A Place Of Safety (8 page)

‘I can’t let them send her to prison.’

‘But we’re both involved in this case,’ he said. ‘Me in particular.’

Lilly felt a stab of guilt as to how much harder this would make things for Jack.

‘She’s just a kid,’ she said.

He shook her gently by the shoulders. ‘It’s not your responsibility.’

‘Then whose is it, Jack? ’Cos so far the “authorities”’, she made speech marks in the air, ‘have done a pretty piss-poor job of looking after her.’ She rubbed his lapel. ‘I owe her.’

‘For what?’

‘For not doing something before she got dragged into this unholy mess.’

At that moment Milo waltzed in and dumped a binbag of clothes on the floor. ‘I’ll bring the rest of her things later.’

Jack, eyes wide, watched him leave the room. ‘Is that what’s-his-name?’

‘Milo,’ she said.

‘He seems at home.’

Lilly sniffed. ‘I’ve barely spoken to him.’

Milo stuck his head back into the room. ‘Dishwasher still working okay?’

Jack looked from Lilly to Milo and back again. Lilly opened her mouth to explain.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve finally got that dishwasher to work?’

It was David, carrying Sam on his back. He looked from Lilly to Jack to Milo and back again.

‘Welcome to Piccadilly bloody Circus,’ said Jack, and pushed his way out.

Lilly poured two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and handed one to David.

‘You look knackered,’ said Lilly.

‘Fleur’s got colic.’

‘Isn’t she too old for that?’

David took a sip. ‘I think she just likes crying.’

‘She’s a baby, that’s her job,’ said Lilly.

‘I don’t remember Sam being like that.’

Lilly laughed. Of course he bloody was. You just didn’t notice ‘cos I did all the dirty work.’

David opened his mouth to argue but stopped. ‘You were always much better at sorting things out than me. You never seemed to mind the noise and the mess.’

‘I thrive on a challenge.’

‘I do wonder if you don’t just love chaos,’ he said.

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Look at the facts, Lil: things were going well with you and Jack, so what do you do? Move a Bosnian refugee into the house.’

‘Kosovan. And, anyway, it won’t be for long. Once I can show the court she’s not going to try to leg it I’ll get her moved back to the hostel.’

‘Sam’s not a happy bunny,’ said David.

Lilly forced a smile. ‘He’ll be fine.’

‘He loves having you to himself,’ said David. ‘He hated sharing you with all those kids in care.’

‘He shares you with Cara and Fleur.’

David finished his wine and grabbed his coat. ‘I don’t want to argue, Lil, I’m just pointing out the obvious.’

Lilly closed the door behind him and headed upstairs. ‘Everything is going to be fine,’ she said to herself. But who was she trying to convince?

In court, when the entire system—no, the world—seemed to be against Anna, she had jumped into the fray, thinking only of how she could help, how she could make amends. Now, as she smoothed her son’s duvet over the slow rise and fall of his shoulders, drinking in his warmth, she questioned the sense of her actions. Yes, the girl had been through hell, but did Lilly really need to bring her into her home? Sam’s home?

As she moved down the hall she heard the sharp plink of a dripping tap and turned back to the bathroom. The tap needed a new washer, but judicious pressure normally did the trick. As she pulled it to the left she noticed a black tidemark around the basin. Not the usual ring of dirt but a slick line, almost purple. Had Sam been washing paintbrushes upstairs again? She’d have to have a word with him in the morning. Artistic license was one thing, but he brushed his teeth in here.

Then she saw the plastic tube in the bin. Hidden under a wodge of tissue, only the end peeped out. Lilly would have missed it but for the airbrushed picture of some impossibly glossy-locked model.

It was hair dye.

Since even Sam would struggle to find a use for a tube of dye, it must be Anna’s. But why would a sixteen-year-old girl facing a murder charge worry about that? And why would she try to hide it?

She was still contemplating the tube when Anna came in. They both blushed.

‘I once went green,’ joked Lilly. ‘Now
that
was a mistake.’

Anna didn’t smile. ‘This is my natural colour,’ she said. ‘Before I go grey.’

‘Oh, you poor, poor girl,’ said Lilly, and enveloped her client in her arms. Anna stiffened, but Lilly didn’t let go.

Sometimes doing the right thing wasn’t convenient, but that didn’t stop it being right.

*  *  *

The landlord called time and Jack waved for another pint.

He’d overreacted again, stomping out of Lilly’s like a Hollywood diva. He’d made himself look foolish in front of David and your man Milo, yet he hadn’t been able to help himself.

