The Mother Read online

  ‘I will, but not yet,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to worry him unnecessarily if Molly’s at the park or at home with Mum.’

  It was a big if and with every passing second I was becoming more worried.

  Why hadn’t my mother called me back? Why hadn’t I received another message from whoever had sent the first one?

  What was I going to do if we couldn’t find Molly?

  We reached the park fifteen minutes after leaving the station. It wasn’t much more than a small patch of greenery surrounded by flats and houses.

  There was a children’s playground in the centre and as we pulled into the kerb I could see that it was busy. But then it usually was on a day like today with the sun beating down and not a cloud in the sky.

  I jumped out of the car even before Brennan had switched off the engine. As I ran across the grass I stared intently at the playground in the hope of spotting my grey-haired mother.

  But as I drew close it became evident that she wasn’t there, and I felt the panic swell up inside me.

  I counted eight mums, two dads and about fifteen pre-school kids. But my own mother and daughter were not among them.

  I walked around the playground and looked beyond it towards the surrounding roads, but there was no sign of them.

  When Brennan caught up with me he was out of breath and struggled to speak.

  ‘Don’t assume the worst,’ he told me. ‘Maybe they’ve been here but are now on their way back to your parents’ place.’

  ‘We’ve got to go there,’ I said.

  ‘Is it far from here?’

  I pointed. ‘About half a mile in that direction.’

  ‘Come on then.’

  As we hurried back across the field towards the car, Brennan took out his phone and made a call that I assumed was to the station. But I couldn’t hear what he was saying because my head was filled with the sound of my own heart banging against my chest.

  I couldn’t believe that this was happening. The day had started off so well. Molly, bless her, had been on her best behaviour this morning, as excited as ever at the prospect of spending time with her grandparents.

  I felt tears well up in my eyes as I thought back to when I’d dropped her off. My dad had picked her up in his arms and got her to wave goodbye and blow me a kiss.

  She was so sweet, the sweetest little girl. The centre of my world. I couldn’t bear the thought that she might be in danger. Or that I might never see her again. The prospect filled me with a cold, hard dread that settled in my stomach like a heavy rock.

  ‘You need to stay calm, Sarah,’ Brennan said, when we were back in the car.

  ‘That’s easy for you to say, guv,’ I replied. ‘I just don’t understand what’s going on. The photo, the message, the fact that my mother won’t answer her phone.’

  He left it a beat and said, ‘I’ve just called the office and told them to circulate the photo and alert uniform. Just to be on the safe side.’

  It should have reassured me but it didn’t. Instead his words brought a sob to the surface and I had to force myself not to burst out crying.

  ‘Take this,’ Brennan said, handing me a handkerchief he produced from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  I lowered the visor and looked at myself in the mirror. The face that stared back at me was pale and gaunt. I suddenly looked much older than my 32 years.

  Tears sparkled in my eyes and my short brown hair was dishevelled from where I’d been raking my hands through it.

  I dabbed at my eyes with the hanky and then used it to blow my nose.

  ‘You need to tell me where to go,’ Brennan said.

  I cleared my throat and told him to take a left at the next junction and then the first right after that. He didn’t respond, just concentrated on the road ahead.

  ‘Thank you for coming here with me,’ I said. ‘I’m grateful.’

  ‘You don’t need to be,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t let you do this by yourself. I can imagine what you must be going through.’

  Brennan, who had a grandson a similar age, had met Molly a couple of times when I’d taken her into the station. He had always been understanding of the problems faced by single mothers in the department and I’d come to view him almost as a father figure as well as my boss.

  Right now I was so glad he was with me. I knew he would do whatever he could to help me find my daughter.

  ‘It’s the house up there on the left behind the privet hedge,’ I said.

  My childhood home was a semi-detached pre-war property in a quiet, tree-lined street. My father’s ageing Mondeo wasn’t parked out front so I took that to mean that he was still at his allotment.

  ‘Have you got a key?’ Brennan asked.

  I nodded and extracted my keys from my shoulder bag.

  A short paved pathway led up to the front door and as I approached it my emotions were spinning. I didn’t bother to ring the bell, and my hand shook as I fumbled to insert the key in the lock.

  As soon as the door was open I called out and stepped inside. But my heart sank when there was no response.

  ‘They might be in the back garden,’ Brennan said as he followed me in.

  I hurried along the hallway and threw open the door to the kitchen, hoping to see or hear Molly.

  Instead I was confronted by a sight that caused my stomach to give a sickening lurch.

  3

  Sarah

  My mother was tied to one of the kitchen chairs and a red silk scarf had been wrapped around her face to gag her.

  Her chin was resting on her chest and she appeared to be unconscious. But when I let out a muffled scream her head jolted up and she looked at me through eyes that struggled to focus.

  For a moment I just stood there in shock, unable to move, unable to take in what I was seeing. All my police instincts, training and experience deserted me. It was left to Brennan to rush forward and remove the scarf from around my mother’s head.

  ‘I recognise that smell,’ he said as he put the scarf against his nose and sniffed it. ‘It’s chloroform.’

  My mother gasped and spluttered and then went into a coughing fit.

