by A J Waines
‘What if the snow thaws?’ I said, snatching a breath. ‘What if the temperature rises and the snow covering his body…melts and…’
A vision of Charlie’s decomposing body emerging from his crude tomb, for all to see, flooded my mind.
‘We’ll deal with it,’ she said dismissively.
‘Why do you think Charlie came to the cottage?’ I asked.
She tried to cover a sigh. ‘We don’t know, do we? Maybe he needed money for a taxi, maybe he was on the lookout for jewellery, perhaps he’d got the wrong cottage, or he could have left something behind here and was coming back for it – who knows? It doesn’t change anything – we can speculate all we like, but we have no idea why he was here.’
‘Maybe he knew about the money Mark had, somehow.’
‘Except that had gone by the time he broke in.’
‘Ah – yeah…’ It was all a complete muddle.
‘Why were you burning the stool?’ I asked again, trying to make my voice sound light.
‘I told you why – it was broken and annoying me.’
It had been on the landing by the bathroom – near my bedroom door. It was small and compact and just the kind of thing you might reach for if you were caught by surprise and needed to defend yourself. Was I the one who had lifted it up and swung it at the back of Charlie’s head?
‘Was there blood on it, is that why you were getting rid of it?’
I could picture fragments of the scene – me in bed in my penguin pyjamas, the splintering sound of my door as it slid open. A shadow in the doorway, me startled out of my wits, searching desperately for something to keep him away from me, the stool in my grip. I could see the snapshots in my mind, but they weren’t memories – I was sure they weren’t.
In any case, the stool was on the landing – how could I have reached for it when I was in bed and it was behind him?
I kept coming back to the same gnawing, sick place. Perhaps I wasn’t in bed when he came in. Perhaps I wasn’t even in the room. It all hung on whether I’d been sleepwalking again. I had taken a tablet on Tuesday night – it was possible.
She laughed. ‘You’re overreacting, Alice. Don’t you believe me?’
She was lying. It was obvious now I considered it. There was no doubt that Karen looked shifty when I caught her over the bonfire – like she had a job to do that she didn’t want anyone else to know about. She probably hadn’t expected me – or anyone else – to be up and about so early. The stool could easily have been the murder weapon. But who was she protecting – me or herself?
‘I know you’ve been anxious and you’ve had awful panic attacks, but don’t become a liability.’ Her voice was sharp.
‘A liability? When have I ever been a liability?’
She softened. ‘You haven’t – you’ve always been completely reliable.’
Reliable. It sounded so business-like – not what friendships were made of.
Another thought came to mind. ‘Why didn’t you tell me when Stuart came to see me on Wednesday?’ I said, keeping my voice even. ‘Why didn’t you let him in?’
‘You don’t really know Stuart, Alice. None of us do. We don’t really know why he’s hanging around here so much. I was just trying to protect you – protect us all.’
I wanted to remind her that he was hanging around because of me, but I didn’t think it would have made much difference. ‘You think Stuart is involved somehow?’
‘We don’t know – do we?’ She pulled me towards her. It was a tender gesture, but it felt forced. ‘Besides – you were upset – we were waiting for the police at that point – we didn’t want him interfering.’
I retreated to my own room after that. Karen was being cautious about Stuart, but she should still have told me.
What she said about the abduction made sense, but I was still uneasy. Karen was trying to convince me that Brody was miles away, but we didn’t know for certain. Charlie had been ‘an intruder’ until Nina told me about the hat. Now he was involved in the snatching of the boy. By not speaking up, we were withholding evidence and we could be putting the missing boy at risk.
I lay down on the bed and stared at the crazy-paving cracks that crawled across the ceiling, meeting at the light fitting in the centre. What was I going to do?
I glanced at my suitcase sitting on top of the wardrobe. I could leave. I could leave right now and in a couple of hours I’d be far away from this dreadful situation. On the heels of that thought came another. I couldn’t just slope out. I’d be leaving Karen with Charlie – the police would find him as soon as the snow melted and they’d be after me in a shot.
