Women of a Dangerous Age (25 page)

As the door shut behind the satisfied customer, Lou started to return the rejected dresses to the rail. ‘Just let me do this, Rory, and I'll be with you. I'm sorry. Sometimes they're like that. Take ages.'

There was no reply. Rory must have plugged himself back into his iPod Touch. When she'd hung up and straightened the stock, Lou went behind the counter to find him. But he wasn't there.

‘Rory?'

No reply. Bloody child, bloody iPod Touch.

‘Rory!' This time much louder.

Still no reply. And in fact, now she looked, she couldn't see him anywhere.

There must be a simple explanation. She knocked on the toilet door before opening it. Empty. She opened the door to the outside back and put her head into the tiny yard, recently decked out with pots and a large mirror on the side wall that made the space seem much bigger. But not big enough to hide an eleven-year-old.

‘Rory!' She'd forgotten she could be so stern. ‘Where are you? I want to order you pizza. This isn't funny.'

As she pulled the grey curtains back from the empty changing cubicles, she tried to quell the rising tide of
concern. No one. Squatting down, she looked underneath the rails of clothes, hoping to see a pair of boy's legs as he hid behind something. Nothing. She walked briskly (running would be to acknowledge her growing panic) to the door despite knowing that, if Rory had left the shop, he'd be far away by now. There was no sign of him in the street. She ran to the main road and stared up and down it, willing Rory to materialise. Nothing. She ran back to Stefano's. Inside, the smells of coffee, cheese and salamis greeted her.

‘Have you seen a young boy?' she panted. ‘Fair hair, jeans, checked shirt, jacket.' Had he taken his rucksack? She hadn't noticed.

‘The one who came in earlier with Ali?' Stefano stopped pouring a tin of garlicky black olives into a pottery bowl.

She nodded, hope gathering in her chest.

‘No, not since. Is a problem?'

‘I can't find him.' She stopped herself. She must have made a mistake. ‘Don't worry. He must still be in the shop.' She rushed back to find two women puzzled by the shop being unstaffed, but no Rory. And no rucksack. The only sign of him having been there at all was a couple of playing cards that sat ignored on the floor by the door. How had he managed to slip out without her noticing?

‘I'm so sorry, but I'm going to have to close the shop now.' Her heart was racing as she explained briefly to her customers what had happened. ‘I'm sure it'll be business as usual tomorrow.'

Once they'd left, she went out again to check the other shops in the street. But no one had seen a boy on his own.
Back at the Ritz, she shut the door and leaned against it, organising her thoughts. Who should she call first? Hooker? She felt sick anticipating his reaction. But perhaps Rory had a mobile she could try. Hooker would have the number. She wiped her damp palms on her skirt before she dialled.

Put through to his office, she asked to speak to him.

‘I'm sorry but Mr Sherwood's in a meeting,' came his PA's automaton-like tones.

‘This is an emergency, Sally. Can't you ask him to come out for a moment? Please.' Lou tried to control the edge in her voice. Becoming hysterical would not help.

‘He asked not to be disturbed under any circumstances.' A note of steely authority had entered the woman's voice.

‘I need to speak to him, urgently. This is a personal matter that he needs to know about now.' Keep calm.

‘I'm sorry but I've got my instructions.'

‘Fine. But when he hears you refused to let me speak to him, you might regret following them. I hope so.' She cut their connection with an angry satisfaction at having had the last word until she thought of how incandescent Hooker would be when he realised she hadn't been more insistent about speaking to him. To hell with him.

Who next? Nic? Jamie? Tom?

Interrupted at work, Nic was abrupt but agreed to go round Hooker's house in her lunch break to see if Rory had made his way back there. Jamie was unobtainable, wrapped up on the film set.

Lou sank into the chair by the changing cubicles, catching sight of herself in the mirror. An escapee from Bedlam might have looked more competent. She'd raised three
children of her own without mishap but, given the brief responsibility of looking after someone else's, she'd failed miserably. She thought of Rory's mother, somewhere in Europe. She should be told her son was missing. She put herself in the other woman's place, imagining the panic, the powerlessness she would feel. They had to find Rory before they found her. Perhaps one of her own children might have an idea where he had gone. After all, they already knew him far better than Lou did. About to call Tom, she saw Ali's name come up on the screen.

