Elisabeth Carpenter - 99 Red Balloons

Nadia turns off the engine.

‘Now you stay here. I know you want to rush out and see what’s happening, but we can’t have you wandering round, no matter how quiet everything seems. Do you understand?’

We all nod.

Matt can barely keep still – I don’t think he’s going to stay in here.

Nadia narrows her eyes at him.

‘I’m going to lock the doors, okay? For your own safety. We don’t know whether this man is armed or not. All right.’

‘For fuck’s sake!’ Matt bangs the car door with his arm. ‘That’s not even legal. This is a joke. My daughter could be over there, and we’re sitting here having a chat. Jesus! I can’t fucking bear it. And you expect me to wait?’

‘I’ll be five minutes, tops. I promise.’

Nadia doesn’t wait to argue with him, and gets out quickly, locking the doors with a push of the button on her key.

We’ve only been sitting here a few minutes and an ambulance is behind us. It drives past the police cars and onto the grass.

‘Oh my God,’ says Emma. ‘Is that for Grace?’

Matt tries to open the car door, pulling it with both hands. ‘This isn’t right. I’m going to complain – this is illegal. We need to be out there!’

‘Why is the ambulance going that slow?’ says Emma.

‘We’re near the canal,’ I say. ‘They have to be careful – cars aren’t meant to go near there.’

‘I need to get out.’ Emma is shaking, holding the teddy so tightly, the skin around her knuckles is white.

I bang on the window. ‘It’s okay. Nadia’s coming.’

She’s running towards the car. I can’t read her face. Is it good news?

She opens the door.

‘I’m so sorry about that… the ambulance.’ She’s trying to catch her breath. ‘We’ve found Grace.’

We’re running alongside Nadia. There’s a blue car near the canal. From here it looks like the boot’s open.

‘Is she all right?’ I ask her, but she doesn’t seem to hear me.

Surely she wouldn’t let us go and see something terrible, surely it’s not that Grace’s dead and we’re about to see her body. They wouldn’t do that to us, to Emma and Matt.

The detective’s talking to one of the ambulance crew. He frowns when he sees us.

‘Nadia, do they know what they’re about to see?’

Nadia bends over slightly to catch her breath again. ‘Not yet, sir.’

He shakes his head and walks towards us. Emma grabs hold of my arm.

‘They wouldn’t do this to us if she were dead, would they, Steph? They wouldn’t let us see her like that.’

I can’t answer her because I don’t know.

‘We found her,’ he says, finally.

Matt doesn’t listen any longer, he rushes to the ambulance.

‘Wait, Matthew,’ says the detective, but it’s useless, Matt wouldn’t listen.

The detective steps closer to Emma. ‘There’s still a pulse.’

Emma’s knees wobble before they sink to the ground. I wasn’t in time to catch her. I grab under her arms and pull her with me towards the paramedics.

I stand at the doors as Emma crawls onto the steps of the ambulance.

‘She’s going.’

I don’t know which of the two paramedics shouted that. They are both standing either side of a stretcher and all I can see are little legs being shoved around as they try to shock her back into life.

‘Shall we switch on the radio?’ I say, reaching over to the car stereo. ‘So we can hear what’s happening.’

‘It’s not like Sky News, Maggie,’ he says. ‘We can’t just switch it on and they tell us what’s going on.’

I pull my hand back and rub my thighs; I can’t bear it. ‘But where are we?’

‘Lincoln town centre.’

It looks just like Preston city centre: loads of nondescript buildings punctuated with high-street shops. Here, though, the cathedral seems to tower over everything else, like a guardian watching over us.

‘But it’s so quiet here, how are we meant to tell where Scott is?’

David sighs. He’s fed up of me already, I can tell.

He stops suddenly.

‘We’re on double yellows, David.’ I look outside, checking for police. ‘They might tell us off.’

When I look back round, David’s hands are covering his head.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to do any more.’

He’s breathing in and out through his nose, like he’s hyperventilating.

I think he might be crying.

‘I’m sorry, David.’ I put my hand out to him, but he bats it away. ‘Shall I ring the detective, and ask where they are?’

He shakes his head under his hands. ‘They aren’t going to tell us where they are. We aren’t important to them. You do know that, don’t you? No one gives a shit about us.’ He leans back and looks up to the ceiling of the car. ‘It’s my fault all of this happened. If I hadn’t asked Scott for help, then…’ He slams a hand on the steering wheel. ‘Jesus. I’m probably going to be arrested for this.’

‘You won’t get arrested, David. You did nothing wrong. You were looking for your daughter. Who’d have thought it would have come to this?’

He looks up, shaking his head.

‘Now I know she’s alive, that should be enough. I should just leave her to her life. I’ve already done too much.’ His hands grip the steering wheel. He lowers his head. ‘But she’s my little girl. Five years old she was. She doesn’t even know me.’

He groans, is that the word for it? No, he makes a sound that is pain. A sound that travels straight to the middle of my chest. For just a second, I feel what he feels. It’s what he’s felt for years.

What is it like to not know?

My child, my Sarah, I know how she died.

‘You can’t stop now, David. I won’t let you.’

I look up to get our bearings.

‘Do you have a map? I’ve never been here before.’

We’re stopped fifty metres from a junction. Ahead of us, on the other side of the road, is a bus stop.

He looks just like Ron, that man. He’s wearing a flat cap; Ron always wore a flat cap. Without taking my eyes off him, I grab David’s arm.

‘Look,’ I say.

Slowly, David lifts his head and finds where I’m looking.

He reaches for his phone.

‘Hold on a second, David.’ I grab his wrist.

‘But he might run – he could disappear again.’

Scott’s sitting on the plastic seat of the shelter. He briefly lifts up his cap to wipe his forehead. He puts a hand in his pocket and brings out a packet – tobacco probably. I hope he doesn’t still smoke that other vile stuff. Although that was just the start of it – relatively tame compared with what he got into after that.

I won’t be able to look at him for much longer. I need to capture everything to memory. He’s still as skinny as he used to be – there’s not even a middle-age spread that Ron had. Scott’s as thin as he was at twenty-one. What else has happened in his life to bring him to this? My boy. If circumstances had been different, he might have had a family, a decent job. We could’ve had a relationship. He and I have been ruined. His breakdown might be more apparent, more brutal – we’re suffering in different ways, but he’s still part of me.

‘I’m calling Hines now, Maggie.’

I nod slowly.

I can’t make out David’s words to the detective as I look at Scott.

I used to watch him for ages when he was little, before he noticed me looking. He’d smile then, basking in the attention. When I gazed at him as a teenager though, he’d say, Stop staring, Mum. You’re giving me the creeps . Always so melodramatic.

He takes his rolled cigarette and puts it to his lips. I can barely see his eyes under the cap, but the hand holding his lighter hovers in mid-air. Has he caught me looking at him?