Then, almost matter-of-factly, he stooped and unclipped Rihanna’s lead. It was then that Georgia saw the flash of a blade in his other hand. She turned to run, but knew it was futile. The dog was airborne on a fang-first trajectory straight towards her throat before she’d even remembered the first line of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Her.

Not it.

Chapter 39

Chapter 39
Helen – Day 6

Helen found herself spending more and more time alone in Frankie’s bedroom, sitting on the oatmeal carpet with her spine pressing against the rail on her toddler bed, seeing the view of what Frankie ought to be seeing from her pillow vantage point, her bookcase and whirling magic lantern, the decals of Babar the Elephant on the walls, as if somehow she would be comforted by Helen seeing it when she, Frankie, couldn’t.

Sometimes Helen climbed onto the bed and curled up into a foetal comma, pressing her nose into the brushed cotton sheets, desperately trying to keep her scent in her nostrils as well as in her soul. Her only comfort was that Red Ted was missing too – Frankie must have been clutching him when she was taken, unless the kidnapper was particularly considerate. Helen hoped so. She prayed, with varying degrees of hope, to cover all bases with a God she wasn’t sure existed but figured she had nothing to lose by asking, begging Him to return Frankie unharmed, to keep her safe, to leave her unscarred both physically and mentally, that Red Ted was still with her.

Today, as Helen lay there, too traumatised even to move, she thought about the detective, Lennon. ‘Call me Patrick,’ he’d said when he’d first introduced himself. That was less than a week ago but felt like an eternity in Hell.

Sean had just come rushing in clutching his iPad.

‘You won’t believe this,’ he said, ignoring the fact that Helen was lying with her feet hanging over the bottom of Frankie’s little bed, tears sliding silently down her cheeks. ‘I Googled him, that Lennon bloke, and you’ll never guess what.’

Helen wanted to punch him in the throat for thinking she might be remotely interested in playing guessing games concerning the detective entrusted with the search for their most treasured possession.

‘What,’ she stated baldly.

‘He was all over the papers a couple of years ago. Well, not him, but his missus. She was that one who suffered from such bad post-natal depression that she tried to kill their baby. Over near Hampton Court. Do you remember? We watched it on the news one night. You commented on it because they live so close to us. She got locked up.’