Stolen

  ‘They’ve found out Lotte went to London after the cruise ended because she bought some new clothes in Oxford Street on her debit card,’ Simon told her. ‘She also withdrew some cash that same week. But she hasn’t touched her account since, or notified her bank of her new address. Apparently they are still sending bank statements to the agency who got her the job on the cruise ship.’

  Dale frowned. ‘Well, that proves she was being held by someone, surely? No one can live on fresh air. What about her mobile phone?’

  ‘They checked that out. It was last used to text you while you were still at sea,’ Simon said.

  ‘I can’t remember now what that was about, probably just to tell me what time she’d meet me in the bar, that’s mostly what we texted each other about. Are you saying she didn’t text or ring anyone after we docked at Southampton?’

  ‘No one,’ Simon said.

  Dale looked bewildered. ‘But I sent texts to about twenty people the moment we were ashore. What does that say about Lotte if she didn’t send even one?’

  ‘That she’d already decided she wasn’t coming back to Brighton,’ Simon said sadly. ‘She wouldn’t text her friends about where she was going because she knew we wouldn’t approve.’

  ‘Or whoever she was with took her phone away,’ Dale said darkly.

  By the time they got to Singleton Ward Dale was feeling tense. Earlier that afternoon she’d had another run-in with Marisa. This time it was about knocking off work early to come here. Then there was all the anxiety of talking to Dr Percival.

  So when the nurse said they could only stay for ten minutes with Lotte as the police wanted to speak to her again, Dale felt really annoyed. She knew she wouldn’t be able to visit her friend again before Saturday, and though she might have felt less irritated if Lotte had remembered something about her, she hadn’t, and she directed most of her conversation to Simon.

  While this was perfectly understandable if Lotte didn’t have any idea how much Dale had been to her, it still stung. And Dale had always held such a dominant place in any group of friends that it was hard for her to accept her character wasn’t forceful enough to blast her way through Lotte’s amnesia.

  It didn’t help on the drive back to Brighton that Simon could talk about nothing else but Lotte coming home. He went on about how he and Adam were going to repaint her room and make it less clinical. That he was going to buy some new clothes for her, and perhaps go round to her parents and get some of her old personal belongings she’d left there. ‘I’m going to try and motivate her folks into getting involved,’ he said excitedly. ‘There’s a lot of water has flowed under that bridge. I think they might be ready now to make amends to her.’

  Back in the staff bungalow at Marchwood, Scott, Frankie, Michelle and Rosie crowded round to hear about Lotte. Everyone working in the hotel was keenly interested in her case; they commented on the newspaper reports and watched out for anything on the news. But the spa staff felt even more involved because she was Dale and Scott’s friend.

  So Dale sat down in the lounge and told them all the details about the interview with Dr Percival. She said how great Simon had been and that he’d finally got permission to take Lotte home on Saturday. Then she moved on to the developments with the police about Lotte’s bank account and buying clothes in Oxford Street.

  Scott looked elated at that. ‘It’s only going to be a matter of time before they find out who she was in London with,’ he said. ‘And it will be great once she’s moved into Simon’s place because we can go and see her anytime.’

  ‘People everywhere are so upset at the thought of an abandoned baby that they’ll be keeping their eyes and ears open,’ Frankie chipped in. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting that in a week from now this will all be over, the attacker behind bars, the baby being cared for in hospital and the whole mystery solved.’

  Frankie’s remark, though well meant, sounded as though he was trivializing the seriousness of the situation and tears started to well up in Dale’s eyes. It struck her that even if the baby was found fit and well, if it was the result of rape, Lotte might want nothing to do with it. But Dale couldn’t bring herself to air that view. When Scott asked her what her tears were for, she said the first thing that came into her head.

  ‘I’m afraid she’ll never remember what I was to her,’ she burst out.

  ‘You’re jealous of Simon!’ Scott retorted and looked scathingly at her.

  ‘No I’m not, don’t be so ridiculous,’ Dale snapped back. ‘I like Simon and I’m glad that she’s got someone kind and strong to take care of her.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that, but you’re still feeling he’s taking her away from you.’

