Creeping Ivy, page 10
‘Oh Emma, you are wonderful.’ Trish had never seriously doubted that Emma would be prepared to use her expertise in such a cause, but her readiness to offer her skills – and without charging for them – was the one bright spot in an otherwise dreadful day. Antonia could easily afford to pay top rates, but it might be easier to persuade her to agree to the test if it could be presented as a freebie. She’d always liked a bargain!
‘And, you know, Trish, it’s not just a question of whether or not the nanny’s been telling the truth about what happened in the playground. It’s quite possible that the right questions will elicit memories she’s not aware she has.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll tell Antonia.’
‘How is she?’
As you’d expect: desperate with terror for Charlotte, and expressing most of it as aggression. I found that tougher to take than I should have done. She must be in torment.’
‘Do you think there’s any hope for Charlotte? I mean that she could be still alive.’
‘I keep trying to believe it, but I don’t actually see how, unless it’s like that awful Belgian case. You know the one, where that man’s thought to have kidnapped young girls and kept them in terrible conditions in secret cellars until he had a buyer for them.’
‘Oh, Trish. Please God, it’s not like that. D’you want to talk about it? Would it help? I could come to you or you could come here. Whatever.’
‘I don’t think so, Emma. But thanks. The only thing that’s going to help is getting some good news. Or maybe any news at all. At least if we knew for certain what had happened, we could all start trying to cope, but as it is … No, I think I’ll stay here on my own. Sorry to be churlish.’
‘You’re not. And ring me if you change your mind. Would you like me to cancel Willow?’
‘What?’
‘I’m not surprised you’ve forgotten, but you and I were due to go to the Worths’ tomorrow night. Would you like me to cancel it? Willow would understand. God! Anyone would, and she’s always been better than most at knowing how one feels.’
Trish had completely forgotten the long-standing arrangement for dinner with a novelist friend of Emma’s, who was married to a senior police officer.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. If the invitation’s still open, I’ll go. I like them both so much and Tom might be able to help.’
‘Good. Eight o’clock then. And don’t worry about dressing up.’
‘Fine. I’ll see you there.’
‘OK. But if you change your mind – or if something happens – ring me and I’ll sort it. Bye.’
Trish dialled her mother’s number. ‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘Trish, darling. How are you? I haven’t rung because I’ve assumed that you’d be with Antonia. How is she? Has there been any news of Charlotte?’
‘Not yet. I’m glad you know about it. I don’t think I could have gone through the whole story again.’
‘No, I should think you need to forget it – if one ever could. You were lost once, for about twenty minutes, and I nearly exploded with terror. What Antonia must be going through! I wish her mother wasn’t dead. She must need her so much at the moment. I’ve written and offered to help, but I didn’t want to ring. I thought she’d have enough to deal with, and I knew you’d be there.’
‘Yes, I was,’ said Trish as she fell into the familiar comfort her mother had always managed to give her. She felt even sorrier for Antonia than she had done all day. ‘I don’t remember ever being lost. How odd! You’d have thought something so frightening would stick in the mind.’
‘Or be buried as too painful. You were four or five, I think. One of your schoolfriends’ mothers had taken you to a fair and turned her back. She wasn’t a bad woman and she rang me the instant she realised you’d gone, but I could have killed her. And I never did manage to forgive her. We might have been friends, I think looking back – but not after that.’
A fair? Noisy – bangy – very colourful and what felt like millions of people washing around her like a sea? Yes, Trish thought, I do remember something. And Charlotte’s even younger than I was then. And I was only lost for a few minutes. It’s been more than twenty-four hours now. What have they done to her? Is it over yet? Oh, God! Would it be easier if we knew for sure that she was dead? Then at least they couldn’t be hurting her any more. Oh, Charlotte.
