Finding Grace

by K. L. Slater

  ‘No. You’ve got it wrong.’ He sighs, and the corners of his mouth turn downwards. ‘Lucie, this is the last thing I wanted to explain to you now, in the middle of all our pain. I wanted to protect you from it as long as I could, especially with you being unwell.’

  ‘I’m not unwell, I’m just insane with worry!’ I yell at him, and then lower my voice before Dad or Fiona hears. ‘Why does everyone keep saying I’m not well? My daughter is missing… I’m losing the will to live, for God’s sake.’

  I wait for a response but he just looks at me.

  ‘Look, if you’re trying to wriggle out of this by focusing on my weaknesses, it’s not working,’ I say curtly.

  ‘I don’t know how you’re going to handle what I’m about to tell you, Lucie, but you’ve got to promise me you won’t lose it. You can’t let this affect you, because you might not be able to recover.’

  He closes the bedroom door behind him and walks towards me.

  I’m scared now, but I won’t show him. What the hell could be so bad, if it’s not that he’s having an affair with my best friend? Nothing in this world can be worse than Grace being gone, anyway. Nothing.

  Blake sits down on the bed and puts his head in his hands. When he looks up, his face is white and his voice is low. ‘OK, here goes. Your dad is in trouble, Luce.’

  ‘What?’ I sit down next to him. ‘What’s Dad got to do with you and Bev?’

  ‘He’s got himself into a mess. He’s been gambling, betting on the horses, the dogs, the outcome of football matches… you name it, he’s betting on it. He’s been doing it for months. He’s well and truly addicted.’

  I shake my head. I knew Dad liked the odd flutter at the bookie’s, but he’s always been restrained, careful. He’s never had the money to be a high roller. And then it suddenly hits me. ‘Hang on, are you saying that cash in your office drawer is money that Dad’s won?’

  Blake gives a sad laugh. ‘If only, but no. Far from it. That’s the problem: he hasn’t won for a long time, and if he did happen to get a win, by his own admission he’d just put it straight back on another bet.’

  Now I’m puzzled. ‘But where has he got money from to gamble big amounts? Dad draws incapacity benefit. He can’t work, for goodness’ sake.’

  Blake nods, his expression grave. ‘Now you’re starting to put the pieces together. He’s borrowed the money, Lucie.’

  ‘The bank gave him a loan?’ How irresponsible, lending money to a man who clearly can’t make the repayments. It serves them right if he defaults on it.

  ‘Not the bank, no. Loan sharks. Doorstep lenders. Your dad met some dodgy bloke in a pub his friend Bob knew, who offered him a small amount of money a few months ago. After that, Pete said he always seemed to be bumping into him and before long there was a ready supply of funds on offer. Serious money.’

  ‘How much are we talking about?’ I ask faintly.

  ‘He’s borrowed nearly twenty grand over a period of six months.’

  I suck in air. Twenty grand!

  ‘Except loan sharks have their own unregulated rate of interest,’ Blake continues. ‘The debt has now soared to fifty grand, and if he doesn’t pay up in the next fourteen days, they’re demanding he sell his house.’

  I can’t speak. I can’t process the horror of what my husband is telling me. Dad’s worsening respiratory problems, his weight loss, his depression… it’s all fitting together.

  ‘Obviously, at your dad’s age, with no income, he hasn’t got a hope in hell of getting any help from the usual sources. He came to me, Luce. He was too worried about how you’d react to involve you in it.’

  ‘But how… I mean, the cash in the drawer…’ I can’t even feel irritated at yet another accusation of me being flaky. I’m too distracted by this mammoth development.

  ‘Bev works in financial services, as you know.’ Blake looks exhausted. ‘She arranged a remortgage on Pete’s house to raise the money, but she said Mike would go absolutely crazy if he knew she’d got involved in something like this. It’s not illegal exactly, but let’s just say she bent the rules slightly to pull it off.’

  My insides feel like they just turned to liquid.

  Blake falls silent for a moment, as if he’s trying to find the right words.

  ‘Mike saw me go into Bev’s office building and, after she’d been acting so secretive, accused her of having an affair with me. So she had no choice but to tell him, and now Mike is totally pissed off at us both. I can’t blame him, but I knew it would kill Pete if he lost his house because of his own stupidity, and I knew it would finish you off too.’

  Now I can see why there are such simmering tensions between the three of them. Why Blake tried to stop me going down to Bev and Mike’s house last night, in case it all kicked off, I suppose.

  My eyes brim. ‘You and Bev did all this to help Dad?’

  He nods. ‘I was due to pay the money over to the loan sharks this morning, but then Grace went missing and I’ve had to bail for a few days. They said if I got the police involved, they’d…’

  ‘They’d what?’

  ‘They’d burn Pete’s house down with him in it.’

  ‘Oh God!’ I sob into my hands. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Bev.’

  He reaches for my hand.

  ‘I would’ve told you, Luce. I swear to God, I was going to tell you everything. When it had all been sorted. But then… I just couldn’t put that pressure on you.’