  Frankie, Rosie and Michelle were all ears. But to Dale this wasn’t another episode of a soap opera, it was terrifyingly real.

  She had seen Lotte in the aftermath of the rape in Ushuaia and felt her friend had been through enough horror to last her a lifetime. But this was far, far worse, especially as it was clear there was so much more to be uncovered. What if it was so terrible that when Lotte remembered it, she lost her mind permanently? And even if she managed to hang on to her sanity, she still was never going to be young and carefree again.

  Dale was uncertain whether to pray for the baby’s safety or hope that it had been stillborn. Yet she knew that whatever the circumstances of its birth, Lotte was still going to grieve for that lost child.

  ‘I’m not jealous that Simon’s taking her away from me,’ Dale sobbed out. ‘Don’t you understand I feel helpless because I can’t make anything better for her? I’m scared stiff for her. How can anyone come though all she has without cracking up?’

  Michelle and Rosie rushed over to hug her. ‘You’ve already done loads for her, after all it was you who recognized her in the paper and went to see her parents.’

  ‘You went and found Simon and Adam too,’ Frankie said. ‘And you’ve risked your job by going over to visit her in hospital.’

  Scott came over to her and put both arms around her, resting his forehead against hers. ‘I’m sorry if it sounded like I was having a pop at you,’ he said. ‘I suppose I feel left out too. I’m miffed because I couldn’t get out of here to go with you to see the neurologist today too. I think as well I resent that it was that chap David who turned up to visit Lotte in the nick of time, when it should’ve been me. And I feel just as sad as you that Lotte hasn’t remembered us yet, but it will be much easier to see her when she moves in with Simon and Adam and we won’t have the stress of Marisa watching and checking up on us all the time.’

  ‘I’m so scared, Scott,’ Dale sobbed. ‘I feel wound up like a spring.’

  ‘Have a drink with us, then go to bed early,’ he suggested. ‘You must calm down or you won’t be any good to Lotte.’

  Dale did go off to bed early, but she didn’t feel any happier. April from the hairdressing salon arrived at half past nine and it was quite obvious she was after Scott. He rallied to the situation, making the girl feel welcome and flirting with her, and if Dale had felt a little left out by Simon and Lotte, she felt even more so by Scott and April. She hoped he wouldn’t let her stay with him tonight. Dale thought she just might scream if she heard sounds of lovemaking coming from Scott’s room.

  As she lay in bed listening to the sounds of laughter and chatter from the lounge, and feeling very alone, she was reminded that it was over a year since she’d last had a boyfriend. She’d thought that by coming to Brighton to work a whole new life would open up for her. But the reality was that she was always working, she had no friends aside from her work colleagues, and there never seemed to be any opportunity to meet potential new boyfriends. It had been much the same on the cruise ship, but at least there she was seeing new places.

  She was missing her parents and her brothers and sister too. Her home in Chiswick was never silent, there was always something going on. But then her mother Kim and her father Clarke weren’t exactly conventional people. Her father had been a printer back i
n the Eighties, but when he was made redundant, he and her mother took up what they liked to call ‘scavenging’. That is, they bought and sold old stuff, sometimes antique, but mainly just interesting junk. All Dale’s childhood she’d grown used to the basement of their big house in Chiswick being stuffed with pine chests, bedsteads, chairs, tables and weird bric-a-brac. It spilled over into the rest of the house, for her parents adored crazy objects. They had a ‘Speak your Weight’ weighing machine from a station in the hall, a collection of stuffed birds in glass cases in the sitting room, and the kitchen was stuffed with old china, old tin advertisements, china pigs which had once graced a butcher’s shop, and a four-foot glittery pink flamingo her mother had bribed a windowdresser to part with.

