of tea and sat without drinking it at the round table in the sitting room. The curtains to the balcony were open. Through the glass doors, she saw the black tower block opposite, a gray halo in the sky just softening its edges. The heating in their building hadn’t come on yet. The coldness e
xaggerated the loneliness and emptiness of the flat.

  A whole night. He’d been gone a whole night. She’d thought she’d known what misery was, but now she knew she hadn’t at all. She’d known nothing, nothing compared to this. Gribbit sat on her knee, his long fuzzy legs brushing off her calves, just at the place where a toddler’s feet might reach. Emma stroked him, over and over, feeling her fingers bump over the dents on his tummy where his stuffing was wearing out.

  How long she sat there for, she had no idea. The buzz of the intercom, belching harshly through the silence of the flat, brought her to. Emma started. Lindsay had said she’d call round today, but surely she hadn’t meant this early? Why would she be here now, unless it was to say they had some news? Oh Jesus! She jumped up, flinging Gribbit off her lap, and hurried to the intercom.

  But it was only Dr. Stanford, her GP. What was she doing here? She didn’t normally make house calls. Emma pressed the button to open the main doors below. Dr. Stanford arrived up in the lift a few minutes later. She had a second person with her: a youngish, frizzy-haired woman in a green top.

  “Emma, how are you?” Dr. Stanford floated into the tiny hall of the flat. She was tall, greyhound-thin, with ash-colored hair smoothed back in a bun. She wore her usual uniform of immaculate gray skirt suit and silk blouse with a bow at the collar.

  “This is really awful,” she said. “You must be at your wits’ end. You’ve met Alison Regis, haven’t you?” She indicated the woman in green. “Our health visitor?”

  “No,” Emma said listlessly. She’d met several health visitors after Ritchie was born, but it seemed to be a different one each time.

  “I’ve been on maternity leave,” Alison Regis explained. “Today is my first day back.”

  “I’ve been away myself,” Dr. Stanford said. “All last week. At a conference in San Diego.”

  “San Diego?” Alison brightened. “Lovely. That’s where I went for my honeymoon.”

  There was a pause. Dr. Stanford cleared her throat.

  She said to Emma: “The police were at the surgery. They asked to see Ritchie’s medical records. I hope you don’t mind. I saw the form you signed, giving permission.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “They asked if I would check on you,” Dr. Stanford went on. “I would have anyway, of course. After your last visit to me, if you remember, I had left an urgent message for Alison here to come and see you. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize at the time that she was still on her maternity leave.”

  For some reason, Dr. Stanford seemed nervous. Her bony fingers shook as she fixed a loose strand of hair. Usually she was very calm, efficient, remote. She’d seen Emma and Ritchie for various ailments; had given Ritchie all his vaccinations, and twice some antibiotics for an ear infection. Emma had worried that the infection wasn’t clearing up properly, but Dr. Stanford was always briskly reassuring. The ten-minute slot didn’t leave much time for chat. The last time Emma had been to the surgery was just over a week ago, and Dr. Stanford had been just the same.

  “You look exhausted, Emma,” Dr. Stanford said now. “Have you managed to get any sleep?”

  Emma’s eyes stung from fatigue, and from the salt of a constant seepage of tears. Her jaw ached; no matter what way she held it, she couldn’t seem to get it into a comfortable position. They’d given her some Valium at the hospital; she’d taken one and it hadn’t worked at all. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, to get away from the panicky, relentless thinking about Ritchie, the horror of what might be happening to him, the helplessness and acid panic of not knowing what to do. But Lindsay had said to stay near the phone. Emma couldn’t imagine how Antonia would have got her number, but if there was any chance at all that she would ring, she didn’t want to be too drugged to take the call.

  “You really should try to sleep,” Dr. Stanford advised her.

  “I will,” Emma said. “But for now, I need to be awake.”

  • • •

  And then, just after five o’clock that evening, the phone rang.

  Lindsay and Detective Inspector Hill were in the flat. Lindsay had been there most of the day, making endless cups of tea, and nipping round to Sainsbury’s to buy soup that Emma wasn’t able to eat. Detective Hill had just arrived an hour ago—to take Emma’s official statement, he said. Lindsay explained to Emma how this was done.

  “Just tell us everything you’ve told us already, as it occurs to you,” she said. “Plus anything else you may have remembered in the meantime. Don’t worry if you get confused or if things aren’t in the right order. We’ll be recording everything you say, so we can put the full statement together later from the tape. At some point we’ll ask you to read it through, and if you’re happy we’ll ask you to sign it.”

