He waited till 11.30, then rang Kimberley again, sick with worry now, although still trying to disguise it. Even Kimberley herself, however, sounded much less sanguine.
‘I just can’t understand it, Eric, unless – God forbid – there’s been an accident.’
The blood drained from his face as he pictured his beloved daughter lying mangled in the wreckage of some appalling pile-up.
‘I’m afraid Ted’s not here tonight. He’s away at a conference – back tomorrow morning – otherwise I’d ask him to drive the same route as the cab, so he could look out for signs of a crash. But let me call the taxi-firm, in case they might have heard something.’
‘And we ought to ring the police. I’ll do that, if you give me their number.’
‘No, leave it to me. It’s easier if I make both calls, then I’ll ring you straight back, OK?’
‘OK,’ he agreed, although rigid with fear. Suppose Erica were dead, or so badly injured she might never walk or speak again; spend the rest of her life as a vegetable – his only child; the one person in the world who shared his genes and was flesh of his flesh. In the last few months, he’d begun taking her for granted; confident she would always be part of his life, despite the miles between them and his own panic about flying; assumed he would watch her graduate, walk her down the aisle, rejoice when she bore him a grandchild. It was probably Mandy’s influence that had made him so uncharacteristically upbeat, but now he saw – with terror – all that rosy future could be wiped out at a stroke.
Should he alert Christine? No. Cruel to disrupt her honeymoon until he had the facts. There was no hard proof of any accident – not yet, in any case. Besides, he mustn’t use the phone when Kimberley would be trying to get through.
Hurry, he urged her silently, each second seeming to take an hour to pass. Perhaps the taxi-firm required more time to investigate the matter, or the Mercer Island police failed to answer calls immediately. Or had Kimberley received such devastating news, she couldn’t bring herself to relay it?
He paced up and down, up and down, pouncing on the phone the minute it rang, yet dreading a summons from the hospital or morgue.
‘Eric, you’re not going to like this, but—’
‘What? What is it, Kimberley? Are you telling me Erica’s hurt?’
‘No, she’s safe. Don’t worry.’
‘I am worried. Where is she, for God’s sake?’
‘That’s the problem. We’re not exactly sure.’
‘Not sure? You said you’d put her in a taxi and—’
‘I did. At least, I thought it was a taxi, but when Brooke heard me calling the police, she all but wrenched the phone from my hand and begged me not to speak to them. She said she knew where Carmella was and that she was perfectly OK. I asked her how she knew, of course, but she said she couldn’t tell me. Well, that made me really furious, so I bawled her out, and eventually she confessed.’
‘Confessed? I’m sorry, I don’t follow.’
Long pause.
‘Apparently,’ Kimberley went on, now sounding both defensive and embarrassed, ‘she and Carmella – your Erica – cancelled the taxi, just on their own initiative, without telling me a word about it. And, instead, they arranged for Larry to pretend to be the cab-driver and come and pick her up.’
‘Larry?’ He had become a witless parrot, repeating Kimberley’s words. But he could make no sense of her account.
‘He’s a college friend of Spencer, my son. They’re both at the University of Washington. Actually, I’ve never met the boy, which is why I didn’t recognize him when he turned up at the house. I must admit, I did think he looked a little young, but he was so well-dressed and so polite and charming, it never crossed my mind that he could be anything but a bone-fide cab-driver.’
‘You mean to say,’ Eric exploded, incandescent with rage, ‘my daughter’s out with some guy you don’t know from Adam? So what the hell are they doing?’
‘Calm down, Eric. She won’t come to any harm – I’m pretty sure of that. My Spencer’s a really lovely boy, so any friend of his is bound to be OK.’
‘That’s nonsense!’ he snapped. ‘Larry’s a completely unknown quantity, so how can you be sure of—?’ He broke off in mid-sentence, thinking out the implications: a college student at the wheel of a car – some feckless young stud, throbbing with testosterone. ‘Does my daughter know this – this’ – he all but spat the name out – ‘Larry?’
