Chapter Twenty-Three

While Charley made her way to the train station that morning, things were decidedly icy on the fruit stall.

Although they kept up a front, Sam and Louise were pussyfooting round each other. Nicci was the first to comment.

‘What is it with you two?’ she asked. ‘You’ve obviously fallen out over something.’

‘No, we haven’t,’ said Sam.

‘It’s nothing,’ said Louise.

‘Yeah right, and I’m not getting married in two weeks,’ Nicci said sarcastically. Then she gasped. ‘Ohmigod. Can you believe it? I’m getting married in TWO WEEKS!’

Pleased to discuss the wedding and throw themselves into something that didn’t involve much personal conversation, Louise and Sam went over some of the finer details with her between serving customers.

‘Jay needs to collect the suits for the boys and I have my last dress fitting this weekend,’ she said finally. ‘And you two need to come as well.’

‘You know they’ve forecasted snow for that week,’ Louise teased.

‘For Easter?’

‘It’s been known to happen before.’

Nicci slapped her arm playfully. ‘There will be no snow on my wedding day, thank you very much.’

‘But just think how magical it will make it.’

‘Just think how cold my feet would be!’

‘We could get you some wedding wellies!’ laughed Sam.

Louise picked up her phone and rang Charley but there was no answer. She slid the cover back up with a snap.

‘Did you speak to Charley last night?’ Sam gave her a warning look that she took to mean not to say too much in front of Nicci.

Louise shook her head. ‘I tried again this morning and she said she wasn’t going in.’

‘What’s up?’ Nicci asked.

Louise filled her in on some of the happenings of the previous night. She watched as Sam squirmed, wondering just how much she would tell. But she wasn’t going to let on about their row. She’d never told anyone about Martin until last night and she certainly wasn’t going to announce it to the world now.

‘What do you think I should do?’

‘How would I know? She’s your daughter,’ Sam said pointedly. Then she relented. ‘Charley’s a bright kid. She’ll work it out for herself.’

‘Who’s for coffee?’ Nicci said. ‘I think it’s my turn to make it.’

As Nicci collected their empty mugs, Louise gave Sam a half smile. One less than that was returned. She really hoped in time Sam would come to understand that she’d been young and stupid. Then again, she still was stupid. Not even getting older had made her wiser. Or wise up to herself.

Louise sighed again. What the hell was she going to do about Charley? Like every parent, Louise wanted the best for her child. She didn’t want her making the same mistakes she had. Shame rushed through her as she thought how much her life had impacted on Charley. Louise had always put herself first, never her child. Charley was living with a mother who had no ambition, with no father figure to look up to. Apart from Matt, she supposed. Matt doted on Charley. Something else she was jealous of. Why couldn’t he dote on her too?

She tried Charley’s phone to see if she would answer. When there was no reply, she left a voicemail.

‘Hi, Charl, it’s only me. Listen, when you get this message, give me a quick call, yeah? Speak soon.

Love you. Bye.’

‘Any luck?’ Sam asked, passing her a mug from Nicci.

Louise shook her head. ‘The stubborn little minx isn’t answering.’

Nicci laughed. ‘Like mother, like daughter.’

Neither Louise nor Sam joined in.

Although she was nervous about catching – or rather missing – two trains to Rhyl, Charley was bubbling with excitement. She’d spent so much time recently day dreaming about meeting Alex. She gazed through the window at the passing scenery, wondering if he would be as nice in real life as he was online. Was his profile picture really him, all sexy eyes and dark, spiky hair and sleek like a racehorse or would he be a spotty boy with greasy hair and a weedy frame? She smiled to herself. Soon, she would find out. And at least she’d bought a return ticket home. She wasn’t that stupid.

Twenty minutes later, the train pulled into the station. Charley reached for her holdall from the luggage rail above her head and stepped down onto the platform. Her eyes searched through the people milling about but she couldn’t see anyone that looked like Alex. Unsure what to do, she moved to the side by the coffee stall where she’d arranged to meet him.

No one came towards her. She checked her watch: the train was on time. Where was he?

Fear gripped her as she wondered if it had all been a big joke. That Alex wasn’t really going to turn up. Had it been someone from school winding her up, pretending to be her friend? Tears brimmed in her eyes.

