At Home by the Sea

by Pam Weaver

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Izzie. ‘She only did it because I’m desperate to find my sister and I promise you she never said she was conducting an investigation. Mrs Sayers just assumed that.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to put her right,’ said the sergeant.

  Izzie looked at the floor but didn’t answer.

  ‘I don’t know anything about your sister,’ the sergeant went on. ‘We were just asked to wait for you at this address.’

  ‘So has Raymond Perryman been here?’

  The sergeant looked blank.

  ‘We’ve come here because there was a robbery in Worthing,’ Esther explained. ‘Raymond Perryman abducted this lady’s sister as he made his getaway.’

  ‘All I’ve been told is that one of you has been impersonating a police officer,’ the sergeant said doggedly.

  ‘But we haven’t,’ cried Esther.

  ‘All the same, I think you’d better come down to the station with us,’ said the sergeant. ‘I need to get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘Excuse me, but you are going to question Ray Perryman, aren’t you?’ Izzie protested.

  But the sergeant wasn’t listening. To her immense frustration he and the constable with him bundled them both into his car.

  *

  In the accident and emergency department of the Royal Haslar Hospital in Havant, the doctor frowned as he looked in the patient’s notes. ‘Does anyone know her name?’

  The sister shook her head. ‘She collapsed before anyone could get any details.’

  ‘She looks under age,’ said the doctor. ‘We should get a parents’ permission before we operate.’

  ‘Frankly,’ said the surgeon, ‘I don’t think we’ve got enough time for all that. She’s lost a lot of blood. Still is.’

  The doctor nodded. ‘If I could get my hands on the blighter who did this …’

  ‘You and me both, pal,’ the sister muttered.

  *

  Bill Baxter cursed his luck.

  The coppers had put him in a small bare room with only a table and four tubular steel and canvas chairs. He shivered, not with cold but with the fear that once again he would have to spend time in prison. Now they were accusing him of beating up that boy but he hadn’t. He admitted to taking a swipe at him but the drunks had laid him out. It wasn’t what it looked like. He hadn’t jumped on top of John, the way half the people in the street were implying, he had simply fallen on top of him. His only thought had been to stop the car which was taking Linda away.

  Bill put his head in his hands. He’d been a complete idiot, hadn’t he. He had hoped Izzie would come to the pub last night. He’d left a note behind the glass on the front door to tell her where he was but she’d never turned up. God alone knew where Linda was. He sighed. He’d had such high hopes when he’d asked the girls to come back home all those years ago but one thing was for sure, he never was cut out to be a father. He rubbed his stubbly chin anxiously and thought of Mav … She’d said she didn’t want any trouble. She’d said she’d had enough of prison visiting from going to see her old man before he died. He knew she wouldn’t stick around if he was in trouble. What was he going to do if they locked him up? He could feel the anger building inside him again and thumped the table with his fist.

  *

  Izzie and Esther were taken into an interview room at the police station and spent several minutes explaining why they were in Portsmouth. The detective sergeant made notes and the inspector asked questions.

  ‘We just want to know where my sister is,’ Izzie explained. ‘She’s only just seventeen and I know she won’t thank me for it, but since our mother left us, well, I’ve tried to look after her.’

  ‘And you say she went off with two men?’

  ‘Well, they’re lads really. I think they might have robbed the café where I work and one of them shot the owner.’

  That was the moment when everything changed. The two policemen suddenly took everything very seriously. They were asked to describe the boys in question. Esther couldn’t say much but Izzie gave a fairly detailed description of Raymond and Paul. The sergeant got up and left the room abruptly.

  A few minutes later, he came back into the room with another police officer. Izzie was asked yet more questions. No, she didn’t know where Paul lived but she believed he used to meet her sister in a club in Worthing called The Cave. Someone there might know. She had only met him once, when Linda and the three lads came into the café for tea on the day of the robbery. She was asked to describe Paul again.

  The three police officers looked from one to another. Izzie’s heart began to beat a little faster. She sensed something was wrong. What on earth was going on?

