by Laura Wilson
First things first. Supposing that he ought to try and eat something, at least, he took his beer back to the kitchen and picked up the note. Dad, I am sorry I have betrayed your trust and let you down, and Mum. I am going to see a friend who can help. Please don’t worry about me. Love, Monica x
Stratton felt sick. What friend? What help? The vision of his beloved daughter being mauled by some seedy struck-off doctor in a back room, or worse – appallingly, horrifyingly worse – encountering Backhouse, was so strong that he felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Backhouse bending over her, panting and sweating with lust, as he pawed at her knickers and … Stop it! Hands palm-down on the table and elbows locked, he took several deep breaths. He must not panic. He must find her before … before … No! He must not think about that. Monica wouldn’t allow herself to be drawn into a conversation with a strange man, and certainly not someone like Backhouse – but then Monica, at present, wasn’t her normal, sensible self. She was upset and desperate and he had no idea what she might do. He had to find her.
Where to start? His mind raced. Monica had said that she’d only told Pete, but perhaps she had talked to Madeleine as well. They’d always been close, just as Jenny had with Doris. Except, said a voice in the back of his mind, Jenny hadn’t told Doris that she was pregnant, had she? Telling himself that Monica wasn’t Jenny, and that the circumstances were entirely different, he strode into the hall and picked up the telephone.
‘Doris? It’s Ted. Is Monica with you?’
‘Hello, love. We haven’t seen her today … Are you all right? You sound a bit—’
‘Is Madeleine there?’
‘Yes.’ Doris sounded surprised. ‘She’s in the kitchen. But what—’
‘Can I speak to her?’
‘Yes, of course.’
There was a pause as Doris handed the receiver to her daughter. ‘Hello, Uncle Ted. What is it?’
‘Have you seen Monica today?’
‘No. Not since the night before last … Is there something wrong, Uncle Ted?’
‘Did she say anything to you?’
‘Say anything? No, we just … you know. Just normal things. Why?’
‘If she telephones, can you let me know?’
‘Of course, but … Is she all right?’
‘I’m not sure. Do you know if she’s got any particular friends at work?’
‘Well, she’s mentioned someone called Anne, who works with her doing the make-up, but nothing … I mean, just about funny things that happen, not anything important.’
‘Did she mention a surname?’
‘Not that I remember. She told me about Mrs Calthrop, as well – she said you knew her before, from the war – but that was ages ago. She’s not talked about her recently … I can’t think of anyone else.’
‘Did she mention Raymond Benson?’
‘The film actor? No. I’d remember that, Uncle Ted. He’s dreamy.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Stratton, grimly. ‘Could I have another word with your mum?’
There was another pause, as the telephone was handed back to Doris. ‘What’s going on, Ted?’
‘I’m not sure … Look, Doris, Monica’s in trouble and I don’t know where she’s gone. She’s left a note, but … I’m worried she’s done something stupid.’
‘Stupid? What—’
‘She’s pregnant.’
‘Pregnant?’ Doris’s voice was sharp. ‘Do you know anything about this, Madeleine?’ There was some muttering, and then Doris’s voice again. ‘She says she doesn’t. Are you sure?’
‘It’s what she told me.’
‘Well, it’s the first we’ve heard of it. Is there anything we can do, Ted?’
‘No … just stay by the telephone in case she rings. I need to find her. Is there anyone local she might have gone to – a friend, I mean? Madeleine might know …’
Madeleine came back on the line. ‘I can’t think of anyone, Uncle Ted. I mean, there’s girls from school, but she’s never really had a special friend – if she’d told anyone, it would be me.
‘His niece sounded both shocked and hurt, and Stratton didn’t blame her. ‘All right. But if she does telephone, you will tell me, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will! I hope she hasn’t … I mean, I hope she’s all right.’
