Tuesday 30 October, 3.20 p.m.
Korpanski wasn’t about to shed any further light on her thorny problem but at least he’d handed her a spark of an idea. She picked up the phone to summon a couple of uniforms and gave them their instructions – to find out which schools were around in the 1920s and 1930s in Leek and search any premises or areas where they had been, as well as current school buildings.
What if she’d been looking at this the wrong way round? Focusing on the wrong place.
Not an old man missing but an old toy missing. Cause and effect, Matthew had said.
She picked up the phone and connected finally with Matilda Warrender, the matron of Ryland’s. Without preamble she dived in.
‘Tell me more about Mr Foster’s teddy bear.’
After the briefest of pauses, which Joanna translated correctly to This is a joke? the matron responded, audibly supressing surprise and a chuckle which escaped. ‘He’d had it since he was a little boy …’ Joanna did a quick calculation. Zac was born in 1922.
‘So he was given it around 1926 or so?’
‘I suppose so.’ She couldn’t have been less interested.
But Joanna pressed on. ‘I think you said it was black?’
The matron laughed. ‘Yes, a really tatty old thing.’
‘Can you tell me anything more about it?’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know. Anything.’
‘No.’
‘And the bear that replaced it? What was that like?’
‘Oh, much newer.’ A pause. ‘And it was brown nylon fur. Not black.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘No one’s admitted finding it for him?’
‘No.’
‘Would you mind asking all your staff who gave him the substitute toy?’
‘If you want.’ Maybe realizing she was bordering on sounding rude, the matron added, ‘It didn’t do much good anyway. He wouldn’t have anything to do with it. He just threw it on the floor, although I think he did pick it up later.’
‘Thank you.’
Joanna put the phone down.
Wednesday 17 October, 9.30 p.m.
It hadn’t been as easy as she’d thought. Even though he’d had his sleeping tablets, Zac was restless, almost as though he knew something was going to happen tonight. Added to that his arm was tight around the bear and she could hardly release it. Even when it was safely in her hands he gave a little moan and reached out. Lucky she’d brought the substitute.
She bundled his bear into a bag and couldn’t wait to leave.
Thursday 18 October, 7.45 a.m.
Ryland’s Residential Home, Room 11
Even before he awoke he knew something was very wrong. Something didn’t smell right and it didn’t feel right either. Without opening his eyes he touched it tentatively, stroked the fur, tried to find the button on its ear, put the paw into his mouth and then he knew. It was the wrong one. He opened his eyes and sat up in bed. Looked at it and gave out a howl.
One of the nurses came in response. ‘What is it, Zac?’
He held out the teddy bear and howled again.
She took a brief look before trying to soothe him. ‘It’s just your teddy.’
He shook his head. ‘Not mine. Not mine.’ And he threw it across the room while Alf watched curiously.
The nurse stroked his head. ‘Course it is, love.’ She picked it up and held it out to him. He took it and again flung it across the room, glaring at her. ‘Not mine. Not mine, not mine. Someone stole it.’ And again he set up the agonized howl.
Jubilee heard it from the other end of the corridor. So he had noticed. The guilt seeped into her from her feet up.
Zachary Foster lay back in his bed, even more confused than usual as he tried to work it out. Someone had taken it. He looked around and saw Alf staring at him. He threw back the covers, sat up and walked towards him. ‘Have you took it?’
‘Took what?’
‘My bear. Teddy.’
Alf shook his head, doleful. ‘Sorry. No.’
Zachary gave him a hard stare then gave up and returned to his bed, still puzzling.
‘Time to get up now.’ Shawna approached him cautiously. Word was that Zac was being difficult this morning.
Zac folded his arms and lay back against the pillows, shaking his head. ‘I’m not getting up today.’
‘Come on, Zac,’ she pleaded.
He lashed out then, catching her arm so she winced. ‘Not until you find it.’
This, she thought, was tiresome. There wasn’t time for patients to be difficult – or violent.
Zac lay in bed trying to work it out.
Who took it?
He ticked people off on his fingers. He couldn’t remember all their names, even though they all wore name badges. Stella? Was there a Stella? He thought there was. Well, there might be. The girl with almost white-blonde hair. No her name wasn’t Stella. That was somebody else he’d once known. The nurse’s name was … He screwed up his face. Something else beginning with ‘S’.
