Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

ELEVEN

7 P.M. | ADAM

“Sophia!”

Snow softens the night air, silence answering my panicked shout. I run across the garden, past the half-finished snowman, and rattle the shed door, the padlock still coated with snow. I squeeze my head into the narrow gap between the shed and the fence, calling her name even though the banked-up snow is undisturbed. The fence is six feet tall, so there’s no way she could have climbed it, but I stand on a wobbly garden chair and look over regardless. “Sophia!”

When Sophia was about eighteen months old, Mina and I were with her at a soft play center when we noticed a woman paying us more attention than felt comfortable. As she edged nearer, I recognized her from the photo album Social Services had put together. It was Sophia’s birth grandmother, only in her forties herself, and there with the youngest of her own children, born the same year as Sophia. She didn’t do anything, but it was unsettling—a reminder of safety measures most families don’t even need to consider as they post photos on Instagram and check in on Facebook.

We were paranoid for a time. Wouldn’t go anywhere without looking over our shoulders; wouldn’t leave Sophia in the car even as we locked the front door, the house just yards away. As time went by and Sophia’s birth family made no attempt to get in touch, we relaxed a little, giving our daughter the independence she craved.

But things are different now.

The risk is greater, the consequences worse, and there’s no one I can call on for help. Not Social Services, not the police. I’ve brought this all on myself.

“Sophia!” I grip the top of the fence, the wood splintering my fingers as I call her name into the silent park. A dim sulfur glow comes from the municipal lighting that edges the path, but there’s no movement, only shadow.

In the spring—when I was still clinging to the pretense that I wasn’t doing anything wrong—Sophia ran away. She’d been in bed, Mina and I watching TV in the sitting room, and we’d heard her footsteps on the stairs. A second later, the front door had banged. I looked up, saw the same alarm in Mina’s face I knew must be in mine. We jumped up, ran outside—me barefoot, Mina in slippers—and split up, running in opposite directions, shouting her name.

Twenty minutes later, I’d come back to the house, frantic with worry. Sophia was eating a biscuit at the kitchen table, calm as you like. I put my arms around her, relief rushing into my embrace, and felt her stiffen for a split second, the way she always does.

“Where were you?” I demanded, relief turning to anger.

“Here.”

She’d never left the house. She’d opened the door, then slammed it, hiding behind the heavy curtain we pull across on winter nights. She’d watched us run like lunatics into the street, heard the panic in our voices as we called her name.

“I wanted to see if you’d look for me,” she said, and her tone was dispassionate, almost clinical, as if she were conducting a scientific experiment.

“It’s not normal,” I said later when Mina had checked Sophia was definitely asleep and I’d screwed a bolt on the door, too high for her to reach.

“Oh, that’s a lovely thing to say about your daughter.”

“I didn’t say she isn’t normal, I said her behavior isn’t normal. She needs professional help. Counseling, something. It’s not enough to stick labels on her and send us away with some leaflets. I mean, God, Mina, I don’t know how much more of this I can cope with.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I didn’t know myself.

“You’re going to leave us?”

“No!”

“Or maybe you want to give her back!” She spat out the words, but that wasn’t the worst bit of that night. The worst bit was that, in the silence that followed, she realized I’d already been forming the same thought.

“Of course not,” I said, too late for it to count.

I burst into the kitchen, where Becca’s still sitting on the counter. “Sophia’s not there.”

“She was literally there a second ago.” Becca’s mouth falls open, and she looks around the kitchen as though I might be mistaken, that Sophia is right here next to me. “I just came in a minute ago.” She slides onto her feet, her mobile clattering onto the counter.

“Which is it, Becca, a second or a minute?” I’m not interested in her answer. I call Sophia’s name again, trying for the balance between come out right now and I’m not angry. “Could she have come in without you noticing?”

