Behind Closed Doors (31 page)

They walked back to the car in silence. Jane waited until Les was in the driver’s seat with his seatbelt done up.

‘What was that all about?’ she asked.

‘All what?’ Les answered, performing a neat turn in the crowded car park using the flat of his hand on the steering wheel.

‘You were on the verge of threatening him. All that stuff about Palmer knowing his business, enemies and friends? What are you trying to do: get Palmer finished off?’

‘Don’t be daft. In any case, who says I was talking about Palmer?’

‘Who were you talking about, then?’

Les actually tapped the side of his long, skinny nose. ‘Might’ve been speaking in general. Sometimes you only have to give them a little nudge and watch what happens next. I’ve known whole crime enterprises crumble into the dust because of a tiny little suggestion, made at just the right time.’

Sam had spent the evening worrying about Scarlett, wishing fruitlessly that she knew she was safe. Several times she thought of going out in the car, just to see if she was still in the bus station, which was ludicrous. She would be on a mate’s sofa somewhere. She would be safe and warm and dry, and getting on with her life, of course she would. Sam distracted herself with the television, watching but not taking anything in, until she started watching a film about zombies and finally got absorbed in it.

When she next looked at the clock it was nearly midnight. Definitely time for bed.

Turning out the lights, she heard a sound outside, and, as she was on her way to investigate, the doorbell sounded.

She turned on the outside light before opening the door, and there, on her doorstep, was Scarlett Rainsford, drowned in that brown coat that was several sizes too big for her, and now hidden even more under a woollen beanie hat. Beside her was another woman, someone Sam had never met.

‘Hi, Scarlett,’ Sam said. ‘Good to see you.’

‘Are you Sam Hollands?’ the woman asked. She looked tired.

‘Yes.’ Torn between the inherent dangers of being a lone, off-duty police officer admitting a stranger and a relative stranger into your house, and wanting whatever drama was going to follow to not happen out on the street, Sam gave up and said, ‘Do you want to come in?’

The two followed Sam into the hallway and she went ahead, turning the lights back on.

In the living room, Scarlett took off her shoes and tucked her feet under her on the sofa. The woman was still standing. ‘I won’t be staying,’ she said. ‘Scarlett said you told her she could come here, if she needed help.’

‘I said she could ring me, but never mind,’ Sam said. She felt herself coming over all official. ‘And you are…?’

‘My name is Samantha Rowden-Knowles. I’m – I used to be one of Scarlett’s teachers. I heard all about what happened. I’d like to stay in touch, I’d like to help, but Scarlett can’t stay with me. She’s got my number, though. I told her she can call me any time.’

Sam looked at Scarlett, who had rested her head on the arm of the sofa and looked as though she was about to fall asleep.

‘Come into the kitchen,’ she said to the teacher. ‘Let me make a note of your details.’

‘So it’s all right for her to stay with you?’

Sam shut the door behind them. ‘No, but I can find somewhere for her where she’ll be safe. Where did you find her?’

‘She came to me,’ Mrs Rowden-Knowles said. ‘She turned up at my house, out of the blue. I was shocked when she told me who she was. I didn’t recognise her. We all thought she was dead.’

‘The press haven’t got hold of it yet,’ Sam said, ‘but I’m sure it won’t be long. Are you okay?’

There were tears in the woman’s eyes and Sam realised she was shaking. Then she took a deep breath in and stood up straight. ‘I’m fine. Really, I am. She told me a bit about what has happened to her, where she’s been. I’ve told her she has to tell you. She seems to find it very difficult to trust people. I told her she should trust you. That’s right, isn’t it, Sergeant Hollands? You won’t let her down, will you?’

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Of course not.’

Sam wrote down the address and telephone number in her notebook and promised to call the teacher tomorrow. They would need to talk more. Back in the living room, Scarlett was fast asleep on Sam’s couch, her mouth open.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Mrs Rowden-Knowles.

Sam showed her out, and then went back through to the living room.

For a moment she looked at Scarlett and thought about just leaving her there, but the sight had triggered a memory of coming home from work, two years ago almost to the day, and finding a dark-haired boy who didn’t speak any English sitting exactly where Scarlett was now. In the kitchen, Sam’s partner Jo – already off work with stress – was working up to an anxiety attack, terrified that Sam would send the boy away again. Jo had had a habit of collecting waifs and strays, an inbuilt need to rescue and protect. She had been a civilian detention officer, responsible for looking after those who found themselves in police custody, including teenage asylum-seekers left to cross continents on their own. Even Sam knew how hard it was to remain detached when confronted with someone young and vulnerable, especially when the system that was supposed to protect them failed. But Jo had taken matters into her own hands, and, however good her motives, the rules were there to protect everyone concerned, and Jo had broken them.

