Stolen Child (11 page)

Edward Carter called his wife after a bird. A pet name. Once, in the early days of their relationship, Carla had imagined her as a chirrupy woman with a beaky face, tilting her head this way and that. But the woman who had sat in
the front row at the gala fashion show she had organised for charity had been slight and petite, brown hair winging her cheeks in a soft bob, her thin hands folded demurely on her lap. Carla’s stride had not faltered as she advanced towards her along the catwalk, nor had Renata Carter’s gaze. She had observed Carla and then dismissed her as another one of her husband’s brief dalliances.

She was right, of course, and now, if Carla could speak to her, she would ask how long it took to reach that level of acceptance, indifference, whatever was necessary to make the unbearable bearable.

Midsummer. Her anniversary. The longest day of the year. I understand why she, more than the others, has stayed with me. Other hands took my babies away but she was in my arms until I was forced to let her go. In the spring I covered her grave in crocuses and snowdrops and, later, primroses, cowslips, bluebells, violets, forget-me-nots; small, delicate flowers that will come and go as the seasons dictate.

I feel peaceful there. When the plums fall in the autumn they will sweeten the earth. It’s a green and fertile grave, unlike the Burren tombs with their box-like caverns and slanting slabs of stone. Bodies have been excavated from these tombs, along with stones, beads, pendants, crystals, all suggesting rituals and grieving. Did they worship the sun, I wonder, these megalithic people who walked across those pavement rocks? Kneel and bow before the solstice?

In Newgrange, that time. The winter solstice. I’ve never forgotten it but the memory was particularly vivid today. I remembered the silence, not a word from anyone as we pushed our way along the narrow passage and crowded into the burial chamber. I had stood there with Edward Carter,
my hand hidden in his. We watched that slant of sunrise steal through the narrow shaft of that ancient tomb, faintly at first, then glowing stronger until it had illuminated the chamber where old bones and ash once rested. Such exquisite precision, such exact timing. In that instant I believed in miracles. I believed he would leave his wife. I believed we would have children. I believed we would play happy families and grow old together. Truly, I was bewitched by an ancient spell. I wanted to bow my head in honour of those who had walked there before us, five thousand years, and more.

Later we went to a hotel and lay beside each other until it was time for him to return to his real life.

I loved him for eight years. We came together in discreet hotel rooms. And there were many such occasions: overnight trips, weekend business seminars, client conferences, promotional campaigns that took us to strange locations where we walked among strangers and were freed from the shadow of his wife.

She’s neurotic, he would say on the brief occasions when he mentioned her name. Wren does not understand me.

I believed him. I, who worked in a world of persuasion, allowed myself to be conned by the greatest persuader of them all. How sad is that? To fall for a cliché…but love ruled my heart over my head and I was young enough to believe time was on my side.

Did Wren suspect? Maybe…maybe not. He was always plausible with excuses. I believed them myself when he began to cancel weekends, offer reasons why I couldn’t accompany him to conventions. When I accidentally (and it was an accident) clicked into his private line and heard him speaking to Carla Kelly, I was not, at first, suspicious. I recognised her voice: that low, fruity growl was quite
distinctive. We used her regularly for photoshoots and there were many reasons why they should be having a conversation over the phone. But I’d grown up with the growl and snarl of unhappiness and I recognised the vibrations of an argument. I stayed perfectly still, afraid they would hear me breathing.

The clinic was one of the best in London, he assured her. And yes, he sighed heavily, he would accompany her. I visualised him jerking the white cuffs of his immaculate shirt and checking his watch as he searched for an excuse to bring their argument to an end.

She was crying when she hung up. I leaned forward and silently clicked out of the call. I wondered how he had made such a mistake. Was it blind passion or something sordid like a faulty condom? She was eighteen, not much older than I was when…I veered away from the memory, unable, as ever, to go there…and waited until he left his office. The address and phone number of the clinic were scrawled on a piece of paper in the top drawer of his desk.

When he returned from London I informed him I was leaving the company.

‘Leaving?’ He rested his hand fleetingly on mine. ‘Surely not? Whatever will we do without you?’

I wanted to tell him what I thought of him. To splatter the words across his handsome face. But I said nothing. I did not want to endure his lies, his excuses. Remonstrations belong to wives. So do the spoils of marriage. Vengeance belongs to the mistress.

Midsummer is almost over. Earlier, when darkness fell, I stood in the cottage garden and tried to remember what it was like that night but I can’t. I have to read this journal to feel it again, the pain and the loss and that dread determination
that drove me into a new reality. I was passive for so long. Richard with his ambitions, my father and Tessa demanding that I give my child away, those boys with their animal grunts and heaves…and Edward Carter.

