The School Gate Survival Guide (12 page)

The goatee boy was twirling the stud in his nose. I sensed my welcome was on a countdown but I wanted to tell Tarants where I lived, scribble my mobile number down and ask him to call me. I was caught between knowing how our estate worked and how I wanted it to work.

‘C’mon, you going to put the music on or what?’ said the goatee boy, nudging Tarants.

He shoved him back. ‘Have a bit of fucking respect.’ He turned back to me. ‘I’ll do what I can, darling.’

‘I live at 95 Walldon, second to last house on the left.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll find you. You’d better get going, you know how impatient people are round here.’

I left, repeating 95 Walldon to him as I walked away and received an irritable nod in return. By the time I’d walked two blocks I was shivering. The rain had stepped up and was bouncing off the pavement in front of me. Cold needles of water pricked my scalp. My hands were so cold they hurt. I shoved them under my armpits. I couldn’t go home while my baby was out there. My jeans were dragging down, so heavy with water it was an effort to lift my feet. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, wincing as the thick wet cotton scraped at my freezing skin. I glanced at the screen for messages but it was black. I stabbed at the buttons, desperate to produce a sign of life. Nothing. I’d been walking for nearly six hours. By now, Bronte would normally be snuggled up with Colin on the settee, laughing over some DVD. I would have to go home to find out whether there was any news. I trudged a different route back, not bothering to move out of the way as cars sent sloshes of dirty water across the pavement. My pace quickened as I got close to the house. It was 7.30. Maybe, just maybe, she’d be wrapped in a blanket in the front room with her thumb in her mouth, which she still sucked when she was upset.

One look at Sandy’s face told me that was not the case. She rushed off to get me a towel and to put the kettle on. Colin wasn’t back yet. I didn’t want to phone him. Didn’t want to hear the defeat in his voice. Didn’t want to have to be strong.

‘Where’s Harley?’

‘He was wiped out with crying. He took himself off to bed about twenty minutes ago.’

I ran upstairs to see him. He was asleep, grey shadows under his eyes, hands behind his head as though he was sunbathing. I loved the trusting face he had in his sleep, wide open to the world. I stroked his hair and kissed his cheek. Next to him lay Bronte’s toy gorilla, Gordon. I eased it out and buried my face in its matted black fur, breathing in hard. I could only smell the plastic of its hands and feet. I tucked it back in next to Harley, wondering whether I’d ever been more miserable.

I was wriggling out of my wet clothes when the phone rang. I flew down the stairs in my bra and jeans and snatched it up.

It was Mr Peters. He told me that the police would call but he had heard ‘unofficially’ that there’d been a sighting of Bronte in the shopping centre, a twenty-five-minute walk from school at about one o’clock in the afternoon. Which meant that seven hours ago she’d been alive. One of the officers had been going through CCTV footage and had captured a picture of her Stirling Hall backpack.

‘Was it definitely her? Was she alone?’

‘They’re pretty certain it was her because her hair is in a plait down the back. It’s difficult to tell whether she was on her own because she’s going into a shop. They’re still searching for other images to see if they can work out which way she went when she came out.’

‘Which shop was she going into?’

‘A fashion shop, H&M, I think. The police are trying to contact the manager of the store at the moment.’

I sighed. I was so bone tired. I wanted to feel positive that she’d been seen after she’d left school but anything could have happened in the last few hours.

‘Ms Etxeleku? Are you still there?’

‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘Don’t give up. I understand how exhausting this is. This is a concrete step forward. I’m sure they will find her. I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself that you already knew this piece of information when the police call. I wanted to put you in the picture as soon as possible. You will contact me if there is anything I can do, won’t you?’

I wanted him to come over and hold me and tell me that it was all going to be okay. I’d run out of coping. I needed someone else to take the strain. Better still, I wanted him to turn up at the door with Bronte and a plan for how to live the rest of my life after this without turning into a raving loony every time Bronte was out of my sight for five seconds. But it seemed like a big ask even for Mr Peters so I just thanked him and sank into the settee. My teeth were chattering. Sandy stood over me, her face a question mark. I repeated the conversation and saw her features relax, the deep wrinkles of night shifts, twenty a day and Co-op vodka reaching up for air.