  Dale was one of four. Kyle, who was older by four years, was working in Japan now; Carrina, two years younger, was a dental nurse in London; and George at twenty-one had recently sat his finals in company law at Bristol University. At Christmas, when they’d all been home together, the house had rung with music and laughter, and Dale remembered at the time thinking how lucky she was to have such a great family. She thought that meant she’d finally grown up, as there had been a time when she’d been very embarrassed by her parents dressing like two old hippies, and turning the house into Steptoe’s yard.

  She wondered now if it would be healthier to back away from Lotte, to leave the police to discover what had happened and Simon and Adam to look after her. That way she wouldn’t have Marisa on her back, and she’d have time to find new friends who would lift her up rather than bring her down and make her anxious.

  David had told himself all week that he wouldn’t go and see Lotte again, but on Friday evening he just couldn’t help himself. There was something about her that made him crave her company.

  He was amazed by how much better she looked now her hair had been sorted and her face was no longer scaly and peeling. She said she still felt weak, but the soreness in her limbs was fading now. She told him she was leaving for Brighton in the morning and he felt a pang of sadness looking at her, so adorable in pink pyjamas. He thought this might be the last time he would see her.

  ‘So this is it! Last night in Chichester?’ he said, trying to sound a great deal more pleased than he really was.

  ‘Yes, I’m so happy to be going,’ she said with a wide smile. ‘Everyone’s been lovely to me in here, but I’m so bored being shut up in this room. At least at Simon’s I can potter about cooking and cleaning.’

  ‘Will you be having a policeman guarding you there too?’ David asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. I spoke to Simon on the phone last night and he said he’d got a camera fitted so I can see who is at the door. If anyone suspicious does come around I can dial 999. Besides, he’s taking the first week off to stay with me, and even after that he can be in and out all day between clients – his flat is only round the corner from his salon.’

  David privately thought the police should watch the flat, at least while her attacker was still at large. But he didn’t say anything for fear of making her nervous. ‘Sounds like you’ll be fine then,’ he said. ‘Any chance I could phone, or come to visit you?’

  ‘Of course, I’d like that,’ she said, sounding sincere. ‘The best thing about you, David, is that I haven’t got to try and remember anything about you. There’s nothing missing.’

  David nodded. He understood what she meant, even if it did stress the point that he was a Johnny-Come-Lately. ‘Did the press release about the baby give the police any leads?’

  Her face clouded over immediately. ‘A few cranks, that’s all,’ she said sadly. ‘They are in touch with the French police as they think whoever dumped me in the sea might have sailed over there, perhaps taking the baby with them. DI Bryan keeps popping in here to ask me stuff, but quite honestly I think the police are stumped.’

  ‘You really need to get that memory back. Has anything new come up?’

  ‘Nothing that’s helpful to the police,’ she shrugged. ‘Almost every day there’s something: a smell, a bit of music triggers off a little scene or a person from the past. Yesterday I remembered going to the pictures with a man whose hair I used to cut. That came back because one of the doctors wore the same aftershave as him.’

  ‘And did this man figure in your life?’ David asked.

  Lotte smiled. ‘No, he was nearly forty. I only agreed to go because the film was Notting Hill with Hugh Grant, and I’d been dying to see it. I don’t think he approved of my choice of film and thought I was an airhead.’

  ‘I liked Notting Hill,’ David said. He was lying, he thought it was soppy, but he felt he could bear any amount of soppiness if he had Lotte sitting beside him.

  ‘I would have thought you were the diehard, action kind of film man,’ she said.

  David smiled for she’d got him taped. ‘I like those too,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s good to have variety. What kind of food do you like best?’

  Lotte looked thoughtful. ‘I’m not sure. I like pasta dishes, Thai food and Chinese too. But there isn’t much I really don’t like. I was brought up to eat everything that was put in front of me.’

  As she made the last remark she suddenly had a scene flash into her head. She was sitting at a table and she felt nauseous at the sight and smell of the plate of food in front of her. It was kidneys.

  She looked askance at David. ‘That was weird! I suddenly got this memory, but I don’t know when or where it was.’

  She explained it to him.

  ‘Eating kidneys sounds more like a nightmare,’ he joked. ‘But is there anyone else in the room with you? Does it feel like a recent memory?’

