Chapter 48
It had been his fault. He had been the leader in charge of the school trip. Although Lily’s disappearance wasn’t directly attributable to him, he, Joe, had to carry the can. Just like he’d had to when his team had lost all those millions, which had been another reason, truth to tell, why he’d quit banking.
‘It could have happened to anyone, lad,’ said Brian, topping up his whisky glass. Joe thought about declining, but leaned back in the G-plan chair with its frayed right arm and shrunken antimacassar and took a long, deep swig instead.
It was nearly 6 p.m., after all, and he was finally off duty after an exhausting twenty-four hours, which had started with last night’s phone call from the police to say that Lily had been found. Joe had never prayed in his life, since in his view the Bible simply didn’t add up, but to his astonishment he found himself sending a note of thanks to whatever computer was up there, sorting out their numbers.
Then had come the phone calls, and not just from the tabloids. Reporters from responsible newspapers wanted comments from him on whether safety procedures had been followed, and why it was that despite new guidelines on school trips, a four-year-old could go missing.
When they put it like that, he himself found it hard to understand.
Then a pair of policemen had marched up to his room, much to Joyce’s consternation until she recognised one of them as the son of a friend. So she’d insisted that they held their meeting in her kitchen, where there was more room. Joe could almost read the policemen’s minds. What was a grown man in his thirties with a good job doing in a rented bedsit that was too small to hold three people?
‘Can you explain exactly what happened that day?’ asked one of the policemen. ‘I know you’ve already given a statement, but there might be some details you’ve forgotten. And can you also shed any light on why no one realised that Lily was here under false pretences?’ So he did. But the more Joe tried to explain that he honestly hadn’t known that Lily was a girl called Natasha, and that the necessary registration procedures had been followed as far as he knew, the more he felt that the police considered him partly responsible for the child’s disappearance.
‘So what’s the score now, lad?’ asked Brian, taking off his specs, which were held together with brown tape, polishing them on his new moss-green jumper and replacing them in the same slightly askew position.
Joe began to feel slightly dizzy from the whisky and lack of sleep. ‘They’re still making their inquiries.’
‘But what about her so-called mother, Dilly Dalung?’
‘The police are questioning her as well. It all seems extremely complicated.’
‘And Gemma? Can she throw any light on the situation?’
Joe felt himself flushing, which was most unlike him. ‘Actually, I bought her some get-well flowers but when I knocked on her door, there wasn’t any answer. My landlady said she’d gone to stay with her friend Kitty up in London.’
‘Humph.’ Brian didn’t sound impressed. ‘And what about that fancy boy of hers, the son of your landlady?’
Joe moved to the window so Brian couldn’t see his face. ‘Joyce said that Barry was going up tomorrow to visit, so he could take the flowers and any messages if I wanted.’
‘You’ve lost a good one there,’ muttered Brian.
Lost a good one? Joe experienced a mixture of surprise and recognition of a feeling that he had been trying to quell for some weeks now, despite himself. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Think you know, lad. Now how about another?’
‘No really, I can’t, but thanks for the offer.’ Joe yawned, knowing he didn’t have to try and conceal it. ‘I must get back for an early night although – blast – I’ve just remembered something. I have to stop off at Puddleducks to pick up some paperwork which Miriam has left for me.’
Brian looked concerned. ‘Not going to take your bike, are you, lad? You’ve got to be over the limit with my servings!’
‘No way.’ Joe shook his head. That was one thing he was very careful about. One of the boys at his previous school had died thanks to a drunk driver, and it was something he’d never forget. ‘Mind if I leave it outside your house until tomorrow morning?’
Brian beamed. ‘Delighted. I’ll try not to have a go. Don’t look like that, lad! Can’t you see I’m pulling your leg? I don’t know. Just as I thought you’d lightened up a bit, you go all serious on me!’
It wasn’t any wonder, thought Joe as he walked to Puddleducks. He felt very confused, and not just because of Lily. Still, the cold winter evening helped clear his head, allowing him to do some mental calculations.
It was the way he worked when things were worrying him. In his head he would draw a column on the left, headed Pros. On the right, he had a column headed Cons. He used it as a means of solving a problem, or sometimes as an end-of-week summary in order to reassure himself that his world was still stable. Ed used to sarcastically call it his ‘mental ledger’. What was wrong with that?
So far in the Pros column, there was the following:
Danny’s life possibly saved by transfusion.
Lily found safely .
Both were major reasons to feel pleased, Joe told himself, rounding the corner towards the playgroup with its brightly painted exterior that now seemed jolly rather than gaudy, as he’d first thought.
But then there was the Cons column.
Guilt over Lily’s disappearance .
Possible retribution, which might affect his career, if his leadership skills during the farm trip were questioned.
Gemma and Barry.
Joe paused, surprised. How had that last one slipped in? It didn’t belong there. It didn’t belong anywhere. OK, he admired Gemma for stepping in and being a bone marrow donor, but wasn’t that what any decent person with the right match would have done?
Not Ed. She had been disparaging at the disco when he had mentioned he’d gone to have his blood checked but hadn’t been a match. What did you want to do that for? she had said. It’s not as though it was your own child.
The irony of the last sentence didn’t appear to have occurred to her. If it hadn’t been for her actions, carried out without any reference to him, they might have had a child just like Danny. If that child had fallen ill, Joe would have been indebted for life to someone who helped him get better.
She didn’t see it like that, Ed had said at the disco, and in a way, her words made him feel much better. They proved, beyond doubt, that he had done the right thing in leaving a woman whose values were so far removed from his own. Maybe that was one to add to the Pros column.
Joe got out his key to open the playgroup door and then realised it was already unlocked. There was a light on inside, too.
‘Who’s there?’
There was a banging noise as though someone was hitting something against a wall. Another crash and then, from the kitchen area at the back, a small woman appeared in a floral housecoat like one his mother used to wear.
‘What you here for?’ she demanded in a foreign accent. ‘May I ask the same?’ But even as Joe spoke, he realised. It was the Eastern European cleaner whom Gemma had mentioned briefly. The noisy one whose English wasn’t great, but whose skills in erasing felt-tip marks and mopping up vomit and unmentionables in the loo were legendary. Presumably she was doing her evening shift.
‘I am Mr Balls.’
She was frowning at him and holding the mop handle towards him, like a defence weapon. ‘The head of Reception at the big school,’ he added quickly.
The woman’s face cleared. Now she had stopped looking so ferocious, he could see that she was less bird-like in appearance than he’d thought. She was also older than he’d assumed; about Joyce’s age, in fact.
‘I need to talk to you.’ She was stabbing her mop towards him again.
‘I’m afraid this isn’t the time to discuss pay rises.’ He spoke slowly, in case she didn’t understand him. ‘You are insulting me! I no want more money!’ The mop handle was getting agitated. ‘I need to talk about Natasha.’
‘Natasha?’
The woman sighed heavily and, to his relief, put down her mop.
‘The girl who calls herself Lily. I not responsible, you understand. I do not talk much here. But I hear things. See?’ As if to make her point, she tapped her ear. ‘I hear Natasha when she plays. She talks to herself. Good in her head, she is. Makes up stories.’ She grinned, showing gaps in her teeth. ‘When I hear her language is the same as mine, I talk to her. Now I hear rumours about why she go missing. But I know. I know the truth. I tell you now. There is a reward. Yes? Because I do not want it.’