Chapter Six
It’s a coincidence. It must be. But she has a scar in the exact same place my missing daughter had a beauty spot.
My mind fizzes. So many questions pool on the tip of my tongue, but I keep my lips sealed.
I don’t want to freak the poor girl out.
I’ve done that enough over the years. Being a full-time mum, I’ve spent a lot of time meandering aimlessly around over the years, seeing girls that could so easily be Robin.
In playgrounds and soft plays with Skyla, and coffee shops whenever I had that small sacred slice of me time.
I’ve always been left feeling unhinged, though, and over the years, I’ve become better.
Learned to compose myself when these kinds of things happen.
I grip the knife and take a very slow step back. ‘Skyla,’ I say, turning my body towards the chopping board. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?’ I ask, too nervous to speak to the girl directly. Not yet.
‘Oh God, yeah. Sorry.’ She shakes her head furiously, and I know she’s nervous. She wants to impress, but she also wants to please me. She’s a girl thirsty for acceptance from everyone in her life.
‘This is Raven.’ Skyla nods towards her friend, and it isn’t lost on me that this girl is named after a bird, just like Robin. But where robins are cheerful and trusting, ravens are dark, intelligent . . . scavengers. I shudder.
Raven’s mouth spreads, revealing a toothy smile with just the hint of gums. The scar spreads too, and I can’t help but stare.
She’s waiflike, almost gaunt, with little to no fat and muscle on her.
Her delicate wrist bones are jutting out sharply and her chest looks like some sort of instrument you could play with a mallet, a xylophone perhaps.
‘Hi, Mrs Rushmore,’ the girl says with a rolling ‘r’. Her voice is nasally, a scouse accent, I think. Something I really wasn’t expecting. Something so unattached from us, it throws me. She can’t possibly be Robin — but it’s been fourteen years. She could be anyone.
She steps towards me, arm extended. At my feet, Alfie grumbles unhappily. It isn’t like him. I realise I can’t speak, that I’m staring as I take her hand in mine. She’s pasty white, so cold she could be bloodless despite the warm weather.
‘Bella, please,’ I say, shaking.
‘Bella,’ Raven repeats, locking her eyes to mine in a way that truly terrifies me. Eyes the exact same colour as Skyla’s and yet darker, somehow.
‘Excuse me,’ I squeak, dropping her hand and quickly making my way back up the stairs, already dialling James’s number.
It rings and rings as I shut the door behind me, dropping to my knees. The carpet is creamy and soft, and I want to sink into it. When he answers, I breathe out, waiting for his voice to calm me the way it usually does. But today, it doesn’t.
‘James,’ I whisper into the phone. I’m crouched in a corner of our bedroom, my body pressed into the safety of our walls, wishing they could swallow me.
‘Bella? You okay?’ my husband asks, and the sound of his voice has me gripping the phone tighter.
‘She’s home, James,’ I say, quietly. So quietly I don’t think he hears me for a moment because there’s nothing but static at the other end of the line.
‘James?’ I ask, a quake to my voice.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ I breathe. ‘Robin’s come home.’
* * *
When James arrives, the front door bashes against the wall-mounted, gold coat rack, and from the kitchen I hear him drop down his laptop bag, shrug off his coat. He hangs it on the banister the way he always does, kicks off his work shoes and treads down the hallway.
I shoot my eyes at him as soon as he enters the kitchen. Careful, my eyes say, pleadingly. Don’t startle her.
His eyes are saucers, full of desperation, or is it fear? I can’t be sure, a bit of both, maybe. And who can blame him? I’m scared myself. It’s been so long, but still, I’m sure. The girl sitting at our kitchen island is Robin.
James’s throat bobs, and slowly he turns from me to the girls. Their noses are buried in some glossy textbook, a Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Henry VIII standing proud, feet shoulder width apart in the centre of the page.
‘Hey, Dad,’ Skyla says, without looking up. ‘What’s up?’
James seems to dodder, his mouth opening and closing, like a fish, and I can’t look any more. There’s a pounding in my temple. I fight against my nerves to calm down, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.
I try to keep busy, pulling knives and forks from the cutlery drawer, placemats from the next drawer down. When Skyla’s friend, Raven, raises her head, glancing up at James, I hear the sharp intake of his breath.
Even though he won’t meet my gaze as he turns to the cabinet to collect the plates for dinner, I don’t need him to.
I know he sees it too. The likeness between these two girls.
