Moth Girls (20 page)

On Friday, just after seven, Petra put on the new coat that Zofia had gone out and bought for her that day. She looked at herself in the mirror. She had short black hair and looked very different: a bit younger perhaps and stern. They were getting ready to go out. Zofia had given her instructions. ‘I leave the house first. You follow me one minute later. We walk separately. Marya’s flat only five minutes away.’

Zofia made sure no one was about when she slipped downstairs. She went out of the front door and then Petra counted to sixty and followed her. She could see her further up the street. She walked with her head down and wondered why they were going to Marya’s. Zofia said she had to pick up some things to take to Poland but Petra didn’t think this would be uppermost in Zofia’s mind right now. Since their talk earlier in the day, since the hair makeover, they’d not said anything about the situation. Zofia had gone out shopping then continued packing up her stuff: four suitcases and two holdalls. Petra had watched her with apprehension. Every jumper or pair of socks she packed, every pair of spikey heels she forced down the side of the suitcase, seemed ominous. Soon she would be gone and Petra would be on her own. She wanted to say something to raise the subject again but Zofia was preoccupied, her chin pointed down to the ground, her nails unadorned, her hands busy.

They’d watched the news and saw that the police were in and out of the house on Princess Street. It looked as though the area had been cordoned off. Petra watched the comings and goings with great trepidation. All the time she kept thinking about Tina. Where had she gone when she ran out into the dark?

Petra thought of Nathan Ball in his van. Could Tina have run out of the side gate at just the moment that Nathan Ball’s van returned to the street? Had he seen her come out of the house and out of the garden? He would have realised that she’d been in the house when her dad and the other man was there. Could he have stopped her, spoken to her, perhaps pretended that he was related to Mr Merchant in some way and told her she had go with him?

Had Nathan Ball taken Tina away somewhere?

It couldn’t be. Her dad would know. Nathan Ball would have rung him, texted him, turned up on the balcony and told him. Whatever bad things her dad had done he wouldn’t let anything happen to Tina. Would he? He liked Tina; he’d always play his ringtones for her and when he had money he often gave Petra a fiver to give to Tina so that she could ‘get herself something nice’. But Nathan Ball had no link to Tina. Could he have panicked and thought that Tina had seen too much? Maybe he did something to her to keep her quiet. Petra pictured him slipping out of the driver’s seat into the dark street and walking along behind Tina, maybe slipping his hand over her mouth and pulling her backwards to the van.

Petra faltered. She couldn’t carry on. Her life seemed to have spun off into some dark and cruel place where people did things that she couldn’t understand. Up ahead Zofia paused as if she sensed that Petra had stopped. She turned and came back to her, taking her hand firmly and pulling her forward. Petra walked tentatively as if she were on a kind of rickety bridge and every step might bring the whole thing crashing down.

At Marya’s old flat Petra waited on the street while Zofia used a key to open the front door. She went in and beckoned Petra to follow her.

Zofia had a phone in her hand and Petra noticed that it wasn’t her usual mobile. It looked like a basic pay as you go.

‘You got a new phone?’

‘I need to contact someone and don’t want any records.’

Zofia was stiff and brusque. She was nervous. It made Petra feel apprehensive. She followed her through the flat. It was sparingly furnished but there were signs that someone had been there until recently: a couple of carrier bags had collected in the corner of the hall and on the table in the kitchen a box of tissues sat next to a half full bottle of Pepsi. The fridge door was held open by a chair and on the windowsill was a vase of flowers that were still in bloom.

Zofia stood awkwardly at the table. There was a door behind her that led to another room. Petra glimpsed a washing machine through it.

‘What have we come for? Are we picking something up?’ Petra said.

Zofia exhaled loudly.

‘Your father is coming here,’ she said.

Petra was shocked. She looked around as though he might already be there.

‘To take me home?’

‘No, no. No.’

She wasn’t ready to
see
her dad. She didn’t think she ever wanted to see him again. Zofia put her hand on Petra’s arm.

‘I have to talk to him. I have to put things straight with him. Otherwise I don’t know what to do about you. I just don’t know.’

‘I can’t see him!’ Petra said. ‘What if he brings the police with him? I can’t see the police. I just can’t.’

‘He won’t. He doesn’t like police. He’ll be on his own. That’s what I told him. He won’t even know you are here. But I want
you
to hear what he says.’

There was a knock on the front door. Zofia looked towards the sound and nodded.

‘Is on time. You go into utility room. Shut the door and keep the light off. Just stay there and hear what he says.’

‘I don’t want to be here if he’s here,’ Petra said, chewing her lip.

‘You have to hear his words. Otherwise you and me cannot be together. You have to trust me.’

Petra stared at Zofia. Tonight she looked frightened, her face pale. She pushed at Petra’s arm with surprising force.