Chapter Nine
‘You look as though you haven’t slept, Mike,’ said Stephen as he leaned across the polished slate worktop to help himself to coffee from the Alessi espresso pot on Monday morning. ‘What’s the worry this time?’ Mike looked up from his huge breakfast cup, brushing his moustache first one way then the other, as he always did when he was in a state. His perfect skin was paler than it should have been, and he was biting the inside of his cheeks. His round khaki eyes were full of blank, mindless terror.
‘I’m all right.’
Stephen suppressed a sigh as he recognised all the signs. He mentally ran through his diary for the morning, relieved to remember that he had no meetings scheduled until well after eleven. If Mike really lost it, and it looked as though he might, there should be time to get him reasonably stable again and still not miss anything too important in the office. There was not much point in asking questions while he was still hanging on; the outburst would come soon enough as it was.
Stephen reached for the newspapers. The Daily Mercury was on top of the pile and he looked at it with disdain. Mike insisted they took it, but really it was the most dreadful rag.
‘Isn’t that one of your pupils?’ he said, catching sight of the headline. ‘Charlotte Welbock? Daughter of the rich banker?’
There was a gasp from Mike and Stephen looked up at him again.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And see what it says: someone’s killed her. Look, Steve.’
Accustomed to Mike’s dramatics, Stephen carefully read the article under the screaming headline, picking out the truth without difficulty.
‘Not necessarily,’ he said, when he reached the end of the account. ‘She’s disappeared and there are fears for her safety, that’s all. What are you in such a state about? All right, she’s one of your pupils, but you can’t know her that well.’
Mike shook his head, but his eyes were still full of horror. ‘She’s such a sweet little thing, Steve. If you’d seen her, you’d understand. She started her first lesson all white and quivering on the edge of the pool but too brave to cry. And now she just leaps off the edge into my arms, miles out of her depth, squealing with pleasure. She’s so trusting, you can’t imagine. And so sweet, Steve. I wish you’d seen her.’
Stephen softened his voice and his expression until no one, not even Mike-in-a-panic, could possibly read criticism in it.
‘It’s horrible for her and her parents, and I can see you don’t like thinking about what might have happened to her, but there’s nothing here to make you all of a doo-dah like this. What’s the problem? Come on, Mike, out with it.’
Tears welled in Mike’s eyes, making them even more lustrous and appealing than usual; the long lashes looked like black silk. ‘She’s only four, Steve.’
‘So?’ he said. His voice was still not unkind or even cool, but Mike started biting the inside of his cheeks again. ‘I know it’s sad, but it isn’t really anything to do with you, now is it?’
‘No. No. Of course it isn’t. How could it be? But will they believe me? The police. You know what the police are like. They’ll come to the pool. I had her for a lesson only a couple of hours before it happened. They’re bound to think I … You know.’
Stephen walked round to the other side of the worktop and put both hands on Mike’s head, smoothing the thick hair away from his face, and then dried his eyes with a perfectly ironed fine linen handkerchief. Mike looked up at him with a nauseatingly familiar mixture of fear, gratitude and begging.
‘Don’t get yourself in such a state. Listen, Mike, you might conceivably have a reason to panic if the child had been a boy, but even the stupidest, most ignorant police officer isn’t going to think a man like you could do anything to a four-year-old girl.’
‘But most of them don’t think there’s any difference between gay and paedophile. They’ll come after me and and then probably you, too, and make our life hell. It’s not only me I’m worried about. It’s you too. You’ll hate it if they start accusing me and it gets in the papers. I’d do anything not to make trouble for you, Steve. You know that.’
Stephen sighed. He and Mike had lived together for nearly three years. He loved Mike beyond reason – and would have done almost anything for him – but there were times when the boy’s irrational terrors drove him to the brink of fury. Long experience had told him that any sign of anger would only make the panic – and his own impatience – worse. Breathing deeply to instil calm into his mind, he fetched them both more coffee and poured out a bowl of the special muesli Mike concocted from little bags of seeds and nuts he bought in secret health-food shops all over London, added cranberry juice and put a spoon in Mike’s hand.
