by Mia Dolan
‘I’ve lost my Henry,’ she said in a high-pitched voice, the sort that sounded as though she was perpetually hysterical.
‘Right, madam,’ said the sergeant after licking the end of his pencil. ‘And your husband’s full name?’
‘My husband? Archibald Lester Framlingham.’
The sergeant turned his watery eyes on her. ‘I thought you said his name’s Henry.’
‘Not my husband. My cat. Henry’s my cat and he’s gone missing. He ran out when the coalman came through the passage with a hundredweight of nutty slack on his back. Henry’s not used to going out you see …’
Normally Marcie would have listened enthralled and amused for the next instalment, but her mind was elsewhere. She could still feel the wet mud soaking through her clothes, and still had the bruises on her inner thighs. Roberto had not been gentle. Far from it.
Her eyes darted around the gloomy police reception noting the curling corners of posters warning about thieves and fuzzy photos on wanted posters.
The door opened and let in the brighter light of day from outside. Suddenly she wanted to be out there and not telling some stranger what had happened to her.
‘Yes, miss?’ The sergeant with the watery blue eyes was looking straight at her, pencil impatiently poised, ready to write down details of her and her problem.
She felt as though her knees had turned to jelly and that she wanted to stuff her hands even deeper into the big patch pockets of her Crombie jacket.
‘I …’
‘Yes?’
She swallowed. She couldn’t do this – or could she? Roberto had raped her. The best place for him was prison – the louse, the rotten, snotty louse!
‘Miss?’
She glanced over her shoulder. The queue had vaporised like morning mist. The only person in the waiting room was the old lady wanting the police to find her cat.
You were raped.
‘A man … he … um …’
The sergeant eyed the long legs exposed by her ultra-short mini-skirt, made a swift assessment then sighed and put down his pencil. ‘I don’t have all day to waste on young women just popping in to kill time. Do you want to make a statement or what?’
His manner was brusque. She felt herself reddening.
‘What will happen to him if I say he … that a man took advantage of me?’
Wispy grey eyebrows rose towards his hairline and wrinkles as deep as a ploughed field waved across his forehead. He exhaled a blast of onion-scented breath as though he didn’t really want to bother with this.
‘The boyfriend was it? You were kissing and canoodling as young folk do. You gave him the come on signals and then cried wolf when he responded.’
‘No! That isn’t what happened at all.’
She was appalled, not least because the door to the outside had swung open a few times to admit more people, more customers for the sergeant to take note of and dismiss. The people were arguing amongst themselves and appeared to be making complaints against each other. They were also wearing carnations and looked as though they’d been to a wedding.
‘She’s been jilted,’ a woman in a flowery dress shouted in the direction of the sergeant. The younger woman beside her exploded into floods of tears.
Marcie ogled the scene, finding something of amusement but also pathos and sympathy. The younger woman’s dress strained over a five-month pregnancy.
She was pulled back to the task in hand by the sergeant behind the desk.
‘Well,’ he barked, ‘are you going to make a complaint against your boyfriend or are you going to kiss and make up? In which case don’t waste my time. I’ve got more important things to do than dealing with young girls who can’t keep their knickers on! If you didn’t wear such a short skirt these things wouldn’t happen.’
Cheeks ablaze, Marcie fled.
Even the outside air wasn’t enough to cool her hot face or dry the tears that stung her eyes. How could she have been so bloody stupid! No matter how she’d worded it, she would carry the can.
You went for a drive in his car? Just the two of you? He’d found out that you had a child out of wedlock. Well, then what do you expect with a reputation like you’ve got?
She wanted to run away. She didn’t want to go back to work. She didn’t want to go back to living with the Camilleris or with her father.
What are the options, she asked herself. In her mind she ticked them off just like her grandmother ticked off the items on a shopping list.
