The Stranger on the Train (29 page)

She answered for him, more gently: “Because you feel guilty, that's why. That you didn't save him. But you don't need to. You did everything you could at the time. And you've done everything since. People are listening now, and it's all thanks to you.”

“Emma, you don't need to do this all on your own. Believe it or not, there are people who care about you.”

“Because they're paid to. It's their job.”

Rafe said: “It's not
my
job.”

She didn't know what to say to that.

“I want to be there,” he said. “I want to be with you.”

Emma said in a cold voice: “Do you think this is helpful to me? Do you think this is an appropriate conversation for us to be having right now?”

“I . . .” Rafe sounded startled. “I didn't mean it like that.”

“Good-bye,” she said softly.

She hung up. The phone was warm. She clung to it as if it was his hand.

Rafe didn't deserve that. After all he'd done for them, he certainly didn't deserve that. But he had his own life to lead. He had Juliet. If she thought for one minute that there was anything more he could do for Ritchie, she'd have him over here in a heartbeat. But there wasn't. The police, at last, were doing everything now. And when Ritchie came back, she needed to be strong for him. Not to be depending on someone who wasn't hers to depend on.

When Ritchie came back.

When he came back, things were going to be so different from what they'd been before. This could never happen again: that they were so isolated, that when things went wrong they had nobody to help them. She could see now how it had been. For herself, she could manage on her own; she didn't need anyone. But Ritchie did. Ritchie needed people. For him, she would climb out of her rut of self-pity and stop retreating from the world. There were decent people out there, people who'd look out for Ritchie and be kind to him. People like . . . well. People like Rafe. But others as well. Rosina Alcarez. Mrs. Cornes. They existed, they were in the world, if she would only open her eyes and look for them.

And if he didn't come back?

Uneasy, Emma turned from that dark stretch of wasteland at the edge of her mind. She wasn't ready to face that yet. But go there she would, if she had to. If that was all that was left.

• • •

Tamsin Wagstaff, with her slim skirt and slicked-back bob, looked very French, but turned out to be from Taunton, in Somerset.

“Practically neighbors,” she said with a smile, when she discovered that Emma was from Bath.

Emma was in no mood for small talk, but Tamsin seemed to know that, and didn't try to make any. She made herself useful, acting as translator when any of the nurses or doctors didn't speak English. She even managed to persuade one of the nurses to open the window to ease the overpowering stuffiness in the room. The police had told Emma they would call if there was any news, but Tamsin ignored this and phoned them every hour or so for an update.

Ritchie was famous at last. He was on TV; one of those twenty-four-hour news channels that showed the same stories on a loop. He was the lead item. Every twenty minutes or so he appeared on the screen; the photo of him on his red truck with his surfer T-shirt, smiling at the camera.

“He's beautiful,” Tamsin said, looking up at the TV, her fingers to the hollow of her throat. “A really beautiful child. He's a credit to you.”

“Thank you.” The sight of him was so painful. She couldn't keep looking at him. She couldn't turn away.

Tamsin said: “What
I
want to know is how Philippa Hunt fixed that DNA test. It turns out that the doctor who did the test was their family GP. The police have spoken to him. It seems he did Ritchie's swab all right, but while he was doing it, Philippa went to the bathroom saying she felt unwell, and when she came out she had her own swab already done and sealed in a bag. Dr. Ridgeway shouldn't have accepted it, but he did. He was so sure he knew them. Of course, it's obvious now she must have done something to her swab while she was in there, but—”

Emma said grimly: “If she went to that much trouble for him, she's not going to want to give him up.”

You're not getting him back.

If she never saw Ritchie again, almost his last memory of her would be of her shouting and pushing him away. He had been such a lovely child. Such a loving, cheerful, kind little boy. He'd wanted so little from her, except just to be with her and for her to love him. And how had she repaid that? By bringing him, the very day after shouting at him, on that vile visit to Dr. Stanford.