‘Brooke said they met him just one time, in Starbucks, and apparently he took a shine to Erica.’
Eric clenched his fists. Took a shine? Wanted to shag her, more like.
‘So the three of them hatched this crazy scheme. In fact, I suspect it was Larry’s idea – you know, to give him a chance to get to know your daughter. I was really mad with Brooke, of course, and when Ted hears about it, he’ll blow his top.’
‘Look,’ he cut in, unconcerned with Brooke or Ted or anyone but his daughter and her safety. ‘Can’t we phone the guy on his mobile? Ask him what the hell he thinks he’s playing at?’
‘Unfortunately not. Brooke doesn’t have his cell-phone number. And, as I said, I’ve never met him. I know most of Spencer’s friends, but this guy—’
‘Well, ring Spencer, then. He’s bound to have the number. And he may even know where he and Erica have gone.’
‘Good thinking, Eric! I’ll call him right away. I just hope he hasn’t gone to bed.’
‘Well, if he has, drag him out of bed! This is an emergency.’
‘Try not to worry. They may just have gone for a little ride round town.’
Was this woman barking mad? A twelve-year-old in a car with a stranger, at 11.30 at night, and she was talking blithely about a little ride round town. ‘Listen to me, Kimberley, if they don’t turn up within the next five minutes, I intend to ring the police.’
‘Please don’t do that, I beg you. Brooke would never forgive me.’
Bugger Brooke, he was tempted to say. Instead, he told the bloody woman to get on to Spencer instantly and also find out the make of Larry’s car, so he could watch for it in the street.
He waited in an agony for her to call him back; the clock’s second-hand moving unbearably slowly. ‘Ring, damn you, ring!’ he kept muttering to the phone, snatching it up the instant that it did.
‘Yeah, Spencer had his cell-phone number, but when I tried it, I only got the voicemail, so I had to leave a message.’
All the more suspicious. His daughter’s phone and Larry’s both switched off. Why, for heaven’s sake? He hardly dared answer his own question.
‘Still, I do have news – and good news, in a way. Spencer says that Larry mentioned taking Carmella to some pizza place at the South End of the Island. And that’s only a short walk from you, so if you could get yourself down there, Eric …’
He didn’t need a second invitation; only stopped to prompt Kimberley about the make of Larry’s car, in case the pair had already left the pizza place and actually passed him on the road.
‘A red BMW convertible.’
His fear ratcheted up yet another notch. A red sports car gave off the very worst of signals.
Not bothering with a coat, he grabbed his keys and wallet and dashed out of the house, running full-pelt along the street. No cars whatever passed him, although, when he reached the square, a fair scattering were parked there. However, he didn’t stop to look at them; instead made straight for the pizza restaurant, only to find it shut. Indeed, everything seemed closed except the supermarket; nevertheless, he double-checked every restaurant and coffee-shop. No joy, except for a solitary waiter – a gangly youth of indeterminate ethnicity – standing smoking outside El Sombrero’s.
Eric rushed across. ‘Can you help me, please? I’m looking for my daughter. Have you seen a young, dark-haired girl – five-foot tall and wearing jeans and a pink top? She might have come in to your restaurant sometime after ten, with a boy about eighteen.’
The guy clearly hadn’t understood a
word and answered in an indecipherable tongue. He probably wasn’t a waiter at all, but some humble kitchen assistant, without even basic English.
‘Don’t worry!’ Eric called, next trying the supermarket; sprinting up and down each aisle, in search of Erica. A pretty futile endeavour, since the place was almost empty and, in any case, no teen on a date was likely to go grocery shopping at ten minutes to midnight.
Dashing out again, he began searching the whole square for a red BMW; scrutinizing every red car, since the makes and styles of automobiles weren’t exactly his strong point.
In vain.
The raw night air was bitterly cold, yet he was aflame with fear, trying desperately to dismiss the gruesome images of crashes, carnage, corpses. But he was wasting time – time that might be crucial. He must go straight home and ring the police. If it upset Kimberley, too bad. It wasn’t her daughter who was seriously at risk.
