Stranger Child (8 page)

‘And what has she said to you – about how she got here, where she’s been?’

‘Nothing. We can’t get anything out of her, other than the fact she didn’t want the police involved.’ The woman shook her head and looked Becky in the eye. ‘She just
appeared
– from
nowhere
. How did she find her way to us?
’

‘She hasn’t told you?’

‘Not a word. She won’t even talk to her dad.’

‘Okay, Mrs Joseph. One more thing, if you don’t mind. Before you came downstairs and found Natasha in your kitchen, do you remember hearing anything at all out of the ordinary outside?’

For a moment, Emma Joseph look puzzled, but she was a smart lady. ‘Oh, you mean like a car or anything?’

‘Well, you’re quite a long way from a bus route here, and with all these lanes I am struggling to think how she would have got here on her own.’

‘Me too,’ Emma said. ‘I didn’t hear a thing, though. The tractor in the next field was making so much noise I wouldn’t have heard if a Sherman tank had rolled up, to be honest. But if you think somebody brought her here, why would they keep her for six years and then bring her back?’

Becky took a deep breath.

‘I’ve no idea. It doesn’t make any sense at all, as far as I can see.’

*

Emma Joseph pushed open the kitchen door and Becky caught a quick glimpse of a wonderfully comfortable-looking kitchen and living room – something she would expect to find in a style magazine – before her eyes came to rest on a man with his back to them, hands in his trouser pockets, staring out of a floor-to-ceiling glass door into the back garden. Although of average height and slender build, his hunched shoulders gave him the air of a person much older than the attractive, confident man Becky had been introduced to just the day before.

What a twenty-four hours he had had. Becky could still remember how the colour had seeped from his skin as he had slumped back into his chair at the news that a girl’s body had been found. It should be a time for celebration now, but all Becky could feel around her was confusion and disappointment.

The only movement in the room came from the little boy in the high chair. He turned his head as they came in, and his baby face lit up when he saw his mum. He was playing with some brightly coloured plastic eggs and banged one on his tray with delight at her appearance. Becky looked at Emma and saw her worried frown soften as she smiled at her son briefly, before turning back to her husband.

‘David,’ she said gently. ‘The detectives have arrived.’

Tearing his gaze away from the garden, David Joseph turned his head, then with one last lingering look into the garden turned round and walked towards Becky and Charley, reaching out to shake them both by the hand.

‘Thank you for coming. I know we should have called you sooner, but Tasha seems so fragile and she was adamant that the police mustn’t be told she’s here. She said she’d disappear again if we called you.’

‘But she’s still here?’ Becky asked.

David nodded. ‘I locked all the doors while we talked to her and explained why we had to call you. We told her about the girl – the one you found yesterday. That seemed to upset her a bit. I promised her that you only want to check that she really is my daughter – even though I don’t have a single doubt myself – just so you can close the case.’

Becky knew it wasn’t the time to argue, but if David Joseph thought this case was closed, he was way off the mark. Wherever his daughter had been, she had been somebody’s secret for more than six years. In Becky’s experience, that painted pictures of a life she didn’t want to imagine for this child.

‘We’ll keep it simple for today, Mr Joseph, if that helps. Where’s Natasha now?’ Becky asked.

He turned and walked back towards the window, the three women following him. Through the glass they looked out at trampled flowerbeds and a muddy lawn that looked as if the local football team had recently played a match on it. But there was one patch of grass that was intact at the far end of the garden, and in the middle was a child’s swing. Becky could see a slight young girl hunched up, pushing herself backwards and forwards with one foot on the ground, her arms hooked around the chains. She appeared to be staring into the distance, her eyes unfocused, her mind somewhere else entirely.

‘She’s been out there since we told her we were going to call you. I’ve been watching her to make sure she doesn’t run off. When she was little, she spent hours on that swing. She used to say that one night she was going to swing so high that she would touch a star.’

‘May we speak to Natasha?’ Becky asked.

Before he had a chance to answer, Emma interrupted.

‘David, if you don’t mind, I think I should take Ollie somewhere else. He must be wondering what on earth’s going on.’

