Little Face (34 page)

`Why don't you sodding well tell me that, then?' said Charlie quietly. `Why do you make me beg for reassurance?'

`I don't!'

`You just have!'

The conversation was accelerating, becoming more unpredictable.
Simon took a deep breath. `It would never occur to me or any of the
team to reassure you,' he said. `You don't need it. You always seem so
confident. Too confident, sometimes.'

Charlie was silent for a few seconds. Her next question, when it
came, was an unwelcome one. `Have you told anyone about ... what
happened at Sellers' party?'

This was exactly why Simon avoided long, frank talks. `No. Of
course not.'

`Nobody? I'm not asking you to name names. I just want to know
if everyone's laughing at me behind my back, that's all.'

Simon's mobile phone began to ring in his pocket. He glanced awkwardly at Charlie.

`Forget it.' She lit a cigarette. `You'd better get that.'

It was PC Robbie Meakin. Saved, Simon thought.

`You lot are looking into the Laura Cryer case again, right?' said
Meakin.

`Who is it?' asked Charlie. She hated not knowing who Simon was
speaking to, and persistently interrupted every call he took until he told
her. One of her many infuriating habits.

`It's Meakin. Sorry, mate, yes, we are. Why?'

`We've just arrested a young lad called Vinny Lowe, friend of Darryl Beer's, for possession of Class A drugs. In with his stash was a
bloody great kitchen knife. Lowe swears blind it's Beer's.'

`Where was it found?'

`A health club, of all places. Waterfront, on Saltney Road.'

Vivienne Fancourt's health club. And Alice's. And then, suddenly,
Simon had it. He recalled Roger Cryer's exact words, digested their full
significance. He nearly turned to Charlie and blurted it out in a jolt of
excitement. He stopped himself just in time. He wasn't prepared to risk
her assigning this particular lead to Sellers or Gibbs to follow up. When
it really mattered, Simon preferred to work alone.

Thursday, October 2, 2003

`WHAT ON EARTH . . . 'Vivienne backs away from me in disgust when
she sees the flaking, dried food on my face and neck, the smeary stain
on my jumper. I am sitting at the kitchen table. David wouldn't allow
me to leave the room. `I thought you wanted to spend more time with
the baby,' he said. `You can't touch her, obviously, not while you're
covered in that mess.'

Vivienne looks angrily at him. `Was it too much to ask you to keep
things under control for one morning?' Felix stands behind her, in his
turquoise blazer and trousers, the Stanley Sidgwick uniform. He looks
at me in the way people look at road accidents, horrified and
fascinated.

`It's not my fault!' David whines like a toddler. `I cooked her some
food, but she refused to eat it. She tried to throw it at me. I caught her
arm to stop her and it ended up all over her. As you can see.'

`Why didn't you make her get changed immediately? She's filthy! It's
all over her face.'

`She refused! She said she didn't care what she looked like.' He picks
up Little Face and leans her against his shoulder. Her turned head slots
into the crook of his neck. She is awake, but as David pats her back her
eyes start to close.

Vivienne walks slowly towards me. `Alice, this behaviour is simply
not acceptable. I won't have it in my house. Is that clear?'

I nod.

`Stand up! Look at me when I'm speaking to you.'

I do as I am told. Behind her, David is smirking.

`All those clothes must go in the wash. You need to have a shower
and get changed. I won't have such ... slobbishness in my house, I
don't care how unwell you are. I thought I'd made my point and
you'd understood it, after the bathroom incident, but clearly I was
wrong.'

I cannot think of anything to say to this, so I remain silent.

`I see that you haven't even got the decency to apologise.' I know
that Vivienne is about to issue a punishment and I am frightened of
what it might be. She sounds as if she has reached the end of her tether.
If I said sorry it might calm her down, but I can't find the words. I am
a block of ice. `Right. Suit yourself,' she says. `From now on you won't
get dressed at all. I'll take all your clothes and put them in the attic,
with Florence's. You can wear a nightie and dressing gown, like a mental patient, until I say different. Is that understood?'

`But ... the DNA test. I'll have to get dressed for that.' My voice
shakes.

Vivienne's cheeks flush. I have enraged her by making a good point.
Clearly, in her anger, she forgot about our appointment at the Duffield
Hospital, its incompatibility with the penance she's devised for me. `I
don't want to hear another word out of you,' she says, her lips thin and
white with fury. `And I can't bear to look at you in those disgusting,
dirty clothes any longer. I won't have it! Take them off and I'll wash
them. You should be ashamed of yourself, creating work for other
people with your ... dirty protests!'

She turns to face the window. David grins at me.

I start to count in my head as I remove my jumper. The white bra I
am wearing beneath it is also stained orange and yellow, so I take it off.
David's smile widens. He nods at the waistband of my trousers, where
there is a small patch of brownish grease. I know that Vivienne regards
even the smallest mark on one's clothing as unacceptable. With trem bling fingers, I begin to take off my trousers, praying that no part of
the meal went any further.

Vivienne turns round. When she sees me, her mouth drops open and
the skin on her neck wobbles. `What on earth do you think you're
doing?' she demands.

I stop, confused.

`Pull up your trousers! How dare you? What do you think this is, a
massage parlour? How dare you stand in my kitchen naked?'