The day after her disciplinary hearing, at which she had been sacked, Sam had come home to find Jo gone.

Jo would love this one, Sam thought, looking at the sleeping girl and allowing herself a brief smile at the thought. Perhaps it was just as well that Sam was on her own. Whether she wanted to help was irrelevant – letting the girl stay was a bad idea for all sorts of reasons. The danger of repeating Jo’s mistakes was one of them. Her own personal safety was another.

‘Scarlett,’ Sam said, in a voice guaranteed to wake her up.

The girl’s eyes opened. ‘I didn’t want to come here,’ she said. ‘But she wouldn’t let me stay. She insisted on bringing me.’

‘How did you know where I live?’

Scarlett smiled. ‘I followed you home from work earlier. Sorry. I didn’t have anything else to do.’

‘On foot?’

‘Sure. I saw you in your car, turning into the street. You’re really close to the town centre. You’re not going to send me away too, are you?’

Sam had not sat down. Her mobile phone was still in her hand. ‘You can’t stay here, Scarlett. But I can find you somewhere to stay for a few nights, somewhere you’ll be safe. Okay?’

‘It’s really late,’ Scarlett said. ‘You won’t find anywhere, and I’m bloody well not going to that hostel in Charlmere, so don’t even ask. Look, I might as well just go.’

Despite her words, Scarlett stayed glued to the sofa.

‘You can make a cup of tea,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll start phoning around.’

Scarlett had been watching for a long time, from the shelter of a bench outside the motorway services building. Her bench faced the lorry parking, and was tucked into an alcove next to one of the fire escapes. She made an effort to pretend she was waiting for someone, and she looked casual enough, but she had seen two police cars already and knew she could not sit here much longer.

A day had passed since she had phoned home.

In that time she had gained a measure of confidence, and in a way she was glad that she had done it, because she had replaced the receiver and known with a sudden startling clarity exactly what she had to do. And yes, she had spent some of her precious money, yesterday. She had bought a pair of jeans, socks, a hoodie and a pair of sneakers from C&A. After that she had managed to get on board a hotel shuttle bus at the same time as a family with a teenage son. Sitting behind them, with another older couple and three Asian men wearing suits, she seemed to pass without notice. The bus drove to the airport and Scarlett got off with the rest of them, loitering near the family until the driver departed again. She had managed a few hours’ sleep in the airport, along with a whole load of other people who were clearly delayed.

As dawn broke and the airport started to get busier, Scarlett had noticed two police officers standing outside one of the coffee shops in the terminal. Two big guys with bomber jackets, ‘
Politie
’
on the back. They were watching people, talking among themselves, laughing. Scarlett had thought about going up to them and asking them for help. It would be so easy – to let someone else take over. And here she was safe, wasn’t she? With all these people?

What would they do, though?

They would – eventually – send her home. The authorities would ring Clive and Annie. And they would be forced to help her, forced to take her back. The thought of it made her stomach twist.

A third officer had joined the first two, his back to Scarlett. There was something about his shape that was familiar, something about the closely shaven hair under his cap. Scarlett had felt queasy about it. When he’d turned to face her, she’d thought she recognised him. He looked like one of her regulars, a guy who showed up once every three months or so, never told her his name, liked to grip her by the hair when she was giving him a blowjob. Shouted at her if she winced or choked. Smacked her around the head, once, hard enough to bruise.

It might not be him, of course – after all, she tried not to look at them too hard, tried to forget as soon as they were out of the door – but the thought of it was enough. She had got up from her seat and hurried out of the airport, across the road and down the ramp towards the motorway.

At the bottom a set of steps led down to a cycle path which ran below the motorway, parallel to it, stretching into the distance. A
fietspad
, they were called. They were everywhere, a network of little roads and paths. Scarlett had walked for miles with the intention of walking until she got to the ports. It was going to be a long way but she could do it. And then she’d seen that the
fietspad
intersected up ahead with a road which was leading up to some motorway services, and she’d decided to stop and use the toilets and maybe spend a bit of her money on a burger.

The services were good. She’d even managed to have a shower, although she’d had to do without a towel, wiping herself off with her hands and standing there shivering until she was dry enough to get dressed, and then blasting her hair under the hand-dryer. But she felt much better for it.

