J. P. Carter - In Safe Hands

But that was before he began to change. It started when he was overlooked for a promotion at work. It was a big blow to his ego and he didn’t try to hide the fact that he was jealous of his wife’s success as a copper.

He became argumentative and controlling. And then he embarked on an affair with a woman in his office which lasted for five months. When Anna found out, he was contrite and begged her to forgive him. But she couldn’t because she knew she would never trust him again. She also knew that Matthew Dobson was no longer the man she had married.

At Anna’s insistence, he moved out into a rented flat. And he wasn’t happy when she applied for a divorce. Throughout the process he pleaded with her to take him back. But the voice of reason in her head convinced her not to.

The divorce was finalised six months ago but Matthew had not given up trying to win her back. When his widowed mother died two months later, leaving him and his sister a sizeable inheritance – over a quarter of a million pounds each – he actually believed it would make her change her mind. But, of course, it didn’t and he was mortified.

They’d been granted joint custody of Chloe. Matthew had her every other weekend and occasionally, by mutual agreement, on weekdays. Chloe had actually spent the last two nights with him at his flat in Chiswick. He’d asked to have her so that he could take her to his sister Charlotte’s birthday party.

But by now Chloe would be back home where Anna’s mother would be taking care of her. Without her mother’s help Anna would never have been able to hold down a full-time job, especially one that entailed such unsocial hours.

The drive home was slow and uneventful, and she was relieved when she pulled up outside her terraced house at just before seven. She couldn’t wait to see Chloe, and was glad she’d told her mother to keep her up so that she could read her a bedtime story.

For that reason she expected to see her daughter in her mother’s arms when the door flew open as she approached it. But her mother was alone and had a face like thunder.

‘Why haven’t you answered your bloody phone?’ her mother said. ‘I’ve called and sent you two messages.’

Anna felt her heart miss a beat. Her phone was in her handbag, but she knew without looking what had happened.

‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘I had a meeting just before I left the office and put it on silent. And because I was in such a hurry to get away I didn’t think to check it.’

‘Well, you should have.’

‘Why mum? What’s wrong? Where’s Chloe?’

‘That’s just it,’ her mother said. ‘You told me that Matthew was supposed to bring her back at three but he hasn’t shown up yet. I’ve tried ringing him but there’s no answer. And quite frankly I’m worried. You know I don’t trust that man.’

Anna’s eyes snapped open to the roar of a helicopter overhead. The flashback to the worst day of her life was thankfully cut short, but Chloe’s face was still there in her head. Her button nose and dimpled chin. The bright, cheeky smile that lit up the lives of all those who came into contact with her.

She would be twelve now, and in three months she’d become a teenager. And yet Anna had no idea where she was or if she was happy. All she had were memories and questions. Lots of questions.

What does she look like now?

Does she ever ask about her mother?

Does she even remember her mother?

Is she being taken care of?

Is she healthy?

Is she alive?

Anna had never given up hope of one day being reunited with her baby. Nine years ago she’d set up a website dedicated to finding her. She’d launched pages on Facebook and Twitter and they now had a combined following of fourteen thousand people.

A month ago she’d marked the tenth anniversary of Chloe’s abduction with a fresh appeal through social media and she’d managed to get one of the popular Sunday supplements to run an interview with her. She’d even got them to publish an age-progression photo of Chloe and her shit of a father. But so far nothing had come of it except for dozens of sympathy messages and some cruel comments from internet trolls.

Anna remained undeterred, though. The search would go on, even though her lone efforts were time-consuming and soul-destroying. She could never imagine herself giving up.

And neither could she ever countenance forgiving her ex-husband. The bastard had shattered her life into a million pieces and changed her forever. She used to be an easy-going and tolerant individual with a positive attitude to life. Now she was short-tempered, impatient, and found it hard to trust people. It was as though losing Chloe had unleashed a darkness that had been lurking inside her.

She swallowed back the lump that had risen in her throat and started to pull her thoughts together. She owed it to the parents of those nine stolen children to stay fully focused. They were depending on her to stop their lives imploding, to save them from the kind of abject misery that she was all too familiar with. She was determined not to let them down.

She had allowed herself to be thrown off-track briefly by what Kenneth Tenant and that reporter had said. But she wasn’t going to let it happen again, even if some other bright spark questioned her ability to lead this investigation.

She pushed herself away from the wall and walked back around to the front of the community centre, where she almost bumped into none other than DI Walker.

‘So there you are, guv,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you, and it just occurred to me that you’d probably sneaked off for a quiet puff.’

‘And you were right,’ she said. ‘Which just goes to show what a great detective you are.’

He smiled as he polished his glistening bald head with the palm of his hand.

‘I heard what happened with the parents,’ he said. ‘Wish I’d been there to put that prick in his place.’

‘It was no big deal, Max. The poor sod is all messed up. And to be fair to him he did apologise.’

‘Not the point,’ Walker said. ‘There was no need to bring it up. He was out of order.’

Walker was one of only a handful of her colleagues who actually encouraged her to continue searching for Chloe. Unlike some of the others, he didn’t regard it as a waste of time. It was probably because he had two daughters of his own aged six and eight and he’d told her that he could never imagine being separated from them.

‘So why were you looking for me, Max?’ Anna said, glancing at her watch. ‘For the record, I slipped around the back only five minutes ago.’

Max pointed towards the mobile incident van. ‘Which is why you weren’t there to greet our esteemed leader when he arrived three minutes ago.’

DCS Nash was standing outside the van speaking to a couple of detectives. He didn’t ordinarily turn up at crime scenes but understandably this one was an exception.

He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a commanding presence and a short beard that didn’t quite suit him. He’d been Anna’s boss for three years and they got on reasonably well. He was one of those officers who liked to delegate most of the hard work while at the same time taking credit for it.

‘There you are, Anna,’ he said as she approached him. ‘I came straight from the Yard as soon as I realised how serious this is. For obvious reasons, the Commissioner himself is taking a personal interest in the case and I want to make sure that we’re on top of things.’

‘We’re getting there, sir,’ she said. ‘It’s a strange one, though, and as yet I’m not sure what to make of it.’