Dandelion Souls - Serial Part 1

Chapter 1 - Tree House

She was in an in between state of affairs.  Dee, to her parents still a Debbie, was finding her longed for time alone (having turned down a family outing which would once have been a treat) less satisfying than expected.  The drawing she had been sure she was burning to do,  (a sketch of a particular aspect nearby), had withered on its charcoal vine.  The garden she was in view of remained resolutely empty of the loved one, who mowed the grass shirtless of a weekend Saturday morning, before settling down with a beer.  He was a few years older, and of drinking age.  Unaware of both her devotion and planned accidental opportunity for a chat, for surely seeing someone sketching just outside his garden would have initiated interest, the loved one had selfishly gone out about his own affairs.

She wondered what he was doing and pained herself by conjuring up a likely girlfriend, old enough to be taken out for a pub lunch or something; pretty, stylish and indefinably alluring. The only person who came into the garden was his mother, taking the rubbish out and she entirely failed to notice an artist at work, who was hastily packing up.  Dee's own parents and family were teachers, readers, political and articulate talkers about highbrow matters.  She was sure that something more valid and real was out there somewhere, perhaps in a place she might shine as herself, rather than being the child at a party the grownups were enjoying, for as long as they wanted to.

In a bored and perhaps self consciously melancholy frame of mind, then, she wandered around to the back of the allotments where she and her best friend had played from about eight to eleven, and sought out the old tree house they among others had made their own.  The ladder was still there, and climbing up, she wondered if their mirror cushions,  posters, drawings, accoutrements pinched, borrower like, from their homes, were still there.  It was empty, apart from an old rug on the floor, discarded butt ends and stale bottles and cans, suggesting its tenancy had taken a downward turn due to the local youth.  She sat cross legged on the rug looking out.  

The allotments at this end were not occupied and a number of sheds clustered together forlornly like a deserted settlement, a dustbowl of neglect, sharecroppers long departed.  The many little braids she had carefully plaited her hair in, beads at the ends, to look more artistic, pulled at her scalp and her carefully applied makeup sat like an itchy mask on her face.  She jumped a little as a young man, dark, twenty or so, appeared in front, looking up at her.

"Hello" he said.  " What are you doing up there all on your own?"

"Oh," she answered, embarrassed, " I used to play up here when I was little.  I just thought I'd see if the old tree house was still here."

"I'd come down, now" he suggested.  " Not very nice in there  for you I'd think.  Not the best place to be alone in either."

He looked at her, taking in, she felt shrinkingly,  her fifteen year old self, stranded as she was between girlhood and womanhood, sensing naivety, and lack of anything, probably, that mattered. Annoyed by the thought, she asked suddenly,

"What are you doing here yourself?" 

He was sharply dressed, hair extravagantly styled and cut, a waft of expensive something or other about him.  He smiled up at her, pleasantly.  He had designer sunglasses on.

" Me, love?  I own this. I've bought the land here" he said, looking about him proprietorially.  "For development.  I'm a speculator". 

The thought seemed to please him and he looked self satisfied for a moment.  It impressed her, which he picked up on.

" Come down.  You shouldn't be in this place alone.  Kind of lads hang about here, you don't want to meet them."

Charmed but wary, she climbed down the ladder and he came over.  He began walking by her through the allotments, chatting, not too close, putting her at ease.  They came out to the road, where a smart sports BMW gleamed, top down.

"My car" he offered.  She wavered a little,  the old fears drummed into her rising to the surface.  He didn't suggest she got in, though.  He said goodbye, and added,

" I may see you again, Dee.  Take care and keep on with that drawing" (for he had looked through the sketchbook).  " You have talent, you know.  Girls like you should be encouraged." 

Flattered, she waved as he drove confidently away.  He was nothing like the loved one, she thought, but he had something, all the same.  And he had called her Dee, as she had introduced herself,  a first outing for her new, adult persona.  She didn't mention the encounter.  It was part of being in another place of her own, but her inner imagination was soon overwhelmed again by her crush, which was shared by her friend at school, who knew the family vaguely via her parents and could share tantalizing snippets of news about the loved one's fancied doings from time to time.    

Now and again, she saw a car zipping past as she came out of school, which she thought might have been Al's (as he had told her his name was walking through the allotments), but wasn't sure until one day she stopped and looked, and he waved and grinned at her as he went by.  On a later walk one weekend, when curiosity drew her back to the treehouse again, she saw that barbed wire fencing now surrounded the abandoned shed village.  There was no sign of Al, though, nor of anyone else.

The sheds looked dark, full of old vegetation pushing through.   She was at that stage in life when anything lost or abandoned took on a particular poignancy and she wondered what development Al had planned for the once tended plots and annually painted greenhouses.  Walking home, she saw her parents sitting in the garden surrounded by tamely suburban flowers and she thought, when I grow up, I will never, ever live anywhere as dull as this.

A week or two afterwards, she was standing with a few friends outside an off licence come corner shop.  On their way home from school they had bought fizzy drinks and were putting on a bit of a display, loud, giggling and swinging round all the time to see if any boys were noticing them.  A couple of cars pulled up and a few young men got out, looking the girls over as they went in, full of attitude, bruvs and innits.  The girls flirted back at them through mascara laden eyes in their still childishly rounded faces.  Already aware of the one standing leaning on his car and not taking part in any of this 'Dee' feigned surprise when Al greeted her.

"Hey, Dee, is that you?"

"Oh, hi, Al" she returned casually.

Her friends were immediately on the alert, though still talking loudly, showing off, apparently unaware.  Perhaps this was why she played up to the moment, going over to him coolly, to show they were acquainted.  The other young men came back out swinging bags of purchases and for a moment, all around them, was the atmosphere of a party about to happen. 

"Who's this, man?" asked one of the full on others, boastfully loud, glancing at Dee in a direct, assessing kind of way.

"This is Dee" Al replied, smiling just at her, pleasingly.  "Show some respect, you prick!"

She started slightly, because he didn't speak like them and the word sounded ugly coming from him.

" Sorry," he apologised.  "You should be at home, Dee, not wasting your time around here.  Are these your friends?"

She nodded.

"Yeah.  I'm just on my way home."

Well let me give you a lift, then, " he offered.  " This lot are up to no good," he said lightly, gesturing at the others.

"Don't go off with him, love" the one he'd admonished called out.  " He's a coconut, you need proper Asian."

"Shut up, bro" returned Al, but amiably, as if this was an old established joke between them.  "Come on, Dee.  Let me get you safe home"

"Bye, Debbie!" her friends called, suitably respecting her sophistication, she thought.  She hoped he wouldn't ask why they called her Debbie, and he didn't.

She stepped into the car with panache, and her violin case.  He didn't pull right up to the house, just round the corner and said as she got out.

"There you are.  I make sure people I like stay safe."

This gave her the intended warm, protected feeling .  Al, she felt, was someone who looked after you.  And he liked her, he'd said.  Some weeks passed next without seeing him, until one day, while hanging out in front of the sweet shop (which she had begun to do more often with the other girls) he pulled up again and for the first time, because she had been thinking of him and wondering if he would pass by, she felt a frisson of attraction towards him.  

"Dee" he greeted her.  "Here you are again?"

"We're on our way to the cinema," she felt the need to explain.

This was a bus ride away.  Al nodded.

"O.K." he said.  "Getting a lift home?"

"No, it's early!  I'll just get the bus."

He thought about it.

" Well," he said, "Tell you what, let me give you my number and if you get stuck I'll come and pick you up.  Give me your phone.  I'll put my number in for you."

The others, she was sure, were envious of the attention this good looking young man was paying her and so she took her phone out and gave it to him.  He gave a quick, expert flick through the touch screens, and seeming satisfied, entered his number.

"There you go," he said.  " You've got my number now.  Call me if you need me."

She thanked him.  He said he hoped they would all enjoy the film, having asked what it was and laughed at them for being girly, then drove casually away.

"You didn't have to give him your phone, you know," one of her friends said.   "He could have texted you his number."

" Yes, but then I'd have to have given him mine first.  Al's polite.  He wouldn't ask for that."

"I suppose so, " the girl said.  "Bit old for you isn't he?"

"Al's a friend.  That's all," Dee said, promoting their connection somewhat.

She didn't ring him to ask for a lift, conscious that this would meet with disapproval, which she put down to jealousy, and they all got the bus back together.   A couple of weeks later, when she was on her computer, a message popped up from him, with a head and shoulders picture of him smiling appealingly alongside.

"Hi, there, Dee.  It's Al.  Long time no see," he wrote.

They exchanged greetings and she then asked how he had accessed her privatised profile.

"Little trick, " he typed back.  "Nice surprise, I hope?"

She decided it was, disarmed, since he had already suggested that he pick her up from school one evening and take her for a short drive now the weather had improved.

"You'll love it.  Bit of a spin in the sports car, sunny evening, roof down, just us."

The drive was enjoyable, if uneventful apart from him asking her all about herself, school, her ambitions, what she wanted from life.  He made no inappropriate moves or suggestions, offering simply friendly and charming company.  After this meeting, he didn't suggest another straight away.  They chatted occasionally on the computer and as the days passed, with intervals of a few without contact, they seemed, she thought, to be somehow spiritually in tune, a magical tether between them meaning that when she went for a group birthday meal to Pizza Hut, he happened to be outside and drove her home and similarly, the next time when she and her friends went to the cinema.  By the time she went with them shopping at the out of town centre a month or so later, her friends knew he'd come and get her and simply took the bus home separately without questioning it.

He encouraged her to stay in and concentrate on her studies, coming up to exam year as it was, an important time in life he said, not to be squandered in hanging around sweet shops and the like activities.  Her parents, who earlier in the year had begun to be worried by a newly rebellious anti school streak, had no idea what lay behind the change but welcomed it, thankfully believing that all the time spent in her room was about concentrating on her studies.  They didn't know about her talking to Al.  He himself had made no mention of telling her parents about him and she felt they had a mutual understanding that he was tuned into being a private part of her world.   

Chapter 2 - Waiting Time

Al always seemed to have plenty of money.  When she asked what he did, he would say:

"You know me, Dee.  I'm a businessman.  Finger in a lot of pies.  Boring stuff.  I didn't get my education like you will.  It's hard going at times."

He would drop hints like this sometimes, as if there were things perhaps she might help him with, but he never elaborated and when she asked what he meant, he brushed it off.  Dee was unsure what their status was.  Al acted like a kind of boyfriend/older brother/friend/mentor, without being, precisely, any of these.  They spoke on line, he'd pick her up from places to take her home, or drive around together for a while and sometimes she would see him with his brash cadre of mates.  She didn't quite like the way they looked at her, amused seeming, mocking even, but in Al's company, they were always polite to her now.

On one of these occasions, he said they were calling in somewhere as he had to drop something off.  They stopped at a sizeable house, a bit run down, turned into shabby flats by the look of the number of doorbells at the front.  He asked her to wait in the car, saying he wouldn't be long and went in with a small package.  He came out a short while later, looking annoyed and she asked what was wrong.

"Someone's let me down, that's all" he frowned.  "Arrangements were made and someone's backed out on payment."

"Oh", she said in a small voice, not liking to ask further, given his tone.

"Don't worry about me, Dee" he told her, but not sounding as if he meant it, a lttle pensive.  "I'll be all right."

They drove back in unusual silence, for Al seemed deep in thought and was not the animated young man she was accustomed to.

"If only..." he said once, then stopped.

"If only what?" Dee prompted.

"Nothing, " he said moodily, adding with a short laugh.  "A pity you're not old enough to have a credit card.  Mine's a busted flush and I really could do with a little help right now."

"Oh," she said again, not knowing what to say.

He dropped her off and they said their goodbyes.  She expected to speak to him on line some time over the next few days but he didn't appear, nor did he answer a tentative message she eventually sent him.  She cleared her browsing history, as always, careful of prying relatives and considered texting him, but as she never had done so before, decided against it as crossing a line in some way.

The family, it being school holidays by now, went away for their summer fortnight together, so Dee had to become Debbie again, in a glamping cabin in Wales, going on walks, drives and picnics with her parents, little sister and older brother, home from University in Bath and accompanying them for once, rather than opting to look after the house.  She rather forgot about Al and being grown up but when she did think of him, it was with a slight anxiety about how he was faring, for he had not been his breezy self the last time at all.

Throughout their stay, her parents and brother used various different credit cards with abandon and they all seemed to have several, so that she caught herself wondering if they'd miss one and began to notice which were left unused in their wallets, half playing at it and half serious.  Al, she thought, would be shocked that she was even considering such a thing.

Her brother asked her, teasingly, if she still had the hots for Nick, her crush (who was his contemporary) and instead of rearing up angrily and blushing madly as she usually did when he challenged her with this, she realised that, actually, she didn't any more.

"I don't know what you're on about," she returned loftily.

"Awwww," said her brother.  "Poor old Nick.  What's he going to do now?"

"Well, since he never knew", she said sharply, "he won't miss me, will he?"

"How do you know he didn't?" asked her brother, still trying to get a rise out of her.  "Good mates, me and Nick.  I might take him out for a pint again," he added thoughtfully.

Dee glared.

"Don't mention me to him if you do!" she said hotly.

Her father, overhearing, said:

"Debbie's concentrating really well on her schoolwork with GCSE's coming up.  You want to take a leaf out of her book, my lad.  You're at Uni to study you know.  Debbie hasn't got time for boyfriends, have you love?"

"God, Dad," said Ed, wandering off.

Sophie, Dee's little sister, said quietly:

"She has got a boyfriend, though.  I've seen him. "

Nobody was paying her attention at the time, luckily, so only Dee heard and hastily swept her outside for a promised game of boules, which she made sure she let her win by way of a distraction.  Sophie was one of those self contained and noticing little girls, who, at aged eight, was likely to come out with unwelcome insights about this or that overheard or snooped about at something or other, particularly where it concerned her older siblings.  Ed, being mostly away, escaped it more but Sophie, a determined sort of body, was one of the reasons that Dee cleared her browsing history.  After a while, she said nonchalantly:

"What did you mean, Soph, I haven't got a boyfriend."

Sophie gave her a steady look from under her fringe.

"You've got someone," she asserted.  "I've seen him."

"Who?  Where?" asked Dee, confident that she hadn't been seen being dropped off or it would surely have been raised by a parent.

"Mum says, don't pretend," said Sophie sternly.

"She says that to you," Dee laughed, relieved.  Sophie set up the boules again carefully for a return match.

" I like his hair," she stated.

"Who's hair?"

"Your boyfriend's," said Sophie.

"You're mad, you are," Dee said, nudging and tickling her into giggling helplessness, turning her successfully back into a little girl. 

If Sophie had seen anything, maybe it was Al's picture if she'd peeped round the door when Dee was talking on line to him.  So what, anyway, he wasn't her boyfriend, so she wasn't lying to anybody, except perhaps by omission, for she knew they'd think him too old for her, a bit flash maybe.  Dee liked it, though, that he had some mysterious hinterland about which she knew little, his personal life and business world, this more than friend.  It romanticised him in her fifteen year old eyes.

The moment passed and Sophie made no further mention of a boyfriend during the rest of the holiday, having apparently forgotten.  When they returned, Dee eagerly turned on her computer, but it was still empty of any message from Al.  Disappointed, this time she tried ringing his phone, but it was off.  She soon went for a walk down to the allotments, just to see, she reasoned.  The sheds were still corralled by barbed wire, now sporting a "For Sale" sign at the boundary.  She went to have a closer look at them but the barbed wire held her at a distance.  The windows were dark with dirt, or perhaps condensation, so you couldn't really see in.

"Looking for me, Dee?" Al's voice enquired unexpectedly from somewhere behind her.  " I got a miss call from you the other day, didn't I?" he added, without any particular intonation.

She turned, delighted, to see him leaning casually against the fence, at his ease.

"Al!" she cried.  "How did you know I was here?"

"I didn't," he replied.  " Anyway, I thought you were away on holiday, enjoying yourself without me."

"Oh, " she said, a bit deflated, feeling obscurely that some kind of tables had been turned against her.  He looked a bit sulky, she thought and felt secretly pleased that he seemed to have missed her.

"I thought you owned all this?" she said, pointing at the sale sign.

"I do," he said.  "Speculate to accumulate", he offered.  "Land value's gone up, a good time to sell.  I've had some good bids but you have to wait it out, get the best."

He came towards her and for the first time in their acquaintance, gave her a hug.

"It's good to see you, Dee" he said warmly.  "You've got a nice tan.  Suits you."

She preened a bit.

"We were only in Wales," she answered "It was sunny for once, though.  Not looking so bad yourself," she ventured.

He laughed.

"Mine's an all year round tan," he said, smiling at her again.  "Come on.  Let's get out of here.  I have to check things over now and again but there's not a lot to hang around for round here."

"Why the barbed wire?" she asked.

"Keeps the kids out, of course," he told her. "Don't want the place trashed up or burnt out, do I, when my punters are coming out to look at the potential."

"I suppose not," she agreed, following him happily back out to the road, admiring him from behind.  "Where are we going?"

"Surprise," he returned, reaching back to take her hand.

It felt natural and they walked like that to the car, where she got in with him, feeling that things would be all right now. 

Chapter 3 - On The Move

While Al always drove fast where he could, he didn't race, so Dee felt safe in his car.  It was only about two o'clock, so she would have a few hours free before she was expected home.  She was on one of her vague "might call in on x, maybe go shopping" afternoons pottering off on her own.  Al said he had a few errands to run, and she may as well go with him, then they would go somewhere together for a while, since, as he said, she had obviously come trying to find him.

"Who told you that?" replied Dee innocently, flicking him a mischievous grin, enjoying the feel of the sun and warm wind flowing over her bare shoulders in the spaghetti strap top she was wearing with raggedy knee jeans.

He glanced across at her in the driving mirror, eyes hidden behind his mirror shades but a smile curving slightly.

"You did," he stated.

"Huh", she shrugged.  "I never said a word."

He raised his eyebrows.

"You didn't have to, love," he pointed out.

Dee didn't really like him calling her 'love'.  It felt patronising rather than affectionate and made her conscious of the difference between her mid teen and his young man in age, so she didn't answer, just looked out at the passing scene until they pulled up outside a house.  Large and semi detached, again it had a rented look, the wall at the front a bit fallen down, bellied out at one corner, the garden overgrown, varnish worn off the front door, windows cheaply done in white plastic.  Al laughed at her expression.

"It's not where I live, Dee" he said.  "Just visiting.   Come on."

She looked at him.

"Who does live here, then?" she asked.

"My uncle," he replied in an ironic tone.  "Come on," he said again.  "They won't bite."

He used a key to open the door, to her surprise.

"It's a kind of safe house," he explained, without explaining.

He ushered her in before him into a hallway, one hand at the small of her back, warm in the hollow and she was very aware of his touch.  He opened the door into a large front room, where a number of young people sat about together.  There were shisha water pipes being passed around and a couple of joints on the go.

"Hi, guys," he greeted them, "This is Dee.  Wait here" he told her.  "Don't give her any," he instructed the gathering, who apart from a couple of nods hadn't remarked on their entrance.

Dee didn't recognise any of them from the lads she had seen him with before.

"Al!" she protested at being left with them unexpectedly.

"I won't be long," he assured her.  "Sit down.  Have a chat.  You're a big girl now.  This is Dee, look after her," he said to one of the girls.  "Give her a drink."  He squeezed Dee's hand.  "I'll be ten minutes, tops."

She felt a childish lurch of panic as he went out, feeling abandoned, sneaking a look at the front window to make sure he wasn't just going to drive off and leave her there.  The girl he had spoken to looked her over, unimpressed.  She was thin, with a perky, sharp little face and streetwise air which immediately made Dee feel at a disadvantage.

"What d'you want then?  Dee was it?  Vodka or lager?"

"Er", Dee hesitated.

" Well I can't make you a cappuchino, kiddo," the girl said, laughing for the benefit of the rest and swinging her long hair.  "The machine's not working..."

Dee's cheeks flared at the slighting, impatient tone.

"Vodka, please," she opted.

The girl nodded grumpily and sloshed vodka from a large bottle negligently into a tumbler.  "There's orange juice in that carton if you want," she offered ungraciously, handing it to her.

 Dee added some and took a sip.  It was cheap spirit, raw on her throat behind the sharp orange juice.

"Who's got the ice bucket?" the girl asked, continuing her sardonic performance boredly, like a school bully grown up who hadn't got out of the habit of sniping.

"Oh, leave her alone, Gemma," one of the boys said, "She's only one of Al's kids."

What was that supposed to mean, Dee wondered, making a note to ask him later.  She looked around them uneasily but they took no further notice of her, some of the boys continuing to talk amongst themselves, as if about business, but really just going on about cars and what the best wheels were.  Others were sitting with the girls watching a big television, more on in the background than anything, talking over it, passing the joint around, or flicking through their smart phones, short conversations ending with one or other of the boys leaving the room, the front door banging shut behind them and an engine roaring off outside.

Dee sipped the drink, feeling the alcohol hit her and not liking it, wishing she had refused.  Al did not return in the promised ten minutes and after a while, since no-one seemed aware of her presence, she slipped out of the room to look for him.  The house was big and quiet outside that room and she began to walk through to the back, feeling intrusive and out of place.  She became aware of raised voices and followed the sound upstairs.  A door ajar on the landing looked into some kind of office, with a private bar at the back, bottles glinting like sticky jewels in a shaft of light reflecting off the mirrors behind them.  The voices she had heard were in there.  A heavy, middle aged man with a solid block of a head was addressing Al, she saw.

"What, you think you're the man now?" he demanded.  "You think that?"

His arm shot out and he slapped Al hard across the face just as Dee was pulled sharply aside and the girl from downstairs yanked her out of view.

"Come down," she hissed.

Dee followed her without question, too shocked by the threatening scene to argue.

"But, Al,"she murmured.

"Leave him to it," Gemma told her.  "My advice, don't tell him you were sneaking around.  Men don't like girls who can't mind their own business.  He'll be down in a bit," she added more kindly.

Dee went meekly back downstairs with her and finished the vodka and orange, waiting.  A short time later Al reappeared, looking remarkably cool and collected, as if nothing had happened.

"Who's given you that muck?" he asked, frowning and taking the glass from her, observing her flushed cheeks disapprovingly.

"You said give her a drink" smirked Gemma unpleasantly, eyeing the side of his face which had been slapped with some satisfaction, it seemed.

"Little bitch," said Al, neutrally, giving her a tough look before putting his sunglasses back on and taking Dee's hand again to lead her out.

"Fresh air for you, sweetheart and a bite to eat, I think," he told her.  "I'm sorry about that.  It took longer than I expected.  We'll go somewhere nice now.  I told you," he sighed.  "I don't like mixing business with pleasure and some of my business is no pleasure at all."

Relieved to be back in normal surroundings with him and to have his usual way of being with her restored, Dee decided to take Gemma's advice, pushing away what she had seen and her unease about the whole scenario, taking the easy way out because she wanted to be with him, the edge taken off her questions by the vodka.  She enjoyed the next hour or so with him, drinking coffee and being treated to Krispy Kreme doughnuts in a pleasant cafe in good surroundings, while he laughed and teased her in the way she liked.  She remembered to call into Superdrug and buy some nail varnishes as evidence of her shopping trip and he dropped her off home, as usual, round the corner.

