The Lost Child (27 page)

The thought brought him to Brodie. He was still waiting to find the right opportunity to broach her predicament to Elaine. As it was a situation that involved time limits it would have to be soon. Baggy jumpers or not, the kid wouldn’t be able to hide the bump forever. The thought that Fern might be the one who had to deal with it made his blood run cold, what she’d done to her own child was bad enough let alone what she might force Brodie into. Brodie coping alone with a baby was a picture he didn’t want to contemplate, he had no idea how far along she was, but he was sure it was too late to broach the option of abortion. When he had been mucking about with her that night and she had stretched up he had noticed quite a bump. He was no expert on human gestation but he was confident that baby had been there a long while already. What worried him most was that it was clear she hadn’t told a soul. Hell, he didn’t even know if she understood what was going on herself, she was such a complex little thing. The fact that she probably hadn’t seen a doctor worried him too, so regardless of whatever else life had decided to chuck at them it would have to be tackled soon. Maybe he would wait until after Shirley’s funeral. As if there could ever be a right time.

The phone rang, pulling him out of his thoughts and back into the moment, he answered and gave the company name.

‘Mr Collier, Dan Collier?’

‘Yes, how can I help?’ he said picking up a pen in readiness to take down the details of the building work the caller might be contemplating.

‘My name is Toby Ash, I’m with the Herald and I wondered if you would be prepared to comment on where Mandy Miller has gone?’

It took a moment for the words to penetrate, ‘What do you mean “gone”?’

‘She left your residence about an hour ago in the company of Brodie Miller, we’ve been unable to establish her current whereabouts and were hoping you’d be able to enlighten us and add anything to her story you might feel to be relevant.’ The chirpy tone belied the man’s intent.

Dan stared at the phone.

‘Mr Collier? Are you still on the line?’

Dan stared at the phone.

‘Mr Collier, are you still there?’

Dan stared at the phone, then put it back to his ear. ‘Fuck off.’ It was all he could think of to say.

***

Jack Pearson pulled onto Dan’s drive, gratified to see that the press were now absent. They had clearly decided to follow their story, and it wasn’t the story of an unhappy man at the end of his rope trying to deal with a situation he couldn’t control.

He found Dan in the kitchen nursing a large glass of whisky in one hand, and holding Elaine’s note in the other.

‘Mind if I join you?’ Jack asked, pulling out a chair.

Dan pushed the bottle towards him and pointed to a cupboard. ‘Help yourself, glasses are in there.’ His voice was dull and spoke the volumes that his words hadn’t.

Jack fetched a glass and poured himself a finger of whisky, ‘Hmmm, Monkey Shoulder, an interesting choice,’ he said, savouring the smell of the golden liquid.

‘Might as well be meths to be honest,’ was Dan’s flat response.

Jack took a sip, ‘Tastes better than meths, but probably just as likely to rot your brain in large enough quantities. So, what went wrong?’

Dan threw his hands up, ‘Who knows? They just went. She left this.’ he said sliding the note across to Jack.

‘Short and sweet,’ Jack said. ‘And this was not long after Fern arrived shouting her mouth off?’

Dan nodded sullenly.

‘She’s a delight isn’t she? I remember her well, she wasn’t much better then and she was only Brodie’s age. She makes Brodie look like she had a private education polished off by finishing school.’ Jack said with a chuckle.

‘Yeah, not a woman it would be easy to like, though she looks like she’s had her fair share of men who’ve tried.’

Jack smirked, ‘You don’t have to look at the mantelpiece when you’re stoking the fire.’

Dan managed a wan smile in response to the joke, ‘Do you think they ran because of what she threatened, to get custody of Brodie?’

Jack shook his head, ‘Nah, the court would take the girl’s wishes into account, especially at her age. Fern wouldn’t stand a hope, besides Brodie’s sixteen soon. By the time it got to a hearing, she’d be able to make her own mind up. Elaine doesn’t strike me as a stupid woman, she’d work that out.’

‘So why?’ Dan said, his face creased with confusion and despair.

Jack rolled the whisky in its glass, watching the spirit cling to the sides and crawl down like thin oil, ‘I reckon she thought it was too much of a burden for you, she was being kind, taking herself and Brodie out of the loop so you could get on with your life.’ Mrs Pearson had been of great help with this conclusion when he had talked to her after receiving Dan’s plaintive phone call. He would never fathom the conundrum that was the female mind, no matter how hard he tried.

