The One Safe Place (52 page)

Mrs. Fancy stooped, more deftly than might have been expected from her bulk, and slid a tin pot from under the bed, and stared at Susanne and the policemen. "Satisfied? Or do you want to watch?"

"We're finished for the moment, thank you," Angel said, and pulled the door shut, setting off an outburst of muttering from the woman and groans from the old man, succeeded by a metallic resonance falling in pitch. Neither policeman looked at Susanne; she couldn't tell whether they were embarrassed by the sound or by their lack of progress. She was alone with something far worse than embarrassment—the thought that the security guard had been mistaken. He'd jumped to a conclusion, just as she had, and she was further than ever from finding Marshall.

The noise trailed away, and a few seconds later Mrs. Fancy opened the door. "Empty that for us, lad." She could have been addressing anyone except Susanne, at whom she gazed defiantly, and Darren didn't take the pot until she shook it at him. He stalked to the bathroom and sloshed its contents down the toilet and yanked the handle, every one of the sounds and movements plucking at Susanne's nerves. His mother accepted the pot he thrust at her, and placed it next to the bed. "Stay there," she murmured to the creature underneath, and marched out of the room and shut the door. "Seen enough?"

"This'll be your room, will it, son?" Angel said, opening the door of the last bedroom.

Darren darted after him, and Susanne moved in pursuit, thinking as she did so that there was nothing suspicious about the boy's swiftness—he simply didn't want a stranger invading his room. No wonder when it was such a mess, almost as cluttered as his grandfather's, though with newer stuff. It made her yearn for the untidiness of Marshall's room—the sight of clothes on the floor did. A purple track-suit top like Marshall's was hanging out of the bottom of a wardrobe; for an instant it made her see him lying still on the floor, and then it seemed to render his absence visible, as though he'd been snatched out of the purple top, leaving it to mime his bid for escape. It was very like his track suit—so like that the words she was suddenly desperate to speak felt solid in her throat. "That's—"

Renewed blankness clamped itself to Darren's face. "What is it, Mrs. Travis?" Angel prompted.

"That's my son's. It's Marshall's."

"The item of clothing, you mean? How can you—"

"It's his, I'm sure it is." She wouldn't have been except for the way Darren had reacted as soon as she'd begun to speak. "I'd know it anywhere. It's his favourite. He wouldn't wear anything else on the plane over though we told him he'd be too hot. He'd wear it to school if they let him."

Darren's mother flounced along the landing and stopped just short of knocking Susanne aside. "What's the bitch saying now?"

"Mrs. Travis says that's her son's track suit, Mrs. Fancy."

"Then she wants her eyes examined, or her head. The lad bought himself that in the market. Them suits is all he ever wears."

Susanne knew she was lying. Defiance, an aura of hot staleness, seemed to surround the woman. Angel paced into the bedroom and hunkered down on an uncluttered patch of carpet to scrutinise the purple garment. Susanne was wondering what he expected to establish, and how quickly the mother or the boy could be made to admit the truth, when Askew sidled past Susanne and what fell like two captors keeping her away from Marshall. "Maybe there's a way to sort this out," Askew said.

"Be my guest," said his partner as Askew squatted beside him, blocking Susanne's view of the track-suit top. She saw him reach for it and do something to it, and Angel craned over to examine whatever he was indicating before both men turned their heads toward her. Their faces were unreadable. "You say your son was wearing it on the flight over," Angel said.

"He definitely was, yes."

"Which means he would have bought it..."

"His father bought it for one of his birthday presents last November."

"I see. I'm sorry if this is painful for you, but can I ask where?"

"In our local mall in West Palm Beach. I know you see people over here wearing the same style, but believe me, that's his."

The policemen didn't quite look at each other as both of them rose to their feet. Askew had the track-suit top, its empty arms waving helplessly. "You'd better look for yourself, Mrs. Travis."

He'd turned the headless neck toward her to expose a rectangular tag. That couldn't identify it unless the other woman had sewn her son's name tag in it overnight, in which case what had Angel just been talking about? Susanne stepped forward, her legs not as steady as they should be, and read the words printed on the tag, a set of standard instructions from the manufacturer. "What am I supposed to be seeing?" she said with more patience than she felt. "What do you want me to see?"