‘So do I,’ said Stratton. Putting the receiver down, he rubbed his face. ‘Christ, so do I.’ Returning to the kitchen, he picked up Monica’s note once more, and read it again, trying to make it yield some clue as to where she had gone. Dad, I am sorry I have betrayed your trust … But, he thought, it hadn’t been a matter of trusting her; it had simply never occurred to him that anything of this sort might happen. Monica hadn’t betrayed his trust – what she had done was to show up, with vile clarity, his utter negligence as a father: he was the one who had betrayed her.
Chapter Sixty
Stratton fished Benson’s telephone number out of his pocket and rubbed it with his thumb for a moment, staring fixedly at the thing as though expecting its owner to appear before him like a pantomime genie. Then, white-knuckled, he yanked the receiver from its cradle and, jabbing his finger into the relevant holes, began to dial the number.
‘Hadley Green 521—’
‘Mr Benson?’ Cutting off the rich, silky tones, Stratton almost spat the words with the effort of keeping his own voice level.
‘Yes. Who is this, please?’
‘This is Detective Inspector Stratton. Monica Stratton’s father.’
‘I see. . .’
Stratton took a deep breath, taking in, with the air, the effortless superiority and poise of the man’s tone. ‘I should bloody well hope you do see. I’d like to kick your arse from here to Land’s End.’
‘Steady on, old chap.’
Old chap? Stratton took another deep breath. ‘Much as I’d like to do that,’ he said, every muscle in his body taut with the strain of maintaining any degree of calm at all, ‘I’m not going to, because I promised my daughter I wouldn’t. The reason I’m telephoning is because Monica has disappeared.’
‘She’s not with you?’
‘Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be asking.’
‘Well, she’s not here.’ Benson managed to sound as if this was the most ridiculous idea he’d ever heard in his life.
‘She left a note saying that she was going to see a friend who could help her, and I want to know if you have any idea who that is.’
‘No, I can’t say I—’
‘So you didn’t give her an address, or—’
‘I have offered,’ said Benson carefully, ‘to … make reparations, as it were.’
‘Reparations? You mean you’ve offered to pay for Monica to have an illegal operation which may very well ruin her health for life. I need to know where she’s gone.’
‘I think that’s somewhat of an exaggeration, don’t you? There are perfectly good clinics where every care is taken to do a competent job.’
‘Monica,’ said Stratton through gritted teeth, ‘is not a piece of machinery. She is my daughter, and she has feelings, and I’m very concerned that she’s done something stupid. Did you, or didn’t you, give her the name of an abortionist?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘Did anybody?’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
‘What about people at the studio? Friends? Anyone she’s mentioned?’
‘Well, she’s pally with another make-up girl, Anne, but I don’t know any more than that. You’d have to ask the studio, unless Monica’s left an address book or something like that …’
Cursing himself for not having thought of this and feeling that there was nothing to be gained by prolonging the conversation, Stratton rang off, but not before leaving Benson in any doubt that they’d be discussing the matter further and face to face and assuring him that if anything happened to Monica then he would hold him personally responsible.
Stratton stood on the threshold of his daughter’s be
droom. It wasn’t territory into which he usually ventured – certainly not by himself, anyway – and he felt uncomfortable. He had a clear memory of himself in 1940, when the children were evacuated, coming in here and purloining a tiny pink scarf Monica had made for one of her dolls. Remembering the embarrassment he’d felt at this sentimentality, even though no-one had seen him do it, he found himself wondering what had happened to the little scrap of knitting. If Jenny had found it in one of his pockets, she’d never mentioned it …
The dolls were gone now. Sketches – portraits, flowers and fruit – from the evening classes she’d attended were pinned up on the walls, and there was a Jean Plaidy novel and a film magazine on top of the small bedside cabinet, a dish of hairpins and a bottle of scent on the mantelpiece and a chiffon scarf draped over one edge of the mirror. Stratton glanced at the neatly made bed with its shiny pink eiderdown; the idea of his daughter lying in it and thinking about that bloody man, as she must surely have done, revolted him, and he turned away. Looking around the room, trying to avoid the bed with his eyes – almost impossible, as it took up nearly half the available space – he couldn’t see anything that looked like an address book. As far as he knew, Monica had never kept a diary. He stared at her chest of drawers. He really did not want to search through all her underclothes and whatever else she might have in there, but … Perhaps he ought to ring Doris? For Christ’s sake, he told himself, this is no time for pussyfooting around. Just get on with it.
