Creeping Ivy, page 2
After a while she gave up trying to feel any of it and reached for the shampoo. She rubbed a generous puddle into her short dark hair. Foam seeped into her eyes, burning, and she turned her face up to the water. It streamed over her head and face. With her eyes stinging and her throat closing against the soapy water, she could not keep out the thoughts of all the children she had encountered who had been suffocated and starved, raped, beaten, or simply bullied and denied affection all their short lives. She wondered whether she would ever find a way of caring less.
Clean again, but unrefreshed, Trish emerged from the shower and wrapped herself in the biggest of the scarlet towels that hung over the hot rail. The whole bathroom was fogged with condensation, the mirrors already dripping so that she could not see her face in any detail. That did not matter; the blurred outlines were quite enough for her.
Her face, which had variously been described as beaky, predatory and magnificent at different stages of her last love affair, was all right, she had decided long ago, but it would never be beautiful. When she had rubbed the worst of the wet out of her hair, she ran her fingers through it to mould it roughly over her well-shaped head and left it at that.
Enough of the condensation had cleared by then to give her a glimpse of her dark eyes in the mirror, and she saw that they were full of all the fears she was doing her best to ignore.
‘Oh, Charlotte.’
Grabbing the tail of her self-control as it whisked past her, Trish wondered aloud whether there was any point trying to go on working. She would never be able to concentrate, so she might as well do something else. The trouble was that she couldn’t think of anything except Charlotte.
Having, as her mother had always said, worked far too hard for eleven years, Trish had begun to realise that she had become too involved with her clients, but she had not known how to free herself. Their anguish was so real to her, and her inability to change much for them so obvious, that she had been in danger of getting completely bogged down.
A series of minor but recurrent illnesses had kept getting in the way of her work and she had eventually gone to the doctor. Recalling their encounter, Trish was amazed at how patient and good-humoured he had been. At the time, all she had felt was outrage when he told her she was suffering from stress and advised her to find a way of managing it better.
Later, little by little, she had begun to see her resistance to his advice for what it was and had tried to do as he had suggested. She had learned how to snap less at people who did not understand her instantly, or asked stupid questions about the instructions she had given them, to eat more sensibly and drink in moderation, to take life a scrap more lightly and even – occasionally – to sleep the night through without pills.
It had been difficult because there was always another case, another ten- or eleven-year-old who, never properly fed since birth, had taken to stealing money as well as food and become uncontrollable by anyone; or perhaps a child who had been sunny and eager to learn until the age of six or seven, when she had suddenly changed – and only later told her teacher about what her uncle, or her stepfather, or her elder brother was making her do. With clients like those needing her to win them the protection of the law or defend them against cruelty or vengeance, Trish had not been able to take life much more easily.
Dry at last, she let the towel fall off her body on to the floor by her bed and rummaged in the cupboard for clean underclothes to wear under the crumpled jeans she had pulled off the previous night, and a daytime sloganless T-shirt. She shoved her feet into a pair of suede moccasins that had long ago lost whatever shape they had once had, and had turned from bright red to a kind of mud colour. They were supremely comfortable and she did not mind the slapping noise they made on the hard rubber and wood floors of her flat. And luckily there was no one else to object any longer.
Her salvation had appeared in chambers in the form of an invitation from the managing director of a small, progressive publishing house, who wanted her to write about children and the law. At first the letter had seemed to be just one more problem she had to deal with; but after it had lain in her in-tray for a couple of weeks she had begun to see that it might offer an honourable way out. If she accepted the commission, she could at least retreat for a time.
One of her most tormenting cases had caught the attention of the tabloids. As Trish battled in court to make the state provide appropriate care for a seriously disturbed eight-year-old who had been discovered trying to kill her six-year-old sister, she found herself more famous than most other barristers in their early thirties. She assumed that was what had interested the publisher in the first place. As far as she could see, there was no other reason for his approach and she was sure they had never met.
Eventually, when there had been a tiny gap in her diary, she had rung him up, agreed to meet for lunch in the Oxo Tower, and discovered that he shared her passion for justice for children and detestation of the way some of them were demonised in the popular press. Before they had finished their first course, Trish had agreed to write his book and gulped at the size of the advance he offered, which made even legal-aid rates seem princely.
She could afford to accept the commission, having earned well for the previous four years and spent comparatively little. For ages her only regular expenses had been her big mortgage, the bills, and the annual subscription to the gym she had begun to use as part of her stress-management campaign. She ate out with friends, drank in El Vino’s after court, and occasionally gave parties at the flat, but there was rarely time for anything else. She could not remember when she had last been to the theatre; films often seemed alluring until the moment came, when there was almost always more work to be done; and concerts were something she did not even contemplate.
Back in the kitchen, she had just switched on the kettle for a fresh mug of instant coffee, which she hoped might taste better than the first, when she saw that her answering machine was winking. She pressed its buttons, assuming that Antonia must have rung back while she was in the shower, but it was a quite different voice she heard, lighter, younger and infinitely kinder.