She had seen a number of lorries with British numberplates come and go from the services, had watched the men – and one woman – who emerged from them and headed for the services building. They’d all been quite young. None of them felt right to her, until she saw the Charlmere Logistics lorry with its distinctive blue and yellow livery parking at the back. From her position in the sheltered alcove, she saw the phone numbers on the side of the van – a Charlmere number, a Briarstone number. The driver that climbed down from the cab a few minutes later lumbered over towards her, his gait showing the discomfort of many hours sitting. He was a short, wide man with a half-growth of beard and hair that was too long at the back and too thin on top, wearing a grubby polo shirt that would once have been a smart royal blue. On his chest was an embroidered ‘CL’.

Scarlett got up and followed him in. He was going to the Gents, of course he was. She waited in the arcade, watching a machine closely as if she was considering playing it, one eye on the entrance to the toilets. There he was, lumbering out. To her immense relief she watched him heading for the food court and she followed, joining him in the queue.

This was it. One chance at this, only one.

‘Oh!’ she said brightly. ‘You work for Charlmere. My uncle worked for them.’

The man turned in surprise. To her relief he was smiling, revealing a set of half-absent teeth. ‘Oh, yeah? What’s ’is name?’

‘Jeff. Jeff Smith. You know him?’

He shook his head, slowly. ‘Nah. Mind you, there’s lots of us drivers. People come and go all the time.’

Scarlett nodded. ‘He used to say that, too. He’s working for DHL now. You heading back, are you?’

‘Yeah, ’sright. Been over on a run to the north of Holland.’

There was a strange sort of smell about him, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, a stench lingering on his clothes. Not quite body odour.

‘Jeff used to do Eastern Europe,’ she chanced, hoping he wasn’t going to say Charlmere Logistics never went out that way. When he just nodded and smiled, she added, ‘He used to take me out sometimes, half-terms, you know, on his shorter runs. Keep me out of mischief. Wasn’t allowed, of course, but he let me come along anyway.’

They had reached the tills. He was getting a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. At the adjacent till, she collected a Sprite and a bag of crisps.

‘Mind if I join you?’ she asked, following him to a seat.

‘Nah,’ he said, ‘go ahead. Free country, innit.’

He was looking at her a little warily now, Scarlett thought. She would have to be careful.

‘I’ve been travelling,’ she said. ‘I was with some mates but they wanted to go round Germany and I’ve had enough now. I want to get back.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Miss my mum’s cooking.’

‘Ha, yes. I know.’

‘I’m hitching to the docks – going to get the ferry, I think.’

‘Don’t get many people hitching these days. You wanna be careful.’

‘Yeah. Don’t tell my dad. Or my uncle Jeff.’

He was chewing on his sandwich, grubby fingernails and fingers shiny with grease. She sipped at her straw, not making eye contact, aware that his eyes were on her. Sizing her up. Despite the shower, she must look rough as anything.

‘Nice to meet someone who speaks proper English,’ she said.

‘You from Charlmere, then?’ he asked.

‘Briarstone,’ she said.

There was a long, painful pause.

Another mouthful of bread and meat was chewed and swallowed. He slurped at his drink, several noisy gulps followed by a repressed, airy belch.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose you could get a lift with me. I’m going to Briarstone depot once I’ve dropped off a load in Morden.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, trying not to look too grateful, too relieved. ‘My name’s Katie. What’s yours?’

‘Barry,’ he said, offering her a meaty, greasy shovel of a hand to shake. ‘You know it’s against company rules to give lifts.’

‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she said. ‘Promise.’

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘You better bloody not.’

Twenty minutes later they were walking across the car park back towards the blue and yellow lorry. It was clean – looked new. As they got closer Scarlett caught a whiff of the smell that had been on Barry’s clothes, getting stronger and stronger. When he opened up the cab and stood aside for her to clamber up, Scarlett had to breathe through her mouth. It was as though something had died and got caught under the wheels of the trailer.

‘What’s that smell?’ she said.

‘Chicken shit,’ he said. ‘One-tonne bags. They use it as fertiliser. You get used to it after a while; an hour or so and you won’t even smell it any more.’

It was nice, riding up so high in the cab. You could see for miles. And Barry had been right: after a while the smell of chicken poo faded and all that remained was the sunshine, the vast blue skies of southern Holland, the long road stretching ahead.

Barry seemed quite happy to have someone to talk to.