Becca’s gone to the open back door, calling for Sophia over and over, her voice thick with fear. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

I search the house, snapping into work mode and moving systematically from one room to another. Tramping snow through the house, I look in the bathroom and in the airing cupboard, and I open the door to the damp cellar beneath the kitchen, even though Sophia can’t reach the key. She isn’t inside, and when I go back out to the garden, I see something I’ve missed. There’s a loose board at the bottom of the fence, held in place by an upturned plant pot. Only the plant pot isn’t there anymore, and the space where it was is empty of snow. I crouch down and lift the board, exposing a gap plenty big enough for a child to crawl through. Caught on the wood is a piece of red wool.

Behind me, Becca starts crying. “What if something happens to her?”

She’s just a kid herself, but that doesn’t stop me being angry. We’re paying her to watch Sophia, not piss about playing Candy Crush or messaging lads. Worst-case scenarios race through my head, each one made worse still by a real-life counterpart. Murder, sexual assault, child trafficking—these are the foundations of my working life.

“Park,” I say. “Now.”

While Becca runs the long way—back through the house and around the corner, to the entrance to the park—I stand on the rickety garden chair and haul myself up onto the fence, throwing myself over and landing with a jolt that rattles my teeth. On the other side of the loose board is a patch of scuffed snow, where Sophia must have crawled on her knees. There are patches of grass where the snow has been scooped up and piled to the side, then a faint trail of pint-size prints, already half covered with falling snow. A few feet from the fence, half buried in the snow, is Elephant. My chest tightens.

“Sophia!”

I would never give her back. I never meant it, not really. Never truly imagined ringing Social Services to tell them we couldn’t cope, didn’t want to be Sophia’s parents anymore. It was a reaction, that’s all, to the hiding and fighting and not wanting to be held. It was envy, I suppose, of all the parents with straightforward kids.

“Sophia!” Louder now, unable to hide the panic in my voice as I run toward the center of the park. If this were a race, I’d be pacing myself, mindful of how far I have to run, but I don’t know, don’t care. I’ll run all night to find my daughter.

It’s already dark, the park lit only by the occasional lamppost and a soft, yellow haze from the housing estate on the opposite side. I use my phone as a torch, following the footprints and wondering how long to give it before I call 999. They’ll scramble the helicopter within minutes; they’ll fly over the woods and check the lake—

I stumble, my foot catching in a tree root, feel my breath grow ragged even though I’ve barely run a hundred yards, fear sucking the strength from my limbs.

“Sophia!” Becca catches up with me, mascara all over her face. “There’s no sign of anyone by the entrance.” She looks at the ground, at the prints she’s kicked snow over, and she claps her hands to her mouth, a high-pitched moan echoing through the silence. Her hysteria forces me out of mine.

“Go and check the play park. I’ll look in the woods.” I think of the lake, with its little island populated by ducks. Sophia’s constant questions. How many are there? What are they called? How do they know when it’s time for bed?

Then, through the crisp night air, I hear something.

“Shhh.” I grab Becca’s arm, and she gulps back her sobs.

There it is again.

Laughter.

“Sophia!” We run toward the sound, my heart thumping the same beat as my boots. I think of the day Katya left, of Sophia’s tearstained face. The fear and disappointment put there by my actions.

Sophia is on the other side of a small group of trees, throwing a snowball at a group of teenagers. One of them stoops, balls up a handful of snow, and throws it gently at Sophia’s arm.

I roar at them. “Leave her alone!”

She doesn’t look hurt, but my hands ball into fists. Closer, I can see they’re not even teenagers; they’re maybe eleven or twelve at most. Three sheepish boys and a girl who looks at me defiantly. Doing someone else’s dirty work? I draw closer, not stopping till I’m close enough for them to see who they’re up against. “Who sent you? Who told you to take her?”

The tallest lad curls his lip. “The fuck you talking about?”

“What are you doing?”

“This is a public place. We’ve got as much right to be here as you.”

“Not with my daughter, you haven’t.”

Sophia’s looking down at the ground. I pull up her chin so I can see her face. She knows she’s in trouble, and she jerks away from me.

“How do we know she’s your daughter?” the girl says. There’s laughter in her tone, but the others take up the theme.

“She doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

“Yeah, you could be abducting her.”

“Pedo!”

“Sophia, we’re going home.” I take her hand, and she snatches it away from me. Please, Sophia, not now.