  I thought I’d been successful in keeping the past from Blake and from everyone else but it clearly hasn’t worked. They might not know the details of what happened back then but they’re aware I’m damaged. It’s been painfully obvious since Grace went missing they all feel obliged to protect my fragile mental state.

  It must have been difficult for my family and my friends for all these years, protecting me from something they know nothing about.

  A thought stirs me up again.

  ‘But you let Oscar go over there, stay with Dad when he could clearly have been in danger!’

  ‘Lucie, stop! Not now. I can’t face all this on top of what we have to deal with.’

  ‘You might have to face it! What if those people had something to do with Grace going missing?’

  ‘They had no need to take her, Lucie. They knew your dad fully intended paying them this week.’

  I love Dad with all my heart, but he’s put my husband and best friend in a terrible position, and my son, and possibly my daughter, in danger.

  Is there no one I can trust any more?

  Downstairs, the front door opens, and I hear Fiona speaking to someone. Next minute, she calls upstairs.

  ‘Blake, could you come here for a moment, please?’

  He listens for a moment – his hearing has always been better than mine – and his expression changes. Without another word, he bounds downstairs.

  There are low voices speaking and I can’t discern the detail. Then I hear Blake say, ‘Is this about Grace? Have you got any more information?’

  I stand on the landing, listening to a woman responding. She is clearly struggling to keep calm. Initially she speaks in low murmur but within the space of a few seconds, she ramps up the volume.

  ‘No! I don’t want to speak to you, I want to speak to your wife. There are things she needs to know.’

  My eyes widen in alarm but my feet seem rooted to the spot. I know that voice but I can’t place it.

  ‘My wife isn’t feeling well and I don’t want you causing trouble again, thank you.’ There’s a pregnant pause and then Blake speaks again, his tone firmer. ‘Fiona, I’d like this lady to leave, please.’

  I scuttle out of the bedroom but a moment later, the door slams and I hear Blake and Fiona talking in the hallway.

  I run downstairs and Blake appears before I reach the bottom step.

  He holds his hand up in a stop sign. ‘Nothing for you to worry about, Lucie,’ he says. ‘Just Barbara Charterhouse trying to cause probl
ems again.’

  Fiona hovers in the kitchen doorway behind him. It feels like the two of them are in cahoots.

  ‘What did she want?’ I demand. ‘Why didn’t you let her speak to me?’

  ‘After what happened at the café?’ Blake bites the inside of his top lip. ‘Not bloody likely. That woman is a trouble maker, pure and simple. Everybody around here says the same.’

  I glare at Fiona. ‘But what if she knows something about Grace’s disappearance? You shouldn’t have just sent her away like that.’

  I look at my husband, as he’s the one who told Fiona to ask her to leave, but he seems distracted, chewing on his thumbnail.

  ‘She’s been interviewed at length, Lucie. The detectives would have got every last scrap of detail about Grace’s sighting,’ Fiona says gently. She hesitates, as though she’s in two minds whether to carry on. ‘By the sounds of it, her visit here wasn’t connected to Grace.’ Her eyes search my face. ‘It sounds as if it was something concerning you she wanted to speak about.’

  Forty-Two

  Sixteen years earlier

  After Stefan left, Lucie sat on the bed. She guessed most people on her landing would be attending early lectures now and her room felt silent and cold.

  The thoughts ricocheted around her head as she tried to make sense of Stefan’s urgent departure.

  Who was the panicky woman who’d spurred him into action? Lucie had watched as his expression changed; she’d seen a malicious focus settle over his features and it had unnerved her.

  He’d never been aggressive with her and had been a considerate lover last night. But she had noticed people in the friendship group often treading on eggshells around him. There were occasions where others had seemed distinctly uncomfortable in his presence, as if they were unsure or nervous of his reaction.

  She wanted to believe he really cared about her, but there was something she couldn’t put her finger on, like an invisible barrier that prevented her from knowing all of him.

  She shivered and her eyes searched around for her robe. They alighted on a small, grey bundle beside her single bedside cabinet.

  Stefan’s rucksack.

  She glanced at the door. He’d been so focused on getting away to sort out whatever problem had come up, he’d probably not notice it was missing until much later. The latch was down and the door was locked.

  It was the first time, since she’d known him, that the little grey rucksack had not been on his person. His phone always went into his pocket. What could be in there that he couldn’t bear to be parted from, she wondered. She’d never seen him put anything in there or take anything out!

  She picked up the bag and sat back down on the bed. Holding it on her knee, she sprang the plastic buckles and opened it up.

  There was a folded T-shirt which she pulled out and laid on the bed.

  What she found underneath made her gasp. Tiny bags containing powder and pills. Lying on top of what was clearly, even to her innocent eyes, packets of weed. She didn’t remove the drugs but poked past them with her fingers to discover two big fat bundles of rolled notes.

  She grabbed the T-shirt and stuffed it back in, before re-fastening the rucksack and tossing it back where she found it.

  Her heart pounded so hard on her ribcage she actually feared it might crack. Her breathing became laboured but dragging in huge gulps of air only served to make her feel light-headed.

  Scenes presented themselves in her head; a slideshow of snippets that served as evidence to make sense of what she’d found.

