Pilgrim

by Devon De'Ath

  Martha folded her arms. “Not one that pays enough to buy a treasure like that. And what about that brand new mobile phone last week? I’m worried. Where are you getting all this money, Katie?”

  Katie scooped up her things, then stormed upstairs with a huff. Seconds later her bedroom door slammed shut, shaking the house.

  “I'm at a loss, Andrew. Why is she acting like this?” Martha gave her husband an earful when he arrived home from work later that evening.

  Andrew Tomlinson changed out of his grey suit in the master bedroom, listening to the latest tale of woe about his daughter. Slight of build, his frame presented a marital ‘Laurel’ to Martha’s ‘Hardy.’ “Shall I have a go at her?”

  Martha wrung her hands. “It didn’t help last time. That made things worse.”

  “So what do you suggest? She’s eighteen. Do we give her an ultimatum about her behaviour? Threaten to kick her out the door? What?”

  Martha winced. She was a born homemaker. All she ever wanted was to settle down in a nice house, live a comfortable life and raise an adoring daughter she could groom for a similar fate. “Do you think we’ve spoiled her?”

  Andrew shrugged and unfastened his tie. “I don’t know. All teenagers are obnoxious. She’s transitioning from school to the wider, working world. We can only hope Katie settles down in time, or gets the urge to move on sooner rather than later, if not. I’ll not have her upsetting you, though. If this carries on, I’ll put my foot down.”

  “I don’t like that new crowd she’s hanging around with, Andrew.”

  “I know. But, look on the bright side: those other problems we had with her… Well, you know. They seem to have abated since.”

  “I wondered if I should call that social worker who helped Grace with her family difficulties?” said Martha.

  Andrew frowned. “I agree she was a nice young lady, but your sister’s problems were a little different from ours. Do you think our unruly daughter is a genuine case for Social Services?”

  Martha stiffened. “I didn’t mean in her official capacity. But I could call her. You know: invite her round for a cuppa and a chat. She may have some expert advice to offer.”

  “Let’s see if Katie’s more civil over dinner, okay? Perhaps if we try talking to her like an adult, she’ll calm down and respond better.”

  Katie didn’t come down for dinner, so her parents left her alone. Martha wanted to take her a plate of food upstairs, but Andrew warned that was the type of coddling behaviour they needed to nip in the bud.

  Right before retiring for the night, Martha knocked on Katie’s bedroom door. After several attempts without response, she twisted the handle to find the room unlocked. Katie’s slender, attractive form lay face down on the bed. Her grey and purple locks covered her upper torso like a wispy rug. She’d left a lamp on before losing consciousness. It afforded Martha enough light to approach and lift the sheet ready to cover her body. Ever the doting mother who couldn’t let go, Martha yearned to shelter her daughter from harm. The shiny new tablet computer lay on the carpet next to her bed. Martha lifted it with careful fingers and placed the electronic item next to Katie’s phone. A strange growl, like someone with a chestful of phlegm during bronchitis, rattled from the teenager’s mouth. Martha listened to the rise and fall of her troubled breathing for half a minute. Has she started smoking something? Could that account for her gravelly breath and altered behaviour? She sniffed the air. No trace of any unusual aromas. Martha was about to tuck her in, when a series of marks on the teenager’s inner thigh caught her attention. She leaned closer. A tattooed phrase of text in Gothic script adorned one upper leg beneath the crotch. Martha gulped at the permanent mark on her baby’s flesh. Flesh she’d pampered and powdered from birth, for as long as her child would allow. What is that? She picked up a notepad and pen from the nightstand and scribbled down the phrase. Is this a slogan from some band she likes? Martha glanced around the bedroom walls. It was a plain chamber in comparison with the rooms of other teenagers. Katie never showed much interest in pictures or posters.

  “What are you doing?” Katie went from distant slumber to sitting upright in a flash. Her pouting lips pulled back over white teeth in a wolf-like snarl.

  Martha slipped the note she’d scribbled into her pocket. “I wanted to check you were all right. You didn’t come down for dinner. Are you hungry?”

  Katie watched her, cold eyes narrowing as if to assess an ulterior motive behind fake concern. “I’m fine. What do you want?”