“She doesn’t want to go!”

“Kidnapper!”

“Pedo!”

I hold out Elephant, and Sophia squashes her face in his wet coat, then I get out my warrant card and snap it open. “I’m Detective Sergeant Holbrook. This is my daughter. Now fuck off.”

They fuck off, running toward the housing estate, with a half-hearted wanker! once they’re safely out of reach.

I look at my daughter, my heart pounding, trying to reach a level of calmness that won’t scare her. “Why?”

“The snow’s better here.”

“You scared me. I thought someone had taken you.” Tears prick my eyes. I drop to my knees, snow soaking instantly through my trousers, and hold out my arms. “Come here, sweetheart.”

When Sophia was a toddler, all our friends’ children were coping with separation anxiety while we were struggling with the reverse. Sophia’s friends cried when they were dropped off at nursery or clung to their parents instead of exploring at soft play. “She’s so confident,” they’d say, admiring the way Sophia trotted off without a care in the world. “You’d expect her to be clingy, after what she’s been through.”

I know a lot about attachment disorder now. I know it’s very common among adopted children, especially ones who were fostered before finding their forever families. I know the symptoms (in Sophia’s case: a refusal of affection and inappropriate affection toward strangers) and I know the best way to deal with it. It isn’t Sophia’s fault—she’s a victim of circumstance. I know that.

What I don’t know—what I’ve never known—is how to stop it hurting.

It shouldn’t matter how I feel, of course. It’s Sophia who gets the help, and rightly so—any kid born to a neglectful mother deserves to be the focus of attention. I should be able to rise above it, to smile when she turns away from a cuddle and say, I’ll still be here if you change your mind.

Try it.

Try it with the child you’ve brought up, the child you’ve loved as your own from the second you saw her. Try it, then tell me it doesn’t break your heart.

Sophia looks at me, and without taking her eyes off mine, she holds out a hand to Becca, who hesitates for a second, then takes it. A lump forms in my throat, and I think I might suffocate.

“Um—” Becca starts, shuffling her boots in the snow.

“Just go back to the house!”

I drop back on my heels, and when they’re gone, I sit in the dark in the snowy park, and I sob.

Half an hour later, Sophia and I are eating the lasagna Mina left, Sophia picking out the red peppers and leaving them on the side of her plate. Becca’s had a salad and three slices of toast, the burger charred beyond redemption. I’ve locked the back door and closed the bolt at the top of the front door, just in case Sophia goes wandering again. I look at Becca.

“You should be getting home.”

“It’s okay. I’m not going out tonight.”

“I can’t—” I don’t know how to finish without inviting scorn—or pity. Mina left Becca’s money in an envelope. I can’t pay her for the extra hours. “I haven’t been to a cashpoint.”

There’s a tiny pause. “It’s okay. I’ll stay for a bit. Help you get her ready for bed.”

I wonder how much Becca knows about what’s going on between me and Mina. Did Mina say she doesn’t trust me, doesn’t think I’m fit to look after my own daughter? Did she ask her to stay till Sophia’s in bed?

Maybe it isn’t Mina. Maybe it was Katya who said I can’t be trusted. They knew each other, but were they friends? How close were they? Did Katya confide in Becca, even though I swore her to secrecy? Paranoia crawls across me like an itch I can’t reach.

“Can we have flapjacks?” Sophia asks. “They’re in there.” She points to a tin by the kettle, and I take off the lid and put it on the table. “I made them.”

“Clever you.” Becca takes one. “I like baking too. Did you know you can collect ingredients for free from outside? I made pine-needle biscuits, and you can use dandelions too. There are loads of foraging websites.”

“That’s weird.” Sophia looks at me, bored by a conversation she doesn’t understand. “I want to see Mummy again.” I bring up the tracking app and slide it across to her. “Thanks, Daddy.” She beams at me, a gorgeous smile that dimples her cheeks and makes me return it, unquestioningly. She is a mass of contradictions, with no comprehension that each time she pulls away from me, she drives a knife through my heart.

