Stolen

by Lesley Pearse

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lotte was awake at dawn. The window in the cell was frosted glass, and even if it had been clear she couldn’t have seen out of it because it was too high up on the wall, but she lay on the narrow hard bunk looking at it and observed daylight gradually brightening it.

  It reminded her of the window in the basement, and it seemed to her that although she had viewed that room as a prison, the real thing was a great deal worse. She’d had a shower there, but there were no such luxuries in a police station. She supposed there might be a sink with hot water further down the corridor which they’d let her use for a wash, but she doubted she’d get any privacy.

  All night long there had been noise from the other cells. A couple of drunks were singing and shouting, and another rough male voice with a Liverpool accent kept shouting for them to shut up. She guessed it would be noisy in Holloway too. She was so scared she felt sick.

  ‘Ready, Lotte?’ The fresh-faced WPC who had brought her breakfast earlier and let her use the sink at the end of the corridor to wash her face and clean her teeth, was now ready to take her upstairs to the van which would take her to the court.

  This same WPC had brought her a bar of chocolate late last night, perhaps because she’d noted Lotte hadn’t eaten the cheese sandwich she’d been given. That little kindness had meant a lot.

  ‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ Lotte replied, her voice cracking because she was so afraid. Simon must have borrowed the navy and white pin-striped trouser suit she was wearing from one of the girls at the salon. It fitted as if it had been made for her, and she was very grateful to the owner for she had had very few clothes back at his flat and nothing suitable for a court appearance. Luckily she’d only recently washed her hair, so it looked OK, and on the WPC’s advice she left it loose. Her hands were shaking so badly she hadn’t put on much makeup, just some mascara, blusher and lipstick.

  ‘You look really nice,’ the WPC said, putting her hand on Lotte’s arm. ‘We’ll all be thinking about you today. All of us feel for you.’

  Lotte tried to smile and thank the woman, but the little kindness made the tears well up and she knew if she started to cry she would never stop.

  The cell at the police station was swapped for another under the court. But this time the door was just bars, so she could see people coming and going. She was the only female prisoner as far as she could tell, and although some of the men called out to her and asked what she was in for, she didn’t reply.

  She had been there nearly two hours, her heart thumping and her palms sticky with nervousness, when at eleven, a court official came and unlocked the door and led her up a different staircase to the one she’d come in by. As she got to the top she found herself in the courtroom and was asked to sit in the dock.

  There were perhaps twenty people already there in the court. Mr Harding, her solicitor, was talking animatedly to DI Bryan. Both men glanced round and on seeing her, smiled, but then continued their conversation, which she found unnerving.

  Simon, Adam, David and Scott were all sitting together. Their smiles and little waves and gestures of solidarity were all stiff, as if they were struggling to hold their emotions in check. She thought that the row of rather untidy-looking people by the door must be press, because they looked as though they were on a mission and all seemed to know one another. There were a few other older people too, some of whom she recognized as neighbours of her parents, but her mother and father hadn’t come.

  Lotte wasn’t sure whether she was disappointed by that, or relieved, but all at once the Clerk of the Court was asking everyone to rise for the magistrate.

  Mr Harding had explained that this court appearance would be a very brief one, where he would tell the magistrate the general details about her alleged crime and personal circumstances, and would then ask for bail. He’d already explained to Lotte how unlikely it was that the magistrate would agree to that, and she assumed that meant that within about ten minutes she’d be back in the cell beneath the courts, waiting for the transport which would take her to Holloway Prison to be remanded in custody.

  As Lotte had never been in a court before, she had no real idea what to expect, but she had thought it would all be very formal and serious, especially as she was charged with murder. But Bryan and the solicitor were smiling, and when Bryan went forward to speak to the magistrate, she saw David and Simon look round at her with puzzled expressions.

  The conversation between the Detective Inspector and the magistrate seemed to go on and on. All around the courtroom people began talking to one another in whispers. Lotte didn’t know whether this sort of thing happened often in courts, but it seemed very strange and disorganized.