  Martha cleared her throat. “How long have you had that tattoo on your thigh, Katie?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Is it permanent?”

  “Jesus, Mum, it’s a tattoo. What do you think? It’s not Henna.”

  “You might regret it after your tastes mature. What does it mean?”

  Katie thrust one firm finger towards her door. “It means you should mind your own bloody business and piss off, okay?”

  Martha’s bottom lip wobbled. She rotated on her heel and left without another word.

  * * *

  “If either of your hands follows where your eyes have gone, I’ll break your shit off, Frank.” The woman’s firm tone made it clear she wasn’t joking.

  Frank Trimble’s mouth crinkled into an unfazed grin as the exquisite, pert and rounded buttocks before him relaxed. A striking, shapely twenty-eight-year-old female straightened from loading paper into the office photocopier. Tall, slim and athletic, sporting dark blonde hair in a tightly plaited ponytail; she twisted to regard her fat, middle-aged, divorced co-worker with intense, azure eyes. An ever semi-open triangular mouth combined with her erect form to present a beautiful but intimidating aspect to a classic example of statuesque womanhood.

  Frank clutched a now wrinkled official document ready for copying in front of his crotch, to disguise a half-lob erection. A predictable manifestation brought on by persistent imaginings of the unprofessional behaviour he’d like to engage in with the office hottie. “You should do a calendar or something.” He grinned, trying not to sweat.

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Not a chance. But it’s the only way you’d ever get to take me home with you: in printed form.”

  Frank gripped the paper harder. He always kept a spare item of photocopying handy for those times she wafted along with those snake oil hips, on her way to the print room. The result was ever the same, but Frank enjoyed the barbs and banter. His leering gaze followed her figure-hugging trousers as she left the room.

  “I swear Frank gets worse by the week.” The woman huffed and dumped her copying on a desk in the open-plan office. Now she wished she hadn’t refilled the paper tray after completing her task. Goodness knows what carnal atrocities filled the mind of that greasy letch, while he enjoyed witnessing her act of professional courtesy. “He told me I should do a calendar.”

  Suzie Kempston looked up from her computer screen opposite. “Swimsuit?” She fought to conceal a teasing smile.

  “Don’t you start.” The blonde flopped into her rotating office chair.

  Suzie leaned closer. “If you had a boyfriend, he might leave you alone. Hun, you could have your pick of the choicest cuts. Shit, if I had your looks and arse - before giving birth forever ruined mine - I'd have married Mr Universe.”

  “I’m not into relationships right now. Thanks for the thought, Suze.” The phone warbled to life on her desk. She whipped it up to her ear with one toned but slender arm. “Good morning, Social Services, Vicky Lambert speaking. How can I help you?”

  Frank Trimble wandered past, twinkling pupils tracing every contour of Vicky’s body as she listened to the voice on the phone.

  Suzie Kempston threw a pen across the desk which struck and bounced off his forehead.

  “Ow. What was that for?” Frank squatted to retrieve the stationery item and pass it back to her. The action caused his shirt to un-tuck and reveal a bloated belly, hinting at a future diabetes sufferer in waiting.

  Suzie s
ighed. “Give it a rest, Frank, would you? She’s not interested.”

  “Maybe she is, but she doesn’t know it yet?”

  Suzie gagged. “I thought dirty men only said things like that in films. Are you taking the piss?”

  Frank watched Vicky spin lazy half circles in her chair during the call. “Such a shame to see all that loveliness wasted. Come on, she looks like a Scandinavian supermodel or something. Amazing. Weren’t her folks bakers from Chilham?”

  “Godmersham. And those were her adoptive folks. Vicky’s an orphan,” Suzie corrected.

  “What about her actual parents?” Frank raised one eyebrow, leaning closer.

  Suzie shook her head. “No idea. She won’t talk about it, if she even knew them. I recommend staying off the subject. Any more upsets from you and Vicky will have grounds for reporting harassment, Frank. Leave her alone, yeah?”

  Frank licked his lips for a moment, then ambled back to his own desk across the room.

