by M. J. Trow
Maxwell rapped on the door with his knuckles; the lion knocker was painted pretty much shut. They heard movement inside and then the door opened a crack.
‘Max? Sylvia?’ Baines opened the door. ‘Is everything all right? Are you having car trouble or something?’
‘No, Andrew,’ Maxwell said. ‘We’re looking for Charlotte.’
‘Gosh, this is embarrassing. I thought everyone knew we had split up,’ Baines said, opening the door but not stepping aside.
‘She discharged herself from the hospital today,’ Maxwell said. ‘She had gone in for a termination, but I’m sure you knew that. Look, can we come in? This isn’t the kind of thing that really lends itself to doorstep chats.’
‘Oh, sorry, yes, of course. Come in.’ Baines stepped back and ushered them to the right into the sitting room, which was furnished in what Sylvia always thought of as bachelor eclectic. A sofa from his mother’s, a sideboard from his gran and a computer desk from Ikea.
‘Thank you,’ Maxwell said, sitting down. ‘We went to see Charlotte. She had become… well, somewhat distressed and she wanted to talk to me.’
‘Why?’ Baines didn’t sit, but stayed standing in the doorway.
‘I’m not totally sure,’ Maxwell said. ‘I think she just wanted to see a friendly face. Someone older. Not involved.’
‘That must be hard to find,’ Baines said, leaning against the door jamb. ‘Charlotte seemed to be sharing her lot with anyone within earshot.’
‘Andrew!’ Sylvia said. ‘The poor girl was upset. Scared of the future.’
‘No need for that,’ the PE teacher said. ‘I would have looked after her.’
‘Really? She seemed to think you were washing your hands of her and the baby.’ Sylvia’s words could have etched diamonds and Maxwell decided to give her her head.
‘Well, I’ve got a new job, I suppose. I wasn’t planning to move, though. I would have seen her all right.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘I don’t expect the social services would have given me much option.’
‘I think that what she was thinking of was support of a more personal nature,’ Maxwell said. ‘Not financial.’
‘We hadn’t been together five minutes,’ Baines said, turning on the charm. ‘Not in the scheme of things. She let me down, getting up the duff.’
Maxwell felt Sylvia tense and held her arm. ‘I don’t get the impression she did it deliberately,’ he said, smoothly.
Baines shrugged. ‘Whatever you say. Anyway, if she’s decided to go and get rid of it, that’s it, isn’t it? Why are you here?’
‘We told you,’ Sylvia said through gritted teeth. ‘Looking for Charlotte.’
‘Well, she isn’t here. Have you tried her flat?’
‘She doesn’t seem to be in. And she isn’t answering her phone.’
‘Let me try her.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a mobile and punched a number. Still on speed dial, Maxwell noticed. They all looked around the room while they waited for her to answer. Then, Baines spoke urgently into the phone. ‘Char? Is that you?’
Maxwell’s head came up and Sylvia Matthews reached out for the phone, but Baines turned his back on them, finger in ear and head bowed.
‘I’ve got Maxwell and Sylvia Matthews here… looking for you, it seems.’ He swung back to face them and looked them one by one straight in the eye. ‘Worried about you, babe. Yes… Do you want to…? I see. Yes. Laters.’
He broke the connection and went to the door and opened it, standing with it wide and inviting.
‘She’s fine. She’s not answering the phone right now, but recognized my number. She doesn’t want to speak to anyoneat the moment and will probably not be in this week. That’s it. I think we should all leave her alone, don’t you? Thanks for dropping by.’
Maxwell got up slowly and put a supporting hand in Sylvia’s back as he shepherded her through the door. He couldn’t vouch for her behaviour and wasn’t too sure about his own.
‘Thanks for ringing her, anyway,’ he said. ‘We feel a lot better knowing she’s somewhere safe.’
‘Any time,’ Baines said. ‘See you both tomorrow, I suppose.’
‘Yes. Indeed.’ Maxwell went out of the door and just as he reached the path, heard a voice call.
‘Andrew?’
