Stolen

  ‘She said that about me?’ Dale gasped and then laughed. ‘She was totally right of course, but I thought she’d write home and say I was cool.’

  Simon raised one eyebrow. ‘She might be soft-hearted but she’s no one’s fool. I guess she saw something else in you that she liked. Before long her postcards were full of “we did this” or “we did that.” ’

  ‘I’m ashamed to admit that I jokingly called her my “slave”, because she used to wash my clothes with hers and pick up after me. She used to do this kind of jokey bowing thing to me. But I grew to really love her, I never felt that way about any other girlfriend. I can’t bear the thought of all this happening to her.’

  ‘Well, I think, as I’ve already said, that whoever is responsible for how she ended up was on that cruise ship,’ Simon said firmly. ‘So come on, Dale, think of all the people she got to know. Was there anyone who would have persuaded or coerced her to go home with them?’

  ‘Well, Fern and Howard Ramsden, the couple who rescued her from the rape and looked after her, are the obvious ones. But they were Americans and they were going home. Besides, they were religious, they wouldn’t hold someone against their will.’

  ‘Religious Americans are just about the most likely people to do such a crazy thing,’ Simon said, raising his voice a little. ‘Maybe the guy is into polygamy, and wanted Lotte for a second wife.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Dale said dismissively. ‘Those pluralmarriage people don’t go off on cruises, they live in remote parts of Utah, Montana or Nevada, and marry the children of their friends, women who’ve been brought up to that way of life.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure of that,’ Simon said darkly. ‘Besides, there’s other sects and weird cults in the States that we’ve never heard of. And our little Lotte, with her complete trust in anyone who appears to love her, would be a sitting duck!’

  Dale shuddered. ‘Yes, but she didn’t end up in America, did she?’

  ‘No, but what if she discovered that’s where they were intending to take her?’

  Dale felt unable to join in Simon’s speculation. She was still staggered that Lotte had never so much as hinted at all the sadness in her past while they were on the cruise. Yet it proved she was tougher than Dale had imagined, for most people would use it to get sympathy. She wondered what more was going to come out about her friend before all this was sorted.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Good morning, Lotte,’ said Dr Percival as he came charging into her room on Saturday morning without so much as a knock on the door to warn her.

  One of the nurses had told Lotte this neurologist had the nickname ‘The Bull’ and Lotte could see why. He had a bull-like appearance – broad shoulders, a thick neck and large features set in a ruddy complexion. Lotte thought he would look more at home on a rugby pitch than in a hospital ward. Yet the nurse had said he was renowned in his field and that once you got past his bluff manner, he was very likeable.

  They chatted for a little while about her general health and Lotte told him about getting some memories back.

  ‘Marvellous,’ he said, his grey-blue eyes twinkling. ‘So is this making you feel better?’

  Lotte agreed it was, though she thought she had a long way to go yet, as there were four years of memory left to recover.

  ‘Then I will try to prompt you,’ he said, perching on the edge of the bed. ‘What sex was your baby – a boy or girl?’

  Lotte looked at him askance. ‘Baby?’

  ‘Yes, baby. We found you’d given birth recently when we examined you on admission.’

  Lotte felt a cold shudder run down her spine. He had to be mistaken, surely no woman could black out the memory of her own baby? ‘I don’t know,’ she burst out, looking at him in wide-eyed horror. ‘I can’t have had a baby, can I? Are you absolutely sure?’

  The doctor’s expression softened. ‘You really don’t know what’s happened to you, do you?’ he said, as if until that point he had thought she was faking it.

  ‘I certainly don’t know anything about a baby,’ Lotte retorted. ‘Look, I’ve told you exactly what’s come back to me so far. The rest is just like a closed door. I want to open it, but there is no handle on it. Now you tell me I’ve had a baby! How long ago was this?’ Her voice began to rise in distress at the enormity of what he’d told her. ‘Don’t you think if I knew I was a mother I’d be desperate to know where and how my child was? Now you’re really scaring me!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lotte, I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he said soothingly. ‘We think the birth was just a couple of months ago, three at the most. We didn’t ask you any questions on admission because you were in no fit state to deal with anything, especially if you’d had a stillbirth. But despite the best efforts of the police, social services and many other agencies, no one has been able to throw any light on where you gave birth to this child. It is imperative we find out about him or her, for if it was a live birth it is possible he or she could be alone and uncared for.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Lotte exclaimed, visualizing a baby lying crying in a cot, wet and hungry. Her eyes filled with tears and she looked pleadingly at the doctor. ‘This is getting worse and worse! What can I do to help? Can’t you hypnotize me or something to find out more?’

  ‘That only works in films,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘You have already remembered a great deal, and I’m sure the rest will come back very soon. We have decided though, because of the urgency of the situation, that we must go to the press with this today. Someone out there knows about the baby, and it is imperative we speak to them. Meanwhile you and I can work together, talking through what you have remembered.’

  Lotte caught hold of his hand in both of hers, her eyes swimming in tears. ‘I have to remember now, for the baby’s sake.’

  At nearly three on the same day as Lotte was still lying in her hospital bed anxiously wondering how she could have had a baby and yet not remember anything at all about it, David Mitchell, her rescuer, was walking into a pub in Selsey.