I try not to dwell on the past but he makes it impossible for me to move forward.

He took on the Garda, stood tall and straight in the Dáil and demanded that more resources be provided to protect the most vulnerable in our midst. Such passion in his voice. Every time I switched on the radio I heard him, the same message. Find Isobel Gardner or no child in the nation will be safe. Only in the silence that followed did I hear the truth. A guilty conscience, an unpaid debt, and Carla Kelly was demanding payment in full.

It worked for a while. The Gardaí renewed their search for a few more weeks but, eventually, they were forced to wind it down again. I hoped that would be the end of it but it continues…on and on…Isobel Gardner’s name is never out of the headlines. Carla Kelly is never out of the news. No more lingerie shots or that awful inappropriate smile. Instead, her interviews are carefully chosen. To the unobservant eye, this may not be obvious but I know what’s what. Edward Carter’s hands are all over it.

Last month they held a press conference to launch the ‘Find Isobel’ campaign. Oh, it was well orchestrated, no doubt about that. He offered an initial reward and the public have started contributing to a fund for a private detective. Even Alyssa Faye with her tired questions about the psychology of celebrity could not crack Carla Kelly’s composure. Her hair is slick now, tied in a knot. No more shaggy mane falling over her eyes. No more inappropriate smiles or skinny tops. She dresses in black, a ballerina in mourning, that’s her image now that Edward Carter has become guardian of the truth.
Her updates to the media on her campaign always get front-page coverage, even though she has nothing new to say.

I was wrong. It’s a week since Midsummer; a week when her name was not mentioned once by the media…until this evening, that is.

Yes…this evening there was nothing controlled about her. She looked as if she’d been crying all day and her hair was loose, streaming like her tears. I was in the kitchen preparing your bottle when David shouted from the living room that there’d been a breakthrough in the search for Isobel Gardner. The spoon slipped from my hand and the powder spilled across the counter. I leaned against the wall until the dizziness passed. I wanted to run upstairs to my bedroom where you were sleeping and barricade the door behind me.

Carla Kelly was being interviewed on
The Week on the Street;
a scoop for Josh Baker. He could hardly contain his excitement as he quizzed her on the progress of the search. The interview took place in the nursery. She sat on that same chair in that same position by the window. I could see the cradle…empty…and the seahorses.

‘Look at Miriam’s seahorses,’ said David, and turned the volume higher. ‘Imagine,’ he said, ‘when we were celebrating Joy, she was weeping. No one should have to endure what she’s going through. Maybe soon the agony will all be over for her and her husband.’

A woman had phoned Garda Headquarters last night and confessed that she’d stolen the Anticipation Baby and had now abandoned the child in an empty factory in a disused industrial estate on the north side of Dublin. The search had been carried out in secret until the media got wind of it. Carla Kelly turned directly to the camera and made her appeal.
She knelt beside the cradle and placed her hand protectively over it. Those wretched eyes and that catch in her voice when she mentioned her child’s name…Isobel…Isobel…not Joy…and I wanted to wrench my face from the television and curl myself into a tight umbilical coil.

I went upstairs. You were still sleeping. You lifted your arm and flung it over your shoulder. Your chest rose and you gave that shuddery sigh that used to terrify me in the early days.

Later, when the evening news came on, I saw high walls and yellow tape surrounding them. Guards stood on duty outside the gates and inside, where the cameras were not allowed, spotlights were visible. I reached for the remote control and switched off the television, silenced David’s protests with my lips. I sat beside him on the deep sofa where we used to make love in the early months of our marriage, lazy drifting times when we were too comfortable or too lazy to head for our bedroom.

I kissed him, gently at first, as he likes to be kissed, then more urgently. I understand desire. David is easily distracted and tonight he was eager for me. His tongue parted my lips and we sank into the cushions, into familiar positions, almost forgotten. He joked that we were out of practice, as indeed we were. ‘Nothing strange about that,’ I said. ‘New babies equal havoc.’

But there was something wrong. He moaned when he came into me, as if it was pain, not pleasure, he was experiencing in my arms, in the curve of my legs, in the clench of my vagina as I sought to bring him to the peak. He wanted to slow down, to wait until I too experienced the same hot thrill. It was selfish, in a way. Why could he not take what I willingly offered? Why insist on prolonging it when all he really wanted to satisfy was his own male ego? He pulled
away from me and laid me on my back. He caressed my breasts, kissed each nipple with such slow deliberation I wanted to scream. He drew his tongue over my ribcage, over the mound of my stomach and beyond, his breath warm between my thighs. I shuddered, a sign he mistook for pleasure, and after that it was quickly over.