Askew pinched the tag between finger and thumb so that the garment dangled from it. Now the words were the right way up for her to read, but his thumb covered the first lines. "I can't..." she said, then wondered if he was indicating whatever he imagined was significant. His thumbnail, which had recently been clipped almost to the quick, was digging into the tag directly above one word, at which she narrowed her eyes in case that might squeeze some extra meaning out of it. It was "color," and if he could make that signify more than it did to her—It was "color," except that it wasn't spelled quite like that, it was spelled—As Askew watched her realise, regret glistened in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Travis, but it can't be your son's, can it? It's British."

She saw him fold the garment in half twice and plant it on top of the pile in the wardrobe. She caught herself looking for another purple garment which might be Marshall's, and was appalled by her own desperation. Angel eased himself past her to the doorway. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Fancy," he said briskly, only just apologetic. "I'm sure you appreciate we have to be thorough when a boy of your son's age is missing."

"No excuse for picking on us." Mrs. Fancy shoved Darren to clear space outside the room. "Have you done in there yet? Anywhere else you want to snoop around? Want to take the floors up?"

"We'll get out of your way now," Angel said, but Susanne thought he was allowing his gaze to linger on the room in the hope of noticing some overlooked clue until he murmured, "Mrs. Travis?"

"What?" She felt inert, drained of energy by her lack of sleep and by her mistake. All she'd done was delay the police from searching elsewhere and give them reason to distrust any further ideas she might have, not that she had any. Once she grasped that he'd asked her to quit the room she did so, followed by Askew, after whom Mrs. Fancy slammed the door. The old man groaned a protest from the next room, and his companion recommenced yapping as Mrs. Fancy stomped downstairs and threw the front door open with a rattle of its bolts. "Goodbye," she snapped, adding "Good riddance" as she flung it shut as soon as Susanne and the police were through it. "Shut that bastard of a dog up," Susanne heard her yell, and then there was silence from the house.

"We'll run you home, Mrs. Travis," Angel said, taking her arm.

"Yes," Susanne said, and once she'd thought to say it, "Thanks." It wouldn't be home until Marshall was there. She was aware that Angel held her arm lightly all the way to the car and handed her into it while his partner dealt with the gate. They must be afraid that she might try to get into the Fancy house again, but she had to admit when she was wrong. She wouldn't be able to help Marshall otherwise, though she felt as if she no longer could. As Angel started the car she turned her head away from the Fancy house. It weighed down the edge of her vision, reminding her how she'd tricked herself, just as the guard at the mall had been too eager to be right. When at last the house sailed out of sight, she experienced only relief.

"Shut that bastard of a dog up," Darren's mother yelled, and Marshall stopped yapping at once. Darren heard the gate screech on the path, and two car doors slam, and the car engine start and then shrink around the corner. His mother tramped into the front room and stared out of the window, then turned on him. "So what are you hanging round for? You needn't think you're keeping him up there."

"Just making sure they've gone."

"They've gone all right. They're never coming back here, not for him, anyway. Maybe for you if you don't get rid of him quick."

"I'm going to. I said I would." Darren shoved a hand in his pocket and wondered where Marshall's money was. In the pocket of the track suit Darren had worn yesterday, of course, and it could stay there—it wasn't much for all the trouble he'd been through. "Give us some bus fare."

"Do you reckon I've nowt to do with my money except spend it on you?" his mother demanded, and even more angrily, "How much are you after?"

"Enough to get both of us as far as the bus goes and one of us back."

"Don't you go thinking I heard that," she warned him, lowering her voice as he had, and peered up the stairs. "Good job for you he does as he's told. You want your head examining, telling him to be a dog."

It was a good job for her too, Darren thought. Something like admiration had crept into her voice, perhaps without her knowledge, but not for long. "And what did you think you were playing at, hiding him in your granda's room?"

"I didn't, mam. I put him under my bed."

