By the same author
About the Publisher
The woman stood outside the train station, a leaflet held out in appeal, whilst a high wind fought to snatch it from her hand.
‘Please,’ she begged, ‘have you seen this little girl?’
As had so many others, the man ignored her plea, brushing her aside as he hurried past. Rain began to fall, small spatters at first, but as heavy clouds gathered it became heavier, soon soaking both her hair and clothes.
It didn’t stop the woman. Nothing would. Clasping the rest of the leaflets close to her chest, she tottered forward, thrusting one towards a young woman emerging from the station wearing a straight red skirt and pointy-toed shoes.
‘Please, have you seen this little girl?’
The woman took it, her eyes showing sympathy as she said, ‘Sorry, no.’
‘Please, look again.’
The young lady lowered her eyes to the picture, but then, needing both hands to open her umbrella, she shook her head, the picture falling onto the wet pavement. She wrestled the wind to keep the umbrella over her head, her grip tight and knuckles white as she bustled away.
The woman watched her for a moment, but then her eyes came to rest on the leaflet lying wet and forlorn on the pavement. A gasp escaped her lips. The eyes of her child seemed to gaze back at her, rain spattering the picture as though tears on her cheeks. She shivered with fear, vowing silently, Oh God, I have to find you–I have to.
She straightened her shoulders, desperation and determination in her stance. Another train disgorged its passengers, and as they streamed from the station she saw a tide of faces. Hand held out, she once again proffered her leaflets.
It was dark before she gave up, uncaring that she was soaked to the skin and almost dead on her feet as she trudged home.
The house felt empty, desolate, as she walked inside, the plush décor meaning nothing to her now. She was alone. They had all gone, but it didn’t matter. The only one she cared about was her daughter.
With hair dripping onto thick, red carpet and wet tendrils clinging to her face, she wearily climbed the stairs to her bedroom, peeling off sopping clothes before throwing on a pink, quilted dressing gown. Tears now rolling down her cheeks, she flung herself onto the bed, clutching a pillow to her chest. It had been three months and she feared the police had given up, but she wouldn’t. She would die first and, if anything, death would be welcome.
It was her fault, she knew that. A sob escaped her lips. Money had become her god, but the means of procuring it had put her little girl in danger. Her stomach churned, as a wave of fear overwhelmed her. Something dreadful had happened to her child.
Why had she let money become an obsession? It had begun in childhood–and her iron will had grown from the desperation to lead a different life from the one her mother had suffered. But there was more to it than that. It was also men! Her need to make them pay–her need for revenge.
And they had paid, and she had made her fortune, but at what cost? Oh, my baby! My baby! The money was meaningless now. She’d burned it all, given up every last penny, but still they hadn’t found her daughter. What more do you want from me? her mind cried, eyes heavenward.
She sobbed, unable to stand the fears that plagued her. She forced her thoughts in another direction. To the past, and to where it had all begun.
Emma Chambers pulled the threadbare blanket up to her chin, only to have one of her three sisters tug it back. The attic room was freezing. In the far corner was another straw-filled mattress, this one crammed with her four brothers. One of them turned over, breaking wind loudly, whilst another, the eldest, snored sonorously.
The house stirred, awakened from its slumber. Faint sounds reached Emma’s ears: a door closing, a cough, and then the sound of creaking rungs as her father climbed the ladder. Through the piece of material slung across the attic to divide children from parents she heard her mother’s soft groan and sensed her dread.
At sixteen years old and living with little privacy, Emma had no illusions. Her father was drunk, his feet stumbling on the rungs, and that meant the scant money he may have earned as a builder’s labourer had already lined the local publican’s pocket. The King’s Arms stood on the corner of their street in Battersea, South London, acting as a magnet for her father. It was rare that he was able to pass it without going inside.
There was more noise now, impatient curses as he finally made it through the small, square opening, his footfalls clumping across the wooden planks. Then came the sound of his boots hitting the floor as he flung them off, followed by the swish of clothing. Emma tensed, fearing for her mother, and shortly afterwards the nightly argument began.
‘Come on, woman!’
‘No, Tom.’
The sound of a slap, a sob, and then his harsh voice: ‘You’re my wife.’
‘The baby’s nearly due. Can’t you leave me in peace?’
‘Leave it out, you’ve weeks to go yet. Now come on, Myra, lift your nightdress.’
‘I don’t feel well. Can’t you do without for one night?’
‘No, I bloody well can’t.’
It started then, the grunts, the groans. Emma wanted to scream, to run round to her parents’ side of the attic and drag her father away from her mother. He was an animal, a pig, but she knew from past experience that it would only make things worse. Better to do nothing, to just pray that it would be over quickly and that her mother would be all right.
Emma held her hands over her ears, hating the sounds, and as one of her sisters turned over, she found herself without coverings again. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. There had been only cabbage soup for dinner, and so it wasn’t surprising when one of her brothers loudly broke wind again.
Food had preoccupied Emma’s thoughts more than anything during the past week, but the thought of her dad’s pay packet today had cheered her up. Now, though, there’d be no bread to supplement their meagre diet, and though she tried to still it, hate surged through her–hate for what her father had become.
Emma fidgeted again, trying to find comfort on the lumpy old mattress whilst wondering what had happened to the father she had known before the war. Yes, he’d been taciturn, but he’d also been loving, with an innate kindness. She could remember sitting on his knee, his affectionate cuddles, but the man who’d returned after the war, though looking the same, was a stranger–one who was short-tempered, hard and embittered.
A chink of moonlight spilled through a small hole in the roof, one that let in rain, and Emma frowned. They hadn’t always lived here. Before the war their home had been several streets away, in a comfortable if not large house, where at least her parents had a separate bedroom. The front door had opened