Dan groaned and lay his forehead on the table, covering his head with his hands. ‘Bloody women!’ was his muffled response to Jack’s explanation.

‘Aye, they’re not simple creatures,’ Jack concurred.

‘So where are they, where have they gone?’ Dan asked.

Jack puffed out his cheeks and exhaled, ‘I’ve called in a couple of favours and put a track on her bank records, but it will take a bit of time to get any information about where she might be using her card or drawing cash. Favours rarely take priority, and because she hasn’t committed a criminal act someone’s having to do it on the sly for me. So until I hear anything, or she decides to get in touch, we’re at a loss.’

‘What if I call it in, say Brodie is a missing person?’

‘You can’t, she’s nothing to do with you. Tony would have to do it and he’s up to his neck in stuff right now. Brodie is the least of his worries,’ Jack said with wry disapproval. ‘He doesn’t think Brodie’s whereabouts are of great concern, he figures if she’s with Elaine she’ll be OK.’

‘How about Fern? She’d call the police in,’ Dan suggested, scraping the barrel of options.

‘Yes, no doubt she would, and she would thrive on the attention, but it would sell Elaine out big time. Is that what you want?’

Dan nursed his head again, ‘No, of course not.’ It was said with an air of defeated desperation. ‘I love them Jack, I know it’s insane but they’re my girls. I hadn’t quite factored Brodie into the scheme, but she kind of gets under your skin, you know? Besides, they kind of come as a package deal now.’

Jack nodded, he understood. When men fell, they fell hard and fast into imperfect, unstable love. He’d seen it a million times and had picked up the pieces a million more.

‘You’ve just got to sit it out lad, it’s all you can do,’ Jack said, knowing his words offered much sense and little comfort.

Dan leaned back in his chair and Jack noticed that he looked rough, raw emotion was ageing and it often carved lines where there had been none before. Everything became dulled by heartache. Like acid, it stripped the polish from life.

‘Brodie’s pregnant,’ Dan said.

Jack paused, his glass halfway to his mouth, ‘What?’

‘I don’t think anyone else knows. She’s hiding it under those clothes she wears. That and the scars on her arms; it looks like she cuts herself too.’

‘Christ,’ Jack said, reeling from the revelation. He already knew about the self-harm. The first day she’d turned up he’d pulled some favours and got the number for her social worker. She shouldn’t have talked to him really, but confidentiality was as big a joke now as it had always been. The pregnancy was news, and unwelcome at that. ‘She didn’t strike me as the type. For getting herself up the duff I mean, the self-harm is no surprise.’

‘I know what you mean, for all her bluster she’s a shy kid really. Makes me wonder if it was something she consented to,’ Dan said, raising the very question that was filtering through Jack’s mind.

‘She’s underage, it’s a crime,’ he stated.

‘Only if she tells someone who the father is, and as we don’t know where she is she can’t tell us.’

‘Does Elaine know, has she guessed?’

Dan shook his head, ‘I don’t think so, she didn’t say anything but it’s not something that can be hidden for long.’

‘You’d be surprised. She wouldn’t be the first kid who’s hidden it, given birth in a bathroom on her own and dumped the baby.’ Jack could remember at least two cases where that scenario had played out. One child had lived, the other hadn’t.

‘Jack, I can’t let that happen. I need to find them.’ Dan said with urgent desperation.

‘I’ll do my best to get a location, but it might take time,’ Jack said. He was thinking fondly of his garden and wishing to hell that the missus hadn’t opened the door to Brodie that day. What you didn’t know about, you couldn’t worry about. ‘You know, there’s a good chance they’ll pitch up at Shirley’s funeral,’ he said. He watched a spark of hope flicker across Dan’s careworn face.

‘Good point. I also figured Elaine will have to pitch up at her house sooner or later, so I’m going to finish the work there.’ Dan was suddenly reinvigorated by hope.

‘Well, there you go lad, it’s not all hopeless is it?’ Jack said, clinking his glass against Dan’s.

Chapter Seventeen

Generic hotel rooms always gave that sense that you could be anywhere in the world and wouldn’t know it unless you looked through the window at the outside. For Elaine it felt like a kind of suspended animation reminiscent of a time-loop. If she could only stay there, everything would stop moving and she could start to get a grip on what was happening to her. But teenagers cannot live on coffee and biscuits alone, Brodie was hungry and food existed in the real world where there were no locks or privacy.