  ‘Earlier this morning,’ the inspector began, ‘a body was found outside a caravan site on the Portsmouth road.’

  Izzie took in her breath and Esther leaned over to grab her hand.

  ‘We believe it could be the young lad who matches the description you’ve just given us,’ he went on. ‘He had been shot. Would you be willing to identify him?’

  Izzie’s eyes grew wide but she nodded. ‘And my sister?’

  ‘A young girl was taken to hospital in Havant,’ he said. ‘She’s apparently on the operating table as we speak but we’ll take you over there as soon as possible.’

  *

  The whole day turned out to be one traumatic experience after another. The two girls were taken to a mortuary first. Afterwards Izzie hardly remembered what it was like except that it was freezing cold in the room and she was confronted by something on a stretcher. The mortuary assistant pulled back the sheet and she gazed down at the same fair haired boy she’d seen with Linda in the Café Bellissimo. He looked as if he was asleep.

  Izzie nodded. ‘Yes, that’s him. That’s Paul, but I don’t know his surname.’

  That was enough for the police inspector. He nodded to someone else and Izzie was taken in a police car to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, with Esther following in her dad’s car. They had to wait for Linda to come out of the operating theatre.

  ‘She’s lost a lot of blood,’ the doctor told Izzie.

  ‘But she will be all right?’ Izzie asked anxiously.

  ‘Yes and no,’ he said. Izzie became aware that Esther had threaded her arm through hers. ‘She will recover,’ he went on, ‘but she’s had a pretty rough time of it.’

  Izzie could hardly breathe. ‘Oh, Esther,’ she said when they were alone again, ‘this is so awful.’

  ‘But at least she’s alive,’ Esther said by way of comfort.

  The two girls waited in the corridor until Linda came out of theatre but it was getting dark before they were able to go onto the ward to see her. Izzie had done her weeping so she was able to sit by Linda’s bed with an encouraging smile on her face.

  When Linda finally opened her eyes, her chin started to wobble.

  Linda’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Izzie,’ she murmured.

  Izzie leaned over and smiled. ‘I’m here, darling.’

  ‘Oh, Izzie,’ her sister was saying. ‘I thought he was going to kill me. I was so scared.’

  Izzie took her hand. ‘It’s all over now. You’re safe now.’

  All at once, her sister frowned. ‘Where were you? I called and called but you didn’t come.’

  Forty-Two

  It was Thursday before Izzie could bring herself to go back to the Café Bellissimo. Linda was making good progress and she was to be transferred to Courtlands, a post-operative convalescent home in Goring-by-Sea, just outside Worthing, next week. Of course, she was still traumatised by what Raymond had done to her, but she was absolutely determined to get well. Izzie had stayed by her bedside all day on Tuesday and Esther had come to fetch her back to Worthing Wednesday evening. Linda told the Portsmouth police that Raymond had left the caravan soon after he’d raped her. ‘He was so horrible,’ Linda said tearfully. ‘When Paul left the caravan he kept telling me it served me right and that it was all my family’s fault that Gary died
but I don’t even know anybody called Gary.’ Her voice was growing more desperate.

  ‘I think you should wait until she’s feeling stronger before you tell her Paul is dead,’ the doctor told Izzie in confidence as she ended her visit.

  Izzie was struggling not to break down herself. She had to stay strong for Linda’s sake but it was so hard. The next day, the two of them held hands as the policewoman read her statement back to her. Afterwards, exhausted, Linda rested her head on Izzie’s shoulder. Izzie had her arm around her, just like she’d done all those years ago when their mother ran away.

  When she got back to Worthing, Linda was told she would have to face another interview. The Worthing police wanted to talk to her about the robbery.

  ‘But I didn’t know what they were doing,’ Linda had protested.

  ‘We know,’ said the inspector, ‘but the Worthing police have to conduct their own enquiry.’

  ‘Will you come with me?’ Linda asked Izzie when they were gone.

  ‘Of course I will,’ said Izzie, squeezing her hand.