  Emma spoke into the tape recorder and repeated most of what she’d told the police the night before. She didn’t remember anything new. When the statement was finished, Lindsay got up and went into the kitchen to boil the kettle. Emma went to the bathroom. She was just unbuckling her jeans when the low brrr-brrr of the phone started up from the sitting room. She froze. In the mirror over the sink, a white-faced scarecrow, harshly lit from above, gaped with black, sunken eyes. Emma listened, hardly breathing, very still.

  The ringing was cut off. Lindsay’s voice spoke, paused, spoke again.

  And then—Oh sweet Jesus!—there came running footsteps and a hammering on the bathroom door.

  “Emma.” Lindsay’s tone was urgent. “Quick. Quick.”

  Emma let go of her belt and stumbled to the door.

  “It’s a man,” Lindsay hissed. “Wouldn’t give a name. Are you expecting a call?”

  Emma shook her head. She couldn’t think . . . Unless it was Oliver, ringing to say he’d heard. She took the phone. There was no feeling in her fingers; she had to use her other hand to stop it slipping.

  “Hello?”

  A man’s voice said: “Is that Emma Turner?”

  It wasn’t Oliver.

  Emma went rigid. Beside her, Lindsay’s eyes were so wide Emma could see the white bits around her pupils.

  “Yes?” Emma said.

  “Oh, hello. My name is Rafe Townsend.”

  She had never heard the name.

  “Yes?”

  “We met yesterday. In the tube station, remember?”

  Emma’s legs buckled. Lindsay gripped her arm. Emma clutched a table for support.

  “Hello?” the voice was saying. “Hello? Are you still there?”

  “Yes,” Emma said coldly. “Yes, I’m here.”

  “You left all your bags behind when you got on the train,” the man said. “Your number was in your wallet. I hope you don’t mind me ringing, but I wanted to check you got your baby back all right.”

  Chapter Five

  Emma couldn’t speak. It was a while before she could even understand what the man was talking about. Feelings rushed at her. Relief that this man on the phone wasn’t the kidnapper. Disappointment that he wasn’t. It was too much. Too much. She backed away, dropping the phone on the floor.

  Lindsay and Detective Hill were with her at once. Who was this person? they wanted to know. Where had she met him? How much had he seen of what had happened?

  “He tried to help me in the station.” Emma was shaking. “He pulled me back from going under the train.”

  Detective Hill picked the phone up off the carpet.

  “Hello,” he said into it in his deep voice.

  The man on the other end was obviously still there, because Detective Hill, after listening for a moment, spoke again. Emma was still too flustered to hear much of the conversation, apart from the occasional “Mmm” and “I see.”

  When Detective Hill had hung up, he said to Lindsay: “Mr. Townsend was planning to drop the bags here this evening. Apparently he’ll be cycling past on his way home from work. I’ve to
ld him we’d prefer it if he dropped them at the station.”

  Lindsay was nodding. But Emma’s brain was starting to work again. How much had this Rafe person seen? Had he seen Antonia? Had he noticed something about her that might identify her?

  “No,” she interrupted. “Can’t he bring the bags here? I want to talk to him. I want to meet him properly.”

  “It might be better to let us take care of it,” Lindsay advised. “We can take his statement at the police station.”

  “I want to hear what he says,” Emma insisted. “He was there. He saw Ritchie. You ask him. He saw what happened, he’ll tell you.”

  Lindsay hesitated. She looked at Detective Hill, who was busy cleaning something out from under his thumbnail. He shrugged.

  “All the same to me,” he said. “We can do the statement here.”

  “You’re sure about this?” Lindsay asked Emma. “You’re sure you’re in a fit state to have this man come here?”

  “I am. I want to see him. I want to hear what he says.”

  Lindsay phoned Mr. Townsend back. They agreed between them that he should call at the flat in twenty minutes.

  While waiting for Rafe Townsend to arrive, Emma pushed back the sliding glass door to the balcony and went out for some air. She walked up and down, pacing and re-pacing the three steps it took to go from one end of the balcony to the other. The balconies of the tower block opposite bulged with jumble: drying clothes, pushchairs, strings fluttering with flags. Windows, hundreds of them, studded the block, some blacked out with tinfoil or paper, like missing teeth in a row of mouths.