14

Baby, I Want You

EVERY WOMAN WANTS to be wanted – but not by the entire Metropolitan Police Force.

The newspaper report was succinct. ‘Prime Time’ said the headline. ‘A Holloway remand prisoner absconded from BBC television studios in London last night, after an unprovoked assault on well-known naturalist, Alexander Drake. She was taking part in a programme on crime.’

It was not a big story. Maddy was not, after all, exactly Mata frigging Hari. It wasn’t as if she had the cops on Chalk Outline Duty or anything. But still, she had to be careful. She thought about getting out of town; a brief holiday at Frostbite Loch or Sewerage Bay; a little lying-low time at one of England’s walk-down-this-street-at-night-and-you’ll-be-raped seaside resorts . . . but that was not the way to find Jack and Gillian.

Where did people go when they went missing? Maddy had no bloody idea. Perhaps there was one giant condo where Lord Lucan, the crew of the Marie Celeste, the missing aircraft of the Bermuda Triangle and Bill Clinton’s credibility, were all hiding out together?

During her first week on the run Maddy gave blood regularly. At least you got to lie down somewhere warm, drink hot tea and eat biccies. Five gallons later, Maddy felt it was time for a new plan – only she was too light-headed to make one. She did determine to steer clear of hotels and hostels. Her mother’s maiden name, her age, her cervical cap size, all were available at the prod of a terminal. So she ended up sleeping rough at the Bullring – a windswept desolate patch of concrete beneath a busy traffic roundabout by Waterloo Station.

Maddy retreated to an empty refrigerator box in this shanty town of cardboard and blankets. It showered sporadically during the night. Rain dripped through her cardboard roof as if it were a Melitta coffee filter. Pavement cracks and corduroy ridges in the cardboard provided impromptu acupuncture. As multi-footed insects feasted on her flesh, Maddy tried to remind herself just who was the dominant species.

Regent’s Park seemed a more attractive address, but she only lasted half a night. The trouble was that life was not like Winnie the Pooh. Real animals don’t want to befriend you; they want to eat you, instantly.

But always, no matter where she was – soup kitchens, churches, the blood bank, St Martin’s Day Centre, the Homeless Shelter above the Odeon in Leicester Square – she would check for escape routes, exits, back doors and side alleys. She tried to look enigmatic – not a look which came naturally; Madeline Wolfe was about as inscrutable as a telephone book. Every footstep had her turning, hands rising in surrender.

She had to find Jack. And fast. Her mourning-sickness was getting chronic. In cafés, she’d started reminding men she’d never seen before to wash their hands after going to the toilet. She needed help and she needed it now. Twelve thousand miles from home, there was only one person she could turn to.

Maddy couldn’t think of a less appealing rendezvous. A David Koresh Memorial Barbecue held more allure. But what choice did she bloody well have?

In the witching hour of a moonless night, Maddy made her way to Maida Vale.