Creeping Ivy (24 page)

‘I’ll see, miss. Would you like to take a seat at all?’ He waved to a plastic-upholstered bench, on which a fat woman hung about with rags and bags was sitting, muttering to herself.

Trish caught a whiff of the strong ammoniac smell of ancient dirt and urine, which rose from the old woman’s clothes and, in a surge of pity, almost forgot Charlotte. There was too much to be done, she told herself. You had to ration your compassion; you could not help everyone who needed help. You’d beggar yourself and wear yourself out and you still couldn’t do it all. The only way to live with any kind of ease was to help the people you knew, your friends, your relations and your clients, and leave it at that. Otherwise you would have nothing to give yourself – or anyone else.

‘Ms Maguire?’

She looked away from the dirty, mumbling, frightened woman on the bench and saw both Sergeant Lacie and DCI Blake. Their faces shared the same hard expression that did not completely hide their excitement.

‘Would you come in here, please?’ said Blake seriously, holding open the door of one of the interview rooms.

As soon as Lacie had shut the door and Blake had started fiddling with the built-in tape recorder, Trish said, ‘Look, I haven’t come to confess to anything, if that’s what you think. You won’t need a tape recorder.’

They both stopped what they were doing and looked at her and then at each other.

‘I came to say, Sergeant Lacie, that you never asked where I was last Saturday afternoon and it didn’t occur to me until after you’d gone. But I was with two friends,’ said Trish calmly. ‘We all lunched in full view of about fifty people in the Oxo Tower brasserie and then went to an exhibition at the Hayward, before watching the five-thirty showing of a film at the National Film Theatre. You’ll want to get hold of my companions,’ she added before dictating their names, addresses and telephone numbers.

‘Why on earth didn’t you say all this earlier?’ asked Kath Lacie, apparently too angry to think.

‘Because the constable you brought with you this morning was so gratuitously offensive that I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have, but I did. And then this afternoon, I was so shocked – and disturbed – by the accusations you made that I couldn’t remember anything as simple as the need to offer an alibi. And you never asked for one.’

‘That’s not a very likely story, is it, Ms Maguire?’ said Blake. ‘From some people I’d accept it, but you’re a barrister. You’re far too experienced to make a mistake like that.’

‘You underestimate the effect of a police search and attempted interrogation,’ said Trish drily.

‘I see. Or perhaps you’ve spent the intervening hour setting up this alibi with two complaisant friends?’

‘I realise that you’ll have to check it. But although I didn’t settle the bill at the Oxo Tower, I did buy the cinema tickets and I put them on my credit card. Access will have evidence of the payment.’

‘That hardly proves you saw the film. You could easily have left the cinema once you’d paid.’

‘True enough. But I think you’ll find that the two people I went with are acceptable witnesses – acceptable to the court, that is. They are both barristers, too, and neither is going to lie to give me an alibi. Besides, they’re well known at the Oxo Tower. Talk to the staff there. I think you’ll find someone who remembers seeing all three of us.’

‘What time did you leave the National Film Theatre?’

‘I can’t remember exactly. I should think it must have been about eight.’

‘And then?’

‘I went home. But you don’t need to know all this. Hadn’t Nicky come to report Charlotte’s disappearance hours before?’

‘The disappearance was only the beginning of the story,’ said Kath Lacie drily. ‘As you must know.’

‘You think I might have commissioned someone to pick Charlotte up for me. Is that it?’ Seeing what looked like confirmation in Blake’s face, Trish shrugged. ‘Then I give up. Poor Charlotte.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘To have one’s fate dependent on people prepared to waste so much time on such ludicrous fantasies … if it wasn’t so tragic it would be almost funny.’

A dark flush seeped into the skin under Blake’s cheekbones.

‘We’ll need to check this information,’ he said, completely po-faced. ‘I’d like you to wait here while we do it.’

‘I’m sure you would,’ said Trish, smiling politely. ‘But I’m not going to. I’m going home – unless you choose to arrest me. You know how to get hold of me. I’m not going to disappear.’

‘I’d rather you waited.’

‘I’m sure you would,’ she repeated. ‘But there’s only one thing that will keep me here.’

