The Other Daughter (ARC) Page 2

  ‘Makes sense. Who’s your daughter’s teacher?’

  ‘Amy’s in Miss Darlington’s class.’

  ‘That means she’s in the same class as my daughter, Jessica.’

  ‘Is she a good teacher, do you know?’

  ‘Strict, but, yes, very good. Talking of which…’ I catch sight of the diminutive Miss Darlington marching briskly across the playground, followed by a straggle of unkempt looking children – ties skew-whiff, shirts untucked, coats trailing across the concrete. And coming up behind, I see my son’s year group in the same usual state of disarray. ‘There they are.’

  Kate’s shoulders relax and she waves frantically to a blonde girl who’s talking to Jess. The girl gives her a single dismissive wave and turns back to my daughter. ‘Thank goodness,’ Kate says. ‘Looks like Amy might have made a friend. She was so nervous this morning.’

  ‘That’s my daughter she’s talking to.’ I feel a spark of pride that Jess seems to have taken the new girl under her wing.

  ‘Mum!’ A fair-haired boy races across the playground, crashing into Kate’s open arms.

  ‘Kieran! How was your day?’

  ‘Awesome. I like it here, Mum. The playground’s massive. We’ve got a lizard in our class and we get to take turns bringing it home.’

  I catch Kate’s eye over the top of Kieran’s head and give her a thumbs up. She grins back and wipes her brow in exaggerated relief. I’m pleased for her. She seems nice and it must be intimidating and nerve-wracking to move to a brand-new area and a brand-new school. Luckily, my two started here right from the get-go, so we’ve never had to experience the upheaval of changing schools.

  ‘Tell you what,’ I say, ‘why don’t you all come to ours for tea one day after school?’

  ‘Really? That would be so lovely!’

  ‘Let me know what day’s good for you. I can’t do this Friday, but any other day is fine. I’ll get you up to speed on who’s who around here.’

  My six-year-old, Charlie, finally appears. ‘Hi, Mum, I’m so hungry, did you bring any snacks?’

  I reach into my bag for a couple of satsumas, but Kate beats me to it, digging out a multipack of chocolate bars from her bag. ‘Can I give him one of these?’ she asks me.

  ‘Oh. Thanks. If you’re sure.’

  She doles out the chocolate to all four children, much to the delight of my two. Then we swap mobile phone numbers and start walking out towards the gates, the thick evergreen trees that run the length of the school field bowing and sighing in the wind.

  ‘Look at all our kids chatting away,’ Kate says. ‘I can’t believe they seem so happy. I was dreading the pick-up, convinced one or the other would have had a bad day and would want to go back to London.’

  ‘It’s nice how they’re all getting on so well.’

  ‘Now I just have to hope that my other daughter gets on okay.’ Kate’s expression darkens.

  ‘You’ve got three?’

  ‘Yes – Bella’s my eldest.’

  ‘Which school does she go to?’

  ‘St Margaret’s Middle School.’

  ‘How come she’s going to a different school?’

  ‘It’s a long, annoying saga. But they didn’t have spaces to fit all three at the same school. St Margaret’s is closer to where we live so it would have been great to have them all go there, but the waiting list is huge.’

  ‘That is annoying. I hope she had a good day today.’

  ‘She had a routine hospital appointment, so she won’t start until tomorrow. But I think she’s quite anxious about it. She didn’t have a great time at her old school, which is part of the reason why we moved here. Speaking of which…’

  I follow her gaze to see a girl with long, dark hair leaning against a white Fiat 500 She’s looking down at her mobile phone, talking to someone, but she doesn’t seem very happy.

  ‘Bella,’ Kate calls out. ‘I thought I told you to wait in the car!’

  The girl glances up with a scowl.

  The second I see her face, the rest of the world begins to shift out of focus. The rational part of my brain tells me that it’s impossible. But the rest of my brain is in shock. ‘Holly,’ I murmur.

  ‘Mum!’ The girl stares at Kate accusingly. ‘You were ages! You said you’d only be a few minutes. I didn’t know when you were coming back, and you didn’t answer your phone!’

