by Paul Clayton
A week or two after moving in, she met Andrea who lived in the flat at the back of the house and had a three-year-old boy called Sharma. Andrea had also come from the refuge. They took to sharing a pot of tea in each other’s kitchen during the morning and taking the children round the shops together to fill the afternoons. Lottie would catch sight of them in shop windows as they passed past and smile at herself: Lottie, short and growing more than a little plump; Andrea, a tall blonde beanpole who looked even taller teetering on her heels with her hair pulled into a ponytail to give her the Croydon facelift she was so proud of.
One morning Andrea knocked on the door. ‘I’ve come to ask a favour.’ Although it was barely eleven o’clock, she had squeezed herself into a pair of jeans that had given up the fight. On the looks front, she ticked boxes where Lottie felt she didn’t even have boxes.
‘I was wondering if you might be able to babysit Sharma for me tonight. I said I’d have a drink with someone, and I can’t leave him on his own. Babysitter’s let me down.’
Andrea’s son Sharma was a sweet little boy whom Lottie had adored from the first moment she saw him. ‘Yes. I mean, if you’re happy with that, then yes.’
That evening Andrea knocked at the door once more. Lottie had never seen her looking so glamorous. High heels, the skinny jeans from the morning, shiny pink wet-look drop earrings and more makeup than was necessary or wise. Clutching her hand was a little angel in pyjamas.
‘He’ll be ready for sleep soon. Put him down on the sofa or something. I won’t be long. An hour. Two at the most.’ With that, she teetered off into the night.
Lottie made Sharma comfortable on the sofa. Her own children were already in bed. Lottie thought that was the best way of making sure that none of them stayed up too late. She needn’t have worried; by the time she’d made herself a cup of tea, Sharma was curled up fast asleep. Lottie smiled. He looked so peaceful as he slept that it made her pop into the bedroom to look at her own children. Both of them were fast asleep, one in the double bed that she shared and a tousled head peeping over the bedspread from the single bed in the alcove. Lottie let happiness soak into her bones.
The babysitting was a splendid success and Sharma became a regular fixture on the sofa. Andrea stretched her one evening out to three or four hours. One night when she was collecting Sharma, she stood holding him at Lottie’s door. ‘I could do this for you too. Your two could come to mine and you could have an evening out. You deserve it.’
Lottie shook her head. ‘I’m not sure where I’d go. But thanks. I’ll think about it.’
It was another five weeks before Lottie plucked up the courage to accept the offer. She underwent a quick make-over session, which consisted of Andrea applying cosmetics and Lottie wiping them off with the back of her hand.
With what might best be described as a natural look, Lottie found herself walking into the Lamb and Flag one Thursday evening.
Chapter Fifty-Two
‘You think Miss Walsh may have a set of keys?’ PC Oliver Ashley picked up the mug of tea Frankie had given him and blew across it. Frankie made a cup for herself, then left it untouched. She was still feeling the effect of last night’s wine.
‘I have to say,’ he went on, ‘you and Miss Walsh do seem to have remarkably intertwined lives. All this mix up with the job must be something to do with her. Now a car disappears, which she’s got keys to and that she gave you as a gift.’
Frankie threw a couple of soluble paracetamols into her mug of tea and sat down opposite the constable. He looked different this morning. As requested, he’d not turned up in uniform. In his white T-shirt, pale-blue denim jeans and trainers, he resembled a slightly older version of Jonny. He had shorter hair but was similar enough to make Frankie understand the saying about feeling old when policemen start to look younger than you do.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Miss Walsh, have you?’ he asked.
‘No. I left her some messages yesterday. We’d made a tentative agreement to meet in the wine bar, but she didn’t turn up and hasn’t called back.’
‘Have you done anything to upset her?’ Oliver made a second attempt at sipping the scalding hot tea.
‘I haven’t seen her since I applied for the job. As it was a position in her department, she was very keen to keep everything above board. Nobody was more surprised than me when she turned up yesterday morning to wish me good luck.’ Frankie held her hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry, I’m not feeling too well this morning.’
‘Big night in the wine bar, was it?’
She wondered why he had to ask. ‘I finished the bottle and then got back here late. Put the kids to bed ’cos I couldn’t face telling them everything then sat and drowned my sorrows in half a bottle of Bacardi left over from Christmas.’
‘Have you reported the car stolen?’
‘No, not as yet. I wasn’t really with it last night. What with everything that happened during the day, I couldn’t cope.’ Frankie ran out of words.
‘Take a deep breath. I’m here to help, remember?’
She looked at him doubtfully. He was a kid. She didn’t have much faith in his ability to solve anything.
‘I think there’s a simple course of action for today. You go and have a lie down for an hour or two until your head clears. I’m going to check the car registration on the ANPR, see if anything comes up. When the kids get back from school, I think you’ve got to sit them down and tell them what’s happened. I’m happy to help.’
Frankie smiled at him. ‘The one thing I’ve got right is mothering. They’ve all managed without their various dads, you know. Sorry for saying it, but you’re barely out of junior school.’
