Chapter 49
The cleaner was named Anna. Her story was so remarkable that Joe could hardly believe it.
‘I want no reward,’ she kept saying. ‘I just tell truth. Natasha tell me her story. Then I see her at my church and I ask the mother, “Is it true?” She swears me to secrecy.’ She crossed herself. On her chest two small gold crosses already hung on chains. ‘May God forgive me for telling you now.’
Speaking rapidly, the cleaner explained that Natasha/Lily came from the same Eastern European country as she, Anna, did. So too did her real mother, who was not Dilly Dalung, but a young girl who worked as an assistant cook for the singer. She happened to have a daughter who was not only the same age as the celebrity’s child but also looked quite similar, with dark hair and very pale skin.
Dee-lee, as the cleaner called her, was terrified of her daughter being kidnapped by her estranged and possibly violent husband and whisked off to the country from which he came. So Ms Dalung hatched this elaborate plan whereby she enrolled her real daughter Lily in a nursery on the border of Bedfordshire under another name and paid her assistant cook a large sum of money to substitute her own child, Natasha, as a decoy.
‘She even tell newspapers about this place,’ Anna had said, stabbing her finger in the air. ‘Dilly Dalung wanted the papers to think her daughter was here, at Puddleducks, so she gave them anonymous tip-off. She thought it would take attention away from her real daughter.’
Somehow Joe persuaded Anna to come with him to the police station. ‘We need to tell them about this,’ he urged.
The cleaner looked scared. ‘I no want to get into trouble.’
‘You won’t, I promise you.’
Even so, he felt a wave of concern for her when they got to the police station and he explained to the tight-faced policeman on the desk that Anna had some information about Dilly Dalung’s so-called daughter. ‘We’ll need to take a statement, madam,’ said the officer. Anna was escorted into another room, looking back at Joe, who felt as though he had delivered her into the hands of the enemy. Naturally, he waited for her – her interview took over an hour – and then made sure she got home safely.
The following day a best-selling tabloid ran the whole story under the headline SCANDAL AT SUBURBAN PLAYGROUP.
Why, it demanded, hadn’t anyone checked that the adult enrolling a child was indeed its legal carer? Joe had asked himself the same thing before finding out that a carer only had to produce a birth certificate on registration, and to obtain nursery vouchers. He/she wasn’t required to show proof of parentage.
There was also a piece written by the women’s page editor, about peer loyalty and how touching it was that Lily had been trying to take her sick friend a present.
Then there was a scathing article in his own broadsheet, asking why and how Natasha’s mother could have put her child at risk by allowing her to be a decoy.
Joe’s stomach began to churn when he read that. What would happen to Lily now? Proceedings were bound to be set in motion.
There was something else too. Something which he didn’t want to allow himself to think about, but he had to accept. None of this was good publicity for Puddleducks in its bid to win the Top Ten Playgroup Award. As the implications began to sink in, his mobile went.
‘Joe. Are you all right? I’ve just seen the papers.’ It was Gemma.
‘What are you doing on the phone? You’re meant to be resting.’
‘I know, but like I said, I’ve just seen the headlines. Look, I know what you’re thinking and I’d feel the same but you don’t have to worry, Joe. You honestly don’t.’
Despite the gravity of the situation, he couldn’t help smiling. ‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’
‘Because any decent person would wonder if they had done everything they could to make sure that none of the kids went missing, and I just know, Joe, that you would have. Lily wasn’t on your list of children; she was on Miriam’s. You mustn’t beat yourself up, Joe. You really mustn’t.’
‘Thanks.’ Her words made him feel better. She was right. Of course he felt responsible, but only another teacher – a kind, caring one like Gemma – would have understood this. Why hadn’t he realised at the beginning of term that she was such a genuinely nice person? Why had he been so deter- mined to see the worst in her, and indeed in everyone else?
‘There’s one more thing. Don’t start worrying about the Playgroup Award. I know this might affect it, but if we don’t get it, we don’t get it. The most important thing is that Lily is safe.’
He nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see him. ‘You’re right.’
‘Good.’ The relief in her voice was audible. ‘I thought you might try to argue me down like you used to do.’
‘Argue you down?’
‘Well, you know what I mean.’ She sounded as though she wished she hadn’t said that. ‘Listen, I must go. Kitty’s coming up the stairs with dinner – aren’t I being spoiled? Now, keep your chin up, OK?’
After she rang off, Joe felt considerably better. Gemma was right in everything she’d said, including the fact that he used to argue her down, as she put it. She was honest, kind and generous. Ed would be having a right old moan if she’d been a donor. In fact, she wouldn’t have volunteered in the first place. Meanwhile, there was one vital phone call he had to make which might just help, although he knew how painful it would be.
There was so much to do that week that Joe almost forgot that Mike and Lynette were coming up for the weekend with the boys. The fevered atmosphere both in the main school and at Puddleducks, where the Lily/Natasha saga was even surpassing the bulletins on Danny, had to be calmed down. There was also the nativity play to sort out. Miriam, who had stepped in to ‘help’ during Gemma’s recuperation, had managed to give the part of Joseph to two different boys, and had increased the number of wise men to five in order to prevent tantrums.
‘What’s wrong with wise women?’ Di had asked, in what was meant to be a jokey aside. Brilliant idea! Joe patted her on the back, which almost made her choke on her custard cream, and promptly enrolled three girls from his year. If they were going to do a nativity play, he might as well make it different.
Then there was the not-so-small matter of the deadline for the award. The mural could have been abandoned altogether, but Nancy’s tutor, a man called Doug who seemed to have taken a bit of a shine to her from the admiring way in which he spoke, had organised a working party. They had all made gargantuan efforts, and the project was almost finished.
That was another thing he had to admit he’d been wrong about. The mural was most impressive, and completely recognisable. There was the canal wending its way through the north side of town. There was the high street with its row of shops, both pretty and practical. There was the park with the sports centre on the other side of the road. And there was Puddleducks, round the corner from Corrybank.
Annie had been doing a photography course and had taken pictures during the making of the mural. The plan was that when it was finished – hopefully by next Monday, said the workers – the final pictures would be taken and sent off to the award organisers. Meanwhile, he and Brian had almost finished the MY SKOOL! book. Joe had been meaning to find an online publisher but, with everything else going on, hadn’t had the time, so Brian had volunteered to check some out.
‘It’s not as though I’m rushed off my feet, lad,’ he said with a twinge of regret in his voice. Then his eyes twinkled. ‘Mind you, did I tell you I’ve started going to salsa class? Two ladies, not so distantly connected to Danny, insist on escorting me every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. I always wanted to dance but my Mavis, bless her, wasn’t that keen on account of her bunions.’
On the whole, Joe told himself as he mentally totted up his Pros and Cons columns, life wasn’t going too badly. And then he received the letter.