Oh God. Emma moved in the bed. Those things she'd said about him that day. They were disgusting. Truly disgusting. Had he heard them? Had he understood? He'd been sitting right there beside her.

People say things they don't mean,
Rafe had told her.

But he hadn't been there, had he? He didn't know. He didn't know.

• • •

Emma was still drowsy from the anesthetic. The hospital room came and went. She knew she was in France, but sometimes, when she opened her eyes, she couldn't understand why the room was all white and not the pink and brown of the B&B. People were phoning in from all over the country, claiming to have spotted Ritchie and Antonia. Tamsin continued to relay updates from the police. Emma tried to keep track of all the calls, but she kept forgetting which ones had been made. She kept asking Tamsin questions, only to realize when she heard the answers that she knew them already.

“Someone's spotted Philippa's car,” Tamsin said excitedly after one of the calls. “Fifteen minutes ago. On the A20, driving north from Limoges.”

But a half an hour later, the police phoned again to say that the car, driven by a middle-aged French man, had a different registration number to Philippa's.

Then, later in the afternoon: “Someone's seen a woman and toddler,” Tamsin reported. “At a petrol station near the Italian border. The toddler didn't seem to want to be with the woman. He was crying and trying to get out of the car. They're sending someone straightaway.” Tamsin clasped the phone to her chest. “This could be it, Emma. This really could be it. I have a feeling.”

Shortly afterwards, however, the phone rang again.

“I see,” Tamsin said. “A Swiss mother and her child. A red-haired girl. Aged five. Thanks anyway.”

She slammed down the receiver.

“I know people are trying to help—at least, I assume they are—but why on earth do they do this? Why does every attention seeker in the country feel they have to call in with these ludicrously inaccurate sightings? It's such a waste of police time. Not to mention the strain on you.”

In the evening, a team of doctors arrived to check on Emma's arm. They stood in a circle around her bed.

“It was a difficult procedure,” one of them began. “We will have to wait to see if the arm will survive. The axillary artery, at the exit from the subclavian—”

Emma's mind wandered. She was staring over the doctor's head at the TV. Ritchie was on again, smiling down at her from his truck. Someone touched the doctor's shoulder and he stopped talking. In silence, they all filed from the room.

• • •

Darkness fell, and the air, at last, began to cool. Still no news. And then it began to rain. The nurse drew the curtains and switched on the lights, but the steady pattering continued on the glass outside.

At three a.m., unable to sleep, Emma dragged herself and her bandaged arm out of bed and over to the window. It was cold now, despite the heater. The rain was heavier. Under the lamps in the car park, yellow cones of droplets thrashed and swirled.

The bedroom door opened. Bleary-eyed, Tamsin came in.

“They've found it,” she said. “They've found the car.”

Emma turned.

“The real thing this time,” Tamsin added. “Not a false alarm.”

Then Emma was light-headed, stumbling near the glass. Tamsin caught her arm.

“Were . . . ?” she said, dry lipped. “Was . . . ?”

Tamsin said: “I'm sorry, Emma, but Ritchie and Philippa weren't in the car. It had been abandoned. It was almost out of petrol; that's probably why she left it.”

Emma caught the windowsill, righting herself. Her bandaged arm plopped back into its sling.

“Where?” she asked.

“Behind an empty house, on a back road in Alsace. Near the Swiss border.”

“How long ago? When did they leave it?”

“They reckon at least twenty-four hours.”

“Twenty . . .” Emma stared. She'd thought Tamsin had meant they'd only recently left the car. “But that's ages ago. They could be anywhere by now.”

“They could,” Tamsin said. “But the police say it's unlikely. Not if they're on foot. It narrows things down considerably.”

“But someone could have picked them up.”

“Yes. But Ritchie would have been recognized. He's been all over the news.”

“Not everyone might have seen the news.”

“This is a very big story. Chances are, most people have at least heard about Ritchie from somewhere. I would say that Philippa is too intelligent a woman to risk it. There's a high chance they're within walking distance of the car. The police have got dogs there now. They're searching all over.”