I sat up and looked out at the unrelenting white sheet spread across the landscape outside. After only a few days, I was fed up with it. I longed for the snow to be gone and to see velvet green fields in its place. Snow felt like part of an ending and all I wanted was a beginning.
I had another option, but it meant defying Karen and throwing myself to the wolves. I could tell the police about Charlie and face the consequences.
Chapter 27
My conscience had got the better of me by lunchtime and I had an idea about how to handle the situation. I hastily put together a ham sandwich, put a note saying Gone for a walk, on the table and left the cottage before I bumped into anyone.
I walked the three miles to Duncaird and caught the number one bus, which took an hour to reach Fort William. Ideally, I should have gone as far as Glasgow, but that was nearly a hundred miles away. With my hood up and my head down to avoid the CCTV cameras, I strolled around and found the busiest area; the shopping centre on the High Street – and ducked into a phone box. From there I rang the police.
I left an anonymous message in the best Scottish accent I could muster, saying that the man who had taken the boy in Ockley on Monday was called Charles Smith. He’d been wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and blue woolly hat with a white stripe – a twenty-three-year-old backpacker with a passport in his bag.
The voice at the other end demanded my name and more details, but I hung up. They might think I was a crank caller, but they’d probably at least look into it. Of course, I didn’t want them to look too far – just far enough to pick up any trail on Brody. As far as the missing boy was concerned, I’d told the police everything I knew. I didn’t have any details about where Brody was or where, when and who Charlie had passed the child on to.
When I got back, I was greeted with the smell of steaming wool. Jodie was forever washing out her clothes by hand and leaving them on the wooden rack by the fire – only nothing ever dried and any day now she was going to run out of things to wear.
She was in the kitchen painting her false nails. When she wasn’t gluing lace or studs to her pockets or belts, she was adding glitter to her eyelids or plucking her eyebrows. Self-grooming was a full-time hobby for Jodie.
Mark was hunting for something to eat in the larder and Mel was snug against Karen’s chest in a baby sling. ‘Nice walk?’ Karen asked brightly. Close up, her skin looked like dry pastry and her eyes were rippled with broken blood vessels.
‘Yeah – thanks,’ I said. She poured me a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove and pointed to a plate of scones.
‘Taken many photos?’ Jodie asked without looking up. My camera was where I’d left it the previous day, on the dresser in the sitting room.
‘Not today – the light isn’t right,’ I said. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘We should have some group photos,’ said Jodie, her eyes lighting up. ‘And what about some mother and daughter portraits – have you taken many of those, yet?’
‘No – we must do that,’ I said. ‘Portraits aren’t my forte, but the camera’s very good. How about it, Karen?’
‘My hair’s a mess,’ she said wearily. ‘We’ll do it another time.’
Jodie blew on her final sparkly green nail and showed the full set to me. ‘I’ve got a spare pack with me – I can put them on for one of you, if you like?’ Karen and I both
declined. ‘How about we do something with your hair, Alice – pretty you up a bit? It’s such a dull brown, all flat and going nowhere.’
‘It’s okay, thanks,’ I said, struggling to hide a smile.
Several years ago, I would have been practically destroyed by a comment like that. Now I could see it was just Jodie’s way.
‘Tell us about Mel,’ Jodie asked Karen. ‘What went wrong?’
Karen waggled the child’s foot, gently. ‘She was originally diagnosed with bronchiolitis, but when they found out she had a lung condition – something called bronchopulmonary dysplasia – the doctors thought it best to take her to the specialist children’s unit in Glasgow,’ she explained. ‘BD is the abnormal development of lung tissue. It can be fatal. You can see why I was terrified.’
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Jodie.
Her sympathy didn’t last long. ‘You fell off the radar, you pig – what happened? Mark and I didn’t hear from you for ages. Did you forget about us?’
‘Of course not. If you must know, I didn’t keep in touch with anyone from Leeds, not really.’
So, it wasn’t just me.
