The Sister(65)

‘ Eighteen,’ she lied. At only fifteen, it made her feel safer to say she was older.

‘Well, best you get on back to your ma, then, it’s about time. I'd take you all the way, but I’m doing the market this morning. Why don’t you come with me? I’ll drop you off after.’

‘That’s sweet of you, but no. If you drop me by the station, I’ll be there by 10 o’clock I reckon.’

The brakes squealed in the dampness as the van pulled to a halt.

She opened her door; he came round from the other side and reaching in, grabbed her bags; they were surprisingly heavy, but soft and full of clothes.

Through the taut polythene sack, he saw the shape of a teddy bear straining against it. If it wasn’t for that, she could have been going to the launderette.

She pulled the fur-lined hood up over her head, over black hair already wet with rain. Light from the street lamps pooled on the pavement and under-lit her features, revealing a strong chin and soft brown eyes that peered down the slope of her nose. She had her lips pressed tight against the cold. Her face was wet with rain.

He couldn’t tell if she was crying. He wanted to squeeze her in his arms, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood awkwardly silent as he realised how small and young she looked. She didn’t look at him.

After a few moments, he finally made a move, gently touching the underside of her forearm. ‘You take good care, Eilise,’ he said.

She nodded, unable to speak or look at him. She heard the van door boom shut, and then he was gone.

Lifting her bags clear of the wet pavement, she put them on the bench and sat next to them.

With no one else was waiting at the stop, she’d obviously just missed the bus. She knew that with her luck the next one wouldn’t be due for a while.

Looking around, she noticed the steamed up windows of a café across the road. Picking up her bags, she crossed over.

A man watched her at the counter of the Station Cafe. What first drew his attention to her was the way she rooted through the pockets of her army jacket to find enough coins. A moment later, he recognised her. He couldn’t believe his luck. He’d seen the runaway girl on Crimewatch. She was alone and desperately short of cash. Holding her coffee with one hand and bending at the knee, she gathered her two bags with the other. She reached the door and hoped someone would open it. Just as she was putting the coffee down to do it herself, a young builder scooted away from his table to do it. ‘There you go, love.’

‘Thanks,’ she smiled and walked out.

The man observing her wiped the steamed up plate glass window and watched her struggle. She pulled her hood up over her head with the hand that held the polystyrene cup and waited to cross over to the bus stop.

She hadn’t looked around in the cafe at all. The man was sure she’d not seen him.

He returned to his car and sat watching her, revving the engine to keep warm.

A small queue formed waiting for the bus.

Someone had smashed the glass panel at the end of the shelter, so it now caught the brunt of the wind funnelling down the slope, around and under the bridge. Hunching her shoulders, she turned her back towards the bitter blast and cupped her drink with both hands. She was sorry when it had all gone.

The dirty white baseball shoes did not have any heels, not like her old shoes; the hems of her jeans were wet and frayed from dragging on the ground. She’d stopped turning them up a long time ago.

The tea had cost part of the bus fare, as soon as it stopped raining; she would walk a few stops up the road. She thought about asking one of the people in the queue if they had any change, but not one had a sympathetic face. Not one of them even looked at her; all of them too wrapped up in their own little worlds, to care about a homeless kid. The bus pulled up; the rest of the queue disappeared onto it. The driver called out to her. ‘Are you getting on?’

She shook her head and took a step back. The bus pulled away, allowing the wind to blast at full force once more; it was getting stronger.

She couldn’t have felt more alone.

A car pulled alongside her. The driver wound the window down; the wind dragged a cloud of cigarette smoke out, it hovered by the car for a millisecond, before it was snatched away as completely as if it were never there.

Leaning over, the driver asked if she wanted a lift. Eilise thought he looked about sixty years old; if he was younger, she might have thought twice. Still a bit fuzzy from the night before, she squinted, looking him over. He seemed okay, but something niggled at her.

I can’t believe I’m thinking about getting into this rubbish bin! The biting wind and lashing rain narrowed her choices.

‘What shall I do with these?’ She held her bags up to show him.

‘Shove them on the back seat.’

She ducked into the back of the car with her bags.





Chapter 51



Even before she’d shut the door properly, he started moving off. From behind, his hair looked like a haystack, thick, pale yellow. Eilise studied it. It can’t be his natural colour; the hair was too coarse to be blonde. It’s an age thing. Men… These days, they can’t face up to the fact they’re getting old. The combined smell of stale cigarette smoke and damp was overpowering.

‘You going far?’ His hips were off the seat, and his hand was deep in his pocket, looking for something. His voice sounded flat and bored. Finally, he pulled out a packet of chewing gum. ‘Want some?’