The Girl in the Gallery

by Alice Castle

  ‘What is it?’ she asked again, her hand touching his sleeve as he bent forward and perched his tea precariously on the bench between them. They both turned to look at the small hand lying there on his jacket, Beth in shock at her own temerity – were you even allowed to touch policemen on duty? Then she relaxed. He’d taken her arm, just now in the Gallery, hadn’t he?

  York reached for the notebook in his jacket pocket, dislodging Beth’s tentative fingers, and she clasped both hands firmly in her lap, out of trouble. York propped his notebook on his knee, then reached for his tea again, prising the plastic lid off, essaying a sip to see whether the temperature had dropped from scalding to merely red hot, trying to get the lid back on and then giving it up as a bad job. Finally, he spoke.

  ‘The thing is, a girl has now been reported missing.’

  ‘At last!’ said Beth. ‘I couldn’t understand why that hadn’t happened already. It’s not like anyone would lose track of their children here. I mean, no-one runs wild.’

  At that moment, a group of whooping small children careered past the bench, shouting and shrieking, their high-pitched voices splintering the summery air.

  ‘Ok, well, they run that sort of wild,’ said Beth with a smile and small shrug. ‘But that doesn’t mean there’s no-one watching them. I mean, look over there.’

  York followed the direction of Beth’s head. Out on the grass close to the café was a table seating four women, of a type he was starting to recognise as Dulwich Yummies. They were all somewhere in their thirties, even at this distance conspicuously well turned out, with the sunlight glinting off shiny hair, tasteful jewellery, large and complicated-looking sunglasses. Although the women were chatting determinedly, occasionally throwing their heads back in laughter, and all sipping away at their cappuccinos, every now and then one would raise a head, look around, and zoom in on the gaggle of children. Though much prettier – and a lot less wrinkly – the women were like the velociraptors in the Jurassic Park films: hyper-vigilant; alert to every threat; and presumably, every bit as deadly if anyone dared threaten their young.

  ‘I see what you mean. And yes, the radio silence on missing children was already one of the oddest aspects of this case. One of the oddest aspects,’ he stressed, as Beth’s eyebrows rose. ‘But even now, the weird thing is that it’s not the parents who’ve reported the girl missing. It’s the school.’

  ‘Which school is it?’ Beth asked. It was not the right question, she realised as soon as she’d opened her mouth. That would have been, ‘What’s the girl’s name?’ But hey, it was the Dulwich question. What could she do? A lifetime in the place had left its mark.

  York answered, with a tiny upward lilt that betrayed the fact that the answer meant nothing to him. ‘The College School.’

  ‘No!’ Beth was stunned. If she’d had to take bets, she would never have plumped for the most fiercely academic and rigorous school in the area; a place which made the polished Wyatt’s look a tad ramshackle round the edges, and which trounced the results of all other girls’ schools in the area – and most in the country.

  ‘And of course, the really important thing – who on earth is the girl?’ Beth said quickly, a little shame-faced.

  ‘Look, I wouldn’t normally tell you the name. I mean, we don’t know if it is this girl, for a start. We have one girl reported missing, and one girl we haven’t yet identified who’s been found. And for some reason, the girl’s parents themselves aren’t the ones sounding the alarm. It’s possible that, somehow, they don’t even realise she’s missing yet. So, I wouldn’t want to have a position where you know more than the actual family… But… On the other hand, maybe you will actually know the girl?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Beth, not wanting to put York off confiding in her. Privately, she highly doubted it. When Ben reached his teens, she’d be bound to know a lot more teenage girls, and develop plenty of views on which were suitable companions for him to hang around with… or even fool around with… Though she still couldn’t quite believe there would soon come a time when he’d opt enthusiastically for the company of girls over boys. His little primary class was mixed, but he didn’t really rate female footballing skills – despite having been taught much of what he knew by his patient and long-suffering mother – and none of them were as interested in gaming as he and Charlie were.

