Everything She Forgot (28 page)

               
Lots of love and kisses

               
George

            
PS. I am sorry that we ate all the Angel Deelite

George locked the door, slipped the key back under the mat, and they were on their way.

CHAPTER 27

I
T WAS TO BE AN EPIC TRIP—
T
HURSO TO
P
ENZANCE—ALMOST
John o' Groats to Land's End; the tip of the country to the bottom and thirteen long hours of driving. Angus was glad that he had popped into the McLaughlin garage after all. It had just been an excuse, but after Tam's work the car now started quicker than it had in years.

Considering how much better the engine sounded, Angus vaguely wondered what had happened to Tam, and if he had been murdered as his wife feared, although she had not explicitly said so.

It would have been more comfortable to take the train, but Angus reasoned that he should make the journey by car because George was traveling by car and Angus could always change his route if he got a new lead. He planned to drive down as fast as he could and wait in Penzance for George, if he was not there already. He guessed that Penzance was not that big: about fifteen thousand people. Angus felt in his gut that he would be able to find George McLaughlin and take Molly safely home with him to Thurso. This was his calling.

The article he had written had been syndicated as he hoped
but the national press had not put the same emphasis on the McLaughlin link. Angus's editor had been hesitant to publish the story at first—doubting its relevance—but Angus had been vindicated and his boss had grudgingly praised him.

Last night's press conference had infuriated Angus. After failing to locate George, the police had merely confirmed to the media that McLaughlin was wanted for questioning. They had failed to say that he was an actual suspect. Angus knew that they had issued a national call-out on the dark red Allegro (the car hadn't been identified at the press conference in case the driver was alerted) but it seemed to Angus that the police were still not convinced that
George
had been driving the Allegro, and that
George
had Molly. Angus was exasperated that others were so slow to listen to him—it was like trying to convert heathens.

Angus looked at the map and chose a west coast route, passing Inverness, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Bristol—the A9 initially, then the M5 motorway. George would be unlikely to use the main roads, Angus reasoned, but he was behind and had to catch up. It had been seven days since the abduction. He wondered if George had settled in Penzance, or if he had left already. There was no time to waste.

The police were seeking George
and
the dark Allegro with the Glasgow sticker, but Angus felt certain that if the police could track the vehicle, they would also find George. It was possible that, before he disappeared, Tam had told the McLaughlin brothers whatever George had told him; this meant that the gangsters might also be chasing George down the country to retrieve the money May had mentioned.

All of this Angus considered as he drove down the A9 toward Inverness. He sat leaning forward in his seat, two hands on the
steering wheel and his chin jutting. He was a knight charging into battle against the forces of evil. He kept the radio on to listen to the news bulletins, but turned the volume down when the music started. It was some time since he had taken a trip. He had told Hazel to expect him gone for a week or more. He had taken out three hundred pounds for food, fuel, and accommodation but hoped to spend only half of that. It wasn't just the expense that bothered him: Angus didn't like hotels or bed-and-breakfast establishments, as they were often places of sin and he felt sullied lying on the improperly cleaned sheets and eating the lukewarm slops they served as food.

It occurred to him that such a journey would have been better undertaken in some sort of camper van—so that he could rest and eat when he needed and drive when he wanted and the roads were clear.

Hazel had packed him a picnic bag of sandwiches and two flasks of hot sweet tea. He pulled into a service station around twelve to eat. Halfway through his salmon sandwiches, Angus decided to call his contact at the
Evening Times
again. He washed down his sandwiches with a mug of lukewarm tea, and left the car in search of a phone box.

There was a public telephone within the service station and Angus hunched inside the booth, a palmful of coins in his hand, and dialed Don Balfour's number. He smelled the sweet dough of burger buns and heard the shrieks of young children as he listened to the phone ringing.

Don's answer message kicked in and Angus pursed his lips in annoyance, about to hang up without leaving a message, when Don answered, clearing his throat loudly. “Don Balfour.”

“Don! Hello,” said Angus, one hand in his pocket, raising his
eyebrows and a smile, as if Don were actually before him. “It's Angus Campbell here. How are you?”

“Not so bad. How goes it, wee man?”

“Fine, fine,” said Angus, frowning, “I just wanted to call you about the McLaughlins—follow up on a conversation we had last time I was in Glasgow.”

“Sure, no probs. I see they still haven't found that wee lassie from up your way and now they want to speak to George. Were you on to something?”

“Not at all. It's a complex situation. The case continues.”

“Big George is her natural father? Get away! You didn't say that. If he's the father that's a different ballgame altogether.”