It was only lying in bed later, after a family evening spent watching talent shows with Sophie. who had favourite acts she wanted to win, and dinner, that Dee revisited the afternoon, already at a safe distance, dimly realising that by asking nothing a pattern had already been established of avoidance but reasoning that she could hardly ask now.  Besides, she didn't know what had happened next after she was pulled away.  Al had seemed fine afterwards, hadn't he, and things felt to her as if they had moved on between them?  Al had held her hand, laughed with her, given her tender looks, proper boyfriend behaviour, she congratulated herself, despite the continued ambivalence of their relationship in reality.  If she wanted to see someone who seemed to live in a very different world, she advised herself, it was up to her to show she was mature enough to handle it with a bit of sophistication.  She would take things as they came, she decided, shutting down the cautionary voices of her upbringing and putting in her headphones to listen to some music before going to sleep.

The summer rolled through, with family days and Al days, but less frequently, friends days, although they were often unwitting alibis.  The friends, of course, had come across Al but she kept mention of him to a minimum, just in case, instinctively.  Al never took her back to that particular house and as time passed, to raise it became more of a barrier, so it was easier not to and go with the flow as she'd decided.  They would mainly still drive around together occasionally when she was supposed to be out elsewhere, culminating in coffee and doughnuts or cake at what she, at least, came to consider as 'their place'.  Sometimes they dropped in briefly on people Al vaguely referred to as his 'aunties' and 'uncles', of whom there seemed to be many and she would have a demure cup of tea with someone while Al disappeared for 'a quick chat'.  These people only exchanged pleasantries with her and when she once demurred:

"What, another uncle?" he shot her a look she wasn't used to getting from him and was silenced.

He gave her a gift or two, a necklace, a pretty scarf he liked her to wear and showed her how to arrange when they called in on the aunties and uncles and now and then he began to drive past the gates of a large place in a wealthy suburb, which was surrounded by huge, overly ornate and heavy black and gold wrought iron railings and gates.  The house was painted white and had gold painted balconies added to its frontage.  When she finally asked who lived there, he said casually,

"My folks' place.  Look at it.   Might as well put a flag out.  Not that they get it," he commented, but affectionately.

"Is that where you live?" she asked, suitably impressed and he, satisfied by getting the looked for reaction from her, said,

"Yeah but I've got my own gaffe now.  My bachelor pad, love." 

He winked at her.

"Where's that, then?"  Dee was stung into asking.  "I've never seen where you live."

" Not that far," he said, smiling in a way he had of being privately amused about something she didn't understand, or had missed somehow and it being a mannerism of his that irked her, she denied him the pleasure of asking any more about it since she knew, as he was always respectful of her youth, that he wouldn't invite her there alone anyway.

He continued to take her about with him, occasionally to drop something off for people who were having some kind of party later on.   When asked, he referred to this as, "just a bit of extra sparkle", which even Dee had to suspect, by now, was drug related.  But since Al didn't get her involved in any way, was never explicit and was always perfectly in charge of himself (so not taking whatever it was, at least around her), she concluded that what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you.  So all the summer, she felt she was hanging on to the coat tails of adventure somehow. 

They once went to an extravagant barbecue garden party at which Al seemed to be more of a guest.  It was a summer afternoon of good weather and the garden was big, with mature chestnut trees surrounding it like a parkland enclosure.  There was a marquee and a heat haze shimmer.  The many guests looked confidently wealthy and carefree as they wandered in and out of the french windows to the dining room, set out with alcoholic and non alcoholic  punches fresh with ice and fruit slices, dipping bowls and nibbles, all unobtrusively refreshed by catering staff brought in for the occasion.  An ambient kind of music, delicate as wind chimes, wafted across them from somewhere, giving a kind of dreamy elegance to the atmosphere.  Dee was enchanted and enjoyed watching Al flit about, popular and flirty in his behaviour, dispensing the charm of his particular attention to whomever he was speaking to, like, she thought, a very good salesman, missing nobody out who looked of interest, or perhaps, she began to conjecture, of use.  She didn't feel jealous, as he came back constantly, attentive and making a joke of ensuring it was non alcoholic punch in her glass, or linking arms and taking her through the crowd, introducing her here and there.  After a couple of hours there was a small group of new arrivals, a svelte looking woman with a couple of children in tow  and Al decided it was time to go, just as she was enjoying the glamour of the woman's clothes, shot through with glittery threads and yellow gold jewellery caught by the sun.  She had full, red painted lips, makeup that made her eyes huge and made an entrance like a Bollywood star.  Al took her out through the house and back to the car before the woman and children had made their way far through the gathering.

"Did you know her?"  Dee asked.

"Who?" Al asked, checking his watch (which like most of his things, looked state of the art and according to him had been expensive, because you only got quality if you paid for it).  "Time to get you back home"

"That woman who just came in."

"Nar, don't think so, " he answered, looking behind them as he backed swiftly out of the drive and then shot off with a flourish. 

It was their last school holiday outing together, as term time loomed.  Dee's brother came back again after a month travelling in Europe with friends and brought a girlfriend to stay.  She had shiny dark hair in a perfect bob and wore many silver bangles on slender brown arms.  They all went out for a meal together, her parents full of talk of their own youthful travels together hiking through France and Italy.  There was much talk of Brexit and what the implications would be for the future.  Her parents, Ed and the girl, were more or less a foursome at table, leaving her and Sophie as the extra guests.  Sophie didn't seem to mind, studying this new addition and taking her in, as was her way.

Dee imagined being part of a couple at the table, which meant imagining Al being in her family's company, which she couldn't imagine.  He was quick, lively and interesting, but he didn't talk about the kind of things they did and there would be absolutely nothing in common, she thought.  He would find them dull, she conjectured, feeling protective towards them a little, while they just wouldn't get him at all.

It was early evening and they had a table in the window of the bistro where they were eating, so she was looking out, her attention having wandered from the conversation, when it was suddenly attracted by the sight of Al's car driving past, slowing down for the lights and parallel to them in traffic.  It was definitely his, she knew the number plate as well as the car itself, but it wasn't Al driving.  This man was a bit older, late twenties maybe, with similarly bountiful, sharply cut and styled hair but more prominent features and with him was a girl about her own age, with long dark red hair, smiling and enjoying her ride it seemed.  Maybe Al had lent the car to a friend but knowing his constant reference to it being his pride and joy, she was surprised. It gave her a strange feeling to see two other people driving about together in it as they did, as if her perception of things was off kilter somehow and, mingled with a disappointment that it wasn't Al after all, she felt an unexpected prickle of tears, which she had to hastily get control of.  Her mother, noticing her looking out and be suddenly on the alert, looked out too and asked:

"Is that one of your friends, Dee," seeing the girl of similar age as the car pulled off.

"No," Dee said.  "I thought it was someone from school for a minute".

"No you didn't" said Sophie knowingly, but their mother just smiled indulgently, said,

"Be nice, Soph" and turned back to the conversation at table.

 She didn't get chance to ask Al in person about this, as school had begun and he didn't appear on line for a few days, so when she did, in a short 'catch up' conversation, she had to keep her query in the tone of the dialogue and it came out as a jokey aside suggesting she might have made a mistake because she'd thought it was him at first, to which he complacently replied:

"You've got me on the brain, love.  What are you going on about, my car?  As if!" 

She added a new uncertainty to her drawer of selective memories and closed it, moving on from them as usual, preferring to feel comfortable about all things Al.  The start of term brought many changes, new sets to get used to, the sudden acceleration of homework and study demands at the beginning of exam year, together with getting back into the rhythm of school life and being involved with schoolfriends again, so that her preoccupation with him receded a little under busy pressures.   

Chapter 4 -  Autumn to Bonfire Night

Dee found out that one of the girls on the periphery of the sweet shop group, not one of her closer friends, had started 'going out' with one of the lads they had met on that first occasion when she had gone with Al.  This girl was from a different kind of background than Dee, with more freedom to go out later by night and presented a much wilder account of her time spent with Rashid than Dee had experienced with Al.  They were clearly sleeping together and she talked of parties, driving out and about with his 'crew' and their various girlfriends, casino outings and gambling nights.  It sounded fast, fun, enviable.  Dee was on the sidelines of these conversations, not being part of this girl's particular group, but listening avidly.

Over the term, though, this girl began to be less and less in school and they were not in the same sets, so that Dee lost track of her doings gradually.  She had mentioned her to Al, who dismissed her as " a stupid girl, then, messing up her education.  Not like you, Dee," and she was subliminally reassured that he was not among the 'crew' perhaps this girl was involved in as he showed no recognition of her description.

"Why do you think I got you away from that lot," he added.  "I told you, up to no good.  That's not for you."

Again she felt special, chosen and under his particular wing.  The evenings began to shorten and Dee went back to talking to Al mostly on line in between studying, knowing that this met with his approval.  Since her own set of friends too, were more taken up with studying, she didn't see that she was being separated further off from social life other than family and Al by going along with this.  

There was, though, a Halloween party which she went to with some of the girls from school .  The hosts were college students loosely affiliated to one of the girls' older sisters. It was a dress up affair and and they chatted about it on line sharing pictures of make up and costumes they were planning to wear.  She decided not to mention the party to Al, thinking that he would try to put her off in some way (what do you want to go out with them for when you can see me, was one of his standard objections) and she was in need of a change, a night out with the girls and different entertainment, she felt.  It reminded them all of being little, giggling and putting on costumes at Dee's friend's house. 

"Shall we do trick or treat?" one of them suggested jokingly, as they shared a half bottle of vodka in her bedroom before setting off, unbeknown to the parents downstairs.

They were in a giddy mood, then already when they arrived at the shared house, doors open front to back despite the chill evening, meaning it wasn't long before it was unclear who was invited and who not or who just came in to join the party as it got underway.  Music was loud and the costumes gave an interesting degree of anonymity.  On one of her sorties to the kitchen leading out in the back garden where people were out smoking one thing and another, Dee found herself looking at the girl from school who went out with Rashid, heavily made up with gore down one side of her face and with her, looking witchy in her own right, was the sharp faced Gemma she had met on that strange visit to another house. 

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the under age Snow White!" Gemma said with slightly drunk sarcasm to Dee.  " Still see Al as your little knight in shining armour do you?  Or do you still see him? "

"Sometimes," said Dee.

"Oh, sometimes....and do mum and dad give you permission to see him...sometimes?"

She said it in a nasty tone, which spurred Dee into defending Al from some underlying slur.

"Al's never done anything wrong," she declared.  " I'm only fifteen!"

"You'll be sixteen one day," Gemma said drily.  "Legal tender."

"Anything I do will be my own choice," asserted Dee.  "Al's a perfect gentleman."

"Al's a shit,"returned the girl.  "What a dumbass!"  She rolled her eyes satirically.  " 'Lovely to handle, lovely to hold, but if it's broken, consider it sold,' " she quoted, jabbing a finger at Dee to emphasise each phrase.  "Come on now, Shawna we've got another party to get to.  Rashid doesn't like to be kept waiting, does he? "

"No," said Shawna, looking anxious.  " We're not late, are we?"

"Not yet, but he'll be outside in the car now.  Excuse us, Dee, we have to go and do our stuff."

Glancing over her shoulder she said as they left.

"Don't say you weren't warned."

Dee went back to her other friends, perturbed but unclear.  Maybe Gemma was an ex, for she certainly hadn't looked or sounded anything other than resentful towards Al on either occasion Dee had met her.  It occurred to her immediately that if Gemma was with Shawna then in all likelihood there was some connection between Al and Rashid but then she'd seen him with many different people so where was the surprise in that, she thought.  She knew he was mixed up in things, though, illegal things.  You didn't get smacked across the face for nothing and she knew he must be dealing at some level.  The trouble was, she was in the middle of a teenage infatuation with him, which meant that she didn't want to process what her intelligence was telling her.

They stayed till eleven, it being a Saturday night but when they came out to be taken home by Dee's dad, who had come to pick up and drop them all off home, across the road she thought she saw Al's face looking out of his car window across the street as she was stepping into her dad's car with her friends, but he didn't smile or wave and sped off immediately.  She wondered, had he known she was there somehow, as he always seemed to know where she was, keeping an eye out, or had it been someone else?  It added to her unease and she decided not to ask him because she hadn't told him about the party in the first place.  He himself made no mention of it when they spoke next on line, which wasn't for a day or two  but he was, she thought, a bit cool with her, signing off quickly and not suggesting a meeting soon, or when they might speak next.  It had the effect, whether intended or not,  of making her to forget everything except wanting to be in touch with him, so she took to anxiously checking her phone for texts far too often and her computer for any message at frequent intervals, during which her anxiety at not hearing from him ratcheted up.

Just before bonfire night, the allotments were fired in either a bonfire gone wrong lit by the local youth, or more likely, a drink fuelled arson attack by them.  The long neglected sheds made excellent fuel and as it had been cold dry weather but windy that night, the fire was fast and furious and there wasn't much left by the time the fire engines put it out.  On the local news and in the local paper, it was reported that a body had been found, as yet unidentified and it wasn't clear yet from reports if this was man or woman, a rough sleeper or one of the youths who started it that got caught in the middle of the flames.  Police warned of the dangers of starting unsupervised bonfires, while news later emerged that the allotments had clearly been used for cannabis farming, which raised a different question as to the motive for arson, if this turned out to be the case.  No missing persons had been reported at this time. 

Since Dee still hadn't heard from Al she began to panic and decided that she must go up there at the first opportunity since it was the only thing she could think of, as, previously, he had always appeared when she went there.  Surely it would work again and put silly fears at rest, for it was hardly likely to have been him, was it?  Although, the cannabis farm made her feel a little cold, fitting in as it did with her half knowledge of things he was involved in.  Had he really owned the place at all, she wondered for the first time?  Or did it belong to the man in the house and he was overseeing it, acting look out or caretaker of the crop?  For some reason this made her realise that he often just said things off the cuff, unverified, to impress or deflect questions and that really, she only had his word for just about everything.

The weekend came two days later, when she tried to find an opportunity to go down to the allotments, after no further word.  Saturday was taken up, though, with going out as a family in the morning to buy fireworks and bonfire night food to make for their own small Guy Fawkes occasion, when the neighbours would pop in for drinks with her parents, Dee and Sophie would make circles with sparklers and the men would take turns in lighting fireworks, pinning up catherine wheels and sending rockets up at a suitable distance further down the garden.  There would be no risk of fire as Dee's mother always had several buckets of water standing round into which extinguished sparklers had to be immediately plunged and after a safe interval, expired fireworks.  When Dee was small they had built an actual bonfire on the concrete foundation which was all that was left of a former garage and this had exploded spectacularly as heat built up underneath it, with lethal chunks flying past heads like comets and the side window becoming a casualty of one of them.  It was fortunate they escaped unhurt but an actual bonfire had been out of the question ever since, though the story was regularly retold as the night in question came round.  This one was no exception and they laughed again together over it companionably while Sophie complained about having missed it as it was all boring now.  Dee enjoyed the traditional little get together, spelling out letters in the dark with Sophie from their sparklers, eating baked potatoes and the bonfire toffee they had made in the afternoon, as always not quite as intended, half fudge and half toffee, a happy sticky occasion in the kitchen.  It was a welcome distraction.

Sunday morning was fine, with a grey woolly looking sky covering a pale gleam where the sun hid, so Dee took the opportunity of taking her bike out and cycling round to the allotments before anyone could suggest they all went together for a walk, or she take Sophie to the park for some fresh air and a go on the swings.  Nervy feelings thrilled through her as she cycled up and they came into view, surrounded now not just by barbed wire but by yellow police tape to keep people out.  There was an incident van on site, for potential witnesses to drop in and make a statement.  Without the sheds, the place had a flattened look.  A cold, acrid smell hung over charred timbers, like a mockery of bonfire night itself.  Dee looked across as she cycled past on the small sideroad that ran alongside but could see nobody, although she assumed that the incident van must be occupied.  She went round behind, and wheeled through the unkempt spindly woodland behind until she came to the bigger trees where the treehouse was, some yards back from the allotments themselves.

Approaching cautiously, she checked around for anyone on duty but being at a distance from the boundary tapes, which finished somewhere inside the back of the fenced off area, she didn't feel particularly in view, so she came around to the front.  It was gone, pulled down and demolished, no doubt to prevent any potential further gathering point for destructive youngsters, or to keep them away for safety's sake since there had been a death there.  She felt it as a shock, though, that there was nothing in the landscape now that had been there when she first encountered Al and there was certainly no sign of Al himself.  She wheeled her bike back out, a bit tearful, though telling herself she had to be sensible and pull herself together.  She cycled back down the road again, where he had so cheerfully and proudly pointed out his car that time and conjured up the image to reassure herself of his reality and how in charge of things he always seemed.  Whatever had gone on here, the death and arson needn't concern him really, need it, she reasoned? 

Reaching home, her parents were engaged in an eager pre-Sunday mid day dinner political discussion as they prepared the food and she could see Sophie watching cartoons through the open living room door, so she slipped upstairs and into her room.  She checked the local online news, which still said that no details had been released as yet about the body found in the allotments and that police enquiries were ongoing.  She checked her messages but Al had not replied, nor did it look as if he had been logged in there for a few days, but this was not significant in itself.  His was not a constant online activity.  She went on to the next stage of what she had thought of when cycling back.  She remembered, she thought, the street name, if not the actual location in the wealthy suburb, of the blinged up big house Al had driven her past so frequently and described as his family's home.  She checked it out on the internet search engine street image facility and found it.  If she had still had no word for him over the next week, she decided, she would bus it out there on Saturday on an "out with friends" pretext.  She could get there and back within safe time parameters, she calculated.  Dee was uncertain what she would do exactly, when she got there, watch it perhaps in case his car was there, or brave coming up with an excuse to knock on the door and ask about him?  Even if she did nothing, she felt going there was taking some kind of action.  There was, too, that first house they had gone to but she had taken no notice of the route there, nor really whereabouts it might have been. Besides, she didn't want to revisit that place alone, as there was something altogether not right about the whole thing. 

Having decided on this, she felt more at peace and still being young enough to revert to being child at home and switch off the growing inner adult, went downstairs to join the family for dinner and afterwards to help with some winter garden tidying of dropped leaves, cutting back shrubs and picking up missed firework debris.  If she showed willing this weekend, she calculated, she had more chance of going out on her own the following one. 

On Monday at school she began to look for Shawna as they filed between classes through the glass walled corridors of the big, square modern build school she attended, searching break out areas, the canteen and the grounds at lunch time or free study periods.  She didn't see her but on Wednesday she spotted one of the girl's friends, not someone she would normally speak to, one of the loud ones always looking for trouble with you if opportunity offered and part of the rival cliques where loyalty was always up for challenge and takeover.  They were dwindling in number, already dropping out in favour of an early start to their adult lives to come.  The girl eyed her with instant suspicion and grudging attention, which was, though, their usual response to  questions about pretty much anything.

"What do you want to know about her for?" was her initial response.

"Nothing, really, I just haven't seen her for a bit," said Dee, claiming a nearer kinship with her than existed.  "She all right?" she added off handedly.

The girl shrugged indifferently.

"Haven't seen her," she replied but Dee didn't take that as anything but rebuffing her as not being part of their chosen few.

She went home from school on Friday via the off licence come corner shop, which she hadn't done so far this term, starting to drop in on likely spots where she might come across people who might have some connection.  It was cold and drizzling, so there wasn't much incentive for hanging about outside but nevertheless there were several schoolgirls and a few schoolboys with bicycles looking as if they were waiting about there for some reason and sure enough, shortly a car pulled up and young men got out.  One of them, she thought, looked a bit like the person she'd seen that time in Al's car but she couldn't be certain.  Noticing her looking at him he glanced back curiously and she turned aside but not before she'd heard one of the schoolboys greet him, calling out,

"Hey, Rashid, what's up, man?"     

"Cool, bro," he replied.  "Want anything?  My treat if you do a little run for me later."

"Sure.  No problem, Rashid," replied the boy, sounding eager to please.

The young men went into the shop and Dee took the opportunity to walk closer to the car, which had loud music coming from it and looked in surreptitiously.  Was that the Rashid?  If so, might Shawna be in the car, or Gemma?  But the interior was dark apart from a cloud of steam coming out of it from someone vaping behind the blackened windows, open a crack at the top and she walked away as they came back out.  She kept her head down and watched Rashid go over briefly to the boy who had called out to him, who then cycled purposefully off.  One of the other men handed a bag which clinked to the another of the group of schoolchildren and they moved off with their spoils to enjoy them.  Dee paused a moment longer as the men got back into the car, trying to see in surreptitiously when the doors were opened, which didn't go unnoticed.

"You want a lift, love, it's raining, innit?" one called out, grinning,  "We can squeeze you in for sure."

They laughed good humouredly together as she hastened off feeling jumpy, with a recollection replaying in her memory loop.

"Leave her alone, it's only one of Al's kids."

One of.  Was he too like this, a kind of pied piper drawing youngsters into some underage criminality through the bribery of alchohol and drugs, for the glamour of being associated with these flash, cool young men?  Did they all act loosely together, driving about, dealing, spreading the network?  No, she couldn't believe that of Al, he took her about with him, yes, but only her as far as she really knew, and he never involved her, did he?  Besides, she was too anxious about his safety right now to analyse things with any clarity.

On Friday night, the news disclosed that the police were investigating the death of a man aged between twenty and forty, still as yet unidentified, and that the cause of death was stabbing, before the body was caught up in the allotment inferno.  They were still investigating whether the two incidents were linked and were inviting statements from anybody who could come forward in any way to suggest who he might have been.  It was not possible yet to create a facial reconstruction to help members of the public with identification.  There had been no people reported missing matching the victim's description, who prior to death had been a well nourished male of heavy build, six feet tall.  Dee's fear, which had leapt into action, cooled down; heavy build, six feet tall, the news had said.  That definitely couldn't be Al, who was slim and not as tall as that.  But where was he?  She determined on her Saturday plan to go to the house in the suburbs and set it in motion by telling her parents she would be heading off early for a day at the out of town shopping centre with some friends. 

She checked her computer and phone but still nothing from him, so in the morning she got ready, then said casual goodbyes to her family, who were discussing a drive out to a garden centre with Sophie, where she could ride on the miniature steam train and paint something in the little pottery to bring home, for it continued to do business all year and there would be special Christmas decorations to choose in the shop.

" Debbie's still got all the fairies she painted there in her room, you can do all sorts of things?" persuaded their mother, smiling at a reluctant Sophie.

" Fairies are stupid," said Sophie crossly.  "I want to go shopping with Debbie and get clothes too."

Dee hastened out pretending not to hear, though she hadn't suggested she would be clothes shopping anyway, before things could get ugly and her plans were blocked in favour of keeping the peace with her little sister, whose strength of will was liable to overturn the best laid plans, her mother's pacifying words following her.

" Well how about the garden centre first and then you and I can buy clothes, Sophie."

