Secret Sins: A Callie Anson (35 page)

Alex went into the loo at McDonald’s and wiped her face with a paper towel. She was afraid that she’d made a public spectacle of herself just now, crying in public like that.

But she couldn’t have helped it if she’d wanted to. All of those letters from her mum. She’d read each one, crying like a baby.

Her mother had been writing to her every week, for months and months. Every letter was there: letters telling her how much
she missed her, how much she loved her. How she longed for them to be together again, never to be separated.

‘Why don’t you write to me?’ her mother asked over and over again. ‘I think about my darling little girl every minute of every day, and I long to hear from you.’

Mum was afraid that Alex had stopped loving her—as if that could ever happen.

But the letters hadn’t reached her. All along they’d been piling up in Jilly’s drawer.

Jilly! Hateful, horrible Jilly. Alex had known that Jilly was bad news, but even she hadn’t ever thought her capable of such a wicked act. Intercepting Alex’s letters, hiding them from her, letting her think that her mum had forgotten about her. Or worse.

She never wanted to see Jilly again, as long as she lived.

And what was more, she now knew where her mother was. The address was on each of the letters: Lochside, Kelso, Roxburghshire, TD5 8JT.

That was where she was going. She would find Mum, and nothing would ever separate them again.

Alex went into one of the cubicles; while she was there she took the money out of her pocket and counted it. If she was going to get to Scotland—and she
was
going to Scotland—she would have to be very careful with her money.

She had three ten-pound notes, a five-pound note, and six pounds thirty-one pence in change. Just over forty pounds.

Would it be enough?

Probably not.

How could she get some more cash?

There was at least a hundred pounds in her sock drawer. If she could somehow get to that…

But that was out of the question. She couldn’t go back there. Not now. Jilly might have missed her; Dad might even be home from work. The chances of sneaking in undetected weren’t good. And besides, she never wanted to see that flat again. Not ever.

Her greatest regret was that she’d left Buster behind.

Unconsciously her hand went to her neck, as it so often did, to fondle her locket.

It wasn’t there.

Oh, no.

Her heart thudded unpleasantly, then she remembered. The chain was broken, and she’d tucked it under her pillow.

Did
she dare to go back? One minute, or two at most, was all it would take. Money, Buster, locket. Could she take the risk?

Jane Stanford had a job to do: in her universe, a very important job.

Sunday afternoon the church would be holding the Christingle service, that annual pre-Christmas service for children at which each child would be given a decorated orange—a Christingle. Tomorrow morning the Mothers’ Union would be gathering to make the Christingles. That would involve a sort of assembly-line procedure in which each orange, representing the world, would be wrapped round the centre with a length of red ribbon, then acquire a candle on top, and finally be stabbed with four cocktail sticks on which were threaded various small sweets and dried fruit.

Through years of experience, Jane had found that the whole procedure went much more smoothly when advance
preparations
were made. The spool of ribbon needed to be cut into segments of the appropriate length, and the cocktail sticks could have the raisins and sweets stuck on them. Most tedious of all was the cutting up of kitchen foil into squares to act as
wax-catchers
for the candles.

Years ago, when the boys were young, it had been a family affair. She and Brian had cut up the ribbon and foil while Simon and Charlie enthusiastically—even gleefully—impaled sweets and raisins, managing to eat quite a few of them in the process. Jane cherished those memories, and had secretly hoped that this year she might revive that tradition—might even use it to draw Ellie into the family, since it seemed inevitable that the girl was destined to be a part of their lives.

But Simon and Ellie were gone—departed that morning for Northamptonshire. Brian had sloped off to his study to work on his Christingle sermon, which to Jane seemed unnecessary since he said the same thing every year, and even Charlie had deserted her. ‘There’s a good film on the telly tonight, Mum,’ he’d said. ‘Why don’t we do the Christingle stuff in front of the telly?’

That, though, was not part of the tradition. So Jane sat alone in the unheated dining room, shivering as she snipped lengths of ribbon, pricking her fingers on sharp cocktail sticks. Abandoned, desolate.

Simon had gone, and all the life of the house seemed to have departed with him. Oddly enough, it was much worse than after the boys had gone off to university. Then Jane knew they’d be back home for Christmas; there was something to look forward to. Yes, Simon and Ellie were returning in time for the New Year, but it just wasn’t the same. There was such an air of finality about this departure. It signalled the end of an era, somehow. The end of their family unit.

By the time Jane had finished and cleaned up the
detritus
, Charlie’s film was over and he was nowhere in evidence. Automatically she tidied the sitting room, fluffing the squashed cushions, picking up a discarded newspaper and retrieving the old knitted throw from the floor where Charlie had left it. He’d also left a dirty coffee mug, and Jane knew that there would be another in Brian’s study. She sighed. What was it about men that gave them some sort of touching faith that mugs, if left for long enough, would find their own way to the kitchen?

