by Ruth Dugdall
“What happened to him, Katrina?” asked one of her friends.
The woman adjusted the Gucci sunglasses on her head. “A store detective found the man, before he got away. He was in the toilets, dying the boy’s blond hair brown.”
All the Russians began a shocked protest at the thought, and Cate tried to think about how many times she had heard this particular story. Why did no-one ever question the sense of taking time to dye hair instead of just scarpering? The mess alone made it unbelievable, but none of the women had cottoned on to the fact and it wasn’t Cate’s job to enlighten them.
Another woman leaned into the group and said confidentially, “My daughter said that this missing girl is playing Game of 72. It’s all over the Facebook, teenagers are signing up for it, agreeing to go missing for three days.”
“You need to tell the police about that,” Katrina said, and the whole group nodded collectively, enjoying the vicarious thrill of their conspiracy theories, their urban myths. If only Ellie’s disappearance was a myth. Over twenty-four hours, and still missing.
“Could she be with friends? Or family?” Cate asked Mary-Ann, knowing this was the most likely scenario. But Mary-Ann could only shrug helplessly.
“The Parents’ Association has called an emergency meeting, I should really go now or I’ll be late and Carol hates latecomers. We don’t know what to tell the other parents, we know so little ourselves, but we’re going to come up with a strategy. We’ll probably schedule a seminar on dealing with teenagers. Shall I put your name down?” she added, hopefully.
“Thanks, Mary-Ann. That would be great.”
Arriving back at the flat, Cate busied herself with loading the dishwasher, going room-to-room to straighten beds, folding towels. The activities, domestic and simple as they were, soothed her and she may have spent the whole day reorganising drawers if not for General’s insistent whining, reminding her that there was a routine that must be followed, unless she wanted to mop the floor too.
She took him to Merl park, a place where he was certain to meet many other dogs, usually smaller and wearing delicate rhinestone collars, as seemed to be the fashion in Luxembourg. “Don’t have your head turned, General,” Cate advised him, as he began to inspect the bottom of a handbag-sized dog with huge bulging eyes and thin shaking legs.
She knew that, back in England, her father’s trial would have started. She could imagine him officially entering his “not guilty” plea, and the prosecution calling the first witness, her sister. Poor Liz. Brave Liz, braver than Cate, who was a refugee in Luxembourg rather than witnessing the family tragedy being exposed before the eyes of twelve good men and women. She should have called, that morning. But what could she have said? “Good luck” seemed too flippant. There was no luck, no winning to be had. Whatever the outcome, the damage had been done. She resolved not to torture herself with thoughts of England, and instead wondered what it would be like to own a dog no heavier than a bag of sugar.
As someone who had always worked in an office, Cate was surprised at how quickly the time passed at home, how a load of washing, a trip to the shops, used up the time so she had to rush to collect Amelia from school.
She could have totally forgotten that anything was wrong, if not for a disturbing conversation with Amelia, just after they arrived back at the flat before the rain started coming down.
Amelia was seated at the long walnut table which was the pride of Olivier’s flat, strategically placed to give a view over the balcony and across to Merl park. General was standing at the patio window, maybe looking out for his tiny doggie friend, or watching the ducks fight for cover in their pond home, or the turtles hide under their shells as the rain dripped on their backs, but Amelia saw none of this. She was preoccupied with the school books open in front of her, the homework she had brought home.
“I can’t do it, Mum. There’s too much homework here. It wasn’t like this in England.”
Cate leaned over her daughter to see. The worksheet was in German, and required Amelia to name the animals.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I’m not going to be able to help with that. But Olivier will, he’s fluent.”
“But he’ll be back too late! This needs to be in tomorrow.”
Amelia folded her arms on the table and hid her head inside, then started to cry.
“Hey, stop.” Cate sat beside her, and coaxed Amelia’s head up. “You’re just feeling a bit overwhelmed, what with starting a new school in a new country. We’ve both had a lot of things to adapt to. But this is only homework, Amelia.”
