The Wrong Kind of Clouds

by Amanda Fleet

  Megan worked part-time at the library and Thursday was one of her days off.

  ‘Hey, girl! How was the scan?’ Megan asked as soon as she answered.

  Helen heard the fears in her voice. ‘Fine. It was all fine. Meg, are you free this afternoon?’

  ‘Of course. You okay?’

  ‘No. Not really. I’m completely panicked about everything.’

  ‘On my way. You at the shop?’

  ‘Mmm. Sorry—I can’t close up, just in case someone comes by.’

  ‘No worries. Get the kettle on!’

  Helen kept herself busy in the office at the back of the shop until she heard the bell above the door jingle. She popped her head out from the office and beamed to see the familiar, effortlessly chic, tiny form of her friend. Helen made tea, then perched in the office chair at her desk, leaving the comfortable sofa normally reserved for clients for her friend. She sighed heavily. Megan cocked her head.

  ‘Come on, girl, talk. What are you panicking about?’

  ‘The baby! What else?’

  Megan waited. Helen smiled to herself; she could always rely on Megan to listen first and offer advice only later.

  She peeked into the shop, took a deep breath and started. ‘Don’t get me wrong—in many ways I’m delighted that I’m pregnant. I’ve always wanted to have children, but I’d imagined they would come after the part involving meeting the right guy and getting settled…’

  ‘Still nothing from Patrick?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘He didn’t come to the scan this morning. I left a message telling him about it, but…’ Her words ran out again.

  ‘Maybe he was busy?’

  Helen cast her eyes up scornfully. ‘No. He didn’t come because he doesn’t want me to keep the baby and he doesn’t care about me. If he’d cared about me, he wouldn’t have been two-timing me with her!’ She jutted her chin towards the paper.

  Meg looked sympathetic, but kept quiet. Helen took a sip of her tea and sighed again, lost in her world.

  ‘Do you think you two might ever get back together?’

  ‘Much as it might offer some solutions, I doubt it. He’s a liar and a cheat which makes it hard for me to trust him, and I’ve said and done things that can’t be taken back.’ She fiddled with the paper, turning it over to hide the headlines before continuing. ‘Last time I saw him, he’d gone and got some leaflets for an abortion clinic. And you know, some of me can see where he’s coming from. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to cope on my own—he’s not going to support me, either financially or emotionally—so can I really bring this child into the world? I could force him to pay me child support, but the assessors would say he has nothing to give me! He’s never got any money.’

  ‘Ah, but is that because he spends it or because he actually just doesn’t have any?’ interjected Meg.

  ‘Fair point. If I have the baby, I’ll have to get him to support me financially.’

  ‘If?’ Meg looked up sharply. ‘I didn’t think there was any question over that. Even if it might be easier.’

  ‘No. No, there isn’t really. Especially not now. This makes it all more real.’

  Helen took the small black-and-white picture out and passed it across. Meg looked down at it.

  ‘Boy or girl? Or didn’t you ask?’ She handed the picture back.

  ‘Too early to be sure.’ Helen tucked the picture away safely into the back of her Filofax. ‘What the hell am I going to do, Meg? I can’t still run the business when I’m waddling about, umpteen months pregnant and then with a baby in my arms, and I sure as hell can’t afford to employ anyone to cover for me while I take time out!’

  ‘Could Rob help?’

  ‘Jesus, no. When he’s okay, Rob’s fine to help with the decorating and so on, but he couldn’t run the business and he can’t have the baby for me!’

  ‘How is he at the moment?’

  ‘He’s out west. He’s gone fishing with some mates. He’s not been great recently so I’d rather he pissed off and regrouped than had a major wobble in front of the clients.’

  Meg frowned. ‘I don’t know what to suggest. I mean, the options are you have the baby and run the business, or you have the baby and someone else runs the business, or you don’t have the baby.’

  Helen shook her head rapidly at the final option and Meg nodded.

