The City's son

CHAPTER 12

‘I wondered if I might speak to Parva, please.’

Pen glanced through her bedroom doorway. From her bed she could just make out the open front door downstairs, and a man with a spam-pink bald spot, standing on the top step.

‘I am very sorry, sir,’ her mother said in her sing-song English. ‘She has been very ill. She has not been able to get out of bed.’

Pen looked slowly around her room. She’d been stuck in here for three days now. It smelled like a hospital, and was starting to feel like one too. She’d taken to stashing the lamb samosas her mum had been bringing to her under the bed. ‘ Aap ki pasandeenda,’ Mum had said every time, ‘your favourite!’ Pen’s long-fought-for vegetarianism was dismissed in a stunning display of strategic amnesia now that she was trapped at home. She could smell the pastry and the fat in the meat congealing together into one artery-busting torpedo.

She hadn’t read any poetry in days. (Her dad would smack her one if he ever found the copy of Donne stitched into her biology textbook. With typical awkwardness, he’d probably grasp just enough of the old-fashioned English to understand the dirty bits.) She was starting to feel genuinely ill.

‘Could I… Could I possibly nip up and see her then? I wouldn’t take…’ The man’s voice tailed off. He sounded scared — given the face that her mother was likely to be making to such a suggestion, Pen didn’t blame him.

‘Good bye.’ The door slammed hard.

Pen sat for a few moments, picking at the skin on her fingertips and on the palms of her hands. Her skin barely hurt any more as it curled away like pencil sharpenings. The lower layer was shockingly pink against her normal tea colour. Soon there would be no skin left that had touched anything the week before. Of course it would have rubbed off and become dust eventually anyway, but it made her feel a little better helping it along.

She heard the whine as the vacuum started up and above it, her mum singing contentedly to herself as she prosecuted her one-woman jihad against dirt. Pen’s mum had wardrobes full of dresses still in their original plastic. ‘They are only new once, my sweetheart,’ she would cluck happily; ‘I am saving them for a special occasion.’

That was exactly how Pen had felt when she’d come home from school in the middle of the day claiming to feel sick, when her mother had welcomed her greedily, no questions asked, and tucked her up safe in bed: Saved for a special occasion. Sealed up like a dress in plastic, gathering dust.

Pen couldn’t stop remembering Salt’s office. There’d been a harsh disinfectant smell. Pen had sat there, rigid with terror. She’d expected him to shout, but of course he never did. Instead he’d read aloud from Beth’s student file: the minor arrests for shoplifting and vandalism, the fights, the truancy. Her uniform was tatty, he said; he knew she sold paintings at Camden Market at the weekend; he suspected she sold cannabis at school every other day of the week.

Frostfield High had no record of Beth’s father’s occupation, he’d pointed out, and Mr Bradley had never once been to a parents’ evening.

‘I can only conclude,’ he said with counterfeit regret, ‘that she’s fending for herself. And then of course there’s this little piece of vandalism you helped her perpetrate.’

He’d brushed away Pen’s protests with a wave of his hand. He knew it was Beth, of course he did, whether he could prove it or not. There was no one else it could have been.

‘The Child Protection people will make their own assessment, of course,’ he said with grim satisfaction, ‘but I believe there’s a solid case for rehoming your little friend.’

It felt like he’d pulled a plug out of Pen’s stomach. The midnight tagging, roaming around the streets, the access to the city, to the night: that was Beth. To shove her into some orphanage would end her.

Pen had thought: She did this for you.

‘I don’t want to do this, Parva,’ Salt had said, leaning forward so she could smell that morning’s coffee on his breath, ‘but she’s a terrible influence on you. It’s your future she’s wasting.’ He’d paused, as though the thought had just come to him, then said slowly, ‘I suppose if I saw genuine commitment from you to that future, a real willingness to change, I could put this away.’ He’d patted the folder.

Reluctantly, Pen met his eyes. They showed nothing but grave concern. He was taunting her, making her feel her powerlessness — showing her how superb at looking innocent he was.

‘Twice a week, after school,’ he’d said softly. ‘This office. Extra maths. I’ll help you out.’

Pen had swallowed, her throat parched, and then again, until she finally found the strength to nod.