Maxwell turned and looked at Baines, who gave him a man-of-the-world grimace. ‘Company,’ he said, with a charming smile. ‘Must go.’ And he shut the door in the Head of Sixth Form’s face. From the porch, Maxwell heard his footsteps thundering up the stairs. Eager. He hadn’t let the grass grow under his feet, and that was a fact.
Back in the car, Sylvia gave vent to her feelings. And carried on giving vent until she dropped Maxwell outside 38 Columbine. At his age, Maxwell had not expected to learn any new words in the invective line and this was true of the journey – he just heard them in unusual combinations, some of which made his head spin. He went up the stairs and, pausing only to check on Nolan and trip briefly over the cat who was scratching at the spare room door, he went into the sitting room for a last minute drink and a think. Within minutes, he was asleep.
As Jacquie pulled up in the car park of Leighford General, she took a moment to clear her mind of what might be happening at home. That Nolan had woken up, freaked out at being looked after by a stranger and was inconsolable, had already had serious psychological damage done and would have separation issues for the rest of his life. If she knew her son, he would sleep right on till morning, but if not, then he would certainly have persuaded Jason Briggs that midnight feasts were de rigueur chez Maxwell and would be even now tucking into a short stack with bacon. She took a deep breath, picked up her bag and made for the main entrance.
Kirsty Hilliard looked tiny in her high dependency bed, dark circles under her eyes and a heart monitor on her finger. Someone had cleaned off her makeup which she had fondly imagined made her look twenty and her hair was slicked back from her face. It was hard to imagine that she had set off hardly twenty four hours before to paint the town red. Her eyes were closed but Jacquie, having spent many hours at bedsides waiting for information which often never came, could tell that she was asleep now, rather than unconscious. Her eyes were flickering to and fro and her mouth twitched from time to time, as her dreams tried to make sense of what had happened to her. Jacquie took out her book and settled down for a long wait.
She had only read a few pages when the bedclothes rustled and a quiet voice asked her, ‘Who are you?’
She looked up and saw that the child had turned her head and was looking at her. Her eyes were extraordinary, a deep violet that didn’t look real. They searched Jacquie’s face now, trying to remember. Was the DI someone that she ought to know? Panic began to show and Jacquie put down her book and leaned forward reassuringly.
‘It’s all right, Kirsty,’ she said. ‘I’m Jacquie. I’m from the police but don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong. I just need to know a bit more about what happened to you, if you feel like talking. If you don’t, don’t worry about it. I’ve got my book and I’ll just wait here until you fancy a chat. Do you need a nurse for anything? A wee? A drink?’
The girl licked her lips. ‘A drink,’ she said. ‘Could I have a drink? My throat is really sore.’ She tried a cough and winced.
‘I’ll just ring the bell. Hold on a minute.’ Jacquie pressed the buzzer and a nurse came scurrying along the ward.
‘Hello, Kirsty,’ she smiled. Maxwell and Sylvia would not have recognised her as the same breed as the bantam in ante-natal. ‘Nice to see you awake.’ She looked at Jacquie. ‘What do you want?’
‘A drink,’ the girl whispered. ‘My throat hurts. Have I got the flu or something? It didn’t hurt before…’ Her pupils dilated and she tried to get up.
‘Don’t worry,’ the nurse said, soothingly. ‘The Detective Inspector will tell you all you need to know.’ The woman was clearly happy to pass that particular buck. ‘I’ll get you a drink. Do you like orange or blackcurrant?�
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‘Orange. Please.’ The girl waited until the nurse had gone and then turned back to Jacquie. ‘What happened to me?’
‘I’m hoping you can tell me a bit about what happened, Kirsty,’ Jacquie said. ‘I need to hear it from you first, you see. Then we can find out more.’
‘I can’t really remember much…’ The girl closed her eyes and let her head loll on the pillow. The nurse crept back and put an orange juice complete with bendy straw in Jacquie’s hand before tiptoeing away.
‘Let’s start from the beginning of your evening out, shall we?’ Jacquie suggested. ‘Where did you all get ready? There was quite a little gang of you, wasn’t there?’
‘We all got ready at Ali’s. She lives nearest to the Esplanade.’
‘There you are, you see. So you walked there when you were all ready?’