He’d wanted to explain to Lilly that the shooting had crystallised his thoughts, made him realise that she and Sam were all he wanted. It had been so important to him to make her understand that. Instead he’d been faced with the usual maelstrom of Valentine mayhem. In what alternative universe did Lilly think it was sensible to have her client in the house? Surely she could see that it would ruin everything between them? Maybe she just didn’t care enough about him to give his feelings a second thought. Maybe this whole relationship was purely one-sided?

He sighed and sipped his lager. He knew full well that that was not how Lilly saw it. She saw no choice between Jack and Anna—she simply saw a girl who needed help.

He drained his glass and knew he’d regret this last drink in the morning—that and not buying a loaf for breakfast.

The walls of the bridge smell of pee. It’s so strong Luke feels like he can taste it at the back of his throat. Caz pushes a pallet against the wall and throws an old sheet over the top.

‘Carry on camping,’ she grins, but Luke can’t even smile.

Ever since he left the Peckham Project he’s been thinking about the police and what they’ll do if they catch him. Will the people in prison be like Teardrop Tony? Will they force him to have sex in the showers like people say and will he be as frightened as the girl in the park?

He desperately wants to tell Caz, to ask her what he should do, but even though she’s the nearest thing he’s got to a friend here, so far from his home, he’s only known her a few days.

She crawls into the lean-to and pulls her sleeping bag over her legs. Luke follows her in. A shiver runs down his back and he stuffs his hands in his pockets.

‘Cold?’ asks Caz.

He nods.

‘Wait ’til January’

But it’s not the weather that is making his bones ache.

‘Why are you here, Caz?’ he asks.

‘Because it’s bleeding well pouring out there, and that Russian bitch won’t let us back in the squat.’

‘I mean why are you here, living like this?’ he says. ‘Why aren’t you at home?’

She pulls an old tobacco tin from her pocket and unwraps her gear. A square of tin foil, a disposable lighter, a steel tube. And a bag of heroin. She says she’s not addicted, that she just does it to pass the time, but Luke’s seen the plastic sheen of her face in the morning.

‘Do you really want to know?’ she says.

He nods.

Caz sighs and sprinkles a couple of pinches of powder onto the foil.

‘My stepdad was proper handy with his fists,’ she says. ‘Gave my ma some right beatings.’

She flicks the lighter and Luke sees the flint ignite.

‘She always said he was as good as gold until he had a drink inside him.’

She puts the flame to the underside of the foil and makes a circular movement. ‘Trouble was, most days he had a drink inside him.’

‘Couldn’t she leave him?’ asks Luke.

Caz looks up from her fix and a wry smile plays on her lips. ‘And go where, soft lad?’

He shrugs, an admission that he knows nothing of that sort of life.

She goes back to the foil. The powder is beginning to cook, bubbles popping.

‘When she died he started on me.’

She puts the tube in her mouth and inhales the smoke.

‘I stayed for a bit, for my little sisters, but when they got taken into care I legged it.’

‘I’m sorry, Caz,’ says Luke.

Her mouth has gone slack and her voice when it comes is a rasp. ‘What about you? What brings you to the Costa del Shit Hole?’

He looks down at his feet and pulls the lace of his trainer. ‘I got involved in something bad. Somebody—a girl, I mean—got something terrible done to her.’

‘Raped?’ asks Caz.

Luke nods, shame burning hot on his cheeks.

‘Three of us took her into a park,’ he says. ‘She was terrified.’

‘That’s rough,’ says Caz.

‘I didn’t help her,’ he says. ‘I did absolutely nothing to help her.’

Caz puts the flame under the foil again and chases the smoke around the edges.

‘Do you hate me?’ he asks.

‘We all do stuff we’re not proud of,’ she says.

His eyes sting. ‘But what I did is so disgusting.’

‘Not for me to judge.’

He looks up at her, relieved by her words—but terrified her eyes will betray them as lies. He’s glad when he sees her chin has gouched onto her chest.

Chapter Six

‘Thanks for this,’ said Lilly, and strapped Sam into the back of Penny’s new Range Rover. ‘Can I give you something towards the petrol?’

Penny crossed her arms. ‘My husband is a hedge fund manager and I drive past your house on the way to school.’

‘It’s still good of you to take him for me.’

Penny shut the car door and turned her back so the children couldn’t hear. ‘You know it’s no problem for me, but I’m still not sure this is a good idea.’

Lilly had had to confide in her friend when it occurred to her that she couldn’t leave Anna alone during the school run, and she certainly couldn’t take her back to what was effectively the scene of the crime.

‘It’s only for a week, two at most,’ said Lilly.

‘But this is your home,’ said Penny.

Lilly touched Penny’s hand. ‘I know it seems like a step too far.’

‘No shit, Sherlock.’

‘But if you knew what Anna had been through you’d understand,’ said Lilly.

‘Don’t be too sure about that.’

‘It makes your foster kids look like they’ve been living with Jamie Oliver.’

