by Jane Bidder
And now he was in some horrible South American jail, waiting for them to get him out. “Can’t I talk to him?” she’d pleaded to Daniel again and again as if the repetition might somehow bring about a change.
“I’ve told you. He was allowed just one phone call and it was imperative that he spoke to Brian.” Daniel rubbed his face which was grey with exhaustion. “If anyone can get him out of there, it’s him.”
Through sheer good luck, Janice’s husband Brian was a lawyer specialising in crimes committed by British nationals abroad. “But he hasn’t committed a crime,” Alice protested when Brian came round for an emergency meeting in the drawing room. There was still a stain on the walnut table, she noticed, from her argument with Daniel a few weeks ago. Now both seemed totally trivial.
“Alice,” Brian had said solemnly, “in some countries, you are guilty until proved innocent. I know it’s hard but try to leave it to me.”
Hard? Impossible, more like. In some ways, it would have been better if Garth had stayed just a few more hours longer in South America before getting to the airport. The chances of her son surviving an earthquake now seemed, in her mind at least, greater than getting off a serious drugs charge.
Over the next few days, there was a flurry of phone calls and emails and text messages. The news in the paper had moved to more unrest in the Middle East. The earthquake only occasionally merited a mention with the odd worthy article on famine relief.
There was no reference at all to a British gap-year kid on drugs charges.
“Good,” declared Daniel briskly. “The less publicity the better, Brian says. The worst thing that could happen is a piece on a middle-class kid with too much money and not enough sense.”
He was angry, she knew, to hide his fear. Was this how the girl in the park’s mother had reacted, she wondered, when she knew her daughter had been taking drugs? Or, as Paul Black had implied, didn’t she care? Maybe she hadn’t understood what was happening, rather as she, Alice didn’t understand what was happening right now.
“There will be a trial of some sort,” Brian had tried to explain during another meeting. “But it won’t be like one in this country. The judge might well be biased.” He gave a little sigh. “You can appreciate that they’ve had enough of young kids smuggling drugs.”
“Can we go out to the trial?” she’d asked.
“We don’t know when that is, yet.”
“Then surely I can visit him?”
Brian shot Daniel a look across their whisky glasses. “It’s not as simple as that. Trust me, Alice, we’re doing everything possible. And, I have to say, the Foreign Office has been pretty helpful.”
Over the next few days, Alice tried to distract herself through mending a pretty little blue and pink china pot that an old lady had brought in. It had belonged to her father’s second wife, she’d explained, and she’d ‘stupidly’ dropped it while washing up. The stepmother hadn’t been an ‘easy woman to live with’ but the old lady felt she ought to try and sort it nevertheless as it had been a favourite.
Yet the pot, as though sensing Alice’s distress, refused to be mended. Again and again, she painstakingly matched up the jagged fragments and smeared the tiny amount of glue required. But it wouldn’t stick. There were some pieces, she’d discovered, that weren’t meant to be fixed.
Giving up, Alice rang Janice to suggest a dog walk. “I’m going mad, waiting for the phone to ring. I need some air. I’ve got my mobile anyway.”
Janice was quiet as they ambled along the river, watching Mungo tear ahead and rub noses with other dogs. Perhaps, thought Alice, she’d understandably run out of the “It will be all right” phrases that her friends had used during the earthquake scare.
In truth, she had told very few well-wishers about Garth’s true location apart from Mum.
“Prison?” There had been a silence at the other end of the phone and an almost audible pursing together of the lips. Then Mum had quietly said that she would remember Garth in her prayers even though Alice knew she wasn’t religious.
“Look,” said Janice suddenly as Mungo returned with another dog’s ball. “Isn’t that your man from the coffee shop?”
Alice’s heart did a little flip. It was indeed Paul Black, striding towards them. Ironically, they were almost at the very spot where she’d seen Kayleigh and the man. It gave her a slightly queasy feeling. Since the incident, the park had felt sullied in her mind.
