Looking for JJ (3 page)

But it was a lie. Alice knew it because Rosie always fidgeted with her right earring if she was agitated. She got up and started to clear the cups away even though her own coffee hadn’t been touched. Alice knew what was going on. In Rosie’s mind was the big question. Why should the detective choose
Croydon
?

Alice knew the answer. It had nothing to do with luck.

A birthday card. That’s all. Her mum’s name and address neatly written on the envelope. She’d taken ages to decide whether or not to send it.
Happy Birthday!
There were no other words, no corny verse. The pen had trembled in her fingers as she wrote the word
Jenny
at the bottom of the page. No kisses, no
love from
. . .

She’d left it in her locker at work for two days before posting it. Then it had only taken a second to slip it into the box. Too late to change her mind. When it left her hand she’d felt lightheaded for a moment and stood, one hand leaning on the red pillar box, her eyes scanning the street.
It’s for my mum!
she wanted to whisper.

That had been weeks before. There would have been a postmark on the stamp. The word
Croydon
in smudged black ink. She knew that. She expected that. What she hadn’t expected was for her mother to tell anyone. To expose her.

Why not though? She’d done it before.

 

 

 

The shopping centre was just so big. Alice felt exhausted simply being there. The place was full of people moving back and forth looking purposeful, their hands clutching on to shop carrier bags. In places there were lone shoppers walking smartly through the crowds. Often, though, they were steering pushchairs, or holding the hands of small grumpy children, stopping abruptly to wipe a nose or pick up a fallen toy. They were all looking in the polished windows at the goods for sale, at the signs that said
Blue Cross Day
, at the mannequins that stood lifelessly parading the fashions.

After a while Alice sat on a bench and looked up at the floors above; the food hall with its neon signs, the giant palms, the roof above with its glass spires that seemed to pierce the fast-moving clouds beyond. It made her feel dizzy.

It was the Saturday before she was due to return to work and she and Rosie were shopping. It wasn’t really Rosie’s kind of place, but she knew Alice liked it so they occasionally spent time there. Rosie preferred markets, and spent hours at stalls where the owners had designed and made the clothes themselves.
It’s more individual, real designer clothes
, she’d say, holding heavy velvet skirts up against her, trying on linen blouses that fell into wrinkles as soon as they were touched. She also liked charity shops where she often picked up expensive shoes and jackets for a fraction of their price.
But someone’s already worn them
, Alice would say, shivering slightly at the idea. Rosie didn’t care. She washed, ironed or polished the items and took pleasure in showing them off. Alice preferred the mass-produced stuff in the chain stores. She didn’t want to look
original
. She liked to look the same as everybody else.

She was carrying two carrier bags. In one was a light suede jacket, something she had jumped on when she saw it on the rail. She’d run her fingers across it, feeling its softness. She’d tried on the smallest size they had and loved the way it sat around her shoulders, lightweight and comfortable, like a loose embrace. In the other bag was some underwear, plain white and black pants and bras. Rosie had tried to interest her in coloured sets, with lace and netting; pretty things that looked like tiny works of art. She didn’t want them, though. They were too frivolous, too gaudy.

For once Rosie had bought something. A floaty top from a department store. It had gathered sleeves and a drawstring neck and looked extremely impractical. Rosie had liked it though, slipping it on over her T-shirt in the middle of the store, twirling around in front of a mirror and nodding contentedly to herself. Alice had crept off to look at other things while Rosie paid for it, striking up a conversation with the woman on the till as though she knew her.

Alice sat at the café table and waited for her lunch.

Rosie was such a warm person, easy to get on with. That’s why she bonded with the girls who came to stay. Sometimes it made Alice feel good. At other times she resented those easygoing ways because it meant that Rosie clicked with everyone she met. Like Sara, the new woman from downstairs. Alice could never do that.

“Here we are!” Rosie said, placing a tray on the table.

Alice picked up a plate with her sandwich. Rosie moved the other things on to the table and then slid the tray between the legs of the chair.

“Are you seeing Frankie tonight?” Rosie said, biting into her sandwich.

Alice nodded.

“You won’t be too late, though?”

“No. We’re just going for a drink at the college bar.”

“Soft drinks, though?” Rosie said.

Alice nodded. It was a ritual they both went through every time Alice talked about going to a pub. Rosie knew that Alice drank beer and wine. Alice knew that Rosie knew. But each time she went they both had to say the same words. Like a mantra.

“What about you?” Alice said.

“I’m going out for an Indian meal with Sara. I’m looking forward to it!”

“Sara? You didn’t say.”

“It’s a sort of last-minute thing. I saw her yesterday struggling with her shopping. I helped her in, we got chatting. She’s really quite nice.”

“She talks a lot,” Alice said, remembering the couple of times she had been going out and had met Sara coming in.

“She’s a teacher. You know what they’re like!”

Rosie was beaming. Apart from work things and going out with her mum she hardly ever went anywhere. And that was why she’d bought herself the new top. Alice felt a stirring of jealousy. Rosie had a new friend. She shouldn’t mind but she did. Sara from downstairs who never stopped talking.

“What does she teach?” Alice said, remembering the pile of exercise books she’d been carrying the last time she saw her.

“Primary kids. Seven or eight year olds.”

“Hasn’t she got a partner?” Alice said, wishing she had.

“Nope. Like me. Footloose and fancy-free.”

Rosie looked embarrassed for a moment.

