She gives me one of her filthy looks in reply. That’s all I get now. No smiles, no gurgles, just dumb insolence. Had Mabel been a purchase on Amazon, I’d probably have sent her back by now, accompanied by a scathing one-star review. The trouble is, when you steal someone, there’s no method for returning them if you’re not satisfied. I could leave Mabel on the neighbours’ doorstep, I suppose. She’d be safe at the Nook with Bob and Barbara Masefield and they’d become instant national heroes – they’d probably love that. But then the police would know who’d taken her and I’d be easily hunted down. Game over.
No, I can’t take her back, no matter how badly she behaves. We’re bound together forever. I just have to be patient with her – unfortunately not one of my virtues. It’s not her fault; she just needs more time to get used to me and the new environment, to adapt to the new routines. She’s very young. Her memories of Amber will quickly fade and soon it will be as if her biological mother never existed. And once the three of us are together – please God – we’ll be like any other family. We’ll choose a new name for her and she’ll have no reason to suspect that she was ever the notorious Missing Mabel.
I sit down in the armchair, close enough that I can bounce the edge of her chair with my foot. ‘I wonder what’s been happening in the world today,’ I say. ‘Is everyone still frantically looking for you, or have they moved on to more important things?’
She makes a grumbling noise and I turn up the volume. The Saturday news is often disappointingly thin, feeding off the leftovers of the previous few days. We are the third item tonight, sliding down the charts towards oblivion. It’s likely that we’re still top of the bill in the local news, but nationally, interest is clearly waning. Today’s angle is the police reconstruction, which was filmed this morning.
‘This should be interesting,’ I say, leaning forward as they show a clip.
There’s Lilac Park in all its glory, and there’s the babysitting sister – or somebody pretending to be her – wearing that ridiculous bobble hat. She wheels Mabel’s buggy past the duck pond and out of the gates, crossing the road and entering the front garden of the house. She unlocks the door then pushes the buggy inside.
Oh yes, I remember it well.
We cut to the detective leading the investigation. ‘We’re asking the public to think back not only to last Saturday, but just as importantly to the Saturday before. If you were in Lilac Park or William Morris Terrace and saw anyone, male or female, acting suspiciously on either or both dates, in fact at any time in recent weeks, please call Crimestoppers immediately. You could hold vital information that leads us to Mabel.’
‘Ha! They’re clueless,’ I laugh. ‘They don’t even know if I’m a man or a woman.’ I remove my foot. ‘Although one thing worries me a little.’ Mabel stops bouncing and immediately starts to complain. ‘Oh, stop making such a fuss. I’m thinking … Why did the detective mention the Saturday before? That’s new … Well, sweetie, what do you reckon? Has the dozy sister finally remembered that she left the key in the front door?’
I close my eyes and perform my own reconstruction in my head. I was very careful; nobody saw me wriggle it out of the lock, I’m almost sure of that. And I didn’t hang around afterwards, but went straight home, walking quickly but without hurrying, keeping my head down all the way.
But what if people come forward to say they used to see me hanging around in the park and that I disappeared after Mabel was taken? Would there be enough information to put an e-fit together? I always made sure to hide my features as much as possible, without going so far as to attract undue attention. Luckily, in winter you can get away with a large hood and a scarf over your face. And the other park users were always on their phones or chatting to friends or looking after their kids. Nobody ever talked to me or even met my eye. I might as well have been wearing a cloak of invisibility.
Even Amber, who would have recognised me in an instant, never noticed me. If only, she’ll be thinking as she