After Anna. Alex Lake

sitting on a bench chatting to a kindly stranger or playing with some kids they met or just wandering about absorbed in all the things they are seeing on their own for the first time.

      And then you really swear that you aren’t going to let them out of your sight again, because, in that ten minutes your mind races to the worst possible conclusions: they’ve fallen in the canal, they’ve been hit by a car, they’ve been abducted.

      And that’s the one that bothers you the most. They’ve been taken. Picked off the street in a neglectful moment and taken. Gone forever. Alive or dead, it doesn’t matter. You won’t ever see them again, but you won’t ever be able to stop looking. And you won’t ever forgive yourself.

      But, of course, even when you’re contemplating that horrific, tortured possibility, a still, calm voice at the back of your mind is telling you not to worry, that everything is ok, that it’ll all work out because it always does.

      Except it doesn’t. Not always.

      And you know that. Which is the most frightening thing of all.

      Julia ran out of The Village Sweete Shoppe. She glanced left and right: the same choice again. Left into the village or right, back to the school. She turned left and jogged down the hill. If there was news at the school someone would phone her. At least this time her phone was charged.

      A woman of her age, with short hair and an expensive-looking bag, was walking towards her. Without thinking, Julia caught her eye.

      Julia, like many English women of her age and social class, had an aversion to both making a scene and bothering people that bordered on the pathological. She would no more have asked a stranger for help – to lend her money, perhaps, or let her use their mobile phone, or get assistance changing a car wheel – than she would have walked unannounced into their kitchen, opened their fridge, and made herself a salad.

      This, though, was different. It was not a time to worry about social proprieties.

      ‘Excuse me,’ Julia said. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. She’s five, she has dark hair and a pink rucksack, and she’s in school uniform. Have you seen her?’

      ‘No,’ the woman replied. Her face took on an odd expression, a mixture of concern and sympathy that Julia found discomfiting. ‘Has she been missing long?’

      ‘Not that long. Twenty minutes. Maybe more.’

      The expression deepened into a frown. ‘Gosh. That’s a long time.’

      ‘I know,’ Julia said. ‘Would you keep an eye out for her?’

      ‘Of course. I’ll help you.’ She gestured to the village car park. ‘I’ll 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