Then she noticed someone waving. She looked across the platform. An old man in his fifties, with greasy grey hair and a scruffy jumper over disgusting looking corduroy trousers walked towards her. He was smiling at her. Oh no, she didn’t know what to do. She’d heard stuff about men who lured young women away, pretending to be someone younger than they were. Please, no.

She turned towards the coffee stall as he came closer, anxiety starting to flood through her, then sighed with relief as the man moved past and said hello to a lady behind her. Then she heard her name and a hand on her shoulder. She turned and this time she knew it was Alex.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, struggling to get his breath. ‘I missed the bus and had to wait an age for another one. I see you got here on time.’

Charley was sure her heart stopped beating for a moment as she stared at him. Close up, he really was all sexy eyes, dark, spiky hair and body sleek like a racehorse. He wore a thick fleece jacket over a zipped up jumper, a scarf thrown around it casually, dark jeans and thick soled boots. And his smile. There was no mistaking him.

‘Hi,’ she said shyly.

‘Hi yourself,’ Alex replied.

They stood for a moment in the chaos around them and then they laughed.

‘Well, this is weird,’ he said eventually. And then he kissed her. Right there at the side of the platform, right next to the coffee stall. It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was a good kiss. A warm welcoming and tender first kiss; she hoped it would be the first of many. He reached for her hand and they walked away, suddenly unable to stop talking.

Charley felt so happy, she thought she might faint. She was actually here with Alex!

‘What am I going to do with her, Matt?’ Louise asked as they shared a quick break together over coffee in the café. ‘I can’t seem to get through to her no matter what I say.’

‘I’m not sure, really.’ Matt added sugar to his coffee. ‘Ordinarily, I’d tell you to wait until she’s calmed down and try to talk to her again. But she’s skipping school. You have to do something or you’ll both get into trouble.’

Louise glanced out into the aisle, watching the passing shoppers. Matt was right but he hadn’t come up with any practical advice. What she wanted to know was how to handle the situation. How to get Charley to go to school. Or more to the point, find out why she wasn’t going.

What she couldn’t tell Matt was the reason Charley hadn’t gone to school today was not the reason he thought it was. She frowned, annoyed with herself. Even now, after all that had gone on, she was still keeping secrets!

‘Penny for them,’ Matt interrupted her thoughts.

‘Hmm?’ She glanced back at him. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking.’

‘How about I have a word with her?’ Matt suggested. ‘Maybe she might tell me something that she wouldn’t tell you.’

‘You mean you want to be a negotiator?’ Louise teased. ‘You’ve been watching too much TV. Charley’s fifteen – a teenager, remember. She won’t spill anything, unless it’s to Sophie.’ Louise sighed then. ‘I wish those two would hurry up and get together again. I miss the laughter they bring to the house. It’s like a morgue in there at the moment.’

‘Well, the offer is on the table.’ Matt squeezed her hand before knocking back the dregs of his drink and standing up. ‘A man’s perception might do the trick.’

‘Ha, ha. Any idea where I might find one?’

Louise planted a smile on her face. Joking aside, she was worried that she had really messed everything up. Because that wasn’t the offer she was interested in.

Had she missed her chance with Matt?

Charley and Alex were getting off the bus they’d caught outside the railway station when Charley’s phone rang again. She pulled it from her pocket to see who it was.

‘Is it your mum?’ Alex looked at her.

Charley nodded.

‘Are you going to answer it?’

‘Nope.’

‘Nice one.’

Charley felt like a rebel as Alex grabbed her hand again and they walked together along the pavement.

There was a long, straight main road in front of them. On one side, there were terraced rows of guest houses and hotels for as far as the eye could see and on the other, a three foot hop over the wall lead to the beach. The sea was choppy, sand flailing about with the wind but Charley didn’t mind. She caught the smell of fish and chips wafting in front of her nose and checked her watch to see it was lunchtime.

‘I’m starving,’ she said. Apart from a piece of toast this morning, she hadn’t eaten anything substantial since yesterday lunch. ‘Fancy some chips?’

They each had a cone and walked on for a good twenty minutes before Alex pointed to his right.

Charley saw a gate and a sign announcing Sun Valley Caravan Park.