"You buy stupid clothes, " Sophie continued, turning nasty.

 Dee  shut the door and hurried down to the bus stop, glad to see one of the regular service into town ones approaching.  She travelled in, then got the bus back out to the place where the house was.  She got off at a stop she judged to be nearby and found herself with a longer walk than she had anticipated to get to the turn off down the road she remembered being driven past so often.  Cars buzzed past her as she walked purposefully on and she half expected one to pull up and Al to call out to her but none did.  The street was tree lined and the houses had long, broad gardens at the front.  The one Al had pointed out had its garden block paved over, relentlessly bare of even a weed, several expensive cars parked at the front of it, lacquer shiny.  She walked closer to examine the cars.  None of them were his.  She looked at the house, where all was still behind the gold balconies and gold tipped railings.  The gates were closed but not locked.   She felt increasingly bold and nervous in equal measure but lifted the gate latch and swung it open enough to walk inside, where she went swiftly to stand in the shadows of overhanging trees from the road, watching for a while.  Making a sudden decision to act on her arrival, she walked up to the door and rang the bell.  After a short interval it was answered, and she recognised the woman from the garden party, with her rich demeanour and glamorous air.  Today, though, she wore no make up.  As she answered she turned to hush a shouting child somewhere inside and then looked at Dee.

"Yes?" she said crisply, clearly inferring that this was not an unexpected caller she particularly welcomed arriving .

"Hello," said Dee, opting for the blunt approach.  "I'm looking for a friend of mine who lives here, well, his family does."

"A friend of yours?" enquired the woman, evidently surprised.  " My family lives here, certainly.

She spoke with the authoritative air of someone used to holding a senior position, with a professional kind of voice, Dee thought, sensing that she wouldn't be able to waste this woman's time in any way.

"Yes, he took me to a garden party you were at recently," Dee replied.  "I saw you arrive as we were leaving."

The woman raised a shapely eyebrow. 

" You surprise me," she said, looking Dee over as certainly not the kind of person she would expect to have found at any function she had attended herself.  " He says he lives here?"

"He's often shown me the house and says his family lives here but he now has his own place."

" You don't seem to know very much about him, then, do you, this friend?  Does he have a name?"

"Yes.  Of course!" said Dee, stung and feeling foolish.  "His name is Al."

"Just - Al?"

" Well I've known him for months but I don't know his last name.  He's about twenty, slim with dark hair and he drives a sports BMW."

Did a glimmer of recognition pass across the woman's controlled expression?  She looked at Dee, considering and then said,

"I think you'd better come in."

She took Dee into a big sitting room with an expensive leather sofa and few but gilded furnishings, told  her to have a seat and proceeded to talk quickly on her mobile phone but Dee couldn't follow the language, other than that at the end, she seemed to say, in English

"Yes, Yes.  Ajmal."  A name she had repeated several times during the telephone call.

Afterwards she looked at Dee again and said,

"I think there has been some mistake.  Al, as you call him, doesn't live here."

"But, you know him?  Is his full name Ajmal?"

"Whoever I may know," the woman replied coolly,  " I don't know you.  Now it's time for you to go, young lady.  I can't help you find your friend, as you call him."

Dee felt judged and disapproved of by an adult with social mores which didn't include schoolgirls randomly persuing some young man they claimed to be acquainted with at a house they claimed he lived at. 

"But, you asked me to come in," she pleaded.  "And then made a phone call?"

"You were making a show of yourself on my doorstep," the woman said.  "The call is my business.  Now, again, it's time for you to leave.  I don't expect you to come here again.  Is that clear?"

Dee nodded, tearfully shown to the door and looked back as it closed behind her, and the lock was dropped firmly to keep her out.  The windows were blank as she walked back down the empty forecourt, glancing behind her, the parked cars gleaming superciliously in winter sunshine.  Not a place for you, it all said.  She began walking back up to the bus stop and then heard her phone give the message received alert.  She took it out, blinking away her tears and there it was, a text, from Al.  It said.

"Meet me at the coffee shop in town.  Text me when you get there."

She looked and decided she certainly couldn't admit where she was, but, did he already know?  This was no coincidence, surely, but it wasn't Al the woman had spoken to, she could hear the voice at the other end replying in the fast dialogue and it wasn't his.

"I'm busy" she replied, " Where have you been?"

"No you're not.  Text me when you get here." 

This time he added kisses and a smiley face winking emoticon, which, although weak with relief from hearing from him, had instantly annoyed Dee as him being conceitedly sure of his hold over her.  She got the bus into town deciding to make sure he told her some truths and explained his silence after months of being in constant contact, if not daily, at least several times a week.  She got off the bus and looked around for him, texting to say she would be at the coffee shop in about ten minutes.  He texted back.

"Already here.  Krispy Kreme central waiting for you."

If he thought a doughnut or two would mollify her, she thought, marching down to the shop, he had another think coming.  But behind this, was unease that surely her visit, her unwelcome visit, to that house, had prompted this contact and guilty worry was already undoing her. The actual sight of him sitting there waiting for her and smiling was like a physical shock and she found herself running to him eagerly to be hugged and greeted.

"Where have you been?  Where have you been?" she cried.  "I've texted and messaged for days and nothing from you."

"Awww were you worried about me?" he asked, pulling her into his shoulder briefly.  "  I'm a big boy now, Dee. Sometimes there are things going on I have to see to."

" What things?" she demanded.  " Why didn't you come and pick me up today?"

"No wheels, " he said easily.  "Car's in dock for service."

"Oh."  She looked at him.  "What's been happening?  I was worried.  Haven't you seen the news about the man who was found killed and burnt on your allotments?"

" I see," he looked back at her, seeing through to her panic that it might have been him for some reason.  " Silly girl, Dee.  I'm sorry if it worried you.  I did see something about that in the news when I came home.   I wasn't able to be in contact because I had a family death and had to visit.  I was called away unexpectedly. My uncle."

"Which one?" Dee asked a little edgily.

He laughed at her expression, making her smile. 

"No one you've met.  My ma's older brother who lives away from here.  Big family stuff going on for a while.  Don't worry, I'm not upset, we weren't close."

"But I thought, " Dee said.  " You and I..,?" she tailed off.

"You and I ?  You and I, Dee are the best of friends.  You know how special you are to me, " and Al patted her hand, again playing older brother.  "Eat your doughnuts and have your coffee before it goes cold.  I hope you've been doing your studies and not neglecting things over me?"

"Al, stop it, " she said. 

" Now, little one," he continued, ignoring her intervention.  " What you mustn't do is what you did today."  Her heart sank.  " I had a call," he said.  " People were not pleased."

" I'm sorry," she found herself apologising.  " But I thought, I thought something had happened to you!  Why were the allotments burned down, who was that man?" she blurted out, instead of asking as she intended, if the woman really was family and if so, who was she?

" Dee, my lovely, you've been letting your imagination run away with you.  I wasn't here.  I expect those kids always hanging out there burned the sheds down.  Even the police don't know who that guy is, so how should I?  Anyway, I sold that land on a while back. Bubble had burst though, didn't get a lot for it."

"You never said."

"It never came up."  He shrugged.  " Why would it?"

"The police said there was a cannabis farm there," Dee frowned.

"Did they?  Bloody hell.  Nowhere's safe is it?  Never know what's going on anywhere these days do you?"

"Al," Dee tried again.  "Are you called Ajmal?"

" What?  " he said.  " Now, you listen to me, Dee.  Keep your head. You're more grown up than this. If you really want to help me, there is something you can do for me.  But it's only a temporary thing, mind.  Just a shortfall needing sorting out.  If I can't, I really will be in trouble."

"What can I do?"

"I need quick money, Dee.  See if you can think up some ideas.  I'm short of business notions right now. You're a bright girl, get your thinking cap on.  It can't be that hard to get hold of a couple of thou at short notice.  We'll think of something, won't we? Well, anyway, let's forget about things for now, enjoy our bit of time just us, then home for you .  I'm sorry I can't drive you today." 

She left him later, demanding assurances that he would be in touch, as she still felt he was somehow back from the disappeared, not even annoyed that he was loving it and lapping up the devotion.  She went home to find that Sophie had painted an ornament for her.

"It's a pig," said Sophie significantly.  " A pig for a pig," and she giggled naughtily.

" Cheeky," said Dee, laughing, who would have been happy to have been presented with a sack of rubbish as a gift at that point, still brimful of delight at having seen her precious Al finally again.

Chapter 5 - Transition

Sophie's pig was placed on a shelf above the little desk where Dee had her computer in her room, where it looked across at her as beadily as Sophie herself might have done, from a slightly wonky eye, however, picked out by the light of her desklamp as she worked on a school assignment.  Inside her room, it felt safely cosy, tucked in with her family.  Across the landing, Sophie played in her bubble bath before bed and downstairs her parents went in and out of rooms, tidying, the sound of their voices, engaged, as always, in some lively current affairs debate, sounding louder or more distant as they passed back and forth.  In the past, there would have been Ed in his room at the end, door firmly closed against young sisters, a rumble of music or computer games coming from within.  This made her think again about Al's request that she help with thinking up some quick money fix for him and she slipped across to Ed's room to look in, empty of him as it now was, as she would have done when younger, wanting to get into this forbidden territory.

She knew, because she had seen them when putting laundry away for them all (one of her chores), that the credit cards Ed left at home so as not to run up too much debt, taken to task over having too many by their father and only having one in Uni use, were in a little pile in his sock drawer.  What if she borrowed one of those to help Al out and if they put the money back in as soon as possible, Ed wouldn't know, would he?  A neglected pile of post, rarely investigated or opened by Ed, awaited his attention pending his return on a shelf by some books, conscientiously separated out for him by their mother.  She could intercept any bill that came in afterwards, couldn't she?

She opened the drawer and looked.  There were four cards.  She took them, matched them up with the right envelopes for statements from the post pile, which looked undiminished afterwards, and went back across to her own room, closing Ed's door quietly behind her.  The sound of singing and splashing still continued in the bathroom.  The glow of childhood security she had been feeling earlier had dissipated, replaced by a nervous fear of crossing thresholds and betraying trusts.  She hadn't done anything yet, though, she told herself, just moved things into her room instead of Ed's.  Sophie's pig looked at her disapprovingly.

"I know.  I know,"  she told it, hearing its maker now being encouraged out of the bath to be put to bed by their mother. 

"If you do that," it seemed to ask her, " what's in it for you?  Where will that leave you, young Debbie?"

She regarded the pig thoughtfully, considering the day.  It wasn't the first time in their acquaintance Al had suggested a need for funds, though mostly he seemed to have plenty and she didn't know why he needed this sum right now, did she?  Who was the woman at the house, and how were they related, sister, cousin maybe?   She had assumed "my folks place" meant his parents' house but that was not necessarily the case, was it?  Had he really been away?  Did she have any real reason to doubt that he had?  But what, despite his glib dismissals, about the death at the allotment?  What about Gemma's warning, mistrust her as she might choose to do?  What about "one of Al's kids?"  Where in fact, did he really live himself, in his 'batchelor pad' ?  She couldn't imagine him in any domestic setting, somehow, feet up,watching the telly, on his own, or, not on his own? 

"Tread carefully,"  the pig advised her.  " Do you really know what you're dealing with?"

"Shut up," she told it.  "Al's back and he's fine.  That's all I care about."

In bed, she dreamt of going to meet Al in his car round the corner and driving away with him happily, but when he turned to her, it wasn't Al at all but someone she'd never seen, taking her away from safety.

On Sunday in the morning, shutting her door after breakfast to continue, she said, on her school assignment (which would ensure privacy for a while, as she was on babysitting duty in the afternoon and evening while her parents went out visiting friends and staying for dinner), she checked out the balances on the credit card statements she had filched from Ed's room the night before.  The statements showed they had all been used, but not recently and transactions showed there was a smaller balance on one of them, with several thousand pounds worth of credit left on it.  This then, if she were going to do it, might be the one to be used.  She hid it in her purse and buried the opened statements in one of her school folders of paperwork, then padded across to slip the other three cards back in Ed's drawer, adding a shop store points card of her own at the bottom, so it still looked as if there were four.  It still didn't mean, she told herself, that she was definitely going to give Al the credit card.  It was just in her purse, that's all.  There might be another way.  Next week, on Tuesday, would be her sixteenth birthday.  Her parents had decided to open a bank account for her and the family would set her up with starter funds between them.  She might have a few hundred after grandparents had helped to contribute.  She could maybe lend him a little from that, though not to the extent he had mentioned needing, obviously.

She checked the local news on line again to see if there were any further announcements about the body found at the allotments.  The body had now been identified as that of a  'businessman' from a neighbouring area, who owned a number of properties locally.  Relatives had been contacted and there were no further details at present.  Investigations were continuing.  This she found slightly reassuring as sounding unconnected in any way with Al.  Her phoned buzzed just then and there was a text from Al himself.

"Meet soon," it said. " Missed you" and then his customary sign off to her, "Be good," followed by a smily face and kisses.  She hugged the "missed you" to herself and texted back "See you soon, missed you, too,"  resisting for now the temptation to mention the card tucked away in her purse.  For a while after that, until lunchtime, she did get on with her assignment.  Her phone sat beside her but there were no further messages from Al, just facebook message alerts from schoolfriends pinging in.

After lunch, she waved her parents off into a cold afternoon of milky mist, which hung, windless, over bare dripping black trees and rooftops.

"Bed time at eight o'clock now, Sophie," their mother said.  " It's school tomorrow.  If we're after eleven, Debbie, just lock up.  You know how it is with the four of us when we all get debating.  We won't be too late, though."

Their mother hugged and kissed them and then their parents drove off, Debbie having assured them that yes, she'd ring mum's mobile if there was any problem.  Inside, she and Sophie spent some time on a jigsaw and then built little interactive families on a computer game, in which Sophie's character was the big sister in charge and Dee's the child being shown how to grow and water corn and flowers and look after the various animals on their virtual farm.  Sophie, unlike Dee, was rather strict.

Teatime was an anarchistic affair, where Dee allowed Sophie to choose what she wanted (within reason) and cooked the strange combinations for her, putting in a pizza for herself.  Sophie chose fish fingers, baked beans and frankfurters, all topped with grilled cheese.  She then sprinkled hundreds and thousands on it all "to make it look pretty", tasted the odd morsel and then ate Dee's pizza instead.  Unsurprised, Dee binned Sophie's first course and put in another pizza.

"When I'm a mum" said Sophie critically, "I'll make proper food."

"I'm sure you will," said Dee wrily.

"We'll do menus for our game next," said Sophie authoritatively, "with veggies."

"Oh, the veggie's you like to eat?" Dee teased.

"You don't have to eat them," Sophie pointed out.  "You just have to write them down and draw them.  Like school."

They spent another hour or so on paper, drawing cartoon vegetables with faces and writing names next to them in a long, increasingly fantastic list of characters, while on screen, their little avatars pattered up and down their seed, corn and flower rows with watering cans, diligent digital peasants.

Happy to have been played with all day, Sophie allowed herself to be put to bed more or less on time.  Knowing there was only Dee downstairs, though, meant she was unlikely to stay put and she came back down again on various pretexts for a while, subsiding at about half past nine after a story, if Dee let her put her earphones in and listen to her pop music.  Dee went back downstairs, where the television was all Christmas films weeks before time and endless jingle filled adverts.  It still gave her a feeling of excitement and anticipation about presents, even now that she had outgrown dolls and toys herself in favour of the latest phone or money for clothes.   Taking out her phone she texted Al.

"Babysitting Sophie at home," she put.  " Parents out for hours yet. Bored."

After a while he texted back.

"I'm outside.  Come to the car."

Her heart jumped.

"I'm coming," she texted back immediately.

She listened at the bottom of the stairs, but there were no little sister sounds.  She opened the front door and put the yale on the snib so it didn't lock her out, closing it behind her.  A frosty air struck at her indoors warm body and she went quickly down the path, the security light coming on as she passed its sensor.  Across the road, an interior light came on briefly in a car and she saw Al inside, signallying to her where he was,  but it wasn't his own usual car.  She went quickly across to him and jumped in the passenger door.  It was warm inside.

"Ten minutes," he said " then back in babysitting."

She snuggled into him, as invited, smelling his expensive aftershave and for the first time he kissed her, sparking up the physical connection to match the emotional one she felt.  After a wild feeling few minutes, he broke the embrace.

"Back inside,now, Dee," he said.  "That's enough time for her to be on her own."

They exchanged a few more light kisses and she got out, saying softly,

"I might have thought of something, Al."

"I knew you would," he said smiling at her intimately.  "Clever girl, but never mind that now.  Tell me later.  I'll pick you up from school on Wednesday, if you can get away with saying you're out Christmas shopping for a bit?"  She nodded, saying she would try.  "I'll get in touch. Now back into your sister. "

He gave her a parting hug and the car stole quietly off as she went back inside, no gunning of the engine as usual by way of a parting flourish.  She closed the door as silently as she could and locked up.  When her parents visited these particular friends, they were unlikely to arrive home before two in the morning.  The security light, which had come on as she came back in, clicked off again as she went upstairs to check on Sophie, who opened her eyes and spoke to Dee while still asleep, in an unnerving way she had.

"He's gone," she said, turning over and slipping back into sleep as easily as she had seemed to half wake.

Dee went to wash and go to bed herself, taken by surprise by Al's kisses and yet, it had seemed just right between them, hadn't it, a promise of trust, of the two of them together?  She wouldn't let him down, she decided, thinking of the credit card in her purse.

On Tuesday, Al sent her an interactive e-card, which had a pink birthday cake with, sweet sixteen, Dee, written on it and played happy birthday.  Although secret, it was by far her favourite card.   The family went out for tea as a birthday treat and she and her mother were to go clothes shopping on Saturday, after which, she had an eat out with schoolfriends and the cinema planned.  On Tuesday night she and Al arranged to meet after school on Wednesday, her Christmas shopping excuse accepted.  I can give you a proper birthday kiss now, he had said.

School seemed a very long day that Wednesday to Dee, full of anticipation as she was.  She was unnerved at breakfast, though, by the news that Ed was coming back home at the weekend, the credit card in her purse taking on a luminous significance to her, as if anyone looking at her would see right through to her intended perfidy (doubly worse following so hard on birthday gifts and celebrations).  Nobody knows, she told herself, mentally adding that what you didn't know couldn't hurt you, although her mounting questions about Al and his circumstances were beginning to suggest to her that this was not necessarily the case.  She was withdrawn in classes and careful to avoid walking out with schoolmates when the time finally came to leave, the day drifting into a dingy twilight afternoon which already seemed to verge on evening.  She rounded the corners quickly to slide into the street where Al always waited for her, feeling every pulse jump in her chest as she looked for him.  The street was parked up, as always, but all the cars were empty.  He wasn't there.  She paced up and down all of them looking in to double check.  No Al appeared. She checked her phone for a text and then sent one saying:

"I'm here.  Where are you?"

After about ten more minutes of waiting, she got one back.

"Sorry birthday girl.  Tied up.  Will make it up to you.  Be good.😎xxx"

After a rush of disappointment, she was furious.  How dare he let her down like this, for her special birthday meeting with him?  Livid, she walked fast round to the corner shop, to do something he wouldn't like at all, whatever that might turn out to be, she thought, full of angry upset.  She joined the group of youngsters hanging out there, one or two of whom were familiar faces but not schoolfriends today.  Chatting with them, she accepted some surreptitious cider and when the cars with the young men pulled up and they went in and out of the shop, emboldened by the drink of cider, she joined in with the others in greeting them.  There was a lot of loud, provocative teasing thrown about and she flirted back with the best of them. 

In the dark of the winter afternoon, they were brightly lit against the shop window under its outdoor lamps.  After a while, the passenger door at the back of one of the cars opened and a girl got out.

"Playing with fire, Dee?" said Gemma's dry, surly voice, startling her.  "Al wouldn't like it."

"What would he know?" returned Dee, more feistily than usual. 

"Oh, he'll know," said the older girl coolly, her face a closed warning off.

"I don't care," returned Dee, turning back to the young men talking to them and just at that moment heard one of them saying,

"We're off to a party ladies and gentlemen.  Anyone want to come?"

There were one or two takers and Dee found herself saying defiantly

"Yes, I will, please!"

Without looking at Gemma again she followed into a car with a couple of the other youngsters and decided to dare it with them.  Only as the car drove off, did she feel the lurch of fear at her choice, followed by another as the face of the driver revealed itself in the driving mirror as the one called Rashid.  He was talking hands free on his mobile taking calls and after a few minutes was answering one where he replied:

" What?  Which one?  Ok." 

He pulled in abruptly and said to Dee.

"You.  Out now. "  Startled she stumbled out of the car, feeling more relieved than anything else, not at much distance from where she lived she realised looking round. 

They hadn't gone far.  She watched the car go, the pale blurred faces of the girl and boy who had got in with her looking back, a little anxiously now.  A second car went past, and it was Gemma looking out at her from the back, her face blank and unsmiling.  Dee's phone buzzed and she took it out.

"Go home." said Al's text, without preamble or tender additions.

She set off slowly, sad and torn between anger and distress, with the fading out of the cider glow leaving a bleak tinge behind it  and she felt even more guilty when her mother said,

"You're home early, Debbie.  I thought you were going Christmas shopping after school?"

"I was going to, but I didn't really feel like it after all," responded Dee.

Sophie was sitting at the table finishing her tea, looking at Dee in her penetrating way from under fringe, kicking her feet against chair legs. 

"I'm going up to get changed," Dee said, going up to her room hastily in case her misery was showing, or the cider.  After a little thought, she texted Al back, saying just "home".  He didn't reply.  She got changed and went downstairs to her own tea, unenthusiastic about it and watched tv for a while with the family, soon going back up "to do homework" but really to brood and revisit her preoccupations.  She considered putting the card back in Ed's drawer but then decided to hold on to it, "as a precaution".  She found herself using these sort of trite phrases to herself while holding internal conversations, finding them a kind of comfort.  She waited on line to see if Al would appear but he didn't.   She went to bed sorrowful instead of, as she had expected, ecstatic.  She woke in the morning to a text from him, the sound of her phone alert waking her at 4.30am.

"Got to bolt," it said.  " Pack a bag if you want to come and slip out.  I'll be there in half and hour and can wait ten mins.    Last chance to see me if not."

There was no emoticon, no kisses, just the last chance saloon demand.  Wrought up as she was, Dee needed no second thoughts.  She threw a pair of jeans, a bit of underwear and a couple of tops and jumpers into her school sports bag, washed, dressed and grabbed some toiletries from the bathroom as silently as possible and ghosted down the stairs.  The front door unlocked and opened silently enough and nobody would be up till at least 7am, but she couldn't elude the security light, which clicked on and off as she attempted to go silently down the path.  In her sleep upstairs Sophie stirred awake at the light, looked out and murmured to no one:

"She's gone" then went back to her half waking dream and soon was fast asleep again.