‘We need to speak to Miss Walsh. As we found before when we were checking up on the Mrs Steadman incident, she doesn’t seem to be on any records. The sarge should have followed up on that.’ He paused for a moment and contemplated the hot tea. ‘I don’t know whether there’s anything in this, but it might be worth me taking Henry for a walk this evening to see what he can recall about the night he met her. Something that could help us work out where she might be.’
***
‘Why would Cora take the car? She gave it to us,’ said Henry.
PC Ashley, now back in uniform, leaned across the table. The kids had been made to sit down for a family conference in the kitchen on their return from school. Between them, Frankie and Oliver were taking them through the whole story.
‘We don’t know she has taken it, Henry. We do know that she still had a set of keys and somehow she’s involved in this job application business.’
Shannon slipped her arm around Frankie’s waist. Frankie hugged her tight.
‘You don’t need keys to start a car, you know?’ As soon as he’d spoken, Jonny realised his mistake.
‘And how would you know that?’ Frankie asked, scowling at him.
Jonny tightened his jaw and looked at the constable.
Oliver smiled. ‘Seen it on the telly, have you? Hot wiring and all that.’
‘Yeah, and it’s on the Internet,’ added Shannon. ‘There are YouTubes about it. I think they’re supposed to be in case you lose your keys, but it’s the same thing, innit?’
‘Why would Cora do this, Mum? Wasn’t she always nice to us?’ The cold waters of the Brighton sea filled Henry’s thoughts. He shook his head and shivered.
Frankie held out her arms and he got up and went to her. ‘We don’t know that she has darling.’ She ruffled his hair.
PC Ashley put down the glass of milk he’d asked for after his encounter with the scalding tea that morning. ‘It could be that Miss Walsh is in some sort of trouble herself. That might be the reason why she hasn’t got back to your mum. I wondered if you wanted to help me take a look around the park, Henry. See if you could recall anything about when you first met her.’
Henry looked a little unsure
.
‘It would be an enormous help. Sort of unofficial police work.’
‘Oh, lucky you, Henry,’ said Shannon. ‘You can be a copper’s nark.’
Before Henry had a chance to find out what a copper’s nark was, or indeed whether he wished to be one, Frankie took charge. Even though PC Ashley was wearing his uniform, it seemed as if she’d acquired four children around the dinner table. ‘Right. Henry is going to go for a walk with Oliver – sorry, PC Ashley. I’m going to make some dinner and when they get back, we’re all going to sit down and eat. Everybody got that?’
The room burst into activity. PC Ashley and Henry wrapped themselves in coats, and Frankie started dishing out orders to Shannon and Jonny.
‘What if I don’t remember anything, though?’ Henry stood by the door waiting to leave.
‘I’m sure you’ll do fine,’ said PC Ashley. ‘Who knows? You could be the key to the whole thing.’
Chapter Fifty-Three
Even in a city as exotic and cosmopolitan as Dubai, the sight of a teenager sitting on the kerb clutching a British passport, skin peeling from her face, watching a house go up in flames, attracted attention. The police and the fire brigade turned up remarkably quickly. Little Girl sat undisturbed, watching the inferno, a slow smile passing across her face.
The house looked like something out of a horror movie, all twisted plastic and charred wooden posts with nothing left to salvage. The air was full of acrid burning chemicals. The street filled with fireman and paramedics.
A policeman approached Little Girl and spoke to her in Arabic. She remained silent. Prising the red booklet from her fingers, he looked at it and nodded. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said in clipped English ‘We will have somebody here to help you very soon.’
Little Girl had decided her best option was silence. She smiled at the policeman and held out her hand for the passport. The house, and everything it stood for, was no more. Time to move on.
Twenty minutes later, a wide silver limousine drew up at the end of the street and a plump, grey-haired, bespectacled man climbed out. He pushed his way through the hosepipes of the fire brigade to sit next to her on the kerb. He offered his hand. ‘May I?’ He indicated her passport. Little Girl handed it to him and he flipped through the pages. Sitting on the kerb was not the most decorous of places for a sixty-four-year-old vice-consul to be.
Kenneth Howe started to explain who he was. ‘I think we need to get you seen in a hospital first.’ He was surprised she wasn’t screaming in pain. The skin seemed to have been removed from one side of her face and her cheek was charred. ‘Then we’ll take you to the embassy. My wife is pretty useful in tackling all sorts of dilemmas. I’m sure she’ll know what to do.’
Little Girl smiled at the man.
At his age, Kenneth was within sight of a pleasant retirement on the Devon coast. The last thing he needed was a mysterious childish girl saying nothing and sitting outside a burning building.
They spent the rest of the night checking her into a private hospital. The doctors flocked around her and she was soon sedated. A doctor sat the vice-consul down in the corridor outside her room so they could talk out of earshot. ‘I fear she will need some surgery on her face, Mr Howe, sir.’
‘I did wonder if that might be the case. I’m afraid we don’t know anything about her, but as she is British and this is rather urgent, I suggest we go ahead and sort everything later.’
The doctor smiled at him. ‘You are a kind man, Mr Howe.’