He had no option but to let her go. She was aware that if he and his colleagues decided to be vindictive they could still try to have her prosecuted for possessing pornography. It wouldn’t be difficult to defend herself against the charge, particularly not with the backing of Millen Books, but it would be time-consuming and might have unpleasant repercussions.

Once again she asked who it was who had provided the spiteful information about her godchildren and her past disastrous love affairs. Blake refused to tell her anything.

When she gave up trying to make him talk, she left the police station to look for a public telephone. Since she was in Kensington it seemed a good opportunity to see Antonia, but her call was answered by the machine. Trish left yet another affectionate message, as usual offering help and support.

Back in Southwark, she discovered that the front door to her flat was no longer double locked and she began to smile. There was only one other person who had keys. In the past her unsolicited visits and unwanted deliveries of nourishing one-pot meals for the freezer and bumper supplies of vitamins had sometimes been irritating, but that afternoon the thought of her presence was a boon.

Trish pushed open the door, calling, ‘Mum? Are you there?’

‘Trish, darling, how are you?’ called her mother from the far end of the enormous room. She came towards Trish with her arms extended. Feeling about twelve again, Trish walked forward and let herself be hugged.

‘Thank you,’ she said a moment later as she let go. ‘I needed that.’

‘You’ve been having a hellish time, haven’t you? I thought you could probably do with a bit of company.’

‘You’ve been having a bad time, too, by the look of it,’ said Trish when she had examined her mother’s face. They’ve been at you, haven’t they, the police? Oh Mum, I am
so
sorry. What did they ask?’

Her mother shook her head, making the blunt-cut gleaming grey hair swing freely.

‘Nothing I couldn’t answer with absolute confidence. Don’t look like that, Trish. You don’t need to worry about anything the police said to me.’

Trish looked directly into her mother’s clear blue eyes and was amazed to see unshadowed trust in them.

‘If they said to you a tenth of what I had to listen to today, then I am really touched that you came here and that you hugged me like that.’

Tears seeped into her eyes. Meg reached forward to brush away the one that spilled.

‘Oh, Trish. You can’t have thought I’d believe you ever deliberately hurt any of your godchildren or … or abused any child in any way, or that you had anything whatsoever to do with what’s happened to Charlotte. I remembered all the incidents the police talked to me about quite well, and I know that every one was an accident, the kind of thing that happens to anyone who looks after children.’

‘Thank you. I can’t tell you how much it helps.’

‘Heavens, I had a friend whose baby rolled off the changing table and cracked her skull. That’s infinitely worse than any of the injuries that happened to children in your care, and no one ever accused her of doing it on purpose.’

‘That must have been some time ago,’ said Trish sadly. She sniffed. ‘Nowadays any child that badly injured would be on the at-risk register at once.’

‘Go and get something to blow your nose with,’ said Meg as though Trish were indeed twelve again, ‘and I’ll put the kettle on.’ Trish went up the spiral stairs to wash her face. Then she put some more mascara on and went back downstairs, feeling a little more in control.

Meg presented her with a steaming mug. Trish caught the scent and said, ‘Marmite! That takes me back.’

‘Drink up. I’ll make you some supper later. You’ve obviously not been eating again, in spite of all the food you’ve got here. Honestly, you are hopeless, Trish! It’s not surprising you’ve got yourself in such a state.’

‘I forget sometimes,’ she said, before obediently sipping the delectable liquid. It was what she had always been given to drink as a child whenever she was ill or miserable. ‘And then when I try to eat, I think about Charlotte and what could be happening, and I find I can’t swallow much. But this is great. I should’ve thought of it before. Thanks, Mum.’

‘Pleasure,’ said Meg, who had made herself tea. ‘Now, tell me. Haven’t the police found out anything about what’s happened to Charlotte?’

Trish shrugged. ‘They can’t have, or they wouldn’t have gone after me today.’

‘She must be dead, mustn’t she?’ Meg blinked several times to get rid of the unshed tears. ‘By now?’

‘I think so. Unless someone’s keeping her somewhere – like in that awful Belgian case. I’m sorry, Mum.’

Meg put her hand over her eyes for a moment. Then she smiled resolutely and drank some tea.

