Torn in Two

by J. D. Weston

  “That’s what I thought.” Frankie turned to begin packing Jake’s things away. “I wish you could see that all I’m trying to do is build something for Jake. Build us a new life. Working security or some labouring job isn't going to give us that. It’s not what I'm good at and it’s not going to pay for us to have a future.”

  “And you think finding people will?”

  “It’s kept us going this far.”

  “With our support.”

  “Which is running thin,” countered Frankie. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should just get a regular job. If I did that, would you reconsider the custody thing?”

  “No.” Mary’s voice cut like ice, cold and bitter, but weak with the emotions of the day. “You’ve had long enough to get on your feet and-”

  “Yes, we would.” Tom eyed his wife. It wasn't often that Tom spoke above Mary, but when he did, she had the sense to shut up and listen. “If you're serious about this, we’re behind you. We won’t retract the custody file. But we’ll add a stipulation that you’re financially secure.”

  “Tom, this isn’t a job I can put on a CV. Nobody can know about it.”

  “It doesn't have to mention the job, Frankie.” Tom held his hands up to stop any obtrusive comments. “I’m sure we can word something to the right effect. Can’t we, Mary?”

  But Mary was silent. She stared through to Jake who by now was climbing down from his chair.

  “Make it work, Frankie.” Tom followed his wife’s gaze. “For both of your sakes.”

  The two men exchanged looks. Frankie zipped Jake’s video console into the little backpack and stood.

  “I do have a condition.”

  The comment raised an animated eyebrow on Tom’s weathered face. “Are you in a position to be giving us conditions? All things considered?”

  “My condition is this. I’ll do it. I’ll make it work. I’m certain I can. You don't have to retract the custody case and you can add in the stipulations. Hell, I’ll even sign it. But I’ll only do this if I have your blessing. Both your blessings.” He turned his gaze to Mary until she looked up at him through bloodshot eyes.

  “Do you think you can find her?” she asked.

  “That’s what I do.”

  “And do you really think this is a career that will last? It’s not just a phase?”

  “If it’s a phase, it’s a phase I've been doing since I was kicked out of the military.”

  “And you really do help people? It’s not illegal?”

  “Sometimes I cross lines, blurred lines. But usually, it’s for the greater good. Morality carries me there and back, Mary.”

  She glanced across at her husband for support but found only a willing for her to give in.

  “You have to understand, Frankie. All I want is for Jake to be happy. I want him to have a normal childhood. I don't want us to argue. I don't want him to miss out on having a dad. But he needs stability. He needs a roof over his head at the very least, and right now, you don't even know where the next mortgage payment is coming from.”

  “That’s all I want too, Mary. I need you guys on my side. Jake needs us all. And you know what? If it turns out that him being with you full time is better for him then I’ll sign the custody forms. But I’m positive I can make this work.”

  A short silence allowed Mary time to voice the words that Tom would have said.

  “Okay, so what are you suggesting?”

  The last word was always going to lie with Mary. Knowing when to quit was a skill Frankie had developed shortly after meeting her. Jake’s heavy footsteps broke the silence.

  “I’m asking for a chance to prove I can be a father. A chance to show I have a heart.”

  Nobody replied. Frankie stared between them, Mary looking at Tom and Tom searching for sincerity in Frankie’s eyes.

  “What are you talking about?” Jake stood between the three adults, staring up with childlike confidence. “Are we going now?”

  “We’re going to have to postpone the trip, Jake.” Frankie crouched to meet his son eye to eye. “Something came up. Something very important.” But even as Frankie spoke the words, he could see the disappointment creep onto the boy’s face. “I’ll make it up to you, Jake. I promise.”

  “You said we were going to the history museum and then football.”

  “I know I did. But, Jake, this is important.”

  “I’ve been waiting to see you all week. You didn't even give me a chance to show you what I can do on my game.”

  “Oh, Jake. Why don’t you show me now?”

