‘We should call Detective Boer,’ Adam said, lifting a chair around to the end of the table. He sat down.
‘Nobody’s calling Boer. We got work to do.’
‘Someone needs to know about the guy upstairs, he needs…’
Brian cut in, ‘A good meal and a few bandages? He’s dead, Adam. It’s tragic, especially like that. But that’s nothing we can make better. We need to think how we’re going to move on.’
Adam sat back. ‘Without paper copies?’
Brian nodded, looking directly at him.
And then Adam realised what Brian had in mind. ‘Which means you want me to give the kiss of life to that laptop?’
Brian smiled back at him. ‘He gets Simon to fill in the forms and waves him goodbye. A businessman would file the paperwork and deal with it the following morning, maybe the next week. A hobbyist files the original and sits stroking the copy. It’s part of the ritual. He might have copied it straight away.’
Adam looked at the laptop. He could see the patio doors and garden through the hole in its screen.
‘I need to get my bag from the car.’
FORTY-FIVE
They sat in silence for some time. The girl occasionally reached for another pack of biscuits while maintaining intense interest in the book on her lap. Sarah could feel the girl’s pent-up desire to talk and had to stop herself from leaning over and lifting that stubborn child chin, to implore the girl to believe. The reality was they needed to talk.
‘If you keep eating those biscuits you’ll make yourself ill,’ she said.
The girl ignored her. The small mouth now crunching down harder and louder each time she chewed.
‘I bet you’re really stubborn just like your dad.’
The girl looked up with fiery eyes and then realised what Sarah had said. Her posture immediately changed to proud. ‘I’m just like my dad, mum says that all the time.’
‘Why don’t you tell me about your father then, that can’t do any harm surely?’
The girl said nothing for a while, then defiantly, ‘I’m not talking!’
‘What harm can it really do, it’s only words? It would be good to talk, don’t you think? If you’re anything like as lonely as I feel right now, you must want to.’
Lonely
was the magic word. The girl’s face instantly transformed and Sarah knew the first battle was over.
‘You might be one of them,’ the girl said tentatively.
‘I am not,’ Sarah said.
‘They said you were.’
Sarah was about to answer when the girl held up a small hand, palm outwards and looked at her beneath a furrowed brow.
‘But I’ve decided I can talk to you, because you seem really nice and because this is such a yuck place. This is all just so, so horrid. I might go mad if I don’t speak.’
Sarah smiled at the girl’s earnest conclusion. ‘I tell you what then. If you think I’m doing any snooping you can tell me and I’ll immediately stop whatever I’m doing that’s snoopy.’
The girl nodded, her hair falling around her face. A fleeting smile as she absently brushed it back.
‘Shake on it?’ Sarah pretended to spit into her hand and held it out.
‘Eeeaaawww, that’s yuck!’
‘It’s pretend spit but a real handshake.’
The girl moved forward and for a brief moment Sarah felt a limp hand in hers, warm and soft. A thrill ran through her body. Then the girl leaned back.
‘My name is Sarah. Is your name Andrea?’
The girl looked taken aback. ‘Of course.’
‘I thought so. I heard the name, earlier, it must have been you.’
The girl nodded. ‘You were asleep when they first brought you. I tried to wake you up.’
‘I wasn’t sure, pleased to meet you, Andrea.’
The girl silently studied her and for a short time they sat in silence.
‘He called my name,’ the girl said.
‘In the alley?’
‘Yes, he said my dad sent him but I’d never seen him before. Then I felt something.’ She put her hand on her neck. ‘And then I was here. I had lots of bad dreams.’
‘Me too,’ said Sarah. ‘So what’s your dad’s name?’
‘Brian,’ the girl answered. ‘His last name is Dunstan but that’s not my last name. Mum wanted me to have her name. She doesn’t like dad at all.’
‘They’re not together?’
‘Nooo.’ The girl shook her head vigorously. ‘They never have been. I only see him some weekends. When he was a soldier I hardly saw him at all. I like it now lots more.’
Sarah held on to her questions. ‘Wow, he was a soldier. He must be some kind of cool dad.’
The girl’s face pinched, her body rocking from side to side. ‘He’s rubbish.’
‘He is?’
