It was overhead in the back bedroom—the creaking of a bed, immediately suppressed. He pulled out the knife as he lowered the lid into place with a rustle of plastic. The kitchen seemed twice as bright and several degrees hotter, and he wiped his forehead with the fist that held the knife while he made for the stairs as swiftly as stealth would allow. The blade flared like a flashbulb, then dulled as he tiptoed upstairs, leaving much of the sunlight in the hall. As he stepped off the stairs, resting some of his weight on the ball of his foot and then more on his heel before relinquishing the banister, he felt as though the knife were guiding him toward the back bedroom.
Two careful breathless paces brought him close enough to grasp the doorknob. At once it was slippery with sweat, and increasingly difficult to hold while he turned it fraction after fraction of an inch. Suppose the door was snatched out of his hand? He raised the knife above his head and kept it there, even when his arm began to ache. Nobody pulled the door away from him, and he had to advance it several fragmented inches before he could peer into the room.
It was darker than the rest he'd seen of the house, because the curtains were drawn. You weren't meant to leave curtains shut when you were away—it only gave the hint to burglars—and he knew Janet and her husband never would have. Besides, he could see what the curtains were intended to hide. Someone was lying under the quilt on the double bed.
He'd lowered the knife, but he lifted it again as he approached the bed, his feet barely advancing in front of each other with each measured step. He was almost close enough to grab the quilt when he heard a muffled whimper. It was a girl's voice—it was Charlotte's. He felt as if he'd tracked her down in the longest game of hide-and-seek he'd ever had to play. How she would scream if she saw him brandishing the knife! He was slipping the knife into his pocket as he took hold of a corner of the quilt and threw it back.
The head it revealed wasn't Charlotte's. It was an old man's, lying on a ragged wad of long grey hair. It greeted him with a wide grin, exposing toothless gums notched with purple and red. A large hand with grimy unpared nails appeared beside it and reached out to fold back more of the quilt, revealing the other arm in a yellow sleeve decorated with pink fish and what was at the end of it—the hand tightening over the little girl's face. "Shut the door and give us the knife and don't even think of making a sound," the man whispered, still grinning with some kind of delight. "Here's company for you, Charlotte, look," he said, and pulled her eyes wider with two fingers. "It's the other babe in the wood."
THIRTY-EIGHT
As soon as Jack reached a decision he went back to the Haven. He wouldn't try to call Leslie again, he would go to the shop. At least then she ought to be able to see truth in his eyes. If Melinda heard him—he could hardly expect her to leave them alone unless Leslie asked her to—he would just have to be persuasive enough to convince both of them, after which they would be certain to insist he contact the police. As if to demonstrate that his mind had focused itself, a limerick he'd tried to invent for Leslie's entertainment while he was living at her house put itself together in his head.
While composing his music, Ry Cooder,
Utters curses progressively ruder.
Should a phrase fail to fit,
He'll be heard to shout 'Shit!'
Like (in German, of course) Buxtehude.
He mustn't expect to be given a chance to regale her with that, but surely there was no harm in imagining her reaction—maybe a laugh, maybe the kind of gasp that sounded like one, maybe a comically pained look that couldn't quite and wasn't intended to conceal how pleased she was, would have been, to have even such a piece of ramshackle doggerel invented for her. He hid his smile inside himself as he strode into the driveway of the Haven, not wanting his mother to ask his thoughts. He planned to tell her enough of the truth, that he was going to the West End, and he continued to resolve that when he saw her watching for him from the office window as though he had yet to grow up.
He hadn't reached the front door when she opened it. "Come in," she said, so urgently that she might have been anxious to hide him. She repeated the words and the urgency once he was inside, and only her retreating into the office showed what she meant. He'd hardly followed her in when she said "Shut the door, for heaven's sake," and was seated behind the desk by the time he had. "What did you want with that young boy?" she demanded.
"Which young boy?"
"Which do you think? How many of them are there, John?"
She was making Jack feel as if he deserved to be accused of somehow resembling his father. "I can't understand you," he said.
"You're saying that to me? It should be me that's saying it to you. I thought if you respected someone you were supposed to respect their wishes."
"I'm still lost."
"That's what I'm afraid of, John," she said, rubbing her forehead with three fingers that failed to erase her frown. "Don't parents have rights where you've been? Aren't they allowed to decide what's best for their children even if you wish they weren't?"
"Which parent?"
"Oh, John, don't try and make out I'm talking like one of my residents. You know who you had a go at calling before you went out for your walk."
"How do you know?"
"How would you think?"
"Are you saying he called back?"
"Somebody did, and I hope now you'll leave him alone. His mother doesn't want you bothering him worse than he is already."
"Leslie called? How long ago?"
"Don't torture yourself about that. I'm sorry, she wouldn't have wanted to speak to you even if I'd caught you, John."
"But she called. You're telling me she called."
"You said it, as you'd say," Jack's mother told him, and rammed her fingers between one another before planting her elbows on the desk with an angry thump that made her wince. "That's what I'm trying to get you to understand."
"And said... She said..."
"Have I got to spell that out for you? She thought she'd heard the last of you. Maybe not of you but from you. She hoped she had."