Of course she doesn’t understand, Mina would say. She’s five! You’re the grown-up. You have to be the understanding one.

Sophia traces her finger along the line that shows the route Mina’s plane is taking. “The passengers get lunch, then dinner, then breakfast,” she tells Becca, “and in between, there are snacks and lots of drinks—whatever they want.”

“Have you ever been on a plane?”

“Loads of times! I’ve been to France, and Spain, and to America…”

“Lucky girl. When I was your age, we used to go to a caravan park once a year. I didn’t go abroad till last year, and that was on the ferry.”

“Caravans are nice too,” Sophia says kindly. She hops off her chair and onto Becca’s lap.

People don’t get the whole attachment disorder thing. They see Sophia dishing out cuddles and wanting to tickle the postman, and they see a girl who’s affectionate, caring, loving. And she is all those things, but with a whole bag of issues that mean it’s not always directed the right way.

“Well, I can’t see a problem at all,” my mum said, after she’d babysat for a few hours. “Sat on my lap, having stories—lovely little thing.”

It would hurt Mum to be told that it’s easier for Sophia to form relationships with people who don’t matter to her. The postman, babysitters, grandparents she only sees every few months—she’ll open her heart to them because she doesn’t expect anything in return.

But us? We’re the ones who matter. Loving us means getting hurt—or so her instincts tell her.

I start clearing our plates. “We only travel so much because of Mina’s job. We wait at the airport on standby, in case there’s space. Sometimes we just come home again, don’t we, Sophia?”

“I don’t like it when that happens.”

“Me neither.”

Sophia starts telling Becca about the fuel capacity of a Boeing 777, and the older girl laughs. “You really know your stuff, don’t you?”

“I can fly a plane too.”

“Oh yeah?” Becca’s dismissive, and Sophia looks cross.

“I can. Tell her, Daddy.”

“They had a families day at the airport,” I explain. “Mina took her on a flight simulator—the sort of thing they use for training. She was pretty good; they both were.”

“I’m going to be a pilot.”

I wonder if the police station could hold an open day, if Sophia might enjoy sitting in a police car, trying on the uniform.

“Mummy wanted to be a pilot.” I fill the sink with hot water, remembering that first time I met Mina. The photo she showed me of her in her uniform, the unadulterated joy on her face.

After Mina ghosted me, I made a half-hearted attempt to track her down. She wasn’t on Facebook, so I went to the airport where the training school was. The security officer on reception wouldn’t look up her name—said it was against data protection rules—but as I walked away, he called after me.

“Try the White Hart, around the corner. Most of the students drink there.”

I nursed a warm beer until a group of students filtered in, midconversation about tomorrow’s forecast.

Mina had dropped out of the course.

“She had a panic attack, the first time she took a plane up.” Mina’s former colleague struggled to keep the derision from his voice. “They almost crashed as a result. Total wipeout.”

“Is that right?”

I turned to see an older man, sitting at the bar, one eyebrow raised in our direction. He nodded at me. “Vic Myerbridge. I’m one of the instructors. Ignore Xavier—he’s prone to exaggeration.”

“Mina didn’t have a panic attack?”

Vic’s answer was considered. “There was no danger of the plane crashing. And look, we get a lot of dropouts—it’s a tough course. She’s not the first to realize it wasn’t for her, and she won’t be the last. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be.”

“I don’t suppose you know where she is now?”

“Sorry, I wouldn’t have a clue.”

That was that, then. She really had ghosted me.

Three months later, I saw her going into a shop on the high street. I raced across the road, narrowly missing being run over, only to pull up short on the other side. What was I thinking? Did I really want to be rejected all over again, only this time in person?

But what if she’d just lost my number?

I was still dithering when Mina came out. She’d cut her hair. All those crazy ringlets were gone, replaced by a close crop too short to curl. It sharpened her features and made her eyes even bigger, and I experienced the same surge of desire I’d felt when we first met.

“Oh,” she said.

“Hi.”

“I didn’t call. I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Well…”

Mina took a breath. “If I were to call now…I mean, not right now, obviously, but if I were to call you some time and suggest we went out…would it be too late?”

