The Widow (25 page)

This one is all business. He's as bad as the prosecutor, asking all the questions again and again. I squeeze Glen's hand to show him I'm on his side and he squeezes back.

The smoothie pushes and pushes on every detail.

‘I have to test our case, Mr Taylor, because this is basically a re-run of the Bella Elliott prosecution. That case was thrown out because of the police actions, but the
Herald
maintain you kidnapped the child. We say that is wrong and defamatory. However, the
Herald
will throw everything at you – from the case itself, and they can also use evidence they gathered that was not admissible in the criminal trial. Do you see?'

We must have looked a bit blank because Tom began to explain it in simple language while the smoothie looked out at the view.

‘They'll have a lot of dirt, Glen. And they'll throw all of it at you to get the libel jury on their side. We need to show that you're innocent, Glen, to get the jury to find against the
Herald
.'

‘I am,' he says, all fired up.

‘We know. But we need to show it and we need to be sure there are no surprises. Just saying, Glen. You need to go into this with your eyes open, because it's a very expensive action to bring. It will cost thousands of pounds.'

Glen looks at me and I try to look brave, but inside I'm running for the door. I suppose we've got the dirty money we can use.

‘No surprises, Mr Taylor?' the smoothie repeats.

‘None,' my Glen says. I look at my lap.

The letter goes out the next day and the
Herald
shouts about it all over its pages and on the radio and television.

‘TAYLOR TRIES TO GAG
HERALD
' is the headline. I hate the word ‘gag'.

T
HE PHOTOGRAPHS OF
the Taylors in France made Dawn furious. ‘Is furious' she wrote as her Facebook status, with a link to the main picture of Glen Taylor in shorts and bare-chested, lying on a lounger reading a thriller called
The Book of the Dead
.

The crassness of it made her want to go round and shake the truth out of him. The idea stewed in her head all morning; she played the scene over and over of her bringing Taylor to his knees and him crying and begging for forgiveness. She was so sure it would work, she rang Mark Perry at the
Herald
and demanded a confrontation between her and the kidnapper.

‘I could go to his house. I could look him in the eye. He might confess,' she said, high on the fear and excitement of meeting her child's abductor.

Perry hesitated. Not from any compunction about accusing Taylor – he was writing the headline in his head as he listened – but he wanted the dramatic confrontation to be exclusive and the doorstep was far too public.

‘He might not open the door, Dawn,' he said. ‘And then we'll be left standing there. We need to do it where he can't hide. In the street when he's not expecting us. We'll find out when he's next meeting with the lawyers and catch him as he goes in. Just us, Dawn.'

She understood and told no one. She knew her mum would try to dissuade her – ‘He's scum, Dawn. He's not going to confess in the street. It'll just upset you and bring you down again. Let the courts get it out of him.' But Dawn didn't want to listen to sense, she didn't want advice. She wanted to act. To do something for Bella.

She didn't have to wait long. ‘You won't believe this, Dawn. He's got an early-morning appointment next Thursday – on the anniversary of Bella's disappearance,' Perry said on the phone. ‘It'll be perfect.'

Dawn couldn't speak for a moment. There was nothing perfect about the anniversary. It had been looming over the horizon and the terrible dreams had increased. She found herself re-enacting the days leading up to 2 October: shopping trips, walking to nursery, watching Bella's DVDs. Two years without her little girl seemed like a lifetime.

Perry was still talking on the phone and she tuned back in, trying to reach back to her anger. ‘Taylor likes to go when no one else is around, apparently, so we'll have him to ourselves.

‘Come in, Dawn, and we'll plan our MO.'

‘What's an MO?'

‘It's Latin for how we're going to get Glen Taylor.'

Every eventuality was covered during the conference in the editor's office. Arrival by taxi, check. Arrival by public transport, check. Back entrances, check. Timings, check. Dawn's hiding place, check.

Dawn sat and received her orders. She was to sit in a black cab down the street from the barrister's chambers and jump out at a signal from the reporter. Two rings on his mobile, then out.