  “You’ve packed it all away.” The spite from the boy’s voice diminished, marking the beginning of an emotional meltdown.

  “I have to go and work. I have to do something that will mean you can come home with me. This is hard for me too, you know?”

  “No, it’s not. You just go where you want and don't care if you see me or not.”

  “Oh, come on, that’s not fair.”

  “It’s true.” Jake stepped back and the tirade began to find its flow. “All you do is go off without telling me where. Other boys know what their dads do. Other boys go to the park with their dads. All I get is an hour sometimes. It’s not fair, Dad. It’s not fair.”

  “Jake, it won’t be forever.”

  “I don’t care anymore.” Running to the stairs, Jake’s whining voice faded and the tears came.

  “Jake, come back.”

  Feet stomped above Frankie on the landing.

  “Jake?”

  The bedroom door slammed, leaving Frankie leaning on the staircase. His fingers gripped the carpet as he tried to control his breathing. Sensing rather than hearing Tom behind him, Frankie opened his eyes and felt his father-in-law’s hand on his shoulder.

  “I’ll talk to him. He just needs a while to calm down.”

  Frankie shook his head. “You’re right. You’re both right. I’m terrible at this.”

  “No one said being a parent is easy, Frankie. You lost your wife but you can get through this. If anyone is strong enough, it’s you.”

  “I keep telling myself that, Tom.” Turning to face his father-in-law, Frankie searched for some kind of answer in his eyes. “I keep telling myself that when Jake is older, he’ll appreciate how hard all of this is. He might cut me some slack, you know, maybe even learn from it. But deep down, I know that he just sees me going off for days at a time and when I come back, the cycle starts over. I can’t go, Tom. Not now.”

  “Listen to me, Frankie. An hour ago, I would have agreed with you, when I thought you were just doing some security job looking after some rich guy. But, Frankie, if the life of that little girl depends on you. If there’s a chance, no matter how small that you can find her. If you are the difference between the Fletchers ever seeing their daughter again or living the rest of their lives wallowing in regret and doubt without even the grace of closure to ease their troubled minds. Then you have to go. You have to do everything you can. You have to lift every stone, follow every lead, and make it happen. Because, like it or not, Frankie, you may have a son who’s upset, confused, and right now doesn't know his father, but you have a son, and he’ll come around. But the Fletchers? Right now, they’re staring at an empty bed where their daughter should be in a foreign country with no one else to turn to.”

  The older man finished his speech with a squeeze of Frankie’s shoulder, a solemn look in his eye, and a nod of approval.

  “Do this, Frankie, and I’m certain we can work things out here. I don’t see you have much of an option now. Prove to us that what you do makes a difference and perhaps Mary will come around. But stay, and the Fletchers will stand no chance at all.” Tom spoke with the wisdom of the experienced and the heart of a father. “What kind of father would that make you? I’ll leave you to think about that.”

  He let his hand slip from Frankie’s shoulder and stepped into the lounge, leaving Frankie standing at the bottom of the stairs. He peered up, a small part of him praying that Jake had hea
rd the conversation, and somehow, in his child’s mind, saw some kind of honour in what Frankie was doing. But the reality was that Jake would be lying in his bed crying into his pillow. It was an image Frankie hated to be the cause of.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket, found the recent call history, and with a final glance up the stairs, he hit the green button.

  “Mr Black,” said the man Frankie had visualised an hour before. The image returned with improved clarity. “Are you calling with good news?”

  The tone was almost bitter as if Mr Saint begrudged Frankie’s refusal.

  Frankie drew a breath.

  “One hundred thousand euros.”

  Chapter Nine

  Warm air greeted Frankie as he stepped from Athens airport arrivals, where he nodded at a man holding a piece of paper with the name Mr Black printed in bold letters.