  Kate checks her mobile. ‘Oh, it’s on silent for some reason. Sorry, darling. Your brother and sister were late coming out.’

  The girl is tall and willowy with dark wavy hair and a heart-shaped face. Her lips are full, and she has a snub nose sprinkled with freckles. But it’s her eyes that have unsettled me the most. They’re a vivid green. Just like Holly’s.

  This girl is the spitting image of my missing daughter. Older yes, but the resemblance is striking.

  For a moment I stand, paralysed, unable to catch my breath. Flashbacks to my lost daughter laughing as I tickled her, or glowering at me with her emerald eyes before launching into one of her dreaded terrible-two tantrums. Me staring down at her as she slept, stroking the hair away from her heart-shaped face and kissing the freckles on her nose.

  Right now though, this tween girl is looking at me as though I’m some crazy stranger. Which I suppose I am, really.

  ‘Are you okay, Rachel?’ Kate is speaking to me, but I can’t find my voice to reply. I nod, still staring at her eldest daughter. I swallow.

  ‘Mum!’ Jess shakes my arm. ‘Mum, you’re being embarrassing.’

  I drag my eyes away from Bella and give Jess a distracted smile. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Come on, Mum, let’s go. I’ve got to do my homework and then me and Amy are going to Facetime.’ She smiles at her new friend and rolls her eyes in my direction.

  ‘Okay, yes, coming.’ My heart is pounding and my ears are ringing as I attempt to process my thoughts and emotions, but I’m trying to behave normally so that Kate doesn’t think I’m an utter lunatic. ‘So, Kate, we’ll sort out that play date for the kids, okay? I’ll text you.’

  She gives me a puzzled look and nods.

  Somehow, we say our goodbyes, and I stutter something vague about remembering something I have to do, trying to explain away my odd behaviour. They get into Kate’s little Fiat and I start walking home with my two, the icy wind buffeting us as we go. The children talk about the various issues they’ve had throughout the day. I’m usually attentive and chatty, but right now I can barely decipher a single word they’re saying, let alone respond.

  All I can think about is Kate’s eldest daughter.

  Nine years ago, my almost three-year-old daughter, Holly, was abducted from a shopping centre on the outskirts of London. The police never found her, and they never caught the person who did it. All they had to go on was a piece of useless security footage – someone in a hooded sweatshirt leading my baby away from the play area while I was sitting with a friend having coffee in the mall, oblivious until it was too late. My younger daughter, Jess, was thirteen months old at the time, and she was with me in her pram, asleep. I was only a few feet away from Holly, but I was too busy chatting to my friend to keep a constant watch.

  There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t blame myself. I was negligent. I know that, even if all my friends at the time told me it wasn’t my fault, that it could easily happen to anyone. That we can’t watch them every second of every day. But that’s the thing – it wasn’t just ‘a few seconds’. There was at least a minute where I was gossiping with Christina without paying any attention to my daughter. Instead, I got caught up chatting to my friend about our respective marital problems. I was relieved that Holly was occupied. Happy to have some time to talk about grown-up stuff. I knew Holly loved that little Wendy house. That it would keep her entertained for ages. I never understood the consequences of my inattention. The devastation that would follow.

  For months after she disappeared, I read the papers and scoured the chat rooms for people’s theories of wh
at happened. I suppose I was hoping that I might stumble across the person who did it. I absorbed all of it – even though some of the comments made me physically sick. I read what people were saying about me. All those judgemental mothers in their cosy little vipers’ nest forums talking about how I never deserved to have children. That I was an unfit mother whose other child should be taken away by social services. Some of them even implied that I was behind the abduction, that I had sold my own child to a paedophile ring. It made me realise how thoroughly nasty people can be. But part of me didn’t blame them.

  And now… today… seeing Kate’s daughter, Bella. I’ve never had such a violent physical reaction in my life. I’ve never been in a situation like this before, where the sight of a child makes my heart stop. Of course, I’ve had moments over the years where I thought I glimpsed Holly, knowing in my heart of hearts that it wasn’t really her. But this is different. This is a blow-to-the-stomach different.

