Episode 3 - The girl child

Cleo’s phone rang. It was the vicar in an overexcited state.

“Cleo, thank God I’ve reached you. You weren’t at home.”

“I usually work here in the office at this time on a weekday,” she replied, thinking ruefully of the number of times the phone had rung and remained unanswered. “What are you upset about?”

“When I opened the kitchen door to retrieve my bicycle, I found a small child sitting on the steps outside clutching a teddy-bear. We’ve no idea who she is or where she came from and she won’t say a word.”

“Where is she now?”

“Edith’s looking after her. She was very dirty. Edith bathed her and I think she’s resting in one of the twins’ bunks. What a good job the boys had gone to school.”

“Don’t they go out of the kitchen door?”

“Yes, but she wasn’t there then. They would have said something.”

“So when did you find her?”

“Edith went out to shake the table cloth an hour ago.”

“We’ll be round immediately, Frederick.”

“I don’t think Dorothy should be troubled.”

“She won’t be. Gary Hurley is here.”

“That inspector chap? I thought he’d disappeared.”

“He has reappeared and is lodging at Dorothy’s while he finds somewhere to live.”

“Oh dear, that sounds like family strife. Anything I can do?”

That was unusually perceptive of Frederick Parsnip. What a pity he never noticed the conflicts in his own family circle.

“Nothing, Frederick. We’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

“Thank you, thank you.”

“What was that all about?” Gary asked.

“A strange kid was found on the kitchen doorstep at the vicarage.”

“You’d better call the police.”

“You’re here, Gary.”

“But I should go to HQ now. It isn’t my job to trace missing persons.”

“Headquarters can wait. This is more urgent and it might be a good way back into your job.”

Gary thought about that for a moment.

“You’re right. Let’s go!”

***

The vicar raced down the long, pebbly drive towards them. Much to his surprise, Cleo and Gary had walked there. Didn’t they realize that he was desperate?

“We walked. It’s just as quick,” said Cleo, reading the man’s thoughts. He really did look stricken.

“Thank you for coming. I’m at my wits’ end.”

Gary thought that might be his permanent state.

“Calm down, Frederick, We’re here now,” Cleo said. “Where’s the child?”

“Sitting at the kitchen table in a pair of Edmond’s or is it Daniel’s pyjamas.”

The vicar and his wife had five boys. Edmond was one of the youngest, about 7 years old. Edmond and Daniel were identical twins their father could not tell apart. Twins ran in the family. Edith had an identical twin sister, Clare, and Frederick Parsnip could not tell them apart, either. Fortunately, Edith and Clare did not dress alike, so the vicar made an effort to remember what his wife was wearing and then called the other one Clare. The vicar had not noticed that his twin sons had totally different personalities; one was outgoing and gregarious, the other shy and diffident, temperamental replicas of their mother and aunt. When the two sisters had been together for long enough, the vicar always thanked his lucky stars that he’d married the diffident Edith, whatever her shortcomings. He could not have coped with the Clare, who was as outgoing and vivacious as Edith was serious and brooding. He didn’t know how much Edith envied Clare for her personality the way she admired anyone she judged to have one. She also envied Cleo for her American accent, and imitated it, much to Cleo’s amusement. The vicar made no attempt to tell the boys apart.

Clare had, much her brother-in-law’s disgust, finally settled down in Upper Grumpsfield with her Austrian husband after about a decade of estrangement. They had bought the late Laura Finch’s bungalow and were rearing their own set of twins there. Frederick had reason to thank his lucky stars. The new twins were a pigeon pair.

In the vicarage kitchen, Cleo went straight to the table and perched on a stool meant for one of the boys. Gary remained standing to drink the tea Edith offered him. Three-legged stools were Edith’s way of getting everyone round the kitchen table at one and the same time. The child sat on a stool and looked around through almond eyes veiled with long lashes. Her long fair hair was shining after three washes with Edith’s best shampoo. She was wearing pyjamas.

Gary watched Cleo looking at the child. He loved Cleo to distraction. A child with her would be the solution to the Robert problem. With any luck it would be coloured and Robert would reject it. Gary would step in and admit that he was the father. Robert would turn tail and never be seen again. What if their love-making today was … Gary stopped dreaming. Could he broach the subject to her? Gary smiled. He was thinking like a teenager. Cleo had turned his head. Now she looked at him with undisguised yearning and that feeling of belonging together again shot through them both.

“She hasn’t said a word,” said Edith, breaking into their reveries. Gary mused that it had taken his love for Cleo to find his true self and he was on the brink of losing her again if he didn’t take drastic measures. He loved women in general, except for Edith, who was fussing around and did not really understand the little girl’s plight. Edith could sense the intimacy between Cleo and Gary and was envious. She wished that her marriage had not turned into a farce. Then she remembered that Cleo was living with Robert and decided that she had misunderstood.