‘That’s the entrance.’ He pulled a key from his pocket. ‘We should be safe here tonight. It’s quite empty at this time of year, apart from people coming to air out their vans. The season starts at Easter.’

‘Aren’t your parents going to worry about you?’ Charley asked as he let them in.

‘Naw. I told them I was stopping at my friend’s house tonight. They won’t be looking for me any time soon.’ Alex took out his phone and waggled it about. ‘Aren’t these things amazing? I can speak to them or text them from anywhere and they wouldn’t have a clue if I was in the next room or had caught a plane to America. Unless they wanted to check up, of course.’

Charley giggled. ‘I’ve never been to America. We could go there tomorrow,’ she joked.

‘Or maybe Australia.’

‘Or to the moon.’

Alex laughed too, as he closed the gate behind them. ‘You’re so cool, Charley Pellington.’

Charley felt herself blushing as he kissed her again. This time there was no one around to bother them. She wanted to stay there forever but soon after, Alex grabbed her hand and they ran to the caravan.

From first impressions, it seemed okay. It wasn’t one of those tiny four berth nightmares that she remembered loving when she was younger but didn’t want to go near now she was older. This caravan was more like a small flat; she reckoned it could sleep about eight people. It had two separate bedrooms, one with a fixed double bed, not something that had to be made up with cushions every night. The living area had a table with four chairs, a settee and armchair, a small flat-screen television and a gas fire, which they were going to need as it was freezing.

Alex pointed to the large bedroom with the double bed. ‘Put your bag down in there and we can go for a walk and get some food. There’s plenty of stuff like soup and pasta in the cupboards. And there’s always coffee and teabags so all we need is bread and milk and something to drink.’

Charley could hardly contain herself. Alex was so grown-up compared to most of her friends, as well as being gorgeous. If only Sophie could see her now, she would be green with envy!

As soon as she got home that evening, Louise shouted out to Charley. When there was no reply, she listened for music but couldn’t hear that either. She stomped up the stairs, expecting to find Charley with her earphones in, but the room was empty. She glanced around. Nothing seemed to be out of place – there was still lots of teenage detritus around the room and on the floor.

She went back downstairs and tried Charley’s phone again. Still no answer and there were no missed calls from her. Unsure what to do, she started to prepare something to eat. Charley would turn up soon, no doubt, and then she’d be in for it.

But when it came to half past seven and several phone calls were still unanswered, Louise decided she’d clock-watched enough and rang Sam in a panic.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly, realising that they were hardly on the best of terms, ‘but Charley hasn’t come home yet and I don’t know want to do.’ She felt a lump in her throat. ‘Sam, I don’t know where she is.’

‘It’s probably something and nothing. Maybe she’s still annoyed about what happened yesterday. Have you contacted Sophie?’

‘No, they’re not speaking, remember?’

‘But all the same, she might be able to tell you what’s been going on with Charley lately. Do you have her number?’

‘Yes, it’s stored on my phone.’

‘Is Charley’s phone switched off?’

‘No, but it’s been ringing out for hours.’ Louise began to cry.

‘I’m on my way over. You try to reach Sophie and see if she can shed any light on it.’

‘What if anything’s happened to her? She’s all I’ve got, Sam.’

‘I’ll ring Matt. Don’t worry. We’ll find her.’

Sam was round at Louise’s house within fifteen minutes. Reece had joined her too. Neither of them were surprised when Matt answered the door.

‘She’s in bits,’ he told them. ‘Reckons it’s all her fault for being a bad mother. I can’t get any sense out of her.’

Sam went through to find Louise sunk in the settee, clutching her phone. Forgetting their recent argument, she rushed across to sit next to her.

‘She’s run away with a boy!’ Louise cried.

‘How do you know?’

‘Sophie told me. His name is Alex.’

Sam wrapped her arms around her. ‘Is he someone from school?’

‘No, much worse than that. It’s some boy she’s met on Facebook.’

Sam felt goosebumps break out all over her.

‘Sophie said Charley was obsessed with him. She was always emailing, texting him, messaging him through Facebook and something called WhatsApp, and that’s what they’d fallen out about. I had no idea.’

‘And she’s sure she’s with him?’

Louise shook her head. ‘She says they haven’t spoken to each other in a while. They used to be such good friends. But she says Charley might have gone to meet him.’

