Stolen (2 page)

Dale had missed him and Lotte a lot when the cruise ended and they went to their respective homes. Dale got a job in a beautician’s near her parents’ home in Chiswick, in London, but there was none of the camaraderie with the other staff like she’d had on the ship, in fact some of the girls were real bitches.

This was why when she saw the advertisement for staff needed here, she’d telephoned Scott immediately to see if he was interested, and luckily he was, for he’d been working in a bistro in Truro, in Cornwall, unable to get a job in a gym.

Sadly they’d both lost touch with Lotte. She was a hairdresser and Dale thought she would have loved it here. But she hadn’t responded to any of Dale’s calls or texts since they left the ship; Scott reported the same. They had to assume that she’d moved on and didn’t need them in her life any longer.

‘I wouldn’t shag Marisa with someone else’s,’ Scott said laughingly. ‘I’d be afraid that mask might crack open and underneath she’d be hideous.’

That remark created great merriment for Marisa’s complexion was so perfect it was almost like a porcelain mask. In fact everything about her was perfect, from her size ten figure and her beautifully cut black suits to her jet-black hair which she wore in a single sleek plait which reached the middle of her back. It was so shiny it looked as though it had been sprayed with black lacquer, and Dale had expressed the opinion she wasn’t human, just a kind of Stepford Wife who had been bred to run a spa.

‘She’s actually thirty-eight, not thirty-two as she told Scott,’ Rosie said with a mischievous sparkle in her soft brown eyes. Rosie wasn’t one for dishing dirt about anyone, but she obviously felt unable to keep this titbit to herself. ‘She’d left a life insurance schedule on her desk, I couldn’t resist taking a nose. And her middle name is Agatha!’

‘Agatha!’ Dale exclaimed. ‘I thought Marisa was bad enough. I bet her surname isn’t De Vere really, it’s probably something yucky like Snelling or Greaseworth.’

Scott folded his arms. ‘Do you actually know anyone with the name Greaseworth?’ he asked with a touch of sarcasm.

‘No, but it would suit her,’ Dale laughed. She suddenly clapped her hand over her mouth ‘M.A.D. Her initials spell Mad!’

There was a burst of giggles from the other girls.

‘I’m going,’ Scott said. ‘I’ll leave you to continue the cattiness while I check no one has drowned in the pool.’

An hour later, when Dale had to take over on the reception desk while Becky went for a coffee, she lit some floating candles in the reception water feature and stood back to admire them.

She was by nature cynical, blunt and hard to please, well known for picking holes in everything, including people. But she had found nothing at Marchwood to criticize; in fact, she thought it was absolutely perfect and beautiful. Even Marisa, however hateful she could be, did a good job making sure she kept everyone on their toes.

The hotel was old-style country house, with antiques, real fires, squishy comfortable sofas and a strong smell of lavender polish. But the spa had the kind of Oriental minimalism that cost a fortune. The central reception area had a pale grey stone floor, with the still pool in the centre, now twinkling with floating candles. Decorations were sparse: a lovely piece of Japanese embroidery in a long thin frame, a few pots of orchids, low seating along the walls. The lighting was concealed, and even the reception desk was pale grey wood with a plate-glass top so it seemed to float above the floor.

From the reception area there were three doors. The one on the right led to the beauty treatment rooms, the middle one led to the gymnasium and the swimming pool and to the left was the hairdressing salon.

Hardly a day had passed since Dale arrived here when she didn’t hug herself with delight that she’d found a great job with a future. The spa might not be busy yet, but she knew it soon would be once the marketing people began pushing it. She was well paid, the accommodation was excellent and the other staff were all very nice. She knew from past experience that it was the staff who made or ruined a job. There were around thirty or so of them in both the hotel and the spa, and although she had only really got to know the spa staff, she liked them all.

Fourteen months ago when the year’s cruise contract ended, Dale had had a few hundred pounds saved. She intended to start her own salon, but that proved to be far more expensive than she had expected, and to make matters worse she frittered away quite a lot of her savings while thinking what she should do next.

She was only too aware that her parents worried about her, and she’d certainly given them cause in the past. She’d hung around with low life, flirted with drugs, had an abortion, and until she trained in beauty never stuck at anything for more than a few weeks.

