I set Isabel down on her feet. She groaned, slumping against me. "My daughter," I said to the guy's quizzical look.
"Right," he replied. "Course she is."
"You're my daughter, aren't you?" I asked Isabel, lifting her chin up with my finger.
"Grrruuhhh," she managed, a gurgling sound in the back of her throat leading to a line of drool forming on her bottom lip. She really was a delightful girl. "Daddy?"
"That's right," I said. "Daddy's here."
As soon as I let go of her chin, her head fell forwards, pressing against me. I paid the man behind the counter, ignoring his leer as he did his best to look down her top.
"Room seventeen," he said. "Same age as her," he added with a wink.
"I'm nineteen actually," she mumbled before falling silent again.
I turned away from him, lifting Isabel by the waist and half carrying, half dragging her up the stairs. I got her into the room a minute later, pushing the door open whilst holding her tightly, doing my best to keep her upright. Once inside, I picked her up, ignoring her snoring as I laid her down on the bed.
I thought about undressing her but then thought better of it. If she woke up with me stripping her clothes off, she'd probably scream the place down. Not only that but if I got her naked, I doubted I'd be able to control the urges that were building up inside me. The sight of her in the bar had been enough to spark my lust. She looked so innocent, so perfectly timid. She'd do exactly what I told her in bed. Just how I liked them.
I settled for removing her shoes, easier said than done as her knotting skills were a nightmare to untangle. When I finally got them off, her snoring had settled into a rhythm, an ear splitting rhythm.
I tucked the blankets around her, leaving her to sleep it off for a while. By the time she woke up, the street should be empty and I could take her home, get this job over with and get back to what I was good at. It had been no fun wandering the town looking for her. In my line of work, I was usually given an address and knew exactly where I was going. I'd been in half the bars and restaurants in the place before finding her in the middle of a bottle of wine. She'd had the look of someone who had every intention of getting as pissed as possible.
The vultures watching her could see her vulnerability as well as I could. It had radiated off her and I couldn't believe she was so naive as to let them ply her with more drink. I hadn't planned to be so visible, I'd planned to grab her when she left the bar but when they'd gone for her, something snapped in me and I felt, well, almost protective of her. I looked at her snoring form and wondered why. Seeing her there, I didn't feel protective anymore, I felt like I might grab and her and fuck her before she even knew what was happening.
I dragged the only chair in the room over to the corner. From there I could see the door, the window and the bed. No one would get in or out without me knowing about it. I sat there, the lights low, looking at her as she slept. I hope you're worth all this trouble, I thought to myself, resisting the lust filled thoughts in my head.
I only planned to sit. I must have been more tired than I realised. Either that or the stifling heat of the room had snuck up on me. Or those dirtbags had put something in her wine. Whatever it was, I fell asleep without realising it was happening and I didn't wake up until the next morning.
To find her gone was a shock. I was a light sleeper, I'd needed to be for a long time. The slightest sound was usually enough to wake me. If she'd climbed out of bed, I should have heard it. But I hadn't. I hadn't heard her go but gone she had. I was alone in there. I got to my feet and took a step forwards, falling to the floor with a heavy thud. What the hell?
I looked down at my feet and couldn't help but laugh. Not only had she been so quiet that she'd slipped from the room without me noticing, she'd had time to stop and tie my shoelaces together. They were knotted in the same way her boots had been and it took far too long to get them undone. She was better at planning than I thought.
Once I'd sorted my shoes out, I headed downstairs. "Did you see a woman go past?" I asked the man behind the counter. He didn't look as if he'd moved from last night. Maybe he never did.
"Lost your ‘daughter' have you?" he asked with a sneer, his hands marking the punctuation around the word ‘daughter' in the air.
I leant across the counter and grabbed his shirt. "Have you seen her?"
His face lost its colour as he nodded. "She just left, not five minutes ago."
"Thanks," I said, letting him go and turning for the door. "We were never here."
I ran outside and looked up and down the street. There she was, climbing onto a double decker bus. I thought about getting my car but the bus might be gone by then. I ran after it just as its engine turned over. I joined the back of the queue. There were two people in front of me and glancing past them, I saw her head up the stairs to the top deck.
"A single," I said to the driver when I reached him.
"Where to?" he asked.
"Surprise me," I replied, throwing a twenty at him and turning to climb the stairs after her.
NINE
JAKE
She was looking out of the window when I got to the top of the stairs. That suited me perfectly. I was about to grab her when the bus set off. Changing my plans, I walked past her and moved to the back, sitting in the middle of the back row with a perfect view down the aisle. If she moved, I'd see. Better not make a scene unless I had to.
If she turned and spotted me and made a run for it when we stopped, I could be on her in a few steps. I'd already clocked who else was on the upper deck. Nine people, none of them a threat though one caught my eye twice. He turned to look at me from the seat behind Isabel and he looked at me for a moment too long though I pretended I was staring into the middle distance so he didn't spot me watching him.
A few minutes after we'd set off, I was watching him again because he'd shuffled across to the edge of the seat near the aisle. He leant forwards, his head on the back of the seat in front of him and then I knew what he was doing before he did it. I let him though, I didn't want to make a scene while we were moving, better to wait until we stopped.
Without his head coming up, his left hand reached along the edge of the seat and found her handbag which was on the corner of her seat as she continued to stare out of the window. He was good but he wasn't that good. He was doing it too slowly, all she had to do was turn and she'd see him.
If it had been me, I'd have the job done by now but he was still dipping his hand into the bag. When he finally brought her purse out, he moved faster, jamming it into his coat pocket before leaning back on his seat and acting for all the world as if he was asleep.
The bus moved out of the village and I caught sight of what she was watching for outside. We passed by the campsite I'd seen in the postcard. Only when we'd rolled past did she turn away from the window, pulling the handbag onto her lap and slumping slightly in her seat. Look down, I told her silently, look down and notice.
She didn't and when we reached the first stop forty minutes later, she was oblivious to the thief walking past her with her purse in his pocket. I was torn. Did I stick with her or get her purse back? The job meant I should stay with her but after last night I felt a vague sense of something, like I wanted to protect her, though I still had no real idea why.
Perhaps it was just because she was so innocent and in my line of work, no one was innocent. It didn't square with the other thoughts I kept having about her though, thoughts that I'd always switched off while at work before.
"Five minutes," the driver called out. "Five minute stop. Toilet stop only."
Five minutes was long enough. I got to my feet and followed the thief down the stairs, making sure I didn't look back at her in case she recognised me. I got off the bus and found myself in a grubby car park. The thief was walking towards a battered old Cortina in the corner and I picked up the pace, not wanting him to drive off before I reached him.
He was just climbing into the driver's seat when I got to the car. "What do you want?" he asked as I grabbed the door and leant down towards him.
"I'm curious," I replied, taking the keys from the ignition. "See how fast I did that?"
"Give me my keys back!"
"You were too slow," I said, spinning the keyring on my finger. "Like on the bus when you took that purse."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, lunging for the keys.
I shoved him back in his seat, holding him in place with a grip just tight enough to press into the flesh of his shoulder. "Give me the purse and I'll give you your keys back."
"Fuck you, you're mental," he said, his arms flailing towards me again.