‘Do you think we should call the police?’ said Matt, who had stayed in the background with Reece, unsure what to do.

Sam didn’t know what to suggest. On the one hand, no one had seen or spoken to Charley since this morning – she could be anywhere by now. But she was a fifteen-year-old girl; she could easily be sulking, trying to teach Louise a lesson. They’d all look silly if she came rolling in as they were reporting her missing. But it was hard to know where to draw the line. And more so now that there was a boy involved. For all they knew, he could be someone older than he was making out to be. He could be a paedophile.

What would Sam do if it was her child that was missing? Charley was, after all, only fifteen.

‘Maybe we should leave it for another hour or so?’ Reece suggested. ‘I know it isn’t ideal but I think you can trust Charley. If she’s safe, she’ll let you know.’

‘But what if she isn’t safe?’ said Louise. ‘She could have been kidnapped and tortured. She could be in danger right now. I’d be responsible for that.’

‘I know it’s a risk but Reece is right, Louise.’ Sam got out her phone. ‘And I bet if the police know you and her were arguing yesterday, they’d tell you to wait a while longer too.’

‘You had a row?’ said Matt.

Louise said nothing.

Sam began to type out a message. ‘Let me send a text asking her to contact me, just to let us know she’s okay. Hopefully, she’ll text me back. At least if she does that, we’ll know she’s all right.’

‘But I need to know where she is now so that I can go and fetch her!’ Louise started to cry again. ‘I want her home with me, where I can see her.’

Sam held her while she cried. ‘She’ll be okay, Louise,’ she stroked her hair. ‘She’ll be okay.’

She looked up to see both Matt and Reece staring back at her. They wore the same worried expression that she did.

It was evening when Charley and Alex arrived back at the caravan, each carrying a shopping bag. After hanging around the centre of town for most of the afternoon, drinking coffee and window shopping, they’d bought a pizza to share and a bag of salad. They also had fresh bread and butter, and chocolate trifle for afterwards. Charley had added sweets and chocolate into their basket: Alex, a bottle of coke and a few cans of lager.

But Charley was getting increasingly more worried every time she looked at her phone. She was getting more and more phone calls. Oh, no, she was in so much trouble.

Seeing her apprehension as she checked it once more, after he’d put the bags down onto the table Alex stopped to give her a hug.

‘It’ll be okay,’ he reassured her. ‘You can go home tomorrow but you must make her worry about you. Do you want to check out what’s in the cupboards while I switch on the gas? It’s just outside.’

Charley watched him disappear out of the door. She could have made a run for it quite a few times during the day. Even now, she’d only have to go back to the main road and flag down a taxi or something.

But she didn’t want to. She felt safe with Alex. She had nothing to prove to him: he liked her for who she was. It was just what she needed right now.

She opened kitchen cupboards and put away their little bit of shopping. Then she emptied her bag, placing things down on top of the fitted dressing table. Glancing at the double bed, she wondered about what would happen later. Would she be able to go all the way this time?

She picked up her phone. There were lots of missed calls from her mum – voice messages too. And text messages – including one from Sam.

‘Hi Charl. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, it’s okay. But you need to let your mum know you’re safe. Text me back. S x’

Charley typed a reply. She supposed she was okay with letting her mum know she was safe. Then she heard the caravan door open and Alex bounding up the steps, so she pressed send quickly, switched off the phone and shoved it back inside her bag.

Sam wasn’t sure what to think when she read the text message. Nor what she should tell Louise standing in front of her.

‘What does it say?’ asked Louise, apprehension clear in her voice.

‘She’s okay, for starters.’ Sam decided to tell her the good news first.

Louise cried with relief. ‘Oh, thank goodness.’ But then she panicked. ‘That text might have been sent by anyone! Someone could have her phone! Let me read it. What exactly does it say?’ Before Sam could stop her, she snatched the phone from her hand. The message from Charley read:

‘Tell Mum I’m ok but not coming home. Cx’.

‘She’s not coming home?’ Louise frowned as she looked up at everyone. ‘Do you think she’s with that Alex? Alex might not even be Alex, for all we know. He could be some sex fiend acting as a boy called Alex. I can’t stand around anymore. I’m calling the police.’

Sam shivered, her eyes filling with tears as she listened to Louise reporting Charley as a missing person.