‘Hi, Trish? It’s Emma. I was just wondering if you felt like meeting up for some food, or a drink or something – a walk, maybe. It’s been days since we spoke, and it would be good to see you and hear how the work’s going. I’ve got a great new case to tell you about – quite funny, too, for a change. Ring if you feel like it. But don’t bother if you’re busy. Lots of love. Bye.’
Trish smiled as she thought of Emma Gnatche, a specialist in lie detection and the psychology of false confessions, who was one of her closest friends. If it had not been for what had happened to Charlotte, Trish would have rung her straight back and arranged to meet at once. As it was, she thought she would have to wait in case Antonia had phoned.
With the television on again so that she could catch any news there might be, Trish sat down and tried to read the papers. She did not have long to wait.
‘Antonia?’ she said urgently into the receiver as soon as she had picked it up.
‘Trish, thank God you’re there. And thank you for your message. I should have known you’d ring. It’s … it’s … I can’t … oh, you know.’
‘I can imagine.’ Trish turned down the sound on the television. ‘Antonia, has there been any news?’
‘No. Nothing. It’s hell.’
‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Look, I don’t want to get in your way or anything, but would it help if I came round?’
‘Would you?’ Antonia sounded so surprised that Trish wondered whether her increasing reluctance to accept invitations to her cousin’s stultifying dinner parties had been misinterpreted as rejection. ‘It’s terrible here. The press are outside and they keep banging on the door all the time, wanting me to tell them how I feel. How the hell do they think I feel? I’m desperate and I could slaughter bloody Nicky. She’s a fully trained nanny: how could she let something like this happen?’
‘God knows. Look, I’ll come straight round, but as soon as it feels as if I’m in the way, you must tell me. OK? Promise?’
‘All right. The police may be here when you arrive. They’ve rung to say they want to talk to me, God knows why. Apparently they haven’t got any clues yet. Oh Trish, what am I going to do?’
‘Is Robert with you?’
‘No. He’s got some crisis on at the office. He couldn’t stay.’
For a moment Trish was speechless. No one’s work crisis could possibly be more important than this.
‘Hang on, Antonia,’ she said tersely. ‘I’ll be round as soon as I can.’
Bloody Robert, Trish thought as she put down the receiver; that’s absolutely bloody typical. As soon as there’s any trouble, he’s off. How could he? He may not care about Charlotte, but even he must have some idea of how Antonia’s feeling. And he owes her. My God, how he owes her.
She grabbed her car keys and some money out of the jar that stood between the tea-bags and the dried milk powder, and was halfway to the door before she remembered the state in which Antonia lived. Dithering uncharacteristically by the front door for a moment, Trish told herself that her present sloppy get-up was irrelevant in the circumstances; Antonia probably wouldn’t even notice.
Even so, she ran back up the spiral stairs to the gallery where her bed and clothes were, wrenched off her T-shirt and changed into an almost-pressed shirt, socks and boots, and a linen jacket.
Chapter Two
‘Come off it, Nicky. Charlotte didn’t just disappear, and she didn’t wander off into the pond like you said she must of, or meet up with one of her schoolfriends or anything.’ There was real anger mixed in with the impatience in the older policeman’s voice. ‘We’ve checked everyone on your list, and it was a right waste of time.’
‘I told you it would be.’
‘Yeah, but you didn’t say why. And you should’ve, you know. You should’ve told us everything you knew straight away. Still, better late than never. You’d best tell us the whole lot now, however bad it is.’
Nicky Bagshot felt her eyes go blank. She stared down at the grey plastic top of the table that kept him away from her and struggled to get herself sorted.
It was her fault Lottie’d disappeared. She knew that. There was no getting away from it, and she wasn’t trying to. She shouldn’t have turned her back; not for a minute. But it wasn’t fair of them to accuse her of doing something to hurt Lottie. She could never do that, not in a million years. They must see that.
It was the sort of thing the police always did. When they didn’t have anything on you, they forced you into saying something they could twist into evidence against you. But they shouldn’t be doing it like this, not while Lottie was still lost. They should be spending their time out there, looking for her.
‘P’raps she was nicked by aliens, Sarge,’ said the younger of the two.
His sarcasm didn’t bother Nicky. In a way, knowing he was stupid enough to make sneery jokes about something this important made her feel less bad.
‘That it, Nicky? Come down in a UFO, did they, and kidnapped her?’
‘I’ve told you all along,’ she said, pushing back her fringe, which felt sticky with sweat from her forehead. ‘Charlotte was quite safe in the queue for the big slide. When I heard another child fall behind me and. start screaming, I looked round to see what had happened. Anyone would’ve done the same.’
‘And then what?’
‘Like I said before, it was a small boy who’d jumped off the swings and tripped. His knees were bleeding and no one was helping him. I did what I could for him – someone had to. When I’d finished seeing to him, I turned back to check on Charlotte and she’d gone. She hadn’t made any noise at all, and everyone I asked said they hadn’t seen anything – no little girl in trouble or upset, nor anyone struggling or protesting.’