While Dale knew she was over all that now, her parents weren’t entirely convinced. Even when she was on the cruise ship, where she had never worked so hard, they took the line that she was living the high life.

So now she felt she had to make this job work for her, to prove she really had grown up and could take responsibility for herself and others. Marchwood felt right. If she could just avoid crossing swords with Marisa, she might even end up running the place.

It got busier later in the day when several guests at the hotel booked various treatments, and it was after eight when Dale, Michelle and Rosie walked back to the bungalow after having dinner in the staff room next to the hotel kitchen.

It was a mild evening and the hotel garden looked beautiful by floodlight. The staff bungalow was hidden away behind some shrubs, and they were all looking forward to warm summer evenings when they could sit outside with a drink.

All of them had been surprised by how good their accommodation was. Most of them had worked in places where they were expected to share a room, and where the food had been awful. But here at Marchwood they each had their own room with a tiny en suite bathroom, and their meals were almost as good as those served to the guests in the hotel.

Frankie was in the lounge reading a paper. He looked up and grinned as they came in. ‘I put a bottle of vodka in the fridge a while ago,’ he said. ‘It should be perfect by now.’

Frankie referred to himself as ‘Gay’ Frankie, as if his sexual persuasion wasn’t immediately obvious by the turquoise streaks in his hair and his flamboyant clothes. Just a few days earlier Rosie had pointed out that whatever you said about Frankie you had to put ‘very’ in front of it. A very funny man, a very good hairdresser, and so on, for there was nothing mediocre about anything he did or said. Tonight he was wearing a ruffled white shirt which made him look as if he’d stepped out of an old swashbuckling movie.

Rosie collected the vodka and some glasses and by the time Dale had changed her work tunic for jeans and a tee-shirt and gone back to the lounge, Frankie was lighting some candles.

‘The light is more flattering,’ he said by way of an explanation.

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart, I fancy you even with harsh electric light,’ Scott said.

There was some laughter about this for Frankie had spent the entire first week at Marchwood acting as though he was coming on to Scott. It had only been leg-pulling; Frankie said he couldn’t resist because Scott was so obviously heterosexual. Frankie had stopped it now, but Scott had taken over with the teasing.

‘Oh, look, Dale,’ said Rosie, picking up the newspaper Frankie had been reading. ‘They’ve printed a picture of the girl they found half drowned.’

It was the local evening paper, and presumably by tomorrow the picture would hit the nationals. Dale picked it up and glanced only briefly at the picture, which wasn’t a real photograph but a police likeness, but she’d no sooner put it down than she felt compelled to pick it up again and study it a little more closely.

‘Who does she remind you of?’ she asked Scott, handing the paper to him.

Scott looked. ‘Lotte? Same high cheekbones and round eyes. But this one isn’t as pretty.’

‘That’s because she’s been to hell and back and her hair’s been cut off,’ Dale said thoughtfully. ‘Besides, it’s not a real photo. But just imagine this girl with long, shiny hair, and a smile on her face. Scott, it really could be Lotte!’

‘It couldn’t be.’ Scott shook his head.

‘Why not?’ Dale asked. ‘We know she came from Brighton, she’s the right age, and it says the girl is a blue-eyed blonde with a slight build.’

‘That description would fit thousands of girls,’ Scott said, shaking his head again. He picked the paper up and studied the picture again. ‘But you’ve got a point – if you change the messy hair, she’s a dead ringer.’

All the others wanted to know who they were talking about.

‘She was a hairdresser on the cruise ship and I shared a cabin with her,’ Dale explained. ‘I was horrified I’d got to share with her when we first met. She’s one of those Alice in Wonderland girls, all big eyes and flowing hair. She was dressed in baby pink, and I thought she’d never read anything but
Hello!
, talk endlessly about conditioners and ring her mum up to find out what was happening in
Coronation Street
. But she wasn’t like that, she was just the sweetest, kindest, most brilliant friend I’ve ever had.’

Dale was surprised that she was publicly admitting how much she liked Lotte. There had been a time in her life when she mistook using someone for having a friend, but Lotte had made her see what real friendship was all about.

‘The three of us did everything together,’ Scott butted in. ‘Not just going ashore for booze-ups, but nights talking together and stuff. But then something terrible happened to her in South America.’