Veering across the road, he took the short cut through Pioneer Park, stumbling to a halt as he noticed the scarlet gleam of a car. It had been driven off the road and was tucked into the parking-spot used by local dog-walkers. And, yes, it was a convertible.
A couple were sitting in the front – two shadowy silhouettes. He had to force himself not to overreact. Lots of people probably parked here at night, taking advantage of the privacy to indulge in a bit of philandering. And red sports cars were two a penny, so he mustn’t jump to conclusions. He inched one step nearer; careful not to make the slightest sound, in case he was spying on a pair of strangers.
Straining his eyes, he spelled out the name on the car: BMW. Even more alarming, the two figures in the front – still blurred and indistinct – suddenly moved closer to each other in a long, impassioned kiss. Heart pounding, he crept another few paces towards them.
And then he saw her – Erica – his little girl, being kissed by some disgusting lout. He felt such extremes of rage, relief and horror, all curdled and mixed up, he stood all but paralysed. She was safe – thank Christ – not lying injured in the road, or naked in Larry’s bed. Those facts were so precious, one part of him was dizzy with relief, yet his overwhelming instinct was to prise her from the car and really vent his fury; tell her she was never, ever to behave so irresponsibly and give everyone such cause for fear. One thing made him hesitate: the recognition that he himself had kissed girls as young as her, when he was younger still. If he ruined what could well be her first kiss – shamed her and embarrassed her in front of her first boyfriend – she might never, ever forgive him, and their already strained relationship would deteriorate still further.
He felt awkward even watching – a sneaky Peeping Tom – yet another, furious part of him felt she had lost all right to privacy and deserved only punishment. Torn all ways, he finally decided to wait just one more minute and hope desperately the guy would restart the engine and bring her safely home. Then he’d give her a rocket, wipe the bloody floor with her, bawl her out for breaking all the rules. Why involve this scum of a student, who would probably try to weasel out of it; pretend he’d thought Erica was older, or come up with some equally fatuous excuse?
All at once, he noticed that the pair were no longer kissing. Now, Erica seemed to be struggling, almost fighting off the boy. The sight was a match to a tinderbox. Springing forward, he wrenched open the car-door and saw, with horror, that the brazen sod was unzipped, and trying to force his daughter’s head down over his erection.
Without stopping to think, he attacked the brute, bare-handed, punching him and shoving him off; using every ounce of strength he possessed. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled.
The guy hit back, landing him a blow in the mouth. ‘What’s it got to do with you, you filthy pervert? I suppose you get your kicks from spying on innocent people.’
‘Innocent? I could get you put away for this!’
‘Fuck off, you arsehole!’
Reeling from another blow, Eric was forced to use his fists again, less in self-defence than in defence of Erica. Violence was totally alien to his ideals and temperament, but he would stop at nothing when it came to his daughter’s safety.
But suddenly he realized she was trying to intervene and that, with all the uproar going on, he had failed to hear her panicked croak of a voice.
‘Stop it, Larry. That’s my … my dad.’
Ignoring the blood streaming from his lip, he turned to look at her – a daughter he barely recognized: her hair dishevelled; her lipstick smudged and an expression of utter terror on her face. Was he too late? She was fully dressed, thank God, but anything might have happened. After all, she had been with this shit for close on a couple of hours.
‘Are you OK?’ he barked, unable to keep the anger from his voice – anger with Larry, with himself, with the whole cruel and dangerous world.
‘Y … yes.’
The word was barely audible, despite the sudden silence. The boy was looking shocked; clearly punctured by the revelation that Carmella’s father had caught him in the act. But, although he’d had the grace to zip up, his loosened tie and half-unbuttoned shirt made Eric want to murder him. The only reason he desisted was for his daughter’s sake. She, too, looked shamed and guilty, and began trying to explain away the incident.
‘We … we just pulled off here to … to have a drink.’