“Alice,” he said, pleasure written all over his face. Don’t be so friendly, she wanted to say. Janice, she could see, had clocked the look along with his familiar use of her first name. Nervously, she observed his brown cord trousers, casual yet smart Barbour jacket, and sturdy walking shoes. Was this plain-clothes or was he off-duty? It struck her that she hadn’t thought of him since the news about Garth. For some unknown reason, she now desperately wanted to tell him.
“I was just coming to see you,” he added as if reading her mind.
To her deep embarrassment, Alice felt herself flush deeply so that her cheeks stung with the heat. “Mind giving us a few moments?” she said, turning to her friend. “Could you keep an eye on Mungo?”
Janice gave her a hard look before shrugging as if to say “Do you really know what you’re doing here?” and walking a short distance away.
Paul Black’s clear blue eyes were alive with excitement. “We’ve found her. The girl. Kayleigh. I thought you’d like to know. She’s in a foster home now. Safe.”
Instantly Alice felt guilty. If she’d gone back to her at the shopping centre, might the girl have been allowed back to her real home instead of a foster place?
“There’s another piece of news too.” A date has been set. For the trial.”
For a minute Alice thought she was talking about Garth’s trial. Don’t be silly, she realised. He wouldn’t even know about that. “They’ve brought it forward,” he said eagerly. “Apparently the judge is very keen to nail this man. As I said before, he’s caused a lot of trouble.”
Paul Black glanced across at Janice who was coming back to them now. Close enough to hear. “You’re still prepared to be a witness, aren’t you?”
It might have been phrased like a question but it came out like a statement. So that was why he had come to find her! Not to tell her about Kayleigh. Or to see how she, Alice, was. But to make sure that she would still play his game.
Not for the first time, an uneasy feeling crawled through her. Paul Black had talked about boys like Frankie grooming girls like Kayleigh. But was he doing the same? Keeping her sweet just so that she would keep her promise to be a witness? It made her feel used, all over again.
“I’ve got a lot going on in my own life,” she started to say. Then she stopped. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing to tell him about Garth, held for drug charges. No. Perhaps that had been her trouble before. She’d been too open. Too gullible. Too keen to please. “I’m not sure that I can be a witness now, I’m afraid.”
Those blue eyes held hers in disappointment. “Then Frankie may well go free to do exactly the same to another girl.”
She shivered, yet at the same time, she was angry. “This is blackmail.”
“No, Alice. It’s not. It’s doing the right thing as a responsible member of the public. As a parent.”
He’d got her. And he knew it. Either Paul Black was a very clever manipulating policeman. Or else he knew her better than her own husband and mother. Yet if it was the former, whose fault was that? Hadn’t she encouraged him to call her Alice the first time they’d met? Hadn’t she made the classic mistake of a lonely woman, unhappy with her marriage, clinging to the first man who seemed to ‘understand her’?
How stupid, Alice told herself furiously. She should have kept a distance right from the start; both with the girl and the policeman. But now it was too late. She was in too deep, both legally and emotionally. With both of them.
“I’m not keen,” she conceded grudgingly. “But I will if you think it will make a differenc
e.”
He nodded, relief washing through his face. Was that, she wondered, relief for the girl? Or for his own career which, doubtless, could be affected by all this. “It will. I promise.”
Promise . The same word she had used to Kayleigh outside the shopping centre.
Promise . The same word that Garth had reluctantly used when she’d asked him to be careful before setting off.
“That thing you said earlier,” she said urgently. “About girls being seen as … as loose because they don’t have enough self-esteem to stand up for themselves. Do you really think that’s true?”
He nodded. “I do. You know, there’s a saying, Alice. You’ve probably heard of it but every now and then I say it to myself to remind me why I do this job. It goes something like this. ‘Evil happens when a good man does nothing.’ His eyes met hers. ‘Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
Despite her doubts, she found herself nodding. This is your chance, Alice, she told herself. This is your chance to put things right. Maybe not for yourself but for other people.