  All at once the magistrate banged his gavel on his desk for silence. He looked directly at Lotte.

  ‘It has been decided, Miss Wainwright, that there are no charges for you to answer today, or in the future. You may leave the court.’

  Lotte was so stunned she didn’t attempt to move. She opened her mouth to ask why, but the magistrate had already got up and was leaving. She heard someone give a whoop of joy, and although she wasn’t sure who it was, she thought it must be David.

  Mr Harding came over to her, his smile so wide it almost reached either ear. ‘It’s all over for you,’ he said. ‘Come on, you can leave. Ramsden made a full confession.’

  ‘Why? How? I mean, confession to what? I stabbed Fern,’ she stuttered out, her words falling over one another.

  ‘You might have stabbed her, but you didn’t kill her,’ he said, taking her hand and squeezing it between both of his. ‘Ramsden stabbed her after you.’

  They were asked to clear the courtroom then and Lotte walked out with Mr Harding still explaining how it all came about.

  DI Bryan was waiting outside the court. Like Harding, he had a wide, wide smile.

  ‘This is the man you have to thank for it all,’ Harding said. ‘I doubt he’ll admit it, Lotte, but he’s gone more than the extra mile for you. I’d say he ran a marathon.’

  ‘You go home and try to forget any of this ever happened.’ Bryan stepped forward to hug her and kiss her cheek. ‘I’ll come round in a day or two to tie up any loose ends and answer any questions you may have. But all charges against you have been dropped. You are completely free.’

  *

  It was more than an hour before Lotte could really take in exactly what had happened. She had been so terrified, and so sure she was going to prison, that to be told it was all over and she was free, seemed like a bad joke. She was sure someone would come along and say they’d got it wrong and she would be arrested again.

  She and the boys, who were just as confused as she was, had let Mr Harding lead them into a café for some coffee. There the solicitor explained about Fern’s body being washed up, the results of the autopsy, and how Bryan had gone to Ramsden’s hospital bed and wrung a full confession out of him.

  ‘He smothered my baby?’ Lotte said in horror. That seemed a million times worse than everything that had been done to her, or Howard stabbing Fern.

  Harding nodded and patted her hand in sympathy. ‘You could sue Ramsden for compensation for what he did to you,’ he said. ‘My practice could handle that for you. I doubt whether you’ll ever feel money will give you back what he took from you, but he is a wealthy man and it would enable you to open your own hairdressing salon or buy a nice house.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

  Scott mentioned telephoning Dale, who hadn’t been too well since getting home with her parents; her mother felt it was delayed shock. Because of this Scott had decided not to tell her Lotte had been arrested, as it might only have made her worse. ‘But now I’ve got some good news, I really want to speak to her,’ he said. ‘I’d better find out when she’s coming back to work. Marisa has been making some very pointed remarks.’

  Mr Harding said he had to go then, and Scott, Simon and Adam all agreed they had to get back to work too, but suggested they he
ld a small celebratory party at the flat tonight. ‘David will look after you today,’ Simon said, grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Where to?’ David asked when all the others had dispersed. ‘I bet you didn’t sleep at all last night. Would you like to go home and have a sleep now?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ she laughed. ‘I want to be out in the sunshine, I’ve spent too long in the past year inside and sleeping. And I’m starving!’

  ‘So how about I take you to lunch somewhere where we can sit outside?’ he suggested.

  ‘That sounds wonderful,’ Lotte said. ‘But can I go home and change first? This suit is a bit formal and too warm.’

  He explained that he’d stayed in her room the previous night and he’d left jeans and a casual jacket there. ‘I hope I don’t seem like I’m pushing things,’ he said as they walked towards the flat. ‘I mean, staying in your bed, leaving stuff there, even being the one left with you today. I didn’t ask the guys to disappear. They just did that.’

