people usually leave candles for dead people?’ says Emma.
‘They’re candles for hope,’ I say, immediately realising how trite it sounds.
Matt’s staring out of the car window. He doesn’t seem to see or hear what we’re talking about. He’s wearing his work suit and his hair has gone curly, still wet from the shower. His reading glasses help to camouflage his red eyes.
After five minutes, we pull up outside the community centre. It’s where they host youth club discos and table tennis tournaments. Emma’s eyes squint when the car door opens and the strong September sun hits them.
The detectives get out and a uniformed policewoman drives the car away. Matt steps in front of me, taking Emma by the hand. I feel a stab of – what? Jealousy? Resentment?
Stop it, Stephanie. Get a grip.
There are a few photographers outside and several camera crews. One of the cameras has Sky News on the side. How did they get here so quickly? It was only in the paper yesterday, but I suppose most news is instant these days – they probably got here just after the story broke.
Detective Hines leads Emma and Matt towards the side door and I’m left at the front entrance. What am I supposed to do? Everyone outside is huddled in groups and I feel like a spare part. No one’s here to tell me what I’m supposed to do.
Three journalists – well, I assume they’re journalists; I’ve never met one before – are smoking cigarettes near the doorway. One of them narrows her eyes at me. She inhales the smoke like she’s hissing and blows it out like a sigh.
‘Are you a relative?’ she asks.
The other two – a man and a woman – look up.
‘No,’ I say, and rush through the door.
‘Won’t be long now, kid,’ I say to her.
She just nods, doesn’t talk much. It could’ve been worse – she could have been a right mouthy little shit, but she seems to be keeping in line so far. I haven’t told her my real name, not that I suppose it matters in the end. We are judged by our actions, not by our monikers. That’s what the shrink said anyway. They say a man acquires more knowledge when he’s inside, but I didn’t just learn the bad stuff. I was guided towards the right path. All right – I did ask Tommy Deeks how things like this are supposed to be done. But that was serendipity. He was sent to me for a reason.
‘Routines,’ he’d said. ‘Once you know someone’s routine, then you can intercept them at any time you see fit. And I don’t mean watching them for a few hours or a few days – you have to watch them for fuckin’ weeks. Their lives should be more important than yours – you eat, shit, sleep and dream about them. Then, my friend, it’s easy as fuck.’
All I needed was a name. And it just so happens that children have their own little routines too. Even in this day and age, kids are still allowed to walk the streets on their own. Their fuckwit parents should know better. There are too many weirdos out there. She’s lucky it’s only me that took her – there were some right filthy perverts inside. Not that we got to see them. Most of them would be killed if they put them with the rest of us.
Anyway. I digress.
This is probably the biggest thing I’ve ever done. It will be my salvation.
And God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. For God was with him.
And if the ends justify the means …
She will be so pleased with me. It would be like none of all that bad stuff ever happened.
‘When will you take me to my mum?’
Her little voice almost made me shit myself. For a second I forgot she was there.
‘Not long now.’
There’s only so far I’m going to get away with that one. Another day or so, maybe. I’ve taken us the long way round, but we’ll be there soon. She’ll soon figure out that I’m not taking her to her mother. I look at her in the rear-view mirror – dressed in clothes I bought especially for her – her hair stuffed in a hat. Her cheeks look a bit red, but she’ll live. She looks just like her precious mummy. Although that bitch couldn’t even look me in the eye the last time I saw her.
She’ll have to soon enough though, won’t she?
I’ve laid out all the cuttings from Zoe’s disappearance on the coffee table. There are only a few – there weren’t as many newspapers in 1986. Most papers used the photo of Zoe in her uniform – her first and last school photograph.
I try not to think about what she might have looked like if her picture had been taken every year after that. About how proud Sarah would have been of her. I try not to feel bitter every time I see her old school friends standing at the gates of the school down the road, adults now, waiting for children of their own. I simply let it stab me once, in the heart, before I bury it again. We used to talk about Zoe every day. I don’t get to talk about her any more. No one else knows her now.
I look at the clock. Jim’s late, but for once I don’t mind. It gives me time to look at all the different versions of her little face in the cuttings: small and grainy; black and white and brightly coloured, of which there’s only one. In the centre of them all I’ve placed the last photo of Sarah and Zoe together: my daughter and granddaughter.
I bury my face in my hands. It never gets any easier. It’s not the natural order. I’ve said that to myself a thousand times. I wish God would just take me to be with them. It’s too hard to be the only one left. Well, almost the only one.
Jim’s taps on the kitchen window halt the flow of my tears. I grab one of the cushions off the settee and soak up the wet from my face. This is why I hardly ever look at these pictures.
‘Where are you, Maggie?’
‘Where do you think I am? I’ve only two rooms.’
I place the cushion back next to me, but reversed.
Jim appears at the threshold and shakes off his coat.
‘You could’ve been in the lav,’ he says.
‘Well, you can’t ask where a lady is if you think she’s in the lav.’
‘It was just something to say,’ he says, ‘so you’d know I was here.’
He sighs and the settee sinks a little as he sits next to me. We don’t often sit like this together. I rub my right
