Page 97 of Stolen
chapter 46
No one gives us a second glance when we venture out now, though I still keep our outings to a minimum. We blend into a crowd of millions here in the city, but it only takes one person to recognise her.
Except the girl doesn’t do well cooped up inside hotel rooms all the time. It’s been too long since she had playmates. She’s restless, bored, full of pent-up energy that manifests itself in tantrums and bouts of fury. She requires constant attention, constant entertainment.
I worry she’s mentally unstable, that she’s been irrevocably damaged by everything that’s happened to her.
Or perhaps it’s just me. I’ve never been a hands-on mother before.
Either way, I can’t keep her indoors all the time. It’s not healthy for her to spend hours staring at a screen and she’s starting to look peaky.
We need to leave the city and go somewhere she can get outside and run around. Somewhere rural, where people keep themselves to themselves, but not too far off the beaten track that strangers attract notice. A place used to tourists and new faces in the village shop.
I rent a cottage on the coast and pay cash, three months upfront, but I don’t plan for us to be here anywhere near that long. The skinny kid at the lettings agent doesn’t ask for ID, though I have my fake passport ready. He’s too busy counting bank notes.
The girl’s photo is no longer on the front pages and, in this remote backwater, her name isn’t on people’s lips. I don’t think anyone will be looking for her here, after all this time, but I can’t be sure.
I’m careful when we go out, because people might be looking for me, too.
Every day, when I check online, I wonder if today’s the day I’ll see my own face staring back at me.
I can’t believe no one’s made the connection. For all my caution and planning, I couldn’t tie up every loose thread. One tug in the right place and my carefully constructed world will unravel.
But with every day that goes by, I feel a little less anxious about being discovered, a little more confident no one’s coming for the child.
She’s stopped asking where her‘mummy’is, now. She doesn’t demand to go home any more.
She knows how upset it makes me.