This time, Al was there, but not with a demeanour she was familiar with.  He looked a bit diminished,  unkempt compared with his usual smartly dressed fronting it up self.  He was smoking, which he didn't often do around her, the window down to let out the smoke into the cold drizzly dark morning.  He nodded and smiled briefly at her, gesturing to her to get in quickly, which she did and the car he was in slipped off quietly, not picking up speed until safely at the end of the street and turned out of it.  She watched him a bit warily, asking:

"No BMW still?"

He laughed a bit, sounding sarcastic.

"No BMW, love.  Just me.  Not good enough eh?  I thought you were dying to see me, or was it one of those other lads taking your fancy now?"

"Al, no!" she protested.  " I was upset, you didn't come and..."

"Sounds like you were upset all right," he said, "from the call I had."

"From, from Gemma?"

"Never mind who from," he said.  "Now look, I needed you, right?  You were going to help me out, remember?  Is this how you help me out, by going off with other boys?"

"I can help you," she found herself protesting, despite feeling, as usual, tricked by his ability to turn the tables on her, when it was he who had let her down to start with. " I've got, I've got my brother's credit card," she babbled on.  " It has a few thousand left on it.  He won't know, he doesn't use it."

He turned as he drove to look at her properly, looking more like himself in expression.

"Wow," he said.  " Wicked.  And wicked.  Are you sure about this?"

"I'm sure," she asserted.  " I'm going with you and I don't care where it is."

"O.K." he agreed. 

For a while he said no more, just driving on in the dark streetlamp morning, which was still masquerading as night, deep in thought, it seemed.  They were driving more slowly than usual, turning corners round quiet dark streets.  The car was warm and she was still tired, drifting a little until she was roused by him pulling in and stopping.

"O.K." he said again.  "Here's what we're going to do, Dee.  First let's see if we can use that card." 

She got it out of her bag and passed it to him, while he pulled up an app on his phone, asked for some information relating to Ed and worked out the pin number from family birthdays.  He hit it with Sophie's.  He nodded, satisfied.

"Now, listen.  I know you're coming with me.  You passed my test, Dee.  You came to me.  But for now, you're going to hide in plain sight."

"Where?" she asked, puzzled. 

"At home with your family.  I skip for a bit, sort my shit out and then come back to get you.  Not a word to anyone about me for now, right? "

"But, I've come with you, like you asked," she protested, bewildered.

"I know.  Like I said, you passed my test.  You just have to wait for me while I set things up."  He looked at her sports bag and smiled.  "Not enough in there to move out with is there?  I'm going to drop you back now and you can slip back in before anyone's up.  First, I've got something for you, my little birthday present."  He announced this as if it were quite something he was doing for her, getting out a small plastic ziplock packet and giving it to her.  Inside was a thin metal bracelet with one charm on it, her initial.  "There you go," he said proudly.  "A 'D' for my Dee.  Wear it for me."

"Thank you, " she said putting it on. 

"Now" he said, reaching across to unlock her seatbelt and open the passenger door.  "Out you get."  He kissed her briefly on the lips and waited a little impatiently for her to disembark.  "Be good.  I'll be in touch"

She got out, let down, pleased, disconcerted and relieved all in one.  Not having had time to process the consequences of leaving home with nothing and nobody but Al, at bottom she was glad of the reprieve and having planning time to think.  She looked back at the corner for him but he was already coasting away.   She went quietly back into the house, the security light clicking on and off again as she did.  Less than an hour had passed and everyone would be asleep for some time yet.  She texted Al to say she was back in her room.

"Safe", he texted back.

She waited till it was time to get up and started her day as usual, having breakfast at home.

"Do you know?" her mother remarked.  "I'm sure there's a fox or something coming in and out of the garden in the early hours.  That light came on and off twice this morning and it must have been something big enough to trip it."

The fox, thought Dee, had not come through the garden but was canny enough to wait outside it.  With the thought, came a shift in her perspective.  Had Al meant to take her with him at all, or was it a way of bouncing her into financial action?  She hadn't told him about the credit card, true, but she had said she had thought of something.  If she hadn't come up with anything that could be acted on then, he could still have done the same, couldn't he, given her the gift and the promise and dropped her back home, then moved on to whatever other prospect he had in mind for a quick fix?  It was an unwelcome thought, but once present, she found it taking root.  She remembered Al's expression when she had told him about the card and then when he had found it was viable for him to use.  It was briefly the look of someone who couldn't believe his luck.  After that, he had hurried her off, there were no two ways about it.  Besides, he had been a mess of nerves, smoking, looking ungroomed, paying her little attention and certainly didn't seem to have romance on his mind.  The bracelet was a sweet thing but in that context, it lacked a sincerity, somehow, to her.  She had put it away in her bedside drawer before putting her school uniform on and coming downstairs to the family.

She expected to hear nothing for a while from Al if things ran true to form and especially now.  Her time was taken up with family things, Ed coming back, visiting grandparents and an outing to an exhileratingly extravagant display by the Moscow State Circus, a glamorously vivid spectacle.  She was part of a foursome for that, tickets bought by Ed and his girlfriend, with two extra for her and Ed's friend Nick, long receded from being her former fancy.  Ed had assured Dee that Nick was unaware of this shaming factor and he showed no signs of it.  It was  a relaxed kind of occasion, and she was quite naturally included with them all, making her feel acceptedly adult.  Nick in person was straightforwardly friendly, a conventional sort of person though, she thought, faithfully, not like Al.

Two weeks or so before Christmas, three weeks after he'd left her back on her own doorstep, Al texted her that he would skype call her at ten that night.  She made sure she was in her room, not sure what to expect, closing the door firmly and having music playing in the background to disguise the murmur of their voices.  When he appeared on screen, he looked himself again, with a new sharp haircut, energetic and as if he had things going on.

"How are you?" she asked.

"I'm good.  Sorted, Dee."

"Where are you?" 

The background was a white wall, so it was impossible to get any kind of context.

"Internet cafe."

"Oh, are you, nearby?"

"Soon will be," he assured her.  "Listen.  I'm getting that card back to you.  No trouble?"

She shook her head.  "Good girl.  Can you get the the cafe Saturday, in town?"  She nodded eagerly, which he interpreted correctly.  "It won't be me, Dee.  I'm back soon, though.  Just get there for two and someone will meet you.  Money's back in the account.  I always keep my promises on that," he said, taking credit for this rather arrogantly, as if it were a favour to others rather than honouring an obligation he had to meet.  "Got to go.  Talk soon.  Be good." he signed off, blowing her a kiss.

She felt, as usual, that the exchange had been annoyingly inconclusive.  Where was he and when was he coming back?  It was good to see him back to being his ebullient self though, as if he were on his way to some action which couldn't wait.  She felt a rush of affection and physical yearning for him, accompanying her sense of loss that he had gone again already.  She missed him dreadfully, she told herself. 

Her eye was caught by the miniature russian doll set sitting next to Sophie's pig on her shelf, a souvenir from the trip to the Moscow State Circus.  Ed had bought one for his girlfriend and Nick one for her as keepsakes, for they'd admired the bright little figures on the way out. The Moscow State Circus night of trapeze acts, burlesque, comedy and ballet like performances, was overlaid with a magic of its own with which Nick and not Al, was associated. She realised that, while there, for once she had not been picturing a parallel experience with Al present alongside, and this felt unfaithful in some way. She took Al's bracelet out of the drawer and put it on, as a talisman of where her loyalties lay and this time kept it on.

Chapter 6 - Christmas

She went into town on Saturday.  It was overpowered by Christmas shoppers, determinedly travelling the streets like cargo boats on busy shipping routes, heavy in the water with bags and the stress of their journey, determined not to be torpedoed by anyone travelling the other way.

The cafe, though down a small side street and not near the main thoroughfares, was crowded too, but Dee slipped into a corner seat by one of the little round window tables, studying the menu to play for time, then ordering a coke for herself to keep the place but not drinking it.  Who would come?  She looked out at passing faces, recognising none, and was taken by surprise when a slight figure slid into the seat opposite, and there was Gemma.

"Here," she said in her chippy, ungracious way, deftly passing across the plastic card, which Dee put quickly away.  "Don't worry," she added caustically, noting Dee's expression, " I haven't maxed it out again.  Could have, though.  How would you know?"

Dee flushed a little, feeling foolish about the situation.  Why did this girl, of all people, have to be acting as courier?  A chill went through her at the implication of Gemma's words.  How much had he used and how much, if anything, had he really put back?  Still, the card was given back, that showed she could trust him, didn't it?

"Do you know where Al is?" she asked.

Gemma shrugged, non- committally.

"Had his wings clipped for now.  Doing him a favour.  And you," she added.

"Thank you, " said Dee, mutedly.  "Can I ask you something?"  She looked hopefully across at the other girl.   "That house where I met you - the safe house - is Al there?"

"Safe house?" queried the girl sardonically.

"That's what he called it."

"He would."  Gemma thought a moment.  "That - that is - a little business centre.  Yeah, " she confirmed, warming to her theme.   "You could call it that."

"Al had a key..." Dee continued.

"Private entrance.  Members only," said Gemma dismissively.  "Anyway.  He's not there."

"Oh.... But you've seen him?  He gave you the card for me." Dee continued to look hopeful.

Gemma folded her arms and enjoyed not telling her.

"Look at you."  She shook her head.  "Al really is full of it, isn't he?"

"Full of what?"

"What do you think?"  She looked at Dee's untouched coke, took it and drank it off without asking, then plonked the empty glass back on the table, cast carelessly down, liable to chip or shatter where it fell.  "That's what Al does," she said, getting up.  "To girls like us."

"Like us?"

"That's right," said Gemma pointedly.  "Like us."

She passed something else across, tossing it down on the table.  Dee picked it up.  It was a small photobooth shot of a younger Gemma and a younger Al, she pouting, him posing, arms round one another.  But when Dee looked up from it, the girl had gone, vanished into the surging crowds outside.  She's only jealous, Dee told herself, reverting to her comforting cliches again in her inner dialogue.  It's you he cares about, everything points to that, she insisted to the doubting Thomas within, who was remarking cynically, "oh really?", rather as Gemma herself might have done.

When Dee went home, she took the first opportunity she could to put the card back in Ed's drawer and remove her dummy store one, not that he seemed to have noticed anything, or even looked at them, sitting just as she had left them.  All she had to do now was wait for the next statement to come and check it, to make sure that there wouldn't be bailiffs at Ed's door  at his student digs in Bath, like on "Can't Pay, We'll Take It Away," on television.  She imagined a bewildered Ed faced by implacable debt collectors hoisting his worldly goods, or even evicting him.  But surely that wouldn't happen, would it?  She was vague about the legal consequences of defaulted payments but it definitely happened on that programme.  What would her parents think?  Would she be able to keep her mouth shut if Ed took the fall?

"Silly girl, Dee," she heard Al's voice advising her inner ear, but it didn't reassure her.  She took out the photo Gemma had tossed down of her and Al together in the photobooth, looked at it briefly and resentfully, then put it in the drawer with her bracelet.

She went on line and left Al an emotional message about how much she missed him and wanted to be with him.  Guilty dread was starting to motivate her now.  For good measure, she texted him as well, over grateful for the return of the card (as if this would ensure that all was well with it financially) and saying again how much she longed for his return.  Gemma had succeeded only in stirring up in Dee a possessive desire to be Al's preference, backed up by her own need to shore up her view of him and their relationship against a kind of change in the wind and possible fading out of feeling since she had last seen him in person, unable to face the idea that anything had altered from the heightened emotion he had generated in her about him for so long now.

To breathe life into their imagined future together, she packed a case properly with spare clothes and things she might need, as if for a longed for holiday to come, hiding it under her bed, pushed back against the wall.  This took about an hour, after which Al texted her back, warmly and with feeling, promising that he'd surprise her soon.  Just wait for me, he put, and be happy.  "Have Christmas and I'll be back in the New Year."  Not long, he asserted.

The Christmas tree was put up in the living room, all the old favourite decorations dug out once more and they took on for Dee a farewell significance, as if this would be the last time she would do this with her family in the same way.  By Christmas Day it was all more normal again, the usual excitable early start with her little sister, family visits, Christmas dinner at her grandparents' house, Christmas films and board games for all to join in with.  How much, she thought, feeling superior to it, she had outgrown all this.

Early in January, the school holidays almost at an end, she got the call to action from Al.  "I'm coming," he said.  "Be ready."

She checked her case, all still tidily packed in readiness.  They spoke on line and the skype call was a tender one, he assuring Dee that he had all arranged and would look after her, that she was his, that she'd saved him in a crisis and he would never forget it.

"Where will we go?" she wanted to know.

"You leave that to me," he told her.  "But don't tell anyone and mess it up.  They'll stop you if they know."

A day or so later, she intercepted the post.  Ed wasn't there, having gone to his girlfriend's for New Year, prior to returning to University.  The credit card statement sat innocently among other items of mail that were harmless to her, to be dealt with by the adult world.  She put them in the letter rack on the shelf in the hall alongside junk mail waiting to be recycled and took the credit card envelope up into her room to open.  Several thousand pounds now showed on it, not quite up to the limit, but near enough.  Al had taken five thousand from it, not the two he had vaguely mentioned.  A terrible feeling swept over her, a hollow thudding heartbeat sounding through her whole body, a horrible sensation.  Where was the repayment?

She tried to calm herself down.  Maybe that would show on the next statement.  She had to trust Al's word, didn't she?  Why would he have given the card back if not?  Unless as a delaying tactic, or to claim later that the money was still going through?  The notion felt intensely disloyal, but alongside it a number of scenarios flew quickly through her mind: the company contacting Ed about such a large sum; blame resting with Ed, escalating action culminating in that previously conjured scene of bailiffs and eviction; prison for fraud for Al if he got found out; the connection being made with her in some mysterious way and her parents banishing her from home as a criminally bad influence when there was Sophie to consider.  She should never have done it, but she had.

The panicky feeling became a constant undercurrent over the next few days, as school holidays wound down preparing for a return to school for all of them (both her parents were teachers).  When Al texted to say he would meet her on Saturday in town to talk about "next steps" as he put it, she was overwhelmed by her need to see him.  Better to get away altogether than have all this hanging over her head, she was deciding.  Just disappear with Al, no questions asked.  She would contact her family, of course, to tell them that she was safe, even visit later maybe, safely ensconced in a new life with Al.  She was sixteen now, adult enough to go if she wanted to legally.  All this still constituted an unrealistic fantasy carried on alongside the everyday mundane fundamentals.  But by now, she had led a secret double life with Al in her head for so long that it had more substance for her than what was going on around her in the world she belonged to.

When Saturday came, she had checked and rechecked her suitcase endlessly, like a person possessed by obsessive compulsive disorder.  Maybe that's what she had now, she thought, with all this anxiety going on.  She left it ready under her bed and got the bus into town full of nervous trepidation that he wouldn't turn up.  Al had told her to meet him by the statue in "The Gardens", a large grassed space in the centre of town, popular and busy with people.  There was a fountain square flat to the ground where in summer water spouts shot up in sequence, full of paddling children but it being winter, it was switched off.  Today, as usual, the area was noisy with the music and hectoring pronouncements of street preachers at their regular spots.  The customary redolence of weed being smoked drifted through it, it being a more or less open place for dealing, where occasional police sweeps removed one group, quickly replaced by another.  She walked fast through and across to the great plinth below the vast, sweeping stone skirts of Queen Victoria, seeking Al out.  He was there, waiting and in her relief she rushed emotionally across to him, sobbing a little, clinging to him and incoherent in the complexity of her feelings.  People turned to look at them, her upset catching their attention.  Al was clearly a bit taken aback, though flattered by her display.

"Hey, hey, calm down," he said, returning her embrace gently, genuinely touched by her distress.  "Here I am, safe and sound.  Anyone would think you weren't happy to see me."

She laughed a bit through her unexpected tears, trying to compose herself.

"It's just.  I missed you so," she mumbled into him.

" I know," he said, taking this for granted. "But I'm here now, aren't I?  Come on, let's go somewhere out of all this."

Al took her down behind the shops to the sidestreet where his car was parked, holding hands with her.  It was time, he said, to show her where they would be.  Temporary only, he advised.

"I've got the BMW today.  Look," he said, expecting her to be pleased to see it.

"Is it fixed, then?"

"Fixed?  Oh.  Yeah."

They drove a couple of miles distance out of the main area and he parked in the forecourt of a squat modern apartment block, one of several in a mixed tenure former council estate.  Its thick white render showed heavily crisp against the steady grey of the January sky, corners sharp.  There were four bell pushes against the front door, no names against them.  Al opened up and led her to the second floor flat, with its own internal door.  Opening that, he turned off the alarm efficiently and led her into a set of small unfurnished rooms.  Everything smelt brand new, of paint just dried on plasterboard, windowsills and skirtings.  The floors were light coloured laminate.  The odd bit of wiring showed still where light swiches were to be installed on the cream walls.  Al looked round proudly.

"Well, what do you think?" he said, "Pretty well done out, isn't it?"

He spoke with the satisfaction of an owner, or at least someone who had been involved in its creation and fittings  in some way. There was a living room come kitchen, with a breakfast bar separating off the functions and a door opened off it into a small double bedroom, another door off that led into a neat little en suite bathroom with a toilet, sink and shower.  Its tiles and grouting were gleamingly new, invitingly fresh. "My brother owns it," he said.  "I've helped him out with all the floors and tiling, bit of decorating," he boasted. This was a new aspect to Al - handyman and second fiddle.  "It's mine to use for a bit till he sorts out renting it and all that.  Got to have the right tenants, haven't you?"  It was also new for him to mention anyone in particular in his family.

"Oh,"said Dee.  "Is he younger than you or older?  Has he got many places he owns?"

"Older " said Al.  "He's investing in a few places right now- buy to rent - all that stuff.  Comes in handy for us, though, doesn't it?  Can you imagine being here, when I've got all smart furniture in for you?"

Dee looked around.  She couldn't.  The place had no imprint of being inhabited and the low ceilings gave their voices an echoing buzz in the empty room they stood in.  She tried to picture them being there, but could only see herself, left with her suitcase in the vacant flat while Al went off, where?

"For me?" she asked.  "But you'll be here with me, won't you?" 

"Of course I will," said Al.

She nodded doubtfully.  There were no curtains at the windows and no sounds of anybody anywhere else in the building.  There was a cooker in the kitchen area and a fridge by the mock granite worktops.  She walked over to look at them and out of the back window, which overlooked an internal street within the estate, a little low hedge acting as a tiny boundary round the block of flats they stood in.

"Come here," said Al, sensing misgivings it seemed.  "It's temporary.  Not a perfect location I know, but it's all right."

She went to him obediently and they stood kissing and embracing for a few moments, which made her lose herself in being with him again. She wanted to ask him if he had definitely put the money back in Ed's credit card account but didn't dare to, thinking it would anger him and found herself saying instead:

"It doesn't feel real yet, here..."

"No?" said Al.  "Let's plan it out then."

He took her hand and led her into the adjacent empty bedroom. 

"Now," he said.  "Where shall we have the bed.  Come on, lets lie on the floor and see where we like the view."  Since they both had padded winter jackets on and were fully dressed for outdoors, when they did it made her laugh at the absurdity of it.  "How about here by the wall?" he said.  "No, that's my side," he joked as she made to lie down next to him, making her giggle.  "That's your side."  They looked up at the ceiling.  "No? O.K. how about down this end?"

They moved round the room, finishing below the window lying side by side like statues on a tomb with clasped prayer hands and laughing about it.

"Let me see how you look when you're asleep," said Dee.

Al closed his eyes, looking peaceful, then opened one humorously, looking sideways at her.

"I always sleep with one eye open," he said.  "Can't be too careful with girls like you around."

She laughed and play slapped his arm.  They lay on their backs, coat hoods acting as pillows, contentedly contemplating the ceiling together.

"I think here," said Dee.  "Nice and light in the mornings."

"Then here it shall be," agreed Al.

They turned their heads to look at one another, face to face, eye gazing inches away.

"You see?" said Al softly.  "It's real now, isn't it?"  He reached across to unzip her coat and gently pulled it off her arms, then took off his own coat, so that they lay on them like a makeshift eiderdown on the springy laminate flooring.  Dee nodded.  "Come here," said Al again,  "Cuddle up in bed."

Pulling her to him and kissing her properly, he moved the moment easily into lovemaking and they gradually undressed one another as they caressed and explored, sensually in tune as she responded to his experience, discovering her own carnality. After so long waiting for this, it felt to Dee like the natural culmination of her passion for him and consummated her emotional commitment to him completely. They lay in each other's arms naked for a while afterwards, till the chill of the unheated room faded their ardour fuelled warmth.

"You've got goose pimples" said Al, kissing her lightly and brushing her hair back off her face.  "Get dressed.  We can't freeze to death before we've even moved in."

She laughed, still full of delight towards him.

"I'll love it  here, Al," she said.  "We've made it ours now, haven't we?"

"We sure have," he agreed, as they quickly dressed.  He rubbed her back to warm her up again.  "Here's your coat."  He helped her into it.  "Now," he said.  "Since we can't make our own lunch here yet, I'm going to take you out for some.  Electric will be on next week, then the central heating will be finished and I can get the furniture in.  Sofa, telly, bed, couple of stools for the breakfast bar.  All that."  They walked through into the living room and this time she could see it as a couple's cosy setting.  "Not long to wait to be with me now, Dee.  Couple of weeks tops.  Can you handle that?"  The waiting he meant, she knew, not the actual moving in with him.  She thought of something.

"Al," she questioned.  "What shall I do about school?"

"School?  Well you can't go back to that one, can you, in the circumstances?  Besides, school is for girls.  You're a woman now, Dee."

This boosted her sense of herself as being newly in her womanhood and part of a grown up couple.

"But," she continued.  "You're always telling me I should get my education."

"You just got some good education didn't you?" he said teasingly, stroking her nose with one finger.  "You'll be fine with me.  Perhaps we can look at college later, you could do hair and beauty, maybe."

Hair and beauty?  This did not at all accord with her vaguely envisaged professional future coming from a family like hers, but she was happy to go along with the idea.  Al's world was not her world after all and that's where she would be living in the future.  He drove back into town with her and they went to a pizza place, where they looked into each other's eyes over their food, talking nonsense about what they would do when they lived together, Al planning  holidays to make her laugh - sky diving, scuba diving, cruises, gambling in Dubai, exploring the pyramids in Egypt, a road trip round America.  The last she could picture, Al in his mirror shades while they drove down endless desert roads, eating cactus salads, he reckoned.  She went home bubbling with her experience and her time with him.  She'd done a bad thing with the credit card, but it was to help Al and she loved him and she would be with him soon.  That's all, she told herself, that mattered. 

The next day being Sunday, she was trying to finish her schoolwork, neglected over the weekend, wondering what it would be like when she didn't have to do it any more.  The thought occurred to her, too, how would Al take it if she were homesick and missed her family, although she knew that it would be the  price she would pay for running away from them?  Would he be supportive, or would he be annoyed and say he hadn't asked her to do it, that she was the one who had begged to be with him?  No, no, she told herself.  Al had said she would be all right with him and she was his now, that was all there was to it.  She stopped her imagination at the point of considering how her family would feel about it.  There was only so much speculation she could deal with at any one time, she comforted her conscience.    She'd ask Al what she should do, leave a letter, or contact them later and just go as she'd thought before?  Besides, it hadn't happened yet.  Time enough to think about that one when it came to the point, she reasoned.

