Stolen

  Dale sensed his hurt and puzzlement and she felt the kindest thing was to tell him the truth. Lotte needed friends more than ever now, and Simon couldn’t really help her without knowing what she’d been through.

  ‘I would’ve preferred to get around to this a bit more gently,’ Dale said. ‘But Lotte didn’t stop sending you cards because she lost interest in you, it was because she was raped.’

  Simon blanched, and Dale’s eyes prickled with tears just the way they always did when she thought about what Lotte had gone through. As she went on to tell Simon the whole story she was overcome with emotion several times; she didn’t think the horror of it would ever go away.

  ‘The bastard,’ Simon hissed when she’d finished. ‘I hope the police strung him up.’

  ‘I think we can safely assume he’ll never be capable of raping anyone ever again. They depend on tourism there and the police wouldn’t let someone like him put people off going ashore,’ Dale said darkly. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes and took a long glug of her wine, before moving on to tell him about Lotte’s recovery. ‘I believed her when she said she was going home, I had no reason not to.’

  Simon had remained silent through most of what she’d told him, then as she drew to the end, he got up and went over to the window. He looked out without speaking for a few moments.

  Finally he turned back to her. ‘It’s obvious she went with someone off the ship. You see, if she hadn’t she would’ve come straight here.’

  That didn’t sound very logical to Dale. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘She could’ve gone absolutely anywhere.’

  ‘She wouldn’t, because you can bet your boots that after what she’d been through she felt much the same about herself as she did when she first came to Kutz,’ he said, his brown eyes dull with anxiety. ‘She was like a little waif then. You could almost smell the aloneness of her. She’d had no money to buy decent clothes, no one to give her a bit of love. She looked scared of her own shadow. I tell you, if she wasn’t made to leave that ship with someone, she would’ve come running back here as fast as her legs would carry her. This flat would always be her place of safety.’

  ‘How old was she when she came to Kutz then?’ Dale asked, touched by his affection for her friend, yet a little jealous too.

  ‘Almost nineteen. When I found out what the bitches she was sharing with were doing to her, I got her to come and live here with Adam and me. She always said that meeting me was like coming out of a dark place into the light. And for us she was our sister, mother, friend and housekeeper all rolled into one. We loved having her with us, she kind of balanced out our lives. That’s why I know she would’ve come back here to see us first if she was hurt, because we were her family.’

  ‘Did you tell DI Bryan this?’ Dale asked.

  ‘I tried to, but straight cops tend to see gay men as fanciful airheads. They don’t imagine we can form deep and meaningful relationships with women if we don’t have sex with them.’

  ‘Bryan didn’t come across like that to me,’ Dale retorted. ‘What did he say when you told him she must’ve gone with someone from the ship?’

  ‘I don’t think he believed I knew Lotte well enough to make such a statement. You probably don’t either?’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ Dale assured him. ‘You see, you talk about her in the same way as I do, so I know you’ve seen the same things in her as me.’

  Simon’s eyes dropped and a blush crept up his neck.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I think I pushed too hard today, and that’s why she had the panic attack,’ he said. ‘You see, I mentioned Mark, and suddenly she couldn’t get her breath.’

  ‘Who was Mark?’ Dale asked.

  ‘A sailor she fell in love with. But if she remembered him she probably remembered everything else that came before him. That might have been too much for her.’

  As Dale was talking to Simon, Lotte was lying still in the hospital bed, her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep so no one would come and talk to her.

  Her heart was no longer racing, she wasn’t scared or agitated the way she had got when Simon and Adam were here. But that had happened because a sudden deluge of memories came back to her. It was like being hit by a hurricane, and she wasn’t even able to reassure Simon that it wasn’t anything in particular that he’d said, just that all at once she knew who he was, and all he’d meant to her.

  At nineteen she’d sat with him pouring out stuff she’d never told anyone before or since. He was the man who showed her how to deal with it. She was only too happy she could remember his part in her life, for it had been a very important one.