  Suzie shook her head as she watched him tuck that overspilling gut into the complaining waistband of ill-fitting trousers. “That guy needs to stay off the canteen cheese puffs.”

  Vicky smiled at her female colleague while toying with the phone cord. She listened a moment longer, then spoke into the receiver. “Okay, Martha. Number Seven, Headcorn Close. I’ll pop round during my lunch hour. See you soon. Bye.” She hung up.

  Suzie nodded at the phone. “Who was that?”

  “Martha Tomlinson.”

  “Part of your caseload?”

  “No. She’s the sister of Grace Skinner, a client I assisted over another matter. I met Martha and her husband back then. They’re agreeable people.” Vicky rapped her fingernails on the desk.

  “What did she want?”

  “A bit of moral support and some advice.”

  “Huh?” Suzie squinted.

  Vicky stretched. “They’re having some behavioural issues with their eighteen-year-old daughter.”

  “Not our unit’s purview, if she’s an adult.”

  “True. That’s why I’m popping round for a cuppa during my lunch break. It can’t hurt to give the woman a listening ear in exchange for tea and nibbles, can it?”

  Suzie blew out her cheeks. “You’re going to burnout if you don’t stop going the extra mile for every sob story who calls, Vick. I wish we had a dozen more like you, though.” She twisted in her seat and grimaced at Frank Trimble in the far corner. “But I’m not sure Frank could handle that. Either his head or his trousers would explode.”

  Vicky grinned. “He’d spend his life following women into the print room. We’d never get him out.”

  Suzie covered her mouth to subdue a trill of laughter.

  Vicky’s red Audi A3 swept into the cul-de-sac at Headcorn Close, Tovil. She craned her neck across the steering wheel to read house numbers. Number seven lay halfway along the curve; one of many almost identical three bedroom, semi-detached properties. Vicky pulled up on the block paved driveway outside a smart blue garage. The front door of the house opened before she’d even switched off her engine.

  “Lovely to see you again, Victoria,” Martha Tomlinson called from her hallway.

  Vicky got out and sauntered up the drive. “It’s still Vicky, Martha. No need for polite formalities.” She stepped inside and wiped her shoes on the doormat.

  “Kettle’s on,” Martha moved towards the kitchen. “What can I fix you for lunch?”

  “Whatever you’re having will be fine.”

  “Is cold pasta salad okay?”

  “Great. It shouldn’t go straight to my hips.”

  Martha studied the athletic woman with kind eyes. “If I had your figure, I’d be less than worried.”

  Vicky smiled. “So you’ve been having some behavioural issues with your daughter? I don’t think I met her before.”

  “No. She wasn’t involved in that situation with Grace. We kept her out of things.”

  “I see.” Vicky sat down at the dining room table. “Her name’s Katie?”

  Martha lifted the kettle to pour out the boiling water and make tea. “Yes. Andrew and I are at our wits’ end. I’m sorry to drag you into all this, but we’re out of ideas.”

  “What’s she been up to?”

  “The usual stuff to begin with: moody, sullen, answering back. Nothing too drastic.”

  “She’s left school now?”

  “That’s right. Katie works for ‘Hands of Hope,’ that homeless charity in town.”

  Vicky nodded in approval. “That’s a positive sign.”

  “We thought so too, at first.”

  “What happened?”

  Martha passed her guest a cup of tea, then retrieved a bowl of cold pasta salad from the fridge. “The opening act to her ongoing drama was something embarrassing.”

  “For you or her?”

  “We thought the entire family until Andrew and I realised she didn’t care.” Martha inserted two wooden servers into the bowl, then placed it on the table where plates awaited. “Please help yourself, Vicky.”

  “Thank you.” Vicky glanced at the food, then back to her host. “So what did she do?”

  Martha sat down, pulling at her top with agitated fingers. “Katie developed a taste for… Err…” She moved one hand lower to wiggle its digits below her waist.

  Vicky’s bright blue eyes registered understanding. “Oh, I see. A taste for satisfying herself. Not the end of the world, is it? Healthy, some might say. Does she have a boyfriend?”

  “We haven't met one. It wasn’t her activities that concerned us as much as their frequency and volume.”

  Vicky flushed. “Are you certain you should tell me this?”