Salt’s voice had hardened. ‘I want your little friend gone, Parva: that’s non-negotiable. She can be gone from my school, or gone from her home. Those are your choices.’

Then he’d smiled at her. ‘It’ll be our secret,’ he’d said, and he’d leaned over the desk and kissed her on the lips.

Every muscle in her body clenched at the smell of the sweat in the folds of his neck, the scrape of his beard along her cheekbone. The hard points of his fingers had pushed down the small of her back and under the waistband of her underwear.

She didn’t know if he wanted her because he fancied her, or because he knew how much it hurt her. She didn’t know if there was any difference for someone like him.

Her heart shrank almost to nothingness at the thought of her mother finding out she wasn’t new any more. What would become of the special occasion then?

Standing in the headmistress’ office, Beth’s wounded gaze burning a hole in her, Pen had wanted to shout, Don’t you dare hate me! I did this for you!

But she couldn’t. She’d just had to stand there and watch Beth turn away from her, her eyes full of betrayal. And now Beth did hate her, Pen knew she did, just when she needed her most.

She didn’t want to need B. A tiny, spiteful, furious part of her heart hated her right back.

The breeze from the window tickled her neck. She went to shut it, and then stopped. The balding man was sitting in a battered car a few yards up the street. She stared out at him, but he made no move towards the ignition. He didn’t look threatening. His shoulders were slumped, and he looked utterly defeated.

She bit her lip. ‘Mum,’ she called down in English, ‘I’m going to sleep for a bit. Could you ask Dad not to disturb me when he comes in?’

Her mum’s assent floated back up the stairs. Parva shrugged off her dressing gown and pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt. She lifted her hijab from the faceless mannequin head by her mirror and wrapped it securely around her head.

What are you doing? a voice in her head asked. He’s a stranger, a strange man. It’s not safe.

Thoughts like that dogged her now, but she couldn’t succumb to them. Beth wouldn’t. Of course, Beth wouldn’t have caved in to Salt. Pen despised that thought, but it was there, clinging to her mind like a leech: if only she could have been a little more like Beth, she would have been safe.

Pen arranged the pillows and the duvet, enough to fool a casual inspection, and switched off the light.

After days of staring at her bedroom ceiling Pen found the day painfully bright, the sky strikingly blue. Her heart felt like a hummingbird caged behind her ribs. There weren’t many people around, but still she flinched from those who passed, walking too close. She tried to calm herself, and screwed up her courage, until at last she felt able to walk over and knock on the car window.

The man jumped and stared out at her and she immediately felt less afraid: there was no threat in his face. He had sagging cheeks. It looked like sleeplessness had sucked the weight off him.

The window whirred down. ‘Parva,’ he started uncertainly, and then, ‘Pen?’

Pen started at the name. She cocked her head sideways. ‘Who are you, mister?’ she asked, although now she was sure she knew — he was only the second person to ever call her that.

‘My name’s Paul Bradley. I heard you were sick — thank you. Thank you for talking to me.’ He sounded pathetically grateful. And then he asked, ‘Have you seen my daughter?’

No; I haven’t seen her, I’ll probably never see her again — I don’t care if I don’t. I don’t care if she drank her own spray-paints, threw up a mural and died, Pen thought, but what she said was, ‘What’s happened to Beth?’

Mr Bradley’s forced smile fell away. ‘I was hoping you knew,’ he said. ‘Could we talk?’

‘I can’t go far,’ Pen said. ‘I told my parents I’m sick.’

‘Aren’t you?’ he sounded puzzled.

Pen considered it. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but not in any way they can know about.’

He pushed a button and the bolt on the passenger side of the car popped up. ‘We can talk in here if you like, since it’s cold out.’

Pen stopped dead, feeling herself freeze up. At the thought of getting into this man’s car even her hair felt cold. She eyed the button he’d pushed, the locks on the doors and gave a tight shake of her head.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘where then?’

Pen pointed at a cafe across the street and crossed over before he had a chance to get out of the car.

Some indie band was playing over the cafe stereo. The espresso machine provided a whirring accompaniment.

‘ Hey girl,’ the singer whined, ‘ you got me in a whirl- ’

And this’ll be a hit, Pen thought, even though it’s sh ‘Shouldn’t you be talking to the cops?’ she asked as Beth’s dad sat down, interrupting her musings.