“More tea, Gary?” she said, breaking into their intimacy.

Gary nodded and Cleo grinned at him. He hated dishwater tea.

Cleo wondered if the child understood English.

“My name’s Cleo,” she told her, then picked up one of the wax crayons the child had been scribbling with and wrote her name in big letters on the paper that lay on the table. Edith had wanted to amuse the child, but got bored with the effort. As she had done with all her boys, she dished out paper and crayons and let them get on with it. Edith would have liked a girl baby herself, but not a sad, silent child and since Mr Parsnip had rejected her loving and was living like the monk he should have become had he been Roman Catholic, she did not think a girl child was likely to follow the boys. Approaching forty, her chances of having another child were decreasing, she mused, especially as her husband rejected her timid advances and she would never disgrace him by looking elsewhere, she thought..

Cleo drew a face, coloured it brown, wrote ‘C L E O’ in big letters below it and gestured between herself and the drawing while repeating her name. That made the little girl smile. She responded by drawing her own face, complete with yellow hair and huge brown eyes, and wrote ‘A N N A’ carefully below it.

“I'm Cleo,” said Cleo.

“I'm Anna,” said the little girl, pointing to herself and nodding vigorously before putting her small hand in Cleo’s. Edith looked on in amazement. A bond had been struck up between Cleo and the child in a matter of minutes. Gary moved to behind Cleo and placed his hands on her shoulders so that the heat of his hands passed into her. Edith watched the gesture and was jealous. Cleo already had one man. She did not need another. She, Edith, had no one. She ached for that feeling of longing and belonging and the rough hands belonging to a butcher would have been better than not being wanted.

Suddenly the child jumped up. Holding her teddy-bear close to her chest, she dragged Cleo to the kitchen door, gesturing that she wanted to go out.

“I’ll go with her,” said Cleo. “Follow me at a distance.”

The borrowed slippers Anna was wearing were too big, so she kicked them off. Cleo helped her to open the door. Ignoring Edith’s protests, they set off in the direction of the Bell Tower, which had been added to the church later and stood on its own about two hundred yards from the back door of the vicarage.

The tower, the vicarage and St. Peter’s parish church formed a triangle. Anna did not let go of her teddy-bear and was not deterred by her bare feet as she ran up the path towards the great wooden door of the building. There was so much urgency about the child’s movements that Cleo was sure that she must have a very good reason. Anna pointed to the door and gesticulated to Cleo to open it. It was not locked. Presently they were standing in the small vestibule that opened out into the main building.

The top of the Bell Tower had collapsed a year or so ago and the bells had crashed to the ground. The old girders had apparently been dislodged by the vibrations and pressure of the bells, but the crash had fortunately not happened during a rehearsal. Thanks to various fund-raising activities and donations, the tower had been reconstructed and almost ready for the grand inauguration. The building had been reconstructed and approved. The bells had been re-hung, but the general public did not normally have access to the building. The only people officially allowed in were the bell-ringers, who were practicing for a re-inauguration of the tower. Cleo thought it was extremely careless not to keep the Bell Tower door locked and puzzled that the child should insist on going in.

Anna clutched Cleo’s arm and pulled her towards the darkest corner of the building. As they got nearer, Cleo could see that someone was lying huddled on the flagstones. Cleo knelt to get a closer look. A brief beam of sunlight lit up the figure enough for her to see that it was a dark-haired, olive-skinned woman. Cleo felt for a pulse, but there was none. The woman was dead. There was nothing Cleo could do for her.

“Mama,” the child said.

“Is this your Mama, Anna?” Cleo whispered.

The child nodded and tears spilt onto Cleo’s hand.

“Mama!”

The child went to the dead woman and lifted her limp left hand to her lips. Cleo was overcome by this sight, but she knew she must take immediate action. The child could not say there indefinitely. Cleo took her by the hand and gestured that they most go outside. There, Cleo explained the situation to Edith and Gary, who had followed. Gary rushed into the tower, took one look at the corpse and phoned forensics and the paramedics. Edith stood by. Cleo held on to Anna.

It did not take long for Chris and his team to arrive and take an arc lamp and their equipment to where the woman lay. Photographs had to be taken of the body before it could be moved. Anna broke free and ran back into the tower to be with the woman she called ‘Mama’.

The paramedics and a doctor arrived. Anna had rushed back in to throw hersef onto the dead woman's breast. Cleo lifted Anna up and carried the tearful little girl out of the tower. The dead woman was wrapped in an insulated metal sheet and lifted onto the stretcher that the paramedics had brought with them. She would be taken to the pathology lab at Middlethumpton HQ. There would have to be an autopsy to determine how the woman had died. There were no visible signs of injury.