 Al skype called her on Sunday night, prearranged between them by text.  She looked at him avidly, feeling like jumping through the screen into his embrace.  Al smiled at her expression.

"You look beautiful," he said, untypically, not given to gushing compliments.  Her adoration of him was clearly improving her in his books.  They spoke a little, and then he told her that she needed to get herself "sorted out" with the family planning clinic before they moved in together. 

"Birds and the bees, Dee," he said.  "You don't want to be pushing a pram around before you're seventeen, do you?"

"No," she agreed.  "I hadn't thought about it."

"I know, that's why I'm looking after you.  I'm not like those other idiots you hear about."

And indeed, although their encounter at the flat had been spontaneous enough, Al had come prepared and used precautions.

"What idiots?" she asked.

"Never mind.  "  Al shook his head at her naivety.  "That's what I like about you, Dee.  You'll be all mine."

"Of course!" she exclaimed back.

He said she had to be careful not to arouse parental suspicion that she was up to something and she said she would be.  She made an appointment and went to the clinic when she was supposed to be involved in some after school drama activity.  She started taking the pill and it was like a calendar count down, she thought.  Two weeks to be safe to have intercourse, she had been instructed, (far too scientific a term for what she'd experienced, she thought), matching the two weeks of waiting to go to Al for good.  Al gave her updates on the flat.  The electric was sorted, the boiler installed for central heating and hot water.  He'd put some furniture in, brought some things for the kitchen.

"Just borrowed bits for now," he said.  "We'll go and pick things together."

She loved this idea, evidence of their future.  Finally, he moved in himself.  He had been staying with his brother, he said, till this was ready, because he'd given his own place up when he had to skip before.  "Your bachelor pad," said Dee.  Al laughed.  "Well I won't need one of those now, will I?" he said, grinning.  It was all going to really happen, then, thought Dee.  He moved his laptop round the flat on camera, to show it to her.  There were white blinds on the windows now and a low double bed in the bedroom.

"Getting it all fine for you," he announced, presenting his efforts as a special gift to her.

A number of things had now joined the suitcase under her bed but Al had said she wouldn't need much, just her clothes and little essentials she thought she'd need.  She wondered about her computer but it was a desk top, an old one of Ed's passed down when he moved out.  Al advised her to keep the history cleared and wipe any signs of their contact off it, which she had done all along anyway.  Besides, he said, she'd be with him so she wouldn't need it to talk to him on it.  He clearly wasn't envisaging her talking to anyone else on line and when she thought about it, she realised she wouldn't be able to.  Well not for some time certainly, in case she was found and returned home.  Anyway, said Al, there's this laptop here, it's only a bit second hand, not bad.

In the time left to her at home, her feelings shifted from disbelief that she wouldn't be there, to disbelief that she hadn't already gone.  Tense with the build up, missing Al and her mind still wrapped up in the anxieties of the credit card, she was told off more than once for her attitude and being snappy, which irritated her as being treated like a child.  "You're a woman now," Al had said.  It added to the mental evidence case she had created for leaving home.

The day finally came.  They had agreed on a Saturday, and like the last time (although this time they would carry through) he would come in the early hours, which would give them more breathing space before there was any alarm, no school routines being due to kick in and her parents being used to her going out and about on her own at weekends.  When they realised she wasn't at home, Dee said, they'd just think she'd gone out to town with friends or something, as she often told them she did.  Al's advice was to leave no note. A clean break, he said, was kinder in the long run. You can text your mum later but not from anywhere traceable to our flat, just to say you're safe and you've left by choice, then we'll ditch that phone.  I'll get you a new one.  It sounded reasonable, and she allowed herself to agree.  Although the real cruelty of such a disappearing act was all too clear to her, she told herself that she would contact them again soon to put their minds at rest.  Al had just said,

"Mmhm, of course," rather dismissively when she had raised this, which she took as reassurance  that it wouldn't be an issue.

The night before she was due to go, she checked the news on line again about the murder case in the allotments, because although she now knew Al was not involved, it was still on her mind as something she wanted to have some kind of closure on.  She didn't ask herself why but had got into the habit of looking now and again.  The latest update was that a number of lines of enquiry were still being pursued but the evidence gathered so far pointed to this being related to local turf wars concerning drug dealing, money laundering and related criminal activities.  Witnesses and statements were therefore proving elusive from such a hidden world.  This was not entirely giving her peace of mind in some way but she reminded herself that Al had known nothing about the supposed cannabis farm and anyway the land had been sold on some time before, he had told her.  Besides, minor drug dealing was rife, everyone knew that.  Look at The Gardens in town, she told herself, weed was practically sold openly by street pedlars and smoked without caution all round there.  Anyway, the case for legalising drugs was often being made and a topic of argument between her dad and Ed.  She decided she wasn't going to think about it any more.  Her new life was due to start in the morning and she wanted to find herself entirely happy in it.

In the dark long before dawn, she again stole down and out of the house, with her suitcase and two carrier bags containing trainers, boots and shoes, her hair dryer and sundries.  There was no alarm to turn off as her parents never bothered setting it unless they were away on holdiay.  She closed the door quietly and went quickly down the path so the security light would go on and off again as fast as possible without, hopefully, alerting anyone.  She went out of the gate and looked back once but no lights had gone on in the house.  She was free to go.  Al was round the corner as planned.  Dee got in the car with her things immediately and they drove quietly off, unchallenged.  She gazed at him wide eyed.

"It's all right, Dee," said Al comfortingly. "It's all right.  I promise," and now, she realised, she would have to take him at his word, for in her mind, there was no going back.

Chapter 7 - New Year

Her parents, as Dee had predicted, did not realise until the day wore on, that anything might be wrong, assuming she was about her own teenage affairs in town or with friends, as they were used to thinking she was.  Around teatime they began to ask one another if she had mentioned anything about staying out later to either of them and realising that she hadn't, began to check phones.  At that point, her mother found the text from her sent around midday.  Initially puzzled by the content, they didn't take in the import at once.

" Hi, Mum and Dad,  am with my boyfriend.  Please don't worry.  I'm fine and will be in touch."

They hadn't known of a boyfriend but again, Debbie was more independent now at sixteen and probably kept it to herself because it was new, not serious, or she had wanted to be out with him for the day without being questioned, they reasoned.  Being in the profession they were, they were conscious that youth needed to begin to  spread its wings.  Besides, they were both so busy with in school and out of school activities, their political interests and three children of different ages at different stages, that they were not, they agreed, always the best of listeners, dashing about as they did with half an ear to offspring at times.  They reassured one another and were rational in response, texting her back to let them know what was happening later on.  They debated offering to pick her up if needed but left that aside as sounding babying.  It was only in the later hours of the night that they really began to worry, but after discussion, agreed to wait for any pick me up I've been at a party/concert messages.  There was no response to their gentle getting on for midnight text to say please let us know when you'll be home and this time did offer a taxi service if required.  They debated again, then went to bed, hoping that she wasn't staying out all night with some boy they didn't know, being reckless.  By the morning, when she had not returned, there was no message back and their texts showed as 'failed' and therefore undelivered, her parents decided reluctantly that this might be serious.  A check of her room revealed, not an absolute clear out by any means, but certainly an amount of missing clothes that suggested a flit rather than an accidental overnighter somewhere. 

They rang Ed, who knew of no-one apart from Nick that she had shown an interest in and he confirmed later that having spoken to him, Nick hadn't seen her since the night they had all gone to the circus together.   Debbie's mother rang a few of the old schoolfriends' families that she still had numbers of from much younger going round to people's houses for tea sessions, but time had moved on and they weren't particularly Debbie's friends now at school apart from the one she used to talk to about Nick back in the Spring and she knew of nobody else, for as time had gone on, Debbie as Dee had kept Al secret.  The girls she went shopping with who had seen Al coming to pick her up were part of later groups of friends.  Initially, her parents had no way of knowing of that, and even when they did, having later spoken to the school and asked for girls to come forward if they knew anything, Al had never engaged with them back then and they were vague, just saying that she had some boyfriend who would pick her up in a car from shopping trips and so on, but she'd stopped going around with them pretty much ages ago anyway. 

The police advised that, as Debbie was sixteen and had left by choice having texted from her own number and taken belongings with her, she could not be classed as a missing person and so they did not take away and search her computer.   A community liaison officer was sympathetic but advised that their daughter would no doubt be in touch in a short time and  they would be best to wait and try not to worry themselves to death. 

"Probably be back once the novelty wears off or she has a fall out with him.  You know what these girls are like."

It was a first taste for them of their daughter being classed as one of those marginal girls, as likely to fall off the rails as not, since she had run off with someone, and it sounded a troubling note to these teacher parents.  Besides, their lack of knowledge, as it emerged that she had clearly been leading a different kind of life when out of the house from the one they had presumed she was, seemed to reflect on them poorly in the eyes of the police they spoke to, rather than being evidence of them demonstrating trust in a young person trying to grow up. 

Ed put posts up on line for her to get in touch and they tried to conjecture how Debbie, a sensibly sensitive sort of girl, a bit rebellious for a while at fourteen or so but nothing they couldn't handle, had met this elusive boyfriend.  They checked her computer themselves but found nothing they could access that seemed to give any clues.  The only photograph they found, in a drawer, was a little photobooth snapshot of a young teenage couple messing about, but the girl wasn't Debbie, so they assumed this must be just friends from school and left it there.  The only person who seemed to know anything at all was Sophie, who said that she had seen her sister getting out of a car round the corner sometimes, being dropped off, when she was playing out on her bike herself round the nearby streets. 

"I told you, Dad," she said, "when we were on holiday, that she had a boyfriend," but their father, guiltily, had no recollection of the conversation.  When questioned about what he looked like or how old he was, all Sophie could offer was that he was grown up and had nice dark hair, no, young grown up, not like Mum and Dad, which they tried to feel was at least some comfort, anguished as they were, that she had not been ambushed by some predatory much older man.  They drove round looking without any idea of where to search, put up posters themselves of her in willing shop windows, asking their missing daughter to get in touch and Ed sent her increasingly furious and upset messages on her on line pages, but there was no sign that she had been back to look at them again since the night she left.  Her phone was not active and the last trace was in the town centre when she had texted.  The police saw no need for concern as to her safety, though, since she had not been abducted.  She just doesn't want to be found yet, they said.  Wants to be lost in love's young dream no doubt.  She'll learn, was the implication. 

Dee found the change of environment and circumstances so complete, that it was as if she had entered another world which she inhabited quite separately from her family one, as if a different person, Debbie, were still living in that other as usual and not missing from it at all.  It felt both super real and unreal simultaneously and as if she were in a guilt free zone in consequence.  She soon discovered that being with Al meant just that.  They were together constantly, which in a blissful honeymoon period of playing house and home while learning to be lovers, added to the sense of living in a bubble off grid.  She had no keys at first and agreed that, although this was an entirely different area from her family home, it was safer not to wander about alone.  Al had taken the phone and dismantled it and was to get her another, but he hadn't got around to it yet.  Besides, he grinned, "who would you ring but me, and I'm here aren't I," he said, when she reminded him, reaching for her with effective distraction techniques.

She loved being with him, spending hours in bed, or veering from extravagant ordering of takeaways delivered to being frugal and eating bread and soup together.  Al was still working for his brother on other properties and he took her with him, to help paint or paper, or watch and admire his own work on fixtures and fittings, she sorting and handing the relevant tools and parts to him.  There were no other workmen present and Al was always keen to tell her how good he was at whatever it was he was doing at the time.

"Look at that!" he would say, with a proud sweep of the hand, half joking only, "What a professional.  I'd make a great plumber/gas fitter/electrician/plasterer/decorator " (depending on which activity was on the go).  "I've got bigger things in mind though.  It's just for now, remember,"  and Dee would be flatteringly impressed.

"Have to earn our keep, don't we", he would say as they stood together warming up in the shower after a day working in unheated dwellings.  She wasn't introduced to the brother, who would arrive outside in a flashy car and dash in to check on proceedings, then spend ages bargaining on his phone with building suppliers at high speed outside.  He looked a little like Al but was rounder faced, heavier featured, bigger built altogether and clearly a number of years older.  While not being the person she had seen that time in Al's car, there was a clear family resemblance.  Rashid then, was related, surely. The older brother showed no interest in the girl hovering in the background when he came round, other than a brief nod, all business and push.  Al was greeted with:

"Hey little brother, let's check it out, where are we at?" before the inspection of progress commenced. 

They would speak privately outside but not in front of Dee, very much man's talk, she intuited.  She felt a little intimidated by him and Al clearly deferred.  She asked him back at their flat whether Hamid, as she had heard Al adressing him,  knew about her being there with him and Al said:

"Don't worry about that.  He's taking care of baby brother."

"You're the baby?  How many of you are there?"

Al smiled at her curiosity in the amused way he assumed at such moments.  He still didn't offer a lot of personal detail about his background.  Dee was never sure if he  kept it quiet to seem mysterious,  because he wanted her focus to be on him all the time and he didn't want to remind her of her own family, or because she was being kept well apart from all that side of his life.  This time, he chose to give a little to her.

" Three brothers, two sisters.  Sisters and two brothers are married with family, one still running free like me."

"What's his family like then, Hamid I mean?"

"The usual.  A wife and kids!" he teased.

She tutted and swatted at him and they indulged in a cuddly playfight on the couch for a minute.

"Ok, I give in," he laughed.  "His wife's a solicitor, does conveyancing.  Handy in the property line.  You met her."

"That woman at that house!" Dee said.  "She was scary."

"Too right she is, when she gets going.  I got a proper bollocking over you turning up there, just when I was having to get them to sort me out as well."

"What did happen, Al?"  Dee persued.  "Why were you in trouble?"

"Stood on a few toes, love.  That's business. "  He stood up and moved away, shutting her down, going into the kitchen to put the kettle on, and was unreceptive, his back to her, when she went to put her arms round him, still at the constant touching stage.  "What?" he said, in the sulky tone she had come to recognise if she pressed him or he felt put on the spot by her in any way.

"I'm not being nosy, Al, about things that aren't my business.  I'm just interested because I love you."

"Oh, yes, you are" he said, relenting slightly and saying casually, "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. "

" That's not an answer."

"It's all you're getting.  Now don't be a bore about my family.  You sound like a nagging wife.  I don't want one of them!"  Hurt, she went to sit down and wait for her cup her tea.  "Aww," he said at her expression, kissing her lightly.  "Here, have this and a biccy.  Then we're going out.  Have a drive like old times, eh?"

She smiled and nodded, reassured that he wasn't annoyed with her.  He had the BMW all the time again at the moment, but she had come to suspect that it was a bit of a car pool of his brother's that he was allowed to access and that he probably didn't own it at all, but was wise enough not to bring this up.  It was by now a February day and warm with a first taste of Spring in the air, so he had the hood down and they drove out into the countryside first, enjoying the sun on their faces.  They drove out to a beauty spot to walk around the little village shops and then out to where the views were across from a high escarpment looking over a plain of fields freshly green.  The breeze blew across them, bringing wet grass and leaf smells from the land.  Al put his arm round her.

"What colour did you last paint that house with?" he asked, smiling.

"I don't know.  Blue wasn't it?  Why?"

"Check your hair out," he teased her.  "Tie it back next time.  Mind you, I like it, sky blue pink with yellow dots on."

This phrase was one her mother used to use when she was little and picking things to wear.

" What shall you be in today?  Matching, or sky blue pink with yellow dots on?"

Her face fell a little with the memory, a cloud on the sky of her mind.

"What is it?" he asked, still looking at her.

"Mum and Dad," she said, filling up.

"Oh, now, " he said, comforting her with a hug. "It's all right.  It's bound to be like this for you sometimes.  You'll miss them but you're with me now and that's what you wanted.  Isn't it?"  She sniffed and nodded.  "Listen," he suggested.  " We'll call into an internet cafe and you can message them from your page, tell them you're all right.  I'm sorry that old laptop gave out before you came.  I'll sort something out." 

She nodded thank you and they drove back into town, where they went into a place where she could log in.  The laptop had broken, he had told her, when she had asked about it once.

"Piece of old crap from one of my sister's kids.  Probably full of pop or something. Just won't turn on," he said and she had left it at that, not ready to worry about anything but themselves at the time.

She saw all Ed's messages when she logged on and some from her mother and father, but they were not particularly social media savvy and wrote as if it were a letter.  They couched their messages lovingly and with anxious need to be reassured that she was well and safe and that they could hope she would come home soon.  Ed's were more critical and accusing of selfish stupidity, then veering into "just get in touch you soft thing, if only to say you're ok, we're all worried sick" and other things along those lines.  Al read them too before he told her what he thought she ought to say. 

"They want to know who I am, of course.  Any parent would.  But it's best they don't.  They'll only want you back and I don't want to lose you now I've got you. "

"We will visit though, one day?  Won't we?"

"One day.  Not yet, though.  Let them get used to it first, that you'll get in touch on your terms from time to time to say you're safe."

Having burnt her boats already in her own mind, she saw no reason to demur at this.  There was no mention of the credit card, she was relieved to see.  Dee typed at Al's instruction that she was well, safe and happy with her boyfriend and that they had their own place.  She hoped they were well too and would be in touch again soon.  He allowed her to add that she was sorry for all the upset she had caused them by not telling them she was leaving, but that it was the only way she could be sure of being happy in her future.  It didn't sound much like her to put things that way, but she sent it anyway and logged off before she could get any response.  It salved her conscience a bit to do it. 

"Now," said Al, as if something had been well sorted out for her.  "That's all done.  I'm starving, let's get something to eat.  Bit of a treat.  We'll eat out in town, get that lump out of your throat, eh? "  She smiled and responded to his hug happily enough, cheering up like a child reassured that they were not out of favour after all.  "What do you fancy?  There's a buffet place, we can have indian, chinese or thai food there. "  She nodded.  "Mix and match," he said.  "Like us.  Only, there's no pies, I'm afraid." 

"You cheeky... !!"  she retaliated, laughing back and balance was restored for the present.

Chapter 8 - Spring Time 

Life together was established in their limbo.  Al got her a phone that she could download music on, with headphones and had it set up for incoming calls only because, he said vaguely, you never knew with tracking these days and how much people would be trying to find you.  

"It's only if I need to call you if I'm out, let you know when I'm back and stuff," he said, showing her the way to use it.

"What if I need to call you? " she asked.

"I'll put pay as you go on or something later.  We're always together anyway," he returned, smiling.  " It's just in case. See, I know how to treat you.  I've found a good girl now, " he said. "You know what being with me is all about."

She nodded but felt there was a subtext to his words she didn't quite understand completely.  She already knew that he liked her compliance with how he wanted her to be, not challenging the status quo.  She had a gentle temperament and  Al didn't need to use anything but displeasure to make her back down.  She had learned over the couple of months that once some further level of trust was gained by her against whatever his unexpressed standards of requirement were, she would be rewarded, such as with the phone.  He would refer to having been let down before but say that Dee was different and this would be wrapped up in their dynamic together, so that she felt the need to please him to continue being special.  They were physically very sensual and involved, so it seemed to Dee that this insecurity, as she read it, was him showing how much he loved and needed her.      

The weather began to turn more steadily into Spring and Al began to pop out occasionally on short "errands" at night, at first maybe for only half an hour or so, gradually for longer.

"Got to start getting a bit of extra in now, Dee, we'll be moving on from here soon, he wants to get on with  renting."

She knew better than to ask what these errands might involve, knowing full well from last year.  In a way, she liked having a little time to herself for once, watching what soaps she wanted on TV, drawing in her sketchbook, reading books she got from the charity shop (Al wasn't a reader and liked her attention when he was there), playing girly music.  They were still working in the day on properties, but sometimes now he'd leave her for an hour or so to get on, while he "whizzed out for a mo" as he put it and she would get on with painting a wall on her own.  If it was a nice day, he would sometimes take her with him for the drive but he said, when she asked him why he didn't always take her with him like last year, 

"Well, you don't need to be stuck driving on business stuff now, Dee. That was our snatched moments.  We're together properly.  We get the quality time outside of all that.  Besides.  I like to keep you safe, you know that."

She didn't argue and it wasn't until she found herself locked out when she'd gone on her own to the  semicircle of cheap shops serving the estate they were on for some bread and milk (a thing she only did occasionally and when Al was in the flat, since they supermarket shopped together) that he got around to getting a key of her own for her.  She hadn't felt kept particularly safe, she had pointed out, sitting on the doorstep of the empty block in the dark, not knowing he'd gone out or how long he would be. She dramatised a little, saying she'd have nowhere to go but back home if he left her out in the rain again.  She'd been tearful by the time he arrived back and perhaps the reality that the immaturity that tied her to him might push her to go home again in a panic, prompted in part the release of the key and a granting of independence in their relationship to a small extent.  He had been very contrite and comforting on his return.  

The evenings were beginning to lengthen slightly and there came one Saturday when Al had gone out mid afternoon and no text had pipped that he'd be back in five (his usual missive, though Al's five minutes were a bit of a moveable feast she had learned) that she decided to take herself out for a walk in the sunshine.  If he texted, she wouldn't be far away. It was already in her head that she shouldn't be, a mixture of thinking he wouldn't like it (or as she put it to herself, would worry) if she wasn't at home as expected and wanting to avoid his disapproval, influencing her.  

She put her headphones in and strolled off the estate along one of the main roads leading into and out of town.  There were some leafier streets and a little park to walk through not so far away and she had some idea of trying to go for a jog as a starter to getting fit for summer, something she and Al had discussed trying together.  She could make him laugh, she thought, with how she'd struggled round the park.  She enjoyed herself just going about on her own and it was a guilty surprise how much of a relief it felt. The park had other runners doing the circuit at leisure, and there was a kind of fellow feeling as they smiled in passing, encouraging one another along.  She sat down to cool off on a bench, taking her trainers off her hot feet for a few minutes before going back.  The warm air carried flowers and sunshine in it's fragrance and she shut her eyes to feel it, thinking wistfully of the once despised back garden at home and a sharp picture of playing there with Sophie had to be blotted out along with a threat of tears.  Not now, she told herself, you're happy today.  

It was a thought which told her that, in reality, she was not always happy today, too much had changed completely in her life at once for that to be the case.  She gave herself a mental shake.  Your choice, she reminded herself and thought of being in Al's arms to get herself in hand.  She put back on her trainers and enjoyed being in the park a little longer, relaxing in the day, watching people and children playing, then set off to go home to the flat and tell Al he'd better pull his socks up if he wanted to go training with her, she'd already got a head start.  She imagined him teasing and tickling her, challenging her no doubt to a race, because he always had to win.  

She was smiling as she walked back along the road, listening to a bouncy, reggae style pop song where the young female singer was jauntily announcing that she had had enough, "Ciao, adios, I'm done," when Al drove past her and next to him, she was startled to see, was Gemma.  They were engaged in arguing passionately and didn't see her.  He had to stop at lights and she could see them clearly, involved in the kind of blazing row only years of intimacy could generate, she accusingly angry in a way Dee would never presume with him and he just as heated.  

