Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

SEVEN

6 P.M. | ADAM

“Becca build a snowman with me,” Sophia says, the lack of question in her tone less about my daughter’s command of language and more about her character. She isn’t asking me; she’s telling me.

“It’s nearly teatime. It’s dark outside,” I start, but her face clouds over, and I think, Sod practicalities, and sod sensible parenting. Why shouldn’t I be the one to make her smile for once? “I guess we can have the outside light on. It’ll be an adventure! I build excellent snowmen. The trick is to—”

“No. Becca and me build a snowman.”

“Fine,” I snap, as if I’m Sophia’s age. Salt doesn’t sting any less the more you rub it in. Is parenting supposed to hurt like this? And when it does, are we just supposed to take it?

Becca’s in the kitchen, poking at a lasagna she’s taken out of the oven. “Is this veggie, do you reckon?”

I take the fork from her and peel back the oozing crust of melted cheese. “There’s veg in it.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Is that supposed to be funny? Did you know the methane from cows is twenty-five times worse for the environment than CO2?”

“Try being in a briefing room with twelve hairy coppers. Cows have got nothing on them.”

“Daddy says we can build a snowman!”

Becca shrugs. “If you like.” She picks up her phone again to check the ever-present notifications, and I feel my own fingers twitch in response. Addiction carries muscle memory, and my thumb can swipe its own way to a fix before any conscious thought emerges to stop it.

Sophia has the fridge open, rifling through the vegetable tray. She emerges triumphantly with a carrot. “Now a hat.” She runs into the hall to find what she needs, and I put the lasagna back in the oven to keep it warm. There’s a veggie burger in the freezer—probably left over from the last time Becca babysat—and I put it under the grill.

Bundled back up in their boots and coats, Becca and Sophia go outside. They scoop up armfuls of virgin snow, Sophia whooping with the novelty of playing in the dark, and I close the door, watching for a second through the glass back door.

My fingers meet around my phone. I move away from the door, but they’re still too close, and I head for the bedroom. I take the stairs two at a time, my pulse quickening in anticipation, the way your mouth waters when it knows it’s almost time to eat. I glance out the window, checking the girls are still occupied, feeling the rush of conflicting emotions that always comes when I look at Sophia.

“She’s such a happy little soul,” Miss Jessop had said at parents’ evening.

Mina had glanced at me. “That’s good to hear. She’s… We struggle with her. Sometimes.” Sometimes. Try most of the time. Another glance toward me, looking for support.

“Her behavior can be challenging,” I said. “She has meltdowns—epic meltdowns. They go on for an hour or more.” Life with Sophia can be like crossing ice, never quite knowing when it might crack. At the mercy of a five-year-old’s emotions.

“She can be very controlling,” Mina added. She was speaking slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Possessive. Of me, mostly. It causes some…” She hesitated. “Tension.”

There was a pause as Miss Jessop took this in. “Hmm, I have to say this isn’t something we’re experiencing at school. I mean, I’m aware of her psych assessment, but to be honest, you’d never know to look at her. I wonder…” She looked at each of us in turn, her head tilted to one side. “Could she be picking up on any problems at home?”

The only thing that stopped me from losing my shit completely was knowing I’d be adding weight to her argument. I waited till we were off school property, but Mina got there first.

“How dare she! What, so basically it’s our fault Sophia has behavioral problems? Nothing to do with having a birth mother who didn’t remember she had kids half the time or the fact that she had two different foster families before she reached us?” She burst into tears. “Is it us, Adam? Are we doing something wrong?”

In a rare moment of togetherness, she had let me put my arms around her. “It’s not us,” I told her. She’d smelled different—a new shampoo, maybe—and it had made my heart hurt that a bit of her felt like a stranger. “At least it’s not you. You’re an amazing mum.”

Alone now in what used to be our bedroom, I look at my phone. I open my messages, and the familiar rush of shame and fear comes flooding out. I’ve fucked up so badly. I’ve got deeper and deeper into something so toxic, I can’t get out of it, and I’ve dragged Mina and Sophia into it too.

My daughter’s face flashes into my mind, tearstained and confused. Too scared even to speak. It was Katya who’d done the talking, after Sophia had stopped crying and was huddled in a blanket in front of the TV, as if she were ill.

“I not do this any more.” Katya went upstairs.

I followed her up. “Please, Katya—”

She hauled out her cases from under the bed and started throwing in clothes. “No more lying. Is finished.”