Gary told Edith that he would have to go to his office. He was visibly upset. The arrival of a bumptious social worker presumably notified by someone at HQ did nothing to alleviate the situation. Cleo hoped that Gary would not fall back into the burnout syndrome from which he had declared himself cured. Despite Edith’s presence, Cleo put her arms round him and kissed him with a tenderness that Edith could not fail to see. Anna was in the centre of that embrace.

“This is how it should be,” Gary whispered.

“Just a friendly gesture,” Cleo explained to Edith. “Gary has a problem with corpses.”

“It looked like love to me,” said Edith with undeniable sentimentality I her voice.

“That too, Edith,” said Cleo. “Gary is a trusted friend.”

Cleo wanted to take the child home, but the social worker would not allow the child to go with her because Cleo had not been vetted.

“But she trusts me,” Cleo argued.

“We don’t trust anyone we haven’t vetted,” the social worker told her.

Cleo wondered who had given her the job. The social worker gave the impression that she wasn’t fit to be let loose on children.

Exceptions could be made in exceptional circumstances, but the social worker said that in keeping with normal procedure, Anna would go to experienced foster parents until the authorities knew who she was. Cleo’s protests were ignored. The child was jerked away from her though it clung on desperately and was shaking all over. The social worker, who wore an identity brooch bearing the name ‘Devonport’, pushed Anna onto the back seat of her car and drove off. Anna was still wearing the borrowed pyjamas and clutching her teddy-bear.

“I think that woman needs investigating,” Cleo said. “I shall complain. It’s fortunate that they wear name tags. ”

“You’re right, Cleo. A complaint would be a good idea. I would have taken action, but that would have made the situation worse for Anna. I must get to HQ now. I said I would be there this morning.”

Cleo drew him aside from Edith. She would stay with the vicar’s wife for a while and phone later, but she felt the need to talk to him before he left.

“I read your thoughts at the vicarage,” she said, “and no, I would do nothing to avoid having your child, marriage or no marriage.”

“Including today?”

“Including every time.”

“You threw caution to the winds, Cleo. Edith saw us kissing.”

“She said she had witnessed love and I agreed. She rather likes Robert and would love to do what we do, but he does not return her interest.”

“That’s a pity. Can’t we bring them together?”

“I doubt it. Robert is honouring his word, too, Gary.”

“So what?”

“So wait.”

“I can sort of live with that, my love. “Je t’aime.”

“Moi aussi,” said Cleo.

Gary left and Cleo re-joined Edith to walk back to the vicarage with her.

“Are you…?” Edith started.

“Yes, Edith. I’m having an affair with Gary, but I’m going to marry Robert.”

“Why don’t you marry the man you obviously prefer?”

“I promised Robert.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Edith, “but I won’t say anything.”

“I knew you would keep our secret, Edith.”

“Perhaps you were the cause of his burnout, Cleo.”

“If Robert says he wants to call it off, I’ll agree, but he won’t do that. He has his pride to consider.”

“Maybe there’s some good woman who would be more suitable,” said Edith, and Cleo knew immediately who she meant.

“You’d make him a good wife, Edith,” she said. “But you have a family to care for.”

“Yes, I do.” said Edith, lacking enthusiasm.

Back in her office, Cleo called Gary. She was worried about the working methods of that social department and wanted him to do something about it that day if possible. Gary had to tell Cleo that the social worker was only sticking to the rules, admittedly in a thoughtless and brutal fashion. A complaint must come form outside.

“She’s a monster,” Cleo said.

“My hands are tied as long as she does not commit a criminal offence.”

“She’s cruel and sadistic, Gary, and defenceless kids are at her mercy.”

“We’d have to prove she is unfit, but how?”

Gary was now almost hoping the woman found in the tower had been murdered because then he would be responsible for the case. If she had died a natural death it would not be a police matter for very long. Social Services would deal with the child and he would have nothing official to say on the matter.

Cleo sat in front of her blank computer screen and meditated. She was too disturbed by events to start work. The vision of that child being dragged off haunted her almost more than the sight of her mother lying dead on the stone floor of the Bell Tower.

She was awakened from her reveries by loud knocking on the glass of the office door.

“So that’s where you are. I went home but you weren’t there.”

Cleo was startled. She had been sitting at her desk all afternoon.

“I’m sorry, Robert. This morning was a nightmare.”

“Let’s go home, then, shall we?” he said. “I’ll cook us something tasty.”

Cleo reflected that Robert invariably thought a good meal could put the world to rights. She decided a long soak in a piping hot aromatic bathtub would revive her spirits more than excessive calorie intake. While she was recovering, thanks to the heady ethereal oils she had poured liberally into the bathwater, and thanks to listening to the classical music Robert tried to avoid, he rang Gary Hurley for his advice.