There was another girl with red hair (dyed, he thought; it was too bright to be natural), whose name he couldn’t remember, and another who was from the Far East. Not her, he thought. Suzy Wong, he called her. Not her. He liked her. She smiled a lot and patted his arm; though people from the Far East were supposed to be inscrutable, she was not. She giggled a lot. Funnily enough she had a Welsh name. Something that sounded like Near.
There was an Indian girl who giggled a lot too. He couldn’t remember her name either. Not her. She was too pretty. And friendly. But the one he liked best was the big Jamaican with a loud, hysterical laugh that bubbled up from her belly. Jubilee. There never was anyone better named. Maybe Jubilee would help him find it.
It could never be her who’d taken Teddy. She was far too nice. She wouldn’t steal from him. He’d told her the story and she’d listened, her eyes kind and understanding.
So who was it? Someone sly and greedy. Someone who wanted his little treasure. Well, he would find out who it was and report them to the police. They wouldn’t get away with it. He looked at the wrong teddy he’d just hurled to the floor and felt a bit sorry for it now. That was no way to treat a teddy just because it wasn’t his. Maybe it was somebody else’s treasured thing. Someone who was even now searching for it. And he’d treated it badly. Hurt it. He picked it up and put it on the end of his bed from where it gave him a sad, lopsided, apologetic little grin.
When the afternoon shift arrived, Jubilee and the other nurses who’d worked through the morning had to give a report. And this threw Jubilee into a quandary. Zac had been kicking off about his beloved bear. Should she mention it? She needn’t have worried. Shawna was making a fuss about the bruise that was beginning to form on her arm.
‘He seems to have settled down a bit now,’ she said, ‘but maybe tonight he’ll need some extra medication.’
It was duly noted down.
Jubilee stood through the other nurses’ reports, still feeling the moment she’d slipped his hand from around his beloved childhood toy and replaced it with the charity-shop bear. Even then she’d had a pang of conscience. But he’d hardly stirred. The cocktail of sleeping drugs meant all their patients slept like babies and gave the staff a quiet night.
Her eyelids drooped as she abstracted herself.
If she was to get to Spanish Town, they needed to convert that bear into money as quickly as possible and get away.
They needed cash. Quickly.
‘Jubilee?’
She gave her report without mentioning Zac’s loss and thankfully went off duty.
Thursday 18 October, 5 p.m.
Chi had always known she wouldn’t be able to stand up to one of Kath’s interrogations. She collared Chi when she’d packed Fifi and Debs down the chippy. And when Chi tried to slide by to go with them, Kath had her by a shoulder-grip that practically had her on her knees. ‘Not you. You stay here. I want to talk to you.’
Like I have a choice?
‘Don’t think you can play a double game with me.’
Chi shook her head. ‘Double game? Not with you, Kath.’
Kath gave a slow shake of her head, eyes steadily focused as though she was puzzling something out. ‘Something isn’t right with you, my friend. You’re up to something.’
She spoke slowly and deliberately and Chi recognized the threat behind it. Her legs felt like jelly. She was wobbly with terror. She felt sick too. Planning the escapade with Jubilee had seemed such fun. Such a simple, easy way of making a packet. The old man, Jubilee had assured her, probably wouldn’t even notice the switch. So it was a win-win situation, a victimless crime. But if Kath became involved it would be a whole new ball game. Chi wasn’t brave. She was frightened. Last week she’d seen Kath punch a woman for sneaking into a parking space ahead of her at Sainsbury’s. Only the fact that the woman had moved her head so the punch had landed on her ear had saved her from a broken nose or a split lip and Kath from another stretch inside.
‘You’re trying to keep little secrets from me.’ Chi knew that tone of voice too. Not loud – shouting, screaming – but quiet and menacing.
Chi shook her head, tried, one last time, to protest, to wriggle out of it. Their plans would soon come tumbling down if Kath got involved. She made a weak attempt at protest. ‘No, I’m not, Kath. I promise. I am not keeping any secrets from you.’
Kath leered and held out her hand. ‘Give us your phone then.’
Chi stared at her and knew this was the start of something very bad.