  Long may his current obliviousness continue. But she wasn’t going to tell York that teenage girls, apart from Zoe Bentinck, were practically a foreign species to her little household, and even more so after her frightening internet research earlier. Not when he was on the brink of breaking one of his cardinal rules, and was actually going to give her useful information about a case in progress.

  Beth fixed a helpful expression on her face, which she hoped hinted that, beneath her floppy fringe, there lurked total understanding of modern teenage ways, and looked enquiringly at him. After an obvious struggle, he balanced his tea on his knee, wincing slightly as the heat of the liquid seared through the inadequate container, and said simply, ‘Well. The missing girl is Sophia Jones-Creedy. Do you know her?’

  Beth was about to shake her head ruefully, when the welter of images she’d looked at on Facebook earlier danced before her. The giggles, the silliness. And, rising above them all, the uncrowned queen of the sidelong glance, the cheeky knowing smile, and the most seductive of dresses. The girl that everyone had tagged in photos, the one whose pictures had got the most likes and endless streams of comments. The one who popped up as everyone’s mutual friend. Sophia Jones-Creedy.

  And, amongst the jumble of shots she’d seen of Sophia Jones-Creedy that day, one picture in particular floated to the forefront of Beth’s mind. A pale, pale dress, a dark background, and a small slight girl. There were huge differences. In the picture Beth had seen, the girl’s eyes were alight, like a mischievous, knowing pixie, and the wide mouth quirking upwards at one corner hinted at secrets only she knew, but might be willing to share because you were her best friend. The girl in the Gallery, on the other hand, was a cipher that wasn’t so easy to solve. But her build matched, and so did her pallor. And was there was a connection, too, in the innate theatricality that ran through both the Facebook preening, and the artificiality of the posture at the gallery?

  The look she darted at York was full of dawning horror. ‘I have an awful feeling that, yes, I do know her,’ she said slowly, and looked down as she felt something splash her lap. Her hand was shaking. Tea was going everywhere.

  By the time York had run to the stall and back again, proffering wodges of paper napkins, Beth had got herself under control – and slung out the remnants of her tea onto the grass.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said ruefully, swabbing away at her jeans with a thick handful of tissue. ‘It was just the shock. Making the connection. The girl on Facebook – well, she’s so alive, she looks so, you know, naughty. And the girl from this morning. She was so… inert, crushed.’

  ‘Show me what you mean,’ said York, and Beth stabbed away at her phone, cursing the perennially unreliable Dulwich wi-fi signal. Eventually she got Instagram to load and there was the torrent of shots of Sophia Jones-Creedy, available to more or less anyone who wanted to gawp.

  York stared. It was hard to make out the detail on Beth’s frankly rather crummy phone – she was lagging a few models behind the bandwagon on this front – but he soon got a flavour.

  ‘It’s not proof positive, but…’

  Beneath her fringe, Beth’s brow was crinkled. ‘The school reported her missing? Not her parents? Surely that’s odd?’

  York shrugged a little, his large shoulders rising and falling. ‘I’m not a parent, of course…’ The ‘but’ was certainly there for Beth to hear, though York forbore to judge. ‘It sounds like an unusual situation. Well, maybe not for these parts. Her father’s a surgeon and has been operating since the crack of dawn, it seems. Her mother is on her way back from a work trip to the Middle East. Not a nice surprise waiting for her when she lands.�
�� York looked down briefly. He wouldn’t be doing the intercepting, but the poor PC whose job it was to tackle the jet-lagged mother would be in for a hell of a time.

  The mother had a cast iron alibi, so there was no question of scrutinising her reactions for signs of guilt. But it was still going to be the PC’s task to note down any behaviour at all that was outside the usual remit of shock, grief, horror, dismay… and they weren’t going to be able to give the woman any details. Just the basic outline: that the school had reported her daughter missing, because she hadn’t turned up that day. That would be enough to get all hell breaking loose.

  ‘And the mum’s a lawyer. Well, she would be,’ York said, sighing heavily.

  ‘That’s a problem?’