  Thanks to Simon she now knew why the hospital room seemed so familiar too. It was like the one Fleur was in just before she died.

  Lotte was never actually told there was something wrong with her sister. She could remember being puzzled as to why Fleur stopped going to dancing classes, and that she often didn’t go to school and seemed to sleep such a lot. But no one ever explained it.

  Perhaps her parents couldn’t face up to leukaemia themselves, let alone try to make it clear to their younger child. But not knowing Fleur was ill made all the special treatment she got, the treats, new clothes and toys, trips to anywhere she fancied, seem so terribly unfair.

  It was Fleur herself who told her in the end. Lotte had been given a good hiding and sent to bed without any tea for complaining when she was left with a neighbour while Mum and Dad took her sister to London. Fleur crept up to see her with some cake, a bottle of Tizer and a bag of toffees.

  ‘They only took me to a hospital,’ she said. ‘I had to have some special tests because I’ve got something wrong with my blood.’

  Lotte thought that if she never complained about anything ever again Fleur would get better. But she didn’t, she just got weaker, thinner and paler, and each time she was taken into hospital, she stayed longer.

  Lotte could remember Fleur’s tenth birthday very clearly. A room just like the one she was in now, but filled with flowers, cards, teddy bears, dolls and a cake like Cinderella’s coach, with four pink ‘My Little Ponies’ pulling it. Fleur was so weak she couldn’t even blow the candles out, and she asked Lotte to do it for her.

  A week later she died.

  Lotte was told what had happened by Mrs Broome, the neighbour she was staying with while her parents were at the hospital. Mrs Broome said Jesus had taken Fleur to live with him because she was very special, and that once Lotte went home, she had to be especially good and quiet because her mummy and daddy were very sad.

  Lotte went home later that day, and her dad opened the door to her. He picked her up and hugged her, and she remembered his face was all wet with tears.

  He put her down and told her to go and see her mother. Lotte stood for a little while in the doorway of the front room, just looking. It always seemed a cold room because it never got any sun. There was a big three-piece suite which was dark red, and in the alcoves on either side of the chimney breast were black wood wall units. Some of the shelves were open, with ornaments and books on; others had sliding glass doors and the best glasses were kept in there.

  Her mother was on the sofa, all hunched up, her head in her hands, and she was kind of rocking herself and making an awful moaning sound.

  Lotte went over to her and sat down beside her. There was no response from her mother, who didn’t appear to have noticed she was there. So Lotte knelt up beside her and tried to put her small arms around her shoulders.

  ‘You’ve still got me,’ she said.

  She remembered what she said so clearly, even after sixteen years, because of the way her mother reacted. She flung her arms out, knocking Lotte to the floor. ‘I don’t want you, you little brat,’ she spat out. ‘All I want is my beautiful Fleur.’

  Lotte wanted pretty, funny, entertaining Fleur too. There was a big hole in her life where her sister had been; she’d always played with Lotte, read and sung to her. She’d explained things Lotte didn’t understand, did
her hair, told her stories, and when they went to the shops together, she knew how much change they should get, and the best places to buy anything.

  Why didn’t anyone understand that she loved and missed Fleur too?

  There were so many painful memories in the period after Fleur’s death. It seemed as if each day brought new hurts, and Lotte felt bewildered as to why she was constantly being shouted at or punished. But having a belt taken to her backside, and being beaten so hard she couldn’t sit down without pain for a couple of weeks, was one of the worst.

  Her only crime was being caught playing with Fleur’s Barbie Dolls.

  ‘You are not fit to touch her toys,’ her mother screamed at her, her face purple and contorted with hatred as she lashed out with the belt. ‘Don’t you ever go in her room again!’

  Lotte’s bedroom was a tiny box room with no room for anything more than a single bed and a chest of drawers. But Fleur’s room next door to it was at least three times larger and until she’d died they’d always played in there together.

