by Alison James
The door is flung wide, and her father embraces her, but it’s a cursory embrace, and when he straightens up, his jaw is clenched. He forces a smile. ‘Why didn’t you use your key, you noodle?’
‘I think I lost it,’ she says, vaguely. The truth is it didn’t occur to her. She doesn’t live here in Dartmouth Park any more.
‘Come through, come through. Mum’s in the kitchen.’
She expects her mother to be emotional, but instead she just looks pissed off.
‘So you haven’t forgotten where we live,’ she says drily, giving her daughter a half-embrace with one arm, stirring a pan of chilli with the other. Her eyes automatically dart to the now prominent curve of Charlie’s belly, visible under a baggy shirt.
‘Want some tea? Coffee? Or are you not allowed coffee now?’ Her father nods in the direction of her midriff.
‘It’s fine, I don’t want anything. I’m not going to stay long.’
Charlie plonks herself down at the large kitchen table, dented and scratched from years of family life, and for a moment it feels as though she never left.
‘Where are the others?’ she asks.
‘Olly’s at football practice; your sister’s got a summer job at a café in Highgate.’
‘Oh, okay.’ Charlie bites her lower lip. She had been hoping to see her siblings, and the fact that they are not here seems ominous. Keen to keep the visit as short as possible, she launches into her rehearsed speech: ‘You do realise there’s really no point involving the police, or the authorities, don’t you? I’m seventeen now, so you can’t make me live at home.’
‘Legally you’re still a child. Until you’re eighteen.’ Her mother is clenching her jaw as she speaks. Charlie recognises that expression. ‘But that’s not why we asked you round.’
Her father disappears into the office for a few minutes and returns with the building society passbook for her original savings account. ‘There should be a debit card in the file with this. Only, it’s mysteriously gone missing.’
Charlie feels the colour blaze in her cheeks. Her palms feel clammy. ‘I’ve got it.’
‘Funnily enough, we worked that out for ourselves. We might not have been any the wiser if a statement hadn’t arrived for that account, and when we went to file it with the rest of the paperwork we saw that nearly all the money Granny Nancy put away for you has gone.’
Charlie picks at her fingernails. ‘I know. I used it to pay the rent.’
‘What – all of it?’ Her mother’s face is thunderous. ‘But, Charlotte, you know full well that that money was set aside to pay for your university education.’
‘Some of it went on rent. We used the rest on other stuff. Stuff for the baby.’
This isn’t strictly true, but she decided her parents don’t need to know exactly how it’s been spent. It’s not like she can get the money back now.
‘“We” used it?’ Her father frowns. ‘You mean this Jake lad is living off you? You’re keeping him?’
Charlie shakes her head miserably. ‘Look, it’s only while he’s trying to get a job. Then we’ll both be spending his earnings.’
‘Presumably he didn’t have the guts to tell his mother about this arrangement. We’ve been in touch with Michelle Palmer, and she’s denied all knowledge of where you’re living. She did give me Jake’s mobile number but, of course, I’ve not been able to get any response.’
‘He’s got a new phone,’ Charlie says.
‘Presumably one you paid for?’ her father spits. ‘And from the sound of it, he’s still unemployed. And you can’t exactly look for work, can you? You’re due back at school in a couple of weeks, not to mention the whole pregnancy business.’
Charlie rolls her eyes. As if she needs reminding. But that’s what parents do. Constantly tell you stuff you already know.
‘Look, I’m really sorry about the money. About taking the card without telling you. But it is in my name. And as soon as Jake has got a job, he’s going to start paying it back. So by the time I’m ready to go to uni, it’ll all be fine, okay?’
Her parents exchange a look of pure disbelief.
‘Anyway,’ Charlie stands up. ‘I want to go and fetch some of my things from my room, if that’s okay with you.’ She fishes in the handbag slung across her body and pulls out two large supermarket carriers.