`But ... you told me to take my clothes off so that you could
wash them,' I sob. David covers his mouth with his hand, to hide his
amusement. Vivienne wouldn't notice anyway. She is incandescent
with rage, thinking that I am deliberately trying to provoke her.
Tears pour down my face and I fold my arms to cover my bare chest.
I cannot bear the injustice or the humiliation for much longer. `I
thought you meant that I should do it straight away,' I try to
explain, though I know it will do me no good. Vivienne finds me
repulsive.

`I meant that you should go upstairs, wash and change, and bring
down your dirty clothes for me to wash. I did not mean that you
should strip in broad daylight, in my kitchen. The blind isn't even
down! Anyone could see you!'

`I'm sorry.'

`I don't want to hear it, Alice. Go and clean yourself up and put on
some nightwear. Now!'

I run from the room, weeping. I keep thinking that I have been
through the worst, that nothing more horrible can happen, and I am
wrong every time. This particular disgrace wounds me more deeply
than any of the others because I did it to myself. Of course Vivienne
didn't mean for me to undress in the kitchen. I should have known
that-I would have known it, were it not for the way David's sick mind
has worn me down over the past few days, warped all my perceptions,
twisted the way I look at everything. How delighted he must have been
to see me subject myself to a degradation he hadn't planned and was n't expecting, to realise that he has belittled me to the point where I am
now so ready to abase myself.

I lock myself in the bathroom and cry until my eyes are slits and my
vision blurs. I do not dare to look in the mirror. For so long, I have
thought of Friday as the goal. After that, the police will have no
choice but to become involved. I will have help, at last. But what sort
of person will I have become by then? Will I be in a fit state to be a
mother to Florence, even assuming I am lucky enough to have the
chance? For the first time, I am not sure.

Thursday, October 9, 2003, 8 PM

`I DON'T UNDERSTAND you lot!' Vinny Lowe shook his head wearily.

`I can't see why you're making such a big deal of it.'

`Cocaine's a Class A drug,' said Simon. He and Lowe, who resembled a bulldog on tranquilisers, were in an interview room at the station. Lowe's solicitor, a mousy middle-aged woman in a cheap suit, sat
beside him. She had said nothing so far, just sighed occasionally.

`Yeah, but it wasn't like I was selling it. There was hardly any there
and it was for my own personal use. There's no need to come over all
heavy, is there?'

`The manager of Waterfront doesn't see it that way. The stuff was
hidden in his establishment, in the creche, of all places. Inside the babychanging unit. Nice touch.'

`My girlfriend's the creche manager,' said Vinny.

Simon frowned. `And your point is?'

`Well, where else could I have hidden it? The creche was the only bit
I had access to. When I popped in to see Donna. Is she going to lose
her job?'

`Of course. She helped you to hide Class A drugs in the creche,'
Simon explained slowly. Lowe shook his head, wide-eyed, as if to suggest that it was a crazy, mixed-up world he lived in if this sort of thing
could happen. His solicitor sighed again.

`Look, I've already spoken to the plods that arrested me about this. And then they turned round and said I had to talk to you too.
How come?'

`We're interested in the knife that was found with the drugs in the
baby-changing unit.'

`I already said, that's nothing to do with me. Must be Daz's.'

`Darryl Beer?'

`Right. It's been there for ages. I just left it where it was.'

`How long exactly is ages?'

`I don't know. Over a year. Two years? I can't really remember. It's
just always there.'

Simon tried to catch Lowe's solicitor's eye. No wonder she couldn't
be bothered to enter into the spirit, with such a moron for a client. `Did
the knife appear in the baby-changing unit before or after Beer got sent
down?'

`Fucked if I can remember that! Must have been before, I guess.'

`Did you see Beer put the knife inside the unit? Did he tell you
about it?'

`No, but it must have been him. No-one else knew about our lockup. That's what we called it.' Lowe grinned.

`Assuming I believe you, how did Beer get access to the Waterfront
creche? Did he also have a girlfriend who worked there?'

`Nah, but he and Donna were mates. We all were, the three of us.'

`Could he have hidden the knife without Donna seeing him?'

`Yeah, course. The changing unit's in a separate room next to the
bog, so it's easy to hide stuff without being seen.' Vinny Lowe seemed
to inflate with pride. `That's the beauty of the lock-up,' he said.

Simon stopped, thought hard. Darryl Beer was arrested at home,
mid-morning on a Saturday, the day after Laura Cryer was killed. The
Waterfront creche opened on Saturday mornings at 9 am, 8.30 on
weekdays. Beer could have gone there first thing, hidden the knife, then
gone home. Why not hide Laura's handbag in the same place, though?
Unless he'd chucked that in a bin somewhere and Charlie's team had
just never found it. All Simon wanted was for tomorrow to arrive, so that he could make the call he was desperate to make. Everything
would be easier after that; he'd know so much more.

`Does the creche take children of all ages?' he said. `Is there an upper
or a lower age limit?'

Lowe looked baffled. `Birth to five,' he said. `Why, you got nippers?'

Simon didn't answer. He produced from his pocket the photograph
of Vivienne, Alice, David and Felix Fancourt that had been in Alice's
desk drawer at work. `Do you recognise any of these people?' he
asked Lowe.

`Yeah, that little lad used to go to the creche. Donna used to call him
Little Lord Font-el-roy, because of his posh accent. And her, Lady
Muck.' He nodded, smiling. He was behaving like a man without a
care in the world. Perhaps he was too dim to understand that he was
about to be done for possession of Class A drugs. `So, is she something
to do with that little posh lad, then?'