You began to cry, your sobs shrill on the baby monitor.

‘I’ll go to her,’ David said, and I thought there was relief in his voice as he adjusted his clothes and left the room. He has been patient about the bedroom situation, too patient for a young man whose body responds instantly to pleasure. I wonder, sometimes, about Imelda Morris. She travels from Dublin occasionally to visit her parents but those trips always seem to coincide with David’s leave.

He is back in my bed now. You awoke when we entered the room, not with your usual fretful cries, but with gurgles of delight as you stared through the bars of your cot at him. Now you are both asleep and I am sleepless, drenched in fear.

Abandoned…abandoned…
the word kept beating against Carla’s head as she drove over O’Connell Bridge. The moon, a scimitar blade, was pale and waning. She passed the Rotonda Hospital where Gina had given birth to Jessica, and where Robert had wanted her to have Isobel until she insisted on the luxury of Valley View. The windows of the hospital were dark, mothers and babies safely sleeping. Onwards she drove, around Parnell Square and past the Black Church with its high spires and the legend that claimed the devil would appear if anyone had the courage to run three times around it at midnight.

The engines in the Broadstone bus depot were silent, as were the sleeping streets of Phibsboro. Glasnevin Cemetery, shadowed with yew trees and grey hulking tombstones, was visible behind railings as she swept towards the valley of Finglas. This was urban Dublin – flyovers and vast sprawling housing estates – but the imprint of a one-time country village was still evident in its winding main street. She drove past modern factories and offices until she reached a country road where an industrial estate sat like a desolate and deserted fortress. Fields spanned out on either side of the
perimeter walls. White plastic bags fluttered like abandoned kites from the trees. This was her first time to see the industrial estate in reality. Its façade was even grimmer than the television images had led her to believe.

‘Abandoned
!’ she had cried when Robert told her about the woman’s call to Garda Headquarters. ‘What exactly did she say?’

‘You mustn’t get your hopes up,’ Robert had pleaded with her. ‘We get calls like this all the time but they have to be investigated. She’s probably a crazy—’

‘But the woman who took Isobel
is
crazy,’ Carla interrupted him. ‘Please don’t tell me the guards aren’t taking her seriously?’

‘We always take such calls seriously. A specially trained search team with dogs is combing the area right now.’

‘Where is this place?’ she had demanded, imagining herself already speeding towards this unknown destination.

‘It used to be called the Chalwerth Industrial Estate,’ Robert replied. ‘It’s between Finglas and Cabra, and is a wasteland of old buildings that have been closed down for years.’

A place of stone: grim factories and warehouses, high walls and narrow abandoned roads.

‘She’s there, Robert,’ Carla had cried. ‘I know she is.’ She rummaged in the drawer and pulled out the letters, desperately seeking the one she had received from the psychic. ‘I have to go there and search for her.’

‘Carla, please calm down.’ She heard iron in his voice. ‘That’s absolutely out of the question. Let the guards do their work. If there’s any possibility Isobel is there, they’ll find her quickly. I’m sorry you have to go through this…but please
don’t
talk to the press?’

The search would be carried out in a planned and structured way.

‘They’re an expertly trained team and they’ll cover every square inch of the area with the dogs,’ Robert assured her. ‘But every instinct tells me that this is a hoax call.’

The search had continued throughout the night. Raine had arrived with hot food. They tried to eat and make conversation but the strain of small talk had become impossible. Robert had left early in morning and promised to stay constantly in touch with her.

‘Remember what I said,’ he warned her before leaving. ‘Hang up if anyone from the media calls. They’re sure to have heard rumours by now. The Press Office will handle all enquiries. I’ve contacted Leo. He should be with you shortly. Let him deal with any phone calls.’

A short while later, her phone rang. Josh Baker wanted to know where the search was being carried out.

‘Come on, Carla,’ he had said when she denied any knowledge of the location. ‘Of course you know. We can help each other. Give me the information and I’ll give you prime exposure this evening. This woman will be glued to the television. The rest of the media will feed off
The Week
, as they always do. Use your head, Carla. You can’t let this opportunity pass.’

‘Leave me alone, Josh. I’ve told you, I can’t help you.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

When she stayed silent he had said, ‘You owe me one for all the exposure I’ve given you.’ His anger was contained but he was known for his ruthlessness when he wanted information and for his ability to hold a grudge if it was denied him.