"Dirty little sod, him." She rubbed her lips together in a grimace of disgust and marched so fast into the hall that Darren thought she meant to knock him down, but she was heading for the back room. "Sooner he's out of here the better. Christ knows what he was up to up there," she muttered, and kicked the carpet away from the loose floorboard. She squatted to prize up the board, and there was a screech of wood.

It wasn't the board, it was the garden gate. Whoever had closed it must have left the fence about to topple over. Darren made for the front room to peek through the window. He was still in the hall when he heard footsteps tramping rapidly along the path. Before he could react, the doorbell began rattling in an attempt to ring, and a fist pounded on the front door.

"You've done it now, you little shit," his mother shrieked, slinging herself into the hall to glare at him with a kind of disgusted triumph. "Go on then, open it. Get it over with."

He didn't have to do as she said—he wasn't Marshall. He could run out of the back of the house, except that she moved between him and the stairs, cutting off any escape unless he wanted to fight her. The bell rattled again, and the fist shook the door. The sounds filled his head, leaving him no room to think, so that the only way of releasing himself from them was to open the door. He managed to fit his stiffening fingers around the knob of the latch, and twisted it, and pulled. Outside the door—only just outside—was the motorcyclist with a black helmet encasing his head.

The helmet nodded toward Darren, who saw his face caught in the bowl, floating there like a dead fish. He thought the helmet was going to butt him, and retreated into the hall, treading on one shoelace, which brought him lurching to a halt. The cyclist came after him, throwing out a black-gloved fist which bruised Darren's collarbone and sent him staggering against his mother as the cyclist slammed the door with a boot heel. "Get off me," Darren's mother screamed, heaving Darren at the wall, and backed away from the intruder. "What do you want? You get out of here or I'll call..."

Darren almost laughed. She didn't know who to call because she didn't know who the cyclist was. He straightened up, rubbing his shoulder where it had struck the wall. If he shoved past her he could get the gun. Then Marshall began yapping upstairs, presumably having heard the panic in her voice, and Darren wondered if she might threaten to set the dog on the cyclist, who was chaining and bolting the door. From inside the helmet a hollow muffled voice said, "Who'll you fucking call?"

It was his father, Darren thought. Nobody else would behave like that. He must have escaped from prison and been watching the house until he decided it was safe to approach. At last there was someone who would appreciate how Darren had got the better of Marshall and everyone who was looking for him. "Da," he said happily, as he seemed to remember he used to once.

The cyclist turned, and the black gloves cupped themselves around the helmet. It inched upward, exposing his father's neck, his unshaven chin, his sneering mouth. A livid scar appeared to climb the stubbled cheek as the helmet rose farther and the mouth spoke. "I'm not your da, thank fuck," Barry said, thrusting the helmet at him to put somewhere, and immediately ignored him. "What's going on, Marie? Bernard better be grateful I'm a suspicious prick. I was keeping an eye on things and I saw you had the filth round."

"They weren't anything to do with you."

"Everything that happens is to do with me while you've got my fucking money in the house." Barry popped the studs at his wrists and tugged off the gloves to dump them in the helmet Darren was still holding, and rubbed his hands over his skinny scalp, and flexed his fingers as though he was contemplating how to use them on Darren's mother. "Let's hear it, Marie, quick. They weren't looking for the loot or they'd have found it," he said, and then his hands began to turn into fists. "It's where I stashed it, isn't it?"

"Where else would it be? If you don't believe me, go and look."

"Don't think I won't." Barry's fists were still closing. "What did they want, then? Were they after this little dick?"

"I'm saying nowt," she said, and stared between them. "Your turn, lad. Speak up."

Marshall had stopped yapping as Barry removed his helmet. The silence was bullying Darren into opening his mouth. At least the helmet gave him an excuse to move away, to drop it on a chair in the front room—maybe even time to think what he could say that might save him from a kicking. However much he loathed Barry for acting as though he owned the house, mightn't Barry appreciate what he'd done to Marshall? "You know the bastard who got my da in jail," Darren said.

"Rest in fucking peace."

"That's him. You remember, my da never even touched him and he got him put away for eighteen months."