‘Yes. Some of the girls were meeting lads when we got down to the Front. They went off then, so there were about six or seven of us at the finish.’
‘Can you let me have their names?’
‘Are we in trouble? We were in pubs… they shouldn’t have served us. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.’ The violet eyes filled with tears.
‘No-one’s in trouble, Kirsty. I’ll tell you what; let me have their names later. Just tell me the story of your evening.’
‘We went into a couple of pubs and had a drink in each one. I had a tequila slammer. Some bloke bought it for me – I didn’t like it, but he said if I drank it quick, it would loosen me up a bit.’ She coughed and closed her eyes, swallowing with an effort. Jacquie handed her the drink, which she sipped gratefully.
‘This… this bloke. What was he like?’
‘Old.’ The eyes checked out Jacquie’s face. ‘Older than you. Bald at the front, with one of those…’ the girl sketched a comb-over.
‘Handsome? You know, fit?’
Kirsty smiled for the first time. ‘Not him! He’d never been fit, not even when he was young. No, he just liked having a few young girls round him for a bit. We cost him a packet, then moved on.’
‘Did he follow you?’
‘No. Just as we were finishing up our drinks, some old woman came up to him and chatted him up. He was on a sure thing, I think. He certainly thought so.’
‘So, you moved on and then what?’
‘We walked along the Front a bit. It was still warm and there was a nice breeze off the sea.’
‘Were there any boys with you?’
‘No. They’d all gone by this time. We were going on to a club if we could get in. I know the others didn’t want me with them. I’m too little to pass for old enough. They were walking on ahead and I was a bit upset.’
‘Were they being nasty to you? Bullying?’ Jacquie was beginning to see what Maxwell had meant, about their man cutting one out from the herd, taking the runt of the litter.
‘I suppose so. I’m used to it.’
‘Why do you go out with them, then?’
The girl shrugged, then winced. ‘I don’t fit in with the swotty girls. They don’t talk to me much.’
‘You seem a bright girl, Kirsty. Why don’t the swotty girls talk to you?’
She blushed and turned her head away. ‘I was in trouble at school last term,’ she muttered. Jacquie had to crane across to hear her. ‘The teachers found me with one of the boys in the gym.’
Jacquie said nothing, but patted the girl’s hand.
She spun back to face the DI and shouted as far as her throat would let her. ‘I didn’t mean to let him do it. He said he fancied me. He said… he said you couldn’t get pregnant if you did it standing up. I told him that was rubbish, but…’
‘It’s all right, Kirsty,’ Jacquie said. No story had a simple beginning and there was rarely a happy ending. ‘Don’t worry about that. I just need to know whether you were walking with the others, a bit behind, that kind of thing. Try and imagine yourself back there and tell me what is going on. Close your eyes if it helps.’
The girl lay back on the pillows and did as she was told. Her eyes moved from side to side – a good sign, because it meant she was picturing the scene. Then she spoke, in a husky whisper. ‘I was behind the others. I was fed up and my shoes were hurting me.’ Jacquie could just imagine her, clopping along on killer heels and hating every step. ‘They were getting further and further ahead and I could tell they were laughing at me, because every now and then, one of them would look back at me and snigger. I wanted to go home, but my proper clothes were back at Ali’s. My mum would have killed me if she could have seen how I was got up.’
The kid would realise in a minute that her mum now knew all about it, but let that realisation come when it would. For now, the narrative was running nicely. Jacquie offered the girl another drink and after she had drained the glass, she carried on.
‘I suppose I was sulking a bit. Anyway, I was walking behind them when I noticed this bloke watching us from a doorway. He was just looking, you know, but he was well fit. Young. No, not young. Younger than the bloke in the pub, by miles. Older than the lads we know.’ She stopped, clearly trying to find some kind of benchmark. ‘Not as old as… you know, people like David Beckham. He’s well old. But fit like him, you know. Probably about the same as my uncle Dan.’
‘How old is he?’ Jacquie said, with a smile.
‘Thirty? Thirty five. Something like that.’
Jacquie made a note. So far this chimed well with April Summers’ description. ‘Was he dark? Fair?’