“Listen to me. I’m sounding like a teenager.”

Alice felt a rush of affection. She reached over and squeezed Rosie’s hand. Why shouldn’t she have a life of her own?

“Make sure you don’t stay out too late!” she said.

“All right, Mum!” Rosie said, smiling, picking up the second half of her sandwich and inserting the pointed end of it into her mouth.

On the way home Alice felt weary. Her carrier bags hung low and her shoulders drooped. She looked into the
Coffee Pot
as they passed and saw Pip and the manager behind the counter.

“You OK about going back to work on Monday?” Rosie said, softly.

They were leaving the big shopping centre behind and approaching the quieter end of the high street. There were fewer people around, although the traffic was still slow, queued up behind buses that hadn’t bothered to pull into the stop. They passed the pet shop and the bookies and a DIY store that had had the sign
Closing Down Sale
outside for months.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

She’d had just over a week at home. Rosie had insisted that she hadn’t been well, that she was off-colour, stressed and needed to rest. Alice had gone along with it although she’d known, deep down, that she was hiding away. She’d hadn’t told Rosie about the birthday card. It was her secret. She was allowed that much; now that she was out in the real world. It had unsettled her, though; that her mother had passed on information to someone about where she might be. It sat in her head like a banging door that she couldn’t close.

“I’m just going to pay the papers,” Rosie said when they got to the newsagent’s on the corner of their street.

“I’ll wait here.”

Alice didn’t want to go into the shop. The newsagent’s son, a short, muscular lad, was always looking at her and trying to draw her into conversation. She walked a few paces on and leaned against a lamp-post. An old dog shuffled past, pausing to sniff at her legs and then carrying on. The shop window was full of posters and small ads, and through it she could only just see parts of Rosie’s back and the profile of the newsagent talking and laughing. He was probably adding up her bill, tearing the slips off from his folder. Rosie was probably asking after his wife, who had recently had an operation. Alice let a light sigh out.

Frankie was coming round for her about eight. They were going to the college where there was a DJ who Frankie liked. The drinks were cheap and Frankie knew a lot of people. They’d have a good evening, she knew. She found herself smiling thinking of this, and then from somewhere deep down she felt this tickle of excitement, thinking of Frankie’s rough, unshaven face against her neck and her shoulder, and the feel of his hands on her skin pulling her so close that she could feel his ribs and his hipbones. It didn’t take much for him to scoop her up in his arms and carry her across to the bed. Even if they weren’t going to do anything he liked her there, in the muddle of his sheets, her head, her short boyish hair, on his pillow.

She tutted to herself. She’d let herself get carried away thinking about him. How silly she must have looked standing on a corner in a kind of reverie. She tried to focus on Rosie. How long did it take to pay the papers? She looked at the posters in the window and then at the small ads. A huge headline stood out from one of them. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? it said. Underneath was just a photo but Alice couldn’t make it out from where she was standing. Inside the shop she saw Rosie moving backwards away from the counter, the newsagent still talking, looking like he was counting something off on his fingers.

Have you seen this girl?
The words gave her a mild shock. All those years ago. In Berwick. The day after it happened. The streets of Berwick were covered in photographs. It had been taken from some album, photocopied and enlarged. Someone had put the pictures in plastic wallets, the kind that usually fitted into ring binders. They’d been stuck to trees and lamp-posts and the inside of people’s windows. She’d been at home at the time, so she couldn’t have seen them herself; she must have seen it on the television. A reporter standing by a poster.
Have you seen this girl?
it said. Everyone was looking for her.

Only JJ had known where she was.

Alice took a few steps along the pavement and then turned to walk back. Like a sentry marching up and down, she tried to pull herself together. These memories from the past had to be fought off, subdued. She went briskly back to the shop to see what Rosie was doing. Was she ever coming out? She steered her eye away from the offending small ad and tried to focus on a poster which advertised a circus and funfair. There was a picture of a woman in a sparkling skin-tight catsuit, balancing on a tightrope holding a long thin pole. She couldn’t concentrate though. The headline was there, at the corner of her eye.
Have you seen this girl?
The ad with the photograph, and finally, just as Rosie turned and walked towards the door of the shop, she let herself look closely at it.

The picture made her freeze. It was cut from a larger photograph and photocopied. It was stuck to the middle of the postcard, and was just a face. The face of a teenage girl, about sixteen years old.

Her face.

Her hair was longer then, flicking round her jaw. The image was slightly blurred at the edges. Probably it had been taken a year or so before, by one of the workers at Monksgrove, or a visitor taking a shot of a group of residents. She hadn’t posed for it, she wasn’t that stupid, but somehow she had ended up in someone’s photo. And now it was being used to try and find her.

“That man never stops talking!”

She could hear Rosie’s voice, feel her closeness but her concentration was on the small ad. Underneath the familiar face were some words.
Her family long to hear from her. Last seen in the Croydon area. Reward of £100 for any information on her whereabouts.
Then a phone number.

“What’s this?” Rosie said, drawn to whatever was holding Alice’s attention. “Oh my goodness. Oh no.”

Her voice dropped and Alice knew that she had recognized her. Rosie could see the likeness. Alice couldn’t move. Her legs felt like sticks. If she bent her knees they would snap. She was staying there, on the street, next to her picture.

“Let’s go home,” Rosie said, gripping her arm and pulling her away. “We’ll contact Jill. She’ll put a stop to this.”