‘It’s just that she looks so like you did, Trish. I’ve only met her once, I think, but the photographs Antonia sends at Christmas are just like you were at that age. I … I come over quaggly whenever I think of you then and what she might have had to … Sorry, Trish. This doesn’t help.’ She blew her nose. ‘What have the police been doing to find her, d’you know?’

‘Everything they could’ve done – even I can see that. All the neighbours and all Charlotte’s close friends were contacted right at the start in case she’d found her way to any of them. None of them had seen her. Each building around the edge of the park has been visited and the inhabitants questioned. There’ve been officers at strategic points in the park all week, interviewing passers-by. Antonia’s garden’s been dug up and I suspect her house searched, too, although she hasn’t told me so. I don’t see what more they could’ve done.’

‘No. If they’ve been digging, it sounds as though they think she’s dead, too, doesn’t it? Oh Trish, why would anyone kill her, a little child like that? I know they think it’s a paedophile, but is that likely? A girl as young as four – could anyone …?’

Trish shrugged. ‘It’s what we’ve all assumed from the beginning – the papers, too. It’s what everyone always does assume nowadays when a child goes missing.’

‘We know too much, don’t we?’

‘Yes. But that has to be better-than the old days when children with terrible stories to tell weren’t believed; were even punished sometimes for trying to tell someone what was being done to them. Although I do think maybe we leap to conclusions too quickly now. I mean, murdered children aren’t always victims of paedophiles. Sometimes they were just there in the way when an adult lost her temper and hit out or shook them much more violently than she meant.’

‘Would shaking do that much damage?’ asked Meg. ‘I know very young babies can be brain-damaged by it, but I’d have thought Charlotte’s too big now.’

‘Probably, I’m not sure. No, you must be right. But that doesn’t rule out hitting. And someone might have hit Charlotte.’ Trish smiled unhappily. ‘Everyone agrees that she’s inherited the family’s temper, poor little thing.’

‘As you say, poor child.’

They were both silent as they thought about the past and the struggle Trish had had to curb her rages.

‘Have you got a suspect?’ asked Meg after a while.

‘At the beginning it looked as though the most obvious was Robert Hithe,’ Trish said, pushing away pictures of herself as a furious six-year-old swearing at her ever-patient mother. ‘And Antonia’s told me that the police were interviewing him on a daily basis, but they must have cleared him now.’

‘I suppose so, or they’d never have gone after you, would they?’

‘No, probably not. But he still seems much the likeliest to me. He really is the most ratlike man, Mum. Even you’d find it hard to like him.’

Meg frowned, and in the flattened shape of her eyebrows Trish was glad to see something of herself. It was reassuring to know she didn’t share everything with her father.

‘Trish,’ said Meg, looking unnaturally serious, ‘I know you’ve never liked him, but has it ever struck you that you may be being unfair?’

‘To Robert Hithe? No. He trivialises everything other people care about, almost as a matter of principle. And he’s so bloody pleased with himself. And—’

‘And, let’s face it, my darling, you don’t like the idea of single mothers having men in their lives.’

Trish looked at her mother. In spite of the familiar gentleness in her lined, pretty face, there was also an unusual implacability. Facing her without any of the self-protective assumptions about a mother’s duty to her young daughter or the slightly patronising kindness of a successful burdened professional to the mother who can never have experienced anything like the exciting, terrifying life she herself is living, Trish began to feel a powerful tug of shame.

‘Did I get in the way of your marrying again?’ she asked after a long pause.

In retrospect it had always seemed that her whole childhood had been ruled by her father’s desertion and her assumption that it was her bad temper that had driven him to it. Once she had grown up and discovered that most children of divorce take on the responsibility for their parents’ failures and cruelties, she had battled to think more rationally about what had happened. But she was beginning to understand that there were yet other points of view she should have taken into account.

‘Not quite,’ said Meg, watching her with undeserved love. ‘I don’t think I’d have wanted to risk it again, but you could have made it easier for me to have friends – male friends.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Trish, frowning hard. ‘Look, Mum, I’m
really
sorry. Except that it wasn’t deliberate. I mean, at the time, I didn’t understand.’

‘No, I know you didn’t. Thank you,’ said Meg, without any suggestion that no apology had been necessary. In spite of what she had seen about herself and her role in her mother’s life, Trish was a little shocked.