The top of the car was down and she had turned her music off at the sight of them but the lyrics of the catchy song resonated strikingly.  The exploited lover seeing yet another taking her place, and wasn't it just like that for them, facile link though it might be? Gemma had been first, but who had been in between her and Dee?  And, he had never let go of that had he, with Gemma, in some way?  Nor had Gemma relinquished Al, despite her alleged view of him. So who now, in the words of the song, was the one at home while Al was free to go out and about, waiting for his call? Dee was.  Except she wasn't.  

She had stopped short, close enough to observe and hear without passing alongside and being seen before the lights changed.  The vehement arguing broke off suddenly as they looked at one another in the car and Dee was almost unsurprised to see them fall headlong into kissing deeply, as established lovers do, in the moments before the traffic lights went from red to green.  She felt like the intruder on their privacy rather than an accidental witness to a kind of infidelity on Al's part, even if Gemma was part of his life long before she was.  She felt once more a child in an adults' world.  She had reckoned without the driving mirror though, where, when Al looked in it before pulling away as the lights changed, he saw her.  

"What the fuck?" she saw him exclaim, looking furious, before he beeped and gestured to her to come to the car, pulling over to the side once through the lights.

This gave her a minute's recovery time and she turned her music back on, having already set off at a jog when their eyes met, as if she had only just arrived.  She went over to the car breezily and as if out of breath.

"I've been for a run in the park!" she said, pulling out her headphones. "Hi, Gemma."

Al regarded her stonily and Gemma not at all.

"Get in," he said.  "I didn't know you were planning to do that."  She did so, saying,

"I wasn't but it was a nice afternoon and I thought I'd see how I was at running.  You wanted us to start doing it, Al."

"Yeah," he said flatly.  "Together."

He seemed to assess what she might have seen and when she said only,

"It's nice in that park, we could go after tea sometimes now it's lighter," he said, more indulgently,

"O.K.  We'll see. Get out then and go on back.  I'm just going to drop Gemma off in town.  I won't be long."

She got out obediently, still trying to seem jauntily unaffected by anything because, she realised, she was afraid to expose what she'd seen in any way.  She had had to get in the back and just before she got out, it was Gemma who locked eyes in the car mirror briefly. It was a complex look, which swam with jealousy, dominance and entitlement but she said nothing still, her face as impassively sullen as always when she saw Dee.  

"Hey," said Al, calling Dee round to his driver's side for a quick parting peck on the lips.  "See you later.  Straight home now."  

He said it jokingly, but she knew how to understand it.  The kiss, she felt, hadn't really been for her benefit, but to put other people in their place.  See me, it seemed to say, I can take it or leave it, Gemma, here's the evidence.  She put the song back on to play as she walked back.  Which character in the song was she really, she thought, in this scenario? The first girl, or the second?  Don't be such a kid, she told herself.  This is real life, Dee.  Or just a part of it, life with Al being multi-layered and not a straightforward business, she perceived once again and a clear thought came to her that if this was how things were going to be, she had better learn to look after herself and wise up a little.  What to do about it, was another question. 

When Al returned, she had busied herself with the evening meal, which, as was his custom sometimes, he might take over, amused by her basic culinary efforts.  Tonight she had attempted to recreate one of the curries he had taught her the recipe for.  Al didn't particularly practice, so they didn't eat halal or asian dishes all the time, but he was perfectionist about a curry when they had them.  She had correctly predicted that this would allow a return to their easy bantering while cooking and kissing and fooling about together.  She deliberately missed out a key spice but was at the early stages of the preparation when he came in, so that he could scold her lightly "what are you doing, oh my god!" and laugh at her for forgetting, then go through the recipe again, giving her teaspoon tastes as the sauce progressed, for her appreciation and praise.   But now, she wasn't just trying to please him but to play the part as well of the naif.  It occurred to her to wonder how Al would take it when she started to grow up a bit.  She was already dissembling, wasn't she, hiding what she'd seen and the depth of her reaction to it as a betrayal of some kind which took validity from the two of them as a couple?   In bed together later she risked saying,

"I didn't know you'd seen Gemma, Al."

"I see a lot of people all the time, Dee. It's business.  You know that.  We've known each other a long time, me and Gem, we're like old soldiers still fighting the fight. You need your allies in business."

Business, she thought, that old chestnut, and the meaninglessly grandiose phrasing he used was annoying to her, too. Old soldiers. Fighting the fight.  What was that supposed to mean? For survival in that business world, she supposed he meant.  She knew now though, that Al was not the big shot he had pretended to be and the words rang hollow to her.  But again, it was Dee Al loved and lived with, wasn't it, not Gemma?  Whatever had been was not his chosen life. She's just clinging on, Dee told herself now, cuddling up to  him and putting out of mind that the vividly explosive row between them, whose cause she didn't know, and then their sexually charged kissing, had clearly been on a very mutual and solid footing. 

While Dee's castles in the air were beginning to fall under the pressure of the unseen jet streams propelling Al's world along,  her family had been galvanised into further action by the message she had responded with on line.  They spoke further to the police community liaison officer assigned to them but despite their sense of urgency,  it was rather like being dealt with by a truancy officer who handled everyone in the same way and followed her presumptions,  regardless of the fact that these were educated and experienced parent teachers she was supposed to be supporting, not dysfunctional broken families with chaotic lifestyles, or underskilled single parents of out of control teens.  A girl leaving home young, she clearly projected, was a failed child of inadequate parenting.   A rather fraught woman who was too busy thinking about her next visit and checking her messages to listen properly, she was distractedly reassuring that Dee's response meant contact was not lost, but that from the message which their daughter had sent back, she clearly still wanted to be left to live as she wished and there was no way of forcing any reunion.  Continuing her education wouldn't matter to her at this time, it never did once they'd got to this stage, the officer contributed, but it was helpful to have books involved in a child's upbringing to inspire such a connection, she added, having noted Sophie's presence in the family but not the crammed bookcases surrounding them.  It was at this point that Dee's parents, humiliated, and resenting this levelling of their values and sense of self worth, which was something of an eye opener,  decided matters should be taken into their own hands altogether.

Ludicrous as it seemed to them initially, after a considered debate with Dee's grandparents, uncles and aunts,  they decided to consult a private detective tracing agency to see if they could find her. Persuading her to return could come after that once they had discovered her real circumstances and who she was living with.  It was decided on after Dee's grandmother had said,

"Don't the Salvation Army trace people?  Well they used to, anyway."

Without wishing to go down that route, they did some on line research with Ed and filled in an application form for a tracing search with a nationally accredited organisation, which was as mundane as if checking for a reliable tradesman for building work.  They did some, at this time, rather rare laughing together about it after an initial visit by the representative who called to tell them about how this would be done and explain that the person being followed would not know, nor would anything be disclosed to them but only to themselves as the contracted clients.

In this case, it was like dealing with someone from a funeral parlour.  A decorously serious young man, who looked like a new graduate in his first proper job, visited to complete the documents with them and take full particulars, dealing with the payment arrangements with the kind of discretion kept for bereaved parties at such times. He wore a suit and tie, a conventional air and tidy hair, and addressed them with courteously discreet empathy for their situation.  His request to view their daughter's room and search it, then remove her computer to examine it properly, had a doctor's hushed bedside manner about it, which despite the circumstances, made them smile.  When they asked if he himself would be the tracing agent, as he called it, he said,

"Oh, no, not at all,  I'm front of house only," as if shocked to be associated with such status.

All their preconceptions from years of books, film noirs and detective series mavericks, were confounded.  This private detective agency, it seemed, was more respectable than the civil service, which in one sense assured them of a conscientious approach, while also being disappointingly dull and at one remove from the action.  The young man told them that he would be in touch to advise them of progress and any further enquiries he needed to make of them, once investigations had been commenced by the tracing agents, looking from one to the other of them with an assumed gravitas that sat oddly on so young a face. His questions, statements and explanations were neutrally unjudgemental and he proferred no assurances or assumptions, which they found oddly comforting.   Initial searches would be done of the computer and of any bank activities undertaken.  He did take with him the small photograph from the bedside drawer which they had dismissed, in case it could turn out to be of any relevance, he said.  He took away also Dee's schoolwork folders.  They could rest assured that every item would be returned to them, he said, as he had listed what he had taken for the records, which he showed them for confirmation on his tablet, the modern equivalent, it appeared, of the much thumbed notebook, scraps of paper, or indeed, the little grey cells.  It was, as they later remarked, when he left, having shaken their hands with his pale clean freckled one and mopped up all the details they could offer, a very proper kind of visit.  He carried the computer respectfully out before him as being a personal item and drove away in a small hatchback.  They felt, having watched him go, with suitably downcast faces themselves, in need of a drink and opened a decent bottle of red to have a glass or two before dinner, which, they told themselves, they definitely deserved and rang Ed to tell him all about it.  The agency might ring you, they told him, once they start looking into things.  

"What was he like, then, this guy from the agency?"

"Well," said his father.  "It was rather like being visited by a young conservative."

On their second glass, he and his wife giggled over the speakerphone, a little hyper with the emotions generated.

"Be on your best behaviour if he phones," advised Ed's mother.  "He's a bit of a suit."

"Wierd," said Ed.  "Are you pissed, mum?"

"Yes," she said untypically.  " Just a bit.  So what, don't begrudge me a bit of a break."

"I don't," said Ed.  "What's he called, then, this character?"

"Mr Munro," said his father.  "We're not on first name terms," and they both went off into helpless laughter again, which, Ed realised,  was just reaction setting in.

"Take care, you two," he said paternally.  "I'll talk to you tomorrow," and rang off.

Ed came up shortly to visit, with his poised, self possessedly vital girlfriend and they debated all together once more where things might have started, or gone wrong, or gone too far, and who with, for Debbie.  Ed's girlfriend, with her shiny smart dark bob, always sleek, was one of those immaculate seeming people who start and end the day calm complexioned, any white clothes unblemished.  Even after playing kick about in the garden with Ed and Sophie, her pedal pushers looked crisp against her trim caramel calves, without a single mud or grass stain.  What a contrast with Sophie, Debbie and Ed, thought their mother, looking at them all when they came in, to whom dirt or paint or any touch of the outdoors stuck instantly, as if by natural static.  Ed had privet leaves caught in his hair and Sophie was a blur of muddy t-shirt and jeans.  She had grown a bit in the weeks since January and was becoming more  girl than little girl, and suddenly had a look of Debbie in her face as they came in, animated from the game.  Dee's mother was caught out by it for a moment, then put on her game face again for them all, and herself.

Mother and father, due to their own strong bond, were coping together by keeping up as normal a family framework as possible, for themselves and their other children, for after all, they still had to go to work (a welcome distraction and they did not teach in schools related to their daughter's), and it was important to give Sophie as much stability as possible.   Ed veered between wanting to go on a vigilante hunt down for this sister stealer and telling everyone she'd made her own bed and they should let her lie in it, selfish little cow, furious at her for the distress she had inflicted on them all.   His girlfriend, Claire, naturally had a cooler head, being less involved and it was she who suggested that perhaps she and Ed could talk to some of Debbie's schoolfriends again, now that some time had passed, that they might relate to her more being nearer their age and be less wary of talking about anything that might throw some light on the subject?  This might help the tracing agency if they could find anything out, wouldn't it?  After some discussion Dee's parents agreed and discreet telephone calls were made, through which Claire learned of the satellite friends Dee had made, moving on from her old best friends, those she sometimes walked home with, the off licence shop on the way where they hung out occasionally being mentioned by one of them.   Claire and Ed walked the route and found the shop in question they thought, but it being a Saturday there were no schoolchildren there and the shopkeepers showed no recognition of Dee's photograph when they asked.

"Of course we get loads of schoolkids coming in and talking outside.  We sell pop, crisps and sweets, don't we?" shrugged the man behind the counter indifferently.  " Anyone buying cigarettes and alcohol has to show i.d.  Are you doing trading standards spot checks or summat, matey?  Anyway, you can't fool me, you're both over 18, " so they went off without any further enlightenment, unclear even if that was the place and if it was, so what, as the man had said?     

Mr Munro duly contacted Dee's parents, in his reverential way.  It might be best, he said, if he came to the house and spoke face to face to update them, as there were some possibly sensitive matters to raise.  He had already puzzled Ed (back at university now) by calling to ask if he had noticed any 'financial irregularities' as he put it.  Ed hadn't.  Mr Munro said tantalisingly that that was all for now, then and he would be speaking to Ed's parents soon. Nothing to worry about, he assured him, when questioned, but would say no more.  Seated in their living room with a cup of tea and a biscuit (which they waited for him to eat and drop crumbs from down his perfectly straight tie, but he didn't, leaving it politely in the saucer while speaking to them) he told Dee's parents that some progress had been made. Feeling, perhaps, that on this second visit, they were on a more intimate professional footing, he had introduced himself again, deferentially, but in full this time, as Andrew Munro, at the door, when they opened it and he presented them with a business card of his own, name and number on it, to add to the agency one he had left initially.

He gave them a moment to absorb this news of some progress, with that professionally unhurried attention he gave to them which seemed to calm the emotional crisis happening in their lives while they discussed it. He had a presence, definitely, despite his youth and, therefore, they assumed, his own inexperience of such troubles as yet.  Perhaps this was what enabled his measured demeanour, they thought. 

"Good, then, er, Andrew," said Dee's mother.  "What progress is that?"

From his briefcase he drew Dee's school folders and took out the credit card bills she had secreted there and forgotten about.

"These relate to your son's credit cards," he said.  "It would appear some five thousand pounds was taken from one of the accounts a few months ago,  by bank transfer but using the correct security information."

He waited again for their reaction to this.

"By whom?  Debbie?" asked her father.

"No,"  said Andrew Munro, " it was transferred into a dummy account by someone else but I'm afraid it seems that your daughter has supplied the access  to the credit card itself."

"That's a lot of money", said Dee's father, for want of anything else to respond with initially.

"It is," agreed Mr Munro calmly.  " However, some part of it, though not all, was later replaced, from a different dummy account."

"Dummy account?" enquired Dee's mother.

"It's a money laundering thing," he explained, as if of something they wouldn't understand. "I really am sorry to tell you that.  Did," he asked delicately, "did your daughter ever take or, er deal in, er ...."

"No she did not!" declared her mother roundly.

"It's not always the sort of thing parents are aware of," said Andrew Munro quietly, leaving unsaid what other things they had certainly been unaware of.

He ate his biscuit and drank some tea, giving them time to think.  

"But.... Maybe they needed it to run away and set themselves up with a place to live.  And they are putting it back!  That counts for something."

Mr Munro said nothing,  allowing them their defence of a loved daughter.

"We don't have to tell the police, do we?  I don't want that!" said Dee's father.

"No, if you consent to the use of the money by your daughter between you, we don't have to reveal anything else.  It's not tied to any definite criminal activity, you know and besides, to find her, we don't want to scare the horses too early."  

They took this in.

"So, is there anything else yet?" they asked after a short interval, where he allowed silence to settle, never pushing the next stage before they seemed ready.

"There is," he answered.  " The computer was investigated by the agency and there were a series of conversations on it between your daughter and an older seeming young man.  The nature of the relationship seems to have developed over time."

"We didn't find anything!" exclaimed her parents, looking at one another.

"No, Debbie had cleared her history, so she was clearly keeping it secret.  But the experts know how to find things."

"Well who is he?"

"There are images of him on there."

"Images?"  This conjured up seedy prospects of what they might be but he was quick to reassure them this time.

"Nothing untoward.  Just two young people talking.  He's older now, but undoubtedly, it's this young man."  

He proferred the photobooth snapshot of the two young people they hadn't recognised.

"What's his name?"

" 'Al', that's all they used in conversation."

They studied the photograph.

"We don't know more about him as yet but we will.  I can assure you that our tracing agents are very good.  There was one other thing.  There was a simple hacking virus on the computer, the kind of thing people put on so that they can access someone's computer activity.  It may be unconnected but it's possible it was one of the things this young man used to influence your daughter."

"Influence her?"

"By knowing what she was doing and where she'd been and so on, because young girls talk all the time to their friends, don't they, they speak on line as they breathe?   You see, it seems he began just turning up to take her home from places, that kind of thing, from some of the conversations they had on line afterwards and what her friends said,  and she was flattered by it, but just took it as a romantic coincidence." 

"Stalking her, you mean?  That's horrible."

" Not that so much as seeking to gain her trust.  The relationship seems quite genuine in its way."  

He gave them a small encouraging smile, observing them for a moment or two with consideration and then nodded slightly, as if judging that he had given them enough to cope with for the time being.  Having finished his tea and thanked them for it, he stood up to take his leave, again with a formal handshake to each of them.

"I'll give you back the folders, " he said.  " We don't need them now.  I will return the computer once it's definitely finished with.  You have my card, please don't hesitate to call me at any time if you have any concerns, or want to ask anything, or indeed, if any contact is made with you by your daughter."

With that, Andrew Munro took his organised leave and with him the becalmed atmosphere he had generated, which was at once hectic with their astonishment, outrage, disbelief and renewed speculations as to where Debbie was and now, what kind of company she was really keeping.  Money laundering. A dodgy sounding boyfriend in his early twenties. Questions about drugs. Stealing money from her own brother to abet this lover. But again, they came back to the fact that some of the money had been returned and that there must be intent to make the debt good.  They comforted themselves that there must be honour in that and with the fact young Mr Munro had said that the relationship between Debbie and this 'Al' was a real and established one, deduced from the conversations that the agency had uncovered.  They got through things as a couple by always seeking the positives and this situation was no exception, fools paradise though they agreed they might be creating. She's safe, they kept telling themselves.  That's the main thing.  

They felt, this time, after he left, that they had appreciated Andrew Munro's careful sensibility in handling them as people experiencing a real loss, after the way the police had dealt with their troubles, although, as they reminded one another, they were paying handsomely for this service.  They decided not to tell Ed about the credit card business, but to pick up and pay for the extra themselves as the bills came in, it not being one in active use otherwise.

"He's better off without it anyway," declared his father.  " He's got one on the go at the moment and that's enough for a student."  

Chapter Nine - Making Tracks

The block of apartments Dee and Al were in was starting to fill up with tenants, first people on the ground floor, then above and they began to encounter people coming in and out or on the stairs. They  could hear footsteps crossing over their ceilings , sometimes doors closing, water gurgling down bathroom wastepipes as others took showers.  

"It's like having people in our house," Dee said to Al.  "We've had it all to ourselves for so long."

"Feeling crowded?"  Al said, smiling.  " Well don't fret.  We're moving out.  He's got tenants lined up for this one.  We're only paying basic rate for working for him.  In fact, I'm taking you to see the next place today."

Since the day of the park encounter, as she thought of it, Al had been careful of her and spent less time out for a while, but Dee had learnt the art of evasion well in her time with him and never mentioned Gemma or asked any more questions, knowing he was waiting to see if she gave anything away that showed she knew more than she had indicated.  When she didn't, he relaxed his vigilance again.  Time would tell, she told herself, with one of her well worn comfort sayings.

"Where is it?"

"You'll see.  Nice and private like this one was."

"Oh."  For all she had just said, Dee had liked the feeling of having more people around her in a way.

"Don't say it like that.  We're moving up in the world.  Literally."

The BMW was no longer in circuit with them at present and it was a smaller smart car, suitable for nipping in and out of town with, that he was driving.  She hadn't questioned his comment that his brother was borrowing the beamer and lending him this one.  They drove to an old mill and warehouse building, one in a less desirable district than the regenerated central areas where such relics had already been turned into expensive apartment blocks, but not that far out.  It was in the process of being turned into a combination of rentable retail, office, bar and living spaces, Al said, but at the moment most of that hadn't started. They would have the top floor, in a caretaking kind of capacity, he explained. They parked in what was still the old cobbled internal courtyard and there were shuttered wooden loading bay spaces lining up the sides of the walls.  Al produced keys and they went through an archway to the interior access.

A start had been made with a glassed reception area, walls inside whitewashed, though unfurnished.   The lift had already been dealt with, giving them a smooth modern ride to the top of a six storey building above empty solid floors, just thick iron pillars and brick walls to see through a clear glass lift like those in inside shopping centres, although Al dressed them up for Dee with what would be there in terms of commercial space. It felt strange, Dee thought, like a ride in a modern time capsule through the past. When they got out at the top, he opened a properly serious security door to the loft apartment area, with heavy locks, a peephole and strong internal bolts.

Inside was an airy space with windows on all sides, a hanging false ceiling lowering the height of the old mill room on one side into a discrete area, which was loosely partitioned off by a series of sliding panel walls which could be pulled back open plan, or used to close off or divide the living spaces laid out behind.   Mimicking Japanese paper screens, they were made of light wood, with shapes of coloured glass set in at random intervals to catch the light from the windows, leading into separate areas for spacious bedroom, kitchen, dining and living rooms on one side, and down the next side of the floor, to a large and luxurious bathroom. The toilet was in another room alongside.  Next to that was a small utility room with washing machine and dryer.   These rooms were properly ceilinged and brick walled with their own doors into them. Beyond the L-shaped panel screen walls, the rest of the floor was empty, the huge floorboards, full of wood knots, sanded and polished, honeyed by sunbeams coming through the many windows.  The brick walls were thickly varnished and had a warm look. Dee looked around it astonished, her bohemian side seduced.

"How about this, then, Dee?  What a studio for you, you can really crack on with your painting and artwork now here, not just sketching, can't you?  You can have an easel, paints, plenty of space for your canvases and stuff, like a  gallery all of your own.  See the lights? Get these."

He switched on at the wall and a series of old film studio standing lights cast powerful beams across the vast space.

"Cool!" said Dee, awestruck.   

"Some music business guy had all this done up to live here but it seems he went bust, so my brother's wife got clever and got fixtures, fittings and furniture as well.  He wanted to turn the place into recording studios to encourage new talent.  Pity for him, but good for us, no?  We've got heating and everything. See those pipes round the walls and the big old radiators?  That's our own central heating system. Boiler's over here on this wall. "  

He gestured to it.  Dee looked around.  There were coloured rugs scattered through the living areas and a fouton style  bed in a bedroom section with simple, oriental furniture.  In the kitchen area, Al showed her an American repro fridge which made ice and a big  gas aga stove to cook on. There was also, though, she was glad to see, a  microwave. There were open shelves and cupboards against the back wall, and in the dining room part a black glass table with bright red moulded chairs round it.   Over this was an electric gasolier type lamp on chains which could be raised or lowered, as Al demonstrated. In the living room was an expensive looking contemporary style leather and chrome suite. A large flat screen television was attached to the wall.  There had been a smaller one on the bedroom wall.

"Now for the real surprise," said Al.  In a far corner of the room was a spiral staircase to a platform for the door which led out on to the roof.  Outside there was a three foot high wall with iron railings on top and they stepped out into a roof garden, paved patio style, with a table and chairs to sit at and a view across the city. 