  ‘You’re going to be OK, Mrs Mason,’ Brennan said as he started to untie her hands that were secured behind her back with a length of plastic cable. ‘We’ve got you now. You’re safe.’

  I came out of my trance-like state and ran forward to my mother. She was shaking and dribbling and having great difficulty breathing properly. But at least she was alive and looked as though she hadn’t been physically harmed.

  ‘Where’s Molly, Mum?’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘Where is my baby?’

  She tried to speak but the words got stuck in her throat.

  I rested a hand on her shoulder, crouched down so that we were face to face.

  ‘Mum, please. Where’s Molly?’

  Her eyes grew wide and confusion pulled at her features. Then she shook her head and her lips trembled.

  ‘I … d-don’t know,’ she managed. ‘She was in the high chair when the doorbell rang.’

  That was when I noticed the high chair for the first time, on the other side of the room next to the back door that stood open. There was a plastic bowl on the tray, along with Molly’s familiar spill-proof beaker.

  ‘Did you go and answer the door, Mrs Mason?’ Brennan asked her. ‘Is that what you did?’

  I turned back to my mother. She nodded and closed her eyes, and I could tell she was trying to cast her mind back to what had happened.

  ‘A man,’ she said, her tone frantic. ‘He was wearing a hood, like a balaclava. He forced himself in and grabbed me. Then he put something over my face.’

  My mother lost it then and started to cry, great heaving sobs that racked her frail body.

  She was almost seventy, and seeing her like this, I felt the urge to comfort her, but a more powerful impulse seized me and I jumped up suddenly and went in search of Molly, praying that she was still here and hadn’t been taken away.


  I ran out into the garden first, but it was empty except for the cat from next door that was lying on the lawn like it didn’t have a care in the world.

  Then I dashed back into the house and through the kitchen, passing Brennan who was standing next to my mother while talking anxiously into his phone.

  I checked the living room and ground floor toilet, then hurried upstairs in the hope of finding my daughter in one of the three bedrooms. I called out her name, told her that Mummy had come to get her. But there was a resounding silence. She wasn’t there. She was gone.

  A new wave of terror roared through my body as I ran back downstairs. Now it was confirmed. My daughter had been abducted and I had no idea by whom. The nightmare that had loomed over me since I opened up the photograph on my phone had turned into a horrific reality.

  The temptation to collapse in a tearful heap was almost overwhelming, but I told myself that I had to hold it together. For my sake and for Molly’s.

  My mother was still on the chair in the kitchen and Brennan was trying to coax more information out of her. When she saw me she reached for my hand and said, ‘There was nothing I could do. It happened so – so quickly.’

  ‘Who could it have been, Mum?’ I said. ‘Do you have any idea?’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t see his face. He knocked me out and when I woke up I was tied to this chair.’

  I reached out and put an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sarah,’ she sobbed. ‘I really couldn’t …’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Mum,’ I said, choking back tears. ‘We’ll get her back. I promise.’

  I heard a siren and the sound of it caused my heart to flip.

  ‘Your father needs to be told, Sarah,’ my mother said. ‘He’s still at the allotment. He thinks we’ll be meeting him at the pub.’

  ‘I’ll see to it, Mum,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  I straightened up and looked at Brennan who told me that he had raised the alarm and that teams of officers were about to descend on the area.

  ‘I’ve also summoned an ambulance,’ he said. ‘The paramedics will take care of your mother.’

  His words registered, but only just, and they failed to provide any comfort. How could they? My precious daughter had been kidnapped. My mind was still reeling and I felt weighted down by a crushing despair.

  I was on the verge of losing control so I lowered myself onto one of chairs around the kitchen table. There I sat, my head spinning, my stomach churning, as Brennan gently prised more information out of my mother.

  She revealed that the man had rung the bell at just before nine – an hour or so after I had dropped Molly off. My father had just left the house to go to his allotment and she was giving Molly her breakfast before taking her to the park.

  She remembered very little about her attacker. His face had been covered and he’d been wearing what she thought was a dark T-shirt and jeans.

  ‘He was average height but strong,’ she said. ‘I tried to struggle free when he attacked me but I couldn’t.’

  She started crying again and this time it set me off. I broke down in a flood of tears and heard myself calling Molly’s name.

  I was only vaguely aware of the commotion that suddenly ensued, and of being led out of the kitchen and along the hallway.

  Raised voices, more people entering the house, some of them in uniform. Molly’s face loomed large in my mind’s eye, obscuring much of what was going on around me. I wondered if I would ever hold her in my arms again. It was a sickening, painful thought and one that I never thought I would have to experience.

  I’d witnessed the suffering of parents who had lost children, seen the agony in their eyes. But as a copper I had always been one step removed, professionally detached and oblivious to the real extent of their plight.

  Now I had a different perspective. I was in that horrendous position myself. The grieving, desperate mother wondering why fate had delivered such a crushing blow.

  ‘We’re taking you next door,’ Brennan was saying as we stepped outside, to be greeted by the flashing blue light on top of a police patrol car. ‘This house is now a crime scene and the forensics team needs to get to work. Mrs Lloyd, the neighbour to the right, has kindly agreed to make some tea for you and your mother.’