  Linda sank back onto her pillows and winced with pain. Her stitches felt rather tight and her bottom itched like mad. ‘I know I’ve always said you’re a bossy cow,’ Linda said, ‘but I am really grateful to have you here.’

  Her words were like music to Izzie’s ears.

  When she got back home, Izzie posted a letter to her mother and she also scribbled a note for her father. When she went to push it through the letterbox of the house in Chandos Road, the note he had stuck on the inside of the glass on the front door was still there. Now that it was daylight she could read it easily.

  Izzie, come to The Buckingham. I’m sorry I got annoyed. Mav and I want to talk to you and Linda. Dad.

  Izzie gulped. Sorry … he’d actually said sorry. She could hardly believe her eyes. So why had he locked her out that night? She’d tried the doors but they were all locked. Where was her father now? It was a bit of a conundrum. She thought of going to The Buckingham straight away but decided she couldn’t face it right now. She had to go to the café to see how Mr Umberto and Mr Benito were. She also wanted to find out if she still had a job to go back to.

  *

  As she’d expected, the cafe was closed. Izzie tapped the window and Benito let her in. Her throat tightened and she looked at him helplessly.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I only wish I could have done more.’

  He gave her a gentle embrace. ‘You did all you could and we are very grateful.’

  Mr Umberto was there too but none of the other waitresses. As he hugged her, Izzie was suddenly overwhelmed with grief. She wept in his arms.

  When Benito pushed a cup of coffee in front of her, they both did their best to comfort her, which only made her feel all the more terrible. What would they say when they found out that her sister’s visit to the café was all part of the plot to rob them?

  In the end she couldn’t hold back any longer. With great gulping sobs she told how she had chased her sister into Bath Place and how she’d tried to help John.

  ‘I saw them take him away in an ambulance,’ she went on, ‘and then I found Mr Semadini’s lucky mascot in the street.’ Izzie blew her nose. ‘Something told me something was wrong so I came straight over to the café. The door was wide open, so I came in and that’s when I found him over there, lying on the stairs.’

  She sat up straight, looking for a clean handkerchief in her pockets. Bentio handed her his. ‘Please,’ he said gently, ‘don’t upset yourself anymore.’

  ‘I could see he was horribly injured,’ she continued. ‘I dialled 999 and then I stuffed as many clean napkins over his wound as I could.’ By now her heart was in ribbons again but she carried on telling them that the police had kept her until gone ten and how she’d got home to find herself locked out.

  ‘Of course now I realise that I wasn’t locked out at all,’ she babbled on. ‘My father had left a note on the door to say he was at The Buckingham but I couldn’t read it by the light of the street lamp.’

  ‘Izzie,’ Mr Umberto said, ‘calm now. It’s all right.’

  Blundering on, Izzie went on to tell them that her search for her sister had taken her to Portsmouth and that Linda had been badly injured by one of the gang (she couldn’t bring herself to say that word). ‘Linda,’ she went on to tell them, ‘is still in hospital but she will get better, which is why I didn’t come round to the café before. I’m sorry.’

  She was vaguely aware of their shocked faces and she suddenly felt embarrassed that she’d blurted it all out like that. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose a third time. ‘I keep thinking that Mr Semadini’s death is all my fault,’ she whimpered miserably.

  Mr Umberto put his hand up to stop her but Izzie cried out, ‘I tried to stop the bleeding, really I did. Do you think I pressed down too hard?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Umberto putting his hand on Izzie’s shoulder. ‘You mustn’t think that.’

  ‘I was only trying to help,’ Izzie said, wiping her eyes with Bentio’s already sodden handkerchief.

  ‘Izzie …’ Benito began.

  ‘But the thing is,’ Izzie cried, ‘I didn’t know what to do. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to kill him—’

  ‘Izzie,’ Benito interrupted more loudly, ‘we are trying to tell you, Giacomo isn’t dead.’

  Izzie froze. ‘What?’

  ‘Giacomo isn’t dead,’ Mr Umberto repeated.