‘Eat,’ he commanded as gently as the necessary firmness would allow. ‘And while you eat, listen. Carefully. For one thing I don’t suppose they will even bother to ask what this child was doing in a swimming pool on Saturday morning if she was lifted from a park in the afternoon. For another, I cannot imagine you were ever left alone with her at the pool, were you?’
Mike shook his head, a dripping spoonful of muesli halfway to his mouth.
‘Who was with you?’
‘She has individual lessons. The nanny brought her and stayed beside the pool all the time with the stepfather. He’s not always there through the lessons; sometimes he just comes to collect them at the end. This time he was there all the time.’
‘Did you see them leave the pool?’
‘Yes.’
‘All three of them together?’
‘Yes.’
‘There you are then. What on earth are you worrying about? Eat.’
Mike obediently chewed a mouthful of oats, pumpkin seeds and chopped hazelnuts doused in juice.
‘But what if the police come here and start asking questions?’ he asked when he had swallowed.
‘Even if they do, so what? We’re not doing anything illegal here. At least I’m not,’ said Stephen. He was an administrative civil servant in the Home Office and several times in the past had had to explain to Mike with as much ferocity as he thought the boy could bear that he would not have drugs of any kind in the flat. ‘Are you?’
Mike did not answer. After a moment, Stephen saw his cheeks begin to flush.
‘Mike?’ He did allow some of the heavily suppressed irritation into his voice at that point.
‘How can you ask?’ Mike said, looking desperately hurt. ‘I promised I wouldn’t, and I haven’t. Not here, not at the pool, not at the gym – not anywhere. I’m clean. I’ve told you.’
‘Good. Because I warn you, if you do – for whatever reason – it’s curtains.’
‘Oh don’t, please, Steve. Not now, not while there’s this horror hanging over me. I can’t take it now. I can’t.’
‘It’s not hanging over you,’ said his lover unmoved by the hysteria, ‘and your promises haven’t always been kept.’
‘I know, Steve. I’m sorry. I …’ He looked up at Stephen again like a wounded fox. Stephen was perfectly well aware that he was supposed to offer a forgiving hug. But foxes, wounded or otherwise, can bite; they can also disappear to lick their wounds in dangerous company. Stephen put down his coffee cup, fetched the jacket of his suit and his briefcase, and slipped The Times and the Financial Times into it.
‘I wish you’d let your lunatic terrors about things you couldn’t ever have done teach you a bit of sense about the misdemeanours you do commit,’ he said without much passion as he checked the contents of the case. ‘Are you at the pool today?’
‘Yes, all morning: group lessons. And then I’m training at the gym this afternoon. It’s adult non-swimmers at the pool this evening. OK?’
‘OK. Well, take care,’ Stephen started for the door and then relented. Mike leaned against him and Stephen felt his arms moving round the boy’s back in spite of himself.
‘You drive me mad sometimes, you fool,’ he said affectionately as he removed himself.
‘I know,’ said Mike, smiling at him once more with all the radiance that had been dimmed by fear and apology, ‘but you love me, don’t you?’
‘Don’t wheedle and don’t trade on it. Are you going to be all right now?’
Mike nodded and apologised again, as he always did. Stephen patted his cheek, well aware of the aspects of his own character that allowed – or perhaps even encouraged – Mike’s chosen games and left the exquisitely appointed flat. As he walked towards South Kensington tube station, he was considering whether it would be worth asking around at the office in case anyone had heard anything about the kidnapped child. In spite of the reassurance he had given Mike, Stephen knew that there were in fact still plenty of people ignorant enough to make just the kind of idiotic assumptions that had frightened the boy.
