‘Take this,’ Brennan said, handing me a handkerchief he produced from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
I lowered the visor and looked at myself in the mirror. The face that stared back at me was pale and gaunt. I suddenly looked much older than my 32 years.
Tears sparkled in my eyes and my short brown hair was dishevelled from where I’d been raking my hands through it.
I dabbed at my eyes with the hanky and then used it to blow my nose.
‘You need to tell me where to go,’ Brennan said.
I cleared my throat and told him to take a left at the next junction and then the first right after that. He didn’t respond, just concentrated on the road ahead.
‘Thank you for coming here with me,’ I said. ‘I’m grateful.’
‘You don’t need to be,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t let you do this by yourself. I can imagine what you must be going through.’
Brennan, who had a grandson a similar age, had met Molly a couple of times when I’d taken her into the station. He had always been understanding of the problems faced by single mothers in the department and I’d come to view him almost as a father figure as well as my boss.
Right now I was so glad he was with me. I knew he would do whatever he could to help me find my daughter.
‘It’s the house up there on the left behind the privet hedge,’ I said.
My childhood home was a semi-detached pre-war property in a quiet, tree-lined street. My father’s ageing Mondeo wasn’t parked out front so I took that to mean that he was still at his allotment.
‘Have you got a key?’ Brennan asked.
I nodded and extracted my keys from my shoulder bag.
A short paved pathway led up to the front door and as I approached it my emotions were spinning. I didn’t bother to ring the bell, and my hand shook as I fumbled to insert the key in the lock.
As soon as the door was open I called out and stepped inside. But my heart sank when there was no response.
‘They might be in the back garden,’ Brennan said as he followed me in.
I hurried along the hallway and threw open the door to the kitchen, hoping to see or hear Molly.
Instead I was confronted by a sight that caused my stomach to give a sickening lurch.
Sarah
My mother was tied to one of the kitchen chairs and a red silk scarf had been wrapped around her face to gag her.
Her chin was resting on her chest and she appeared to be unconscious. But when I let out a muffled scream her head jolted up and she looked at me through eyes that struggled to focus.
For a moment I just stood there in shock, unable to move, unable to take in what I was seeing. All my police instincts, training and experience deserted me. It was left to Brennan to rush forward and remove the scarf from around my mother’s head.
‘I recognise that smell,’ he said as he put the scarf against his nose and sniffed it. ‘It’s chloroform.’
My mother gasped and spluttered and then went into a coughing fit.
‘You’re going to be OK, Mrs Mason,’ Brennan said as he started to untie her hands that were secured behind her back with a length of plastic cable. ‘We’ve got you now. You’re safe.’
I came out of my trance-like state and ran forward to my mother. She was shaking and dribbling and having great difficulty breathing properly. But at least she was alive and looked as though she hadn’t been physically harmed.
‘Where’s Molly, Mum?’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘Where is my baby?’
She tried to speak but the words got stuck in her throat.
I rested a hand on her shoulder, crouched down so that we were face to face.
‘Mum, please. Where’s Molly?’
Her eyes grew wide and confusion pulled at her features. Then she shook her head and her lips trembled.
‘I … d-don’t know,’ she managed. ‘She was in the high chair when the doorbell rang.’
That was when I noticed the high chair for the first time, on the other side of the room next to the back door that stood open. There was a plastic bowl on the tray, along with Molly’s familiar spill-proof beaker.
‘Did you go and answer the door, Mrs Mason?’ Brennan asked her. ‘Is that what you did?’
I turned back to my mother. She nodded and closed her eyes, and I could tell she was trying to cast her mind back to what had happened.
‘A man,’ she said, her tone frantic. ‘He was wearing a hood, like a balaclava. He forced himself in and grabbed me. Then he put something over my face.’
My mother lost it then and started to cry, great heaving sobs that racked her frail body.
She was almost seventy, and seeing her like this, I felt the urge to comfort her, but a more powerful impulse seized me and I jumped up suddenly and went in search of Molly, praying that she was still here and hadn’t been taken away.
I ran out into the garden first, but it was empty except for the cat from next door that was lying on the lawn like it didn’t have a care in the world.
Then I dashed back into the house and through the kitchen, passing Brennan who was standing next to my mother while talking anxiously into his phone.
I checked the living room and ground floor toilet, then hurried upstairs in the hope of finding my daughter in one of the three bedrooms. I called out her name, told her that Mummy had come to get her. But there was a resounding silence. She wasn’t there. She was gone.
A new wave of terror roared through my body as I ran back downstairs. Now it was confirmed. My daughter had been abducted and I had no idea by whom. The nightmare that had loomed over me since I opened up the photograph on my phone had turned into a horrific reality.
The temptation to collapse in a tearful heap was almost overwhelming, but I told myself that I had to hold it together. For my sake and for Molly’s.
My mother was still on the chair in the kitchen and Brennan was trying to coax more information out of her. When she saw me she reached for my hand and said, ‘There was nothing I could do. It happened so – so quickly.’
‘Who could it have been, Mum?’ I said. ‘Do you have any idea?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t see his face. He knocked me out and when I woke up I was tied to this chair.’
I reached out and put an arm around her shoulders.
‘I’m so sorry, Sarah,’ she sobbed. ‘I really couldn’t …’
‘It’s not your fault, Mum,’ I said, choking back tears. ‘We’ll get her back. I promise.’
I heard a siren and the sound of it caused my heart to flip.
‘Your father needs to be told, Sarah,’ my mother said. ‘He’s still at the allotment. He thinks we’ll be meeting him at the pub.’
‘I’ll see to it, Mum,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’
I straightened up and looked at Brennan who told me that he had raised the alarm and that teams of officers were about to descend on the area.
‘I’ve also summoned an ambulance,’ he said. ‘The paramedics will take care of your mother.’
His words registered, but