  Lotte glanced sideways at him, amused by the anxiety in his voice. She guessed that Simon had engineered the others to say they had to go, because he knew she would like to be alone with David.

  ‘I don’t think anything like that,’ she said quite truthfully. ‘And after all you did for Dale and me while we were locked up, you are welcome to sleep in my bed.’

  ‘With you in it too?’ he said with a boyish grin.

  ‘That’s the only bit which is scary,’ she admitted, dropping her eyes from his. ‘I mean, embarking on something like that after everything that’s happened.’

  He just took her hand and held it, not saying a word, and she knew he understood.

  As they got into Meeting House Lane, Lotte saw her father standing there, looking up at the flat. At the sound of their footsteps he turned and saw them. He looked worried and embarrassed.

  ‘I got to the court late because I couldn’t find a parking space,’ he said. ‘I was told what had happened and I’m so relieved and glad for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Dad.’ She gave him a tight little smile.

  ‘Are you going to ask me in?’

  Lotte looked at him hard for a few moments without replying. She had always cast her mother as the hard, cruel one, and believed her father was a good, kind man who was bullied too. But if she’d learned just one thing from everything that had happened to her, it was that you couldn’t call yourself an adult until you’d learned to stand up for yourself and never blame other people for your own mistakes.

  ‘No, I’m not going to ask you in, Dad,’ she said. ‘You’ve been too late all my life.’

  ‘But I couldn’t help not finding a parking space.’

  Lotte shrugged. ‘You could have walked or taken the bus; you could have left home earlier.’

  ‘I was trying to make amends,’ he said, a whine in his voice.

  ‘How does being late make amends? If I’d been sent to prison I wouldn’t have seen you. It’s just like all the other times when you should’ve been there to defend me, but you let me down. At least Mum is consistent. She doesn’t even pretend to care.’

  ‘She would’ve come, she’s got one of her heads,’ he said.

  Lotte gave a wry smile. ‘Oh yes, the famous heads that stopped her doing anything connected with me, like parents’ evening, sports day or prize-giving.’

  ‘You’ve grown very hard,’ he said, his voice shaking.

  ‘You and Mum can take all the credit for that,’ Lotte said, and she walked on then, up the spiral staircase, without looking back.

  Ted looked at David, who was still standing there because he couldn’t bring himself to leave the older man like that. ‘Well, that’s a fine turnout! I took the morning off work to go to court for her.’

  ‘You weren’t there all those other times when she needed you,’ David said, a little embarrassed to be put on the spot. ‘You should be proud she learned to manage so well without you.’

  The older man’s eyes were swimming, and David felt a pang of sympathy for him. But he felt far more for Lotte because she deserved better parents. He turned away and went up the stairs, leaving Ted Wainwright standing there.

  David took Lotte to a pub he knew on the bank of the river at Arundel.

  They’d had fish and chips, and sticky toffee pudding, and now they were sitting back in their seats enjoying the sun and the scenery. Lotte said she couldn’t think of a better view, with Arundel Castle as a grey and rather forbidding backdrop, the many trees, and the swans gliding by on the river which meandered through lush meadows full of fluffy white meadowsweet and buttercups.

  ‘So what now?’ David asked.

  ‘Do you mean “what now”, as in “right now”? Or did you mean what do I do now for a job, or, with the rest of my life?’

  ‘I’d like to know about both when you are ready.’ David reached across the table and took her hand. ‘But I didn’t mean you to think about a job or the rest of your life right now. I just want you to have a lovely day, doing whatever you like. To me it’s wonderful just to have you with me.’

  She patted his cheek as if amused by that. ‘It all feels a bit surreal,’ she admitted. ‘I’m going to need time to work out who I am now. How did I get savage enough to stick a knife in anyone? Or be that cruel to my dad this morning?’