  He was greeted enthusiastically by Jim Lerner, a foxy-faced man he knew from his gym. ‘Hi, Jim,’ David responded halfheartedly, as he didn’t like the man much, and ordered just a half of lager instead of a pint.

  ‘I hear you found that mystery bird on the beach,’ Jim said.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ David admitted. ‘It gave me quite a shock too. I thought she was dead. But I hear she’s recovering now.’

  ‘If I found a bird as tasty as that I’d be visiting her in hospital and offering to take care of her when she came out,’ Jim said with a broad grin. ‘Did you see the picture of her in yesterday’s paper?’

  David had become a minor celebrity through finding the girl on the beach. He had been door-stepped by the local paper and he was mentioned by name on the television news. He found it embarrassing, for it wasn’t as if he’d performed some dramatic rescue, all he’d done was call an ambulance.

  He didn’t really want to get involved with Jim as the man had only three topics of conversation: the girls he’d bedded, football, and how many pints he could down, but he could see Jim had a newspaper on the bar in front of him and curiosity got the better of him.

  ‘That’s not it there, I suppose?’ he asked, moving closer.

  ‘Sure is! I brought it in with me to show it round,’ Jim replied, opening up the paper and pointing to a picture of a girl in tiny shorts and a sun top. David had to look twice before he saw it was the same girl he’d helped. He hadn’t even considered her looks at the time – he was after all afraid she was going to die – but in this picture she looked as gorgeous as any model, and very different from the first police identikit picture.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he exclaimed involuntarily, despite intending to stay cool in front of Jim.

  In the four days since David had found the girl he’d thought about her quite a lot, indeed he’d telephoned the hospital twice on the day he found her to make sure she had survived. He really wanted to know her full sto
ry too: had she been pushed off a boat, or had she been trying to end her life? Who was she? Was she local?

  He paid for his drink and sipped it as he read the article. There was a little more detail in this one, for although the police still didn’t know how she came to be washed up on Selsey beach because she had lost her memory, they had found her parents. She was called Lotte Wainwright, a twenty-four-year-old hairdresser from Brighton. This picture of her was taken by a friend while they were working together on a cruise ship. Yet it seemed neither friends nor parents knew where she’d been for the past year since she left the ship. The police were appealing for anyone who had any information about her to come forward.

  ‘A bloke I was working with this morning reckoned his mate used to knock her off,’ Jim said as David finished reading.

  ‘Then I hope he went to the police,’ David said sharply. He didn’t understand why some men had to bring everything to do with women down to the lowest level. ‘He might be able to fill in a few blanks for them.’

  ‘Doubt he’ll admit to firing blanks,’ Jim said, then laughed loudly at his own joke.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ David said, finishing off his drink. He’d had enough of Jim for one day, but he thought he might take one bit of his advice and that was to go to the hospital later and see the girl.

  It was just before six when David arrived at St Richard’s, carrying some flowers and a box of chocolates, and asked at reception which ward Lotte was in. The receptionist was a little flustered as there were lots of people asking her questions, and she said visiting didn’t start till six-thirty, but she waved her hand towards Singleton Ward on the ground floor and David assumed that meant he could wait outside the ward.

  The corridor of Singleton Ward was deserted. From behind the doors of the different ward rooms came a faint buzz of conversation, the sound of screens being pulled and trolleys wheeled, but the atmosphere was serene; clearly no medical dramas or emergencies were taking place. David walked along the corridor past the men’s ward and then the women’s where he checked the names of the patients listed outside. She wasn’t in there, so he walked on to the single rooms.

  There were names on each door except one, but he was reluctant to look through the glass panel to check if Lotte was in there as it seemed an invasion of privacy. So he walked back down the corridor looking for a nurse to ask.

  He waylaid one on her way into the men’s ward. ‘You’ll have to check with the policeman outside her door,’ she told him briefly before disappearing.

  David was puzzled then, for he hadn’t seen a policeman anywhere, but now he came to think about it, there ought to be a guard if someone had tried to drown her by throwing her from a boat.

  He was turning to go back to the unlabelled room, when he saw a man about to enter it. He wasn’t a doctor as he wasn’t wearing a white coat, and clearly not a policeman either or he would have been in uniform. It annoyed David that some other visitor could go straight in to visit her while he had to wait until six-thirty.

  He decided there was no point in hanging around waiting when she might not even want to see him anyway, especially now she had someone else there. So he’d go in, give her the flowers and chocolates, say his bit about how it was him who found her, and how glad he was that she was recovering. Then if he picked up the vibes she didn’t want him there, he’d clear off.

  He marched along to the door, but glanced through the small glass panel before walking in. To his shock the other visitor was bending menacingly over the bed. David couldn’t be certain it was Lotte in the bed, or for that matter what the man was doing to the patient, for his back was blocking the view. Yet David could see legs thrashing around under the covers and arms flailing about, which was enough for him to be absolutely certain the man was hurting whoever it was.

  David charged in, tossing the flowers and chocolates on to a chair. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled, catching the man by the collar of his jacket and throwing a punch at him.

