Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

But somewhere shouted a chorus: She did.

“Maggie!”

She cried out. She tried to make herself small, like a mouse. She hid her face in her arms and slid down the side of the rubbish bin until she was sitting on the pavement, balling herself up as if reducing her size somehow served as a form of protection.

“Maggie, what’s going on? Why’d you run off? Didn’t you hear me calling?” A body joined her on the pavement. An arm went round her.

She smelled the old leather of his jacket before she processed the fact that the voice was Nick’s. She thought in nonsensical but nonetheless rapid succession how he always kept the jacket crumpled up in his rucksack during school hours when he had to be in uniform, how he always took it out during lunch to “give it a breather,” how he always wore it the minute he was able, before and after school. It was odd to think she would know the smell of him before she’d recognise the sound of his voice. She gripped his knee.

“You went off. You and Josie.”

“Went off? Where?”

“They said you’d gone. You were with…You and Josie. They said.”

“We were on the bus like always. We saw you run off. You looked dead cut up about something, so I came after you.”

She lifted her head. She’d lost her barrette somewhere in the flight from the school, so her hair hung round her face and partially screened him from her.

He smiled. “You look done in, Mag.” He thrust his hand inside his jacket and brought out his cigarettes. “You look like a ghost was

chasing you.”

“I won’t go back,” she said.

He bent his head to shelter cigarette and flame, and he flipped the used match into the street. “No point to that.” He inhaled with the deep satisfaction of someone for whom a change in circumstances has allowed a smoke sooner rather than later. “Bus is gone anyway.”

“I mean back to school. Tomorrow. To lessons. I won’t go. Ever.”

He eyed her, brushing his hair back from his cheeks. “This about that bloke from London, Mag? The one with the big motor that got all the chappies in a fuss today?”

“You’ll say forget it. You’ll say ignore them. But they won’t let up. I’m never going back.”

“Why? What’s it to you what those twits think?”

She twisted the strap of her rucksack round her fingers until she saw that her nails were turning blue.

“Who cares what they say?” he asked. “You know what’s what. That’s all that matters.”

She squeezed her eyes shut against the truth and pressed her lips together to keep from saying it. She felt more tears leak out from beneath her eyelids, and she hated herself for the sob which she tried to disguise with a cough.

“Mag?” he said. “You know the truth, right? So what those loobies say in the schoolyard don’t amount to nothing but twaddle, right? What they say’s not important. What you know is.”

“I don’t know.” The admission burst from her like a sickness she could no longer contain. “The truth. What she…I don’t know. I don’t know .” Even more tears spilled out. She hid her face on her knees.

Nick whistled low, between his teeth. “You never said before now.”

“We always move. Every two years. Only this time I wanted to stay. I said I’d be good, I’d make her proud, I’d do good in school. If we could just stay. This once. Just stay. And she said yes. And then I met the vicar after you and I…after what we did and how hateful Mummy was and how bad I felt. And he made me feel better and…She was in a rage about that.” She sobbed.

Nick flung his cigarette into the street and held her with the other arm as well.

“He found me. That’s what it is, Nick. He finally found me. She didn’t want that. It’s why we always ran. But this time we didn’t and he had enough time. He came. He came like I always knew he would.”

Nick was silent for a moment. She could hear him draw a breath. “Maggie, you’re thinking the vicar was your dad?”

“She didn’t want me to see him and I saw him anyway.” She raised her head and grabbed onto his jacket. “And now she doesn’t want me to see you. So I won’t go back there. I won’t. You can’t make me. No one can. If you try—”

“Is there a problem here, kids?”

They both drew back from the sound of a voice. They turned to see the speaker. A rail-thin policewoman stood above them, heavily cloaked for the weather and wearing her hat at a rakish angle. She carried a notebook in one hand and a plastic cup of something steaming in the other. She sipped from this as she waited for response.

“A blow-up at school,” Nick said. “It’s nothing much.”

“Needing some help?”

“Nah. It’s girl stuff. She’ll be okay.”

The policewoman studied Maggie with what looked more like curiosity than empathy.

She shifted her attention to Nick. She made a show out of watching them over the rim of her cup — its lazy cat’s-tail of steam fogging up her spectacles — as she took another sip of whatever was in it. Then she nodded and said, “You’d best be off home then,” and held her ground.

“Yeah, right,” Nick said. He urged Maggie to her feet. “C’mon then. We’re off.”

“Live round here?” the policewoman asked.

“Just a ways from the high.”

“I’ve not seen you before.”

“No? I’ve seen you lots. You have a dog, right?”

“A Corgi, yes.”

“See. I knew. Seen you out for your walk.” Nick tapped his index finger out from his temple in a form of salute. “Afternoon,” he said. Arm round Maggie, he shepherded her back in the direction of the high street. Neither of them looked to see if the policewoman was watching.

At the first corner, they ducked right. A short distance down the street and another right led through a walkway that lay between the back of the public buildings and the overgrown rear gardens of a line of council cottages. Then they were heading down the slope once more. They emerged in less than five minutes into Clitheroe’s car park. It was largely empty of vehicles at this time of day.

“How’d you know about her dog?” Maggie asked.

“I just went with the odds. A lucky break for us.”

“You’re clever. And good. I love you, Nick. You take care of me.”

They stopped in the shelter of the public lavatory. Nick blew on his hands and tucked them underneath his arms. “Going to be cold tonight,” he said. He looked in the direction of the town where smoke feathered up from chimneys, becoming lost against the sky. “You hungry, Mag?”

Maggie read the desire beneath the words. “You c’n go on home.”

“I won’t. Not ’less you—”

“I’m not going.”

“Then neither am I.”

They were at an impasse. The evening wind was starting to blow, and it had an easy time of finding them. It gusted across the car park, unimpeded, and scattered bits of trash about their feet. A Moment’s bag glittered greenly against Maggie’s leg. She used her foot to brush it away, leaving a streak of brown against the navy of her tights.

Nick brought out a handful of coins from his pocket. He counted.

“Two pounds sixty-seven,” he said. “What about you?”

She dropped her eyes, said, “Nothing,” then raised them in a hurry. She tried to make her voice sound proud. “So you don’t have to stay. Go on. I can manage.”

“I already said—”

“If she finds me with you, it’ll go that much worse on us both. Go home.”

“Won’t happen. I’m staying. I said.”

“No. I don’t want to be at fault. I’m already… because of Mr. Sage…” She wiped her face on her coat sleeve. She was tired to the bone and longing for sleep. She wondered about trying the lavatory door. She did so. It was locked. She sighed. “Go on,” she said again. “You know what c’n happen if you don’t.”