‘Lou? I'm at the studio. Rick's good to go. Made up that his work might have an outlet at last.'

‘Great, but can we talk about this later? I'm sorry, but I've lost Rory.'

‘What? How?'

‘He must have done a runner while I was busy with a customer. I was so involved, I didn't notice. I've looked everywhere.' She brushed the tears from her cheek.

‘He can't have gone far. He's only eleven, for God's sake.'

Ali's voice of reason made Lou feel momentarily better until the panic crowded in again. ‘But he's got this encyclopaedic knowledge of the Tube. If he's found a station, he could be anywhere. Anything could happen to him. But he couldn't have, could he?' She tried to reassure herself.

‘Ah … well.' Ali sounded embarrassed.

That wasn't the answer Lou had wanted. ‘What?' she asked urgently. ‘What do you know?'

‘When I took him to get the coffees, he insisted we walk up to the High Street and round the block. I didn't see that it could do any harm, just give you a bit longer with Mum's
clothes. But of course we walked past the bus stop. He wanted to know where all the buses went to and if there was one that went to King's Cross.'

‘King's Cross!' Lou's heart was thumping. ‘Why King's Cross?'

‘God knows. I didn't ask him. Perhaps I should have, but I didn't think anything about it at the time.'

The horrifying possibility of them never setting eyes on Rory again presented itself. Nightmares of runaway children being picked up at railway stations by paedophiles and child traffickers danced through her mind. This was entirely her fault. She went over to her work table where she slipped on her thimble and tapped it on the table, as if the rhythm would calm her.

‘I'm coming over,' said Ali immediately. ‘There must be something we can do.'

How close their friendship had already become over the past months. Ali hadn't thought twice about offering to help. Lou hadn't needed to ask. They hung up, Lou impatient for her to arrive.

Finally, Lou called Tom, who was stranded in a greasy spoon somewhere in Buckinghamshire, staking out an MP's house for a story, but at least he came up with a theory. ‘The kid's gutted he's missing his football camp this week. Didn't he tell you? He goes every school vac and all his mates'll be there. Why would he want to be down here with Dad and a load of oldsters he won't see again for months? I wouldn't blame him if he did try to get home. And King's Cross is the station for Edinburgh.'

‘But he's only eleven,' protested Lou weakly. Why hadn't
she engaged with him better and found this out for herself? ‘And his mother's not even there.'

‘Yeah, but he's old for his age, and quite sensible. He's probably got something worked out. I'd come back to help look, but I'm stuck here. Keep calm.'

A phrase guaranteed to make her do exactly the opposite. She took her mobile from the table and dialled 999. The calm, reassuring tones of the emergency switchboard made her feel better. Yes, she would stay where she was until the police arrived. As she hung up, she noticed Stefano outside, signalling that she should open up. Relieved to have a couple of seconds in which she could delay calling Hooker again, in which Rory might magically reappear, she opened the door. The Italian pressed a large coffee into her hands.

‘Maybe you need this? And this?' He gave her a small chocolate panforte. ‘Sugar is good in crisis.'

What a man. She thanked him, taking his gifts, then retreated into the shop. She felt too sick to eat but tried passing the time by looking at one of the new magazines she'd brought in with her that morning. But the words slid past her eyes making no sense. Her fears over what might be happening to Rory made it impossible to concentrate.

The next fifteen minutes seemed like an eternity until a police car pulled up outside, its blue light flashing. A couple of passers-by stopped and stared.

Noticeably less than half her age, the two policemen were thorough and efficient. They noted her description and the little she could tell them about Rory's disappearance, asking where she thought he might have gone. She
groaned. Despite telling them what she knew, she felt helpless, responsible, terrified. She described Rory's encyclopaedic knowledge of the Tube. He'd be happy riding around on it all day, making connections, changing lines. She relayed Tom's theory about Rory heading for Edinburgh. Eventually they left, assuring her that everything possible would be done, that they would contact Hooker, alert the Underground staff, and giving her a contact number should she think of anything useful or if Rory turned up. She should stay put, in case he did.