‘Oh yes,’ said with a relish that contradicted the statement. ‘For a start he’s not very good at hugs, I have to wait until he falls asleep. And he gets bored of games and my books really quickly. And he doesn’t like drawing and he doesn’t play. And sometimes I think he has no idea what housework is.’ She tutted and folded her arms.
‘He doesn’t do housework?’ Sarah pretended shock.
‘Not at all. If I don’t take his clothes to the laundry I think they would never get washed. But I don’t iron them. If you fold them properly you don’t need to. I got Kevin to show me. But I didn’t tell him why.’
‘You take them to the laundry? How, when?’
‘The woman that lives upstairs takes me Saturday nights while he works.’ She looked at Sarah, warily. ‘You’re snooping.’
‘Am I? I’m sorry, I was just interested. Your dad sounds like a real catch.’
The girl beamed white teeth back at her. ‘I know what that means. I think he would have to be a project. I know he wants to do hugs and stuff but it’s like they are trapped inside. He’s very strong and a brilliant swimmer. He takes me at the weekend. We have to go early though.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, something happened to him when he was a soldier. Kevin says he was fighting terrorists in the desert and a bomb burned him. You should see it.’
‘The burn?’ Sarah filed the question of who Kevin might be for later, guessing at an older brother.
‘Yes, it was really scary when I first saw because it was so big. It’s like all over his back, it starts on his arm and stops on his other leg. Dad says he hardly knows it’s there. He says we go swimming early because people don’t like to see ugly things. I don’t think it’s ugly. I think it looks like angel wings. I like angels, do you like angels?’
She paused for breath and reached down to an empty biscuit packet, then looked back at Sarah expectantly.
‘Angels aren’t my thing. When I was your age my favourite was The Famous Five and stealing my brother’s books because they were about fighting.’ Sarah hesitated before continuing. ‘I never told anyone this, Andrea, but I wanted to be a warrior when I was little. With a big sword so I could take care of people who were mean to me. But of course I never had a sword. So I pretended with my dolls and my brother’s Action Men. I also wanted to escape and go on adventures like Alice in Wonderland.’
The girl blinked at Sarah’s confession. ‘But no angels?’ She shuffled closer. ‘I love them. Mummy reads about them in the Bible but they’re quite nasty in there. I make up stories, have you read Skellig?’
Sarah shook her head.
‘That’s brilliant, it’s my favourite.’ She suddenly noticed Sarah had a cut on her cheek. ‘How did you get that?’
‘I…I…get what?’
‘You have a cut on your cheek.’ The girl edged a little closer.
Sarah carefully touched her fingertips around the cut. ‘So that’s why my cheek is sore.’
‘It wasn’t there earlier, I would have noticed.’ The girl sighed and tutted again. ‘You should be more careful.’ She crawled back to her corner and started searching through her bag, muttering to herself.
‘Here we are.’ She crawled back over the mattress, a packet of tissues clasped in her hand. ‘It’s a good job I got dad’s prescription or I wouldn’t have got these.’ She knelt on the floor between Sarah’s legs and held out the tissues.
Sarah took them. ‘You’re very considerate, thank you. I’m sorry I said your dad was grumpy earlier.’
The girl shrugged. ‘He is sometimes but then mum is all the time. What can you do?’
Sarah smiled. ‘Probably nothing. I can’t imagine you ever making anyone grumpy. Now tell me, is the cut still bleeding?’
The girl’s eager breath washed warm across her face, sweet from the biscuits. ‘Nope.’
‘Then we should leave it.’ She peered at the girl as if suddenly realising something horrible, feigning shock. ‘My goodness, it’s yours we should be worried about.’
The girl’s small fingers tentatively searched across her face. ‘I don’t have a cut, do I?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘No, but you have a serious amount of grime and goodness knows what on there. Your cheeks look like old roads with white lines down the middle. Why don’t you go and get some water.’ The girl quickly scuttled over to the water and back. Sarah poured a small amount onto a wad of tissues and began dabbing at the girl’s face, although to little effect.
‘You have to go harder,’ instructed the girl.
‘I do?’
‘Yes, much harder.’
So Sarah did, with the girl’s eyes scrunched tightly closed and her lips pursed together. She dabbed in short hard motions that revealed a trail of pink skin and red cheeks. ‘My goodness it’s not a troll, it is a girl!’
The closed mouth spread into a smile. The girl waited for Sarah to fold the tissues. ‘You’re very pretty, are you married?’