  Martha rubbed her forehead. “She got so loud Andrew had to turn the TV up to drown out the noise. When our next-door neighbours popped round for a quiet word about Katie’s frequent ‘disturbances,’ it mortified us. They have a younger teenage son whose room shares a party wall with Katie’s.”

  Vicky bit her lip, attempting to disguise a playful twinkle in her eyes. “I don’t imagine it was the boy who complained.”

  Martha shook her head. “No. But when his Mum stumbled upon him beating off to our daughter’s moans, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  Vicky glanced away to compose herself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. It must be very disruptive, but if that’s all, then I-”

  “It isn’t.” Martha’s semi-jovial demeanour vanished.

  “Oh.” Vicky sipped her tea. Anything to fill her now uncomfortable hands.

  “A few months ago, Katie stopped the habit. That coincided with a fresh group of friends she met. They’re an odd crowd. I don’t like them.”

  “Are you worried they’re into drugs or something illegal?”

  Martha closed her eyes. “Most are well-to-do sorts. Lots of money. Nice cars. She spends half her spare time at a rambling manor house in the country.”

  “So if the loud masturbation sessions halted, did her moods worsen?”

  Martha nodded. “She’s not your average, sullen teenager now. Katie treats me like an active enemy. As though she’s angry over some undisclosed offence. I’ve never experienced treatment like it. Then there’s the money.”

  “Money?”

  “She keeps coming home with new toys. Phones, tablet computers. Some of that stuff is worth hundreds of Pounds or more. No way could she afford them on the pittance they pay her at the charity.”

  “Do you think she’s stealing?”

  Martha gulped down some tea. “Tell me if I’m being stupid, but I'm convinced our daughter’s mixed up in adult films or something.”

  “Over at the manor?”

  “That’s right.”

  Vicky chewed on the idea. “I wouldn’t say ‘stupid.’ If brazen self-satisfaction of her obvious libido has ended, and she’s throwing cash around, I understand your concerns.”

  “Who or what is gratifying her intimate appetites and where is the money coming from? Andre
w and I have worked so hard to give her a good start in life. She could ruin herself mentally, physically and emotionally. Not to mention winding up with a criminal record.” Martha’s voice cracked a little. “I found a tattoo on her inner thigh while she was asleep. Some text.”

  Vicky tilted her head. “Like a porn star? Another worrying indicator. What does it say?”

  “I’m not sure, but I wrote it down.” She pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her skirt pocket. “It looks like Latin. Could it be a pop culture phrase? I didn’t have the heart to look the text up on-line, in case it was an obvious ‘sex thing.’ I’m not sure my nerves could take a great deal of specific information, if so.” She slid the paper across the table.

  Vicky’s gaze fell upon the words, which slipped from her mouth in an unconscious whisper. “Templi omnium hominum pacis abbas.”

  “Do you have any idea what it means?” Martha asked.

  Vicky didn’t look up. “Father of the temple of peace of all men.”

  “Do you understand Latin?”

  “No. I’m familiar with the phrase.” Her cheeks paled. “Where is this manor Katie goes to, Martha?”

  “It’s called Hirsig House. Some isolated medieval place, out near Otterden. I’ve not been there. They don’t allow visitors. It’s in extensive private grounds.”

  “Of course it is.” Vicky spoke the words under her breath.

  Martha noticed the change in her guest’s responses. “Are you all right, Vicky? You’ve not touched any salad yet. Can I serve you?” She reached for the wooden implements.

  Vicky lifted one hand to stop her. “No thank you. I’m not so hungry now. Sorry, Martha, it looks delicious.”

  Martha gulped. “You’re worrying me. Do you have knowledge of that place?”

  Vicky shook her head. “Not the house you mentioned. But I’d advise you to keep Katie away from those people, if you can. Though, from what you’ve told me, I’m dubious she’ll react well to your input.”

  “Is she in danger? How can I keep her away from them? She won’t listen to me. Should I call the police? Is it porn? Are they criminals?” Her barrage of questions and heartbreaking assertions grew in hysterical tones. “Oh God, she’s my baby. My only child. I don’t want to lose her. I can’t lose her.”