“Why?” said Angus, grinning in irritation. He had so much to ask and had not anticipated having to answer questions.

“Well, I told you the McLaughlins wouldn't kidnap a child . . . but blood, blood is a different matter. That family are tight, and if that wean is a McLaughlin, George might've taken her after all.”

“Thank you,” Angus managed, gritting his teeth in anger. “I was calling on another matter, albeit related.”

“Fire away, wee man.”

Angus winced. “Talking about the McLaughlins
in general
. They have been in and out of court, in and out of jail for that matter . . . Are there any links between them and the police?”

“What do you mean, links?”

“Well, do they have ‘friends' in the police?”

“Certainly!”

“Tell me.”

“Well, they have ‘friends' all over Glasgow and beyond. The police are no different, I suspect. All it takes is a gambling
session gone wrong, or Maggie Thatcher and her redundancies and fifteen percent interest rates—you go in search of whoever'll give you money. And I would
imagine
. . . be clear I'm not telling you how it works, I'm just saying how I
think
it goes . . . if you happen to work for the police and you can't pay your loan shark back, that might be . . . helpful. It could help you shave off a few bob in repayments, for a favor here or there, so to speak.”

“Do you think it's possible that there's an exchange of information, between the police and the McLaughlins?”

“Why, yes, it's possible . . . I should imagine so.”

A
ngus bought some mints and returned to his car. He left Scotland and continued onto the M6. He had been right to consider his journey a crusade. He was the force of goodness, of light—but the forces of darkness were journeying with him. He imagined that he, the police, and the McLaughlins were all traveling down the country right now, seeking a man with a young girl in an old Allegro. It was a chase, but it was also a race to victory.

If Angus had assumed correctly, then the McLaughlins would know everything that the police did about Molly and her disappearance, possibly more. Tam Driscoll was quite probably dead, having told the McLaughlins whatever George had told him about stealing a large amount of money. Whomever George had stolen the money from might also be heading down to Penzance. Like flatworms to darkness, Angus imagined them all drawn to the very end of the land.

After he passed Liverpool, Angus began to look for a place to stay. It was dusk and he was hungry for a real meal and a bed. He headed on to Stoke, where he began to look for a small
hotel. Just before dark he pulled up outside the Crown and left the car running while he asked if they had a room. They were full, but Angus decided to eat there, drive on, and rest after darkness, in his car if necessary.

He tucked himself into a corner table, put a napkin on his lap, and ordered minestrone soup, roast beef, and apple pie with ice cream for dessert.

He ate like he had never eaten before. It wasn't just that the food was so much better than Hazel's cooking.

The hunt gave him an appetite.

CHAPTER 28

G
EORGE GOT ONTO THE
A
51, WHICH HE WOULD
FOLLOW FOR
a while. He felt like he had been around a thousand roundabouts since he left Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, but it seemed sensible to stay on the quieter roads. He was headed toward, but would miss, Birmingham. He had decided to bypass all the major towns; it would take him longer, but he had been lucky so far. It wasn't just the time and the risk of being caught: the wee one couldn't sit for long hours in a car. It would've driven him crazy at her age. They had their hotel on wheels and they could take it easy now.

He put on the radio, changing stations until he found some good tunes, and then sang along as he drove. He kept to the inside lane because the van would go no faster than sixty miles an hour, but he tousled Moll's hair and encouraged her to sing along with him, as car after car overtook them.

He felt confident for the first time: full of wild optimism. They were on the road with all their supplies, and could rest when they wanted. There was no longer any need to risk hotels or cafés and he had gotten rid of the stolen Glasgow car. They were untracked and heading for the good life. He had the free
dom and the space to look after his daughter now. He hadn't intended it to be this way. He had hoped to be a family: him and Kathleen and their wee girl. It was all he had ever wanted, but now, for whatever reason, it was just him and Moll. He had stopped believing long ago, but maybe, just maybe, it had been meant. They were going to disappear and no one would ever hear from him or her again.

The music was interrupted for the news.

            
A national manhunt continues for the kidnapper of seven-year-old Molly Henderson, who was taken from the northern town of Thurso in Scotland on October 2. Molly has long dark hair, often wears an eye patch, and was last seen wearing her school uniform.

               
There have been no sightings of Molly since her disappearance, and police are urging members of the public to come forward if they have any information. Molly's natural father, George McLaughlin, is also wanted for questioning in relation to her disappearance. McLaughlin is six feet three, broad and of heavy build, with black hair and blue eyes.

George held the smoke in his lungs as he heard his name mentioned on the radio. The report didn't say as much—only that he was wanted for questioning—but he wondered if the police now knew that he had taken her.