  York grunted. ‘She’s going to be frightened and angry, and she’ll want someone to blame. I’m willing to bet that’s not going to be her husband or son, at least initially, though the au pair might well get it in the neck. No, I think she’ll be threatening writs left, right, and centre before the night is out. Whether it’s me or the school, I wouldn’t like to bet.’

  Beth, who felt nothing but sympathy with the mother, turned the subject. ‘Where does the father work?’

  ‘Ironically, at Kings – and that’s where his daughter is. If he hadn’t been doing back-to-back operations, we’d have fished him out, but his underlings insist he can’t be interrupted at any stage of the list today. He’s in orthopaedics. I suppose you can’t just wander off halfway through reconnecting somebody’s spinal cord. And some of these jobs take eight hours in themselves.’

  ‘I’d have thought they could send in a note, or something,’ said Beth.

  ‘Yes, but what if his hand slips as a result? Bad enough that his daughter’s hanging between life and death. I suppose his team don’t want to be responsible for some poor bugger ending up in a wheelchair. And, to be fair, she’s been unconscious the whole time. Her entire family could be crowded around her, singing her favourite song at top volume, on repeat, and she wouldn’t take a blind bit of notice.’

  ‘But they say hearing is the last thing to go, don’t they? If there were someone with her, holding her hand, talking, then maybe she’d sense that, feel less alone,’ said Beth. ‘It’s certainly what I would want, if I’m ever in a coma.’ She tapped the bench as a reflex, and noticed York’s smile. ‘What? Don’t you ever touch wood?’

  ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed it working that well.’

  Altogether too solid and down to earth to be superstitious, thought Beth a little crossly, as York went on speaking.

  ‘In fact, you were saying exactly what I was thinking earlier, when I left the hospital. She needs her family there.’

  ‘So, what’s going to happen now?’ Beth said heavily.

  The fact that they had established the poor girl’s identity, somehow made everything a lot more concrete. When the girl had been nameless, finding her had seemed like a horrible dream, something that might melt away at any moment. But, as ethereal as she had been, stretched out on the cold marble, she had turned out to be a real flesh-and-blood Dulwich girl. Beth had probably even shrunk away from her as she moseyed around the Village with a pack of other young, privileged, and lucky children, loud and entitled as they settled themselves in the best seats in all the cafes, or hogged the pavements walking four abreast. No-one could say that Dulwich kids were rude exactly – their schools did everything they could to inculcate good manners, as these were essential for making your way in life. But no amount of polishing could take away the certain knowledge this generation had that they were the most important people in the universe, deserving the best of everything.

  Now, one of these golden children had been brought low. All right, the girl that Beth had stalked today on Facebook seemed shallow as a puddle and silly as a sausage, but she was young. In the normal run of things, she’d get great A levels, go to a good uni, and end up a useful member of society. She’d help to pay for the NHS and state schools out of her lavish wages, even if it was more than possible that she’d choose BUPA herself and then send her own kids to private schools in their turn. She certainly didn’t deserve to be on life support, after being made into a ghastly public display.

  If Beth hadn’t chanced upon her almost the moment the Gallery opened, it could have been a party of schoolchildren who’d come across her lying there forlorn, or a clutch of pensioners.

  For Beth, the conclusion was inescapable. Someone evil was at work in Dulwich, and had preyed on one of their young. She couldn’t allow it. She had to do everything she could to stop it. Silliness should not be punishable by humiliation and the shadow of death.

  ‘Who do you think has done this?’ Beth turned to the man beside her. He wrinkled his forehead and shrugged.

  ‘That’s just what I’ve been wondering. What is all this about? And what the hell are they playing at?’ His phone rang. He took a quick look at the display and shot off the bench, saying over his shoulder, ‘Sorry, got to take this.’

  Beth watched as he paced the Gallery garden, skirting the sharp edges of the building, turning around and retracing his steps, his hand frequently going to his hair, grabbing handfuls of the thick blond thatch. Though there was no-one remotely within eavesdropping distance, his shoulders were hunched around his ears and he frequently glanced around, as though expecting to see locals earwigging in the bushes.

