CHAPTER TWO
My heart was thudding in my ears.
Someone had broken into the garage and stolen Mum’s car!
I scrambled in my bag for my phone to call the police, my imagination running wild.
Had we been targeted?
Did someone know about the car being in there?
Or had it just been an opportunistic thief, breaking into the garage and finding treasure? But how had they managed to get the car started to drive it away?
A thought struck me and my heart sank. I paused, phone in my hand, feeling sick.
How was Dad going to feel about this?
He’d be devastated . . .
And then, just as I was wondering how on earth I was going to break the news that Mum’s precious car had been stolen, I heard the sound of an engine and looked round to see Dad driving into the close.
He was looking over at the garage – at the door that was wide open when it shouldn’t be – and I swallowed hard. Pretty soon, he’d see that the car was gone.
I watched him park and get out, and when I walked over to him, I could tell from his ashen complexion as he stared past me into the empty space that he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
‘Oh, Dad.’ I took his arm, gazing at him anxiously. ‘I just got back and the garage door was slightly open. And then I looked and...’ I trailed off helplessly, and Dad patted my arm and walked slowly over to the garage.
He stopped at the entrance and just stared straight ahead, and my heart filled with an aching sadness as I watched him. He was trying to pull himself together... to be strong for me. Any moment he would turn with a half-smile and say it was fine. It was just a car.
But it wasn’t ‘just a car’.
That car meant everything to us.
And then suddenly, his shoulders slumped and his whole body seemed to sag. When he turned towards me, he was crumpling before my eyes and I rushed over to comfort him.
‘Dad, it’s okay.’ I put my arms around him. ‘I’ll phone the police. They’ll be able to trace the car. We’ll get it back, I promise.’
I was trying to hug him, to try and comfort him, but he was oddly unresponsive.
‘You don’t understand, love,’ he whispered.
I drew away so I could see his face. ‘What do you mean, Dad?’
‘It hasn’t been stolen.’
‘Oh. But... where is it, then?’ I gazed at him in bewilderment.
‘I’m so sorry, love.’ I felt a sigh shudder through him as he met my eyes at last. ‘There was no other way.
‘I had to sell it.’