The report ended with the tape of Kathleen begging for her daughter's return. George quickly turned the radio off, in case Moll heard her mother's voice. He reached for a cigarette.

He turned to Moll, but she was in her own world, staring out of the window, as if she had not been listening.

As he smoked, a deep spasm of regret crushed him. Kathleen had meant so much to him. The thought of her suffering pained him, but she had taken his baby girl away, and now he simply could not bear to be separated from Moll. She was his child as much as Kathleen's.

A
fter dark, he noticed that Moll was becoming restless. They were not far from Bath. They had been on the road for nearly four hours and she needed to move around.

He saw a small parking area surrounded by trees beside the road, and doubled back to park in it overnight.

It was cold and getting dark, but she did handstands on the grass as he sorted out the camper van.

The first thing he did was extend the roof, but even extended, George had to hunch as he moved around the space. The previous owners had been quirky in the furnishings they had added. The wall at the back of the van, which fronted off the engine, had been carpeted, ceiling to floor. It was a strange seventies-psychedelic choice, but it made the camper feel like a small, cozy nightclub.

He put a short step outside so that Moll could enter and leave the van with ease—it was nothing for George, but it was a large step for the bairn.

They had practiced setting up the bed and table while they were in Stoke, and George now clipped the table into place. The mugs and plates were plastic, although the cutlery was real and George passed it up to her.

There was a six-kilogram bottle of propane gas. George had bought a new one, to replace the almost empty cylinder that the previous owner had given them. He hooked up the nearly empty cylinder to the outlet so that he could power the stove
and set the new cylinder by its side, ready to change when the old one was fully depleted.

“N
OW, MY LADY,”
he said, on his knees in the small space of the van, beside the cupboard where he had packed the groceries. “What would madam like for her supper?” He tilted the beans toward her as if they were a bottle of fine wine. “Could I tempt you to a spot of baked bean caviar, or indeed the delicious hoops of spaghetti, which were imported direct to our fine restaurant from Italy?”

She giggled. “Hoops, please.”

“Indeed, my lady. Right away. And may I ask what you would like to drink? Would you like this stunning vintage of lemonade, or perhaps an orange juice while you wait?”

“Irn-Bru?”

George put a hand over his chest, in mock grief and disappointment. “Alas, I am afraid to report that we have just sold out of the fine Irn-Bru, but I would strongly recommend the lemonade to madam.”

She nodded and so he poured her half a mugful, then gave a flourish with his right hand and bowed, making her scream with laughter.

There was a single gas ring that could take a pot and George cooked her hoops in it, hunched over and banging his head once or twice, despite the extended roof. He served Moll's dinner but there was not enough gas for his own, so he changed the cylinder to cook a tin of sausage and beans for himself.

It was not much of a dinner, but George ate it hungrily, washed down with warm beer. Moll ate quickly and when she was finished there was a ring of tomato sauce around her mouth. He had bought her Happy Face biscuits and she ate
them as he stepped outside and smoked a cigarette. The small parking area had been empty when they pulled into it, but now there was one other car. It was pitch dark outside, apart from the orange glow of Bath in the distance, and George couldn't make out if there was someone sitting in the car or not. He listened to the hoarse whisper of the road as he finished his cigarette and then slipped back inside. There was a chill in the air and he closed the van's curtains to keep in the heat, grateful now for the psychedelic carpet on the walls.

“I need a wee-wee,” she said, and so he held the door open while she squatted next to the van.

There was no one for miles, and she was hidden from the view of the car behind, but it was dark and barren outside.

“That's right, just do it there. You're all right, no one can see you.”

He had filled up the water container at a garage while getting gas, and so there was water for her to wash her hands at the tiny sink, and then to rinse their dishes. While she waited outside, he folded the table down to make a bed, plumped up the cushions, and shook traveling blankets out on top.

“We'll get up early. Soon as it's light,” he said, settling back on the bed and shaking off his boots. “We best try and get some rest.”

“I'm not tired,” she said, and he noticed that she was shivering after being outside, pulling the sleeves of her sweater over her hands.

“C'm'ere,” he said, holding out his arm.

“Your feet smell,” she said, climbing up on the bed beside him.

“Sorry.” He took her hand to help her. “You're not the first woman to tell me that.”

She settled down beside him.

“It's better up this end, that's all I can say. One good thing about having long legs is your smelly feet are far enough away.”

She sat beside him, hands between her knees.

“You're cold,” he said, daring to draw her nearer.

She allowed it, putting her arm around his waist and cuddling into him. George held her close, kissing the top of her head.

