Lock Me In. Kate Simants

Mae

      Mae had just swung his leg back over the crossbar when he heard the blip-blip greeting of the siren. Kit, in a squad car, a heavy shade of pissed-off darkening her face.

      ‘You planning to answer your phone any time soon?’ The window was wound all the way down and her shirt sleeve was rolled all the way up. The pointed toe of the 1950’s pinup girl tattooed on her bicep peeked out just above her elbow.

      He dug his phone out, failed to wake it, showed her the screen. ‘Dead. Sorry.’

      ‘No deader than you are.’

      He unsnapped the fastener under his chin and took the helmet off, leaning an elbow on the roof of the car. ‘How do you mean?’

      Kit turned to speak into the radio clipped onto her lapel. ‘Got him,’ she told it, then, ‘I’ll deal with it, Ma’am.’ To him, she said, ‘Get in.’

      ‘That’ll be, “get in, Sarge”,’ he corrected, then gestured to the bike, opened his mouth to argue that he couldn’t, but she cut him off.

      ‘Get in the car, Sarge, right now. You forgot to collect your daughter, and she’s gone missing.’

       18.

       Ellie

      I sat still for a long time on Matt’s sofa, listening to the boats bump and creak. Thinking about the list. I’d looked for all the things on it, ticked them off one by one. Every single one of them was gone.

      My phone rang: it was the hospital.

      I didn’t even say my name when I answered. ‘Have you found him?’

      There was a pause. ‘Sorry, Ellie, found who?’ the caller said, and I placed her voice. It was Helen, who managed the volunteer schedule at the children’s ward where I worked. ‘I was calling about the session you were going to do with the kids this morning.’

      ‘Oh god, I’m sorry, I—’

      ‘Look, I’m afraid to tell you that we can’t have you volunteering here anymore.’

      ‘What? Why?’

      ‘We need reliability. We can’t have the children disappointed.’

      ‘You told me you were crying out for volunteers! That’s why Matt got my forms rushed through, so I could—’

      ‘Nothing was rushed,’ she said. ‘Look I’d love to keep you but the children have to come first, and if you can’t keep your promises to them—’

      ‘I’m sorry, I just—’

      ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m sorry too, but that’s where we are.’ She said goodbye coolly and hung up.

      I stood there in the kitchen, blinking, not believing it. Matt was going to be so disappointed. He’d suggested the volunteering in the first place, had set up my interview, helped me with the application. I’d loved it, too. I’d even started to believe maybe it could lead to an actual job, one day. And now I’d lost it. I slumped down onto the arm of the sofa.

      Something caught my eye. A big metal bulldog clip hanging on a hook next to the sink, and between its teeth a wedge of scraps of paper. I reached over and took the clip down. Just receipts, mostly: a few postcards. But right at the back, with a fold of card across the top to protect it from being marked by the pressure of the clip, was something else. A faded, square-shaped photo, the old-fashioned instant kind that came straight out of the camera, ready-developed to be waved around and blown upon impatiently until the image slowly appears and definition emerges like a fog lifting. The colours were vague, less saturated, as if they were trying to fade back to a sleepy sepia.

      A little girl. Less than a year old, probably, hair already thick and black. Even with the colours muted by age, the eyes clearly distinct: one eye sky-blue, one green with a narrow slice of brown in the iris. Her cheeks rounded with health and happiness.

      Me.

      As a child. The only picture in existence. What was it doing here?

      I rubbed my thumb across the top of it, the two rust-stained puncture holes where a staple must once have been. We’d had a burglary when I was two and a half, a few days before we were due to move house. Everything we owned was in boxes by the door of the one-bed flat we’d been renting. Might as well have gift-wrapped it, Mum always said afterwards. All of my baby stuff, a whole load of Mum’s old things, but worst of all, all the photos of me as a little kid.

      Maybe because I didn’t have any family, the absence of the pictures felt like a huge hole as I grew up. I used to make up pretend photo albums, drawing pictures of my dead grandparents, my dead dad. In my pictures, he was just like me, dark and broad-shouldered, each of us with one green and one blue eye, standing either side of petite, yellow-haired Mum. I pinned those pictures everywhere, but what I wanted more than anything was a photo. But they were all gone.

      All but this one.

      I’d found it inside a book. I was ten, and we had just moved flats again. I remember the swell of excitement when it fell onto the floor and I realized what it was. I’d never seen this one before. I ran into her room, beaming with pride at the discovery of such a coveted treasure. I had expected tears of joy.

      None came. Just a request not to snoop in her things, and a dark, brittle silence for the rest of the afternoon. Confused, I apologized, and she put her arms around me and said the same.

      ‘It was a dark time with your dad,’ she’d say, by way of explanation. ‘I’ve got my memories of you, baby, and they’re good enough.’

      The next day I found it folded into four, in the bathroom bin. So I saved it a second time. But this time, I kept my secret to myself.

      In the picture I was smiling. I looked into the eyes of my infant self and tried to see Siggy. Was she there, in my head, when I was that small? Lurking, waiting for my eyes to close and for the dummy to drop out of my pink little mouth so she could show me all her horrible things?

      But more importantly, why did Matt have it? I’d dug it out and shown it to him, maybe a month ago, after we’d gone through an old album of his. I hadn’t given it to him, though. I’d tucked it back into the book where I kept it. He knew how precious it was to me. So why had he taken it?

      I tucked the photo into my pocket and looked around. I had come to look for a clue, and all I had was a photo and a printed-out list. Outside, a solid darkness was starting to fall. I noticed Mr Jupp’s light on, and realized he’d be locking up soon.

      He snorted and hurriedly took his feet from the desk as I opened the office door. A thread of dribble hung sleepily from the corner of his mouth, which he noticed only when it hit his wrist.

      ‘You, is it?’ he said accusingly. ‘Police gone, have they?’

      ‘For now,’ I said, forcing a smile. His eyes swept down to my chest and up again, like a kid reaching for a sweet they knew they weren’t allowed. ‘But I’m still a bit worried, to be honest.’

      Not waiting to be asked, I brought over the only other chair, a faded green, moulded plastic thing, and perched on its edge, leaning towards him with as much warmth as I could muster. ‘I know he liked the chats he had with you,’ I lied. ‘I was just hoping he might have said something about a trip somewhere. Anything about being away from the boat?’

      He blew his cheeks out. ‘Love, listen. Sometimes us blokes have got to blow off a bit of steam.’

      ‘He hasn’t fallen out with anyone here or anything?’ I said, knowing Matt would have told me if that was the case. ‘Or got behind on his