There was little else she could do bar pray that they found the boy long before Hooker came out of his meeting. But that was too much to hope for.

The moment Lou dreaded had arrived.

A black cab had pulled up by the kerb, its engine still running. The driver took out one of the tabloids and propped it against the wheel while Hooker leaped out and whirled into the shop like a tornado. The police had obviously reached him and he had come immediately. He dived straight in, just as she had known he would. No sharing and caring here, quite some transformation from the Hooker of a few hours earlier. No ‘Hallo'. No ‘Are you all right?' Just ‘Where the hell is he? He's not answering his mobile. How could you have let this happen?'

‘Don't speak to me like that, Hooker.' She clasped her hands firmly together. Never had she felt more like lighting up a cigarette even though she'd given up years ago when the children were small. ‘He slipped out while I was busy with a customer.'

‘How could you not have seen him? This place isn't big enough to get lost in. Have you even been out there looking?' With both hands planted firmly on the counter, he leaned
towards her. He tapped his signet ring against the counter as he stared at her, accusing.

Thanking God she was on the other side, out of reach, she took a breath and began to count. One, two, three … all the way to ten if necessary. She knew from past experience that the only way to diffuse one of Hooker's rages was to remain super calm however rattled she was feeling. With his hair pushed back on end, his receding hairline was more pronounced than she'd realised. So he wasn't immune to the ageing process, after all. She watched two beads of sweat disengage from his temple and run down the right side of his face. When they were exactly level with the top of his ear, she spoke. ‘Of course I have, but the police advised me to stay here in case he comes back. They've gone to King's Cross and Nic's gone to the house.'

‘What about Tom and Jamie? What are they doing?' He looked around him as if expecting them to spring fully formed from the walls.

‘They're working but coming over as soon as they can. They're super confident Rory will turn up. Tom reckons he knows his way around.'

‘He's got a good head on his shoulders, that's true.' A note of pride inched back into his voice, then vanished as his anger reasserted itself. His signet ring kept up its relentless, and now irritating, beat.

‘I've got the CEO of Luther Matthews & King and his lawyer waiting for me to continue our meeting back at the office. Fortunately they were extremely understanding about my coming here. But I've got to get back.' He gestured at the taxi. Seeing his short but neatly manicured
fingers, Lou thought briefly of Sanjeev's elegant tapered hands.

But this was a first. Putting family before work wasn't something that had ever come naturally to Hooker. His fathering abilities were at the opposite end of the scale to his attendance rate. She remembered the time fourteen-year-old Nic bunked off school only to be found as night was falling with her friend Caitlin on the roundabout at the local playground, surrounded by an incriminating packet of cigarettes and some empty alcopop bottles. By then, Lou had worked herself into a frenzy, certain her daughter had been abducted or worse. Hooker rolled home later that night oblivious to the panic and fear that Lou had suffered as she exhausted all the possibilities of where their daughter might be. What came back to her most clearly about that day, whenever she thought about it, was the awful feeling of being alone in a crisis. She would have given anything to have had him at home, sharing the load. This time, however, she felt quite different. In control. Just.

‘You could have phoned me.' She picked up her mobile. ‘Have you been in touch with Shona?'

‘No.' Anxiety flickered across his face. ‘I don't want to worry her until we know we have to. There's nothing she can do from Prague. Isn't there something
we
should be doing?' He began to pace up and down, his hands in his trouser pockets, staring at the floor.

‘The police are doing everything they can.' Though looking for an eleven-year-old somewhere around King's Cross on the Tube system had to be as hard as finding a needle in a haystack. She couldn't bear to think about it.

‘Don't be ridiculous, Lou. The police don't even know what he looks like. I had to send Sally to the house to pick up a photo for them. They'll only just have got it.'

She had the fleeting thought that if he'd had the presence of mind to send his PA to pick up his passport copies instead of relying on Lou, they wouldn't be in this God-awful mess in the first place. However, instead, she said, ‘I'm sure they'll find him.' She wished she was even half as confident as she sounded.

‘You can't say that. You haven't a clue.' Hooker's voice rose up the decibel register. ‘My God! How on earth didn't you notice him leave?'