  The brief whispered conversations in pubs and clubs, often the pre-cursor for his frequent, extended trips to the bathrooms in such places. His generosity in buying drinks and wearing designer labels. His obsession with keeping the rucksack – his stock – close to him. His cryptic offer of a fantastic opportunity he wanted to speak to her about. The nervousness of those around him.

  Did everyone know Stefan was a drug-dealer, but her? Was the whole group selling… or using?

  Lucie felt bruised, releasing how readily she had trusted him. She had blindly invested everything she had in Stefan, to the detriment of her relationship with her dad and her studies.

  But her own mother had died after a drug overdose. How can it not have occurred to her that Stefan was dealing? She’d told him how she despised people who sold drugs because of what happened to her mum. The signs – with hindsight – now looked so obvious. Even her father had tried to warn her about what could happen at uni, but she had laughed off his concerns.

  Lucie realised she had unconsciously settled into a routine of attending just enough lectures to scrape by and avoid her tutors raising concerns. Her assignment marks had dropped, there was no denying that, but on Stefan’s suggestion, she’d used the excuse that she was finding the transition to degree-level work challenging.

  ‘I’m determined to work hard and improve my marks,’ she told her course tutor when he requested a one-to-one meeting and questioned the amount of work she was putting in.

  Following Stefan’s instructions, she’d wept a little, mentioned how tough things had been back home with just her and her dad coping alone, and emphasised how getting her degree was the most important thing in her life. It had worked splendidly. The tutor’s attitude softened almost immediately, and she left the meeting feeling quite untouchable.

  Stefan was so experienced, knew just what to say. How to lie convincingly. And now, she was beginning to see how he might have garnered such skills.

  What a naïve idiot she’d been to fall under his spell. But, she now told herself, no more. She should try and find out what she could and then do the right thing. That much was obvious.

  Despite the severity of her hangover, the unexpected injection of adrenalin now served to motivate her to get quickly dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. She used a face wipe to remove her smudged eye make-up and secured her lank hair up into a scruffy topknot.

  She pushed her feet into trainers, shrugged on her jacket and stared at the rucksack. Now she knew what it contained, its significance seemed to fill the room. She picked it up and tossed it into the bottom of her slender wardrobe, moving her knee-high boots in front of it.

  Granted, it was hardly the best security arrangement, but if, for any reason, the house manager let herself in to check the room, at least the bag wasn’t in plain sight any longer.

  She headed over to the library, not quite sure who she was looking for, but knowing that this was the best place to find someone from the friendship group.

  Her stomach growled and yet she couldn’t entertain the thought of eating anything. She breathed in the fresh, cool air but instead of freshening her up, it made her shiver and she pulled her padded jacket closer to her.

  The campus was quiet, most people either in the library or in lectures with the odd member of staff walking briskly between buildings clutching paperwork. Her heart seemed to lurch into her mouth when she spotted a marked police car crawling around the top of the drive. But it came to a stop outside the entrance to the main office and the two officers that got out didn’t even look in her direction.

  She used her student key card to access the library building and made her way over to the main open study area. Standing near the entrance area, her eyes began to search for anyone from their friendship circle.

  A waving arm alerted her from the left. Her head snapped over to where Gregg was trying to catch her attention.

  Her heart warmed at the sight of a familiar face. Gregg had always struck Lucie as sensible and genuine and, right now, in the absence of people she knew well enough to confide in, she valued his opinion.

  She picked her way amongst the busy tables until she reached him. The smile slid from her face when she saw his expression.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ he hissed when she reached his small table for two, tucked away in the corner. ‘The shit’s about to hit the fucking fan.’

  She stared at him, mute for a second as she realised her reaction was i
mportant. If she appeared clueless, Gregg might clam up.

  ‘Stefan had a call and rushed off this morning before he could explain where he was going,’ she said.

  ‘I bet he did.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Gregg glanced around them before answering.

  ‘That shit he sells? Well, it finally put some kid in hospital. Stefan is lucky they survived. Some poor kid who was visiting, too. Not even a student here but the details are sketchy.’

  Her scalp tightened and her mother’s face, remembered only from photographs, drifted into her mind.

  ‘He’s been pressuring me to sell for him so I’ve tried to keep out of his way a bit and… well, I’ve turned a blind eye to it, I suppose. Like we all do.’ Gregg looked as if he’d lost weight. He’d always been pale, but now dark circles framed his green eyes. ‘Are you… you know, working for him yet?’

  ‘No! We don’t discuss how he earns his money, never have.’

  ‘Oh! But still, you spend so much time with him, you must know what’s going on.’

  ‘Honestly, no. I can see with hindsight there have been signs but I didn’t have a clue. He’s so attentive to me, to us… I suppose I’ve been blind to anything else.’

  ‘That’s what he does at first, how he gets girls hooked.’

  His comment stung.

  ‘Are you saying he’s done this before? Dated someone just to—’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry. Rhonda told me that’s how he gets girls’ trust. And then he just sort of introduces it casually to the conversation. Before they know it, they don’t really have a choice in the matter.’

  The fabulous opportunity he was going to discuss…