He sipped his coffee. He’d asked if she wanted one, but after her tight-lipped head shake, he didn’t offer her anything else. ‘I did,’ he began. ‘They weren’t much help. Apparently she’s been in trouble with them before.’

How did you not know that? Pen wondered. ‘Look, Mr Bradley,’ she said, trying to sound reassuring, ‘I’m sure Beth’s fine. She can look after herself. In a few days she’ll-’ She tailed off at the expression on his face.

He dropped the sheaf of papers onto the Formica table. ‘That’s exactly what the police said to me,’ he said, his voice shaking a little. ‘So I looked online…’

Pen picked up the papers and leafed through them. There were perhaps twenty printouts of newspaper reports, each a picture of a distraught parent with pleading eyes. She flicked through them, reading names from under the headlines: Jessica Saarland, Ian Tompson, Michael Williams, Rowena Moors. Each one was an appeal for news of a missing child.

‘And that’s only the ones who were young enough or pretty enough or who disappeared on slow enough news days to get the papers interested,’ he said in a defeated voice. ‘I was a journalist. I know how this works.’

Pen felt her stomach clench. The missing person’s report on Beth would be sitting at the bottom of a police filing cabinet, squashed in between Allah alone knew how many others: lost lives and forgotten futures, forty to a drawer.

‘I’m sorry. We had a fight — a bad one,’ she confessed. ‘We both said some pretty nasty things. I haven’t seen her for days.’

Mr Bradley slumped a little more. It was a long time before he spoke. ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble. Do you — I don’t know, do you want me to try to create some sort of diversion so you can sneak back up to your room?’

Pen cocked her head and looked at him. ‘Wow, Mr Bradley,’ she said. ‘Beth never mentioned you were a Ninja.’

He blushed as Pen continued, ‘It’s okay. Besides, my mum’s pretty fierce. If she sees you again, after you suggested you come into my room — ’ She whistled and slit her throat with her finger.

‘She didn’t seem that bad.’

‘Don’t let the Karachi Kitten act fool you. She’d shove you slowly through a cheese-grater if she thought you were messing with her little girl. Let me handle her.’

He laughed at that, and a brief guilty look flitted across his face, as though it was wrong to be laughing at a time like this. ‘When Beth gets back,’ he said, ‘I hope you make it up. I’m glad she has a friend like you.’

Something stretched queasily in Pen’s stomach. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

They walked together back across the road, dodging the brightly dressed women carrying bags of vegetables from the market in Dalston.

‘Are you sure you don’t want a diversion?’ he asked her as they neared her house. ‘I could, I don’t know, sing?’

‘No offence, Mr Bradley, but Beth told me about your singing. She says your rubber duck’s about the right audience for it.’

‘Oh, well- Okay.’ He turned back to his car.

‘Mr B, wait!’ She saw him stiffen, snared by the urgency in her voice. She was staring at her front door — or rather, the door frame. Tiny trains had been drawn around its edge, a trail that led away along the bottom of the wall like black breadcrumbs.

They followed it around the corner into a drab alleyway and peered closed at what had been painted onto the bricks.

‘What’s that supposed to-?’ he started. ‘ Fractured harmony? I don’t-’

‘I do,’ Pen said. She creased her stiff, sore hands into fists and then released them slowly. ‘I know what it means, Mr Bradley. I’ve been there.’ She paused, and then found herself saying, ‘I’ll show you.’

‘Who’s that?’ He pointed at the sketch of a skinny boy using a spear to pick his fingernails with a nonchalant air.

Pen shook her head. ‘Never seen anyone who looked anything like that,’ she admitted. ‘Tell you what though, if Beth’s looking, she’ll find him.’

She dipped into her pocket, lifted out her phone and snapped a photo of the boy. ‘And that means we need to find him too.’

It was only on the way out of the alley that she saw her own face, daubed on the brick, and all the anger she’d been nursing towards her best friend changed into something else, something no less sharp, that caught in her throat.

‘Gosh, is that you?’ Mr Bradley murmured. ‘It is — it is you. She did that from memory? Heavens, it looks just like you. I mean…’ There was no mistaking the pride in his voice. Pen wondered if Beth had ever heard it.

‘Yes, Mr Bradley,’ she said, but it was hard to breathe. ‘She’s very good.’