First, the Isle of Sheppey. No. It wasn’t possible, neither for herself nor for Joanna. Rita Taylor would not let it drop, shouting the odds with her foul mouth and her nasty accusations. The rotten cow would always be a nuisance both to herself and her daughter. She was also missing her baby. Joanna too must leave Sheppey, but where would they go? Finding accommodation that would take children in London was almost impossible, especially for someone who didn’t know the city that well. So who did she know here who did know the city? The only people besides her father were the two girls she’d met at a home for unmarried mothers.
The rest of the afternoon in the sewing room felt hot and oppressive. Every so often she looked up at the battery-operated clock ticking away on the wall. The seconds passed like minutes, the minutes like hours.
Gabriella asked her what was wrong.
‘Just a bit of a headache,’ she said with a tight smile.
‘I won’t be home this evening,’ Gabriella Camilleri said to her. ‘Victor and I have a church function to attend. The bishop is visiting and we’ve been invited to meet him.’
Marcie was relieved that she would have the flat to herself. She prayed that Roberto wouldn’t come round once he knew his parents weren’t there.
When the doorbell rang she jumped a mile. She opened it to find Michael was standing there.
‘I won’t come in. I only wanted to ask if you were OK.’
He looked thoughtful, almost plaintive, as though he was in some way responsible for what his half-brother had done to her.
‘Roberto,’ she said, her eyes flickering along the hallway behind him.
His smile was reassuring and warm. ‘He’s down at Limehouse as the guest of a Chinese gambling club. They want protection. He’s arranging it.’
Marcie knew that the only protection the Chinese required was from the Camilleris. They paid, they got protected; in other words the Camilleris and their stooges didn’t go in and break up the joint.
She sighed with relief and found herself saying, ‘Look, I’m truly grateful for you being such a good friend, and I would invite you in, but not tonight. There’s something I’ve got to do and besides, quite frankly I’d prefer to be alone.’
His smile wasn’t so bright. ‘A friend. Well, I suppose that’s a start. But I’d like to be more than that – when you’re ready. If you ever are ready that is.’ He’d been leaning against the door jamb, but now he straightened up, resigned that he had to leave. ‘So I’ll leave you in peace.’
After he’d gone she recalled his sad smile but hardened her heart to it. He’d been kind to her and she had time for him. However, she wasn’t yet ready for anything else, even though it did occur to her to ask him to help her find accommodation and a job – one that paid well. He’d probably direct her towards a nightclub. Most of the girls who earned good money danced half naked in one of the Camilleris clubs.
It was tempting, but she didn’t feel she wanted to do that. There had to be something else. So at least for now she’d pass on asking for his help. So that night she wrote once again to both Sally and Allegra and hoped and prayed that this time one of them would write back.
Chapter Twenty-nine
ROSA BROOKS CLUTCHED at her black patent handbag with both hands and took as shallow breaths as possible. She disliked hospitals at the best of times; there were good intentions in such places but also a certain emptiness like that left behind when souls have flown.
Rather than leave Joanna with Babs, who was becoming surl
ier and scruffier than ever nowadays, she’d left the toddler with her next-door neighbour, a grandmother who couldn’t stop loving children.
No one else was likely to visit Garth Davies except her. He had no family, no home and no friends except the ones he’d made at number ten, Endeavour Terrace.
The strong smell of carbolic persisted from the very moment she’d entered the front door of the mental hospital where Garth was incarcerated. Cared for was not the right word for it she’d decided even before she’d got here. Such institutions as this were little more than prisons with their heavy doors, their high ceilings and windows that were barred from the inside.
A nurse dressed in a dark-blue dress and a small white cap asked her if she was a relative. She lied and said she was his great-aunt, the only family he had left in the whole world.
The clumpy heels of her stout walking shoes thudded on polished brown floors and echoed off walls that were painted dark green to shoulder level then eau de nil the rest of the way.
The windows had wire-enforced panes so far up; the light came in but nobody could look out.
‘Garth? You have a visitor.’
Garth’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘Auntie Rosa!’
Rosa gasped. ‘What’s that he’s wearing?’