Tamsin was almost pleading, trying to make Emma see this as
good
news, a
good
thing, that a sick woman and a baby didn't have a car, or any shelter or food, two days on the run, in the middle of a wet night with nowhere to stay.

The Swiss border! Wasn't that where the Alps were? If the weather was bad here, what must it be like up in the mountains?

Outside, the rain beat harder. The hospital was in an old building. The window frames were warped, the panes old-fashioned, single glazed. Icy air wisped around the edges of the glass.

Two days.

A dull certainty settled over Emma. It was too long now. He was too small. After all that, it was over. They weren't going to find him in time.

She looked at her mobile phone.

“My battery's gone red,” she said. “I didn't bring a charger.”

“Don't worry,” Tamsin reassured her. “If your phone runs out, there are plenty of other ways they can reach us.”

But Emma was afraid. She gripped the phone. She just had a feeling. In the car park, under the lamps, the dense yellow cones swirled faster.

“Please stop,” she said to the rain. “Please stop, please stop, please stop . . .”

Her voice disappeared. Tamsin came to the window. Tamsin was so full of hope. Emma needed it so badly; her own supply had run out.

She leaned on Tamsin. Clung to her, and felt the hope flow back into her, and cried and cried and cried.

• • •

At dawn, the rain stopped.

Tamsin said to Emma: “You need some air. I'm going to see if we can get you out of here for a while.”

She went to speak to the nurse to try to negotiate Emma some day leave.

“All set,” she reported on her return. “You're not due a dressing change until tomorrow. There's no reason for you to stay in the room here all day.”

The nurses were getting the other patients up and ready for their breakfast. Six o'clock in the morning, and already they were shaving the man in the room next door. They seemed glad to have one less patient to wash and feed. One of the nurses came to help Emma dress and refix her sling. Emma took her phone from her locker. The battery was so low now, the phone had started to beep every couple of minutes.

Ritchie was on TV again, over the nurse's desk in the hall. A cluster of people in white stood around it, watching. When Emma came out of her room, the people turned and murmured, and she saw the sympathy in their faces, the fresh ones coming on for the day, the tired ones from the night.

“Some friends of mine own a vineyard,” Tamsin said as they walked across the hospital grounds to her car. “They're away at the moment. It'll be a peaceful place to go for a walk. No one will disturb us there.”

Emma said: “You work long hours.” It had occurred to her that Tamsin had been with her for most of the night, and now here she was again, driving her around.

“I'm not working today,” Tamsin replied. “I just came anyway. I didn't want to leave you.”

They pulled up outside a shuttered bungalow. Around it lay fields filled with rows of dark-leaved plants. A breeze lifted the leaves, uncovering shiny green and purple grapes. Emma and Tamsin walked through the rows of vines to a long stone wall. Beyond the wall spread the countryside, dotted here and there with clusters of white or yellow houses that blended into the landscape, almost part of the trees and the earth.

The sun was up. The grass brushed damp against Emma's ankles.

Ritchie, lying in a field somewhere. Please God.

Every couple of minutes, her phone beeped.

She just had this feeling. If they didn't reach her in time, if her battery ran out and there was no word . . .

They walked on together across the grass.

• • •

And then Emma's phone rang. She looked at the screen.

“It's a French number,” she said, and her heart began a heavy
thump-thump-thump
, like a drumbeat from the depths of doom.

Up till then, it had always been Tamsin's phone that the police called. She had a French mobile, she could translate; it made sense. Emma and Tamsin looked at the phone, then at each other, and even Tamsin's face was pale.

Emma turned. She walked away, the phone still ringing, until she was behind a little clump of trees and alone. Everything seemed extra clear, the grass and sky in pale yellow, the tree before her in strange close-up, each grain standing out, the damp boughs, the smaller branches, trembling with leaves.

She pressed the button.

“Hello,” she said.