"Did she ask why I'd tried to contact her?"
"She didn't, no." His mother seemed relieved the question had come up. "But I'll guarantee you this, John, she'd have been even less happy if I'd mentioned what you'd have told her, never mind her son."
"You can't know that."
"Oh, but I can. For all sorts of reasons I can. Now if you won't leave them alone because I ask, will you for her? You would if you still cared about her, and if you don't there's no excuse at all for you to pester her."
"It isn't an excuse. I tried to tell you—"
"John." His mother was rubbing her elbows as if she'd only just noticed they were hurting. "She wants to forget you, and the last thing she'd want to hear from you is that tale you told me."
It wasn't only his mother's words that swayed him at last, it was the sight of her having needed to injure herself in the heat of her determination to persuade him, as though her work weren't taxing enough. He stepped back and opened the door for both of them. "I'll see you at the apartment," he said.
"Are you going there now?"
"I guess."
He saw her consider asking him to promise not to phone from there. She knew he'd seen, and must have decided her insistence would be more powerful if unspoken. She watched him from the front porch as he crossed the parking area, and he felt as if her notion of the right course for him to take was gripping the nape of his neck.
Nevertheless he wasn't sure what he was going to do as he drove out of the streets hushed by trees. He would have to pass the station on the way to the apartment, and he couldn't help feeling that would give him one last chance. If Leslie turned out to believe his story despite all the doubts his mother had loaded onto him, he would feel confident in telling the police, but otherwise how could he expect them to credit him if even Leslie didn't? It didn't help to realise he was trying to project the responsibility for his indecision onto her; the sort of insight that wo
uld have been crucial to writing about a character was far harder and apparently far less useful to apply to himself. Maybe, he thought, writing was a substitute for changing himself, but knowing that didn't help either. Perhaps the compulsion to write rendered you even less capable than other people of changing. Perhaps you couldn't both change and write.
He was in the midst of these reflections as the bridge over the main road beside the station came into view. Beyond the bridge the reversing lights of a parked car brightened the shadow of the arch, and then the brake lights flared. The car was backing out of a bay, and the traffic would halt it until Jack was close enough to occupy the space. He felt as if he wasn't merely being offered an opportunity, he was being exhorted to use it, and he would.
He was nearly at the bridge, and two vehicles short of the parking space, when a small dusty bus flashed its headlamps at the car, which backed halfway out and then swung resolutely in. It hadn't been leaving, only lining itself up with the kerb. How could Leslie believe him when he'd already caused her not to trust him? What would she think his motives were? He almost laughed—there seemed nothing else for him to do—as he drove out from under the bridge, away from the line that would have carried him to the West End.
THIRTY-NINE
"Ian ..."
"Is that his name, Charlotte? Tell me all about him. Whisper it to me."
"He's Ian."
"I worked that bit out for myself, love. Were you trying to make me laugh? Let's have the rest of it. Where does he live?"
"Next door."
"Just checking you're a good girl that tells the truth. Good girls haven't got anything to be frightened of, have they? Who is he then, your Ian from next door?"
"Roger's son."
"Is he that very thing? You'll have to say who Roger is, won't you?"
"My new dad."
"Did a swap, did you? Bet you think you're the lucky girl. This new dad Roger of yours, does he live next door too?"
"At home with me and mummy."
"Ian's too young to live all by himself though, isn't he? Who's he got?"
"Just his mummy."
"That's like the boy with the beanstalk, isn't it? Maybe we can play that later. I'll give you a bit of wisdom to be going on with, there'd be less trouble in the world if families stuck together like they used to. Do you think that's why Ian's bad, because he's given you his father and got none of his own? Don't let him scare you. Does he scare you?"
"Sometimes."
"He did with that knife, didn't he, waving it about like that. Don't worry, I've got it safe. Nobody's going to be using it for anything, I hope. It was bad of him to scare you with it, but shall we let him play all the same?"
"What?"
"We'll have to think of a game that ought to be fun for everyone, won't we? You want him to stay, that's what I'm getting at. You'd be upset if he left you with nobody except your new grandad who's forgotten how to make you laugh. You tell him."
"Ian..."
"See, that's what she was asking you in the first place, son. Look how upset she's getting just to think you might go off and leave her like your dad left you. She wants you to stay and not make any row, and then we'll find a nice quiet game we can all play to take her mind off things. You can see that's what she's crying out for, can't you?"
Ian saw. From the stool on which he'd been directed to sit in front of the dressing table he saw both Charlotte and her captor. She was seated on the quilt and leaning against the headboard of the double bed: she was propped up immobile as a doll except for her mouth, which kept not quite opening and then pinching its lips together for fear that too much of a noise might escape, and her eyes, which kept straining leftward before renewing their plea to Ian. She mustn't be able to see much of the old tramp, who was resting his shoulders against the closed door, the fingers of his large hands splayed on his thighs and covering two of the jovial pink fish on the yellow dress that reached halfway down his baggy trousers, his gums baring themselves in a raw moist smile that was impatient at being alone with itself, his face a caricature of how Jack might look when he was old. The stale heat of the room, the smell of the man's sweat and shabby clothes, the faint trace of Janet's scents, all seemed to gather in Ian's throat and drive out words like spit. "You're him. You're alive."
