The Elephant Girl(132)

‘Good point. Why did you spend all that money on my education? It’s not like I’ve ever made use of GCSE Latin, is it?’

‘So you can have the things I didn’t have. Do something with your life. Think for yourself. Make decisions.’

Jason put his hand on his father’s shoulder. ‘That’s what I’m doing, Dad. Thinking for myself.’

‘She’s bewitched you.’

‘No. She’s made me realise what’s truly important.’

‘Which is?’

‘We understand each other. We both grew up feeling out of place. We both want to help people who’re not as lucky as we are. And,’ Jason added, ‘I love her.’

‘Love!’ Derek scoffed. ‘Love can be bought. With your education, your looks, and the money you’re set to inherit, you can have anyone. You just need to watch out for the gold-diggers.’

‘Like Cathy, you mean?’ Jason winced inwardly. Speaking her name still smarted a bit.

‘Exactly.’

‘Cathy wasn’t a gold-digger, but you’re right, the relationship wouldn’t have gone the distance. My feelings for her weren’t deep enough.’

‘But for this girl they are?’

His father already knew the answer to that, and Jason said nothing. Derek could rant and rave, or needle or threaten, or whatever he did for a living, but Jason needed to get to Helen and let her know how important she was to him. With the recent loss she’d suffered and all her uncertainties, his father might well have got to her. He needed to stop her before she did something stupid.

But why was it taking so long? It was still in the early hours, and there wasn’t much traffic. It seemed as if his father’s chauffeur was deliberately driving slowly.

Finally they pulled up outside the house. Jason side-stepped Jones holding the car door open for him – purposefully in his way? – and almost leapt through the dilapidated front door.

Lee appeared from the kitchen, cradling one of Fay’s cats. The cat took one look at Derek Moody and the chauffeur behind Jason, hissed and ran back into the kitchen. Jason took the stairs two steps at a time, only vaguely aware of his father following.

The door to Helen’s room was wide open, the lights on, and he knew before stepping through the doorway that it would be empty. All that was left of the cosiness she’d succeeded in creating with very few belongings was a slight mark on the wall where a poster had hung and a faint trace of her perfume.

It wasn’t the absence of her things which punched a hole through his chest, it was knowing that she saw isolating herself from others as a way of solving things. As if it ever did.

Plus the fact that if she chose to stay hidden, no way would he ever find her.

He rounded on his father who had the grace to look shame-faced. ‘You owe me. Bloody big time.’





Chapter Thirty-Two

Goa

The computer screen shone with a luminous blue light in the darkened Internet café. Outside, pewter clouds had rolled over the beach with surprising speed, and it wouldn’t be long before the heavens opened.

Helen rose and went to the window. This September the tail-end of the monsoon promised to be a particularly spectacular one, and the beach, which she could see in the distance with the grey sea lapping lazily against the sand, was deserted apart from a few intrepid bathers. They were a new breed of tourists, people who came to Goa during the rainy season specifically to witness the tropical storms and the torrential rainfall.

Watching the bobbing bathers, she shook her head and hoped the season wouldn’t claim too many lives. So much had been lost already.

A couple of weeks ago she’d made her own offering to the sea and cast her mother’s Fabergé paper knife into the deep, the one Jason had given her and which had once belonged to Fay. Feeling the weight in her hand, she knew it was worth more than some people could ever earn in a lifetime, then, letting it go, she’d hurled it as far out as she could. Maybe one day treasure hunters would find it, clean it and cherish it, not knowing how much pain was associated with it.

The one Charlie had ‘borrowed’ from Arseni’s display cabinet, she’d given back to him when she last saw him, but the one she’d found at Ruth’s office she’d kept. Her mother had used it for opening letters, and she would do the same. Ruth had seemed more than happy to be rid of it anyway.

She returned to the computer and clicked on an e-mail from Ruth. Her aunt reported that the police were still investigating, and that the business would take a knock, but would survive. She then confirmed that she’d sent Helen a package with three months’ supply of epilepsy medication and lectured her on eating properly and pacing herself. She smiled. Ruth’s e-mail came across as gruff, but you couldn’t mistake her affection.