Next-door to the hotel there was an equally generic pub-cum-eatery. Brodie seemed excited, not only had she never stayed in a hotel before, she had never eaten out above and beyond chicken shops or burger bars. That she could be so energised by such a simple thing, given what they were facing, both amused and dismayed Elaine. If all their problems could be solved by novelty they would be home and dry. Home, where was that? It wasn’t Shirley’s tacky, grimy flat and neither was it the grim mausoleum that had belonged to Jean. Elaine wasn’t short of money, but lurching from one hotel to another in a baseless daze wasn’t an option either, much as it appealed. Elaine was independent and free, but she was no Jack Reacher, she needed more than a toothbrush and a kick-ass attitude in order to survive.

As she watched Brodie tuck into cheap steak and chips, with extra onion rings and garlic bread, she prodded at her own Caesar salad despondently. Thoughts of the cottage in Hallow’s End kept intruding like an invitation that she was trying to ignore. Whichever way she looked at it, there was no way they could go back to a place that was owned by the Gardiner-Hallows. The press would be all over it. But it didn’t mean to say that there weren’t other places to rent in the area. Maybe it would be a good thing to go back, after all there were demons to face and gaps in the story to fill.

Brodie had finished her gargantuan feast and had just ordered dessert, a festive looking glass of E numbers and chemicals that was masquerading as ice cream. Elaine had settled for coffee, ordering from a waitress who clearly thought she recognised her but didn’t like to say anything. It was bound to happen.

When they had stopped for petrol Elaine hadn’t failed to notice that her own face was plastered over every newspaper. It had been even worse when she had turned her phone on, the thing had practically blown itself to bits as message after message had buzzed through the small device. Overwhelmed, Elaine had taken out the battery and thrown the thing in the bin. Whatever life had been before, it was something different now and she didn’t want any attachment to Elaine Ellis’s past. She was a hybrid now, half Elaine, half Mandy. A smile crossed her face as she played with the initials and realised that they spelled the word ME.

Brodie noticed it and spoke up. ‘What’s tickling you?’ she said, unaware of the slick of neon pink sauce that was dribbling down her chin.

‘Your face,’ Elaine said as she passed her a serviette.

Brodie scowled and wiped her chin.

‘Brodie, I want to go back to Hallow’s End. If you don’t want to come with me I can call Tony.’

Brodie looked at her aghast, ‘Is the pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods? Of course I’m coming with you!’

‘But what about your mum’s funeral, you’ll want to be there.’

Brodie licked her spoon, ice cream and sauce had bled onto her fingers and she was a sticky mess, ‘I don’t want to go. Why should I? Funerals are supposed to be about paying respects. I can’t respect a woman who topped herself when we needed her most.’ The comic mix of melted food, which made her look like a naughty toddler, and the adult logic of her words were an incongruous combination.

‘You might regret that choice flower, funerals only happen once. Think it over will you?’

Brodie frowned at her, ‘I have thought it over. I don’t want to go. Did you go to Jean’s funeral?’

‘Of course,’ Elaine said, remembering the unceremonious dumping of Jean’s ashes and still feeling mild guilt.

‘Did it make you feel better? Did it allow you to forgive her for everything she’d done? Did you feel you’d paid your last respects?’ Brodie challenged.

Elaine was taken aback by the questions. In truth she had gone because she was obliged to do so for appearances’ sake, ‘I did what I felt I had to,’ she said, still astonished at how easily this child could put her on the spot and extract a confession.

‘Exactly, you went for other people, not you. Jean was dead so it didn’t matter to her did it? You did it to please other people, and where are those other people now that you need them? Selling their stories to newspapers, that’s what. So, doing what you had to do hasn’t paid off has it?’ It was pronounced with a calculated rhetoric beyond Brodie’s years.

Elaine was stunned to silence; she could feel the blush reaching her cheeks and was grateful for the distraction provided by the waitress who had brought the bill.

*

While Brodie was settled in the room with a pile of chocolate from the vending machine and full access to the film channel, Elaine trawled the internet looking for places to stay near Hallow’s End. She found a place, cheap and available due to a last minute cancellation and paid for it with her debit card. On a server a hundred miles away, the transaction pinged and wheels were set in motion.