  Now it was like a shrine to Fleur. Her mother cleaned and dusted it each week and stayed in there for hours sobbing.

  When what would have been Fleur’s eleventh birthday came round, all the dolls had their clothes washed and her mother lit candles on a cake and took it in there to sing Happy Birthday to her. She repeated that year after year, but Lotte never had a cake on her birthday, and the present she was given was always just a cardigan or pyjamas. Practical and impersonal.

  There were of course no singing or dancing lessons as Fleur had, so Lotte never discovered if she had any talent. Her mother kept her hair cut very short, and bought her very plain, dark-coloured clothes. Young as she was, Lotte soon realized that this was so no one would ever make any favourable comparison between her and Fleur.

  Her father wasn’t nasty to her, just distant. As he was a plumber he was often called out on emergencies in the evenings and at weekends. But after Fleur died he hardly ever seemed to be home. As Lotte grew older she sensed he went along with whatever her mother did or said for a quiet life.

  But then, her mother was at her absolute worst only when they were alone together. Lotte was often afraid to go home after school because she didn’t know what might be awaiting her.

  Sometimes it was just a brooding stare, or criticism that she was late or untidy; sometimes she was just ignored. Yet that hurt so much, she felt so dreadfully alone, and she really thought it was because there was something horrible and unlovable about her.

  But at other times it was far worse.

  Lotte remembered one very wet day when she was about thirteen. She had developed the ability to know when her mother’s moods were at their very darkest, just by the atmosphere when she opened the front door. She could feel the tension in the air, smell her anger like something rank and rotten. At these times it was always tempting to run away, and if there had been a friend or relative she felt would take her in and believe what she told them, she would have gone.

  But there was no one. She once tried to tell Mrs Broome, their neighbour, but the woman’s face tightened up in disbelief and she went straight round and told her mother what Lotte had said. She got beaten with a slipper that day.

  So when she sensed trouble that wet day when she was thirteen, she did what she always did and braced herself for the malevolence she knew was to come.

  As she came gingerly through the door, she found her mother standing in the hall in the dark pink wool dress that she usually wore only on special occasions. But she clearly wasn’t going anywhere special as her hair was a mess and she was wearing her slippers. And even more worrying was the crazed expression on her face.

  ‘You stole some money from my purse,’ she spat out. ‘I had a ten pound note in there last night and it was gone this morning.’

  ‘I didn’t take it,’ Lotte said truthfully. She put her school bag down on the floor. ‘You can check in there if you like. I haven’t got any money.’

  She never had any, she didn’t get pocket money, another thing which hurt but she never dared bring up.

  ‘You’ve put that wet bag on my clean floor,’ her mother screamed out. ‘You’re an imbecile – why didn’t you die instead of your sister? You’re no good for anything.’

  Lotte burst into tears. There were a few drops of rain water on the tiles, but they would dry; she didn’t think she would get over her mother wishing her dead.

  But crying was the worst thing she could do as her mother always took it as weakness.

  ‘That’s it – cry! Tears from you don’t mean a thing, just crocodile tears. It’s bad enough that I’ve been left with you when my beautiful, talented daughter was taken from me, but you lie to me and steal from me too. God, I despise you!’

  Lotte had been called stupid, ugly, ignorant, bad, loathsome and so many other horrible adjectives she thought she ought to have stopped being hurt by them, but to be told that her mother resented being left with her was like a knife through the heart.

  ‘Then call a social worker and get me taken into care!’ she shouted back at her mother.

  That was the bravest she’d ever been. Normally she didn’t dare answer back. But the words had scarcely left her lips when her mother snatched up a walking stick, left behind by a visitor many years ago, from the umbrella stand and brought it down with force on Lotte’s head and shoulders. Lotte tried to get away but her mother cornered her behind the front door and rained blows on her back, shoulders and arms, all the time screeching that she was a thief.