Gingerly, as if the action might detonate a bomb, Stratton opened the top drawer. Finding only the usual array of underwear and stockings, he slammed it closed as if that would shut the image of Benson fingering these garments, and the corresponding regions of their wearer, out of his mind. Finding nothing of note in the next drawer, he opened the bottom one. Beneath a folded cardigan, he found a bundle of letters. Perhaps they would help … Recognising his own handwriting, and Jenny’s, and seeing the faded ink, he realised that Monica must have kept them from the war years, when they’d written to her and Pete in Suffolk. Blinking, he stuffed them back into place and stood up, staring round the room with scalded eyes.
He looked in the wardrobe, which seemed to contain the right amount of clothing. Monica’s suitcase was sitting at the bottom, which was something to be grateful for, at least. Finding that the bedside cabinet held nothing but a pair of gloves and a drawstring bag containing sanitary towels and a belt, Stratton turned his attention to the two small bookshelves. Perhaps the assorted Georgette Heyers, Daphne du Mauriers and A. J. Cronins would yield something. There were a few exercise books, too, kept from school, and an elderly jigsaw which, judging from the picture on the box, was of a deer in a woodland glade. He began with the books, flicking through the pages and shaking them before dropping them on the bed. Nothing there, and nothing hidden behind them, either. The exercise books were similarly barren, but when he opened the jigsaw box, he saw, beneath the jumble of cardboard, the corners of two letters. Scrabbling for them and sending half the pieces flying in the process, he saw that he was holding two notes in the same unfamiliar hand. Both were signed With all my love, dearest one, R.B. Scanning them quickly, Stratton saw that they were, underneath all the flummery and flowery language (Benson seemed to have been reading the same sorts of books as Monica), assignations, and, for his purposes, quite useless.
Stratton stuffed them back in the box and stood shaking his head and staring down at the cardboard fragments of bark and leaves scattered around his feet. He hadn’t found a single clue to where she might have gone.
Chapter Sixty-One
A call to Ashwood Studio, in Stratton’s official capacity, yielded the information that Anne the make-up girl, whose surname turned out to be Browne, lived in Clapham but wasn’t on the telephone, and that the last known address for Diana Calthrop, now Carleton, was in Pimlico, but there was no telephone there, either.
Recollecting that Ballard lived somewhere in, or anyway near, Clapham, Stratton picked up the telephone once more and asked the operator to put him through. If the sergeant was surprised to hear his voice, he didn’t show it, and when Stratton, as succinctly as he could, explained the situation, Ballard responded with commendably impersonal efficiency and agreed to go round to Tremlett Gardens and question the girl at once.
‘Shall I telephone you at home, sir?’ he asked.
‘No … I’ll telephone you later on – or leave a message at the station. I’m going out. There’s someone else I need to follow up, who might know where the hell Monica is.’
‘Yes, sir. And, sir … Good luck.’
‘Thanks, Ballard. Believe me, I appreciate this.’
By nine o’clock, Stratton was in Pimlico standing outside the address he’d been given for Diana, and wondering if the man he’d spoken to at the film studio had made a mistake. The tall, thin house, in the middle of a semi-derelict terrace, looked as if it was being held upright by the buildings on either side. Clearly divided into flats, it didn’t look like anywhere that Diana might visit, let alone inhabit. But then, he thought, as he walked up the four steps to the front door, ‘his’ Diana existed only in memory. She won’t be the person I used to know, he told himself, or the one I met for those few excruciating moments at the Festival of Britain, any more than she’ll remain the woman she is now. Everyone changes … Here, a sudden vision of Monica as a little girl made his eyes burn. Childhood was only an imagined cocoon of safety, he told himself. Look at poor little Judy Davies …
In answer to his knock, an elderly woman who smelt faintly of mildew put her head round the door and eyed him up and down with an irritable pecking movement like a parrot adjusting its plumage. Must be the landlady, thought Stratton. Large or small – and this one appeared to be pocket-sized – they tended to be of a kind.