Penny nodded. ‘Just don’t let anybody at Manor Park find out you’re subletting to the opposition. Luella says there are hundreds of journalists still hanging around and you wouldn’t want them finding out, now would you?’

When Penny started up the engine, Lilly tapped on the window and waved at Sam. He looked the other way.

‘Tell me how you came to England.’

Anna looked startled, a fox in headlights.

‘I can’t defend you unless I know all about you,’ said Lilly.

It felt strange to be conducting an interview in her kitchen, and Lilly wasn’t sure she liked it. True, it was convenient to have a kettle and tea bags to hand, and she hadn’t needed to pull on more than her jeans, but there was something uncomfortable about discussing murder in the place where she normally baked cakes.

Anna spread her palms on the kitchen table. ‘My father paid a man.’

‘Did you leave Kosovo with Artan?’ asked Lilly.

Anna shook her head, slowly, deliberately. ‘No. I left with my brother, Brahim.’

‘What happened to Brahim?’

The words were flat, almost mechanical. ‘We were separated on the journey. I don’t know what happened to him.’

‘Have you tried to find him?’ said Lilly. ‘Has he made contact with you?’

Again, Anna shook her head.

‘And the rest of your family?’ asked Lilly.

‘Mother and sisters burned. Father missing.’

‘So you have no one here?’ asked Lilly.

‘No one.’

Lilly thought of Artan’s body sprawled on the ground, the whites of his eyes milky and still. If he was all Anna had left how must she feel now he was dead?

‘Why did Artan do it, Anna? Why did he go to the school?’

The girl closed one eye and rubbed her brow bone with the fleshy part of her thumb. ‘My head hurts,’ she said.

Lilly could almost reach out and touch the terrors that had driven Artan to kill but she needed to know what Anna thought of his actions.

They sat in silence until the doorbell rang.

Lilly opened the door. Her hair was a crazy mass of curls.

‘I come in peace,’ Jack said, pulling a Yorkie from the inside of his jacket.

She eyed him coolly. ‘Unimpressed.’

He pulled a Mars Delight from up his sleeve.

‘Getting there,’ she said.

And finally a Toffee Crisp from the back pocket of his Levis.

She threw her head back and laughed, the sound as welcome to him as spring.

‘Come on through, we’re in the kitchen.’

We? Jack thought. Surely not the ex-husband? Jack knew Lilly liked to keep tight with him for Sam’s sake but the bloke turned up more often than the milkman. Please God, it wasn’t bloody Milo, that would be worse still.

As he rounded the doorway he realised she meant the girl. God, he was some sort of eejit.

‘Hello,’ he said.

She didn’t answer but got up from the table. ‘I watch TV upstairs.’

Lilly nodded and they followed her tiny frame with their eyes as she backed out of the room.

Jack sat down and placed the bars on the table.

Lilly unwrapped the Yorkie. ‘I know this isn’t ideal, but I had to do it, Jack.’

‘Did you?’

She snapped off a chunk. ‘I didn’t do it to be difficult, to make things hard for you.’

‘I know,’ he said. And he did.

Lilly was many things—impulsive, hot-headed, argumentative—but she never meant to hurt. He smiled, content in the knowledge that she did care for him.

They sat for a moment, Lilly eating her chocolate, Jack chasing stray grains of salt around the table with his thumb. Now he was here, he didn’t know what to say. Or at least he couldn’t find the words. How do you tell a woman that they make you feel whole? That without them you’d unravel?

‘So how did Rupinder react?’ he said.

‘I haven’t actually told her.’

Jack roared with laughter. ‘Jesus, woman. If you thought I was pissed off you ain’t seen nothing yet.’

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Every word seemed wrong. Should she grovel? Not Lilly’s style. Should she resign and hope Rupinder wouldn’t accept it? There was always the chance that she might.

When Jack had left he’d still been chortling over how Lilly was going to tell her boss that she was babysitting the defendant. Although Lilly had stuck her nose in the air and informed him she’d just give her a call, she hadn’t, of course, actually dared to do it. An hour later she deleted the sixth email she’d drafted.

‘There is problem?’

Lilly looked up at Anna.

‘You make serious face,’ she said, and screwed up her nose, which made Lilly laugh.

‘I don’t even know where to start,’ Lilly said, and closed the lid of her laptop. She watched Anna fill the kettle with water and sighed. ‘What I don’t understand,’ she said, ‘is why
you
had a gun.’

Anna pressed the switch with a long, pale finger.

Lilly pressed on. ‘I understand that Artan was disturbed. He’d been through too much and one day he cracked.’

Anna took two cups from the cupboard, her hands trembling.

‘He told me that those boys had hurt you,’ said Lilly.

Anna placed the cups on the counter.