He glanced at his wife vacantly and gave a slightly bemused shrug.

‘Yes, of course. I don’t think you’re needed here.’ He looked from Becky to Charley. ‘Is she?’

Becky saw the expression on Emma’s face and felt the other woman’s sense of rejection.

‘I think it’s fine,’ Becky said. ‘But we will need to talk to you again to make sure we’ve got all the facts. And I think you’re going to be vital going forwards, so if your baby has a nap any time soon, do come back and join us.’

Emma flashed a brief, grateful smile to Becky as she left the room with Ollie shouting his indignation at being taken away.

David slid open the door and stepped out into the garden, picking his way through the mud to approach his daughter. Becky and Charley gave him a moment alone with her. He crouched down so he was level with her face; they could see he was speaking but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Natasha didn’t look at him. They saw him reach out a hand to touch her arm and couldn’t miss the fact that she flinched and jerked her arm away.

‘What do you think, Charley?’ Becky asked.

‘If I’m honest, I don’t get it. She’s come back, but she’s rejecting everybody – especially her dad, from the look of things. Until we know why she’s suddenly come back
now
, I don’t think it’s going to make any sense.’

‘Come on. He’s fighting a losing battle. Let’s see if we can get a DNA sample and follow Tom’s advice – leave them in peace with all the contact numbers they need. At least for a day or two.’

The two women followed David across the garden. As they approached the child on the swing, Becky focused on Natasha, who seemed too small and slender for a girl who had just turned thirteen. Where her arms stuck out from the sleeves of her jumper, Becky could see wrists that were so narrow they looked as if one squeeze would break them. But then she looked at the eyes, and they told a whole different story. These weren’t the eyes of a child. There was a hint of bitterness in her hard gaze, a knowing kind of resilience. Despite that, Natasha’s pupils were slightly dilated – a classic symptom of fear.

What’s she frightened of?

‘Hi, Natasha. My name’s Becky, and this is Charley. We know you don’t want to talk to us. Your dad’s explained, and we’re not going to push you.’

Natasha had found a loose thread in the sleeve of her slightly grubby red jumper and was pulling it and watching with fascination as it unravelled.

‘It’s very quiet round here, isn’t it?’ Charley said. ‘You can hear the birds singing now the rain has stopped. Could you hear the birds where you’ve been living?’

Becky detected a small movement of the mouth, but it wasn’t to speak. It was a smirk of derision. Charley laughed gently.

‘I guess from your expression that’s a no, then, is it?’

The girl remained mute.

‘Do you think you could tell me a bit about where you were living?’

No answer. David made a move to put his arm around his daughter, but she pulled away.

‘Sweetheart, these ladies want to help you. You’re not in trouble at all. They just need to understand a bit about where you’ve been and how you got here.’

Natasha’s eyes flicked from Becky to Charley and back again. For a moment, Becky thought she was going to tell them something – something important. But David reached out to touch her again and the spell was broken. She put both hands on the seat of the swing and pushed herself off, turning to her father.

The low tone of Tasha’s voice seemed to echo around the quiet garden.

‘I told you not to call the police. You should have listened to me.’

As the girl turned and walked towards the house, Becky raised her hand and rubbed away the tingling sensation at the back of her neck.

14

Emma looked in the cloakroom mirror and was dismayed by the pallid, blotchy face that stared back at her. What a mess they all were. David had looked even more ravaged by emotion since Tasha’s behaviour in the garden. Two deep lines were carved into his cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Poor David. She knew he must be alternating between the delight of having his daughter back and the agony of her rejection, but Emma had no idea how to help. She was failing them.

Even Ollie was affected. He was fascinated by his new sister, but the constant feeling that they were all on the edge of a precipice was changing her placid, happy son into a slightly fractious baby. He cried more readily and seemed too conscious of Emma’s own distress.

After the police had left earlier, gaining nothing but a DNA sample from Tasha, Emma had tried to do all the right things. She had nipped out, taking Ollie with her, to buy some new clothes for her stepdaughter, trying to think what girls of that age liked to wear. She was going to play it safe with skinny jeans and baggy T-shirts until maybe Tasha could come with her to chose for herself.