  As the shock subsides, I begin really questioning whether or not Kate’s daughter Bella could actually be my missing daughter Holly. She’s roughly the same age as Holly would be now, and she looks like her too – same dark hair and heart-shaped face. Same green eyes. But it can’t possibly be… can it?

  ‘Mum, why have you stopped walking?’ Jess tugs at my hand. ‘You’re being weird again. I hope Amy didn’t notice. I like her. She might be my new best friend.’

  ‘Sorry, darling. A lot on my mind.’

  ‘Is it work?’

  I can’t help smiling at my daughter’s concern. ‘No, no. Nothing for you to worry about.’ My two don’t even know about Holly. Jess was a baby when it happened, and I didn’t want to bring that kind of distress into their lives. Maybe I was wrong to keep such a big thing from them, but I did what I thought was right at the time. Perhaps I’ll tell them when they’re a little older. Or perhaps new circumstances will mean that I’ll have to tell them sooner. But what do I mean by that?

  I start walking again, gradually dismissing my thoughts about Kate’s daughter as ridiculous. It would be far too much of a coincidence, and Kate doesn’t seem the type to snatch a child. Not at all.

  But what if she is? How would you even tell?

  I quicken my pace, to the relief of my kids, and try to put the whole thing out of my head. But now that I’ve opened the floodgates, all these memories of my lost daughter keep coming back, crowding my brain until there’s no room for anything else. Asking that insistent question over and over again.

  What if? What if? What if?

  3

  As soon as we turn into our narrow side street, I spot Matt’s van parked outside our little whitewashed terraced cottage, two wheels up on the pavement to allow traffic to pass. Not that it’s a busy road – normally we only get residents and visitors coming down here. I usually love it when Matt gets home early – he works long hours in his job as an electrician – but today I’m distracted and could really do with some alone time to get my head together and think about Bella Morris. And about Kate, and who she is. What she’s like. She seemed like a perfectly lovely woman. The kind of person who could become a good friend. But looks can be deceiving.

  ‘Dad’s home!’ Jess cries and starts running down the street.

  Charlie lets go of my hand and follows behind. ‘Daddy!’

  His excitement is infectious, and I can’t help smiling. ‘Stay on the pavement!’

  They hammer on our sage-green front door and ring the bell excitedly. Seconds later, the door opens and Matt peers out, his blonde hair flopping over his eyes. The kids hurl themselves at their father. I never get as enthusiastic a reception as that, but I don’t mind. They see more of me than of him.

  Matt is their dad, but he’s not actually Jess’s biological father. Her ‘real’ dad, Andrew, and I split up after Holly was taken. Our relationship by then was shaky at best, and the horror and stress of losing our eldest child finished us off for good. He was a borderline alcoholic. Not physically abusive, but not a kind drunk either. He alternately blamed me for what happened, and comforted me when his words wounded, eventually giving up completely and leaving me for good.

  Andy doesn’t keep in contact with us any longer, and lives in Spain. He had a high-flying job in finance and was always jetting off around the world to various destinations, but mostly to Spain. He has a whole new family and I suspect he met his new Spanish wife while he was still married to me. We were always financially well off, but he lost his job. Now Jess and I don’t receive anything from him in the way of maintenance and I don’t ask him for any. I don’t even know if he ended up getting help with his alcohol issues. Maybe he lost everything. Maybe not. Either way, I would never ask him for a penny. Not after he left us both.

  Thankfully, Jess doesn’t remember him. She’s only ever known Matt as her dad, and he treats her like his own, even though she knows he isn’t her biological father. My only niggle is that Jess and I still have Andy’s surname – Farnborough. I suppose I could have changed it back to my maiden name, but I didn’t want to have a different name to my daughter, and I haven’t plucked up the courage to contact Andy and ask his permission to change her name. It’s the reason I won’t marry Matt – I don’t want Jess to be the only one with a different surname. We would all be Bernshaws while she remained a Farnborough. Although, like Matt keeps saying, there’s nothing stopping me marrying him and keeping mine and Jess’s names the same.