‘You'll probably only have time for two questions, Dawn,' Tim the chief reporter advised. ‘So make them short and to the point.'

‘I just want to ask “Where's my daughter?” That's all.'

The editor and assembled journalists exchanged glances. This was going to be fantastic.

On the day, Dawn was not dressed too smartly, as instructed. ‘You don't want to look like a TV reporter in the photos,' Tim had said. ‘You want to look like a grieving mother.' He added quickly, ‘Like you, Dawn.'

She was collected by the office driver and delivered to the meeting point, a café in High Holborn. Tim, two other reporters, two photographers and a video journalist were already round a Formica table, smeared plates stacked in the middle.

‘All ready?' Tim said, trying not to show too much excitement.

‘Yes, Tim. I'm ready.'

Sitting in the car with him later, her nerve began to fail, but he kept her talking about the campaign, keeping her anger ticking over. His mobile rang twice. ‘We're on, Dawn,' he said, picking up the copy of the
Herald
she would thrust in Taylor's face and cracking open the door. She could see them coming down the street, Glen Taylor and Jean, his simpering wife, and she stepped clear of the cab, her legs shaking.

The street was quiet; the office staff who would eventually fill the buildings were still jammed together on the underground. Dawn stood in the middle of the pavement and watched them get nearer, her stomach knotted, but the couple failed to notice her until they were only a hundred yards away. Jean Taylor was fussing over her husband's briefcase, trying to stuff documents back in, when she looked up and stopped dead. ‘Glen,' she said loudly. ‘It's her, Bella's mother.'

Glen Taylor focused on the woman in the street. ‘Christ, Jean. It's an ambush. You say nothing, no matter what she says,' he hissed and took hold of her arm to propel her to the doorway.

But it was too late to escape.

‘Where is my daughter? Where's Bella?' Dawn screamed into his face, spittle landing near his mouth.

Taylor looked Dawn in the face for a fraction of a second and then was gone behind dead eyes.

‘Where is she, Glen?' she repeated, trying to catch his arm and shake him. The cameramen had appeared and were capturing every second, circling the trio to get the best shots while the reporters barked questions, separating Jean Taylor from her husband and leaving her stranded like a stray sheep.

Dawn suddenly wheeled on her. ‘What has he done with my baby, Mrs Taylor? What has your husband done with her?'

‘He's done nothing. He's innocent. The court said so,' Jean screamed back, shocked into a response by the violence of the attack.

‘Where's my child?' Dawn shouted again, unable to ask anything else.

‘We don't know,' Jean yelled back. ‘Why did you leave your little girl alone so someone could take her? That's what people should be asking.'

‘That's enough, Jean,' Taylor said and pushed past the cameras, pulling her along in his wake as Tim comforted Dawn.

‘She said it was my fault,' she breathed, her face ashen.

‘She's a nasty bitch, Dawn. Only she and the nutters think it's your fault. Come on, let's get you back to the paper for the interview.'

This is going to look great, he thought as they travelled through the traffic to west London.

Dawn stood beside one of the pillars to watch as the photographs were laid out along the whole length of the back bench so the newsroom could look and admire. ‘Fucking brilliant shots of Glen Taylor. That look he gave Dawn is chilling,' the picture editor said as he hawked his wares.

‘We'll put it on the front,' Perry said. ‘Page three, Dawn in tears and Jean Taylor shouting at her like a fishwife. Not the mousy little woman, after all. Look at the fury in that face. Now, where are the words?'

THE KIDNAPPER AND THE MOTHER blared out of the front page the next morning on trains, buses and at Britain's breakfast tables.

Tim, the chief reporter, rang to congratulate her. ‘Great job, Dawn. Would love to be a fly on the wall at the Taylors' this morning. Everyone's happy here. What he didn't say was that the
Herald
's sales were up – as was the editor's annual bonus.