‘Why thank you,’ said Sarah. ‘You’re very pretty yourself.’ She re-applied the tissue, moving from cheeks to chin and then around to her forehead.
The girl waited as long as she could bear to. ‘So?’
‘Am I married? That’s an affirmative.’
‘Do you have any children?’
Sarah shook her head.
‘Why not?’
‘I think, Andrea, that I am going to invoke the snoopy law.’
The girl shook her head. ‘It only works for me. Who was the girl, did she die?’
Sarah leaned back, shocked, looking at inquisitive brown eyes, a thin mouth serious. ‘What girl?’
‘You said I reminded you of a girl, when you saw me.’
‘Oh in the street. No…she didn’t die, why?’
‘You just looked so sad, I thought maybe you missed her.’
Sarah folded the tissue again and wiped away the last overtly dirty smudge. ‘I do, I just haven’t seen her for a long time. And now I recall, I’m pretty sure she didn’t talk quite so much and ask so many questions.’
‘Well I need to know about you, don’t I!’
‘You do?’ She scrunched the tissue into a small ball and tossed it into the corner, then leaned back against the wall.
‘Of course, to see whether you’re one of them.’
‘Oh, do I seem like them?’
She shook her head absently. ‘The little man kept telling me dad owed him a lot of money. He said if dad didn’t pay I’d have to work for him. Which is stupid of course, I’m not even old enough to have a paper round.’
‘Every word they speak is a lie, Andrea.’
‘And what about you?’ The girl’s expression was hopeful.
‘That’s for you to decide. I like it we are talking and I would like to know all about you. But only if you think it’s not snooping.’
The girl’s chin lowered. ‘I don’t want to talk about them now or this place. Why don’t you ask me something nice.’
‘Nice? How about how old you are?’
‘Guess!’ The girl shuffled closer, her knees pushing against Sarah’s leg, looking very pleased with herself.
‘Six?’
‘Doh! Do I look six?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘Eight?’
‘Saaarah!’
‘Twelve?’
‘Really?’ She preened. ‘Do I look twelve?’
‘You mean you’re not twelve?’
‘No, but I’m almost eleven.’
‘Wow, when’s your birthday?’
‘July the seventeenth.’
‘Wow!’ Sarah said again. ‘I suppose that must make you almost eleven.’
‘Almost.’ The girl paused to weigh a question. ‘Can I lean against you? I feel very tired.’
Sarah lifted her arm as the girl clambered over her legs and wriggled in beside her. For a moment she worried where to put her arm but the girl melted into her.
‘Sarah?’ The voice small from her chest.
‘Yes?’
‘If they are lying about my dad, why am I here?’
She ran her fingers through the girl’s hair and lied. ‘I really don’t know.’
There was a short silence. ‘My dad will be here soon, then they’ll be sorry.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
She felt the girl’s head move up and down against her breast. She waited for more questions but there were none. Sarah soaked in all the sensations of this child against her body. This unexpected weight that felt like the most natural thing she had ever known. She could feel the girl’s heart fluttering to an even beat, her breathing, now sleeping. Sarah blinked away a hopeless tear, her eyes fierce. Staring at the wall and where she knew the door to be, then the shelf of books. Forcing herself to think. Think, Sarah, think!
FORTY-SIX
A screen with a hole through the middle, most of the keyboard missing and a crack right through the case meant the laptop was truly broken. But the files on the laptop were stored on a small disk inside, which might have survived the trauma. Adam used a small screwdriver to remove the screws on the laptop’s base then carefully pulled out the disk. He plugged it into one of the jumbled cables he kept in his bag and then connected it to his own laptop. After few seconds the disk whirred to life and seconds later its contents appeared on the screen. The first hurdle overcome. He set a search running for files with images and looked up at Brian, who watched enthralled.
And then the doorbell rang.
Brian quickly stepped through to the kitchen, checking the bolts were drawn, and then back into the dining room. He closed the door behind him and swept the patio curtain closed, standing poised to one side as they both waited. The doorbell rang again, then moments of silence before someone tried the back door. Then another pause. Adam jumped as a hand rapped hard on the patio door. The hand knocked again, a faint shadow moved across the curtain and then away. They waited. The doorbell rang again and then silence once more.
Brian leaned on the table. ‘How long is this going to take?’