‘Go.’

Petra went into the utility room. It was small, with only enough room for a washing machine and a tumble dryer. An empty clothes horse stood folded up alongside. She shut the door. There was no window so the room was dark, like a black cubicle. She sat down, her back to the door. She couldn’t hear any sound from the kitchen, only a mumble of voices further away. She wondered why Zofia had asked her dad to come here and not to her own house. Maybe she was fearful of the police following him and stumbling on Petra before she’d decided what to do. Or possibly there were just too many other people around at Zofia’s.

What
would
she do? Would she keep Petra with her? What was the point of talking to her dad?

She heard her dad’s voice first.

‘This better be important, Soph. I’m pretty preoccupied at the moment.’

There was the sound of chairs being pulled out and sat on. Her dad’s voice had a sneer in it. Petra recognised it from times when he was being sarcastic.

‘What can I do for you?’

She pictured him leaning back in the chair, his arms crossed.

A ringtone sounded. Petra thought it was Zofia’s new mobile. It had a funny old-fashioned sound like bells tinkling.

‘Excuse me, Jason.’

Zofia was answering it.

‘Henryk. I am in the flat now. You are outside? Good. Jason is here too.’

‘What’s going on?’ Her dad’s voice was faintly high, disbelieving.

‘My friend, Henryk, is outside. He is waiting for me. He has key. In fifteen minutes he will come in to check that I am all right.’

‘Soph … What’s going on?’

Petra was puzzled. What was Zofia doing? Who was Henryk?

‘If you hit me he will know. He is big as you, Jason, and he has weapon. He used to be in the army. He will hurt you.’

‘What’s this drama all for, Soph? My daughter is missing, in case you didn’t know. I’ve got more important stuff to deal with than your stupid …’

It sounded as though the chair was moving, as if her dad was getting ready to leave.

‘I know where Petra is,’ Zofia said.

‘What?’

‘She is safe. I want to talk to you about her.’

‘She went to you! I knew she would. I came round to you last night. I asked you. You lied to me …’

The chair legs creaked as if her dad had shifted. Perhaps he’d leant forward across the table.

‘No, no, Jason. She came much later. Very late. She was in a state and I know that you know why so please no bully stuff with me. She did not want to see you. She begged me not to contact you or the police.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She is safe.’

‘What about her friend?’

‘She’s not with her friend. She doesn’t know where friend is.’

Dad doesn’t know what happened to Tina
. This was important to Petra.

‘I want to see Petra.’

‘She doesn’t want to see you.’

‘She’s a kid. She’s twelve. She doesn’t get to make those kinds of decisions.’

‘She’s bright. She knows the difference between right and wrong and she knows that you killed accountant.’

There was a moment’s silence. Petra tried to picture her dad’s face. When he spoke again his voice was different.

‘She thought she saw something … She misinterpreted … She …’

‘Jason, she knows. She was frightened to death when she came to me. She knows her own father kill accountant. Don’t try to deny it. I believe her. I know what you are like and you talked about accountant for many weeks. I believe it.’

‘Soph … It was an accident. We didn’t go there with that intention. It got out of hand. It was a job I had to do for someone else. They were threatening me. The old man owed them money. I could have got hurt if I hadn’t done it. The old man just would not say where the money was. Things got rough.’

His voice was low, just above a whisper. Petra felt her jaw clamping together as she remembered the scene in the house on Princess Street: an old man who was tied and belted to a chair then beaten. Although she hadn’t been able to bear watching the blows she’d heard each of them and then she’d seen him lying twisted on the floor with blood on his shirt collar.

‘It was this other guy. Nathan put me on to him. He was out of control.’

It wasn’t true. Petra felt her head hanging as if in shame. It was her dad who’d started the attack.

‘No matter,’ Zofia said, ‘is in the past. Petra does not want to come back to you. She does not want to live with you any more.’

‘She can’t say that. She’s my daughter.’

‘If you insist that she comes back then she will tell police what she saw.’

‘She won’t tell anyone. I’m her dad. It was an accident. I’ll explain it to her. There’s no point in me going to prison for something I didn’t mean to do!’

Not true. Not true.
Petra hugged her knees.

‘She might not tell, Jason, but I will. If you make her come back I will go police. I will tell them what she told me. I know names. Mr Constantine. Nathan Ball …’

‘Why? What’s it to you? What’s any of it got to do with you?’

His voice had risen and he had moved position, Petra was sure. Maybe he was leaning across the table and speaking right into Zofia’s face. Maybe his finger was raised up, pointing at her. She’d seen him do that before.

‘I care for Petra,’ Zofia said, her voice coming from exactly the same place. ‘I don’t like the life she has with you. Before, when we finish, I have no choice. She is your daughter and there is nothing I can do. But now that you have done this thing you give up right to her.’