“And I can’t do it.” She looked genuinely devastated that she couldn’t complete the work, though Cate suspected it was more to do with fitting in, to adjusting without her father and half-sister around. She hugged her daughter tight and looked down at the worksheet.
“Okay, let’s give it our best shot. Your teacher must have covered this in class today? She wouldn’t expect you to simply know the word for pig in German.”
“She started to,” sniffed Amelia, wiping her nose with her hand, “but then she asked us how we’d stop a stranger getting us in his car.”
“Hey?” Cate said, stroking her daughter’s hair. “What’s that got to do with German?”
Amelia sat up straight, her forehead wrinkled as she thought back to the lesson. “I know, it did get a bit odd. She started by checking that we all got collected after school, y’know by an adult. But some of the class walk home on their own so then she said what would we do, if a stranger said our mum was in hospital and we had to go with him. Then she started writing on the board, ideas like kicking and poking him in the eyes. I said I’d kick him between the legs. I saw that happen to Dad once when he was playing football and he was in agony.”
Cate touched her daughter’s chin, turning her face so she could see her worried expression. She felt a wave of anger at the German teacher, for causing this. “Listen, Amelia, this is important. It is very, very unlikely that anyone would ever approach you. But if it ever happened your best weapon is this mouth, okay? You scream and shout and you don’t stop. And then you run. Do you understand?”
Amelia nodded seriously. “I’m a fast runner,” she said.
“You are,” Cate agreed. “And you are also very excellent at shouting. But you shouldn’t be thinking about things like that. I’m going to call the school…”
Amelia looked up in panic. “No, Mum!”
“But Amelia…”
“Please!” Amelia looked close to tears.
“Look, it’s okay. You can listen. You’ll see that I don’t make a scene. I’ll be as nice as pie.”
Under Amelia’s tense gaze Cate bit her lip before she pressed the contacts icon on her phone and scrolled down to find the school’s number. When her call was answered she recognised the voice of her favourite security guard, the only one who felt permitted to smile.
“Good afternoon.”
“Hi, it’s Cate Austin, Amelia’s mum. I wonder if I could have a quick word with Madame Schroeder, please?”
Madame Schroeder may not have taught Amelia the German names of farm animals, but she had certainly been trying to teach her something.
After being asked to wait she was put on hold and had to endure the screech of a violin being played very badly. Hold music courtesy of the school orchestra. Nice touch, she thought. Amelia had abandoned the language homework and was now working on her art project. She had been asked to capture a moment from her summer holiday, and her drawing was of Felixstowe, smiling children playing on the beach. Her carefree picture hardly matched with the idea of children as vulnerable, needing to know about self-defence. She was still admiring Amelia’s drawing when a voice came on the line.
“Hello. You wanted me, Madame Austin?”
Though the teacher was abrupt, Cate decided to be gentle.
“Good afternoon, Madame. We’re new at the school, so my daughter is probably a little sensitive, but she didn’t seem to understand her homework. She’s a bit
upset.”
“No need to be.” Madame Schroeder sounded relieved that this was the reason for Cate’s call. “I can speak with Amelia at lunchtime tomorrow, and go through it again.”
Cate continued, more cautiously, “I wonder if I could ask you about something else? She said that during class you gave some instructions on self-defence. Is this something to do with the missing teenager?”
There was a silence, and Cate could hear the teacher’s rapid breathing.
“I am sorry, but your daughter misunderstood. I was speaking in German, so maybe it was not clear to her, but I was simply giving the word for hands, legs, kicking, pushing. That is all.”
Cate looked at her daughter, thought back to how much detail Amelia had just given her, and knew the teacher was lying. “Please, Madame Schroeder, I’m not criticising you. In fact I think it’s a useful topic for all the kids to learn. I used to work in a prison, and we all had to take a course on personal safety.”
Now Madame Schroeder sounded surprised, but also very interested. “You are a prison officer?”
“Probation. But I resigned to move here. If it would be useful in any way I’d be happy to share what I learned about self-defence.”
“Thank you, Madame Austin. I’ll bear that in mind.” Madame Schroeder had softened, there was an expectant pause as if she was about to ask Cate something else.
