Finding Grace(81)

I flick through the pages, stunned that my Grace has been writing in it so regularly. I have never seen her do so. I’d like to read each and every entry but I scoot forward until a week before she went missing.

Her entries are neat and written in a variety of coloured glitter gel pens I remember buying her as a stocking filler for Christmas.

I smile wistfully as I scan through the entries, each one a snapshot of a wonderful nine-year-old with a zest for life. She talks about her favourite food, the music she’s listened to in her bedroom, the building excitement of her birthday party and trip to Alton Towers.

And then.

The Thursday before she went missing – just three days earlier – the tone of her writing changes.

It happened again at school. Just before the bell rang I heard someone shout my name. Livvy said not to go to the fence, but I had to. Then it happened again. They said not to be afraid, they only wanted to warn me that my Mum is a liar and they said the bad thing again, the horrible thing… I want to tell Mum but I’m scared it will make her poorly again.





The diary falls from my hands as I let out an anguished yelp. He’s got to Grace… at school of all places. I can’t bear that my beautiful girl was afraid of speaking to me because she couldn’t trust I wouldn’t sink into one of my anxious, depressive states. I never realised she even noticed this stuff. I’ve been living in a cave.

I pull my jacket closer to me, shivering. My hands are shaking and I am terrified what’s going to happen. I’ve under-estimated Stefan. He knows everything about me… about us, our family. He was in touch with Grace and I never ever knew it.

But how? He was paralysed when I last saw him.

Tugging my beanie hat down low over my forehead and sticking my gloved hands in the deep pockets of my quilted coat, I lock the car and walk, head down, quickly alongside the hedge that runs the length of the park. Glancing around to make sure nobody has followed me, I slip through the gap at the far end.

I stand next to an old oak tree, its enormous girth indicating that it is probably over a hundred years old, and look around. I spot two dog walkers and a man in the distance in regulation overalls picking up litter with a grab-and-grip stick.

And then I see someone over near the road but amongst the trees, looking around the park just as I am.

Time seems to slow as I take in the back of the darkly clothed, darting figure.

It’s a man, but his movements are surely too quick to be Stefan.

My heart is hammering. I can’t afford to put a foot wrong here. This is my chance to get my daughter back and I’m going to make it count.

I walk a little further into the park and sit on a bench. It’s cool and the sky is clouded over. Little moody pockets threaten rain.

I keep running over Grace’s diary in my mind. School is a place your child should be safest and yet Stefan had managed to defy even their safety processes to frighten Grace.

My skin is crawling, every inch of it. My sense of terror is a physical thing, but I have to find a way rise above it.

He’s just a man, I tell myself. He’s fallible, he makes mistakes. My love and determination to get Grace home safely is strong enough to face him now. It is.

Movement catches my eye again. A figure – a different one than I saw before – comes into focus and my breath catches in my throat.

It’s time.

I stand up, pressing my feet down hard in an effort to ground myself and stop my knees wobbling.

But the realisation of who is in front of me nearly knocks me off my feet altogether.

It isn’t Stefan at all… it’s Angela. My old housemate at university.

I stand, frozen to the spot, as she walks towards me.

‘Hello, Lucie,’ she says, her mouth twisting horribly to the side. ‘I’ve waited a long time to see you again.’

I glance around. Stefan will be here somewhere, I’m certain of it.

‘Who are you looking for?’

‘My daughter… Grace. You know she’s the reason I’m here.’

‘All in good time. If you want your daughter back, you have to pay the price.’

‘Which is?’

Her mouth twists up at one side.

‘Let’s just say you’ve a surprise coming.’

‘How do you know the police haven’t followed me?’ I say, pressing my hands into my pockets to hide the shaking.

‘Because I know about Rhonda’s murder. Stefan told me what you did to her and I was on the stairs that day when he told me you two were having trouble handling the drugs. I’m sure, even years later, the police would be very interested in that.’

So it had been Angela on the stairs that day, who Stefan had spoken to.

I don’t tell her I already know he staged the murder, thanks to Barbara Charterhouse. Let her think I’m afraid of it still. I know instinctively that getting Grace back will be like a game of chess. I’ve chosen to do this alone, without my husband, without the police to support… or hinder the process.

‘Is Stefan here?’ I feel sick with nerves at facing him again but I know I must. Somehow, he’s recovered his health enough to be involved in this.

Her sarcastic smile melts away. ‘Sadly not. Stefan’s dead, and you as good as killed him.’

Dead? My immediate instinct is not to believe her. How can I have anything to do with his death? Unless she’s referring to the car accident the night he attacked me that was nothing to do with me.