  ‘I guess no one knows what they are capable of until they are tested,’ he said thoughtfully, kissing the tips of her fingers. ‘In my opinion the things that you’ve done were the right reactions to exceptional circumstances; you found hidden strengths when you needed to. But your basic nature hasn’t changed. As for your dad, I think that was long overdue. If you’d invited him in and given him tea nothing would change. He’d creep round to see you sometimes on his own, and never give your mum a bollocking for being such a lousy mother. Maybe he’ll do that now.’

  ‘Pigs might fly,’ Lotte said gloomily, then laughed. ‘Let’s go to West Wittering and paddle in the sea.’

  An hour later as they walked hand in hand in the sea carrying their shoes, Lotte felt as if the past was fading away. They had both rolled their jeans up to their knees, and the sensation of the cold water and sand squiggling up between her toes was a good one. She had put on a skimpy little turquoise camisole top, and the sun was hot on the back of her neck and the tops of her arms, but she didn’t care if she was burning. It was so good to be outside, to feel all this space around her.

  She’d walked on this beach with Fern and Howard last December, a raw, bitterly cold day when not even dog walkers were about. But oddly, the thought of them and what they did to her couldn’t impinge on today and spoil it.

  David was telling her about his seven brothers and sisters, and how their parents ran a very successful fish and chip shop in Weston-Super-Mare. He spoke of them all with such affection and humour that Lotte wanted to meet them, but she wondered what he would tell them about her. That reminded her that he didn’t actually know her entire story, just as Adam, Simon and Scott didn’t either. All they’d had so far in the days since she’d left hospital was edited highlights.

  ‘There’s an awful lot more I’ve got to tell you, David,’ she said a little later as they walked back to his car. ‘And until I do it’s going to be hanging between us like dirty washing.’

  He didn’t answer, just walked to his car, unlocked it and then came round to open the passenger door for her.

  ‘Sit on the seat and let me clean the sand off your feet,’ he said. He opened the boot of the car and got out a big bottle of water and an old towel. ‘My mum always did this when we were small,’ he said as he poured water over her feet and then dried them.

  There was something about him washing sand off her feet which suddenly made her cry, and all at once it was as if the floodgates had opened.

  ‘Oh, Lotte!’ he said, kneeling down outside the car and trying to comfort her. ‘Was it because I didn’t respond to you saying you wanted to tell me everything? I only didn’t answer because I couldn’t think of the
right thing to say.’

  ‘It isn’t that,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s you washing my feet. It was so thoughtful and lovely.’

  He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up, mopping away the tears with the towel. ‘Your feet were burned a little while ago. I didn’t want the sand to make them sore again.’

  Lotte’s tears turned to a strangled giggle. ‘I thought the Ramsdens had stolen everything from me, but now you’re stealing my heart.’

  David sat back on his haunches by the car and laughed. ‘You stole mine the day I found you on the beach,’ he said. ‘Only we men are slow and I didn’t realize it was missing for a while.’

  Lotte smiled and reached out to caress his cheek. ‘You, David Mitchell, are gorgeous.’

  ‘And so are you, Lotte Wainwright,’ he said, leaning forward to kiss her.

  It wasn’t just a casual kiss, even though he was kneeling in a car park and she was sitting in the car. It had the sweetness of an exploratory first kiss, but with undertones of passion and the desire to possess. Lotte lost herself in it, savouring the sensuality of his lips and tongue and not wanting it to end.

  David broke away first, nuzzling his nose gently against her. ‘We’d better get back now,’ he said with a sigh. ‘You can’t have a party to celebrate you being free if you don’t show up.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ Simon called out from the hall. ‘Come and see, Lotte!’

  It was just after nine and most of their friends and all the staff from Kutz were already in the flat.

  Lotte had had a bath earlier, washed her hair and put on a pink sequined top and white jeans. She was a bit burnt on her neck and arms, but her face had a becoming pink glow. When Simon called out she went into the hall, expecting it was someone who used to work in Kutz when she was there.