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chapter 54
alex
The little girl backs towards the woman holding the café door open, taking refuge in the safety of her skirts.
‘Mummy?’ she says again, pulling the woman’s hand. ‘Can we go home now?’
I’ve frightened her. The intensity of my hunger must show in my face, but I can’t look away. It takes every ounce of self-control not to run towards her and sweep her into my arms.
The world is full of girls who look like Lottie. A thousand girls, a million girls: girls the same age, the same height and weight. The mind plays tricks, I know this; the mind is not to be trusted; as everyone keeps telling me, you see what you want to see. You spot a girl turning the corner of the aisle at the supermarket, and you drop the glass jar of mayonnaise you were holding and don’t even notice as it smashes on the ground. You shove shoppers out of the way as you run towards her, desperate to catch her before she disappears like a mirage. And then she turns round and you realise it isn’t her. It hits you like a punch to the gut and you heave breath into your lungs as you back away, mumbling apologies.It isn’t her.
She’s just ten feet away. It’s her. She’s so tall andthin. She has cheekbones now, and her legs are long and rangy in jeansand a pair of navy wellington boots covered with tiny red printed hearts.
Her blue eyes meet mine and I know this is Lottie. Not a mirage, not a dream, not a girl-who-looks-like-her.
Lottie herself.
Real, flesh and blood.
I drink her in. I’m afraid to blink, in case this miracle vanishes. Lottie. My Lottie.
Not a dream of her.Her.
‘Go and sit with Toof,’ the woman says, giving the girl a little push. ‘I’ll get you some hot chocolate.’
‘Can I have a biscuit?’
‘MayI. And I didn’t hear you say please.’
‘Please,’ the girl says.
She’s close enough for me to reach out and touch her as she goes over to the dog. She drops to her knees beside him and wreathes her arms around his russet body, laying her cheek against the top of his head.
There’s something unfamiliar about her, something different that I don’t remember and can’t place; the tilt of her jaw, perhaps; the expression in her eyes. It’s been two years, I remind myself. Of course she’s changed.
I know she won’t remember me. Memory is plastic, even in adults; explicit memories, the conscious recall associated with a time and a place, aperson, don’t start to form until a child is six or seven. Before that, memory is implicit, an unconscious, emotional recollection. Lottie was three when she was taken from me; she’s spent a third of her life, the most recent, vivid third, without me. But I’m hermother. Deep down, surely she recognises that?
‘Sit down properly, Flora,’ the woman says. ‘On a chair, please.’
The girl sighs and scrambles into a chair. She tugs off herpurple bobble hat and I see her hair has been cropped to her shoulders. It’s darker than it used to be; darker, even, than I remember from the train.
The woman she called Mummy is not the same woman I saw on the Tube. She’s at least thirty years older and has severe, salt-and-pepper hair. Biologically, she can’t be this child’s mother. She’s too old. I have no idea who she is or what her relation to Ellie might be.
I slide my phone out of my pocket and pretend to be checking my emails as I surreptitiously take a photograph of the two of them. The police will have to believe me now. They’ll be able to use facial recognition to identify the little girl as Lottie and that’ll be enough for them to get a warrant for DNA to prove it. I text the picture to Jack, along with our location.
The surfer kid brings over their order – hot chocolate and a great wheel of shortbread for the girl, black coffee for the woman – and puts a bowl of water on the floor for the dog.
Lottie wraps both hands around her thick china mug, but the woman cautions her that it’s hot and admonishes her to wait. Lottie puts the mug down again.That’swhat’s different, I realise suddenly. The old Lottie would have ignored the instruction and burned her tongue.
Her gaze returns to me. Something about me is nagging at her, I can tell. Her brow creases, her nose crinkling. She knows me, but she doesn’t know why.
The woman sees the girl staring and turns to look. It suddenly occurs to me that if she recognises me, if she realises who I am, all is lost. I could grab Lottie, here, now, but I can’t physically escape with her. If I try, the woman and the surfer kid will stop me, and the police will be called, and, no matter what I say, there’s a risk they’ll return Lottie to this woman while they untangle the truth.
I have no credibility left after what happened in London.By the time the police establish Lottie is mine, my daughter will be gone. The woman will run with her and I may never find her again.
But the woman doesn’t recognise me. ‘Finish your hot chocolate, Flora,’ she says, turning back to the girl. ‘We need to get home.’
I leave a couple of pound coins on the table beside my plate and go out to my car. I wait for them to come out, glad of the concealment afforded by the darkness and heavy rain. Jack still hasn’t responded to my text, and I’m not letting Lottie out of my sight. I’ll sleep outside their house if I have to.