  Lotte nodded. ‘I feel I know the room really well, but I don’t know who it belongs to, or where it is.’

  ‘Can you get it back and kind of hold on to it? Then try to think what you did with the food that made you feel sick, or if the person who cooked it spoke to you.’

  Lotte concentrated for a short while, her eyes closed. ‘It’s no good,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s like a still frame: I can’t leave the room, or even get up from the table, and no one else comes in.’

  ‘What are you wearing?’ David asked. ‘That might give us the season. Is it an expensive trendy kitchen or just an average one?’

  ‘I’m wearing a blue dress, it’s got a full skirt. As for the kitchen, it’s a bit stark, white cupboards, black granite work surface, long and thin, the table I’m sitting at is at the end, by a very small window.’ Lotte frowned as she looked at David. ‘How can something be so familiar, yet I don’t know where it was?’

  ‘You were wearing a blue dress when I found you on the beach,’ David said. ‘Did the police show it to you?’

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ she said a little indignantly. ‘Maybe that’s my fault, I should have asked them to.’

  ‘Not your fault at all,’ David said, putting his hand over hers. ‘They are paid to look into everything and anything, and I think checking out your clothes should be high priority, especially as that dress was pretty frumpy. You strike me as the kind of girl who was always fashionable.’

  ‘I was once Simon and the others sorted me out,’ she said with a little giggle and went on to tell him about the makeover she got when she joined Kutz.

  ‘I’ll ring Bryan when I leave,’ David said. ‘I’ll tell him the dress is important. If it is the same one as you wore in the sea, that kitchen could be in the house you were staying in before you ended up on the beach, so it’s really important. I think you should try and sketch the kitchen and the dress.’

  ‘I’m useless at drawing.’

  ‘So am I, but that doesn’t matter. Just sitting with the pencil in your hand, thinking of what was there, might jog lots more. I’ll go and ask one of the nurses if she can give me a sheet of paper.’

  While he was gone Lotte concentrated really hard. The smell of the kidneys seemed to grow stronger, almost making her gag, yet nothing else became any clearer.

  When David came ba
ck she drew a rough layout of the room, then did one of each of the four walls and what she remembered on each.

  ‘Were the windows that small?’ David asked. To him they looked hardly bigger than arrow slits in a castle wall. ‘It must have been very dark in there?’

  Lotte looked up at him, frowned, then smiled. ‘No, it wasn’t dark, but you’ve just reminded me that there was one of those Velux windows in the ceiling. The other windows were almost slits though.’

  ‘Curious,’ David said, then looked at her sketch again. He pointed to a small circle. ‘Is that another window?’

  ‘No, one of those brass ship’s clocks.’

  ‘And those?’ He pointed to a collection of either shallow boxes or pictures.

  ‘Oh, they were stuff like rope knots and other ship’s stuff.’

  ‘Like people have when they live at the seaside?’

  Lotte thought hard. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘So can you remember the smell of the sea? Hearing waves or anything else to bear that out?’

  Lotte looked glum. ‘No, I can only smell those kidneys. And they are making my stomach churn.’

  ‘Does the clock have any significance?’ he asked. ‘Do you think you watched it a great deal? Did it show the right time? Is there any reason why you remember it?’

  Lotte shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea. I just remember it being there, that’s all.’

  David sighed. ‘I would say it’s a safe bet you were somewhere close to the sea, and with boat people. Not just because of the things you remember, but because I can’t imagine anyone planning to move someone, dead or alive, by boat, without owning one themselves.’

  ‘That doesn’t exactly narrow it down when we live on an island with hundreds of miles of coastline,’ Lotte said.

  ‘Well, I doubt anyone would go hundreds of miles to dump someone from their boat,’ David said thoughtfully. ‘If it was me, I’d go straight out into deep water and do the deed immediately.’

  ‘We don’t know that I was dumped. My hands and feet weren’t tied – I could’ve just jumped over the side,’ Lotte reminded him.