  The man was slight and wore a cheap suit that appeared as though it had been worn for at least three consecutive days, being thrown over the back of a chair each night as opposed to being hung on a hanger in a wardrobe. The smoke from the man’s cigarette blew across Frankie’s face as he stepped off the path onto the road and unlocked a nearly new, black Peugeot.

  Retrieving an envelope from the inside pocket of his sports jacket, Frankie counted out seven hundred euros and handed it to the man.

  “There’s an extra hundred there. If anybody asks you, we never met.”

  “As you wish, Mr Black.” With delight on his face, the man counted the notes then hid them inside his grubby suit jacket.

  The map application on Frankie’s smart phone found the resort without delay. He donned his sunglasses, cracked the window, and pulled out of the short-term parking bay leaving the unkempt man behind.

  Beyond the airport security, the road widened to a dual carriageway with tree-lined hills on either side. The dry and rocky terrain was the essence of Mediterranean countries, its hardy wildlife and vegetation almost synonymous with the laid-back lifestyle for which the environment catered. Life in the region was hard but the sun and the sea off-set any hardship to those who sought peace and quiet over financial gain.

  He settled in for the thirty minute drive, keeping the radio off, tuning himself into the environment, and going over the details he had read in the newspaper and noted down in his notepad. Moving across to the lane designated for slower vehicles, Frankie retrieved his notepad and used the bullet points as food for thought. It had been four days since the girl was declared missing. During that time, both parents had been under severe investigation. Neither had made any mistakes during the questioning. From what Frankie had been able to surmise from the newspapers, their stories measured up. However, he knew that his own line of questioning would either prove or disprove this theory.

  The police had conducted searches of a local resort situated close to the villa the family had rented, as well as the villa itself. They had found no sign of struggle and no forced entry.

  Emma Fletcher had last been seen in the villa going to bed after a day on the beach with her mother.

  The mother had arranged to go out with friends and the father had stayed at home to keep an eye on their daughter.

  The map indicated he should come off the main mountain road at the next junction, so Frankie put his notepad down on the passenger seat and focused on driving. There were a few motorcycles on the road and small scooters driving below the speed limit, an early indication of the pace of life in Varkiza. The riders wore shorts in place of leathers and no helmets. Frankie was adjusting.

  Although the map guided Frankie to the exact road of the Fletchers’ villa, he needed no guidance to the villa itself. Outside the house, a line of reporters had developed a small roadside camp while waiting for the parents to show their faces. No doubt, they would chase them down the street as Frankie had seen them do to celebrities. He pulled to the side of the road and killed the engine. With one arm on the open window, he watched with amusement as an old friend dressed in a fine, royal blue skirt suit loitered with her small camera crew.

  Finding her name in the contacts on his phone, his finger hovered over the green icon, but he caught himself before hitting the dial button. He would play that card later. Perhaps over drinks or dinner.

  The Fletchers’ villa was much like the others on the narrow street. The roof was terracotta, the walls were whitewashed, and each of the upstairs bedrooms had a small, private balcony. Each of the windows had the blinds pulled down, or the drapes drawn, which Frankie put down to the Fletchers being sick of the obtrusive press outside.

  Without drawing attention to himself, he reversed the car away from the media party and made his way into the adjacent street. The roof of the Fletcher house was recognisable from between two houses.

  In three moves, Frankie was over the wall and into the Fletchers’ property. He landed on the grass in a crouch, checked his surroundings, then stood and walked to the rear patio doors. Another search behind him confirmed that no neighbouring houses overlooked the garden. With his ear to the door, he confirmed that nobody was in the kitchen.

  He tried the handle.

  The door shifted just enough to let him know it was unlocked and to offer sounds from inside.

  There were three voices coming from a distant room. The conversation was heated but muffled by the thick walls that were designed to keep the house cool in the heat of the summer.

  Frankie slid the door open, stepped inside, and closed it behind him, then took in the layout of the room. The dining table was in front of the patio doors. On it was a map, newspapers, printed photos, and three piles of paperwork. On the map, circles had been drawn around areas with the markers that were collected in a neat pile at one end of the table beside a box of tissues.

