The large room contains a makeshift stage, a hassled-looking teacher, a few gum-chewing girls and, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, his daughter. Ignoring everyone, Nelson enfolds the outraged Rebecca in a fierce hug.
‘Thank God. Thank God.’
‘Dad! Get off!’
‘Rebecca,’ he holds her at arm’s length, ‘where’s Laura? Where’s your sister?’ If anything happens to Laura, he will always feel guilty that he came to find Rebecca first.
‘I’ve got no idea. Dad! Let me go! What are you playing at?’
‘We’re going home.’
‘I don’t want to go home. I’m playing Tzeitel.’
‘Come on.’
Without letting go of Rebecca’s arm, he shouts ‘Sorry’ to the now frankly terrified teacher and propels them both out of the room.
In the corridor, he stabs Laura’s number into his phone. Straight through to answerphone. He tries again, hardly noticing the four missed calls from Judy Johnson. He looks at his watch. Four o’clock. Michelle won’t be home before six. Where is Laura? His darling eldest daughter, so correct and well-behaved always (like one of the girls in Little Women, Michelle used to say). Where can she be?
‘Does Laura go to any clubs on a Thursday?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Keep ringing her,’ Nelson thrusts his phone into Rebecca’s hand, ‘we’re going home.’
Ignoring Rebecca’s litany of complaints, threats and slurs on his parenting (he’s had plenty of practice), Nelson drags her back through the school and across the now deserted playing field to the place where his car is rammed up against the wall.
‘Dad! Your car!’ For the first time, Rebecca sounds shocked.
‘Keep phoning.’
Laura will have gone home. It’s not unlike her to get home first, put the kettle on and cook supper for everyone. An angel, that’s what she is. Nelson’s eyes are wet when he thinks what an angel his eldest daughter is. Rebecca has always been the rebellious one and, besides, Rebecca is sitting beside him, safe and sound, so he doesn’t need to sanctify her. But Laura, Laura is out there somewhere with a madman on her trail. Perhaps he has already found her, perhaps he has… Nelson rams his foot down on the accelerator.
‘Dad! Are you trying to kill us?’
‘Keep phoning.’
He takes the turn into the drive on two wheels. Michelle’s car isn’t there but then he wouldn’t expect her to be home yet. Will she kill him for not phoning her first? No, Michelle would want him to do what he is doing – save their daughters’ lives.
‘Laura!’ yells Nelson, bursting in through the front door.
A silence during which Nelson thinks that he can hear his heart breaking. And then, a faint noise, like a rat scrabbling, directly overhead.
‘Laura?’ Nelson starts to climb the stairs.
‘Dad! Don’t!’ Rebecca grabs his arm. He looks at her, uncomprehending. He tries to shake Rebecca off and, as he does so, notices two things: Laura’s flowery backpack lying beside the front door and a pair of man-size trainers next to it.
‘Dad?’
And there is Laura at the top of the stairs. Not dead but gloriously alive, wearing a dressing gown tightly belted around her waist.
‘Laura! Sweetheart!’ He bounds upstairs to hug her. She’s safe. Thank God, she’s safe. Thank you God. I’ll go to mass next Sunday. She’s alive. They’re both alive… A dressing gown?
He loosens his grip, takes in Laura’s dishevelled appearance, Rebecca’s attempts to make herself invisible, the scuffling sounds still emanating from one of the upstairs rooms. Quick as thought, he kicks open the door to Laura’s bedroom.
And finds a youth, half-dressed, trying to climb out of the window.
CHAPTER 31
It takes about a second for Nelson to revert from distraught father to aggressive policeman. He slams the window shut and addresses the cringing boy, ‘Get your clothes on, sunshine, and get out of my house. If I ever see you here again, I’ll lock you up.’
At the foot of the stairs, Rebecca and Laura are staring up at him, clinging together for support.
‘Did you know?’ he asks Rebecca. ‘Did you know what she was doing?’
‘No. Honestly!’
He knows she is lying but there is no time to do anything about that now. He is already phoning Sergeant Clough. ‘Cloughie. Someone’s threatening my girls. I need some protection over here right now.’ Glancing at his phone, he sees there are now six missed calls from Judy.
‘Get in the sitting room,’ he tells the girls.
‘I want to get dressed,’ says Laura.
Nelson experiences a spasm of – what? Revulsion, anger, sadness? His daughter, his angel, was about to have sex with that gangling idiot upstairs. He hears the front door slam. At least he is gone, maybe he won’t come back. Maybe he was just in time to save his daughter’s virginity. And then he thinks: who am I kidding? Of course he wasn’t in time; he is months, perhaps years, too late.
‘Who was he?’ he asks.
‘His name’s Lee,’ says Laura sulkily. ‘Mum’s met him,’ she adds, as if this makes it all right.
A fresh horror strikes Nelson’s heart. ‘Does your mother know…?’
‘No!’ Laura’s shocked response somehow reassures him. At least Laura has had the decency to hide her sex life from her parents. At least Michelle isn’t colluding with her daughters behind his back.
‘I want you both to stay downstairs,’ he says.
It is gradually beginning to dawn on Rebecca that there is more to her father’s behaviour than the usual parental paranoia.
‘Dad,’ she says, ‘what’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ Nelson starts to dial Judy’s number.
‘You said someone was threatening us.’
‘Just some nutter,’ says Nelson, trying to sound reassuring. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, I promise you.’
Both the girls now look completely terrified. They huddle together on the sofa and Rebecca automatically switches on the TV. Nelson is about to shout at her to turn it off but then he thinks that maybe they could do with the soothing mindlessness of MTV or Hollyoaks. Certainly, Laura and Rebecca both relax slightly when the screen is filled with loud Americans exchanging complicated handshakes.
Then the doorbell rings and they both scream.
‘It’s only Cloughie,’ says Nelson. ‘Stay here!’ he barks, slightly ruining the calming effect.
But it isn’t Clough. It’s Cathbad. He is wearing what Nelson calls his ‘semi-Druid’ costume; jeans and T-shirt covered by a tattered purple cloak. But his expression as he grasps Nelson’s arm is devoid of any play-acting. He looks in deadly earnest.
‘Nelson. I think something’s happened to Ruth.’
Judy presses ‘redial’ again and again as she runs through the rainswept Southport streets. Why the hell isn’t Nelson answering his phone? Passing pensioners and glum-looking tourists turn to stare as she races past them. Probably no one has moved that fast in Southport for the last fifty years. When she arrives at the convent, she is wild-haired and out of breath, still punching redial with one finger.
‘Can… I… see… Sister Immaculata please?’
‘I’m sorry, it’s out of the question.’ The nun at the door looks faintly accusing. ‘She’s had a very bad turn. The doctor’s with her now.’
‘I’ll wait,’ pants Judy.
‘She won’t be seeing anyone else today.’
At first Nelson hardly takes in what Cathbad is saying. Then, slowly, the wheels turn in his head and his whole body is suddenly icy cold. Ruth… his daughter. I’m going to kill your daughter. Could whoever sent this message possibly know that Ruth is carrying his daughter inside her? He goes so pale that Cathbad looks concerned.