‘Exposure!’ she snapped. ‘You’ve used me at every opportunity. I don’t owe you anything.’

‘But you owe it to your daughter,’ he retorted. ‘If she were my child, I wouldn’t hesitate to use every opportunity at my disposal to find her.’

‘I have to go, Josh.’ She could no longer bear to listen to him. ‘
Don’t
contact me again.’

‘If this turns out to be a hoax, don’t come looking in my direction for any further—’

She hung up on him and ran to the nursery, fell to her knees. It had been seven months since Isobel’s disappearance, and she no longer wept for hours on end, or collapsed into people’s arms, or sat motionless staring into space. Her knees had strengthened, so had her spine. But, suddenly, she was back again to that moment of discovery, gripped with the same rudderless terror. She had stopped believing in God when she was fourteen. The breaking away had been sudden. No more rituals, no more confession, childhood prayers forgotten. Now, kneeling beside the cradle, the prayers that had comforted her when she was a child spilled easily from her lips. She had bargained, demanded…
Please God…please…please please…make it happen…I beseech you…implore you…I lay myself open to your mercy…

Leo had arrived shortly afterwards. The phone continued to ring throughout the afternoon. When she looked out her front window she saw journalists in her garden and drew back before they noticed her.

As the hours passed without word, she wondered how she would stay sane. Her head had filled with images: a baby, surrounded by rusting machinery, lying unnoticed on a factory floor, cobwebs drooping from the walls, rats scurrying. A dark narrow road filled with weeds, the stink of mould and desolation. How could her daughter survive in such conditions? She had to appeal to this woman. Beg her to reveal where, in this place of stone, her daughter lay waiting to be found. Overriding Leo’s objections she had phoned Josh Baker.

He had conducted the interview in the nursery. ‘Let’s go
for maximum impact,’ he said. ‘The nursery is the perfect backdrop for your appeal.’ It made no difference in the end. The search was called off after twenty-four hours when the search team and the sniffer dogs failed to find anyone. Robert was pale and tight-lipped when he had finally arrived home.

‘I hope you’re satisfied,’ he said. ‘The whole operation was turned into a media circus. For once, couldn’t you have kept your head down and stayed out of our way?’

‘I wanted to appeal to her. She would have been listening…watching…’

‘It was a hoax, Carla, a
fucking
hoax. I warned you not to get involved.’

‘How can you be sure?’ she screamed. Her eyes glittered, tearless but feverish. ‘You weren’t there. It’s too soon to call it off.’

‘They combed every square inch of space. Do you understand what I’m saying…every square
inch.
If a needle had been missing, they would have found it.’

He held her arms, shook her into silence. ‘You’ve no idea what I’m going through. To stand by and watch…not to be able to search for my own child. I hoped as much as you did. But she was
never
there.’

She refused to heed his desperation. ‘You’re wrong. She’s there…
here’s
the proof.’ She showed him the psychic’s letter. ‘Don’t you see? A place of stone. Robert, she could be dead by now and we’re sitting here doing nothing. They
have
to keep searching.’

Robert crumpled the letter and flung it into the wastepaper basket. ‘Jesus Christ, Carla, how many times must I tell you? She wasn’t there. They would have heard her…seen her. It’s over. Accept it.’ She removed the letter and clutched it against her chest. Unable to watch her desperation, he walked
to the sideboard and poured a large whiskey. His drinking had increased. Some nights he drank to the point of incomprehension, blurting out his anger, his frustration, his hatred of his desk job. She had had to listen to him rambling, watch his eyes redden, his face tautening with grief. Tonight, unable to watch, she left the room.

In the small hours when he came to bed, she pretended to be asleep. His arm reached across her hip, cradled her flat stomach. Soon his breathing had deepened and he turned over on his back. He began to snore. He never used to snore, or if he did she had slept too deeply to hear him. He had forgotten to switch off his bedside light. Anxious not to awaken him, she had left the bed and walked around to his side. She stared down on his face, chalky white, his expression slack, shadows like bruises under his eyes.

To be a detective and be unable to search for your own child. How long were they supposed to endure the waiting?

She had pulled a pair of trousers from the wardrobe. The waistband was loose and she notched the belt tighter. She dragged a jumper over her head, slipped on socks and boots, zipped a parka to her neck. Robert turned, heavy as a log, and uttered a low moan. She switched off the bedroom light but did not bother closing the door softly, knowing he would not awaken until morning.