"Careful. Don't scare your playmate."
"You—" Ian almost blabbed what the man had done, but no longer wanted to frighten Charlotte. Instead he thought of another offence the man was responsible for. "You made people think I'd done something to her."
"That's people for you, son. They've always got to have someone to blame. Who thought that, then?"
"My mother."
"Don't go raising your voice round here. Keep your temper. Think of your playmate," Woollie said with a smile at her that made her mouth wince like a wound. "There's no accounting for women, son, no joy in trying to predict them. You'll find that out when you're a bit older." He ran his tongue around his lips as though to check their shape before murmuring "Will she wonder where you've got to?"
"Better believe it. I'm supposed to be home since they chucked me out of school because they thought I was like you."
"Then you'd best tell her where you've gone."
"Sure enough. She won't have left work yet. I'll give her a phone from downstairs."
"And tell her what? Tell her you've got your playmate?"
"Sure, if that's what you want her to think, only she won't if she doesn't hear Charlotte. I'll have to take her down with me."
"You reckon that'll solve things, do you?"
"Should."
"He's a laugh, isn't he, Charlotte? Wants to start you chattering to people and making all sorts of a racket, I shouldn't wonder, after all the trouble I've been taking to get you to hush."
Ian had been hoping Woollie was as mad as his appearance suggested—mad enough to be persuaded by the first trick Ian could think of. His own aching disappointment was bad enough, but the way a version of it flickered over Charlotte's face was close to unbearable. "Don't expect my mother to believe me, then," he protested in a whisper that was growing intolerable too. "She knows I didn't know where Charlotte was."
"He must think I'm as senile as I look, mustn't he, Charlotte? He must reckon I've forgotten he just said she thought he'd made you vanish."
"She did till I showed her different."
"Better start thinking what to say to change her mind, then. And don't bother getting any more ideas about the phone. You'll be writing her a note."
"What with?"
"Try that bit of paper in your pocket there."
Ian grabbed his shirt pocket as he tried to think whether it was best to keep Jack's number or give it to his mother on whatever note he might be forced to send her. "I've got nothing to write with," he said.
"Better find something."
"I saw a pencil by the phone."
"He's eager to get there, isn't he, Charlotte? What do you reckon he's thinking? We'll go down with him so he doesn't forget he's meant to be helping look after you. Are you going to be able to stay quiet or will I need to do up your mouth?"
Charlotte's hands flew to her lips but shrank from touching them. Her teary gaze lurched toward the floor between the bed and the window, and Ian noticed for the first time what was there—a roll of insulating tape. Even if he'd imagined worse treatment for Charlotte in the months his father had lived with her, the reality was another matter. Woollie must have seen his fury at it, because he sat on the edge of the bed and hugged Charlotte to him. "You know how to hush, don't you? You were being nice and quiet before he came and spoiled things," he whispered in her ear, and rubbed his stubbly chin over her tangled hair as he turned his face to Ian. "Concentrate on what you have to write, son. Never mind anything else."
Ian struggled to produce a voice that wouldn't rise out of control. "Let me go and write it, then."
"We'll be quick all right, but don't you try being too quick. You haven't said yet what you're goin
g to write."
"You tell me."
"Surprised you need to ask when you were wanting to say it on the phone before. Just tell your mother you've taken your playmate away for some fun. There's enough boys who do that these days," Woollie said, and rubbed his lips together in disgust.
"I'm not saying that."
"Don't start being difficult, you're worrying your playmate. You ought to feel how tense she's getting. We don't want her being nervy. Never know what might happen then and be your fault."
"Maybe you can make me say it, but you can't make my mother think it. She'd never believe I'd do that kind of stuff to you, would she, Charlotte?"
Charlotte's name was hardly beyond taking back when he wished he hadn't brought her into it—hadn't made Woollie even more aware of her while she was afraid to speak, afraid once she'd done it of having given her head a solitary shake. He saw Woollie's free hand finish digging its knuckles into the pillow and reach for her. He was preparing to fly at Woollie, to save her however he had to, when the hand set about stroking her hair. "Good enough, son," Woollie muttered. "You've changed my mind."
Ian couldn't take much pride in that as he saw Charlotte stiffen so as not to flinch away from the soft slow prolonged movements of the hand the size of her face. The heat was parching his throat, the smells of the room were massing like nausea, by the time Woollie let his hand drop to the pillow and murmured "I know what you want to write."
Ian had to swallow hard. "What?" he said, almost too low to be heard.
"You can tell your mother you've gone off by yourself because she thought you were up to something with your playmate."
She oughtn't to believe that either, which surely meant she would have to do her best to figure out where he really was, if he hadn't succeeded in rescuing Charlotte by then. "I could have too," he said.
"Time to play follow the leader, Charlotte. We don't want him writing anything that might cause an upset, do we? I expect he knows to be a good boy now, but no harm in making sure." Woollie patted her head and rested his hand there while he reached for the doorknob. "You lead, son. We'll follow," he said with none of the archness he was using on Charlotte.
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