  ‘Okay. You don’t have the money to hand it on, even temporarily, do you? So you’ve got to find a way of doing both. Hey, we’ll work something out.’ She leaned forward and rubbed Helen’s shoulder.

  Helen smiled wanly. ‘Yeah. I don’t have any other choice, do I?’

  Meg smiled. ‘Why don’t you come over to mine at the weekend and meet Annie and Bob. They have a four-year-old boy and a one-year-old little girl. I don’t think they’re intending to have any more kids so they’ll probably be happy to pass on some of their stuff if you want it. That would help, yeah?’

  Helen breathed out slowly, her face relaxing. ‘Yeah. That would help. Thank you.’

  Meg grinned. ‘Little Miss Organised,’ she chided gently. ‘Normally, your day is planned so meticulously and you have weekly, monthly and yearly goals all mapped out too. This has really thrown your nice neat order, hasn’t it?’

  ‘You might well tease me about it, but it helped me build up a damn fine business!’ Helen retorted good-naturedly.

  ‘That you have, girl, that you have.’

  The bell above the door jangled and Helen looked up. ‘Oh, it’s Mrs Evans. This will take a while.’ She looked apologetically at Meg.

  Meg shrugged. ‘No problem. I’ll scoot off and leave you to it. I’ll text you about the weekend.’

  The two women headed out into the shop and Helen turned to her client.

  ‘Hello there. I have a whole pile of new swatches for you to look at, Mrs Evans. If you want to grab a seat, I’ll bring them out.’

  She smiled a goodbye to Meg and squared her shoulders. She had to believe that everything would work out or she would sink.

  ***

  The meeting was spiralling out of her control. The night before, Kate had phoned Douglas to tell him that she was resigning. He’d told her to sleep on it and he’d discuss it with her today. She’d wanted to see him first thing, get it out of the way, but he’d been too busy to meet her and so she’d left her letter of resignation with his secretary. A morning of campaigning had followed during which she heard nothing from him. Now it was after lunch and they’d finally managed to meet. Despite the comfort of the seats in his office, she was taut with stress. Douglas leaned forward across his old-fashioned mahogany desk and steepled his fingers.

  ‘Let me talk to Paul,’ he said, his voice soothing.

  ‘No! No. It wouldn’t help.’

  God, the last thing she needed was for him to talk to Paul and find out what was really going on.

  ‘No, Douglas, I’ve made my decision. I can’t rescue my marriage and do justice to the job, and my marriage has to come first.’

  ‘Kate, Kate, I understand that, but please, just wait until after the election? A Cabinet reshuffle’s not unusual and I can let you move graciously to the back benches without you needing to resign right now.’

  ‘I promised Paul that I would.’

  ‘Let me talk to Paul. I’ll tell him you offered your resignation but that I didn’t accept it.’

  ‘Douglas, you’re not listening to me. I would like to resign as health minister. Now.’

  His expression hardened. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing. Please, Douglas? I need to keep my promise to Paul.’

  ‘Kate, I have a packed afternoon ahead and I haven’t the time to discuss this properly right now. I’ll call Paul, tell him what you’ve said and that I’ll accept your determination to step down once the election is over. He’s a fair man. He’ll understand that if you resign in the middle of the run-up to the election things could go badly for the party.’

  There it was.
The opening she should take. Things would go much worse for the party if he didn’t accept her resignation now and her affair became public knowledge before election day. She had to say something.

  ‘So, that’s settled then,’ said Douglas briskly, and the opportunity vanished. ‘I’ll call Paul tonight and then you can be reshuffled into a quieter role after next Thursday.’

  Her eyes swam and she gripped the sides of the chair. Douglas was making her break her promise to Paul. It was all well and good for Douglas to want to keep it under wraps until after next Friday, but what if it all came out? What if Patrick made good on his threat and told the press?

  She glanced up and realised that Douglas was waiting for her to leave.

  ‘Douglas…’ she started, her voice frail.

  ‘Kate, it’s settled. I’ll call Paul tonight. Now, we both have busy afternoons.’ He stood and started to put his jacket on.