Every hair on my arms stands on end, and I reach for a serving spoon slowly, wondering how to break this strange moment.
I’m transfixed, watching this girl I’m sure is our daughter.
Our Robin. The question is, does she know that or is this some sort of cosmic, karmic thing that was always meant to happen?
Because even when no one else believed me, I always felt she would come home to us, and I was right. I was right! Here she is.
‘Dinner,’ I holler, the happiness I’m showing a lie, but one I stitch into my words and onto my face.
The textbook snaps shut. While Skyla stacks her books to the side, I squint, studying Raven closely.
She’s so very similar to Skyla, but different too.
Oily strands of her hair hang down her back, an unnatural shade of ruby red.
The curls are missing, but there’s a soft wave creeping in around her neck making me think she’s used straighteners.
She’s spotty too; through the patchy cheap make-up her skin is red and inflamed.
She has the same deep-set eyes as Skyla, with the same inky hue.
The same Cupid bow lips too, though hers are painted a dark plum, making her look paler than she really is.
‘Take a picture?’ Raven’s voice breaks my daze as she stabs chicken onto her fork.
I shake myself back into the present, blinking at this girl raising her sharp, thinly plucked eyebrows at me. Blanching, I look away, but not before noticing a subtle dip of Skyla’s chin to her chest.
An awkward silence follows, broken only by the jarring squelch of Raven chewing her food, open-mouthed. It’s loud and unapologetic.
‘So are you new to school, Raven?’ I ask once she’s swallowed.
‘Yeah,’ she says, shovelling more food into her mouth, as though afraid at any moment the plate might be snatched away from her. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the girl was starving.
I give James a cursory glance, narrowing my eyes. Say something. I can’t be the one to ask all of the questions. I need his help. He frowns, his fingers running along his jawline.
‘Where were you before?’ he asks Raven after a while.
‘We moved around a lot,’ she says vaguely, bringing a glass of squash to her lips and smiling at us sweetly.
‘We? As in . . . ?’ I venture, a tremor of anticipation running through me.
‘Mum!’ Skyla cuts in, glaring at me. ‘What’s with the twenty-one questions?’
‘It’s okay, Sky,’ Raven says.
Sky? I grimace distastefully. We’ve never called Skyla Sky before.
‘We — as in my mum and me,’ Raven says, fast, each consonant sharp.
She clamps her teeth down onto her fork and drags it out of her mouth, the sound like nails on a chalkboard.
It makes me shudder involuntarily. ‘My mum’s an artist now, so she’s not been office bound for a long time. Likes to travel.’
Meeting James’s eyes from across the table, I watch as he deflates, and as he does, my heart sinks. She has a mother. Raven can’t be Robin if she has a mother. Can she?
‘Wow. That must be a pretty exciting life?’ I gulp, hoping I’ve managed to lace enough enthusiasm into my words.
Raven shrugs, and it’s then that her brown eyes pierce mine, so dark you can’t even see the pupils. ‘Not really,’ she says. ‘I’d have much preferred a bit of stability.’
My breath catches in my throat at the way she looks at me. Her stare is cold, almost accusatory. It strips me of any composure I have left.
‘Sounds like you spent some time up north?’ James comments.
‘Why’d you say tha’?’ She scowls for a moment, just long enough to make our pulses stop, then her expression morphs. The scar on her lip stretches as she laughs. ‘I’m kidding. Yeah — Merseyside. We moved here from Merseyside.’
My hope drains. If my geography’s correct, Merseyside is at least three hours from Bristol.
Would whoever took our daughter have taken her that far?
I squeeze my eyes shut. What a stupid question.
They could’ve taken her further. For fourteen years I’ve been haunted by the possibility of Robin being abducted for human trafficking.
She could’ve been taken anywhere. Bangkok, Lagos, Romania, Johannesburg, even Merseyside really.
‘I’m sorry. I-I-’ I stammer, getting dizzy, but I stand anyway, nudging away Alfie who has been lying protectively at my feet, guarding me.
My thighs connect with the plate in front of me and it clatters noisily on the glass tabletop. Everyone gawps at me — at least, it seems that way.
‘Bella,’ James whispers, reaching for my hand. When his fingers touch mine, I realise I’m trembling.
‘I’ll be back down in a moment.’ I turn to go but pause in the doorway. ‘James?’
James pushes out of his chair and follows behind me, leaving Skyla and her friend sitting mutely at the dining table.