The admission enraged him further, especially when he noticed the beer-cans on the floor of the car – empty cans, at least three or four. ‘A drink? You’re far too young to drink!’ Then, turning on the boy, he shouted, ‘How dare you let my daughter drink, or lay your filthy hands on her! She’s underage – for everything. And you’ve no right to be drinking either – not when you’re in charge of a car. You could have smashed Erica to smithereens. And it didn’t seem to bother you that you might have got her pregnant.’
Larry gave a sullen shrug. ‘We were just having a bit of fun.’
‘Fun? I could see full well what you were up to, so don’t pretend you’re innocent, you scumbag! She’s a minor – a child – so your behaviour’s downright criminal.’
‘Dad, don’t. Please don’t.’
Despite his fury, he could hear the pain in his daughter’s voice, the note of near-hysteria.
‘Right,’ he snapped. ‘We’re going home – now. Get out!’
‘I’m OK to drive her,’ Larry muttered, sulkily.
‘Like hell you are! I never want to lay eyes on you again – or your fancy car. And if you ever dare get in touch with my daughter, I’ll go straight to the police. Is that clear?’
Erica hadn’t moved, so he all but lifted her bodily from the car, then slammed the door, with a last shouted curse at Larry. The boy accelerated off at such a rate, the car passed within an inch of them and, in trying to push Erica to safety, he lost his balance and fell backwards into the bushes. He picked himself up, brushed the bits of twig from his clothes; saw his daughter a few yards away, cowering with her head down, shoulders hunched. Gently, he approached, wrapped his arms around her, held her very close.
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not cross with you – not any more. Just so long as you’re all right.’
She didn’t answer.
Still horrified at the thought of virtual rape, he asked again, ‘You are all right, I hope? I mean, nothing … happened, before I turned up? Larry didn’t…?’
She shook her head. ‘No. You … you came just in time.’ Then, suddenly, she buried her face in his chest and began to sob – great racking, heaving sobs, as if she were crying a whole lifetime’s grief.
‘Oh, Dad,’ she choked, ‘Oh, Dad. I’m just so glad you’re here.’
chapter twenty-six
‘Y … you’re bleeding, Dad.’
Eric mopped his lip again; a tide of red-stained Kleenex now surrounding him on the kitchen table. ‘It’s OK. It doesn’t matter.’
‘And a big lump’s coming up on your forehead.’
‘Look, what I’m concerned about is you, darling �
�� whether you’re OK.’
His daughter shrugged, affecting a cool he knew she couldn’t feel. ‘Yeah. S’pose so.’
‘You haven’t drunk your tea.’
The way she picked up the cup, it might have weighed a ton.
‘And are you sure you won’t change your mind about the pizza?’
‘Told you – not hungry,’
‘You’re tired out – I can see that – and I should let you go to bed, but first we need to talk. It’s OK, I don’t intend to nag. I just want you to realize how dangerous it can be, going off with a boy you barely know.’
At last, she raised her head and looked at him; her make-up streaky from the tears. ‘You don’t understand, Dad. I’m, like, retarded, compared with Brooke. She’s had a boyfriend since she was eleven-and-a-half. And the other day she asked me if I’d ever been kissed – I mean, just like that, straight out – and I felt completely gutted, having to say no.’
‘Surely loads of twelve year olds haven’t been kissed.’
‘I’m thirteen in four days. And, anyway, it’s different over here. And different from the old days. When you were young, people probably didn’t kiss till they were, like, engaged or married.’
He had no intention of telling her that he had kissed a girl when he was ten – a decidedly inauspicious encounter. The girl in question had worn glasses, stuck together with Sellotape and, when he took them off, they fell to pieces in his hand. End of kiss. End of girl. In truth, the whole of his early sex-life had been pretty much disastrous: the bad start with ‘Uncle’ Frank; then the bigger boys at Grove End and The Haven, who would sneak into his bed at night and demand ‘services’ – or else. And the much older woman he’d worshipped, at fourteen, as a kindly mother-figure, who had ended up abusing him. That particular incident he had always tried to suppress, but now the painful memory, along with all the rest, made him even more determined that Erica’s own experiences should be different altogether.
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