  Beth had begun to think he was never coming back to the bench, and was wondering whether she should wander over to Katie’s and pick up Ben. Doubtless, though, he would be furious at being removed from his best friend, and his best friend’s state-of-the-art gaming equipment, not to mention Matteo as well.

  Just then, York strode back, making short work of the wide lawn.

  ‘Hospital,’ he grunted, with a sidelong glance at Beth. Immediately, she sat up straighter.

  ‘Is it Sophia? Is there any change?’

  ‘There’s been another… episode,’ York said flatly. From his unwilling tone, she could tell he really didn’t want to confide any more. She was a civilian, after all, and could not have any legitimate involvement in the official police investigation. On the other hand, she had managed to get caught up in this mess right from the beginning.

  ‘Another episode? What do you mean?’ said Beth. Immediately, she knew she’d made a mistake. He was going against protocol telling her anything at all, and here she was complaining that he hadn’t filled her in completely. He tutted, and inwardly she kicked herself. How could she persuade him to tell her more? She’d just have to lay her cards on the table.

  ‘Look,’ said Beth reasonably. ‘If you’re going to tell me anything at all, you might as well give me the full picture.’

  York gave her a level look, then sighed. ‘I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you this much. She had a flutter this morning – the machines went mad. The doctor said it happens a lot in these cases. Could mean everything, could be nothing, but usually… Well, let’s just say it isn’t nothing. Now they’re saying it’s happened again.’

  ‘So, some sort of crisis?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it that.’

  ‘But she’s still alive.’

  ‘She is. For what it’s worth. Every time this happens, they say there’s less chance her brain has escaped intact. They’re called “insults”, I believe. They want to start testing for brain stem activity.’ York didn’t look at Beth as he said this. But she knew exactly what it meant.

  ‘They want to turn the machines off.’

  ‘Well. We’re not there yet,’ he said.

  They both stared out across the wide lawn. It was a beautiful day in Dulwich. The bright lushness of the grass contrasted with the mellow, yellow-grey brick of the Gallery. The laurel bushes on either side of their bench were strewn with scarlet berries, like bright red drops of blood. They could hear the chatter of the café clientele, the very English chink of china teacups, and the occasional muted yells of the children. It was all so normal. But there was a girl
lying in a hospital room close by, who yesterday could have been here – but today was about to be ripped away from all this. Beth shook her head. It wasn’t right.

  ‘Do you have any idea yet how she got into the Gallery? Has CCTV turned up anything?’

  ‘CCTV isn’t always the be-all and end-all.’ York turned to her wryly. Beth knew that all too well from her previous case – well, she could call the whole business that in her own head if she liked, couldn’t she? Either the cameras weren’t in the right place, pointing directly at the murderer at the crucial moment, or there was some other kind of SNAFU and the film was missing, wonky or inconclusive… You name it, the supposedly fool-proof way to catch most criminals was as fallible as anything else humans got their hands on.

  ‘What we do know is that there was a reception last night, for St Christopher’s Hospice, and we’ve got some of it on camera,’ York continued. Beth nodded. Everyone in Dulwich knew the great work done by St Christopher’s, which ran a palliative care centre in nearby Sydenham and also helped out in the community. All the schools raised money for the hospice with bake sales and sponsored cycles, runs and swims. Beth dimly remembered getting an invite to the reception at the Gallery with her last Friends’ mailing, along with details of upcoming exhibitions, talks and children’s classes, all of which looked great but which she couldn’t persuade Ben to have anything to do with.

  The reception was the sort of thing she’d have gone to, if James had been alive. They would probably never have been in the position where they could drop a few thousand for a good cause, but they’d have donated what they could. And it would have been hard to resist a crystal glass of something cold and bubbly, an excuse to make the effort and wear something pretty for a change, and the chance to see her beloved paintings after hours, beautifully lit and with that special secret atmosphere that galleries had when closed to the general public. But as a lone parent, it was the kind of thing that was anathema to Beth. An entire building jammed with well-heeled married couples, smugly discussing their second homes and exotic holiday options? That sort of occasion left her feeling an utter failure. No, thank you very much.