  Unfortunately David hadn’t got a strong enough grip on the man’s collar and he ducked the punch. Before David could catch hold of him again, he’d darted past him and out of the door.

  David hit the bell push beside the bed. It was Lotte in the bed. She looked terrified and was rubbing at her throat, but there was no time to help her. ‘Tell the nurse what happened, I’m going after him,’ he said hurriedly.

  *

  By the time David got out of the room the double doors were swinging at the end of the corridor. He ran at full tilt after the man, nearly knocking down an elderly patient with a walking frame.

  The reception area was full of people arriving for visiting and David could no longer see the man. But he made a mental note to tell the police he’d been of slim build and average height, with light brown hair and wearing a brown jacket.

  He ran outside and along to the car park, but there were so many cars arriving and people getting out of them that it was impossible to tell who was just parking up, or about to leave. His heart was hammering, probably with shock at what he’d witnessed, but he realized that if the man had any sense he wouldn’t draw attention to himself by attempting to leave straight away.

  David positioned himself at the car park exit, so he could at least note the registration number if he saw the man again, and getting out his mobile phone he dialled 999 for help.

  ‘You did well, sir,’ the middle-aged, rather portly uniformed sergeant said some three hours later when practically all the cars in the car park had gone. David was disappointed he hadn’t been able to identify Lotte’s assailant in any of them. ‘Of course there’s every possibility he left his car elsewhere, or even had an accomplice waiting in a getaway car. But thanks to you that poor girl came to no further harm.’

  ‘Could I just go and say goodnight to her?’ David asked. He felt oddly exhausted: he supposed it was the trauma and being forced to explain what he’d seen to the police and give the man’s description over and over again. He felt he’d done his bit helping to check each car leaving the car park, and he thought if he could just see Lotte smile, he might be able to wipe out the memory of the terror in her eyes earlier.

  ‘Just five minutes,’ the sergeant said with an understanding smile. ‘Tell Boyce I said it was OK. The nurses might have other ideas, but you’ll have to take your chances with them.’

  PC Boyce was outside Lotte’s door. It seemed her attacker must have been watching earlier in the day, and seized the moment when the policeman went off to get a snack from the cafeteria.

  Boyce looked sheepish when David told him the sergeant had said it was OK for him to see Lotte. Clearly he’d been severely reprimanded for leaving his post earlier.

  ‘Go on in,’ he said. ‘Thank heaven you came along when you did – my life wouldn’t have been worth living if he’d succeeded in killing her.’

  David hesitated in the doorway. He hadn’t thought of Lotte as a crime victim when he found her on the beach. He’d imagined she was a drunk or a depressive who’d attempted to take her own life, and while he was sorry for her, he felt no involvement. But then reading today about the mystery surrounding her, and finally coming in here to see someone attempting to kill her, suddenly made him feel ridiculously protective of her, as though she was one of his sisters.

  She was wearing one of the standard white hospital gowns, and her face was almost as white as the gown. Her lips were cracked, and she had flaking skin all over her face. He could see now that he’d been right to think someone had hacked off her hair, for it stood out all around her head in clumps. But even if she was a mess, her blue eyes were lovely, and when she smiled at him he saw the same pretty girl who had been in the press photograph.

  ‘Can I try again?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know if anyone told you, but I’m David Mitchell, the one who found you on the beach.’

  She smiled again. ‘You seem to be making a habit of rescuing me,’ she said, her voice a little husky. ‘I had hoped you’d come in somet
ime so I could thank you for finding me on the beach, but you couldn’t have picked a better night than tonight to do it. I owe you my life.’

  David smiled with embarrassment. He didn’t see himself as any kind of hero, it was just luck that he’d interrupted her attacker. ‘Did you know him?’ he asked. ‘Or have you seen him before?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged, her eyes wide and scared. ‘But I didn’t get the feeling I had known him, not the way I have had with some other people. That makes losing my memory even scarier because I don’t know who is good and who is bad. But thank you so much for the flowers and chocolates.’ She pointed to the flowers which had been arranged in a vase and now stood on the locker. ‘They are lovely.’

  ‘Did he hurt you?’ David asked, coming closer.

  ‘A bit sore here.’ She put her hand up to her neck. ‘And scared witless, but don’t let’s talk about him and what happened, tell me about you.’

  In just that one sentence David felt he knew all about her. A girl with no ego, and who cared more for others than herself.

  ‘I’m thirty-two, single, recently split with my girlfriend, and I come from a village near Bristol. I’m one of eight children, and I’m the second to eldest,’ he said, feeling as if someone had switched a spotlight on to him. ‘I’ve recently started my own company; it’s to do with telecommunications. But you don’t want to know about that, it’s boring.’

  He liked the way her lips twitched with amusement at him rattling that out. ‘One of eight, eh! Your mum had her work cut out. I was told you found me on the beach early in the morning. But why were you out at that time?’

  David smiled at her directness. ‘I go running. I take my neighbour’s dog Toto, because Fred’s got a broken leg and can’t do more than hobble on his crutches. But Toto ran ahead and was sniffing at you. I thought you were a sack of rubbish or something until I got much closer. Can you remember being in the water?’