Her father raises a hand. ‘Hold on a minute, young lady. Is that it? Aren’t you going to tell us where this amazing love nest of yours is? The one you’ve deceived us to pay for? I take it it’s local? Can’t see that boy wanting to be too far from his gang of mates.’
Gang of mates, thinks Charlie. Jesus.
‘No,’ she says, ‘I’m not going to tell you.’
They would only come round, and her father would undoubtedly lay into Jake.
‘Charlotte, for heaven’s sake. Seriously?’ Her mother only calls her by her full name when she’s deeply pissed off. ‘You’re still officially a minor. And you are still having our grandchild.’ She waves a wooden spoon in the direction of Charlie’s bump. ‘Surely we have a right to know where you are?’
‘Look, we won’t come round and make trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ Her father, as always, tries to lighten the tone. ‘We just need to be sure you’re safe.’
She sighs. ‘Maybe. Eventually. Just give it a bit of time, yeah?’
Her father relents and pulls her into a hug. ‘As long as you’re all right? As long as he’s looking after you. That’s what really matters at the end of the day, not the money.’
‘Yeah, everything’s great,’ Charlie says. She forces the corners of her mouth to lift into a smile. ‘Me and Jake are really, really happy.’
As soon as she gets out of the lift Charlie hears it, and her heart sinks.
Voices audible through the front door of the flat. Male voices, and several of them. Charlie knows before she even inserts her key into the lock that it will be Scott, Lewis and Mikey. They have always been Jake’s acolytes, but now that he lives in his own flat, they hang round him more than ever.
Just as she knows who will be in the flat, she knows exactly what state it will be in: overflowing ashtrays, a forest of empty lager cans onthe coffee table, empty takeaway packaging all over the floor. The air is thick with the smell of marijuana, and Charlie – still prone to pregnancy sickness – gags.
Jake and Mikey are playing Phantasmagoria on the PlayStation, which is hooked up to the huge wall-mounted TV he insisted on buying. On the 65-inch, high-definition plasma screen, a male figure with a machete is decapitating a screaming female. Digital blood splashes in all directions. Jake grunts in Charlie’s direction, but doesn’t tear his eyes from the screen.
She sets down the bags of clothes and make-up she has taken from her old bedroom in Dartmouth Park. ‘Are you guys going to be here long? Only I really need to take a nap.’
She’s referring just to Mikey, Scott and Lewis, but Jake replies: ‘We’re heading out soon.’
‘Where are you going?’ Charlie’s aware she sounds plaintive, needy. ‘We’re supposed to be going to the supermarket.’
‘Going to drive out to the dog track in Essex in J’s new wheels,’ says Scott, cheerfully.
Charlie frowns. ‘What for?’
‘Have a few drinks, place a few bets, get some food.’
‘We’ll probably spend the night up there,’ Jake says, airily. ‘I’ll be too pissed to drive us back.’ He seems quite oblivious to the fact that four large adults can barely fit into his Audi in the first place.
‘Spend the night… how?’
‘I’ll get us all hotel rooms.’ He grins at Charlie, powering down the game but leaving the TV switched on as he gropes in his pocket for his car keys. ‘Not like we can’t afford it.’
‘Thirty fucking K!’ crows Lewis in a fake American accent, miming flicking bank notes in a ‘make it rain’ gesture.
Charlie watches them go, dumb with misery, then fetches a black bin bag and starts slowly clea
ning up the place that she now calls home.
12
Paula
‘How can I help you? Mrs…?’
The woman on the other end of the phone is neutral, professional.
‘Evershott,’ says Paula. ‘My name’s Alice Evershott.’
She breathes in and out to steady her voice, then trots out the rehearsed spiel. ‘The person we sold our house to has left some things here, and I wondered if you could give me their address? Our solicitor says that you were the agent who dealt with her next purchase.’
There’s a silence as the estate agent tries to take in this request. She had no doubt been expecting a run-of-the-mill viewing or valuation. ‘And when was this, exactly?’
‘October 2003.’
‘Oh, goodness. Quite a long time ago then. I was assuming this was a recent property purchase.’