‘Sounds as though Dave’s alien theory must be right after all,’ said the older man with a stupid lying smile. ‘You must’ve heard something, Nicky. Children don’t just disappear in a puff of smoke, now do they? Come on, love, you must see it’s not a very good story. It’ll be easier for all of us if you tell us what really happened.’
‘I have told you,’ said Nicky. ‘I’ve told you over and over. It’s not my fault if you don’t believe me. There was no noise and no trouble and no one saw anything. There’s no way I could’ve known anything was happening to her.’
‘Yeah. You’ve told us. Trouble is, Nicky-love, it doesn’t hang together, does it? You must see that. Clever girl like you.’
She put both hands over her eyes. As she pressed her fingers into the closed lids, she could see brightly coloured figures from the park. There was Charlotte in her blue skirt and red tights and shirt. The tights were too hot for the weather, but she’d been cross and wanted to wear them. It seemed silly to force her into something else just because it was more suitable, and anyway Nicky liked her to have what she wanted when she could. It made up a bit for all the other things she wasn’t allowed to have.
Then there was the boy. She could see him, too, fizzing on the inside of her lit-up red eyelids. He looked about a year younger than Charlotte and he was wearing little thin brown shorts that left his bony knees bare. He would’ve been all right if he’d simply tripped over when he was running like most of them did. But he hadn’t. For some reason he’d let go one of the chains of the swing at the furthest point of its arc. The swing seat banging into his back had probably bruised it and scared him, too, but what had got her going was his screams and the blood on his knees. She couldn’t have left him like that, not for anything. Not screaming like that.
Antonia always made her take a bum bag with a first-aid kit whenever she went anywhere with Lottie, and so she had lots of antiseptic wipes and plaster in all different sizes. By the time she’d cleaned the scrapes and picked out the grit and little bits of bark, his short, shrill screams had turned into pride-saving whimpers. She’d asked him to choose the plasters he liked and he’d got quite interested in the pictures of bears that were printed on the wrong side. She’d let him play with one while she fixed the other two firmly to his knees.
It was comforting, that feeling of strength and stickiness around the wounds. She could remember it easily. With the blood staunched and the scrape hidden, it was all much less frightening; and a big bit of plaster gave you a nice feeling of importance, too, when you were his age.
He’d got calm enough to smile at her by the time she’d told him she was done and set him on his feet. Before he’d said anything, a woman had come running up and pulled him out of Nicky’s arms. He’d started crying again then, of course, and the woman had turned on Nicky and told her off in the most snotty voice – even worse than Antonia’s.
She’d been a typical weekend mother, not knowing anything about what her child could manage or what he needed. She’d let him swing on his own when he was far too little for it. And she was so ignorant about who he really was that she didn’t even recognise his screams when she heard them. Too busy gossiping with the other mothers, that was her problem, and probably saying how boring it was when your nanny had a day off. And how inefficient she was and ate too much, and used too much toilet cleaner. They all did that. Then she’d had the cheek to bawl Nicky out for helping! It wasn’t fair. She should have felt grateful – and guilty. Guilty.
Nicky quickly took her hands away from her eyes.
‘Why aren’t you out in the park, asking people what they saw?’ she said. ‘It’s Sunday so they’ll be the same ones there today. And even if none of them noticed what happened to Charlotte, lots of them must’ve seen that mother slagging me off for helping her boy. She yelled at me like I was some kind of animal, and all I’d done was what she should’ve been doing. Ask them. They’ll remember her. Then you might believe me. And one of them might’ve seen something that could help you find Charlotte. That’s what you should be doing. She’s lost and you’re not even trying to find her.’
Her eyes felt hot and she clenched her hands together on the table to keep the tears well inside.
‘We’ve got people out there,’ said the sergeant, sounding a bit more reasonable and kinder, too. ‘We just thought you might’ve remembered something yourself that would help us ask them the right questions.’
Nicky still didn’t trust him in spite of his reasonableness. She’d read John le Carré’s books and she knew why interrogators changed their tactics like that: it was to trick you into telling them things they thought you were hiding.
She hadn’t ever thought she’d like books like his, but the principal of her training college had lent her a copy of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy once after they’d been talking about novels, and she’d liked it straight off for the secrecy and the awful quiet pain of it all. After that, she’d read his others, too, as soon as she could get hold of them, but she hadn’t liked all of them; only the ones with Smiley in them. She really did like him and if she could keep thinking of him, she’d be all right, even if these two men went on shouting at her.
If she’d ever had a father, he might have been like Smiley: quiet and kind and not very happy, and so decent that it hurt. She’d go on thinking about him and not about the policemen shouting at her, pretending they thought she’d done something to hurt Lottie. She hadn’t done anything wrong except turn her back for a minute or two. She shouldn’t have done it, but that’s all it was. Turning her back. Nothing worse, whatever they said.
‘Well, love?’
‘Well, what? There isn’t any more to tell,’ said Nicky, digging her short nails into the palm of the other hand and wishing it wasn’t so sweaty. ‘I’ve told you over and over. When I saw she wasn’t there in the playground, I asked everyone there if they’d seen her, but because it was a Saturday of course they hadn’t.’