“Don’t tell Mina, I’m begging you.” Things between us were already bad. We were hardly talking, and Mina had begun to question me in a way she never had before. Where had I been? What time had I finished work? Who was I on the phone to? “She’ll leave me.”

“Is not my problem!” Katya had turned and jabbed a finger at my chest. “Is yours.”

I close down my messages and open Facebook instead, bringing up Mina’s profile. I thought she might block me after she threw me out, but nothing has changed. Her relationship status still says married, and it’s pathetic how tightly I cling on to it as a sign of hope. She’s updated her profile picture. It’s a selfie, unfiltered, taken in the snow somewhere I don’t recognize. She’s wearing a hat with a fur pom-pom, and icy flakes cling to her eyelashes.

I’ve fucked up so badly. I’ve lost the only woman I’ve ever properly loved.

I met Mina after a rugby match, when she barged in front of me at the bar.

“You’re welcome,” I said, in that passive-aggressive, British way that enables you to take it back if you’d missed the excuse me.

She half turned, one hand holding up a tenner to keep her place at the bar. “Sorry, did I just jump the queue?”

There was nothing sorry about her expression, but by then, I didn’t care. Her hair was crazy—wild curls that fell across her face and swirled around her shoulders when she spun around. On her left cheek was a painted England flag, on her right, a French one.

I pointed at them. “Hedging your bets, I see.”

“Half French.”

“Which half?” It wasn’t very original, but she laughed anyway and bought me a drink. We took them outside, walking by tacit agreement away from the throng that had spilled onto the street and around the corner, where we perched on a wall.

“My mother’s French.” Mina took a sip of her pint. “French Algerian, technically—she moved to Toulouse before I was born. My dad’s half French, half English, and we came to England when I was six.” She grinned. “I’m a mongrel.”

When I went to get another round, I was gripped by the fear that she might vanish, and I pushed my way through to the bar, telling myself all was fair in love and war.

“What took you so long?” she said when I got back. The glint in her eye belied her cross expression, and I grinned back.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Mina was training to be a pilot—just a few weeks into a residential course. I’d never met a pilot before, never mind such a young and insanely attractive one, and the rush to my head had nothing to do with the beers I’d consumed.

“It’s really not that glamorous,” she said. “Not yet anyway. We’re in classrooms, like school, and there’s more math than you could possibly imagine.”

“When do you start flying?”

“Next week. Cessna 150s.”

“What are they?”

Mina grinned. “Let’s just say they’re a long way from the Concorde.”

I went home with her. I would have gone anywhere with her. And when I had to leave, she was so insistent that she’d call, that she wanted to see me again, that we had something exciting, something important, that I never asked for her number in exchange for the one I gave her. I never doubted she’d call.

Only she didn’t. And when I finally plucked up the courage to go ’round to her flat, she’d moved out. No note, no text. I’d been ghosted.

“You fucking idiot,” I say out loud.

I had it all. The woman I loved. A family. And I fucked it up. I lost Mina once, and when I got her back, I drove her away, and if I’m not careful, I’m going to lose Sophia too. It’s always been Mina she’s clung to, and now that I’m not living here, it’s a fight just to stay in her life. Attachment disorder takes years to overcome; it’s not enough to be with Sophia on birthdays and special occasions or every other weekend. I need to be here when she scrapes her knee and when she feels scared at night. I need to show her I won’t abandon her.

I swing my legs off the bed. Maybe I can help finish the snowman, and Sophia can put his hat on and wrap a scarf around his neck. Even if she doesn’t want me to help, I can still watch. I can tell her what a good job she did.

I run down the stairs, newly determined to be—what’s that word I see everywhere now? Present. I put my phone in my pocket, pleased with myself. I ignored the texts; I didn’t respond. That proves I have resolve, whatever Mina says.

The hall floor is wet, a trail of melted snow leading into the downstairs loo. They’ve finished.

“Pair of softies,” I say as I come into the kitchen. “Couldn’t hack the cold?”

Becca’s sitting on the counter, playing something on her phone. I look around the empty kitchen.

“Where’s Sophia?”

“Outside. I came in to make some hot chocolate.”

The kettle has recently boiled, steam rising from the spout, but there are no mugs on the counter. “You didn’t get very far.” I push my feet into the wellies I keep by the back door.

Our garden is a small rectangle with a padlocked shed in one corner and a sorry huddle of pots where the patio is. Beneath the snow, a concrete path leads to the shed. Neither Mina nor I are great gardeners; it’s a space for Sophia to play, that’s all.

Only she’s not playing now.

The garden is empty.

Sophia’s gone.