doesn’t belong here and doesn’t quite know how to act.
I feel my left arm stiffening around Mia’s small body, tucking her in a little closer. Now that we’re alone together, she feels as delicate as porcelain in my arms, as if any bump or jolt might break her perfect skin, fracture her tiny bones. Every stranger turning into a potential threat.
I tell myself to relax. For the next ten minutes at least, there is nothing that is going to hurt her, nothing will happen to her. I’ll take care of her until we get to the next stop – the end of the line – and then find someone responsible, someone in authority, explain what’s happened and make sure Mia’s in safe hands. I’ll do the right thing.
I flip my phone over. I could call 101, ask for the British Transport Police and get them on the case. They’d have officers at Marylebone or nearby, close enough to respond and reunite mother and baby. But – again – that’s assuming that Kathryn actually wants her baby back. Maybe it is postnatal depression, and she was worried she might harm her baby. It would be better to talk to the police in person.
I touch a gentle fingertip to the baby’s cheek in what I hope is a soothing gesture.
‘What are we going to do with you, little one?’
Mia gives me another gummy smile, a little chuckle. There’s something about a baby’s laugh that defies words – something perfect and pure and joyful – this human thing she has only just learned to do, an expression of happiness in its original form. It has to be the best sound in the world.
She seems unaware, or undisturbed, by her mother’s sudden absence. Perhaps she’ll start to fret and cry soon, whimpering in that way small babies do, but for now she seems calm.
What else could help me to get her back where she belongs? I don’t even know Kathryn’s surname. She has taken her handbag and phone but left the baby’s bag, the bulky white rucksack that’s full of baby stuff. That means something, doesn’t it? That it was deliberate? Another thought strikes me: maybe the baby wasn’t even Kathryn’s in the first place. Had she actually said it was? Did she use the words ‘my baby’ at any point? I think back to our brief exchange. No. She only said ‘Mia’ or ‘her’ – or was it ‘the baby’? Had she taken Mia from someone else? From a nursery, or a hospital, from someone’s house? Snatched her from a pushchair outside a shop, or in the aisle of a supermarket? Then panicked and handed her off to a stranger before she could be caught?
But something about her manner, our brief conversation, makes me think it’s unlikely. There was a familiarity between Kathryn and Mia, a connection that seemed genuine.
I lean over and pick up the rucksack. It’s deceptively heavy and not easy, one-handed, with the baby snug in my other arm, but I manage to hoist it up and put it down next to me. In one of the mesh pockets on the side is a bottle of formula milk, in the other a half-drunk bottle of Diet Coke. I undo the zip and pull the bag open.
At the top of a bundle of baby clothes is a single sheet of A4 paper, folded once. It’s a receipt or delivery note of some kind, a list of baby things, formula milk, bottles, nappies, clothes. I pull it out and frown. The word ‘Ellen’ is written in looping capitals on the bottom half.
I turn the paper over.
The back is blank except for a handful of words scrawled hastily in the centre, in messy black biro.
Please protect Mia
Don’t trust the police
Don’t trust anyone
3
I frown at the sheet of paper in my hand. Read the words a second time, turn the paper over to see if there is anything else on it, anything at all. But it’s just a computer-printed delivery note from a company called BabyCool.com. Nothing else handwritten, only my name on the front and, on the back, those ten words scrawled in biro. Instinctively, I fold the paper in two and check to see if anyone else has seen what I’ve seen. But the businessman is tapping on his laptop and the thin staring man is writing in a small notebook, seemingly oblivious to me and everything else.
Don’t trust anyone
Perhaps paranoia’s a feature of postnatal depression. Is it? I can’t remember what