  Izzie blinked and looked at Benito for confirmation.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘You saved his life.’

  ‘The doctors tell us he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you,’ Mr Umberto chipped in.

  Izzie clamped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. ‘He’s alive?’

  Benito nodded. ‘And what’s more, he keeps asking for you.’

  ‘But the policeman said it looked like a murder case.’

  ‘Then he was stupid,’ cried Mr Umberto.

  Izzie rose to her feet. ‘Can I see him now?’

  Mr Umberto chuckled. ‘You know what they’re like in the hospital,’ he said. ‘Visiting is from three this afternoon.’

  Izzie was trembling but she managed a small smile. ‘I can hardly believe it,’ she said. ‘You’re sure he’s alive? He’s really alive?’

  The two men chuckled then Umberto said, ‘Yes, my dear, he is really alive.’

  The remaining few hours of that morning had dragged along so slowly even though they were all very busy. Izzie helped Giacomo’s cousins with some clearing up and now that the shop, kitchen and the stairs were in pristine condition, Mr Umberto created a sign to put on the door. They would re-open in the morning.

  The story was in the new issue of the Herald and so the public were obviously concerned. The whole time they had been there with the blinds down, people had rattled the letterbox and pushed get well cards through the door. It felt as if the whole town was genuinely upset that Mr Semadini was in hospital.

  *

  When she got to the hospital, they told her Giacomo was in a room on his own. Benito and Umberto explained that although he was still weak, he was making good progress. Miraculously, although he had lost a lot of blood, the bullet had missed all of his vital organs. He was asleep when she came into the room. As quietly as she could, Izzie pulled up a chair to sit down. She stayed very still, watching the rise and fall of his chest. How she longed to reach out and touch him. A lump like a yawning chasm was forming in her throat and it was a struggle not to cry tears of relief. She shivered. After a few minutes he opened his eyes and when he saw her, he smiled.

  ‘Isobelle.’

  How wonderful to hear him say her name like that. Izzie swallowed hard and took a breath to control her feelings. She put the little toy bear onto the sheet near his hand. ‘How are you feeling?’

  He reached out and grasped the bear. ‘I am so glad you are back.’

  Izzie thought he was talking to the bear but then he reached for her
hand. ‘Oh, Isobelle. My darling, my love.’

  The lump in her throat seemed to grow bigger. She was having difficulty speaking. My darling? He’d called her my darling, my love … She blinked in a vain hope to prevent her tears from falling.

  ‘You saved my life,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said hoarsely and with a slight shrug.

  He laughed softly. ‘I should have told you,’ he went on. ‘Dear Isobelle, I love you so much.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Semadini,’ she said, tears trickling down her cheeks.

  He shifted awkwardly and painfully to come closer and comfort her. ‘No, no, don’t cry my darling. Please. It’s all right.’

  ‘I love you too Mr—’

  ‘Giacomo,’ he corrected.

  ‘I love you too, Giacomo,’ she said tenderly, ‘but you’re going to hate me when I tell you that my sister’s friends were the people who robbed and shot you. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I could never hate you, my darling,’ he said softly.

  ‘But I feel like this is all my fault,’ said Izzie.

  ‘How can you think that?’ he said gently. ‘No one knew that I planned to come back early.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ she began again.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘No more talk of terrible things. All that matters is that you are here.’ He locked his eyes to hers. ‘Isobelle … my darling. I want to kiss you.’

  She rose to her feet and bent over him. Featherlight, he touched her cheek with his left hand as she lowered her head towards him. His kiss was so sweet and so gentle. She was left with the desire for more, but she didn’t want to tire him. As she sat back down, he grasped her hand and put it hungrily to his lips.

  They stayed as they were for a little while, just looking at each other and smiling. There were no words but every now and then he would caress her fingers a little more firmly. After a few minutes she could see he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

  ‘I’m going to go now,’ she said softly.

  His eyes suddenly widened with an anxious look.

  ‘You need to sleep.’

  ‘But you will come again tomorrow?’