‘You need to calm down, madam,’ he was saying. ‘This area has been closed off to members of the public.’
‘But I want to see my son,’ she told him for the third time. ‘I need to know that he’s all right. He’s in the nursery.’
The officer put his other arm around her shoulders and his voice softened.
‘Look, let me sit you in one of the patrol cars while I go and find someone to help you.’
‘You can help by letting me through,’ she yelled at him. ‘I need to know what’s going on. Is Liam OK? Has he been hurt? Please let me go inside so that I can find out.’
‘I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible.’
She was suddenly aware that she was attracting a lot of attention. Other people were coming towards her, including a man who was holding what looked like a large video camera. It made her panic even more, and a wave of fear crashed over her like a wave.
‘Will someone please tell me what is happening?’ she cried. ‘My name is Ruth Brady and my son Liam is here in the nursery. Why won’t you let me see him? He’s three years old for heaven’s sake.’
She was hyperventilating now, unable to get her breathing under control. Tears of frustration blurred her vision, and her heart was pumping so fast it was making her dizzy.
The policeman released his grip on her arm and said something to her that she didn’t understand.
Then she heard another voice. A woman’s voice. It was calmer, clearer, friendlier.
‘Just try to relax and take some deep breaths,’ the woman was saying. ‘You’re going to be all right. I promise. My name is Anna. Detective Anna Tate. And I’m going to explain everything to you.’
Ruth gradually started to breathe normally again as she was taken under the wing of the detective with the strong but kindly voice.
The woman held onto her elbow and steered her away from the group of people who had gathered in the road. A couple of individuals tried to ask her questions but they were prevented from doing so by police officers who shouted at them to step back.
When Ruth realised that she wasn’t being escorted into the nursery she stopped walking and turned to the detective.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she said, her voice high and shrill.
‘Next door to the community centre,’ the detective said. ‘The people who manage it have made it available to us.’
Ruth shook her head. ‘But I don’t understand. Why are you stopping people from going into the nursery? Where are the children? Where’s my son?’
Detective Tate sucked in a breath and cleared her throat. For some reason the woman seemed familiar to Ruth, though she was sure they had never met.
Ruth guessed that Tate was in her early forties. She had an attractive face, but the lines around her mouth and the sagging skin beneath her eyes told Ruth that Detective Tate hadn’t had an easy life.
‘The thing is, a serious crime has been committed here,’ the detective said. ‘I’m really sorry to have to tell you that your son and the other children who were here this morning have been abducted by three men who entered the nursery posing as police officers. The staff were locked in the storeroom. We’re going to do everything we can to get the children back safely.’
Ruth felt a tight spasm in her chest as the shock resonated through her. Her centre of gravity seemed to tilt, and she had to lean against Tate for support.
On the drive here, she had tried to brace herself for bad news, but this wasn’t what she had expected to hear. This was simply beyond belief.
She attempted to speak, to ask another question, but all she managed to do was make a strange noise in the back of her throat.
‘Let me get you into the centre,’ Detective Tate said. ‘You’re in shock and you need to sit down.’
Ruth felt the detective’s arm around her waist and then she was gently urged along the pavement to the community centre, a building she had seen many times but had never set foot in before.
She walked quickly, autopilot taking over, while at the same time her mind flooded with images of Liam. She saw him as he was this morning, dressed in his favourite Superman T-shirt and baggy denim jeans with the drawstring waistband.
She recalled how she had kissed him goodbye and told him that either mummy or daddy would pick him up later. And she remembered how excited he’d been as he rushed across the playroom to join his little pal Daniel.
But then Ruth remembered something else. She remembered that today she was supposed to have taken Liam to the Shrek Adventure on the South Bank. But she had decided not to because she’d elected to meet up with a magazine editor instead. A hot spike of guilt sliced through her chest.
Anna’s heart ached for Ruth Brady. The poor mother’s anguish brought it home to her just how traumatic this case was going to be.
Ruth was only the first of the frantic parents who would be turning up demanding answers. It was likely that they all lived within a short distance of Peabody Street and had enrolled their children in the nursery so that they could go to work or pursue other interests. They couldn’t possibly have imagined that something like this would ever happen.
Ruth was clearly finding it hard to handle the news. Her breath was now ragged and distorted, her eyes dull with shock. It was as though she had fallen into an almost trance-like state.
But as they approached the entrance to the community centre her mobile phone rang and it jolted the woman out of herself. She stopped to rummage frantically through her leather handbag that hung on a long strap over her right shoulder.
When she found it she glanced at the caller ID and said, ‘Oh God, it’s my husband. I tried to phone him on the way here.’
She answered it and started to speak, but was obviously interrupted as she stopped mid-sentence to listen to what the person on the other end of the line had to say.
Anna could hear a raised voice but she couldn’t make out the words. Ruth reacted by clenching her eyes shut and gritting her teeth.
After a moment her eyes snapped open and she yelled into the phone.
‘Look, I know and I’m sorry, Ethan. But they’ve all been taken. Liam is gone. Our baby’s gone, and I’m scared we’ll never see him again.’
Her words gave way to uncontrollable sobs, and Anna reached out to grab the phone when it looked like it was going to slip through Ruth’s fingers onto the ground.
She raised it to her own ear and said, ‘I’m DCI Tate, Mr Brady. Your wife is with me and she’ll be looked after. But I suggest you get over here as quickly as you can. We’ll be in the community centre next door to the nursery.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Ethan Brady said. ‘But can you please tell me what you know?’
‘Not over the phone, Mr Brady. It will have to wait until you get here.’
Anna hung up and held onto the phone because Ruth was still crying, with her head now in her hands.
She pulled a hanky from her pocket and gave it to her, and then she tried to console her by gently rubbing her back.
It was several minutes before Ruth managed to stop crying and as soon as she did Anna handed her back her phone and ushered her into the community centre.
They entered a spacious reception area that was swarming with police officers, some in high-vis jackets.
There was