After Anna. Alex Lake

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СКАЧАТЬ look around the car park and check the library. There’s a playground round the back. She might be there.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Julia said. ‘Her name is Anna,’ she added. She set off down the slope. On the right was a pub; on the left a post office, although neither seemed the same as it had the last time she had seen them. Then they had been simple buildings, parts of the infrastructure of the village, communal places that offered warmth and light. Now they were threatening; places where Anna might be kept hidden.

      She put her head around the post office door. There was a queue of four waiting for the one open booth.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said, aware of her breathlessness. ‘I’m looking for someone. My daughter. Anna. Maybe you’ve seen her in the village?’

      ‘What’s she look like?’ a man in paint-splattered overalls asked.

      Julia gave the description. It was already horribly familiar: dark hair, rucksack, school uniform. It fitted many five-year-old girls, but that didn’t matter, because there was one element that marked Anna out from all the others.

      ‘She’d have been alone,’ Julia said.

      After a sympathetic pause – Julia was already starting to hate sympathetic pauses – followed shaking heads, murmured negatives: she hadn’t been in, and they hadn’t seen her.

      Julia ran across the road to the Black Bear pub. It was dark inside, the windows grimy, the smell of smoke still lingering despite the ban on inside smoking. There were only three customers: an underage couple skulking in the corner and a man at the bar.

      There was a woman tending the pumps. Julia walked over to her.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. She’s five.’

      ‘A bit young to be in here, love,’ the woman said. She was in her early fifties, Julia guessed, but looked older. She had heavily tattooed forearms and a lined face and was wearing a push-up bra.

      ‘I thought, maybe, she wandered in,’ Julia said. ‘I’ve lost her.’

      The man at the bar looked up from his newspaper, his nose and cheeks red with broken capillaries.

      ‘Not seen her,’ he said. He patted the stool next to him. ‘I’ll buy you a drink, though, darling.’

      The woman behind the bar – probably the landlady – shook her head in disapproval, but she didn’t say anything. She probably didn’t want to upset a regular. Couldn’t afford to. The pub was shabby; it didn’t look as if it was doing so well.

      ‘Can’t help you, love,’ she said. ‘Not seen her.’

      Julia nodded thanks and left. She was glad to emerge into the sunshine. Next door was a bakery specializing in local dairy products and artisan breads. On the other side, a café.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for a little girl. My daughter.’

      The man behind the counter raised an eyebrow. He had dark, curly hair and dark eyes, and huge, flour-dusted hands.

      ‘What does she look like?’ he asked, in a Scottish accent.

      Julia told him. He shook his head, then leaned over the counter, addressing the café side of the building.

      ‘’Scuse me,’ he said. ‘This lady’s looking for a wee lass. Her bairn. Anyone seen a girl on her own?’

      No one had, but one lady got to her feet.

      ‘I’ll help you look,’ she said.

      Others joined her, and the patrons of the café spilled onto the main street of the village. They organized themselves and headed in different directions.

      Julia looked around for somewhere else to search. A river ran through the bottom part of the village, and, where it disappeared into a copse, there was a small depression where the council had once put a few benches. It wasn’t obvious why; it was damp and dark and only occasionally occupied, at least during the daytime. The beer cans and cigarette butts that littered it suggested that it saw more action in the evening. It was just the kind of place teenagers would have been drawn to: a bit off to the side, away from the action, the fast-flowing river beside it conferring a hint of danger and exoticism.

      Julia crossed the road and walked towards the railings at the edge. She didn’t think Anna would be there, and she wasn’t, but she leaned over the railings and looked down at the water anyway. The river had been artificially narrowed and the water sped up before disappearing into a tunnel under the main road. There was a damp crisp packet by her right foot. She kicked it and it fluttered down into the water, then was swept away.

      If that had been Anna, she thought, then stopped herself. She wouldn’t have come down here. She just wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have got this far, not on her own. She wouldn’t have dared. She must be closer to the school.

      She headed back to the main road. As she reached the pavement, her phone rang. It was Brian.

      ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘Have you found her?’

      ‘I’m in the village. And no. Where are you?’

      ‘I’m just arriving at the school. The police are already here, it looks like.’

      ‘Do you see Anna? Is she with them?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘She isn’t.’

      ‘What should I do, Brian? Should I keep looking down here?’

      There was a long pause. ‘I don’t know. We need to talk. I’ll come down to the village and pick you up.’

      She stood on the pavement. It was cobbled, and she could feel the hard curves of the stones through the thin soles of her shoes. It was the only thing that felt solid; the shops and cars and people that surrounded her seemed slippery, ungraspable, unreal.

      ‘Anna,’ she shouted. ‘Anna!’ It was as much a wail of loss as a call that she expected an answer to; she realized when she tasted the tears on her lips that she was crying.

      Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number.

      ‘Mrs Crowne?’ a voice said. ‘This is Jo Scott. I was wondering whether you were still coming?’

      For a moment, Julia could not work out who the woman was, then she remembered. The dog woman. The woman with Bella, Anna’s puppy.

      ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Something came up. Can I call you back?’

      There was a pause. An irritated pause, Julia thought.

      ‘Ok,’ the woman said. ‘Call me back. But I have to leave for work now, so it’ll have to be another day for the puppy.’

      As Julia hung up a car pulled up next to her. It was Brian.

      ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Get in. The police are at the school and they want to talk to you.’

       iv.

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