‘The Woodside Road car park. Please hurry, Ray.’
The line disconnected, and Alex buried her head in her hands, willing Ray to arrive and save her fragile mind.
The sudden sound of a child’s laughter caused the sobbing to stop almost immediately, as she strained to hear where it was coming from. Scanning the car park once more, Alex saw a woman in a long, hooded jacket, loading something into her back seat. Setting off without a second’s thought, Alex splashed through the puddles in the uneven surface.
The hooded woman was now fewer than twenty yards away. She was closing the rear door of her estate car, and already had a hand on the driver’s side door handle. Alex had never been much of a runner, but from somewhere deep she found the drive to move her legs quicker, almost colliding with the car’s bumper, as she tried to steady herself. The woman jumped as Alex rested both hands on the bonnet; this woman wasn’t going anywhere with her daughter.
The woman pulled her hood down to reveal a mop of tight strawberry-blonde curls. Winding her window down, she leaned out and called to Alex. ‘Can I help you with something? Do you want my space?’
Alex sucked in lungfuls of air, as she tried to steady her breathing. Rather than replying, she stalked around to the rear passenger door, and tried to stare through the rain-covered and misted glass. A bob of fair hair could be seen in a child seat.
Alex pulled on the door handle, but it was locked.
‘Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ the woman demanded, now standing with one leg in the car and one outside. ‘Get away from my car.’
‘Give me my daughter back,’ Alex demanded, standing firm. ‘Open this door.’
The woman stared back at her, puzzled. ‘I’m warning you: get away from my daughter’s door. I’ll call the police,’ she threatened holding her mobile aloft.
‘Good,’ Alex fired back wide-eyed with anger. ‘Call them. Then you can explain to them why you took my daughter from my car and tried to drive off with her.’
The woman looked around the car park, as if she was expecting a film crew to appear at any moment and reveal Alex’s behaviour was all part of an elaborate practical joke. ‘I won’t tell you again: back away from my car so I can leave.’
‘Give me back my daughter!’
‘I don’t have your daughter!’ the woman screamed back. ‘That is my daughter in the car.’
Alex stepped back uncertainly. ‘Of course you’d say that.’
The woman’s anger boiled over. Straightening, she slammed the door behind her and stomped past Alex, opening the rear passenger door. ‘Take a look yourself!’
Alex hurried forward, stopping only when her eyes fell on the blue eyes of the toddler staring back at her, clearly worried by the raised voices.
Alex stared from the toddler to the angry mother.
‘Well? Satisfied now?’
Alex wobbled, before falling to her knees despite the wet ground, and allowing her terror to escape in a sorrowful scream.
The other woman closed and locked her daughter’s door, before crouching down beside Alex. ‘Are you okay, love?’
‘My-my-my daughter,’ Alex wailed. ‘She’s missing.’
The woman gasped, understanding the sheer terror that had driven Alex to behave so irrationally. Suddenly all the anger was gone from her voice. ‘Missing? You poor thing. When did you last see her?’
Alex couldn’t respond, as the sobs returned with a vengeance. The woman opened the front passenger door and manoeuvred Alex into it, before racing around and diving into her own seat.
Offering a packet of tissues, she said, ‘Is there anything I can do? Can I call someone for you?’
‘My husband is on his way,’ Alex replied, through stilted breaths, accepting one of the tissues and blowing her nose, embarrassed by her outburst and accusation.
‘When did this happen?’
Alex did her best to steady her breathing, but she might as well have not bothered. ‘Just now … I left her in the car while I went to get a ticket … one minute she was there, and the next …’ Her eyes stung as further tears threatened to fall.
‘Oh my, you poor thing. Have you called the police?’
Alex nodded. ‘My husband’s in … I mean, my husband is a detective.’
‘You’re welcome to wait here until he arrives,’ the woman offered. ‘What does your daughter look like? Was she wearing a coat?’
‘She has blonde hair and the cutest face … she was wearing a bright red anorak.’
The woman’s eyes darted left and right as she too began to search helplessly for any sign of Carol-Anne. ‘She can’t have gone far. Have you tried heading out to the main road in case she wandered off?’
Alex shook her head.
‘That’s probably what’s happened,’ the woman concluded, trying to sound positive for both of their sakes. ‘I know what kids can be like. My little one wandered off in a supermarket once. Scared me to death, she did. I was searching everywhere for her, and when I returned to the trolley there she was, totally oblivious to the years she’d shaved off my life expectancy. I’m sure your daughter will turn up too. The important thing is to remain focused.’
Alex looked up at the woman through clouded eyes. ‘I’m sorry about what I said—’
‘Don’t be silly. I imagine I’d have been far ruder in your situation. I’m sorry I was so abrupt with you initially.’
‘How old is your little one?’ Alex asked.
‘Eighteen months,’ the woman replied, turning and smiling at her daughter to reassure her. ‘And yours?’
‘Two years.’ Alex paused. ‘What kind of mother would allow her daughter to be snatched like this?’
Neither answered the question. Alex stared back out into the rain-washed car park, her paranoia going into overdrive.
Ray was still squeezing the phone as Owen returned to his desk.
‘Everything okay, Ray?’
Ray took a deep breath, trying to suppress the blizzard of questions racing through his mind. ‘Um, no … I don’t know …’
Owen frowned at his colleague. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s going on?’
Ray blinked several times, his mind in limbo somewhere between reality and disbelief. ‘That was Alex … she said that someone has taken our daughter … I need to go.’
Owen’s eyes widened at the admission. ‘Someone’s taken her? Like, as in, taken her?’
The computer on the desk blurred as Ray tried to focus on where he was and what he needed to do next. Nausea swept through him as the room began to spin. Reaching out for his chair, he steadied himself.
Sensing the seriousness of the situation, Owen lowered his mug to the desk and grabbed a set of keys from the tray on one of the cabinets. ‘Come on, I’ll drive you.’
Ray allowed Owen to lead him from the office, down the double set of stairs and into the yard where the team’s unmarked squad cars rested.
Holding the key aloft, Owen pressed the remote and looked to see which unlocked, nodding towards the Focus. ‘That