  Kate dragged herself to her feet, dizzy with emotion and nodded to him. ‘Thank you, Douglas,’ she said, and hurried out of his office.

  As soon as she was free, she called Paul. He didn’t answer. She called his secretary who said he was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed.

  ‘Can I take a message, Mrs Hampton?’

  ‘Er yes. Can you tell him I called? Thanks, Caroline.’

  She rang off then texted quickly. ‘I tried to resign. I really tried. Douglas won’t accept until after Thursday. He’s going to call you to explain. I love you. K.xx’

  She hesitated before sending it. She really wanted to plead with him not to mention her affair, but knew that if she did it would only goad him into telling Douglas all the gory details and that really, really wouldn’t do.

  Could she be sure that Patrick wouldn’t talk? The money that would have made certain of that was still burning a hole in the bottom of her bag.

  Thursday, Late Afternoon

  The throbbing in Patrick’s ankles had increased—a steady pulse of pain, overlaying a dull ache that never left. His wrists were blotched and flashes of pain shot up his arms. He rested his head on his knees, feeling sick.

  ‘Patrick, my friend. I am sorry.’

  Patrick squinted into the dim room.

  ‘Moyenda?’ He rubbed his eyes. Was that really Moyenda down here with him? ‘Are the boys safe? I found two of them.’

  ‘I know, my friend. We will find the others. Myamiko wants you to know that he is doing very well.’

  ‘Myamiko? Is he back from South Africa?’

  ‘He is. And we all thank God for sending you to us. If it were not for you, he would be dead.’

  Patrick struggled to his knees and crawled awkwardly to the other side of the basement. It was empty.

  ‘Moyenda?’

  His grip on reality was loosening. He curled into a ball, his heart contracting as he thought of Samala. Where were the other kids?

  He peered up at the sound of drawing bolts, his head spinning. His captor trotted down the stairs with something in his hands. Patrick tried not to flinch as the man shoved it at him.

  ‘Bacon butty. Enjoy.’ He thrust it into Patrick’s hands with a snarl.

  Patrick started to nibble on it warily. ‘Are you going to kill me?’

  The thug turned back slowly and Patrick’s stomach started to knot in anticipation of pain.

  ‘It hasn’t been decided yet. Probably.’

  ‘You’d really murder someone?’ Patrick tried to keep the quaver from his voice.

  The man snorted a laugh. ‘Done worse.’ And he spun back to the door.

  ***

  Summer balanced her laptop on her knees, her feet on a wicker footstool. Spread out on the sofa beside her were all her notes and new copies of her photos of Patrick’s flat; on the table next to her, a half-pint mug of coffee and Patrick’s laptop. She started browsing the internet, frequently referring to Patrick’s laptop, in particular his notebooks and his internet bookmarks, working her way through blogs and Facebook pages that seemed to make no sense whatsoever. Every now and then she lifted her head, stretched, and shifted her focus to the crammed shelves of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases opposite her, trying to understand what thread Patrick had been unravelling.

  Two hours later, she clicked on a link in one of Patrick’s electronic notebooks that took her to a page of pictures in another blog. She skimmed through, glancing at the children shown at a birthday party. Suddenly a smile stood out and she caught her breath. She right-clicked on the picture, saved it and printed it. For the next half-hour, she followed links from the blog to a Facebook page, and then through various friends listed there, and then through friends of friends and their pictures, shaking her head at the way people forgot to sort out their online privacy settings. The smile she was chasing appeared several times and she saved and printed a copy each time. Half a dozen pictures later, she scampered upstairs to retrieve the pictures from the printer in the study. Back in the lounge, she squatted in front of the bottom shelf of one of the myriad bookcases that encircled the room, pulling out photo albums and leafing through them. She found the vein of pictures she was after and slid them out of the acid-free sleeves. Sitting back on her heels, she compared the pictures she’d just printed off with the ones from the albums. Her thoughts clouded with grey and black.