"Romantic for us," Al said, taking Dee in his arms to show her.  She returned the kisses and embraces lovingly. " We can have a candle lit dinner on the roof in summer.  Proper old fashioned stuff." 

They stood together, Dee amazed by it all, then went back down inside bolting the door.

" A few bits to bring across, then we just pack up and come," said Al, bringing them down to earth.  "I'll show you what's round here now.  There's shops only a short walk off, we're not stuck in the middle of nowhere, I promise you.  You'll love it here with me. Classy enough for you? " he teased her.  

" It'll be like living in a film set," said Dee, still marvelling at it.  " Will we feel at home, do you think?"

" Of course!" declared Al.  "Because we'll be in it.  You didn't think you'd feel at home in the other one at first, did you?"

"No," agreed Dee. " But this, this is, it's so big and different, and all that empty mill down there. Might be a bit creepy for me if you're out and I'm alone?" she queried."

He laughed.

"Don't be daft, Dee.  Fort Knox, this.  Besides, you can look out of any window and see the whole city lights.  But no one can see in.  We don't need  curtains - we can dance around naked all night if we like in full view."

Dee laughed. " But, what about keys?" she persued.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sorry about that last time, I just didn't think.  You'll have your own keys.  We'll go and get some cut now.  Come on."

They looked round again, locked up carefully and descended in the lift,   He walked her across a small surviving street of neat little terraced houses on the other side of the road and down to what turned out to be one of the main roads of the city just before the fashionable arty quarter started, with its student attracting indie shops, artisan crafts and bakers and variously specialised bars.  He looked at her suddenly lit up face with pleasure and an answering smile.

"See, we can have all up ourselves brunches and lunches here, can't we?  Told you you'd love it."

"I do, Al!" she declared, again enthralled by the unexpected turns in a life lived with him.

"Stick with me, kid, and you can have it all.  Just a matter of time."

"I've already got it all," she told him, which he liked.    

They went back to get the car and true to his word, they drove to get keys cut for her before returning to the flat, which they already started speaking of as, their old flat.  This next one, he assured her, would be a bit longer term if they wanted it.  

Al was sprightly with the prospect of this move.  He went to the barber's again and returned freshly restyled with one of his trademark extravagant cuts, then, looking through mainly his own wardrobe, declared it time to step up to the mark.

"Few good shirts, a new jacket, jeans, chinos," he said, announcing that it was, "time for me to come back out of the woodwork, Dee, got to look the part.  Let's go shopping."

"What about me?" she asked.  "I'm still wearing the same things I brought."

"Of course," he agreed. "You too.  But not to worry, my lovely, you always look adorable."

"Huh, " she responded, pulling a face.  "Can't I have a haircut?" she enquired, but jokingly, knowing the answer. 

"No!  I like you having it long.  Maybe an inch off, max."

"O.k," she agreed, "But I need a trim for the ends.  There's a little place across the road in the shops here I can go to just for that."

He agreed and they called across to make an appointment for her for later before driving into town for a brief shopping spree, for Al in label only shops, for her, her preferences more casual, chain store fashions.  On their return he dressed up and preened for her a little before saying he had to go out on "a few wake up calls," to remind people he was about and had plans. 

"Always thinking, you see, Dee. There's a future to make."

It was almost the end of March, so Dee carried out her own unspoken plan, to buy and send a Mother's Day card at the small local post office, before going to get a trim at the hairdresser's.  Al continued full of vitality, organising the move, disappearing on fixing up missions which were going to be a surprise, or taking boxes of crockery, kitchenware, bedding and belongings across in shifts in the car on his way out and about, while Dee continued with the last job they were doing for a while, he said, repainting a bedsit.  The flat began to return to its echoey buzz as it emptied, becoming impersonal again as it prepared for being someone else's place, so that, when the day came only a few weeks after that first mill viewing, Dee was ready to bid it farewell without regret for their first nest together, and look forward to the next.  Al would give the keys to his brother later, he said, and they were leaving the furnishings, as the mill loft space was already equipped.  Al gave her a housewarming gift.  When they went up again to the mill, the end of the vast room was already her gallery, an easel, canvasses, sketchbooks, oil crayons, acrylic paints, brushes, art pencils, all ready for her.  It was amazing, he said, what students left behind when you went to clear places out, plus knowing how to scout around.  She was touched by it, very, and by him saying,

"I told you, Dee, when I first met you, you have talent.  Now you can use it here, no need for art school when you're a natural.  Just enjoy doing your stuff.  Decorate our walls with it all. Maybe we can sell a few."

There was even, this time, a laptop each, to play games on.  He liked doing that, he said, when he thought about it. 

" Family hand me downs again, I'm afraid," he said, "but they'll do. We've got the internet here, you know.  It's a good deal we've got, rent free, no bills, just look after it all and be here for now."  Dee had got used to having no internet and looked at him a bit doubtfully.  "Just keep off your on line presence, that's all, they're bound to be looking for you if they can, your folks."

She nodded and suddenly realised that he would be likely to know full well if she didn't, because he was bound to have made sure he could keep a check on it, another of his tests no doubt, to see if he could trust her to keep the faith without being prevented from accessing contact now.  Unless she was reading too much into it, and she felt a momentary guilt for her ungrateful thought, while resolving at the same time to be careful not to transgress if tempted.

Mr Munro reported back in to Dee's parents shortly before her mother received her card.  There were, he said, diffidently, pluses and minuses.  Enquiries had led to a suggested amount of activity centering round an off licence frequented by schoolchildren and others, which might have led by association to more information about Debbie's boyfriend and her whereabouts, but unfortunately some amateur sleuthing seemed to have warned people off and precipitated an operational move elsewhere.  Small banking activity on Debbie's card in local shops at times had suggested, though, a residential location and the agency was making discreet enquiries with photographs.  The boyfriend,  'Al', it seemed, didn't leave much of a footprint.

The size of the mill loft apartment took some adjusting to at first.  Dee and Al closed off the partition doors into the rooms to make a cosier space to be in, defined by dimensions they were used to, using the interior ceiling spotlights and lamps while the big floorlights shone through the coloured glass warmly, replacing sunlight in the evenings.  Gradually, though, getting used to the expanse of it, they left the doors pulled back, wandering in and out of the areas freely.  Dee busied herself with a series of abstracts inspired by the rug and glass colours and Al banged nails in to hang them round the floor space.  They complemented and suited the modernist feel, they felt.  Having flexed her painting muscles, Dee happily got launched with other projects.

The mill, when they moved in, had already got something installed.  Two of the big floors were filled with long polytunnels, with various irrigatory and lighting systems involved.  Dee saw them as they travelled up in the lift on arrival there.

"What's all that?" she asked.

"Market gardening indoors," said Al.  "It's the latest thing, hydroponics, hydroscopics is it?  They do it underground in London, you know.  Freshest purest produce in Covent Garden."

"Mmm," said Dee.  "What kind of produce?"

"Salad, veg, what else?" said Al innocently.  "Couple of organic types doing it.  I'll introduce you later.  Just using the space till the development gets going.  Bit of a leg up for them, new enterprise and all that."

The young organics, Nathe and Frankie, were friendly and accepting when she met them.  Frankie had  white girl dreads in fluffy ringlets and Nathe, who looked like someone who played in a band, was scruffily alternative.  They both had a laid back manner bred of happy confidence in life's good side, sociable natures and probably the joints they often had on the go.  They seemed like people who didn't attach themselves much to things and might take off around the world at a moment's notice, without a thought.  They didn't ask any awkward questions of Dee and she enjoyed being in their easy company when she saw them.

On the ground floor of the mill, behind the reception area, was a large lockable office space already prepared for action by the erstwhile music entrepreneur.  Al spent time down there meeting "business people" and it seemed to become a bit of a drop in, always a few people in and out.  The roof garden became somewhere Al brought people for private business discussions, closing the door on the room below, serious affairs conducted apart from the office.  Dee was not to interrupt, unless he asked her to make drinks and bring them up to them.  One of these visitors, on being brought into the apartment when she was painting one morning, was introduced as his cousin, Faisal.  Again there was a strong family resemblance, more so than she had seen before as this young man was more like Al himself than any of them.  He seemed kindly, but when Al took him outside on the roof garden to show it off, Dee heard him say, the door left ajar above her head,

"What's with you, Al?  When are you going to settle down, man?"

"I ain't having no Banglastani wife forced on me, if that's what you mean, " retorted Al firmly.

"Tell that to your Ma.  She's having that get together soon, you know.  You'll have to go  over."

"I know.  I'll be there," said Al drily.

"Going to bring that one?" asked Faisal, clearly referring to Dee.

"Are you for real?" demanded Al.

"Well if you won't do what they want, why not take her?"

"No chance."

"Had enough trouble before, did you?"

"Shut up, man.  She'll hear you," said Al.  "I can't spend all day discussing my love life just because you don't have one."

"Oh, yeah?" said Faisal.

There was a bit of a loaded silence.

"So," asked  Faisal.  "Is the princess going to stay in the tower or come down to join the gang?"

"Dee's mine," said Al.

"Let's hope she knows what's expected then.  You've got high standards, Al."

"I have," agreed Al.  "Being lived up to, so I'm a happy man.  Dee's sound. She won't have her head turned."

"I'd give her some space if I were you," his cousin advised.  "She's young, looks like she comes from a nice family.  Don't leave her no way back." Al said nothing but was presumably giving Faisal one of his looks, for he hastily continued,  "All right, all right.  Keep your lovely hair on.  We'd better go down again.  They should be here by now."

When they came back into the room, Dee was at the far end washing her paint brushes, so it didn't appear that she had heard anything.

The office area and rooms behind were becoming a bit edgy, a kind of social den.  It had developed, with a big sound system, snooker tables, fridges stocked up with drinks.  The place had a ramshackle underground  feel, with something of an atmosphere hanging about in it.  Some familiar faces, Al's old mates, began to appear, bringing girls with them.  Dee was not supposed to mingle, but she went in sometimes, to check that Gemma had not turned up, too.  She never saw her, though.

On a Friday evening when they had been there several weeks, they were watching the news together eating tea on their knees side by side on the couch instead of at the table.  An item came on the local news spot that followed about "The Allotment Murder", as it had been dubbed by the press.  Dee cast a surreptitious glance at Al as a police spokesman said that investigations had identified a number of possible leads which looked positive.

"People need to be advised," he said gravely, looking to camera, "that they can't get away with murder."

Al's profile remained calm but she could tell he was alert to the item and to her attention being on him about it, though he said nothing, but stopped eating without finishing what was on his plate.  Now and again during their time together, she had brought the murder up in conversation with him, wondering what was happening about it, but he never seemed interested. 

"Let's go out," Al said shortly afterwards.  "I'm bored of sitting around in here."

They went to one of the local arty bars for a couple of hours, but people watching rather than talking and when they came back, Al still seeming out of sorts, he took himself off to bed unusually early, before her, saying he was tired.  Dee finished a book, cleared up plates and cups and then went to bed too, watching him sleep for a while.  Normally a person who went straight into a deep, untroubled sleep, Al's face was not peaceful and he was restless.  Her eyes on him roused him by some sort of instinct, and he looked back at her unreadably.

"What?" he asked flatly.

"Nothing," she answered. "I was just watching you sleep."

"You woke me up."

"Sorry."

"Doesn't matter," he said, rolling on to his back and looking up at the ceiling.  She went to caress him, and although he let her, he was unresponsive.

"Dee," he said after a moment or two.  "Do me a favour, will you, and forget about all that allotment murder stuff?  You're doing my head in!  What kind of person do you think I am?"

Startled that he had brought it up so openly, she murmured a few denials about not thinking of it at all, which he didn't buy.  He moved her hands away from him.

"I'm going out," he said.  "I can't go back to sleep now."

"Al...."

"No," he said.  "You've pissed me off.  Leave me to it.  I'll be back in a bit."

So she had to let him go, reluctant and anxious, more about who he might go to than where he would go, her underlying insecurities about his alliance with Gemma coming back to the fore again.  The two things that she remained forever unsure about, the murder, and Gemma, kept intruding on her conscious wishes to be happy with Al and content in their world.  He didn't return until about four in the morning but she pretended, miserably, to be asleep when he finally rejoined her in bed.  They slept late in the morning, and with the screen doors open, sun from the big windows splashed across their naked bodies, which were touching again, having drawn together naturally in their sleep, Al's arm across her, her legs twined with his.  She woke first and was comforted by the fact.  She kissed him to wake him and they made love as uninhibitedly as usual, the rift glossed over, because she had to feel she had made him hers again and she handed back his supremacy over her in the way that she always did.

Dee, though,  was beginning to make other alliances, befriending Nathe and Frankie in a loosely casual companionship, spending time with them when Al was out and about, tending the plants suspended in nutrient rich waters, or helping to pack little crates of salad and vegetables, which one or other of the couple delivered by bike and trailer door to door, to their growing internet ordering customer base in the trendy apartment areas and wider suburbs of boho aspiration.  She would make tea or coffee for the one left behind and they'd sit in the penthouse flat or on the roof garden chatting for a while.  They admired her paintings and made suggestions about putting them on line, or getting one of the local cafe bars to put them on their walls for a free display to the public, priced up for sale. Al made no objection to this when she told him, and went out with her himself to push the idea because, he said, he was the only one with any real promotional nouse.

"You can't ask them," he said.  "They're always too stoned on the home grown."

For amid the legitimate produce, there was a considerable cash crop of cannabis hidden among the foliage, which Nathe and Frankie dipped into for buds and Dee knew full well Al was organising dealing, along with whatever else was being sold via those passing through his "office" on the ground floor.  The cafe bar which agreed, charmed by Al, to hang Dee's paintings , busy day and night, with a stage where bands played, was hiring and Dee got some waitressing hours several lunchtimes a week, Al reluctantly persuaded into agreement that she needed something to do now he was so busy himself, and to earn some cash of her own.  Dee privately thought he agreed in part because he wanted to diminish her growing bond with Nathe and Frankie, ever watchful of her "being his", as he said.

He came in with her at first, sitting in the cafe while she found her feet, to make sure that she was "all right" and that nobody "took the piss", as he put it, but gradually left her to it, happy that she wasn't at risk of being chatted up behind her deli counter by the mainly gay male clientele, or being exploited by the hipster management in her duties.

The place had an intelligently relaxed vibe and Dee enjoyed it, being among people and feeling stronger for having a role of her own away from Al, though on his instruction she wasn't using her real name and age there.  The afternoon hours drifted into additional evening ones at times when they were short staffed.  She learnt how to make loopily named cocktails for happy hour and keep an eye on students sinking cheap shots to advise against serving them any more booze.  Al was liable to drop in if she was on at night and would appear, looking like someone to be wary of, if there was any drunken flirting attempted.  It was a busy and popular venue, with many groups of people drifting in and out, particularly in the evenings and she didn't take any particular note of them.  She failed to notice, therefore, one Saturday night, a table where a customer paid sudden attention to the young waitress serving Sangria nearby but the barman taking the table's orders did not.

"Don't even go there," the bearded and sleeve tattooed young man warned.  "You'd have serious boyfriend trouble.  Look.  Right on cue.  Here comes Mr Possessive."

Al had just walked in and went to stand at the bar.  Dee's shift was finishing and he had come to take her home as usual.  He met the eyes of the customer looking at them briefly, but Nick (for it was he who had come in with friends, by chance), looked quickly away and turned aside back to the waiter so that Dee, who had gone in the back for her coat and bag, wouldn't see him on her way through again and she didn't.  Al, however, was used to picking up signals and always alert to his surroundings, so he hurried Dee out and into the car, observing as they went out the reflection, mirrored in the night dark window in front of them, of the young man whose gaze he had caught at the bar, now looking after them, not with absent curiosity but focussed interest.  Dee seemed genuinely unaware of him but Al's suspicions were aroused.

"When's your next shift in there," he asked, when they were back at the mill.

"Next week, Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtimes," she replied.  "Why?"

"You'll have to sack it off," said Al.  "I don't want you to go any more."

He was watching her, a bit oddly, she thought.

"Whyever not?" she asked, surprised.

"I think someone who knows you just saw you in there."

"What?  Are you sure?  Who?"

Al knew Dee well enough to see that she had no idea what he was talking about and his thoughts of a rival receded.

"How should I know who, but yes, I'm sure."

She looked at him, deciding not to ask him to describe them as there was a veiled hostility in him towards whoever it was, somehow.

"They recognised me?"

"Looked like it."

She nodded, feeling privately resentful of losing the position, but rattled by the idea that they might be discovered. 

"What about my paintings?"

"We'll have to leave them for now, best to stay away, both of us.  Have they got any contact details for you?"

"No, it was just cash in hand per shift.  I made all the arrangements when I was there if they wanted me in. "

"Mobile?"

"No.  I said if anyone was interested in my paintings to get their name and number and I'd call them.  Nobody did yet, though," she added.

"O.K.  Well, it's been good experience for you but they might have guessed any time you were underage for serving alcohol." He grinned suddenly.  "You're coming on with me, aren't you?  I'll have you all trained up one day."

"What in?" she asked wrily.

"Having some streetsmarts for starters.  Only a bit mind.  I don't want you getting carried away," and with that he relaxed with her, letting her playfight him and holding her off, one of their silly sessions ending in cuddles and kisses.

Nick had phoned Ed immediately in Bath, telling him he was pretty sure he had seen his sister working and where.  Ed phoned his parents, who contacted Mr Munro.  Leave it to the agency now, was his advice, it was very important to handle the situation delicately.  Unlike last time, was the implication.  Hard as it was, they agreed. 

He called round a day or two later to give them a further update.  The agency had been asking around in the shops which Debbie's card had been used in, he said, but it was a fairly transient population of residents in that estate neighbourhood, they had found, whether being asylum seekers, those coming in from abroad or other areas, in between address people with a bit of sofa surfing going on, or tenants subletting and so on.  In short, not a place where people were forthcoming about others, whether known of or not.  There was a hairdresser's though, which had seemed to recognise Debbie's photograph as she had recently gone in there for a cut, luckily the kind of place where they had to look at faces and chat to customers by nature of the job.  The bubbly hairdressers, it had turned out, he explained, were the kind who had an all day banter of their own going on and although engaged with the customers, hadn't remembered anything in particular about Debbie, a quiet sort of girl who hadn't said a lot in return but seemed happy enough and hadn't confided any troubles, as some did, the one who had cut her hair said.  It struck Dee's mother that this seemed rather more a first hand account of asking for information than one giving a report of it and she paid closer attention to Andrew Munro when he moved on to talking about the cafe bar being the next port of call. 

He had already been to speak to Nick, to get his impressions and thoughts, he told them next and Nick too had said Debbie didn't seem to look under any particular pressure but had seemed happy enough, saying goodnight to everyone she worked with and "see you soon" on the way out, but had certainly been escorted very firmly off the premises by the boyfriend.  Nick hadn't been sure whether or not Al had cottoned on to him having spotted Debbie, but he did say that he looked like someone very much on the qui vive and that the barman had warned him off (assuming he was looking at Debbie because he fancied her rather than because he knew her) because the boyfriend was possessive of her and kept a careful eye on her at work, which Andrew Munro said, trying to be comforting again, if you looked at it one way, meant she was being looked after, after Al's fashion, whatever that was, at least.

"Now the plan is," he said, " for a little low key surveillance in there, where Nick saw Debbie."

The search for where Debbie and Al were living on the estate would continue, of course, alongside. Dee's mother looked at him, dressed for the office as usual.

"And do you think you'll fit in somewhere like that for being low key?" she asked.

"Ah, " he said.  "I know what you mean.  I don't always dress like this you know.  This is for the agency's clients."

"There is an agency, isn't there?"  continued Dee's mother.  "Not just you?"

"Oh, yes," he assured her.  "Most definitely.  But I do have my uses for blending into a youth scene."

He said it with so old fashioned an air that they couldn't help smiling at one another, unconvinced.

"No, really," he continued, looking a little injured.  "I'm very professional, you know."

That part they didn't doubt and so they had to take him at his word and be assured by him that, as always, he would be in regular touch.  Dee's father looked after him as he walked away from the front door with his initialled briefcase in hand, wondering if even a pair of jeans would soften that stockbroker image he had, and thinking, as he said to Dee's mother, not.  After Andrew Munro had left, she went upstairs and stood for a moment in Dee's bedroom, as she did sometimes, to have a moment thinking of her in her own particular place and bring her back a little.  There was an Easter egg on the dressing table, for they hadn't been able to bear not getting her one.  Sophie, though an inveterate eater up of any left over confections, had respected it so far.  Sophie was dealing with her sister's vanishing by not speaking of her at all, but when she played, Dee was often an imaginary friend, being scolded in some game being privately conducted on her own, which both parents felt meant that she was finding her own coping mechanisms, as they were trying to do. 

"We'll find you, my love," Dee's mother said, closing the door behind her on the empty room and going back downstairs to her husband. 

Chapter 10 - Down Time

Al had now told Dee about the family visit he had to make which she had heard him talking to his cousin about.  "Pre-wedding bollocks", he had referred to it as, but if he were not to offend the older brother they were depending on, he had to go, he said.  It was coming up next week.

"Who's wedding is it?" Dee had asked.

" One of my nieces.  Oldest sister's kid," he answered, brevity as far as his family was concerned, being, as usual, his way.  "I'm sorry.  I wish I didn't have to go."

She knew better than to ask about going with him after the conversation she had overheard and he seemed to assume she would understand that she wouldn't be anyway.  He would be away for several nights, unavoidably.  Al made a to do over his packing.  A meticulous ironer, he was as dedicated to his clothes' appearance as to his hair looking right, city dandy that he was.   Dee was dismissed from helping.

"You iron creases in, not out," he said, waving her off, but with a disarming smile.  "Artists -  hopeless."

"Oi," she objected.

Finally, he was satisfied with his selection, but Dee thought the amount of fussing done showed the amount of stress he felt about going.  Business would be neglected without him, he said, aggrieved, and he definitely didn't want to leave Dee on her own.  He locked up the office and left her the keys, the gates to the mill, usually left open, to be kept shut too, except for hers, or Nathe and Frankie's comings and goings.

"I don't want any shit going down while I'm not here to stop anyone taking advantage of this place," he instructed the three of them together.  "Don't let any of those other wankers in while I'm away, right?  There's a few thinking they've got feet under my table I need to deal with anyway.  Can't have anyone thinking they've got the run of it here."  Al was in one of his riding high phases, clearly feeling in charge.  "And look after this one, for me, will you?  She's not used to me leaving her on her own."

Frankie put a companionable arm around Dee's shoulders.

"We will," she said with her friendly smile.

So, reluctantly, Al, together with the rest of his family members living in this city, set of for another.  He would ring and text when he could, he assured her.

"Stay strong for me, Dee," he said, meaning, don't give in and make contact with home, she knew.