‘See. I told you she’d be all right. She’s a survivor, that Bronte. Like her mother. You better get yourself into some dry togs before you catch your death. S’pose you better ring Colin and let him know, he was looking proper stressed before he went off.’ She was right. But I didn’t want to deal with him. I knew I should go back out into the rain and keep searching. Though I also wanted to hear firsthand from the police what they knew. It might be worse if I shot off like a headless chicken, especially with a dead mobile. I stuck it on charge.

‘Sandy, be a love and give Colin a ring for us. I’m going to get dry. His number is, hang on, let me write it down for you.’

‘It’s okay, I’ve got it.’

Upstairs I pulled on the thickest jumper and socks I could find. I was psyching myself up to get back out on my lonely search when there was a knock at the door. It was Serena. My first thought was that she’d have phoned to update me unless Bronte was dead. My belly lurched as though I’d drunk neat lemon juice. She must have read my face because she put her hand on my arm as she stepped inside and said, ‘I think we’re making progress, Ms Etxeleku.’

The way her hair was scraped back so tightly was at odds with her kindness. I led her through to the front room where she filled me in on what they’d discovered so far.

I almost wished Mr Peters hadn’t phoned me. Keeping my face ready to look surprised was stopping me concentrating. Sandy was acting as though she had a bit part in some cheesy police drama, coming in and out with tea and nodding knowledgeably, muttering stuff like, ‘They always say it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch,’ until Serena asked her to give us a bit of privacy.

‘Has Bronte any history of shoplifting?’

‘No, not at all. She’s never taken anything.’ I knew I sounded defensive.

‘It’s just that when we spoke to the store manager tonight, she remembered Bronte very well because she had tried to steal a sequinned top. Put it on under her school uniform.’

A surge of fury shot through me. I almost forgot Bronte was missing. I hadn’t brought up my daughter to be a common little thief. Serena probably thought I’d been too lazy to teach her right from wrong.

‘Why didn’t they call the police straightaway? Then she would never have gone missing,’ I said.

‘They were about to call the police. The security guard saw the sequins hanging down under her blazer. She’d taken the top off and given it back to him when someone else triggered the alarm and in the confusion, she made a run for it. He did chase after her but didn’t manage to catch her and because they had the top back, I think they opted for an easy life.’

Bronte had always been a quick runner. She was lean and fast. I wasn’t surprised she’d outsprinted the security guard. I had to squash down a glimmer of pride. I’d always been a hotshot in the hundred metres on school sports days but I didn’t realise the top talent my daughter would inherit from me would be the ability to give a dozy security guard the slip.

‘Which other shops does she like apart from Next?’ said Serena.

‘Next? I thought she was in H&M?’ I felt my eyes close with the split-second despair that comes from dropping someone you like in the shit.

Serena looked at me. Hard. Brown eyes suddenly matched the harsh hairdo. ‘How did you know which shop she was in?’

‘I had a phone call just before you got here.’ I was hoping she’d think it was someone from the police station.

‘From whom? Why didn’t you tell me?’

Jesus. She was going to start taking up the concrete in the back yard if I didn’t get my act together.

‘Mr Peters rang.’ I practically heard the splash as the sewage closed over him.

Serena pursed her lips. ‘I told him that in strictest confidence.’ Her eyes flicked over me. ‘Is there anything else you haven’t told me?’

‘Like what? Why would I keep anything from you when my daughter is missing?’

‘Let’s start with Mr Peters. You seem very close. Are you seeing him?’

I stared at Serena. ‘Seeing him?’

‘Yes, Ms Etxeleku. Seeing him. Having an affair?’

‘No, of course not. He’s one of Bronte’s teachers, that’s all.’ I could feel myself blushing. ‘He was trying to help, he knew how worried I was.’

‘So it would be wide of the mark to suggest that you having an affair with Zachary was one of the reasons Bronte ran away?’

I could see how criminals would crumble under her stare. ‘Are you joking? I hardly know the man. He’s been helping me get the kids settled in at school. He told me something which, unless I’ve got the wrong end of the stick, you were going to tell me anyway, so big whoopee-doo.’ Shock had made me slow but I could feel the armies rallying. ‘I’m not interested in shagging Mr Peters. I’m interested in getting my daughter back.’