When she took them up to Tasha – once more isolated in her room – she had tried to talk to her about the clothes she had chosen, and how they could go shopping together in the future. Nothing elicited a response and Emma wondered if maybe the girl resented Emma’s intrusion into their lives. In Tasha’s eyes, this was Caroline’s house, not Emma’s.

She had sat down on the side of the bed, but Tasha had immediately swung her legs over to the other side, her back to Emma.

‘I know it must seem strange, Tasha, finding me in this house, married to your dad. But we didn’t get together until a long time after your mum died.’

In spite of the fact that she had shown no interest in what Emma was saying, Tasha hadn’t rushed from the room, so Emma kept talking, hoping she could break down some barriers.

‘I met your dad through my fiancé,’ she had told Tasha. ‘He was doing some work for your dad’s company, and we went to a few charity events together. Your mum was there too. She was very beautiful, Tasha. I really liked her. We nearly always found that we were at the same table, and we had some good times together. She talked about you a lot, told me that you were the best thing that had ever happened to her.’

Emma risked a glance at Tasha. Her back was rigid. She was listening, though.

‘I didn’t know about the accident for a long time. My fiancé and I had split up, and I took myself off to stay with my dad in Australia. I didn’t want to know about anything or anybody for quite a while. When I came back to Manchester, there was an article about you in the paper. It was a year to the day that you had disappeared and your dad was making another plea to people to try to find you. I got in touch to offer him my sympathy. He tried so hard to find you, you know. He was shattered, Tasha.’

That was the wrong thing to say. Tasha hadn’t turned round, but her voice was harsh, as if the words were being dragged from deep inside her.

‘You really don’t know, do you? You actually believe what you’re saying.’

Emma was shocked. Every word of her story was true. She tried to interrupt, but Tasha shook her head.

‘Whatever happens next, it’s his fault. You need to remember that.’

What did she mean?
Tasha had refused to say.

That was three hours ago, and now they felt like a family divided. David was in their rarely used sitting room, Emma and Ollie were in the kitchen, and Tasha had barricaded herself back in her room.

Emma’s profound sense of failure was compounded by her own feelings about this stranger who had exploded into their lives. All she wanted was to return to the peace and harmony she had known just days before, and she hated herself for the thought.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and blinked away the burning sensation at the back of her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry. Ollie couldn’t see her upset again – it wasn’t fair on him. She picked her baby up from where he was playing on the floor, ignoring his disgruntled ‘Ay’, and hugged his warm little body to her, hiding her red eyes by holding his head close to her chest.

She took him into the sitting room at the front of the house, quickly wiping the heel of her hand across her cheeks. She could hold on for a moment longer. But when she saw David sitting on the sofa, staring at the wall, her forced composure nearly shattered. He looked
round hopefully, but seeing his wife and baby, he turned back, disappointed. She understood. She knew with all her heart that it wasn’t a lack of love for them, it was simply that – more than anything – he wanted his daughter to come to him.

She put Ollie on the rug, knowing he would crawl to David. Perhaps time with his son would help, and Emma knew she had to be alone for a moment, to let the lid off all the emotion she was bottling up inside her.

Without a word, she turned and left the room, holding her breath until she reached the sanctuary of their bedroom. She didn’t want Tasha to see her distress any more than she wanted Ollie to, although the girl’s bedroom door was still shut.

She walked into the bedroom and closed the door, biting back a sob. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she pulled open her bedside table drawer, groping for her tissues. They weren’t there.

Emma wiped her tears on a corner of the duvet, and peered in to the drawer. The tissues
were
there – but they were on far side of the drawer, not next to the bed where Emma always kept them.

That’s funny
, she thought, her tears forgotten.

She stood up and walked over to the dressing table, pulling out the top drawer. The contents were as messy as usual – but she could see instantly that this wasn’t
her
mess. David always said he didn’t know how she ever found anything in the jumble of unused lipsticks, eyeshadows and facecreams, and yet she always knew exactly where everything was. Nothing seemed to be missing, but there was no doubt everything in this drawer had been moved.