She just managed to control herself. ‘I was working, Hooker.' Said through gritted teeth. ‘Keeping my business—'

She was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. A customer? She turned away to compose herself. She had never shouted at Hooker before. Although she was shaking with rage, she was also feeling incredibly proud of herself. She was no longer the Lou who allowed herself to be treated like a doormat because it made life easier. She would no longer take any of his nonsense. She took a deep breath, readying herself, calm again. Or, at least, calm enough to ask the customer to come back tomorrow.

But Hooker's explosive ‘What the fuck?' made her spin round.

She had no idea who was the most surprised. Hooker's face had turned such a rich shade of puce, he looked as if he had forgotten to breathe. She could feel her own mouth open in surprise, her eyes widen. Standing in the doorway
was none other than Ali, pale as a winter's sky, her eyes going from one of them to the other, her hand on the shoulder of a very sheepish looking Rory.

‘What the hell are
you
doing here?' Hooker's look of bafflement and alarm was priceless. If Lou and Ali had planned the confrontation, they couldn't have done it better.

The two women ignored him as they took account of the situation. Lou was the first to move. She rushed across to Rory, bending down to wrap him in a hug, ignoring his wriggle of resistance.

Ali was the first to break the silence, talking directly to Lou as if Hooker wasn't there. ‘I thought I'd come via the station, just on the off chance. The place was packed but then I remembered what we'd been talking about in the street. Harry Potter. All I had to do was go and find that wall where they've stuck the disappearing trolley. He wasn't trying to get on a train, he was looking for platform nine and three-quarters! He was planning to come back to the shop when he'd found it. Says he left a note.' She looked down at the top of Rory's head, still refusing to acknowledge Hooker's presence.

There was a small convulsive snort from the corner, where Hooker had collapsed into the chair.

Lou was fighting a sudden overpowering urge to laugh as she returned to the back of the shop, bending to see under the table, then straightening. She lifted a bolt of fabric she remembered putting on the table when the last customer was looking at samples, and a scrap of paper fluttered to the ground. She bent to pick it up, looking at the scrawled words on the note. ‘I'm bored. Gone to
explore. Back soon. Rory.' She smiled. This was just the sort of thing Tom and Jamie might have got up to when her back was turned. The only difference was that their back door opened onto the garden, not the mean streets of London.

‘You went to find the platform for the train to Hogwarts?' she asked. ‘Harry Potter's school,' she added, as an explanation for Hooker who was looking like a goldfish out of water, gasping for air. ‘Oh, Hooker, I think you know my friend, Ali.' She couldn't resist. Ali looked up and the two women exchanged a glance loaded with meaning.

Unaware of the real drama unfolding above his head, Rory swung his backpack onto the floor. ‘I'm sorry.' He looked back at Ali who gave him an encouraging nod. ‘You were busy and I did try to say something but you didn't hear. So I left you a note.' He hung his head as if waiting for the dressing down. But Lou didn't want to give him one. He wasn't her child. The panic was over.

As for Hooker? For the first time that Lou could remember, he seemed to have lost the power of speech.

‘Perhaps I do get a bit carried away when the customers come in,' she agreed with Rory. ‘But I didn't see the note. And if I had, perhaps you should have said where you were going exploring.' He looked so contrite that she felt sorry for him. ‘I'm just saying that for next time – if there is one. And if there is – don't do it with me. Anyway, it's over now.'

‘Over?' said Hooker, straightening in the chair. ‘It's hardly over. What's
she
doing here? How does she know Rory?' Every word said as if it was a bad taste in his mouth.

At last both women looked at him together: Ali icy cold; Lou with feigned nonchalance.

‘Ali?' Lou asked as if she'd almost forgotten Ali was there. ‘Oh, we met in India. We've been friends since then. In fact, she designed the jewellery in this case, so we're colleagues too. Quite a coincidence, isn't it?' As she spoke, she realised she was beginning to enjoy herself.

‘Dad, I'm sorry.' Rory went over to his father, obviously worried that he was the cause of his anger. ‘Ali took me to get a piece of cake earlier on.'

Hooker's right eye narrowed as he reached out a hand to his son. ‘It's OK. But why didn't you answer your mobile?'