“That social worker must be a witch if Cleo was so upset,” he told Gary.

“I’ve already made inquiries, Robert. She is apparently not the only one who is notorious for her treatment of everyone she has to deal with. The social workers seem generally unable to judge when to hold off.”

“Is it because the social workers are not vetted properly?”

“They have a hard job that often involves removing children from their families under threat of reprisals, since when the child goes, the child benefit also goes.”

“Well, the one you ordered to the tower should not be in that job.”

“I did not order her, Robert. She has friends at HQ who seem to have caught on. I expect the forensic lab is bugged to that end.”

§I thought police constabularies had that sort of thing under control,” said Robert.

“The problem is that Cleo is not registered as a child minder, and that is a fixed idea in the average social worker’s head,” Gary explained. “They think that everything is evil until it is proved righteous.”

“As if all foster parents are angels,” said Robert.

“They aren’t, but they take in orphaned and endangered children.”

“I think that social worker must be evil.”

“We’ll investigate.”

“Edith Parsnip has five children and Cleo tells me she would be glad to look after the little girl. Wouldn’t that be a temporary solution?”

“Yes, Robert, but I’m not in a position to promise anything.”

“Thanks for listening, Gary. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

Robert felt better after the phone call. There had been no hint of any goings-on between Gary and Cleo.

Cleo came into the living-room dressed in her genuine Japanese kimono bought at a street market in Chicago and with a towel wound turban fashion around her wet hair.

“Were you talking to Gary? Why didn’t you call me?”

Robert did not reveal that he had made the phone-call. He simply explained that Gary was going to try to retrieve the child from wherever she had been dumped.

“That’s the first good news today,” said Cleo.

“What about Gary, then? Isn’t that good news?”

Cleo hid any reaction that would provoke Robert to think something was not as it should be.

“Do you mean a partnership with the Hartley Agency? I don’t think that’s a good idea, Robert. Staying on in his job at HQ is probably the right way forward, at least until he sorts out his private life.”

“How do you know he is staying on in his old job, Cleo?”

“Instinct, Robert,” said Cleo, who for obvious reasons did not want to talk about her meeting with Gary.

“So what shall I do with the shop?”

“We’ll turn it into an office as planned. It can be used by anyone working for me who needs to document cases, etc. I’ll install an intranet to communicate with my computer next door, and then we’ll only need one database.”

“I’ll get into trouble with your mother.”

“My mother won’t know that you leased the shop. She’ll think it was me if we tell her that.”

“I hope you’re right.”

The day was not over yet. It was quite late and Dorothy rang Cleo to find out what was keeping Gary.

“I don’t want to fuss, but it’s very late.”

“He isn’t here, Dorothy. Cops work long hours.”

Cleo told her about the child and the dead woman.

“You should have asked me to come to the vicarage. I might have recognized the woman,” said Dorothy. “What about that fortune-teller. Remember her?”

“That was ages ago, Dorothy.”

“She warned Laura and me about the Tour of the Universe being a fraud. And she sold me some stuff to cure migraine. It worked, too.”

“It was probably codeine. Do you really think you would remember what she looked like?”

“I’ll try,” said Dorothy.

“I can drive you into Middlethumpton tomorrow morning so that you can look at the dead woman. By the way, Gary is staying on in his job for the time being.”

“That decision is the best one he could make,” said Dorothy.

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“I could ask Gary for a lift tomorrow morning, Cleo.”

“Better not tie him down, Dorothy. Anyway, you have to get back somehow.”

“I can catch a bus.”

“You know Dorothy, I’d like to take another look at the woman, too.”

“OK. Ten o’clock at your office?”

“Fine, Dorothy. Tell Gary about our arrangement, and tell him about the Tour of the Universe, too. The way you tell it is amusing and sheds light on Laura Finch’s character. I know he never really understood what made her tick. And neither did we, come to think of it.”

“If talking about people ensures their immortality, Laura is immortal!” said Dorothy.

“Remembering that she was killed still makes me shudder,” said Cleo.

Robert had taken a shower and was in his pyjamas, wearing felt slippers and a dressing gown. He mimed to Cleo that he was going to make them a nightcap. He had not heard the phone conversation.

Dorothy said Gary was just arriving home and rang off.

Cleo and Robert drank creamy cocoa in silence. They were like an old married couple. Robert was contented even if Cleo felt restive. They slept together now and again. Robert did not take much interest in ‘that kind of thing’. He was as oblivious of Cleo's sex-appeal as Gary was aware of it. Their coming marriage was one of convenience. On reflection, Cleo was to find her decision to stay with Robert absurd. At this time it was the right thing to do, she told herself.