The fact was she knew exactly what it was. Garth was wearing a thickly padded jacket with belts and buckles. His arms were pinned to his sides, hugging himself in an embrace it was impossible to escape.
‘It’s a straitjacket,’ said the nurse, her plump hands folded in front of her.
‘I know what it is,’ snapped Rosa, fixing the ruddy-hued face with sharp, disproving eyes. ‘Garth is not dangerous. Why is he wearing it?’
‘It’s for his own good.’
‘Then you will explain to me why it is for his own good?’
The nurse took a deep breath and held it – almost as though she is trying to look bigger than what she is, Rosa thought to herself. Her sharp-eyed look was unrelenting. The nurse caved in and released Garth from the restraining jacket.
‘He’s escaped a number of times. We’re afraid he may do himself an injury. Pull this if you need to,’ said the nurse, pointing to an antiquated bell pull with a cast-iron handle.
Without more ado, the door was closed. Rosa took in the sparse details of the room. There were four chairs and a table. Garth was seated opposite her on the other side of the table. There were no pictures on the walls and no curtains at the one and only window. Luckily it appeared to face north so she did not have to suffer bright sunlight in her eyes. However, the room was cold. It almost made her envy Garth’s warm jacket, but only to a point.
The only other thing to lighten their dour surroundings was someone humming the ‘Londonderry Air’ – ‘Danny Boy’. Rosa found it soothing and it helped her concentrate.
‘Garth, they tell me you’ve been trying to escape.’ She kept her voice low, almost as though she were afraid that the walls might have ears. It felt that way: this place of cold surfaces and strange echoes.
Garth’s eyes were as bright as ever. ‘I didn’t like it here, but I’m alright now. This jacket’s warm. Do you like it?’
It wasn’t often that Rosa Brooks was lost for words, but she most certainly was now. She had to remind herself that Garth was a simple soul who’d faced some pretty grim knocks in his short life. He’d been used to being neglected. Attention of any kind was a bonus as far as he was concerned.
‘Have you been pretending to run away because you were cold, Garth?’
He nodded and giggled until he dribbled. Rosa leaned across and wiped at the drool with her handkerchief. She shivered and hugged her coat around herself.
‘It is certainly very cold in here. I think I might do the same if I was here very long.’
Garth nodded vigorously. ‘Pretend you’re going to escape and you’ll get a jacket too, Auntie Rosa.’
It was hard not to smile, but Garth’s simple logic also saddened her.
‘I do not think they want me to stay, Garth, otherwise I might very well do the same as you. That was a very good idea. I have brought you food.’
She smiled and took out the bag of food she’d brought with her: home-made pasties, pies and cakes.
‘It wasn’t my idea,’ he said, drooling afresh as he set eyes on the home-cooked fare, his nose twitching like a hamster. ‘It was Albert. He told me to do it.’
He took the pasty to his mouth then devoured it at a rapid rate so that crumbs flew everywhere.
‘This Albert. Does he try to escape too?’ she asked cautiously.
Garth shook his head, sending a shower of crumbs down the straitjacket, over her black coat and over the table. He chomped a while before he could answer properly and even then a shower of crumbs came with it. Garth’s teeth were uneven, his upper jaw overshot so he couldn’t help it.
‘Albert’s been here for ages. It’s his home. He doesn’t want to go. Not now after all this time. But he does know how to get out because he built this place. That’s what he told me. He was a master builder.’
Rosa sighed as Garth recounted the tales of this Albert character who she presumed was another inmate. The poor soul might have been a builder but he’d have to be very old by now if he’d ever had a hand in building this place. The stone carving above the entrance said ‘1833’.
‘Perhaps Albert would like to share this food with you,’ offered Rosa.
Garth looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know.’
Rosa raised her eyebrows in pretend dismay. ‘You mean he will not like my cooking?’
Garth’s frown deepened. He turned suddenly and looked over his shoulder at the right-hand corner behind him. ‘Albert, would you like a pie? My Auntie Rosa brought them for me, but you can have one if you like.’