It was not the police that bothered Stephen as much as the journalists. They could be much worse, and the last thing in the world he needed at that moment was any publicity. Certain people in the office knew about him, of course; it was stupid to lie about your sexual orientation when you were being vetted. But provided there was no scandal, nobody seemed to mind too much these days. Photographs in sleazy newspapers and tabloid taunts would be something else entirely, and would completely scupper any hope of promotion. He’d probably be offered early retirement or – worse – be moved to MAFF.
Chapter Ten
Trish was reading her way through a whole heap of newspapers in case there was anything helpful in any of them, and trying not to look at the photographs of herself apparently rushing furtively out of Antonia’s house with an astonishingly unpleasant expression on her face. She could not stop staring at one photograph and hoped it was a bad likeness. She was sure that she did not have such sneering, hooded eyes, such a beaky nose or such a cruel-looking mouth. Having checked in the nearest mirror and seen only her vulnerabilities, she returned to the paper, wondering whether the editor had taken a dislike to her and decided to ‘improve’ her portrait, as some had done to other notorious women in the past.
The different papers’ articles ran the whole gamut, from a sober analysis of the chances of Charlotte’s being found alive to liplicking excitement and a barely disguised outpouring of satisfaction that a rich working mother should have been so adequately punished.
Becoming aware that the sun was blazing in through the huge windows of her flat and that the atmosphere was fuggy, Trish pushed the offending tabloid away from her and opened every single one of the windows, letting in comparatively cool, fresh air.
‘There are compensations to working at home,’ she said aloud as she went back to the papers. In the old days she had never been able to air the flat fully because she was rarely there in daylight and Southwark was not an area in which anyone would want to leave open windows after dark.
She was still wearing last night’s T-shirt, inviting the reader to dip her in honey and throw her to the lesbians, her teeth were unbrushed and her long legs were bare and more bristly than they should have been. When the front-door bell rang, she made sure the shirt, which almost reached her knees, was not rucked up and opened the door cautiously.
The postman handed her a package that was too large to go through the letter box.
‘Thanks,’ she said, daring him to comment. His face split into a delighted smile between the dreadlocks.
‘Great shirt, man.’
‘Thanks,’ she said again, but in a quite different voice. ‘Good, isn’t it? Bye.’
He was already halfway down the iron steps and raised a hand in casual acknowledgment. She took the heavy package back to the table and began to pick the brown tape off it. Inside the well-used Jiffy bag, there was a letter from her publisher on top of a heap of laser-printed paper.
Dear Trish,
How’s it going? I know you’ve been trawling the Net, too, but I wasn’t sure you’d have come across this lot. Don’t worry; I haven’t lost my marbles printing it off for you. I know it would have been quicker and cheaper to send you an E-mail, but I hit the wrong key by mistake and before I could stop it, half this stuff was already spewing out of the printer. At that stage I thought I might as well finish the job.
I don’t want to nag, but have you any idea when you can let me see some material? We’ve got the sales conference coming up next month and I’d like to give the reps something. With a book this difficult, I shall need to get a real buzz going if we’re to get it into the non-specialist trade.
The design department have come up with a few sketches for the cover. Could we make a date for you to come and see what you think about the ideas? I want you to be happy with whatever we do decide to put on the cover, really happy. Authors are so often bamboozled into accepting something they feel misrepresents their work and I don’t want that happening to you on this one.
I know you hate the telephone, but will you ring me? Christopher.
‘How do you know I hate the telephone?’ asked Trish aloud. ‘I’ve never told you. I’ve never told anyone. And I’ve rung you as often as I had to.’
Her gratitude for his percipience faded as she reread the letter and understood that in spite of its friendliness, it was in fact a demand for the three chapters she had said she would deliver by the beginning of May. They were still in draft form, heavily edited, rewritten about sixteen times, but still not right. Writing for publication was so different from planning opening and closing arguments for court that Trish was amazed any author ever managed to let a page out of her sight. At least in a trial, on your feet, you could tailor what you had written to the reactions you saw in the jury’s faces – or the judge’s. You could correct and embellish as you went.