Karen wiped a dribble from Mel’s chin with her thumb. ‘I feel very bad about it, I can tell you. I don’t have any decent excuses. I was just a crap friend.’
Mark stepped in. ‘It’s just what happens – people move on.’
‘Guys do,’ Jodie pointed out, ‘but women are usually better at keeping in touch.’
Mark tutted, turning away.
‘You must tell us about America,’ Jodie exclaimed starry-eyed. ‘Hollywood, for crying out loud! That must have been incredible!’
‘Yeah, well – all in good time.’
‘And the father? Who is he – this famous Hollywood actor?’ she pressed.
‘I can’t say.’
‘Why not? Come on, give us a clue – we’re hardly going to get on the phone to him.’
‘I can’t.’ Karen was serious. ‘I haven’t told a soul.’
Jodie asked another of the questions that was on my own mental list. ‘Did you plan the baby?’
‘No – actually.’
A silence was suspended in the air. I cut it short and turned to Jodie. ‘When you have children, would you want a boy or a girl?’
‘Urgh – neither,’ she said. ‘Don’t want kids. Ever. Do we?’ She glanced at Mark who was drinking milk directly from the carton and didn’t appear to be listening. ‘I’ve got too many things I want to do. I couldn’t have a kid holding me back. No offence intended,’ she said, holding up her hands. ‘We’ll get married though, won’t we?’ She turned to him again, but he had his head inside the fridge.
I remembered asking Karen once, in our final year, about what it was she saw in Jodie. She’d claimed she found Jodie funny (especially when she was tipsy), scatty and harmless. ‘I like the way she always tells it how it is,’ she’d explained.
I thought about those words – funny, scatty and harmless – they were hardly grounds for a particularly close relationship. Again, it made me think – why invite her?
It was as if Karen had failed to fill me in on a key part of this arrangement, just like she’d failed to tell me Jodie and Mark were turning up at all. What were we all doing here?
Jodie picked up a half of scone from the plate on the kitchen table, took a bite, then put it back. She turned to Karen. ‘What about your pictures from Hollywood, Kaz? You must have loads.’
‘I didn’t get the chance to take many.’
‘You were there for half a decade, girl – how can you not have photos? I love that sign on the hill that says “Hollywood”. Did you take a selfie with that? And any of the family you were with?’
Karen got up reluctantly and came back with a thin yellow envelope.
‘Is that it?’ complained Jodie.
‘I’ve got piles at home,’ said Karen. ‘I wasn’t going to cart them all up here.’
She handed Jodie the snaps. Jodie glanced at each one, then passed it on to me. ‘Is this their kitchen?’ she asked. ‘It’s not very big.’
‘That was just the one I used on the top floor.’ Karen seemed reluctant to elaborate, as if her time there was best forgotten.
‘What about the pool? You said there was a swimming pool in the grounds.’
‘I haven’t got any pictures of that.’
‘What about the kids, then?’
‘Okay, this one is Zena – she’s about four in that picture.’ She pointed to a child on a swing.
‘That’s a nice one of you,’ said Jodie, gratified at last. ‘I like your hair parted on the side, like that. When was it taken?’ She turned it over hoping for a date.
‘I don’t know,’ said Karen, scrutinising the picture. ‘Two years ago, maybe?’
‘And none of the gorgeous superstar you fell in love with?’ Jodie asked coyly.
‘No.’ Karen’s face was still, giving nothing away.
‘Oh, come on – you must have some!’
‘I do – of course, I do – but I didn’t bring them, because I knew you’d pester me and you’d recognise him straight away and then…’
‘Then what, Kaz?’ Jodie’s tone was less playful. ‘Me and my big mouth would blab to the press and Mr Blockbuster would be named and shamed?’
Mark spoke. I’d almost forgotten he was there. ‘Something like that, Jodie,’ he said. ‘You know what you’re like.’ Jodie reached across and gave him a playful slap on the knee.
