She seems unaware, or undisturbed, by her mother’s sudden absence. Perhaps she’ll start to fret and cry soon, whimpering in that way small babies do, but for now she seems calm.
What else could help me to get her back where she belongs? I don’t even know Kathryn’s surname. She has taken her handbag and phone but left the baby’s bag, the bulky white rucksack that’s full of baby stuff. That means something, doesn’t it? That it was deliberate? Another thought strikes me: maybe the baby wasn’t even Kathryn’s in the first place. Had she actually said it was? Did she use the words ‘my baby’ at any point? I think back to our brief exchange. No. She only said ‘Mia’ or ‘her’ – or was it ‘the baby’? Had she taken Mia from someone else? From a nursery, or a hospital, from someone’s house? Snatched her from a pushchair outside a shop, or in the aisle of a supermarket? Then panicked and handed her off to a stranger before she could be caught?
But something about her manner, our brief conversation, makes me think it’s unlikely. There was a familiarity between Kathryn and Mia, a connection that seemed genuine.
I lean over and pick up the rucksack. It’s deceptively heavy and not easy, one-handed, with the baby snug in my other arm, but I manage to hoist it up and put it down next to me. In one of the mesh pockets on the side is a bottle of formula milk, in the other a half-drunk bottle of Diet Coke. I undo the zip and pull the bag open.
At the top of a bundle of baby clothes is a single sheet of A4 paper, folded once. It’s a receipt or delivery note of some kind, a list of baby things, formula milk, bottles, nappies, clothes. I pull it out and frown. The word ‘Ellen’ is written in looping capitals on the bottom half.
I turn the paper over.
The back is blank except for a handful of words scrawled hastily in the centre, in messy black biro.
Please protect Mia
Don’t trust the police
Don’t trust anyone
3
I frown at the sheet of paper in my hand. Read the words a second time, turn the paper over to see if there is anything else on it, anything at all. But it’s just a computer-printed delivery note from a company called BabyCool.com. Nothing else handwritten, only my name on the front and, on the back, those ten words scrawled in biro. Instinctively, I fold the paper in two and check to see if anyone else has seen what I’ve seen. But the businessman is tapping on his laptop and the thin staring man is writing in a small notebook, seemingly oblivious to me and everything else.
Don’t trust anyone
Perhaps paranoia’s a feature of postnatal depression. Is it? I can’t remember what I’ve read. Perhaps Kathryn feared that she might do something to the child herself. Perhaps this is all a cry for help. But not for her safety. For the baby.
It occurs to me that there might be something else inside the backpack. I lay the note on the table and begin taking items out of the bag one at a time, setting them on the small table in front of me. Half a dozen nappies, a packet of wet wipes, a tight roll of plastic nappy sacks, two white cotton sleepsuits, vests, scratch mittens and a tiny knitted woollen hat, three bottles of formula milk made up and a small can of formula powder, half-full. Two folded muslin squares, one white and one yellow. Two dummies, still in their blister pack. Some kind of harness – Baby Bjorn – with a complicated set of straps that I recognise as a baby sling. In the front pocket of the rucksack is a new tube of Sudocrem, a travel packet of tissues and a small bottle of sunblock. Another piece of paper, torn from a notebook, with some kind of daily schedule scribbled on it in the same handwriting as the note I’d found with my name on it. A column of instructions down the left-hand side: 6-7 feed/change, 8.30 nap, 10 feed, 11 nap, 12.30 feed/change, 1 nap, 3 feed, 3.30 nap, 6 bedtime routine, 6.45 feed/bed. A squashy purple octopus with a smiling yellow face, a bell inside that jingles when I take it out of the bag.
Mia’s head turns toward the sound of the bell, hands grasping.
‘You want this?’ I pick up the toy, hold it out to her. ‘The octopus?’
Mia coos and clutches the toy to herself, small mouth closing on a soft fabric tentacle.
I survey the train table, covered with the contents of the rucksack. All the paraphernalia needed to leave the house with a baby. Enough for a day out, perhaps? A second day, at a push. Then what? Maybe this was just as much as Kathryn could carry, as much as she could gather in a hurry and pack into a single bag. But there is nothing else which gives a clue to her identity, her full name or where she lives. Nothing to quickly identify Mia to the authorities, to get her back to her family as soon as possible. The daily schedule is curious and I wonder if it’s been written for my benefit. But she’d not had time to write it in the minutes that I held the baby. Just my name, and that strange message, after we’d first said hello. I’m at a loss to work out why she has chosen me.
The football supporters at the far end of the carriage are singing another song, the words interrupted by hoots of laughter and shouted obscenities and I make a mental note to give them a wide berth when we get off.
People begin to stand up as the train slows, pulling bags from the luggage racks and shrugging on coats and jackets, an air of purpose filling the carriage as the train approaches its final destination. The red-faced man in the pinstripe suit opposite gathers up his possessions into a briefcase, puts on his jacket and hurries down the aisle, barely giving me a second glance. I begin to repack Mia’s bag, putting the spare clothes at the bottom, the formula milk and nappies near the top. One more quick glance at Kathryn’s strange note before I slip it into my handbag and slowly get to my feet, making sure to keep a firm hold on Mia.
How do you put on a rucksack when you’re holding a baby? Everything – every move, every previously simple action – now seems loaded with extra layers of complexity. Laying Mia very gently on the seat, I swing the rucksack up onto my back, then pass my handbag strap over my head, keeping my eyes on Mia the whole time in case she tries to flip herself onto the floor. But the baby simply grins at me, happily kicking her chubby legs like a little frog learning to swim, and I scoop her up again.
‘Come on, you,’ I say softly. ‘Let’s go and find your mummy.’
The strange thin man is still in his seat, scribbling in his notebook in tiny, spidery handwriting. He doesn’t seem to notice any of the activity and doesn’t look up as I pass. He’s dressed entirely in black and dark grey, I notice. Black jeans and Doc Martens, grey sweatshirt and a scuffed black leather jacket. Not a single note of colour; the skin of his face so pale it is almost translucent. Something else strange about him, still nagging at me. Something not quite right.
I step carefully down onto the platform, the air filled with echoing footsteps and thick with diesel exhaust. Marylebone is rich with Victorian red brick, steel girders criss-crossing the glass roof high above. I move away from the train door, look up and down the platform in case Kathryn has somehow managed to get back onto the train at Seer Green and is here right now, searching for her baby, hoping I might catch sight of her rust-coloured jacket moving towards us amid the disembarking travellers. A sea of faces travels down the platform, a group of slow-moving pensioners, a young family on a day trip, shoppers and students and a few suited commuters mixed in. No young women scanning the crowd. No sign of Kathryn.