‘What?’ Rosie and Michelle asked in unison.

Scott looked at Dale for support. They had never discussed whether or not they ought to keep quiet about this matter, but there didn’t seem to be any harm in telling the people they shared a home with.

‘She was raped,’ Dale said quietly, understanding Scott’s dilemma.

‘Raped? Who by? Someone on the ship?’ Michelle asked.

‘No, it was some nutter in Ushuaia – that’s right down as far south as you can go, the last place before the Antarctic,’ Scott explained. ‘In broad daylight too! She was never quite the same again, and Dale and I felt terrible that we had left her to go ashore alone.’

‘Poor girl,’ Frankie said in sympathy. ‘So what happened to her when she left the ship? Are you serious that this girl in the paper could be her?’

‘She was going home to her parents in Brighton when we said goodbye,’ Dale explained. ‘We all promised to keep in touch, and I did phone and text her, and so did Scott, but she never replied. I guess Scott and I were unwanted reminders of that terrible ordeal.’

‘It’s pure coincidence that a year on we’ve ended up near Brighton too,’ Scott added. ‘I suppose if so much time hadn’t passed since the cruise we’d probably have gone and looked her up. But there didn’t seem much point as she didn’t appear to want to know.’

‘If you think this is her,’ Frankie said, pointing at the picture, ‘you should ring the police.’

‘We’d look pretty silly if it wasn’t,’ Scott retorted. ‘But maybe we ought to get in touch with her parents and just check up on her?’

‘Ring them now,’ Frankie suggested.

‘We haven’t got a number for them,’ Scott said, ‘just an address she gave Dale. We tried to get a number from directory inquiries, but they were ex-directory.’

‘We could go tomorrow,’ Dale said impulsively. ‘I’ve got no appointments booked till the afternoon, and it’s your day off, Scott. We could catch the nine-thirty bus.’

‘I’d ring the police,’ Frankie said with a disapproving sniff. ‘For one thing, her poor parents might be looking at that same picture right now and if they don’t know where their daughter is they’ll be freaking out. You don’t want to walk in on that! And besides, Dale, if Marisa finds out you’ve bunked off she’ll go ape shit.’

‘If her parents do think it’s Lotte too, then they’ll need the comfort of someone who cared about her,’ Dale said stubbornly. ‘And as for Marisa, you lot aren’t going to grass me up, are you?’

‘Of course not,’ they chorused as one. ‘She’s not due back till the afternoon, but if she does get back early what will we say?’

‘That I had to go to the dentist as I had a bad toothache,’ Dale suggested.

‘Is it a good idea to go barging in on her parents?’ Scott asked Dale much later that evening just before they went to bed. ‘I can understand you wanting to check with them before going to the police. But what if they haven’t seen Lotte for a couple of weeks, and haven’t seen the picture tonight? They are going to flip with horror and shock and we’ll be there in the middle of it. The police know how to handle that sort of thing, we don’t.’

‘We could just ask for Lotte,’ Dale said. ‘Make like it’s just a social call. If she’s off at work then we can just leave a message for her to ring us and leave. But if they haven’t seen her for some time, then we either show them the girl in the paper or go straight to the police, depending on how strong we think her folks are.’

Scott shrugged. ‘On your head be it if they freak out!’

Chapter Two

‘I always imagined Lotte coming from a leafy suburban area,’ Dale remarked as the taxi turned off from the seafront into a street of terraced houses with no front gardens. She and Scott had caught the bus into Brighton but then picked up a taxi when they discovered Lotte’s road was some distance away.

Scott looked thoughtfully out of the taxi window at the slightly seedy houses. ‘Me too! I got the idea her childhood had been very sheltered, playing with dolls on the lawn and board games at night.’

Many of the houses in the street were downmarket guest houses. They had dull paint on their front doors and vases of artificial flowers in their windows, and Dale imagined the breakfasts would be greasy, the beds lumpy, and hot water in short supply. It was only a few streets back from the seafront, but a world apart from the smart hotels there. To Dale it was a reminder that Brighton had once had the reputation of being the place for a ‘dirty weekend’; she could imagine all those Mr and Mrs Smiths flocking here in the Forties and Fifties.