‘I know, sorry.’ Paula puts on a ‘silly old me’ voice. ‘The thing is, we’ve only just got round to clearing out the loft when we found her stuff. Mrs Glynn’s.’
‘I’m not sure if we’ll still have the file, but even if we do, we can’t give out the address. Not without Mrs…?’
‘Glynn.’
‘Not without Mrs Glynn’s permission.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame. Only we think she’ll probably want these things back.’
‘Hold the line a second, let me go and have a word with my colleague.’
The line goes silence for several minutes, and when it’s unmuted, it’s an older woman’s voice.
‘Mrs Evershott? Hi, I’m Sheila Whittaker. Jo’s passed this over to me because I’ve worked here the longest, so she thought I might know. The transaction file will have been archived by now, but I remember Mrs Glynn, because I handled the sale. You’ve got something of hers that she left in her old place?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Paula prepares to play her trump card. ‘Some baby things. Though I suppose the baby must be all grown up by now.’
‘Baby things?’ The woman sounds mystified. ‘But Mrs Glynn was a single lady, in the process of getting divorced. And she didn’t have any children.’
‘Are you sure? She may just not have mentioned it.’
‘She bought a one-bedroom flat. A lovely large flat, but it only had the one bedroom and a small study. And I was the one who met her at the property to hand over the keys on the day of completion. She had the removal van with her, with her furniture being unloaded. I remember thinking she had some nice pieces. But there was definitely no baby moving in. I’d have seen if there was a cot. And I imagine she would have bought a two-bedroom property if there’d been a child to accommodate.’
‘I see.’ Paula tries to order her thoughts. ‘I must be mistaken then. Perhaps this stuff belongs to the people who lived here before the Glynns.’
‘I expect that will be it.’
Paula thanks her and hangs up. Beyond the bedroom door, footsteps thunder down the stairs.
‘Mum!’ Ben yells. ‘I’m going over to Connor’s for a bit, okay?’
‘Make sure you take your bike lights,’ she shouts from the landing. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’
Jessica is at a sleepover with her best friend Chloe, so once the front door has slammed, the house falls silent. Paula does a circuit of the top floor, closing all the curtains against the early November gloom, then goes downstairs and lights the gas fire in the living room before pouring herself a glass of red wine.
A text arrives on her phone. Her heartbeat speeds up when she sees it’s from Johnny Shepherd. She hasn’t seen him for several months, since the day they kissed in the garden.
You in? xx
She wants to play it cool, but can hang on barely thirty seconds before replying.
Yes. Does this mean you’re back in London?
Open your front door.
She does, and he’s standing there in a camel overcoat with a brown velvet collar. It makes him look like a gangland boss.
‘So, are you back for good now?’ She gives him a side hug, but doesn’t want to seem too eager. ‘Thought the festival season ended in September? That was over a month ago.’
‘I know, I know, I’m crap.’ He grins, and his eyes crinkle at the corners in that way she finds so irresistible. ‘We took on a big conference job up in Newcastle in October. I got back about ten days ago, but since then I’ve been completely snowed with paperwork. Sorry.’
He follows her into the kitchen, tugging off his coat. After tossing it over the back of the chair, he pulls her into a proper hug. ‘Good to see you. I’ve missed you, Paul.’
‘Yes, well…’ She allows the broad smile she’d been repressing to light up her face. ‘You’re back now. Hungry?’
She makes them omelettes and garlic bread and they sit at the kitchen table and catch up. At some point Ben returns, thundering upstairs again with a quick yelled, ‘Hi.’
‘So…’ Johnny leans back in his chair. ‘You ready to resume the investigation into Lizzie’s kid? Or have you been beavering away without me?’
‘I’ll be honest, I’ve taken a bit of a break from it too. It was all getting a bit much. The kids and I went to the Algarve for a couple of weeks after you left.’
‘Nice.’