  At the other end of the table were two half-empty bottles of water and two glasses, one of which had a slice of lemon at the bottom and lipstick on the rim, and had been placed on a coaster. The other had also been used judging by the smear marks on the surface, but it bore no lipstick, had no slice of lemon, and had not been placed on a coaster. It sat in a collection of small ring marks on the polished wood beside a pile of newspapers. Frankie flicked through the pile while maintaining an audible check on the occupants in the next room.

  Among the local newspapers, which were in Greek, were two copies of the Daily Mail, a Telegraph, and a copy of the Racing Post. All were English newspapers and easily attainable in European resorts for those individuals that didn’t mind reading the news a day later than it had been reported.

  In the Fletchers’ circumstances, Frankie understood that they would be reaching out for any news possible and one-day-old papers wouldn't be the worst thing they could read. The British public had been on their side when Frankie had seen Penelope Pike giving her report on Tom and Mary’s TV. That would have been encouraging for the Fletchers. A guide to how they were being portrayed by the British press wouldn’t hurt morale.

  “Can I help you?” said a voice from behind Frankie. Its tone was angry, but even amidst the emotion, it retained its gravel sound, deep tone, and the hint of an accent. “What do you think you’re doing in here? How did you get in?”

  Frankie smiled. He turned to find a large man, well-tanned in a light grey suit. His bald head sat atop an angry face, and his open-collared white shirt offered a glimpse of a thick belcher chain. He clenched his fat fingers into fists and stepped into the room.

  “Do you speak?”

  His appearance matched neither that of Mr or Mrs Fletcher, but it did match the image Frankie had envisaged almost exactly, save for the open-collared white shirt. A detail Frankie was sure he would not miss next time.

  “You must be Mr Saint,” said Frankie, matter of fact, as he offered his hand for the man to shake. “I’m Frankie. Frankie Black.”

  Chapter Ten

  The overhead lights, which the lady instructed the man to turn on, ceased to flicker and cast an ugly light into Emma’s room. Even with her limited experience in makeup, Emma kn
ew that it would create shadows beneath her eyes and chin. But the lady appeared used to the poor conditions.

  “It’s not perfect but it will do.” Her voice was soft once more, and her accent romanticised the English language.

  In preparation, she opened the lid to the makeup box then moved to the mirror that leaned against the wall.

  “But before we start, I want you to do something for me. Something very important.”

  “What?” Remembering to maintain her ladylike posture, Emma still could not hide her hesitance. Fear still gripped her. Doubt clouded her mind. And somewhere in the far corners of her thoughts, the death of her parents hung like a weight.

  The lady replied with a smile at first. It was warm, friendly, and came with a secretive glance into the corridor as if they were the only women left on earth.

  “I want you to think about the girl who only this morning lost her parents.”

  Emma shrank into her chair.

  “I want you to picture her. Crying. Feeling sorry for herself. I want you to picture her curled into the corner there wrapped in that disgusting blanket. A victim, Emma.”

  The tears began to well up in Emma’s eyes. Her throat swelled as the first taste of phlegm found its way to her mouth.

  “Just a weak little girl who would not survive in the big bad world, Emma. The type of girl who would run and hide at the slightest of trouble. The world eats people like her for breakfast, Emma, and spits out the bones.”

  It was too much. The first tear broke free. It found Emma’s cheek before she had a chance to wipe it way. Her shoulders ached from her slump and the weight of her own head. Her hands fumbled at the material of her pyjamas, pulling to prevent them from shaking visibly.

  “That’s it, Emma. You remember her, don’t you?”

  After everything she had said and done, Emma was confused as to why the lady was saying such things and stirring up the thoughts that Emma had worked so hard to put aside.

  “I want you to open your eyes, Emma.”