During the half-minute Garth turned, his attention fixed on the right-hand corner of the room, the humming stopped. It resumed the moment Garth turned round again, his face wreathed in smiles.
‘Albert says he doesn’t need to eat anything any more. That means he don’t need to go to the toilet either. That’s good isn’t it, Auntie Rosa – not having to eat and not having to go to the toilet?’
He laughed, not really knowing what he was saying, but having fun saying it. But Rosa knew. She heard the humming. Garth heard the humming, but not everyone did and not everyone would believe, she told herself – which could be catastrophic for this poor boy.
There was a chance Garth could be released once those in authority gave him leave. She’d offered him a home. Everything was in place, but if they thought he was hearing voices he could be in here for ever.
She leaned forwards, her dark eyes bright with intent, hypnotically gazing into his.
‘Garth! Listen to me. You must not tell anyone here about Albert. Promise me. He must remain a secret. Only you and I must know that he’s the one who told you to escape. I don’t think you should pretend to do that again just so they give you a padded jacket. Here. Have my coat.’
It was her best coat and a woman’s coat, but she’d decided Garth must never feel cold here. If he kept up this pretence of escaping they’d likely keep him in longer. She decided to have a word in the right ear on her way out.
‘Tell no one?’ he asked with childlike innocence.
‘No one,’ said Rosa. ‘Do you promise?’
He nodded. ‘I promise.’
The humming stopped once she was outside the door. It would still be there for Garth. Only the gifted could hear such a sweet sound. She’d hear it again herself on the next occasion she came to visit.
Chapter Thirty
WHEN SALLY SAUNDERS opened her eyes, she found herself face to face – or rather face to sparkle – with the latest present her lover had bought her: a cuff rather than a bracelet, two-inches thick and composed of top-quality diamonds. She knew they were top quality because Klaus was a Swiss banker of great wealth and taste. He never bought anything that wasn’t top quality. ‘Just like me,’ she’d said t
o him, and he’d agreed. Neither of them were under any illusion that his wealth had bought her too.
Sally had classic good looks, her nose just a little too large and straight to call pretty. Her hair was fair, helped to a more glamorous blonde by the attentions of a skilled – and expensive – hairdresser.
Stretching out her arms to either side of her, she trailed her fingertips over the spot where the warmth of her lover’s body remained and smiled. He was gone but the diamonds remained, as ever a girl’s best friend. But he’d be back. He’d look after her. That was why she’d chosen him.
‘Madam?’
As usual, Anne Marie had entered without knocking. A tall thin woman, she wore black with as much elegance as a mannequin wearing a Dior gown. She entered at the same time every morning and always used that same, questioning way of addressing her mistress as though she were querying whether the term was acceptable.
Out of habit, Sally adopted the same questioning tone back. ‘Anne Marie? How do you always know when I am awake?’
Anne Marie’s expression remained businesslike. ‘That is my job.’
She set the breakfast tray on the side table just as she did every morning. Fruit juice, coffee and a sliced apple with prunes, plus a single rose in a silver holder. It never varied and was always only picked at. Sally had no intention of letting the years eat into her figure too soon. She had made that mistake before – though not through food. Over a year had passed since she’d given away the baby boy she’d given birth to at Pilemarsh Abbey. She harboured a morbid fear of getting fat and unattractive. She’d been wooed, pampered and undressed by some of the wealthiest men in the world. There would be more in the future. There must always be a future.
‘Your post, Madam.’
Anne Marie pulled back the curtains and fluffed up her pillows so her employer could sit up and deal with her mail.
Sally glanced at the letters. One of them had been sent on from her old address. Her sister wrote occasionally, but only when family commitments warranted a diversion from the norm. She had half a dozen children and they filled her life. Asking what her sister was up to was like dipping into a gossipy magazine – it brightened her days. But I’m sure I gave her my new address, she thought with an irritable frown.