  ‘I don’t want tea,’ I wailed. ‘I want Molly.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to find her, Sarah,’ Brennan said. ‘We all will. But look, I really think it’s time that Molly’s father was informed about what’s happened. Do you want to call him or shall I?’

  The prospect of breaking the news to Adam that his daughter had been abducted filled me with dread. I knew I couldn’t do it, that as soon as I heard his voice I would fall apart.

  ‘You ring him,’ I said. ‘Tell him to get here as soon as he can.’

  4

  Adam

  The man in the dock at the Old Bailey looked as though he hadn’t got a care in the world. Even when the judge instructed him to stand up and turn to the jury he didn’t appear to be in the least bit anxious. He was facing the prospect of a long stretch behind bars, but from his expression you would never have guessed it.

  ‘The bastard is cocksure that he’s about to be acquitted,’ Detective Inspector Adam Boyd whispered to his colleague who was sitting beside him in the courtroom. ‘And I have a horrible feeling he could be right.’

  The case against Victor Rosetti – a Romanian national – had been undermined during the past couple of days. One of the prosecution witnesses had disappeared before taking the stand, and the defence had managed to refute some of the forensic evidence, claiming it had been contaminated.

  For the National Crime Agency, which was set up to fight organised crime in the UK, it would be a bitter blow if Rosetti did walk. As one of London’s nastiest villains and drugs traffickers, the man deserved to be locked behind bars. But securing a conviction was always going to be a challenge for Adam and his team.

  Rosetti had an army of foot soldiers working for him, along with some powerful contacts. Several senior police officers were also believed to be on his payroll.

  Adam had managed to build a strong case against him before bringing a charge that related to the importation and distribution of cocaine. But Rosetti’s defence had dismissed much of the evidence as circumstantial and had accused the police of ‘fitting up’ their client.

  Things had gone from bad to worse two days ago when the prosecution’s key witness – one of Rosetti’s own drug couriers – slipped out of the safe house he was staying in. All attempts to trace him had failed, and Adam thought it likely that Rosetti’s people had ‘encouraged’ him to vanish by threatening his family.

  The jury foreman was now being asked if a verdict had been reached. The foreman said it had and passed a slip of paper to the clerk.

  Adam stared with ill-disguised contempt at the man who was known as ‘Rosetti the Cutter’ because of his fondness for slicing up his enemies with a knife.

  He was a short, heavyset man with a round face and shaved head. He’d been on the NCA’s radar for a couple of years, but this was the closest they’d come to bringing him down and Adam wasn’t sure they would get an opportunity like this again.

  As the judge prepared to ask the jury foreman to announce the verdict, Adam felt his mobile phone vibrate with an incoming message. He ignored it, deciding that whatever it was it could wait. Right at this moment the only thing that mattered was seeing if this Romanian scumbag got what he deserved.

  Adam felt his insides contract as he switched his gaze from Rosetti to the jury foreman, a thin-faced man with a scruffy beard.

  ‘So do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?’ the judge asked him.

  Adam bit his bottom lip and held his breath. The courtroom fell silent. The jury foreman spoke without hesitation.

  ‘Not guilty, your honour,’ he said.

  Rosetti’s reaction to the verdict was to grin broadly and punch the ai
r with his fist.

  It made Adam want to throw up. Although he’d seen this coming it was still a sickening blow.

  He had to resist the urge to leap to his feet and berate the jury for being so stupid and to ask who among them had been nobbled. Instead he just sat there, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached.

  Shouts of support came from the public gallery as Rosetti was led out of the dock.

  ‘What a bloody disaster,’ Adam said to himself, loud enough for those around him to hear.

  He didn’t move for several minutes, waiting for the courtroom to empty. He felt wrung out, the emotions thick in his throat.

  At length, he threw out a long sigh and got to his feet. He needed some fresh air and a cigarette. And after that a stiff drink, or two, at the nearest boozer.

  Outside, a few newspaper reporters and a TV camera crew had gathered on the street. But it could hardly have been described as a media frenzy. The case hadn’t been as high-profile as some of the others that had been taking place at the same time. Victor Rosetti wasn’t exactly a household name, and drugs trials had become so commonplace that they failed to attract much attention these days.

  The Romanian stood on the pavement, flanked by two burly minders, as he answered the reporters’ questions.

  Adam’s boss, DCI Mike Dunlop, stood to one side preparing to make a statement on behalf of the NCA, in which he would no doubt express profound disappointment.

  Adam slipped away from Dunlop and the rest of the police team and crossed the road where he sparked up a fag and tried to suppress the rage that was bubbling up inside him.

  He regarded what had just happened as a travesty of justice, and it was going to take him a while to get over it. The thought that Rosetti would now go away and continue to ply his illicit trade made his blood boil.

  He watched as the bastard finished answering questions. Then a black Mercedes pulled up to the kerb and he climbed in with his minders. The reporters immediately turned their attention to Dunlop. The Mercedes then pulled away, but instead of driving straight off, it shot across the road and parked next to where Adam was standing.