Lynda La Plante - Twisted

‘Do remember me?’ he asked gently.

‘Yes of course I do,’ she said weakly.

‘I’ve come a long way to talk to you. I got lucky at the gas station in Mazatlan and they directed me here.’

He slowly got to his feet; after such a long drive he felt stiff all over. He walked to a low wooden carved chair with a cushion and sat down, rubbing his thighs and knees. He couldn’t help but notice that she still wore the ballet shoes and her hair, which had reminded him of Marilyn Monroe’s, was even more blonde and she was deeply tanned. He was slightly embarrassed that he was wearing tatty baggy shorts and lace-up shoes without socks, while he knew he must stink of body odour as he had been sweating most of the day and night.

Slowly she stared at him, then sat up further and reached for the tin mug to finish the water.

‘She’s not here,’ she whispered.

‘Are you referring to Amy?’ he asked and she looked at him as if he were an idiot.

‘Who do you think I am talking about? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

She turned away from him and rested both hands on the stone floor before she eased herself up.

‘You have a lot of explaining to do,’ he said. ‘However, I’ve had a very long drive and I wouldn’t mind taking a shower first before we talk.’

She didn’t answer, but lit a candle and put it inside the small glass lantern. She went into the bedroom and returned with a cheap worn beach towel, informing him they had no shower, but a hosepipe was rigged up outside and he could wash with that. She tossed the towel to him and said there was soap and shampoo by the hosepipe. As she led him there, she moved in the way he remembered, like a ballet dancer gliding lightly across the ground. He asked if she minded getting him a clean shirt and underwear from the camper van.

He stood like a teenager, wearing his jockey shorts and nothing else as he held the hopepipe over his head. She held up a shirt and underwear then tossed them beside the beach towel and asked if he was hungry.

‘I am, in fact I’ve only had a sandwich since-’

She didn’t listen to what he was saying and returned to the cottage. Self-consciously he realized he was standing half naked, and the gathering mosquitoes were beginning to bite the hell out of him. He dried himself off as fast as he could, got out of his wet jockey shorts and into his dry crumpled ones and then pulled on the cotton shirt that he had bought on arrival at the airport. It was typically Mexican, wide-sleeved and full, with embroidery around the collar.

Heading back into the cottage, he found she was frying up some bacon, and coffee was bubbling in a tin jug. She had set out plates and mugs on a wooden table with a lit candle in an old wine bottle.

‘You said she’s not here, so where is she?’

She turned with a wooden spoon in her hand. ‘I don’t know, Detective Reid.’

She finished frying the bacon and used the same pan for some eggs. She placed a hunk of rough home-made bread on the table and poured two mugs of coffee. Yet again he was very aware of how beautifully she moved, very light on her feet, swaying as she deftly returned to spoon out the eggs from the frying pan onto two decorative plates.

She carried both plates to the table; he had three rashers of bacon and two fried eggs. She had one egg, saying she wasn’t very hungry, but she jabbed her fork into the yoke.

‘I thought my hens might have run off this morning, but they are back in their hutch and these are freshly laid,’ she said, as if making polite conversation.

They ate in silence; she hardly touched her food, but he was so hungry he could have eaten twice the amount. He was trying to think of how he should approach asking her the multitude of questions he needed answers to, but she took the dirty plates into the kitchen and came out with the coffee pot to top up their mugs. She crossed to the fireside and began heaping bundles of tied twigs into the grate and placing logs around them before she skilfully brought a lit taper from the candles to light the fire.

She was very adept at blowing the kindling until it caught fully alight and began to burn while he remained sitting at the table, his hands cupped around the mug of black coffee. He loved the way she moved, and she turned, catching him watching her.

‘I didn’t lie to you when you questioned me at the school,’ she said. ‘I truthfully had no idea where Amy was, and I was shocked by what you told me and was frightened that something terrible had happened to her.’

‘When did you know?’

She shrugged and said that it was after she had been told to leave, and just before she had arranged to travel on a group tour with other artists to Peru for two weeks.

‘She called me, and made me promise to keep silent, or she wouldn’t tell me where she was, and so I agreed.’

‘Where was she?’

‘She’d been staying at a house in Henley as she knew the owner was abroad and where a spare key had been hidden.’

‘Simon Boatly’s?’

She nodded.

‘But he came back to the house not long after Amy went missing?’

‘I know, she told me when I saw her. It really frightened her as she had to hide in a wardrobe until late at night and then sneak out of the house.’

‘Hang on a second… if you went and saw her, where and when was this?’

‘The weekend after you first spoke to me at the school. She’d gone to a youth hostel in Oxford. She knew the place a bit because her mother had taken her there before to show her round the old colleges she studied at.’

‘Did she see the TV and newspaper appeals about her?’

‘Yes, but she’d changed her appearance with fake glasses, tied her hair up and dressed scruffy. She figured with so many students in Oxford she’d just blend in and no one would recognize her.’

‘But if she saw the TV appeal and the state her parents were in, why didn’t she make contact to at least say she was alive and well?’

‘I tried to persuade her to get in touch with them or you, but Amy was adamant that she would not do that and refused to explain why. She only said that she wanted to go away, stay away from them forever.’

‘What about money? She’d made no withdrawals from her bank.’

‘Because she didn’t want anyone to be able to trace her. I tried to make her change her mind, but she was very strung out and insisted that she would be able to finance herself to go abroad. I asked how, but she wouldn’t tell me.’

‘But she left her passport at her home?’

‘I know that,’ Jo snapped.

He lifted his hands in submission as she turned away and remained silent for a few moments before she continued.

‘My full name is Josephine Poliakoff, I started using Polka years ago as a surname as it sort of sounded to me more like a dancer. I had a younger sister who died just before I became an art teacher at the school.’

‘The girl on the beach in the picture in the hallway of your school cottage?’ he recalled and she gave him an odd smile.

‘Yes, you have a good memory. Her name was Anna and I still had her old passport. She was barely older than Amy.’

‘I thought at the time she looked similar to Amy, but her hair was much shorter.’

‘Amy cut her hair short so there was even more of a similarity between them and the passport was still valid. Then I had Miss Harrington walking into the cottage and it was just awful as she looked around and then implied that she had received some anonymous information about me – I told you. Anyway, she asked me if I was lesbian and said that I was unsuitable for my position with the girls, blah blah, and I didn’t wait to even explain anything but gave her my resignation – the relief on her face! But as to who would have written to her – God knows, probably that little bitch Serena.’