The boy who had been missing for 18 months stepped into the light.
Pixabay
Henrietta, not usually given to hysterics muffled her mewling cries of pathetic wonder and delight in her scarf.
She feasted her eyes on his small blonde head and his laughing face assured her that he was indeed Barry.
As she rushed through the door of the florist where she worked, a woman stepped out of the black shadow of the building and firmly took Barry by his hand.
Henri gasped, ‘but you’re my boy!’ and was spurred forward in an attempt to reach him.
An elegant long car slid like a giant swordfish up to the kerb. The door opened smoothly and the pair of them were swallowed in a gulp.
The crowd split for a second and in a swirl of skirts she saw a fraction of the number plate – S40 – ‘my age next birthday she muttered, planting the number firmly in her brain.
She worked feverishly with the detectives. Questions were fired at her.
‘Is the car a Daimler or a Bentley, is it black, navy or bottle green? The numbers are probably part of 8 digits.
‘Can you be SURE that the boy was the child you helped raise?’
Henri relived the nightmare of the day when he was snatched.
She had been hired as an au pair by the wealthy Barbie Bollard who had inherited her father’s investment empire. Her husband Simon was a producer of small 'select' movies. From the beginning Henrietta had suspected that Simon was ‘playing away from home’.
In loyalty to her boss, Barbie, she kept her lips sealed even though she saw bruises she didn’t like on Barry’s arms and concentrated on the delightful child. Soon she became more of an aunt in the family who doted on this golden boy.
He had been riding his push-along sit–on-scooter in the courtyard just outside the kitchen door while she made a snack for their lunch. ‘I’ve got your favourite avocado pear,’ she called.
Seconds later she felt a blow to her head that rendered her unconscious on the floor.
She remembered the horror of coming around with a fearful headache. The silence around her was deafening. She was completely alone except for the abandoned black scooter.
Her precious charge was gone.
The agony of the following months was torture. Her life was thoroughly investigated along with the rest of the faithful staff.
Her dealings with the parents were fraught as she saw the cracks that had been there before Barry went missing, widen into a chasm. She watched her boss, the ultra competent Mrs Barbie Bollard dwindle into a thin nervous wreck who had to bear the embarrassment of her husband ‘tom catting’ around town with nubile rising stars in his dodgy movies.
Henrietta was eventually 'let go' simply because there was no longer any reason for her to stay.
She was not surprised to hear that the business had been passed on to Barbie Bollards’s second in command who seemed to have inherited the drive with which she had once guided the business.
Furthermore when it was rumoured that she was either in a secure facility nursing a total breakdown, or she had gone to live on a private island in the Bahamas, Henri was not surprised, just desperately sorry for the heartbroken Barbie.
Over the period of the case being dragged back in the spotlight Henri came into contact with the attractive and engaging Detective Bob Barrass.
After exhaustive investigations the limo was tracked down and ‘Barry’ turned out to be the very happy son of a well known banker and his wife.
Henri was devastated and turned to Bob for comfort. They often chatted and were not surprised when once again Barbie Bollard, who had briefly reappeared to speak to the media, disappeared once again.
Unexpectedly one afternoon Bob Barrass turned up at the florist where Henri had taken on a menial job.
‘We need to talk,’ he said to Henri. ‘Please tell your boss this is a police matter and urgent.’
Together they sat in a coffee shop in a patch of sunlight. ‘I’m so sorry that Barry isn’t the boy you hoped he was, but know that he is a very happy child blessed with a mother who loves him.
Henri nodded. ‘I’m just sorry that Barbie had to come back and face the terrible disappointment after no doubt hoping desperately that her son was alive.’
‘Well, here’s the thing Henri,’ and he clasped his hands over hers folded on the table between them, ‘ and please prepare yourself………………..
She looked at him with her big brown eyes, her pupils flecked with gold.
‘While I was investigating Barry’s disappearance once again, I got to wondering how a boisterous, happy 3 year old child could literally disappear into thin air.
I went through the records of planes departing for different parts of the world once again and quite by chance someone at the airport departures answered the phone as we were talking and it was about a private plane landing.
The owner required a limo to fetch him from the steps of his aircraft as it landed.
The extremely wealthy march to a different drum from us hoi polloi!’ he finished with a rueful smile.
‘And so?’ Henri inquired intrigued.
‘And SO, I looked into the comings and goings of private jets on the night of the disappearance of young Barry Bollard. You know what I discovered?’
Henri shook her head wordlessly, her heart starting to beat in her throat………
Their eyes met and for a moment there was dead silence.
I found that a jet belonging to a close friend of Mrs Barbie Ballard had left in the early hours of the following morning of young Barry’s disappearance………’ he said quietly.
Pixabay
‘And Mrs Ballard stayed behind to face the reporters and her husband carrying on with every long legged beauty in the town!’ she whispered,
Complete understanding of the complicated situation flowed between the detective and the once au pair.
Bob clasped Henri’s hands folded on the table between them. Tears glistened in her eyes and he closed his eyes acknowledging the tacit agreement between them that never again would the case of the ‘missing’ young Barry Ballard ever be raised again.
He shut the file conclusively and drew her to her feet.
‘Let’s walk Henri……….. a breath of fresh air will blow the cobwebs away.’
She breathed the scent of the sea and laid her head against Bob’s shoulder as he put his arm around her waist.
She had a vision of a blonde little boy running along a beach far away with his mother and sighed with relief.
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