Rory shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I left it at home.'

‘For God's sake, Rory. What did I tell you about making sure you have it whenever you're in London?' Hooker was shouting, then he remembered himself. ‘All right. No harm done this time, but don't ever take off again.' He almost sounded normal. ‘Why don't you go and sort yourself out at the table again. I've a few things I need to talk about with Lou and Ali.' At last, having recovered enough to stand, he crossed the shop to face them.

‘Cake?!' he hissed. ‘Cake? How dare you let him go anywhere with a stranger, Lou.'

‘Ali's hardly a stranger,' she objected. ‘We both know her very well. Wouldn't you say?'

‘What the hell do you mean by that?'

Both women smiled, giving away how much they both knew.

‘I don't really think this is the moment, do you? Not while Rory's here.' Lou picked up her phone. ‘Besides, one of us had better tell the police that he's been found.'

‘You've known Ali all this time and you never said anything?' Hooker was incredulous as the reality of his situation dawned.

‘I didn't know you two knew each other until Ali and I met for tea at the Regis and we both saw you leaving with the gorgeous Emma.' Lou's voice was tight beneath its superficial brightness. ‘But you and I have had so much else to talk about instead. What with one thing and another, it never seemed quite the right moment…. A bit like you not telling me about Shona, I guess.'

The colour was returning to Ali's cheeks as she spoke at last. ‘I expect I might have said something if you'd given me a chance. But of course, as soon as I was back from India, you were off with Emma.'

‘But Lou,' he objected, looking as if she were being quite unreasonable. ‘I'd have explained …'

‘Really?' She adopted a breezy incredulity. ‘And what exactly would you have said? I don't think even you could have talked your way out of this one.'

Hooker looked like a trapped rat. He glanced at his watch. ‘Christ! My meeting. I have to get back to the office.' His recovery was as abrupt as his collapse. He readjusted his tie, before pulling at both lapels of his jacket. Turning to Ali, he said, ‘We need to talk too.'

‘That's hardly appropriate, under the circumstances,' Ali replied, lowering her voice so Rory wouldn't hear.

‘But you owe me some sort of explanation,' Hooker
blustered, then realising he was getting nowhere, looked at Lou. ‘I'll be back for Rory later.'

‘Neither of us owes you anything, Hooker. Not any more,' said Lou. ‘Please don't be late.'

They watched him slam the door of the cab, lean forward and issue an instruction to the driver, before sitting back against the seat and taking out his BlackBerry. He didn't look in the direction of the shop once. If he had, he'd have seen the two women clap their hands together in delight and then burst out laughing.

Ali went shortly afterwards, leaving Lou to get on with telling everyone that Rory had been found. She had to endure a short lecture from the police about being more vigilant when in charge of a minor, but enjoyed Jamie and Tom's whoops and cheers. She caught Nic on her way back to her office. Lou could hear from the clipped tones that Nic was sure the whole incident had been engineered to cause her the greatest possible inconvenience. Lou's apology and thanks eased things a little. But that was Nic. She'd get over it, and Lou could hear how relieved she was that Rory had been found unharmed.

By seven o'clock, Rory and Lou were packing up, ready for home. Lou had got through the afternoon on a cloud of suppressed hysteria at the thought of Hooker's face when Ali and Rory had arrived together. Pure gold. The roar of the car engine outside announced his third arrival of the day, exactly on time and in his own car. He looked a different man: cool and composed. He had obviously made the decision not to say any more about Lou and Ali's friendship, not in front of his son and perhaps not at all. His ‘Thank
you for looking after him' was the most clipped and polite that Lou had heard him. He shepherded Rory out almost without a backward glance, but as he closed the door, he said, ‘I'll be calling you later.'

Lou wasn't sure whether to take his words as a promise or a threat. To her surprised delight, she found that neither bothered her. There was only one person to whom she really wanted to talk: the one person, apart from Ali, who she felt would listen and understand what it meant to have taken control when she had felt so frightened and responsible for whatever happened. Sanjeev. They had spoken several times on the phone since the Whitstable trip. Now she called up his number again, her finger hovering over the Call symbol. Then she pressed.