‘I’ve come to see Mrs Carleton,’ he said.
The landlady let out a short yipping noise. ‘Not here. You another one of her gentlemen?’ She made the word sound like the worst of insults.
‘I’m a policeman,’ said Stratton, sharply, producing his warrant card. ‘DI Stratton, CID, and I’d like to talk to her.’
The landlady’s head, still the only visible part of her, twisted to one side in a way that didn’t look possible, never mind comfortable. ‘Police now, is it? Well you won’t find her here. I gave her notice.’
‘Do you know where she went?’
‘Didn’t ask. I won’t have that sort here.’
‘What sort?’
‘Well, she said she was married, but the husband – if that’s what he was – disappeared a few weeks back, and then some other man came and paid all the rent they owed, and then she started having visitors, if you know what I mean. For all I know, she might have gone to live with one of those. She never had no money, or if she did I never got the smell of it. Now, if that’s all …’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
Chapter Sixty-Two
Monica sat well back, not wanting to put her arms on the sticky surface of the café table. She didn’t much want to touch anything in the place, including the tea she’d ordered. She knew she was just putting off the moment, but she couldn’t face it, not quite yet.
The only other customer was an elderly, toothless man who, after sucking noisily at a forkful of mince to extract the flavour, removed the resulting pulp from his mouth with his thumb and forefinger and laid it on the side of his plate. It was only when he looked up from his gummy exertions that Monica realised she must have been staring, and looked down at her lap, hoping the revulsion hadn’t shown too much on her face.
She had to go through with it. The more she’d thought about it, the more obvious it was. People like her shouldn’t have children, because they were abnormal and would pass on their defects. Everyone knew that: it was how you ended up with cripples and kids with awful diseases who died young. Imbeciles, too. It would be as bad as if someone with venereal disease had a child. Auntie Doris had explained about that when one of their neighbours’ sons turned
out to be mentally defective: the mother had told her that her husband had caught something when he was serving overseas and passed it on to her so that she, in turn, had given it to the baby.
She’d never be able to explain any of that to Dad, of course. He might, in time, come to terms with what she’d done even though it was against the law and dangerous, but never with the other thing. That was why she hadn’t asked Raymond about the special clinic. Dad, she was positive, would talk to him, and it was much better that Raymond knew nothing of her plans. Dad was a dab hand at getting information out of people, and Raymond, she felt sure, would be no exception.
Instead, she’d confessed to Anne. She hadn’t wanted to, but a whispered confidence about an actress who’d found herself in trouble had persuaded her that her friend did know something of such matters, and there was nowhere else to turn. Initially, Anne had thought she was joking, and it had taken most of the day to convince her, but she’d managed it without revealing that Raymond was the father, inventing a local boy instead. Now, she had a name and address in her pocket, along with every bit of the money she’d managed to save since she started working. All she needed to do was to walk round the corner and knock on the door …
Chapter Sixty-Three
Stratton was so completely revolted by the old woman and her insinuations that Diana had turned into some sort of prostitute that it was only after striding down the road in disgust that he stopped to consider what she’d actually said. No money, or if she did I never got the smell of it. The Carletons must have been badly off, and something had evidently happened to him. Had he deserted her? If she’d had any money, she’d have paid the rent herself, he was sure of it. Perhaps she’d had to borrow from a friend, and that was what had planted the idea about men and visitors in the old besom’s mind. Surely, with no money, she’d have gone to stay with friends or relatives … in which case, she’d be impossible to find, at least at short notice. That was the obvious thing to do if one were thrown out with nowhere to go. But just in case, he’d try the women’s hostel near Victoria Station. He couldn’t believe he’d actually find her there – but then, he reasoned, he’d never have believed she’d have ended up in such ramshackle lodgings, either. It just went to show … what did it go to show? That one ought to expect the worst in any situation? No, he told himself firmly. Monica will be fine. I shall find her, and everything will be all right, somehow.