“There’s an official letter in the post to you,” he added. His confidence that she would go ahead was both empowering and irritating at the same time. “It gives the date of the trial and the practical things you need to know.” Then he stopped as though he was going to say something else. There was a tight pause. He put out his hand in a sort of handshake but took it back before she had a chance to reciprocate. “Thank you,” he said simply.
“Do you want to tell me what that was about?” breathed Janice after he’d gone. “Come on, Alice, we’ve known each other long enough. Anyone can see he fancies you.” Then she looked sad. “Poor Daniel.” Her eyes grew fierce. “How could you do this to him?”
Alice began to laugh. Tinnily. Manically. “It’s not what you think.” Then she grew serious. “You see that hedge?”
Her friend frowned. “Yes. Why?”
“It’s where I saw them. That young girl who was having sex with the older man a few weeks ago. The couple everyone was talking about.”
Janice’s eyes widened. “You saw them?”
She nodded. “I didn’t want to tell anyone because I was embarrassed. But the policeman tracked me down and got me to give a statement. Daniel knows all about it.”
Janice shook her head. “I knew something had happened. You’ve been acting all strangely and that was before Garth.”
Alice felt a shiver going through her.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be thoughtless.” She touched Alice’s arm. “Listen. I’d think twice about being a witness if I were you. I knew someone once who was attacked after they stood up in court and described seeing a robbery. Mind you, that was in Hackney before we moved down here. She was under some protection programme too but it didn’t help her.”
Alice’s throat went dry. Hadn’t she voiced similar concerns when giving her statement? “Paul … the policeman, said I’d get help if I needed it.”
Janice snorted. “They can’t look after everyone, can they? Honestly Alice, if I were you, I’d tell him you’ve got enough on your plate and refuse to do it. After all, that girl has nothing to do with you, does she?”
For an instant, Alice could see Kayleigh clearly in front of her. Looking up at her trustingly when she had ‘promised’ to return. I always wanted to be called Victoria.
“I’d like to think that someone might help Garth if they could,” she ventured. “Paul says the man involved was a predator of young girls. He drugs them and then has sex with them.”
Janice shuddered. “Don’t. And I’d watch out for the ‘Paul this and Paul that’, if I were you.”
Alice pretended she hadn’t heard the last bit. “He says that I’m the only witness who saw the whole thing. By the time someone else got there, they’d … they’d finished. The only other evidence they’ve got is an anonymous phone call, tipping them off in the first place. Someone else who saw it, although they can’t trace the call because it was from a pay as you go. My evidence is crucial in sending the man down. I’ve got to do it, Janice. I have to. Not despite Garth. But because of him.”
Her friend shook her head. “You’re a braver woman than me, Alice. I’m not sure I could do that. It’s not just the fear of being attacked. It’s the embarrassment bit too.”
“I know.” Alice bit her lip. “I’m scared too.”
How she would have loved to have confided in her friend about Phil. But it was no good. Janice, with her secure childhood that was now carrying her confidently through life, would never have understood. There was no point in even talking about Garth in prison. No one could understand the cold terror inside; the ‘what ifs’ and the fears that were whirling round her head; far more important, surely, than some girl in care whom she hardly knew.
Instead, they walked back home in silence; Janice leaving her at the front door with a kiss on each cheek. When she went in, placing her keys carefully on the hook behind the hall curtain, Daniel was talking on the phone. His face was rigid as he put the receiver down.
“That was Brian.” His lips tightened. “It’s not great news, I’m afraid.”
“What?” Alice could hardly get the word out.
“He’s been trying to get a date set for the hearing but the authorities are stalling. It could be years before Garth is tried.”
“But he can’t just waste away there.” Alice felt sick to the core. “It’s not human. There’s got to be something you can do.”