‘Yeah, it was. Really nice. And then when they were with their dad I went away with a girlfriend for a few days. After that I did think about sitting down with Mum again and trying to make her talk about it, but I’ve been worrying about triggering her depression… and then there was the usual manic rush to get them ready to go back to school, and things have been extra stressful at work because we’ve had the builders in doing a refit at the surgery, so…’
‘It’s okay, you don’t need to explain. It’s heavy stuff. Not surprising you needed some time out.’
‘Not a total time out, as it happens. Actually, I found out something interesting today.’ Paula twirls the stem of her wine glass.
‘Tell me.’
‘You remember Alice Evershott told us the name of the solicitors’ firm she used?’
‘Yeah, it was a local one, wasn’t it?’
‘Hooper and Chilton. It stuck in my mind because my cousin’s sister-in-law, Leanne, works there as a clerk. I mentioned it to Leanne back in the summer and she finally got a chance to take a look into the Evershotts’ conveyancing file. I’d asked her to see if she could find out where Marian Glynn moved to.’
Johnny raises his eyebrows. ‘Wow, nice work. And?’
‘There wasn’t an address, but she did find a note of the lawyers and estate agents dealing with both the Glynns’ new property purchases. The husband, Tom Glynn, was buying another house in North London, but his wife’s new place was in the Brighton area.’
She relays the conversation she had with Marian Glynn’s estate agent that afternoon.
Johnny rubs his chin. ‘Blimey. That’s odd.’
‘I know. I’m not sure what to think. I mean, Alice Evershott seemed to think that pink baby blanket might have belonged to the Glynns. But the agent was adamant no baby arrived in Brighton with her.’
‘Sounds that way.’
‘If she did have something to do with the disappearance of Lizzie’s baby, then perhaps the Glynns were in it together somehow. Perhaps he kept it – or her, we’re assuming a girl from that pink blanket, right? – when they split?’
‘If that’s the case I suppose we could easily check.’ Johnny reaches for his wine glass and swallows a mouthful. ‘But… listen, I’ve had plenty of time to think about all this over the past three months, and I’ve got another theory.’
Paula gives him a questioning look.
‘Leave it with me for a bit. I need to call in a couple of favours.’
13
Charlie
‘Won’t be long now.’
The midwife smiles as she wipes the gel from Charlie’s swollen midriff and puts the Doppler away. ‘Baby seems fine – nice strong heartbeat. Do you know what you’re having?’
She shakes her hea
d. ‘No. We wanted the surprise.’
This isn’t exactly true. Jake has made it clear that he’s only interested in having a boy. So to keep that possibility alive in his mind, Charlie elected not to be told the baby’s sex when she went to her twenty-week scan. She went alone, of course. Jake has failed to attend any of her antenatal appointments and classes, and although he’s told her he’ll be there for the birth, he has shown very little interest in this event.
The midwife places her hands low down on the bump. ‘Head’s nice and low… are you experiencing any Braxton Hicks? Those are the practice contractions.’
Charlie nods. ‘A bit.’
‘Well, if they get a lot stronger and close together – five minutes or less – make sure you phone the maternity unit, okay?’
As she walks slowly back from the bus stop to the flat, Charlie is hoping that Jake won’t be in.
They’ve not been getting on well lately. Not that they ever have, if she’s honest with herself, but it’s become worse. Now that she’s nearing the end of pregnancy, and more tired than usual, she’s placed a ban on Lewis and the others spending their whole time at the flat. To begin with, he continued to invite his ‘crew’ over anyway, but they seemed intimidated by the tense atmosphere and repelled by Charlie’s hugely swollen body, and have stayed away; taking Jake with them, nine times out of ten, to play pool or video games and spend her money. It’s not how she imagined living with a boyfriend would be. Not at all.
‘Hello?’
She lumbers into the flat and slams her bag of shopping onto the kitchen worktop, now scratched and stained. The kitchen forms one corner of an open plan living area, and something in the room seems different. After staring for a few seconds, she realises what it is. The huge plasma screen has been taken off the wall, leaving behind ugly metal brackets and scuffed paintwork. The PlayStation and controllers are gone too.
