Girl in the Window. Penny Joelson

Kasia Novak, and address, 47 New Weald Lane.

      ‘Did you get the car registration number?’ he asks.

      I feel instantly devastated. Why didn’t I? ‘I’m sorry. No. It was all so fast,’ I tell him.

      ‘Don’t worry – you did the right thing to call. Any information you can give us will help. Can you describe the car?’

      ‘It was silver – a hatchback . . . I’m not sure what kind.’

      I can describe the woman but I didn’t see the driver and only have a vague impression of the man who jumped out. I’m a useless witness.

      ‘Silver hatchback,’ he repeats, as if he’s writing it down. ‘We’ll get someone on to it straight away.’

      ‘Oh, and I think someone else might have seen it – across the road,’ I tell him. ‘I think there was someone at the window upstairs. They might even have called you too. It was number forty-eight.’

      ‘We’ll speak to them. Thank you for reporting the incident. Please call us if you remember any other details.’ He gives me another phone number and a case number, which I write on a scrap of paper.

      I have a sinking feeling as I put the phone down. I wish I’d got the car reg. Maybe whoever was watching across the road did. I hope so.

      ‘Mum! Mum!’ I call again. She still doesn’t hear. I want to tell her. I need to tell her. I stand up, holding on to the window ledge for support, and then walk slowly out into the hallway, one hand pressed against the wall. My glands are throbbing in my neck and my legs are throbbing too – a constant dull, familiar ache.

      ‘Mum!’ No reply. I clutch the banister and put one foot gingerly on the top step. I’ve been thinking about trying to go downstairs for a few days, but I know now isn’t really the right moment. I’m too shaken up – on top of everything else.

      ‘Kasia! What are you doing?’ Mum appears at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me with concern.

      My legs give way and I sit down on the top step. ‘I was calling you. You didn’t hear. I thought I’d come down . . .’

      Mum’s up beside me now, tutting and holding out her arm. ‘You look very pale, mój aniele. Come on, time for bed. How many times do I have to tell you to take it slowly, not do too much too quickly? Just getting out of bed is a big achievement. You’re clearly not up to trying the stairs. You should text me if I don’t hear you.’

      I’m too tired to argue, but I want to prove her wrong. I’m so fed up with being in my bedroom all the time. Tomorrow, I think to myself. Maybe I’ll try tomorrow. But I still want to tell her what just happened.

      Mum helps me into bed and sits on the edge as I tell her all about what I saw. She’s really shocked.

      ‘Kasia, how awful! Are you sure?’

      ‘I think so . . .’

      Mum touches my hand gently. ‘You did the right thing to phone the police. Now settle down and get some sleep. You look exhausted.’

      She goes back down and I lie in my bed, staring at the same four walls. It’s ten weeks since I’ve been downstairs.

2

      I’m sitting by my bedroom window, waiting for Ellie to come round after school like she promised. She’s the only one of my friends that still does. The street is busy with cars on the school run and kids walking home. It looks so normal, it’s hard to believe what I saw last night actually happened. I’ve been playing it over in my mind all day. It feels like a bad dream, not something real. Where is that woman now – what happened to her? I wonder if someone has reported her missing.

      I glance at the house across the road. Have the police spoken to them yet? Was someone looking out last night, or did I just imagine I saw the curtain move?

      At the bus stop, groups in school uniform stand chatting. A toddler in a buggy has pulled off one shoe and is chewing it. I watch as she takes the shoe out of her mouth and flings it under the bench. Her mother is sitting staring at her phone and hasn’t noticed. The bus comes, blocking my view, and when it pulls out the people, including the woman and the buggy have gone, but I can still see the purple shoe sticking out sadly from under the bench.

      A man in his twenties with dark hair and glasses arrives at the bus stop and kicks at the shoe curiously. I start making up a kind of Cinderella story, where the man takes the shoe and puts a photo of it on a Facebook group, and the woman comes forward gratefully to claim it. Turns out they’re both single and when they meet to hand over the shoe, it’s love at first sight.

      I see a police car coming along the road and it pulls into a parking bay further down the road. Is this to do with last night? At first I think they want to ask me more questions but the police officer walks quickly up to the door of number forty-eight. I watch eagerly and see the front door open. The policeman talks to the woman and I can see her shaking her head.

      Once the door closes, the policeman knocks on the doors of the houses on either side, but no one is home. Then he crosses the road. He’s coming here! The doorbell rings. I wish I could run down and answer it but I have to wait for Mum to do it. I hear her talking to the policeman and I wonder if she’ll bring him upstairs, but she says goodbye after only a minute and then comes up.

      ‘What did he say?’ I ask eagerly.

      ‘They haven’t found out anything about an abduction, Kasia,’ Mum tells me. ‘No one has been reported missing and no one else contacted them about it. He said the people at forty-eight saw nothing. They were both downstairs watching television.’

      ‘I thought someone was there, watching,’ I say, ‘upstairs – in the room opposite mine. I saw the curtain move, like someone was peeping out.’

      Mum shrugs. ‘The police are looking into it. If there’s anything to discover, I’m sure they’ll find it.’

      Mum goes back down and I’m still waiting for Ellie. Where is she? I’m suddenly worried she won’t turn up. I’m dying to tell her what I saw. Maybe I should have texted her, so she’d know I had something to talk about for once.

      Just when I think she’s really not coming, I finally spot her, hurrying along the pavement, her ponytail bobbing up and down. I can see she’s trying to be quick but it feels like a hundred years before she turns into our gate and rings the doorbell. I hear Mum’s footsteps on the hall floor as she goes to let Ellie in, and then more, lighter steps as Ellie pads up the stairs.

      She comes into my bedroom with a beaming smile and two plates of Mum’s apple cake. I take a deep sniff of the lovely cinnamon smell that has been drifting through the house, making my mouth water.

      ‘Sorry I’m a bit late – it’s all been happening today!’ she says, plonking herself on the edge of my bed and handing me a plate.

      ‘Tell me!’ I say. I like hearing what’s going on at school. It makes me feel more part of it, although it also sometimes makes me sad.

      ‘At lunchtime Serene got into a fight with Bethany,’ Ellie tells me. ‘A proper punch-up – Bethany pulled Serene’s hair and a whole clump came out! I saw it in her hand! It was over some boy. I don’t even know who.’

      I feel a pang. I hope it wasn’t Josh. He’s a boy I like in the year above – a boy with ocean-blue eyes and a husky voice. I can’t imagine him with Bethany or Serene, though.

      ‘Then,’ Ellie continues, ‘Dimitri and Rafi were messing about in maths and Mr Treaker completely lost it and slammed a ruler on the desk so hard it flipped in the air and hit Serene in the face! She had to go to the medical room and now she’s got a massive black eye, too!’

      ‘Ohhh, poor Serene!’ I exclaim, though I can’t help laughing.

      ‘We shouldn’t laugh,’