‘Yeah, I do this run regular. Bring over a high-value load – nothing exciting, it’s just watermarked paper, but even so I have to take a security guard with me. I drop the load off in Haarlem, then I take the security guard to the airport. Then it’s a few hours to the north of Holland, right up near the border, place called Drenthe – know it? No, why would you, no bugger ever goes there, although I think it’s all right. Anyway, I pick up the load to come back with; normally I get down to Belgium before the overnight stop, ’cept I got stuck in traffic yesterday so I stopped up near the airport again. I like those services, anyway; some of ’em are a bit rough, you know?’

‘Where’s the chicken poo going?’ Scarlett asked.

‘This lot’s going to the depot but I’m dropping one bag off at a farm on the way. Kind of a favour for a mate, like.’

The crossing into Belgium had been no more complicated than the colour of the motorway sign changing. Scarlett had worried about whether they would be stopped, but there wasn’t even a barrier. They didn’t even have to slow down.

That didn’t last long, however, as the traffic ground to a halt when they were skirting a city. ‘Always bad round here,’ Barry told her. ‘See, thing is, Belgium is so small that people don’t ever move house. You live in Bruges and you get a job in Antwerp, you just drive there. Not far enough to warrant moving house. So people end up crisscrossing the whole bloody country every day. Crazy, I call it.’

Eventually the traffic eased again and they were on a long, straight motorway, bordered by fields and the occasional wind turbine, the shadows of the blades slicing across the tarmac in front of them.

‘I go via Dunkirk, short a crossing as possible without bloody going into France. I went via Hook of Holland a couple of times but not when it’s bad weather. Costs more too. I’d rather drive further and just have two hours across the Channel.’

If they were nearing the ports already, Scarlett didn’t have much time left. She waited for a suitable gap in the conversation, which took a while.

‘Barry,’ she said, ‘I need to tell you something.’

‘What is it?’

There was no way round this bit. Despite the happy bond that seemed to have developed over the past couple of hours, all that bonhomie could disappear if she got this bit wrong.

‘Fact is, I haven’t got a passport. I got my bag nicked from a youth hostel in Amsterdam.’

‘Yeah? Did you call the police?’

‘I did, and I went to the embassy, but they were just useless. It’s going to take forever to sort it out – and most of my money got nicked as well, so I can’t pay for a new one. I thought it would just be easier to see if I could get home my own way.’

‘What about your folks, can’t they send you some money?’

‘My dad’ll kill me. He didn’t want me to go travelling in the first place.’

‘You can’t get through without a passport.’

‘It’s okay, Barry, I understand. I don’t want to get you in any bother. If you can drop me off outside somewhere, I’ll sort myself out.’

There was an awkward silence, broken only by the lumbering lorry engine.

‘I have got some cash, though. I mean, I’ve got about fifty euros left.’

Silence.

‘I was wondering if I could, maybe, hide in the back of the cab. If they found me, you can deny all knowledge and I’ll back you up. I’ll say I sneaked in when you stopped at the service station. I mean, it’s not like I’m an illegal. I went to Briarstone Grammar.’

Barry said nothing, his eyes fixed on the road.

‘I’m sorry, I should have said earlier. I don’t want to make it awkward.’

The lorry indicated and turned off the motorway a few moments later. It wasn’t the ports. It was another service station. He was going to leave her here, and her best chance of getting across the Channel and back to Briarstone was flying out of the window.

‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘Jabbeke,’ Barry said. ‘This is the last truck stop before the ports that doesn’t have a dedicated police presence. After this they’re watching all the activity around the trucks. So this is the only chance to hide you. If that’s what you really want.’

Scarlett’s face broke into a wide smile of relief. ‘Thank you. Seriously, that’s really kind of you.’

But Barry hadn’t finished. As the truck shuddered to a halt, he turned to her and added, ‘No need to spin me all that crap about your passport. You don’t look to me like the sort of girl who’s been off round Europe with her mates. You’re a worker, am I right?’

‘What?’ Scarlett asked, although it was too late.

‘Thing is, Katie or whatever your name is, it’s a lonely old life on the road. And it’s a big risk taking you through without a passport or a ticket. Could get caught, then I’d lose my job, get a fine. Fifty euros ain’t going to cover it.’

She watched as he undid his fly, looked away quickly.

‘I ain’t going to force you. But that’s the price. ’Sup to you.’

Afterwards they went into the services so Scarlett could go to the Ladies and Barry could get himself a coffee and a snack. Once he’d stowed her away in the cab she would not be able to get out again until they were well past Customs on the other side.