  Charlie is Matt’s biological child and is his doppelganger – both of them blue-eyed, blonde-haired Norse giants. Our six-year-old son is the tallest in his year – taller than a lot of the boys in the year above, too. I call them my two Vikings. Jess, on the other hand, looks like me. We’re both slim with dark hair and brown eyes. Unbidden, an image of Bella Morris inserts itself into my mind, those green eyes staring, scowling, accusing.

  ‘You coming in?’ Matt calls. ‘Or are you just going to stand there on the pavement all day?’ He grins and raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Sorry, miles away.’ I hurry down the street and into my boyfriend’s arms, where I let myself linger a while, feeling safe and loved. The kids have already squeezed through the narrow hallway and beyond into the kitchen to see what delights they can find in the fridge and cupboards. Which reminds me, I need to go shopping.

  ‘Mmm, that feels good.’ Matt gives me an extra squeeze before letting go.

  I don’t know why on earth I had the notion that I didn’t want Matt to be home early. Even years after first meeting, he still has the power to make my stomach flip. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Irritating,’ he replies. I follow him into our pretty white-painted kitchen where he leans against the oak worktop, a frown darkening his blue eyes.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Just people not showing up on time, so I can’t get on with what I need to do. That’s why I’m home early, and why I’ll probably have to work late tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s annoying.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Don’t eat those,’ I say to the kids, who are about to open a packet of biscuits. ‘You’ve already had chocolate. You’ll ruin your tea. There are satsumas in the fruit bowl.’

  The children wrinkle their noses and sidle out of the kitchen.

  ‘Got any homework?’ I call after them, feeling mean about asking them, as they’ve only just got in.

  ‘Mathletics,’ Jess replies. ‘I’ll do it now, get it out of the way.’

  ‘No,’ Charlie says, trying to slip out of the room.

  I catch his arm before he can escape. ‘What about your spellings? You’ve got a test tomorrow, haven’t you?’

  His shoulders drop.

  ‘Go and practise them now, and Daddy will test you in a few minutes while I start cooking.’

  Matt gives me a pained look, but I know he enjoys helping the kids. ‘How was your day?’ he asks.

  I pause before giving him a light smile. ‘Fine. You know; the usual.’ I sit at the breakfast bar and pick at a dried-on m
ilk stain left over from breakfast. ‘One interesting thing – Dee wants to give me some extra shifts after Christmas.’

  ‘Really? Are you going to take them?’

  ‘I think so. As long as they don’t clash with the school run.’ Dee owns Row Your Boat – a busy café in South Street just up from the river. I’ve been waitressing there for the past five years, and Dee has become a good friend of mine. She and Matt have known each other since they were kids – even though Dee’s a little older than us. But all the while I’m talking to Matt, I can’t stop thinking about Bella. About Holly. About Kate, and if she might be the person who took my child. If she did take her then I should call the police. I’m desperate to race round to the station right now. But what if they don’t take me seriously? They’ve never had any luck finding my daughter before. Back when she was first taken, the police said they had leads, but then everything fizzled out to nothing. I need to get definite proof before I go to them. I can’t risk them dismissing my claims. And if they tip off Kate before getting enough evidence to arrest her, she could do a runner. Disappear with Holly again.

  I can’t believe I’m actually planning some elaborate strategy in my head. Am I crazy to be thinking that Bella is Holly? Maybe I should be thinking more about why my reaction to the likeness is so strong. Why I’m so convinced…

  ‘You okay, Rach? You seem a bit… I dunno… distracted.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Just trying to work out how many more hours I should do for Dee.’

  ‘Don’t do it if it’s going to stress you out. We can manage.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’m not stressing about it.’

  ‘Okay, if you’re sure.’

  ‘Definitely. Now the kids are at school all day, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t do a few more hours.’ I feel strange about not being able to confide in Matt. Normally we tell one another everything about our days – commiserating or congratulating, laughing or crying. But there’s this one big secret he doesn’t know about. And it’s always weighed heavily on me.