“Are you warmer now?”

She nodded, one hand over his stomach and another squished into his side.

“Do you want me to sing to you again—help you go to sleep?” He felt her elbow in his stomach as she sat up. “We could practice your
writing
again.”

“Watch your pointy elbows. What are you trying to do to me?”

“You could write me a letter.”

“How can I write you a letter when I can barely write at all?”

“That's why you need to practice.”

Before he could say anything, she was crawling off the bed, bum in the air and one sock hanging off, and climbing into the front seat where she had her satchel. She pulled out her school exercise book, but also the stationery that she had taken from the hotel in York. She had taken all of it—even the envelopes. She crawled back onto the bed beside him, took the edge of the blanket and used it to cover her knees and then his, and spread the paper on the top.

“We'll need something to lean on,” he said, reaching for one of the placemats they had used, wiping a spot of tomato sauce off it with the heel of his hand.

She started up where she had left off—marching him through the alphabet from
A
to
Z
, drawing each letter for him carefully, then asking him to copy it. It had been years since
George had tried to write. He found that now, couried in the back of the van with the bairn, he was able to learn from her.

“It's all right,” she whispered, close to his face with sweet tomato sauce breath, when he tried to write “My name is George.”

“You don't have to write it straight. When I write it goes uphill, but you write downhill. That's OK.”

“It's easier with your left hand after all.”

“That's because
we're
left-handed,” she said, grinning at him.

“See if you can write my name.”

“I can write your name better than my own,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt to look again at the red calligraphy on his chest, the skin scarred with dye and his own blood.

The pen was still cumbersome in his hand, and he felt the strain if he held it for some time, but he wrote “Moll + George.”

“You should write
and
properly,” she said, printing the letters for him to copy, so he wrote the sentence again.

“I know!” she said, jumping up to kneel beside him. “I'll draw pictures of things and you can write what they are underneath.” Her eyes were wide with excitement.

She drew a house, and George began with an
h
but was then uncertain. She showed him how. She drew a cat and a dog and then a van like their own, and George found that he could remember how to write those words, but she had to help him with others: tree, flower, sausage, bread.

She wrote down a list of numbers and asked him to write the words. He got most of these wrong, but she spent time with him, patiently writing the words out for him and asking him to copy.

“It's OK,” she said, “I used to get
twenty
wrong too, but now
I think it's easy. Once you've done it a few times, you'll remember. We should try some sentences now.”

“I don't know. Maybe let's stick with the words first.”

“But words make up sentences. Words on their own are boring. We can start with an easy one.”

George sighed his assent.

“You should be able to write ‘My name is George and I am . . .'” She stopped and opened her eyes wide as she looked into his face. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“That's quite old,” she said, pushing the paper toward him, “but not as old as my other daddy. My other daddy is forty-one. That's very old.”

George looked at her, unsure what to say.

“Write down ‘My name is George and I am twenty-seven years old.'”

George did as she asked and found that he was able. He looked at their handwriting—his and hers side by side.

“Well done,” she said.

“Och, my letters are ugly next to yours.”

“They're not ugly,” she said, her young face suddenly solemn, and George recalled the night by the forest when he had told her she was beautiful. “You're just learning and they're already a lot nicer than the letters you did when we were in the hotel.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, kissing her ear.

“Your face is scratchy.”

“I need to shave.”

They worked for hours and George learned hungrily from her, without shame. Sometimes it felt as if he had been raised on shame, the way some other children were raised on love. He
wanted to learn from her, so that he could be the kind of father he wanted to be. He would love her the way he had never been loved.

I
f you're too stupid for school, then you can go to work with me,” said Brendan, sitting down to lace up his steel-capped boots. Since he was very small, it had been George's chore to polish the family's shoes. Brendan's boots often had rusty splatters, which came off easily apart from where they had seeped into the stitching. George had always known this was blood and he could never look at the boots without imagining his father kicking someone, the way he had seen him kick his mother.

There was no point in arguing. George knew what happened to people who contradicted his father.

“It'll toughen you up.”

George nodded and slipped his boots on, then followed his father out to the car. All he wanted was a life where he had peace to listen to music and the freedom to be himself. He didn't want to get tougher; knew he couldn't. The horrors he had seen so far had only made him feel sadder and more vulnerable. He had become somewhat accustomed to pain, but he found he could not get used to the suffering of others.

He was the baby, his mother's baby, and liked to spend as little time as possible with his father. He would have been happy with no father. Brendan had many enemies and all of them wished him dead, but, secretly, no one wished him dead more than his youngest son.