Prologue

 

The child vanished on a stifling Liverpool summer’s day in late August.

Up until then, it had been a perfectly normal day with no hint of what was to come as the young woman pushed her small child in the fold-out umbrella pram up Bold Street.

The eclectic mix of tightly packed two, three, and four-storey buildings loomed over the duo forming a higgledy-piggledy montage either side of the street and the bombed-out church at the end was a watchful sentry.

As the young woman moved forward with the pushchair, she noticed the child had undone the straps, again.

‘What have I told you?’ she huffed, veering out of the way of a woman in a pink sari. She’d a hand-knitted sweater thrown over the top of it to ward off the awful wind whistling down the street.

‘Don’t like it, Mummy.’ The child wriggled in an attempt to avoid being buckled back in.

‘Stop that right now, do you hear me? Or there’ll be no chocolate bar when we get to the station.’

The wriggling stopped.

The shop beside them had a ‘To Let’ sign in the grimy window and an empty lager can along with a collection of cigarette buts littered the doorway. The woman wrinkled her nose because she was sure she could smell wee.

She bent over the pushchair to click the strap back in, jumping as a piercing wolf whistle sounded. The culprit was a fella with longish hair leaning out the passenger window of a white van as it sailed past.

Pulling a face and pretending to be annoyed, she tugged the hem of her skirt down. Then, ignoring a group of lads with Mohicans in every shade of the rainbow, studded dog collars wrapped around their necks, and scrawny white arms protruding from Union Jack singlets she weaved around them and spied the familiar striped awning framing Tabac across the street.

The cafe was a source of fascination to her because it was a great spot for celebrity spotting and the food was good. She was too skint to call in for coffee or a bite to eat today but she could veer past and see if anyone of note was dining in there today.

She waited for a break in the stream of cars and when it came bounced the pram across the road, coming to a halt under the awning to gawp in the window. There were no diners whose lunch was worth interrupting to ask for an autograph and so, with a disappointed sigh, she hurried on.

The sign for the wedding shop tucked between two larger buildings a short distance ahead caught her eye.

It was the boutique where one of her old school mates had had her wedding and bridesmaids dresses made. Brides of Bold Street. Her mouth tightened. She hadn’t been asked to be a bridesmaid.

The irritation that still rankled at the snub disappeared however as she saw the newsagents where she’d called in to buy her monthly magazine treat just a week ago had gone.

In its place was a shop with posed mannequins in the antwacky gear her mam might have ponced about in. Retro was all the rage these days she thought. Not that she’d be caught dead in clobber like that.

Her eyes swung out to the road. How weird. There were nowhere near as many cars as there’d been a moment ago and the ones tootling up the street were similar to the old banger her grandad had refused to part with.

The air had changed too. It felt thick, almost as if she were wading through tepid soup. She came to a halt. The sensation wasn’t dissimilar to the time she’d stood at the top of the Blackpool Tower and her legs had threatened to give out on her.

‘I’ll just close my eyes for a second,’ she mumbled, having decided she must be having a funny turn of sorts.

The whoosh of people carrying on about their business as they passed her by continued as if there were nothing at all odd about her standing in the middle of the pavement with her eyes squeezed shut, clutching the pram for support.

The familiar smell of exhaust fumes and a trail of cigarette smoke saw her cautiously open them once more. She blinked rapidly to assure herself things were as they should be.

Only they weren’t.

The blood turned to ice in her veins as she realised the pushchair was empty.

 

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