‘I don’t gossip…I’m just interested in people,’ she said, lifting crumbs scattered on the table with the pad of her finger. ‘Tell us more about Hollywood,’ she went on, ‘the people, the life-style, the weather – transport me there – I want to know every last detail of what it was like.’
‘What can I say? You’ve seen it on TV. It’s hot – there are palm trees everywhere. There are hundreds of places to eat – bars and cafés.’ She dusted the remains of flour from her hands. ‘I was in West Hollywood in a seven-bedroomed place. It had huge grounds with a fountain. I used to take the children out every day. We’d go to the local park, swim, play tennis, ice-skate in the winter.’
‘There was Zena and who else?’
‘Fabio and Lola. They were seven and eleven when I started with them. The girls were cute, but real prima-donnas. Fabio was a nightmare; he was sly and never did as he was told. It was hard work, I can tell you.
‘The first family I was with – they didn’t stipulate exactly how many hours I was due to work – and I ended up on my feet practically all day, every day. I left after three months and moved on to a new place with a great family. Judy was a frazzled mother of three. She was a bit detached, but friendly enough and I did what they call light housekeeping – laundry, ironing, vacuuming, as well as helping the kids with homework. Zena was only small when I started.’
‘Was it like playing at Mary Poppins the whole time?’ I chipped in, trying to figure out how she found meaning in her work there, when she was capable of so much more.
‘I liked lying in the sun. They had a pool in the grounds and, on my mornings off, I used to lounge around with a book, have a dip, soak it all up…’
‘Did they give you time off?’
‘One morning a month – and sometimes Sunday afternoons.’
My chin shot forward. ‘Is that all?’
‘It was a job, not a holiday, Alice,’ she said.
‘Tinsel Town,’ I mused. I couldn’t think of many situations more awful. Looking after someone else’s spoilt children, scrubbing kitchen floors and not having a minute to yourself. ‘What else did you do?’ There was a rap at the door before she could answer.
It was Stuart. My world shifted out of the clouds and into full sunshine.
‘We’re just having scones,’ I said as he stomped the snow off his boots onto the front doormat. ‘Fancy afternoon tea?’
‘Ooh, how very English,’ he chuckled. I reached over to give him a discrete peck. He’d brought in the chill. ‘Sorry t
o call unannounced. I tried your mobile, but it didn’t connect. Are you sure there isn’t a phone here?’ His eyes surveyed the skirting boards in search of a socket on his way into the kitchen.
‘Tea?’ said Karen, pointing to the kettle.
‘Hi – yes, please,’ he said, shaking off his wax jacket. He hung it over the back of a chair.
‘We were just talking about Hollywood,’ I said patting the seat.
‘Ah – the joys of Sunset Boulevard and the Comedy Store.’
‘You’ve been there?’ I said.
‘For a while – when I was a student.’
I gave him a two-sentence version of what Karen had already told us to save her covering the same ground.
‘So, you were near Santa Monica Boulevard?’ he said, between sups of tea.
‘Yeah – just your average leafy suburb in West Hollywood.’
‘Were you anywhere near Plummer Park?’
‘Er…probably…there were so many parks.’ She skimmed her fingers down her hair. ‘I’ve forgotten half of them already.’
‘I played tennis there once.’
‘Really?’
‘Where were you based, exactly?’
‘West Hollywood.’
‘I meant the road.’
‘Craven Avenue.’
‘Ah, yes, I know…near Fountain Avenue…’ said Stuart.
Her shoulders give a narrow shudder. ‘I’m not sure – I was at the house a lot.’
‘So, Hollywood-Highland Station would have been the nearest Metro?’
‘Yeah – that’s right.’
‘The Orange line?’
Karen smiled with a slight nod and scooped the last of the jam from her spoon before sucking her finger. Her answers were clipped and to the point. I could see no trace of nostalgia.
‘So – you headed back once you knew you were pregnant with Mel?’ said Jodie.
‘Shortly after – yes.’
‘Do you miss it?’ I said.
‘In a way…’ She shrugged. ‘I miss the guy I met.’