She parked now beside the perimeter wall of the industrial estate. Yellow tape fluttering across the entrance gates was the only visible sign that the Gardaí had spent the day scouring the grounds. The gates were padlocked and too high to climb over. She walked along the side of the wall and stopped when she reached a narrow opening. A pitted bollard, bent sideways, was cemented into the centre, obviously placed there to obstruct cars. It would once have been
used by workers as a short cut to the factories and warehouses. Few people went there now, and those who did came in secret; she shone her torch over syringes, condoms, empty beer bottles and cans.

Narrow roads stretched before her. Clumps of weeds moved, as if night creatures scurried within the foliage. The urge to run shivered through her. She walked past an open shed, once used for bicycles. The pungent smell of urine caught against her breath. Black circles marked the spots where dead fires had blazed, charred wood crunched under her feet. She imagined homeless men and women seeking warmth around the flames. The Garda search must have scared them away. In the waning moonlight she sank on her haunches and buried her face in her knees. Her daughter was not here, never was. Robert had been right all along. No wonder he had heaped scorn on the psychic’s letter. Mad psychic. Mad God, claiming omnipotence yet unable to grant her, the smallest sparrow, a simple request.

She rose and crashed her foot down on a piece of charred wood, stamped the fragments until they turned to ash. She walked away from the grey walls. Nothing there but ghosts.

A shuffling sound caused her to pause; slowly, frightened for the first time, she looked over her shoulder. The isolation of this abandoned place bore down on her. Her shadow moved…no, not her shadow, another person, a woman. She was falling. Straight and rigid as a plank, the woman fell forward and hit the pavement with such force that Carla expected it to vibrate. Nothing moved, except the woman’s long blonde hair as it flopped forward and covered her face. She was unconscious, her body frighteningly still.

Carla ran towards her and knelt, lifted the woman’s wrist and felt her pulse. The woman moaned softly but otherwise showed no other sign of life. Using all her strength to push
her over, Carla placed her hands underneath her chest and managed to turn her sideways. The body was heavy, a dead weight, but the face, now in profile, was male. In the light from her torch, Carla noticed stubble on his chin. He was dressed in an anorak and jeans, trainers that had once been white. His forehead was bleeding. Blood matted the front of his hair. He collapsed over on his back and opened his eyes. The pupils were dilated, his eyes rolling in their sockets until only the whites were visible. He was young, early twenties, his face hard and angular.

‘Don’t…’ He shielded his gaze from the torch. ‘Don’t shine your fucking light…’ His voice was hoarse, as if he had not used it for a long time.

‘You need help.’ She fought back the urge to walk away. ‘I’m going to find a phone and call an ambulance.’

He touched his forehead then stared at the blood on his hand. When he tried to stand, she reached out to support him but he brought them both to the ground. He was unconscious again as she pushed him off her and scrambled to her feet. Madness, this was utter madness. She ran towards the bollards and squeezed through, reached her car and drove to Finglas village.

She found a phone kiosk and dialled 999. Briefly, she gave a description of the location. This was the time to leave, to return to her bed before Robert awoke and discovered she was missing. She drove to the end of the main street then turned back, driven by an impulse to see him safe. He was still lying in the same position. The ambulance team arrived shortly afterwards. She hurried to the main entrance and directed the paramedics to him. The driver of the ambulance was a woman. She seemed far too young and small to be in charge of such a large ambulance but there was no doubting her authority as she took details from Carla.

‘Your name?’ she asked once the man was strapped into the ambulance. Her tone was informal, her gaze inquisitive.

‘Does my name matter?’ asked Carla.

The young woman nodded. ‘I need to fill in the details.’ She glanced closer at Carla then looked beyond her to the perimeter wall.

‘I recognise you.’ Her expression carried a wealth of understanding. ‘You should not be here.’

‘You drove me to the Valley View clinic…’

‘Yes, I did.’ The driver closed the doors. ‘Will you go home now, Carla?’

‘Yes.’ Carla walked towards her car. She waited until the blue light flickered and disappeared.

Dawn was edging the horizon when she returned home. Robert was still sleeping. In the bathroom she opened the medicine cabinet and took out the bottle of sleeping pills. She held a pill in her hand, placed it on her tongue, filled a glass with water. A stranger was reflected back at her from the mirror. Once before, the same reflection had stared back at her, younger then by ten years, glassy-eyed, hollowed out. Ten years…She tried hard not to think about it but the memory was alive and tearing her apart; an eye for an eye, a child for a child.