Brian was no longer in his study, and when Jane eventually made her way to the bedroom, she found him propped up in bed reading a battered paperback thriller, bought for ten pence at the last church jumble sale. He closed it and put it on the bedside table when she came in.

‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ she said shortly.

Brian patted her side of the bed. ‘Janey, I think we need to talk.’

Jane didn’t want to talk; she didn’t expect Brian to understand how she felt about Simon’s departure, and trying to explain would be useless. Reluctantly she sat down.

‘About this…well, what you said about having a baby.’

She drew in a quick breath. This was the first time Brian had mentioned it since that first night, early in the week, when she’d told him that was what she wanted more than anything. To say he’d been astonished would be an understatement; he’d
practically
laughed in her face. Once he’d got over the initial shock and realised she was serious, he’d trotted out all the arguments and clichés she’d expected: too old, too set in their ways,
potentially
dangerous to her health. None of her carefully prepared counter-arguments had swayed him in the least, and since then she’d assumed that the subject was dead. ‘Yes?’ Jane said.

‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it,’ Brian admitted. ‘Quite a lot over the last few days. I don’t think I was very…tactful. But I was just so surprised, Janey.’

‘I’m not too old,’ she stated, not looking at him, picking at a loose thread on the duvet cover. ‘Lots of women my age have babies these days.’

‘I never dreamed you felt that way,’ he confessed. ‘I thought the boys were…enough for you.’

Jane shook her head. ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with the boys.’ This was only half true, and she knew it, but she
continued
. ‘I’ve wanted it for years. Wished desperately that it was possible. But financially it was out of the question. Just not an option.’ She was the one who’d always paid the bills, and knew better than Brian how true that was.

‘Well, Janey, I’ve been thinking, and if it’s what you really want—’

She turned to him, her eyes welling with unexpected tears. ‘More than anything.’

‘Then hadn’t you better come here?’

Brian opened his arms, and she went into them.

Granny!

The word came into Alex’s head, along with a picture of a beloved face, and her face split in a smile.

There was no need to go back to the flat to retrieve more money.

Granny had lots of money, and she would give her some. Granny would help her get to Scotland. Maybe Granny would even go with her. Take her to her mother.

And Granny would understand why she couldn’t go back to the flat. Granny didn’t like Jilly any more than Alex herself did; she’d never said so, exactly, but she didn’t have to. Alex had seen the disapproval on Granny’s face whenever she and Jilly were in the same room.

Which wasn’t very often. Maybe, thought Alex suddenly, with a flash of grown-up insight, that was why they rarely saw Granny. Even stupid silly-billy Jilly wasn’t thick enough not to notice her mother-in-law’s contempt for her.

It was another thing to hate Jilly for: the fact that she hardly ever got to see Granny any more, even though Granny was living in London too. Yet another thing to add to the long list of reasons to hate Jilly.

Yes, Granny would help her to get away from Jilly. The trouble was, Alex wasn’t exactly sure where Granny lived. She’d only been there a few times, and never on her own. Bayswater: that was all she knew. Not even the address. Just Bayswater.

Well, she’d find Bayswater. Wasn’t there a tube stop there? She could take the tube to Bayswater, and once she was there, she’d probably recognise Granny’s block of flats. Bayswater couldn’t be that big, could it? If she had to, she could stop someone and ask them where Granny lived. Mrs. Morag Hamilton: surely anyone in Bayswater could point her in the right direction, just as anyone in Gartenbridge could have done in the old days.

Alex shoved the forty-odd pounds back in her jeans pocket and sauntered out of the loo, out of McDonald’s, onto the street to look for the nearest tube station.

Mark had dealt with tough customers before. After all, as
statistics
on inter-family violence bore out, there was always a strong likelihood in dealing with the families of murder victims that he was also dealing with the murderer.

Never, though, had he come up against anyone quite like Angus Hamilton.

Hamilton wasn’t just rude. He was demanding, peremptory. Downright insulting, when it came down to it. He treated Mark as an ignorant underling, someone who was there expressly to do his bidding and nothing else.

Mark didn’t envy the people who worked for Angus Hamilton.

‘How many officers are out looking for Alex?’ Hamilton demanded.

‘I’m not sure, Mr. Hamilton,’ Mark prevaricated.

‘Well, find out. Ring the station. Is that not what telephones are for?’

Mark walked a few steps away from the Hamiltons—Mrs. Hamilton now buffing her nails with a tool which looked to be made for that purpose; her husband resuming his pacing the length of the sitting room—and turned his back on them to make the call. As he expected, no one could tell him much. Yes, they were aware of the missing girl. Uniformed officers
throughout
London had been alerted to keep their eyes open for her. But no one had seen her or anyone matching her description.