  They were definitely the same child. Limbani. Now in Kent.

  She returned to the laptop and pulled up the Facebook page again.

  ‘Not savvy enough to block any old sod from seeing pictures of your children, adopted or otherwise, but savvy enough not to put your number on the contact details page, huh?’ she muttered.

  Limbani was with John Saunders’ family. She sat back, thinking. She had Saunders’ email address, as Patrick had contacted him, but speaking to someone directly would be better. People tended to say things they might not put in an email, especially if you could catch them on the hop.

  She accessed an online telephone directory, typed in ‘Saunders’, put Kent for the location and clicked on ‘find’. A long list of names and numbers came up and she cross-referenced with other information from the web pages, eventually narrowing the list down to about a dozen numbers. She started calling.

  She hit pay-dirt on the eighth number.

  ‘Oh, good afternoon, I’m looking for John Saunders.’

  ‘Who’s calling, please?’

  ‘Hi. I’m a journalist writing an article on adopting children in Malawi and I wondered if your husband or you would be prepared to talk to me?’

  There was a pause on the end of the line. Flickers of damson apprehension danced around orange sparks of unease as Summer wondered if she’d found the reason that Patrick was missing.

  ‘I’ll check with John.’

  ‘Thank you. The article is a good-news one—about how much benefit the children have gained now they’ve been adopted. It would be really good if you could give me a few minutes of your time.’

  ‘I’ll talk to John. I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?’

  Summer thought quickly. ‘Susan Morris.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The woman rang off abruptly. Summer circled the number several times in her notebook. Was she imagining things or had the woman been cagey?

  She drew her notebook towards her and wrote ‘Patrick’ in the centre of a fresh page, enclosing it with a wavy line until it looked like his name was written in a cloud. She drew lines radiating out from the cloud, one for each aspect of Patrick’s life that she’d discovered, adding notes along the lines and blocks of information at the ends. How much was true and how much just supposition, she wondered. She fished out a highlighter, marking up all the facts she was sure about. When she finished, there was a lot of information on the sheet but precious little in yellow. Had any of the other missing children been adopted? If so, how? And by whom? Moyenda might know, or at least know how to find out. She emailed him quickly to ask.

  The emptiness of Patrick’s flat still bothered her. On a whim she opened her laptop and acc
essed eBay. The most distinctive item that was missing was the chameleon carving and she searched completed listings for it. It took a couple of attempts for her to find it but once she had and could pull up what else the seller had listed, she found that Patrick had been busy. She jotted down the long list of sold items in her notes. No wonder his flat had looked empty. None of it had fetched much, not even the chameleon carving he’d loved so much. He must be in serious trouble.

  She checked the clock and grabbed her mobile.

  ***

  LB answered on the fourth ring.

  ‘Hi, Summer,’ he said in a resigned voice, putting his folder down on the glass-topped table in front of him and lining it up with the article on Summer he’d printed from the internet.

  ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘Caller ID. Don’t you dare tell me you’ve been back to the flat.’

  ‘I haven’t, but I did want to update you on things.’

  ‘Can’t you update Edinburgh?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s mostly conjecture.’

  ‘So why are you wanting to tell me?’

  There was a pause at the other end and LB smiled to himself as he imagined her biting back her impatience.

  ‘You showed an interest?’ she said at last.

  ‘Okay. What have you found out?’ LB reached for a pen and flipped the papers over in front of him until he got to a fresh sheet.

  ‘It’s too complicated to tell you over the phone.’

  ‘So why are you phoning?’ He tossed the pen down.

  Again there was a delay before she answered.

  ‘To see if you wanted to have dinner. So I could tell you what I’ve found out.’

  This time the delay was on his side. He rubbed his palm over his chin.

  ‘Are you asking me out?’

  Summer’s laugh shot back. ‘No, I’m not. It’s just that it’s too late to meet for a coffee, so I’m offering to cook you dinner and tell you what I’ve found out about Patrick and Kate Hampton.’