I
WAS SHAKING
when we got into the lawyer's. Not sure if it was anger or nerves – a bit of both, probably, and even Mr Smoothie put his arm round me. ‘Bloody stunt merchants,' he said to Tom Payne. ‘We should Press Council them or something.'

I kept replaying it in my head, from the moment I realized it was her. I should've recognized her straight away, I've seen her enough times on the telly and in court. But it's different when you see someone in the street where you're not expecting them to be. You don't really look at people's faces, I think, just their outlines. Of course, as soon as I really looked at her I knew it was her. Dawn Elliott. The mother. Standing there with the idiots from the
Herald
, egging her on, and accusing my Glen when he's been found Not Guilty. It's not right. It's not fair.

I suppose it was the shock that made me shout at her like that.

Glen was angry that I told her what I thought. ‘It'll just keep everyone going, Jean. She'll feel she has to defend herself and keep giving interviews. I told you to keep quiet.'

I said I was sorry, but I wasn't. I meant every word. I'll do a phone-in tonight and say it again. It felt good to say it out loud, in public. People should know it's all her fault. She was responsible for our little girl and she let her get taken.

They sat me down with a hot drink in the clerk's room while they got on with the meeting. I wasn't in the mood for legal stuff anyway, so I sat quietly in a corner, replaying the row in the street in my head and sort of listening to the secretaries' chatter. Invisible again.

It took ages for the meeting to end and then we had to discuss how we were going to get out without the press seeing us. In the end, we went out the back, down an alleyway where they put the bins and bikes. ‘They won't be hanging around now, but there's no point taking chances,' Tom said. ‘It'll be on their website by now and all over the paper tomorrow. It'll put up the damages – just keep thinking about the money.'

Glen shook his hand and I just sort of waved. I don't want the money. I want it to stop.

He was extra nice to me when we got in, taking my coat off and making me sit with my feet up while he put the kettle on.

It's the anniversary today. I'd marked it in my diary with a dot. A little dot that could be a slip of the pen so no one else would know if they looked.

Two years since she was taken. They'll never find her now – the people who took her must have persuaded everyone by now that she is theirs and she must think they are her mum and dad. She's little and she probably hardly remembers her real mother. I hope she's happy and they love her as much as I would if she was here with me.

For a moment, I can see her sitting on our stairs, bumping down on her bottom and laughing. Calling for me to come and watch her. She could've been here if Glen had brought her home to me.

Glen hasn't said much since we got back. He's got his computer on his knee and closes it quickly when I go to sit next to him. ‘What were you looking at, love?' I ask.

‘Just flicking through the sports pages,' he says and then goes to put petrol in the car.

I pick up the computer and open it. It says it's locked and I sit and stare at the screen, at the photo of me Glen has put on it. There I am, locked like the computer.

When he comes home, I try to talk to him about the future. ‘Why don't we move, Glen? Have the fresh start we keep talking about? We're never going to escape this unless we do.'

‘We're not moving, Jean,' he snaps at me. ‘This is our home and I won't be driven out of it. We're going to weather this. Together. The press will forget about us in the end and move on to some other poor sod.'

‘They won't,' I want to say. Every anniversary of Bella's disappearance, every time a child goes missing, every time there is a quiet news day, they'll come back. And we'll just be sitting here, waiting.

‘There are so many nice places to live, Glen. We've talked about living by the sea one day. We could do that now. We could even move abroad.'

‘Abroad? What the hell are you talking about? I don't want to live somewhere I can't speak the language. I'm staying put.'

So we do. We might as well have moved to a desert island in the end as we are completely isolated in our little house. Just the sharks circling occasionally. We keep each other company, doing the crossword together in the kitchen – him reading out the clues and writing the answers in while I'm still guessing, watching films together in the living room, me learning to knit, him chewing his nails. Like an old retired couple. I'm not even forty yet.

‘I think the Mannings' poodle must've died. It's been weeks since any dog shit has been left on the doorstep,' Glen says conversationally. ‘It was very old.'