  She suddenly ran out of steam, dropped the walking stick on the floor and shuffled off to the kitchen. Lotte dragged herself up to her bedroom and wished she could die. She thought if her own mother loathed her, there was no hope that anyone else could ever care for her.

  Later it transpired that it was her father who had taken the ten pound note. He’d borrowed it that morning but didn’t say anything as her mother was still asleep. But there was no apology for Lotte.

  It took a fortnight for the bruises and weals on her body to fade. Her gym teacher stared at them while Lotte was changing, but didn’t ask how she got them. For Lotte that was proof no one cared. She gave up hoping for anyone’s intervention and made up her mind she would leave home the moment she left school.

  She took six GCSEs, did badly in all of them and applied for a job as a chambermaid in the Grand Hotel in Brighton, just because they let their staff live in. She was called for an interview two days before the end of term and was offered a job. It was arranged that she would move in that Sunday and start work on the Monday.

  Her mother sniffed when Lotte told her she was going to work at the hotel.

  ‘About right for someone as brainless as you,’ she said in her usual cold voice. ‘Domestic work is all you’re good for.’

  Someone in her class arranged a party on the beach to celebrate the exams being over and to say goodbye to those leaving school. Lotte was expected to go, but she knew she couldn’t. She had nothing nice to wear and no money either to buy some drink. Besides, she wasn’t keen for anyone to find out where she was going to work, in case they reacted like her mother.

  Working at the Grand was a bit like pressing her nose up to a toy-shop window. She got to see rich people eating and drinking, wearing expensive clothes and valuable jewellery and arriving in smart cars. There were many conference rooms in the hotel too, which were hired out to all kinds of companies, and she would see girls only a couple of years older than herself organizing seminars, marketing meetings and staff training sessions. They were smart, confident and articulate, which only confirmed in her the belief that she really was stupid, just like her mother had always told her. She didn’t bother to daydream about what it might be like to stay in the hotel as a guest, or to have a job where people looked up to her. She really believed she wasn’t capable of doing anything more than clean up after people.

  But she didn’t mind. After all, she could look out of the windows at the sea while s
he was cleaning her rooms. The colour of the sea changed daily, going from brilliant turquoise when the sun was shining, through greens, greys, and then to black when there was a storm. She loved windy days when the waves were whipped up so high they washed over the promenade, but her favourites were the days with light wind, just enough to make small white horses canter up the beach.

  It was good to watch the holidaymakers too. Old couples in their best clothes who would sit for hours in the shelters watching the sea, small children who twitched with excitement as they raced to get down the steps on to the beach. Girls of her own age looking for boys to flirt with, roller skaters, baby-buggy pushers, dog walkers, hugely fat ladies who waddled by eating ice cream, and gay men posing by the promenade railings. She’d been told Brighton was the gay capital of England now, and everyone else in the hotel seemed to know exactly who was gay just by looking at them. But Lotte couldn’t tell, not unless they made it very obvious.

  She had to share a dark, poorly furnished room in the staff annexe with a Spanish girl who spoke only broken English. She also had to work very hard, but the other staff were friendly, even kindly, and she was far happier than she’d been at home.

  One evening while watching her room-mate struggling to blowdry her hair, she offered to do it for her. To Lotte’s surprise it turned out really nice, and after that all the girls asked her to do theirs. Word must eventually have reached Gina, the owner of the hairdressing salon in the hotel, because she asked Lotte if she’d like to help her out when she wasn’t working.

  From almost the first afternoon in Gina’s salon, Lotte felt hairdressing was her calling. She loved everything about it – the smell of shampoos and conditioners, the feel of wet hair in her fingers while she washed it, and seeing women who’d come in looking bedraggled and limp-haired go out bouncy and pretty.

  Gina was in her late thirties, a buxom blonde who strutted around on very high heels and wore dresses so tight she could’ve been poured into them, but she had experienced hardships herself in the past. She saw how much Lotte liked the salon, and said she felt that with proper training she had the ability to be a first-class hairdresser.