Serena winced at my language. Bad language except when it came out of my mouth always jolted me too. If I’d wanted to sound like a thicko, I’d done a good job. However, it seemed to do the trick. She stopped banging on about ‘Zachary’, and started outlining what would happen from now on.

‘We’ll keep reviewing CCTV in the area. If we don’t find her tonight, we’ll go to the press tomorrow, pull out all the stops to bring your little girl to everyone’s attention.’

‘Why haven’t you already done that?’ I knew by the way her eyes shot open that I’d sounded rude.

‘Statistics show that children usually turn up within forty-eight hours. If we went to the media as soon as a child went missing, ninety-nine times out of a hundred the child would be safely back home before the newspapers hit the stands. The evidence so far leads me to believe that Bronte has run away, not that she has been abducted. I know it’s hard but you have to trust me. I’ve done this before.’

I refused to feel like I’d been told off. Forty-eight hours! That was two days. I’d have died of worry before then. I sat picking at the loose threads on the arm of the settee while she ran through how to deal with journalists if any contacted me. Right at the end as she got up to leave, she shook my hand. Her eyes were watchful, suspicious. The big easy smile had made for the hills but I was too tired to work out whether she was mad at me or furious with Mr Peters.

As soon as Serena left, Sandy shot out of the kitchen. ‘Well? Have those useless boys in blue managed to come up with anything?’

I felt so knackered that I could have easily dropped off mid-sentence as I gave her a rundown of Serena’s visit. In different circumstances we’d have hooted our heads off that Serena had thought I was having it away with Mr Peters. Instead Sandy looked all serious. ‘Are you?’

‘Don’t you bloody start. I’ve got enough on my hands with one bloke, let alone trying to find time for a bit on the side. Anyway, Mr Peters wouldn’t go for a rough bird like me. He could have anyone.’

‘Yeah, he looked a bit of all right,’ said Sandy, handing me the phone. ‘You’d better give Colin a ring, let him know what’s going on. It went straight to voicemail when I tried before.’

I could hear a mixture of hope and dread in his voice when he answered. Like me, hearing that Bronte had been seen in the shopping centre didn’t reassure him much.

‘She ain’t there now. I just walked round that way. I’ve been right up onto the hill in case she decided to go up there. I even drove halfway to Guildford – thought she might walk along the cycle path we went on in the summer. I done the leisure centre, the riverbanks, the shops on the parade, the train and bus station. I’m freezing,’ he said.

‘Come home. We can’t do anything now. Serena said to trust the police to find her.’

When Colin arrived back about half an hour later, drenched and irritable, he was still cottering on about the bloody police, piss-ups in a brewery and the like. Usually I couldn’t stand him going on because Colin couldn’t find anything himself if it wasn’t dancing a jig and ringing a bell, but on a day when so much had changed, it was comforting to have him rumbling on. I suppose it was like living next to a railway line where the noise of the trains becomes a soothing murmur.

While Colin collapsed onto the settee next to me, Sandy was in and out with coffee and toast. It took all the energy I could muster to rub some warmth back into his numb hands. ‘I’ve run you a hot bath, Col,’ Sandy said, helping him to his feet.

I loved her for babying Colin. I didn’t want to, couldn’t do it myself. I was filled up with worry about Bronte, with no room left for taking care of anyone else. Although he was quiet now, if he ran true to form, he’d find a way to make his agony over Bronte all about him, his suffering much worse than mine. Eventually it would go full circle and be my fault.

I flicked on the TV. The crappy sitcoms, which usually filled the evenings in our house, seemed pathetic. I pushed back the front room curtains and peered into the darkness. I heard the water slopping over the sides of the bath upstairs. Even with Bronte missing I still felt irritated about having to mop up after Colin. Sandy appeared in the doorway.

‘I’ll be off now, love. Let us know if you hear anything.’ She leaned in and hugged me. I pulled her to me gratefully.

I lay down on the settee after she’d gone, wondering whether I’d ever be able to sleep again. How anyone, ever, got on with their lives if their child never came back. I looked at my watch. Nine o’clock. My body ached to sleep, but it seemed wrong. I closed my eyes, terrified that my imagination would parade awful images of Bronte across my eyelids. Nothing. Just black. I was drifting, my mind still turning, walking the estate, the shopping centre, winding down into slow motion when I heard the beep of a text message. I leapt up.