Cate seized the moment to say what she really wanted the teacher to understand. “If there is something to be aware of, something that’s happening in Luxembourg, I’d rather know.”
Now there was only silence. Cate felt herself defeated.
“I am sorry, Madame Austin, but I do not know how to answer you. And now I have some work that must be done, for classes tomorrow.”
With that, and saying a brief goodbye, she ended the call.
Cate had gone as far as she could.
That evening, Olivier, rather unusually, arrived home at five o’clock. Amelia was still working on her drawing and Cate had not even begun to think of what to cook for tea.
“No more homework for you tonight! I thought we’d go to Schueberfouer,” he said to Amelia, making the trip a fait accompli. “Tonight is the family event, so everything’s half price, which means we can go on double the rides! We can eat there too.”
Amelia dropped her pencil like it was a stone, her concerns about German homework long forgotten.
They managed to get close to the Glacis, parking the car and walking for just a few minutes until they were next to the ferris wheel, the focal point of the fair and their first destination. Olivier wanted to ride, but Amelia pulled a face and said, “But I went on that already, with Gaynor and Mum. I’d like to try something else.”
The trio walked around, Amelia leading the way, deciding what to ride next. She stopped at the water ride, so abruptly that Cate walked into her back. They both looked up at the long stretch of water climbing upwards then becoming a downward waterfall, all to be travelled in a circular boat.
“Can we go on that?”
Cate looked to where large round dinghies were being pulled up a waterslide, then sent spinning down in a tumble of splash and rapids, and saw that everyone who left the ride was drenched. She was wearing a new summer dress in pastel blue, her first Luxembourg purchase after she’d noticed that women here never wore jeans. Or, God forbid, trainers.
“Okay, but let’s make sure we put on the rain macs.”
The rain macs didn’t help, being thin as a plastic bag and already soaked by many customers, but Amelia tugged one over her head without complaint, laughing as Olivier put a red one on.
“Like superman, n’est-ce pas?”
“Oui.” Agreed Cate.
Amelia waited in line, hopping from foot to foot with growing excitement as they drew nearer to the front.
“See?” Olivier said smugly, taking Cate’s hand. “In Luxembourg we know how to do fairgrounds. Better than your mini-golf or fake ski slope.” He winked at her, referring to the destinations of their first dates, though she thought all of these type of things were much of a muchness, apart from the grandeur of the big wheel which couldn’t be eclipsed by any fairground ride she’d seen before.
The fair was filled with younger children and parents indulging them at a reduced rate. Cate saw the familiar slow walk of mothers carefully pushing prams over rough terrain, boys weighing-up the potential prizes of hook a duck over the rifle range. It was comfortingly familiar, the universal appeal of plastic toys that weren’t worth the price of the game, the stalls of fudge and hot roasted nuts, the irresistible appetite for sticky and sweet and fast. Olivier was right, it was a cut above Felixstowe seafront or any of the other local attractions from her home, yet it made Cate ache in the pit of her stomach, just once, hard and fast. And then she thought about everything else that England meant for her and pushed the thought away.
“Shall we get something to drink?” asked Olivier. “What about you, Amelia?”
In the drinks department too Luxembourg was a cut above, with a white marquee giving views of the fair, seats around tables with potted flowers on them. Amelia ordered “kids’ champagne” then looked disappointed that it was only fizzy orange. Olivier ordered Cate a glass of Crémant, and himself a beer then turned to Amelia.
“What about a barbapapa, after we’ve finished our drinks? To make up for the orange champagne.”
Cate leaned onto her daughter’s shoulder and whispered, “He means candy floss,” and Amelia’s eyes immediately lit up. “Though it’s not exactly what I’d call a nutritious meal.”
“Yes, please!” Then, to Olivier. “Merci.”
“She’s getting the hang of it,” Olivier said to Cate. “Soon no-one will know you’re not native.”
Cate smiled and sipped the Crémant, as once again, Olivier studied the screen of his phone.