‘Did he kill that boy because he raped you?’ asked Lilly. ‘Was it revenge?’

Anna tilted the kettle, steam escaping from the spout.

‘To be honest, I suspected he might do something,’ said Lilly. ‘But I never dreamt he’d involve you.’

The kettle slipped from Anna’s hand and crashed onto the work surface. Hot, angry water splashed towards her. She screamed and jumped away, holding her hands in the air.

‘Lilly jumped to her feet. Are you hurt?’

Anna didn’t speak but kept her hands in the air.

‘Did you burn yourself?’ Lilly asked. ‘Anna, are you okay?’

The girl’s body began to shake. A staccato jerking that progressed to violent convulsions until her legs buckled and she dissolved to the ground.

Lilly knelt down and took Anna’s hands. She checked the palms and turned them over. They didn’t seem to be burned. Lilly kept them in her own until Anna’s shudders slowed.

‘I know it’s hard, but if I’m going to help you I have to know what happened. You have to tell me about the rape and why you had a gun if I’m to make people understand.’

‘But how are you going to do that?’ asked Anna. ‘When I don’t even understand myself?’

‘Got anything for me, Posh?’

Alexia sighed. Would she be sitting here if she had?

Her boss breathed out his disgust in a plume of blue smoke, his frustration building like a boil. Any second it would burst and cover her in yellow poison.

Un-bloody-believable.

She’d been the only one inside Manor Park and got the exclusive before all the nationals. Yesterday she’d weighed into the scrum outside the court. What total bedlam that was. The skinheads on one side, asylum seekers on the other. She’d hoped for a bit of argy bargy, but they’d limited themselves to hurling abuse and the odd empty can.

Even so, she’d put together a fantastic piece. Steve was never satisfied.

‘I got you the best fucking story this rag has ever had,’ she said.

‘Yesterday’s news, today’s chip paper.’

‘So what do you want from me?’

‘I want that girl.’

Alexia shook her head. He was being unreasonable. No reporting was allowed in court because the defendant was a child, so there was no way of finding out who she was or where she’d gone. A source in High Point, the nearest women’s prison, had confirmed she hadn’t gone there. The other women’s prisons claimed to know nothing about her. The police had given the usual bullshit that said a lot but told absolutely nothing. ‘Don’t you think everyone from the
Guardian
to
Hello
is looking for her?’

‘What about the lad’s parents?’ asked Steve.

‘They’re saying zilch.’

‘Have you tried?’

Alexia fixed him with a stare. ‘No, Steve, I left a message on their answer machine, and when they didn’t get back to me I thought, “Ah well, I won’t bother with that then.”’

‘What?!’

She shook her head in despair. ‘Of course I tried. The number’s been discontinued.’

‘Probably done a deal with a tabloid,’ he said.

Alexia smiled to herself. It wouldn’t occur to her boss that the bereaved parents of a murdered teenager might prefer to keep a dignified silence.

Steve threw his fag end into a cold cup of coffee. It died with a hiss. He was cut from the same mould as her father. Pedantic and petulant. A bully.

‘Maybe I should pop down to Noodles and Rice,’ she said. ‘Get us a Chinese.’

Her boss’s penchant for greasy chicken floating in MSG made her stomach churn, but she hoped it might alleviate his temper.

‘Maybe you should pop into the job centre on the way back.’

‘Steve,’ she looked him right in the eye, ‘you’re being a twat.’

He flared his nostrils. ‘Find me that girl.’

‘Everything all right?’ asked Lilly.

Penny ruffled Sam’s hair as he jumped out of her car and raced past Lilly without a word. ‘He’s seriously peed off about Anna staying here.’

‘He’ll come round,’ said Lilly.

‘Are you sure about that?’

Lilly gave a half-hearted smile. Penny wasn’t exactly being supportive about Anna but, then again, why should she be?

‘You don’t think anyone could have guessed she’s here?’

Penny shook her head. ‘The papers all said that in a case like this she’d be remanded into custody.’

‘Who tipped off the press?’

‘Could be anyone,’ said Penny.

‘You wouldn’t think parents would want their kids’ school splashed all over the papers.’

‘Maybe they think it will do some good.’

Lilly gave a hollow laugh. ‘How?’

Penny shrugged.

‘And in the meantime there’s this.’ She pressed a letter into Lilly’s hands. It was from the school. A service was to be held for Charles Stanton.

Bloody marvellous. The mothers would be whipped into a frenzy.

Could anything else go wrong?

To: Lilly Valentine
From: Rupinder Singh
Subject: The Maudsley Hospital

As you know, the above is an establishment for the mentally ill and I am booking a place for you as I type, as I can only assume that you have lost your mind.

If you have another explanation you need to offer it before we open tomorrow.