Daniel shrugged. “It’s a different world there, Alice. Different rules. Different regulations. A different way of thinking. We did warn him.”
There was a crash. The sound of splintered china. Red and blue china. Appalled, Alice looked at the segments of the old lady’s stepmother’s pot around her, just like the glass the other day.
Daniel stared at her. Once more, like the other day, it wasn’t difficult to see what he was thinking. Are you quite mad? On top of making things up and being a slut?
Numbly, Alice knelt down to pick up the pieces, cutting herself as she did so. She couldn’t even remember throwing it. How scary was that?
“What did you do that for?”
His voice boomed out over her.
“What did you do it for?” Mum had asked again and again when accusing her of lying about Uncle Phil all those years ago.
“I don’t know,” Alice repeated now to Daniel. “It just sort of happened.”
Hold me, she wanted to say. Hug me. But he was just looking at her as though he’d never seen her before.
“When all this is over,” he said slowly. “I think you ought to get some help. For the sake of all of us. You do agree, don’t you, Alice?”
Chapter Sixteen
Marc (with a ‘c’ apparently) and Angie had been fostering teenagers for years. Kayleigh would like them. They had children themselves. Five to be precise. One was a girl, a bit younger than Kayleigh. It would be someone to talk to. In fact, they’d be sharing a bedroom.
Kayleigh listened to all this shit with half an ear while the social worker drove along the road that led to Exeter. They weren’t going as far as that, the social worker explained. No way! Instead, they were going to a little village about forty minutes from town.
The social worker, a bouncy woman with stupid orange dangly earrings and piggy eyes had said all this as though it was something to get excited about. But Kayleigh felt sick. Forty minutes from the shops? That was her idea of hell. Even though she couldn’t afford anything, she liked looking at stuff in windows and imagining where she might go in them. She loved browsing through book shops too.
’Sides, there was no way she wanted to share a bedroom with a stranger.
“Are you religious, Kayleigh?” asked the bouncy woman, her earrings swinging wildly as they took a sharp left, bumping uncomfortably along a mucky farm track.
Was she kidding? If God existed, he’d have done something about Ron instead of abandoning her. “No,” Kayleigh muttered.
The social worke
r looked disappointed. “Pity. Still, maybe you’ll think differently after living with Marc and Angie.”
Orange earrings beamed as she did another sharp left, next to a ‘Ducks For Sale’ sign. “It’s amazing what magic they do. We’ve had some fantastic success stories.”
Magic? Success stories? She didn’t need crap like that. Not unless it was in a book – and it wasn’t. This was real. Kayleigh’s heart ached with longing and grief. She needed to be with Frankie. Not here in the middle of nowhere. If she only had a bit longer with him, she was sure he would love her again.
For a minute, Kayleigh allowed her mind to wander back to Frankie’s kisses in the park on the day they had met. They had been soft at first and then hard in an exciting way. She had tasted his excitement too. It had made her feel powerful and also humble at the same time, because someone loved her. Otherwise why would he have made love to her?
Marlene said no one called it ‘making love’ any more. It was ‘having sex’ or ‘having it off’ or ‘getting in the sack’. But Kayleigh knew that she and Frankie had done much more than that. He was just in denial, that was all. That was another of Mr Brown’s phrases.
“Here we are!” The orange earrings craned forward enthusiastically as the car stopped suddenly – only just avoiding a duck – by a bungalow with bright blue windows. It looked like something out of a nursery rhyme book. Not that Mum had ever bothered buying her one. Maybe that’s why Kayleigh still felt drawn to them in the kids section at the Library.
“Isn’t it sweet? You’re going to love it here. I just know you are.”
Gingerly, Kayleigh stepped out of the passenger seat, right into a pile of muck. Appalled, she stared down at her trainers. They were ruined.
“Oh dear.” The social worker frowned. “Better not go into the house wearing those. Angie is quite particular. There she is! And Marc too.”