There was nothing nonchalant about the goofy smile that split my face in two. “Great. Shall I give you my—”

“I have it.”

“You still have my number?”

“I still have your number.”

That Friday, after drinks and a curry, Mina came back to mine, and she didn’t leave till Monday morning.

Not a conventional love story, perhaps, but ours.

“If Mina wanted to be a pilot,” Becca says now, “how come she’s an air hostess?”

“She changed her mind.”

I’d tried to persuade Mina to go back to pilot training, maybe have some counseling to get over whatever had caused the panic attack, but she wouldn’t be swayed. She took a couple of jobs, but she struggled to focus. After her mum died, she said she needed to take stock. “I’ve let her down,” she had said. “Dad too. All that money they paid for my training, and now Dad doesn’t even have the house they both loved. They just wanted me to make something of myself.”

“No,” I’d said gently. “They wanted you to be happy.” And she wasn’t happy—not joyous, the way she was the first time I met her. Tentatively, I suggested an alternative career, one that would still give Mina the travel she craved, the flying she loved. She wasn’t sure at first, but she went to an open day, did some research, and eventually went for it.

I chuck a tea towel at Becca. “They’re called cabin crew anyway, not air hostesses.”

Becca’s eyebrows lift. “PC much?” She laughs as she starts drying. “Hey, that’s good: you can be PC PC.”

“DS actually,” I mutter, but Becca’s talking to Sophia.

“Come on. Let’s get you bathed and ready for bed so Daddy can read you a story.”

“I want you to read to me,” I hear as they go upstairs.

I hear the bath running, and I pour myself a glass of wine, draining half of it in one swallow, haunted by the memories I’ve dredged up. Mina and I got a second chance at being together, and I’ve ruined it all.

Upstairs, Sophia runs around, giggling, and I know Becca is pretending to be the bath monster and that soon—when the bath is ready—the bath monster will catch Sophia and turn her into a monster too, with a bubble-bath beard and foam horns. It’s a favorite game, second only to “flying”: Mina on her back with her legs in the air, Sophia balanced on Mina’s flattened feet, arms and legs outstretched like a skydiver.

The doorbell rings, and I go to open the front door, my wineglass still in one hand. I pause, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. Sometimes Mo will come around when she sees my car outside, needing help with something, but not at this time of night, not in this weather. I put my glass on the ledge by the window and slowly draw back the upper bolt, checking before I do that Sophia is safely upstairs.

I was right to be wary. It’s a man, six foot tall and half again as wide. His head is shaved to a polish, the only shadow a greenish tattoo encircling his neck. “Alright, Adam?”

“Do I know you?”

The man gives me a slow smile. He’s wearing a black puffer jacket and jeans, boots with the leather worn through on the toes, exposing scuffed steel caps. “Nah. But I know you.”

“I haven’t got it,” I say. I put one hand on the door, but he’s too quick, stepping forward and propelling me back into the hall, up against the wall. My wineglass topples, the contents spilling across the floor. I bring up both hands, palms forward. “Listen, mate—”

“I aintcha mate. Don’t fuck with me, Adam. I’m doing my job, like you do yours. You’ve got till midnight, otherwise…” He doesn’t finish. He puts one meaty hand around my neck, pinning me to the wall. I deliver a swift punch to his stomach, but as I do so, he lifts his right arm and punches me square in the face. He releases me, and I punch him again, but blood’s pouring down my face, and he takes my arm and twists it behind my back, banging my head against the wall once, twice, three times. He lets me drop to the floor, and I roll to one side, arms up around my face, one leg kicking him away. But the space is small, and I can’t get clear, and a well-placed boot winds me so completely, I think I might pass out. He kicks me again and again, and I have no choice but to curl in a ball and protect my head and wait for him to finish.

It seems to go on for hours, although it can only be a couple of minutes. He stops, and I feel him standing over me, his breath labored.

“This is from the boss.”

He hawks, and a second later, I feel a globule of thick saliva on my ear. He leaves me with the door wide open, spitting blood onto the hall carpet.