“Your phone hasn’t stopped beeping since we got here. Anything wrong?”
He put it carefully back in his pocket, took her hand, kissed it and said, “Remember when we first met, Cate? I said that when we are together it must not be about work. It is only me and you.”
Not quite true, though, Cate thought to herself. Not when the calls keep coming and you absent yourself from us to take them, then refuse to talk about it.
Amelia was twisted in her seat, admiring the little wooden huts that served food, having already worked out which one served the most generous portion of spun sugar.
Olivier took another call, this time leaving the table and walking a short distance apart. Cate wouldn’t say anything; Olivier had given them this, a space that felt like a holiday, a chance to travel. If he took work calls throughout the evenings and weekends that was something Cate would have to learn to accept.
So far, it was the weekdays that had been the biggest adjustment. After she had dropped Amelia at school the day yawned ahead of her, and that accounted for her pathetic offer earlier to Madame Schroeder, to help teach self-defence. As if she could teach. In fact, she thought, the alcohol making her maudlin, what am I good for? She’d never learned to cook properly, and had no interest in traipsing around supermarkets or local markets squeezing fruit. She certainly wasn’t up to being a trophy wife, running from the gym to the beauty salon to be botoxed or waxed, and anyway, her savings didn’t stretch that far, much less her tolerance for pain.
When Olivier returned to the table she had given up on her resolve to bite her tongue.
“Whatever’s going on at work, Olivier, you can tell me. It’s not as if I’m going to breach any confidentiality, I hardly know anyone here. And I might actually be able to help.”
Olivier gave her a warning look, assisted Amelia down from where she was perched on a bar stool and manoeuvred her to the sweet stalls. As Amelia ordered her candy floss Cate asked him, “Are the calls about Ellie Scheen? She’s still missing, isn’t she?”
“Between us, Cate, this is just a simple case of a teenage runaway. She’ll turn up, like she did before. Teenagers a
re rebellious, we know this. And for Ellie it is not the first time, plus she was last seen talking to a boy. I think we know this story, very well. But her father has given a statement, and he is a very persistent man, so until she decides to come home, Ellie is a missing person. We have to go through the motions.”
A thought occurred to Cate. “Is that why we’re here at the fair? Is this you ‘going through the motions’ of investigating it?”
“Partly. I wanted to see Amelia experience something I’ve enjoyed since I was a boy. But also I wanted to get a little sense of this place.”
“In case Ellie is still here?”
“In case she needs a little persuasion to go back home.” No more was said and Cate tried to enjoy their time at fair, a family picture that she had never really experienced before. Tim had left when Amelia was just a toddler, and though Amelia had been on many outings with Tim and Sally, when she was with Cate it had only ever been just the two of them. The new family trio walked tentatively through the mirror maze, knocking into glass and each other as they felt their way to the exit. They got giddy on the waltzers, though Cate couldn’t relax when she saw how the lecherous ride worker ogled all the females as they bent to climb into the circular cab, even looking at Amelia’s bottom in her tight leggings, though she was only twelve. Cate gave him a hard stare, which he returned, knowing but not caring that he had been caught.
If Olivier saw the leery man he said nothing, but focused on turning the cab as fast as possible until Amelia was laughing hysterically at the manic spin of the ride.
It was only later, back at home, that Cate began to think of Bridget. As she readied herself for bed she reflected that Ellie had now been missing for forty-eight hours, which seemed rather long for a show of teenage rebellion.
Amina
Uncle Jak took Auntie to one side, into the dimly lit hallway and away from the four teenagers. After speaking with her in a low voice he handed her a roll of money, kissed her on the cheek, and left, taking Reza and Safiyya with him. Amina was pleased to see him go, glad to be in the company of only females, though sorry to be saying goodbye to her friends so suddenly. Then Auntie looked them over, Amina and Jodie stood close together, each clutching their bag of belongings. Auntie swiped a hand down Jodie’s body and said, “Very fine. A pretty girl.” In the same way Omi might have appraised a goat or her father would announce a good crop of grapes from the vineyard.