Again, Kirsty sketched in the hair. ‘Gel. His hair was kind of messed up, but it looked good. It’s probably fairish when it isn’t gelled. He had nice clothes on. Smart, you know.’
Jacquie thanked heaven for a fashionista. ‘Label?’
‘Gap? That kind of thing.’
‘So, then what happened? Take your time.’
‘He stepped forward and smiled. He really was good-looking. He said something like, was I on my own? Had I had a row with my mates? They looked like proper slags, that kind of thing.’
Cut her out from the herd, Jacquie thought. Oh, but you are a cynical bastard.
‘We were just on the edge of that bit of park behind the Esplanade and we went and sat on a bench.’ The girl sniffed. She was back there well and truly. ‘He smelt nice. Expensive, you know. Hugo Boss, but I don’t know which one.’
Jacquie couldn’t resist a laugh. ‘Kirsty, you’re one up on me. I didn’t even know there were different ones!’
‘My mum works in Boots. Anyway, he smelt nice and he was nice to me. He said I didn’t need to trail around after the others. That I was the prettiest and he chose me. I… I was stupid, I know that now. But he was so nice to me.’ The tears squeezed past her closed lids and she let them run down her face. ‘He… he said, should we go for a walk and I said why not. But my shoes hurt me, so I took them off and he carried them for me. He held my hand.’ She turned her head towards Jacquie and smiled. ‘No one holds my hand. I liked it.’
Jacquie stroked her arm gently. ‘Do you want to stop, darling?’ she said. She knew it was wrong, but she was more mother than DI right at this minute. She didn’t know how Maxwell stood this, living with the breaking hearts all around him and soaking it up and tamping it down so he didn’t drown in it.
The girl shook her head. ‘No. I want to tell it. Then I can stop thinking about it.’
Jacquie thought that was doubtful, but she took her metaphorical hat off to the girl for at least being prepared to try putting it behind her. ‘Go on then. In your own time.’
‘Will you hold my hand?’
‘Of course.’ Jacquie took it and rested it between both of her own, cradling it like a fledgling fallen from its nest.
‘Right. We walked for a while and he asked me where I went to school. He asked me about my mum and dad, my sisters at home. What I liked doing at the weekends. It was nice. People aren’t usually interested in me, much.’ She swallowed and touched her free hand to her throat. ‘We went into the bushes in the
park and he said shall we sit down. It hasn’t rained for ages and the grass was dry, so I did. My skirt was tight and I couldn’t get down for a minute and he laughed and picked me up and put me down on the ground. He was really strong. Then, he kissed me and I liked it. He hadn’t been drinking or anything. His breath wasn’t all fag smoke and beer. Then he pushed me down and… do I have to tell you this? It’s embarrassing.’
‘Just say what you’re comfortable with,’ Jacquie said, squeezing the girl’s hand.
‘Well, he… did it, you know. I didn’t want to, but he’d been nice and he wasn’t rough. I liked it in the end.’ She half rolled over to face Jacquie. ‘Is that wrong?’
‘Of course not,’ Jacquie said, letting go of her hand to stroke a lock of hair out of the girl’s eyes. ‘Of course it isn’t.’
‘Well, when he… you know, when he’d finished, he went all weird. He put his hands round my throat and squeezed really hard. I screamed, but he squeezed. Then… the next thing, I was here.’
Jacquie patted her hand. ‘You’ve done really well, Kirsty,’ she said. ‘Really well.’
‘Will you catch him now?’ the girl whispered. ‘Put him in prison?’
‘Yes,’ Jacquie said and realised as she spoke that she actually did feel much more confident that they would indeed be taking this predator off the streets at last, and soon. ‘Yes, we will.’ She let go the child’s hand ready to leave, but the girl clutched hers.
‘Please don’t go. Stay till I go to sleep. Please.’
Jacquie sat back down and nodded. ‘I’ll stay,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll stay till morning.’
Somewhere in the house, an alarm was ringing and Peter Maxwell woke with a groan. Someone appeared to have put his head on backwards and half his body had been removed. After the initial panic at these discoveries subsided and he realised he was asleep half on and half off the sofa in his own sitting room, wracked with pins and needles, he opened his eyes slowly and stifled a scream.