For two weeks Little Girl lay in a bed in a white room. People came in and out, but she showed little interest in them. She maintained her silence and, by the time he took her back to the consulate, Kenneth knew no more about her than he had when he’d found her.
Mrs Howe sent Kenneth packing and started clucking around her. She had no children of her own. She believed children needed stability and her husband’s career as a British consul with postings all over the world had put paid to that, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t rise to the occasion when necessary. Little Girl was settled into a beautiful bedroom to sleep and rest.
Over the days that followed, Kenneth did his best to piece together her story. The house which had gone up in flames turned out to belong to Eric and Marta Skura, originally from the Netherlands. The most interesting fact for Kenneth was that they had an adopted English daughter registered as staying with them.
He collected papers, made telephone calls and followed up on reports. The fire brigade had discovered the remains of two bodies in the house and it looked very much as though they were Eric and Marta. Kenneth talked to Little Girl. Though most of her face was bandaged, her eyes roamed the room. Her trust in him seemed to be growing.
A few occasional nods in answer to his questions told him she’d been out of the house when the fire had broken out. She’d come back home to discover the house ablaze. She wouldn’t say how she had acquired the burns on her face, but Kenneth assumed that she’d been trying to get to her adoptive parents. The fire investigators reported an exploding gas cannister in the kitchen, a defect with the gas range, apparently.
Kenneth decided the best thing was to make arrangements for Little Girl to return to England as soon as she was well enough to travel.
‘She’s not a child,’ said his wife. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s eighteen or more.’
Kenneth sighed. Something, somewhere, didn’t ring true. ‘She’ll be going back to England a very rich woman. Erich and Marta Skura are exceptionally wealthy. The solicitor says their wills leave everything to each other or to any dependants.’
His wife looked at him sceptically. ‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd when they only adopted a little while ago.’
Kenneth nodded. ‘The solicitor thinks it was some sort of tax dodge. The house, the cars, all their assets transferred to the little girl’s name. Bank accounts too. She was a UK resident. Evidently that was what they needed. The authorities here were chasing them for all sorts of financial misdemeanours.’
One evening, they sat down with Little Girl. Mrs Howe thought the occasion called for a glass of wine and placed three elegant glasses on the table.
Kenneth told Little Girl what they’d found out and what was planned. ‘You’ll be going back to the UK with a tidy sum. And we can put you in touch with people who can help you and check on your surgery.’
Little Girl knew when words were necessary. ‘Thank you’ she said, and the three of them raised their glasses. Little Girl took a sip and smiled at Kenneth as best as she could through the dressing on her face. It was a long time since someone had been kind to her. Not since her days with Lottie had she felt so looked after.
‘I think you’ve been very lucky,’ Kenneth said.
Little did he know, but money wasn’t all she was taking back to England. The doctor had given her other news, too.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Henry’s first inclination was fear when PC Ashley asked him to help investigate, but as they left the house the butterflies in his stomach turned into thumps of excitement. This was a proper adventure. He was investigating a crime – or what they assumed was a crime. No one seemed to be sure what had happened other than the car had gone missing.
Having arrived home from school after a text from his mum telling him he’d have to walk, he’d found her setting a plate of biscuits on the table. A plate of biscuits meant trouble, or at the very least meant his mother wanted something. She poured him a glass of squash. Henry used the fact that his mother was going to ask them something to get a second glass, which was not often allowed.
‘It’s nothing to worry about, my darling. I just need to talk to the three of you together.’
Shannon and Jonny appeared soon after, and Frankie sat at the table with them to start the family conference. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door and the policeman joined them. Henry wondered who was in en
ough trouble for the police to be summoned.
Now, as he walked away from the house, speeding up every three or four steps to keep up with PC Ashley who seemed to have very long legs, Henry knew that this was an adventure. Oliver, which he now knew was the policeman’s name, said they needed to get to the park. It was getting dark and the streetlights were coming on as they strode to the roundabout and across the road down towards the park gates. Henry found it more than a little difficult to keep up.
Peering through the railings into the park, the only illumination was the pale path stretching into the wooded gloom. There was no movement. Without a word, Oliver set off again along the front of the railings towards Parkside. Henry thought he would know which way to go because he was a policeman. They wandered a street or two away from the park and Henry did his best to keep up.
Eventually they turned into Parkside and Henry stopped. ‘This is where I bumped into her car.’ He looked up at the policeman, but Oliver was standing under a streetlamp which produced an orange halo that made it difficult for Henry to see his face. He couldn’t see whether the policeman was smiling or not.
‘And you didn’t get hurt?’
‘No, not a lot. Just a bruise. She got out of the car to say she was sorry. I told her what I was doing, and she said she had a key to get me through that gate.’ Henry pointed to the gate in the fence about fifty feet away.
‘She had a key to that gate?’
Henry nodded.
‘And the key opened the gate?’ Oliver asked.
Henry accepted it was the job of a copper’s nark to answer even the most obvious of questions. He nodded again.
‘Do you remember if she had the key with her, or did she have to go and get it?’
Henry paused for a moment. He was always being told at school to think about his answers before he spoke. ‘That way,’ said Miss Bentham, his teacher, ‘you give better answers.’