Kath scrolled through the messages without saying a word while Chi tried her hardest not to breathe. If I don’t breathe, she tried to kid herself, she’ll forget I’m here. She focused on keeping her knees perfectly still and waited while Kath continued to read. Then she looked up. Sometimes Kath shocked her not just with her nastiness but with her insight. After reading through a few more messages she read one out. OK. Speak to that lady and see about getting the money. Soon. Chi cursed herself for being so careless, leaving the message on her phone for Kath to read. She knew what she was like – suspicious.
Her face didn’t move a muscle.
Kath’s eyes were like marbles, cold glass marbles. Her smile looked evil. Little more than a curve of her mouth.
With the result that when Kath smiled, it was only marginally less threatening than when she ranted or lashed out or put on that quiet voice. Because anyone who knew her was aware what would come next. And those who didn’t would still never forget that smile or the action that inevitably followed.
Kath drew in a deep breath, scowling as she read out the message again.
OK. Speak to that lady and see about getting the money. Soon.
‘What’s all this about?’
Inch by inch, word by word, the story leaked out, like urine from a terrified person with poor bladder control.
But for the first time in her life, Chi sensed that Kath was both surprised and impressed.
‘You’re sure?’ Kath dragged deeply on her fag. She rubbed the jagged point of her tooth and then she looked up. ‘What’s your plan then?’
This was when Chi opened her mouth but her throat seemed tied up with barbed wire. ‘Umm.’ She regarded Kath with trepidation, unsure just what she could or should say, and finally coming up with, ‘To get the money.’ She was praying that Kath didn’t follow this up with, And then what? She didn’t want to tell her about Spanish Town. She just wanted to disappear.
But Kath’s response mirrored her own previous question, one word. ‘How?’
‘How what?’
‘How do you intend to get the money?’
Chi thought for a moment and knew she had to tell her about Diana Sutcliffe.
Kath’s response was predictable. ‘And you trust her?’
Chi shrugged. ‘I don’t have a lot of choice, Kath.’
‘The old man – will he make a fuss?’
‘If he does, Jubilee says that no one will take any notice. He’s got dementia.’
‘And once you’ve got the money?’
This was the bit Chi had been dreading, the weak link in her story. Knowing Kath would sense the true version, Chi confessed. ‘Spend it, I suppose.’
Kath was thoughtful a while longer, her eyes narrow and suspicious, while the other two, back from the chippy, simply stared, eyes rounded. ‘How?’
Somehow she had to head her off. She affected nonchalance, studied her fingernails. ‘I don’t know, Kath. Jubilee might be wrong. It might be a bit of absolute shit.’
Kath countered this with, ‘But you trust her.’
Chi shrugged, dragging out all her acting skills. ‘Sort of.’
Kath fell quiet while Chi froze. Something cold trickled down her spine. As slowly as an ice cube melting.
Then Kath smiled. Her friend should have remembered. She was a snake.
She could see just how she could use this.
‘I’ve got a suggestion,’ she hissed.
Three minutes later, Chi was drowning in a barrel of treacle. The place where reggae music played all night and the sun shone all day, where she wouldn’t have to bundle up six months of the year, where she could drink rum and coke and sleep on the sand, vanished as abruptly as a dream when you wake to the alarm clock and realize you’re late for work.
She felt sick.
In contrast Kath was just starting to feel excited. She had known that her plan was missing one vital part. But now she could see her way through and Chi and her Jamaican friend were going to help her.
Thursday 18 October, 8 p.m.
The conversation with Kath had unnerved Chi. As soon as she could, she took the opportunity to surreptitiously get in touch with Jubilee. She wandered upstairs to the bedroom and pulled out her mobile phone.
‘I got good and bad news,’ she said.
And now Jubilee was tense too. ‘Give me the good first.’
‘I’m meeting Diana Sutcliffe tomorrow.’
‘That is good news. And the bad?’
‘Kath’s got wind of our plan.’
‘How much of it?’
For a moment Chi didn’t respond. Then honesty prevailed. ‘Most of it.’
‘So what does she want out of it?’
‘I don’t know for sure.’
Jubilee’s response was predictable. ‘Is this Kath girl going to be trouble?’
‘She could be.’ She had entertained her new friend with some of Kath’s milder exploits but had stopped short of describing Kath’s true nature and how that manifested itself. But Jubilee was smart enough to have picked up the implication. ‘What do you think she will do?’
‘I don’t know.’