The first night alone after he had left and Nathe and Frankie had gone home to their own place, felt very strange after her constant intimacy with Al.  She felt very conscious behind the locked gates and flat doors, of the empty mill floors below her and found herself looking out of the big windows at other people's lights across the city, so as not to feel so cut off.  She occupied herself easily enough with a painting she was doing, and music for noise to have around, but she had mixed feelings.  She was to be Al's and never see her family or even speak to them, but what about him?  He saw his all right didn't he?  It hadn't surprised her that when he went, the laptops went too, needed back by the relatives he'd borrowed them from, apparently.  He wasn't taking any chances, was he, she thought?  She had said no more to him on the subject of the cafe bar, because she had rebellious thoughts about going back.  Her paintings, the work that Al purported to care about, were to be abandoned there were they?  She resented that, and if it came to it, his high handed demand that she just leave and "sack it off" because he had come up with some reason, whatever its validity, to prevent her from being there.

She had by now missed a week of shifts but tomorrow was again a Tuesday, one of the lunchtime sessions days and so she decided to go in and just not tell him when he rang.  When she arrived, she was greeted by the staff like a missed friend.

"Hey there, Liz," (as she was known there) the barman who had spoken to Nick greeted her.  "Where's the gluepot?"

"He's away visiting," she smiled back.  "I'm sorry I couldn't come in last week.  Actually, he doesn't really want me to work here any more."

"Why not?" 

Dee shrugged and said it was hard to explain really, then enjoyed their sympathy about an overprotective boyfriend under slightly false pretences, since they knew nothing of her running away circumstances, nor her real age.

"You should do a bit more of what you want, love," one of the other waitresses said.

"I wouldn't mind doing a bit of what he wanted," said another with a cheeky dimple grin. "Plenty of sex appeal and charisma that one."

Dee blushed slightly, liking it that Al was being admired by someone and feeling a bit wrong for letting him look the bad guy,

"I know," she said.  "I'm very lucky, really.  Hands off, lady," she added jokily and they all laughed, relaxed together.

"On for a shift today?" asked one of the hipster guys managing the place.  "We've got one not turned in and it's busy."

"Sure," said Dee, having had a quick check around to make sure she didn't know any customer faces, which she didn't.  "Do you need me on the deli sandwich counter ?"

He nodded and she was soon enjoying being back to competently putting the daily 'specials' together, picking out trendy pickled kimchi morsels with a flourish of tweezers to tuck into wraps and slicing gherkins paper thin for the 'New Yorker'.  She kept customer contact to a friendly minimum, training in caution by Al being ingrained by now, which added to her usefulness as a member of staff, promoting high turn over and efficient put through of service.  The place was busy with its usual fashionable customers and a series of mainly young men's faces appeared and disappeared before her.  She helped clear up a couple of hours later and ready the tables again for afternoon and evening settings and was just about to leave, cash given in hand from the till when Ricki, the manager paying her said,

"Oh, hang on, Liz.  Someone asked about one of your paintings the other day."  He began to rummage through scraps of paper on the spike behind the counter they stuck memos or notes on.

"Which one?" Dee asked, delighted.

"That eyewatering sunset job over there," he said, pointing to it.

"It's called 'Day Glo' " said Dee, with dignity.

He grinned satirically.

"Ah, got it.  Here it is."

Ricki passed her over the memo scrap with a name, Fliss, and a mobile number on it.  Dee's paintings were signed with initials so stylized they were more symbol than letter, (Al again, saying incognito was important in a public setting if they were going to put her things out there), so no one in the cafe bar had noticed any difference, if they had looked at it, from the painted name to the one she gave them.  She left after agreeing to do the lunchtime shift again tomorrow and went back to the mill eager to phone this interested person. (Al had finally got pay as you go put on to her mobile before he went away so she could call him if she needed him).  A hectoring sounding woman responded and it turned out that she wanted this painting and to commission three others like it in different vibrant colour sets.

"I'm doing a feature wall in my apartment," she told Dee.  "It's all white and I want your fluorescent pictures for a bit of an Andy Warhol imitation.  You know what I mean?"

"Oh, yes," said Dee, who didn't, exactly, but never mind.

"I'll give you £20 a piece for them.  Nice bright abstract thingies like that other one."

"Fine," said Dee, who had no idea how to bargain, though she had put a price of £50 on each picture hung in the cafe.  "Er, what colours?"

"Any you like, you're the decorator.  Just different ones, bright blues, purples, greens, I don't know."

The decorator?  It wasn't quite like finding yourself discovered as a burgeoning talent, but it was, as Frankie said when Dee darted downstairs to tell her, finding her amid the tender long stemmed broccoli, a start and one they should celebrate. 

"You'll already be earning more than Van Gogh did in his entire life," she told Dee, while showing her via the google setting on her phone the pictures Fliss had referred to. 

"Oh, those!" said Dee.  "Yeah, I get it, I think.  What should I tell Al?" 

"Don't tell him anything if you don't want to," said Frankie, who didn't know either about the real situation but had been told about the cafe bar issue in veiled terms so that Dee could get her on side about it and not alert Al.  "Just do your paintings.  I'll deliver and collect for you if need be and you can't go in."

"Oh, thank you, Frankie," Dee said gratefully.  If she were to start doing things behind Al's back, the less people who knew about it the better, but, she decided, she was going to.  It would be a small way of standing on her own two feet, as the waitressing had felt.  She didn't confide any of this to Frankie, though, not thinking that, with her and Nathe's carefree ways, they would have sympathy with anyone allowing themselves to feel compromised by a relationship, not to mention the intrusive shadows of a past one being cast over it .  Move on, she thought they would say, I would.  No, Frankie's unjudgemental offer of help was just to let Dee do her own thing and avoid Al making a fuss about nothing while trying to look out for her, as she had been given to understand he could do by Dee. 

Dee smiled at Frankie happily while they planned to mark the occasion.  It was a sunny day, so they decided to do a courtyard barbeque and headed off to get a disposable kit, breads, meat and some suitable bottles.  Veg and salad was catered for as they could pick things from the stock. Frankie called Nathe, who was always pleased to party and he brought a guitar and set of drums in the trailor, which they set up in the back room downstairs, Nathe on guitar and Frankie on drums it seemed and, some drinks in after the food, they persuaded Dee to sing along too, making a loud, gleefully chaotic musical mess together.  They had been careful to lock the gates up to avoid any unwelcome guests and they knew, from experience, that the mill contained the sound system's reverberations and there would be little to pick up on outside to suggest the building had anything going on in it at all, something which, for obvious reasons, was avoided.  After that and  other music they played through the loud speakers, they went up to the apartment roof garden to cool off and get further stoned, where they became gigglingly fascinated by the stars, picking out constellations and naming new ones after the shapes of things they claimed to see - grinning rat, for example - which at the time seemed hilarious.

"Oh my god!" exclaimed Dee.  "If Al could see me now, he'd go mad, wouldn't he?"

"Why?" asked Nathe guilelessly.  "He drinks doesn't he?  And he smokes plenty of spliffs down there himself, don't you worry!"

"I bet," said Dee, "but he doesn't let me."

"Well," said Nathe comfortably.  " No harm done.  You know what they say...." and they all chorused cheerfully,

"While the cat's away, the mice will play!"

She persuaded them to stay, it being so late, and they made no objection to crashing out in the "quite amazing", as they called it, loft apartment, where there was, after all, plenty of space.  Dee liked having them there for company overnight and waking up with them, hungover as they all were.  She had a momentary panic after they had gone to take their instruments home, leaving Frankie there to recover while Nathe went on a delivery, that she might have told them far too much about her and Al and also, she feared, about the allotment murder and how it played on her mind, but it was an unclear memory and she just hoped she hadn't.  She cleared up the remains of the little party, sounding, by the time Al phoned just before lunchtime, relatively normal, explaining, truthfully, that she was on her  own right then but that Nathe and Frankie would be back tomorrow.  She was going to settle down to some painting she said, because she had some ideas for some.  It was almost, by mentioning it, even out of context, testing her own mettle but Al was only vaguely interested at present in her artistic endeavours, saying just, "good", more concerned with telling her that he couldn't wait to get back as he couldn't stand it much longer.

"Fucking families," he complained.  "Fucking hundreds of the bastards I have to talk to.  Fucking weddings."

"Well, fuckety fuck," said Dee.

"Sorry for swearing so much.  They're a bad influence on my manners becasue they PISS ME OFF !" he declared, then laughed.  "I hope you're missing me."

"Not with that foul mouth on you," she teased him.

"I have a beautiful mouth," he said.  "You love it."

"I do," she agreed.  "Very kissable."

"Don't work me up," he said.  "I've got aunties to deal with again in a minute.  I'm sick of bloody driving people everywhere!"

"Aww, poor Al," said Dee.

"Too right, poor Al," he agreed.  "Got to shoot.  Be good."

She hadn't been, nor was she going to be now, she thought, feeling rather pleased about it as she got ready to go to the cafe bar  to do another shift and collect the painting to work from on the next ones in the series, but he wouldn't know about it, Nathe and Frankie wouldn't say anything, and so that was fine, she decided.

In the interim, Andrew Munro and the agency had continued their searches.  The agency which Andrew had attested to was in fact his partner, Nolan, an I.T. specialist who didn't object to being mainly home or office based, leaving Andrew to be the one out in the field, although he would join him when needed.  Following another unsuccessful stakeout at the cafe bar (which was called Dream) Andrew was driving rather aimlessly round the estate they still believed Debbie to be living in, pondering on where to look next, when he unexpectedly turned up a sighting of Al walking ahead of him on the other side of the street.  Andrew slowed down, looking about him as if for the correct turn in case he was noticed and followed round the next corner, where Al vanished into a pleasingly squat white apartment block.  Andrew turned off and parked on a street end two back from that, where he could watch the entrance.  After an interval Al came back out and went off round the back of the building, where he must have got into a car and driven off, because when Andrew cautiously followed, there was no one in sight.

Andrew, who was not dressed in his suit, put on a parker style jacket, picked up a clip board and went to ring the doorbell of the ground floor flat.  A plump, barefoot young man in a yellow t shirt with scattered tiny burn holes down the front answered, yawning and woken up,  but not seeming to mind, sleepily friendly.  Andrew said he had a delivery, a child's bike for "Mr and Mrs Tan", but was not sure if he had the right address.  The young man shook his head.

" No kids here," he said. "I'm a single and there's couples upstairs, I think.  Sorry, mate."

He shoed an enquiring pure white cat back in as it nosed its way out.

"Always on the look out for escape, this one.  Get in, Malarky," he said nudging it back inside with one foot, nodding another smile, and closing the door.  A tinge of incense had eddied out with it.  Andrew sniffed. White jasmine, he detected, honing his skills, and of course, skunk.  He went back to the car and sat it out a while longer.  A woman came out from somewhere inside, but it wasn't Dee. She had one of those elfin cuts so extreme they made you think she'd just decided to part with very long hair and go the whole hog. But she could carry it, Andrew thought, observing her, pixie faced and petite.  There was nothing more to be gained for now, so he drove back to the office again to report that it looked as if he had found the place Debbie was living in.  Couples upstairs, the tenant had said and Andrew had seen Al, he was certain.  He was good with faces, even at a distance.  A break through, he thought, triumphantly.

Dee took a box of Nathe and Frankie's produce with her as an introductory freebie for the cafe bar, to promote their business there and facilitate a link up for Frankie to go in there on Dee's behalf, after Al came back and it would be hard for Dee herself to do it, about the paintings for Fliss (the cafe bar being the designated delivery point for payment and collection when they were ready).  She showed the box of exotic vegetables, salad and herbs to the managers when she reported in at the deli counter.  As she expected, they were impressed by the evident freshness and standard of what she brought, telling her to say thanks for the free sample and tell the vendors to drop in and discuss possibilities.

A customer working nearby on his laptop at a table wandered up, attracted to see what it all was, asking for first dibs on a falafel and plate salad from the content.  He had many freckles which stood out against a boyishly fine skin, and pink cheeks which blushed easily, as he did when exclaiming:

" Have you got a secret garden in the middle of the city somewhere round here?  They look as if you've just picked them.  Lovely!"

"In a way," said Dee, smiling back.  "Would you like to choose?"

It was the kind of place where the clientele took their time about everything, as if there were a solemn, intellectually spiritual merit in their every decision, and the naive looking young man accepted a piece of paper and pencil for listing, when thoughtfully finessed, his selection.  He was joined at the counter while visually browsing through the box by another man, who sported twisted topped curls and enviable eyelashes framing amused, uptilted eyes, who said affectionately,

"Hello, fusspot.  What's today's clean eat, then?" 

He winked at Dee, ruffling the freckle faced man's hair.

"You'll be laughing on the other side of your face when you're dying of burger rot and I'm not," said the first man, not objecting to the disarray.  "I'm having a falafel and herb salad.  What's your poison?"

The other wrinkled his rather fine nose disdainfully.

"I don't eat the scenery," he objected.  "What am I, a man or a mouse?  I'll have steak canadienne with chips, please. Large chips." (The cafe bar had trendy and trendy retro food in its repertoire). 

"You'll get fat."

"It's not me that's in danger of that, is it?  Have you signed back up for the gym yet?" 

Both men wore wedding rings and there was a fondness behind their supposed bickering which spoke of a good relationship.  They want back to the table to wait for the food, while the taller fair man continued to tap away at his laptop in front of Dee's counter, before closing it down, saying:

"Well we've looked at it all on line now, we just have to go and choose one.  It's a couch.  Just a couch."

"If I'm sitting on it, it will not " said his husband, meaningfully, " be just a couch.  It will be a couch worth having me sitting on it."

Dee smiled to herself, reminded of Al and his half jocular vanities, peacocking around as he liked to do.  Borrowed plumes they might be wearing, residentially, but he liked to lord it as the owner to be envied when he showed off the mill and the apartment.  She plated up the salad choices and handed them to another waitress coming out from the kitchen with the hot falafel portion and steak canadienne meal, passing over their service and soon taken up with other baguette, wrap and ciabatta sandwich customers at the busy counter.  When next she looked in that direction, the couple had eaten, paid and left, no doubt in search of the perfect sofa to grace an elegant behind.  She wouldn't mind betting that they reached home empty handed, having failed to agree but enjoyed an afternoon spent sparring over the right and wrong choices.  They seemed like that kind of couple, she thought.

She was not quite correct.  They went back, not home but to the office, (which was, in fact, a small rented room over an empty shop on a once fashionable but now faded parade under a wrought iron veranda), with no couch but with a clear video film clip of Debbie behind her counter, taken by the laptop camera.  They had both been rather touched by Debbie on this first sighting, a shy eagerness to her customer service giving a clue to her actual youth.

"So how do you like being married to me?"  Andrew asked Nolan, after they had looked at the clip.

"Oh, I don't know.  It could grow on me," said Nolan, raising a groomed eyebrow.  "Mind you, you're a rubbish gay.  You blush when girls talk to you."

Andrew laughed and  took off his ring, putting it away in a box in their props desk drawer full of bits.

Nolan transferred the film on to Andrew's phone, and they considered their findings so far and what they should and should not pass on as yet to Debbie's family.  Nolan was of the view that too much too soon might precipitate them into an emotional search of their own, thinking they knew where she was and that the couple would go to ground again.  It was clear that Al knew what he was doing in that department.   Andrew was due to visit Dee's parents again the following Monday evening to report in, his weekly arrangement and had already warned them that in this kind of case, they were playing the long game.  They would discuss it again before then, the two of them agreed.

"Anyway, I can't stop," said Nolan.  "Her indoors doesn't like me being late when it's kareoke night.  You know what it's like."  Andrew did. For all that he was straight, Billy, Nolan's real husband, being on the small and bald side, had suspicions about Andrew's tall, fair attractions.  "At least I've taught you how to gel up that fin properly," said Nolan critically, picking up his coat and man bag.  "You look like the Milky Bar kid most days, when he's lost his glasses and looks more gormless than usual."

"Thanks," said Andrew, without rancour, for it was said without malice and they got on like this very well in general.

Back at the mill, Dee had told Frankie about the good reception the veggie box had received and said she had left a business card of theirs (they called themselves Carrot Top) with the managers.  Frankie was pleased and happy to follow up the potential new opening, thus ensuring Dee a continued connection with Dream in general, a place she was fond of, and specificially to deal with her painting commission and possible future interest in her others, which she could swap and change on the walls there now, keeping doors open when Al came back.  She missed Al very much and although she had, the evening after the party, feeling a bit low and lost in reaction, thought of ringing home and cast longing looks at the phone she could now use, she had in the end refrained and drawn back, for now it had been too long to know what to say, or to deal with how they might react.  So she continued to hide behind being true to her promise to Al to wait until he deemed the time was right.  Still, too, this life with Al was so different to and separate from the old, that she even now felt as if she were in some timeless loophole which didn't impinge on that imagined continuity, where Debbie went to school and came home to have tea with her family and she could, almost, daydreaming it, fancy it to be true.

After speaking to Frankie she went back up to the apartment, where after a short while, Al texted.  Faisal would be coming, could she open up the office for him about four?

"Sure" she texted back.  "No problem."

He must have found this a little abrupt, for he texted back immediately,

"What are you doing?"

"At the flat, doing a picture," she responded, truthfully, having gone back to her designs.

"Good girl.  Show me tomorrow.  Ring later, " he hastily concluded, in the midst of something, no doubt.  "He'll text you," he signed off.

She went down later after the promised text from Faisal, Al having given him her number to liaise, unlocked the gates and led him through to the office, where she handed him the keys having opened up.  Faisal went to sit down behind the desk, taking authority with the position, while she stood a moment.

"You could just go, you know," he said, out of the blue.  "Before he comes back."

"What?  No!" cried Dee.

"Oh, I know you think he'll stay with you, but he won't, you know."  She looked at him, uncertain and mutinous.  "He won't," he continued, "because you won't want to stay with him and once he senses that, it's over.  Al's an all or nothing person, my dear.  It's all about him, or it's nothing."

She frowned.  Faisal didn't know of her little recent freedoms surely, he'd been at the famous wedding occasions too, hadn't he?

"Why won't I want to stay with him?" she ventured, reluctantly.

"Because when you grow up,this won't do. " This was enough of an echo of her own submerged fears to make her pay him further attention.  " You won't be skipping through fields in five years, will you, hopping about like this, if it lasts?  Al's not about stability, he's not even about adventure.  Al's about Al and the here, the now, the next thing, the bling.  It's how he's made."

"No, he's not," declared Dee.  "I love Al."

"You don't love Al.  You don't know him. You don't even know yourself yet.  It never ceases to amaze me what idiots you kind of girls are."

"Kind of girls?"

"Haven't got the sense you were born with, if you had any then.  You were warned.  I know that."

"Gemma!" she burst out hotly.  He nodded.  "She's just jealous because she's not with him any more!"

"Is that what you think?" he asked.

"Yes!" said Dee.  "She still wants him!  I know that!" 

She spoke vehemently and without caution but it seemed to disconcert him.  He said nothing for a beat, then,

" Why do you think so?"

"Just a feeling," she backtracked. "I haven't seen her for months anyway," she added, in case he said anything to Al."

He put that one away for later consideration, it seemed, asking next,

"When are you expecting him?"

"Tomorrow," said Dee, "After the visit."

"I'm back from the visit," said Faisal.  "Think about it."

" I don't know what you mean."

"Then you're not as perceptive as you think you are, are you?"

"What are you trying to say?  That Al's back but he's somewhere else?"

"Well how do you know?" he insinuated.

"Because he tells me to trust him and I do."

Faisal smiled.

"Listen," he advised.  "Never trust anyone who tells you to trust them.  They've either got something to hide or they're just working on instinct and that only takes you so far.  Al courts trouble, you know, and sometimes he gets it."  He sighed as her expression remained defiantly expressive of her feelings.  "You're much too young for this conversation, aren't you?  You should be at school."  Dee looked down, for that much, certainly, was true.  "Go back up to the flat then," he said more kindly.  "I've got people coming in.  I'll text you to come down for the keys and lock the gates in about an hour.  All right?"

"All right," she agreed, glad to get away from the discomfiting discussion.

" Al is still at his ma's" Faisal added as she turned away.

"Then,  why....?" she asked, looking back.

"Like I said, you're too young for that conversation.  Everything's still black and white for you, isn't it?  You love Al.  Al loves you," he said, mockingly singsong childish, but not meanly so.  " I love my cousin, too," he added, in his normal tone.  "But if you find he's not so easy to be with in the end, I'll help you out.  Ok?"

She nodded but said nothing, remembering, as she went back to the flat, the rooftop conversation she had overheard.  Faisal wanted Al to go along with family traditions and Dee would never belong in those.  If it came to it, she didn't trust Faisal's motives either (although she saw far more ambiguity in Al's than Faisal thought).  He might just be trying to pry her loose from Al to bring him round to the family's wishes by getting rid of Dee.  Maybe he was the one who was instrumental in having got rid of Gemma, she wondered, before she and Al were quite ready to split, explaining the 'unfinished business' kiss she had witnessed between them.  The whole lot of them were connected up together anyway in their money making activities, so Faisal had no moral high ground to claim there in Dee's view.

She went back to her painting, wanting to get it done in a few consecutive sessions to hold the flow of her style.  She remembered how the Dutch still life painters (on whom she had done a school project) had constructed their beautiful and timeless masterpieces to demonstrate the fashionable but ephemeral wealth of their patrons via their dinner table contents and the symbolism of objects, a most venal concept at bottom.  She imagined the harsh voiced Fliss boasting to guests around the festive board,

"Those are original paintings, you know.  I commissioned the whole series from the artist."

She laughed at herself for the conceit of likening her gaudy acrylic fantasy abstracts to the meticulous images of a Dutch master.  Al's selling yourself approach must be rubbing off, she thought.  Besides, what had Fliss called her, "the decorator?"  But then again, those artists had been mere tradesment to their nouveau riche employers, hadn't they?  Lost in her activity she realised eventually that two hours had passed and she had had no text from Faisal.  She had better go down and check, she decided, given Al's paranoia about people getting in who shouldn't.  She came out of the lift to see the mill gates were still open and went along to the office. 

There was nobody in there so she went on into the back rooms, where she saw two men she didn't know playing snooker.  They stopped when she came in, regarding her with speculative interest.

"Where's Faisal?" she asked

"He's had to step out, love.  Be back soon.  Come and have a drink if you want to wait for him."

The one who hadn't spoken was looking at her the way Al's friends used to do, dismissive and appraising at the same time.  She took a step back, not liking it, but the other one had gone behind her and closed the communicating door back to the office.

"Here," he said easily, handing her a can of fruit cider from the pop up bar refrigerator that was now added to the place's growing club like aspect.  "Sit down.  What do you want him for, anyway?"

Dee made no move to take the drink, suddenly wary.  At that moment, Faisal opened the door and walked back in, seeming to take in the situation, though the tension in the air had dissipated the moment he entered, just two guys passing time playing snooker and a girl who'd clearly randomly interrupted them doing that.

"I told you I'd text you to come back for the keys," he said to Dee and then told the others, "We're done.  Come on."

They shrugged and called quits on the game, putting down their cues.

"Laters, love," they said casually to Dee on the way out.

"Don't you know better than to come down here on your own?" Faisal said to her .  "This isn't Disneyland you're living in, you know.

"I know.  I don't usually.  Al tells me not to," she replied, a bit chastened. 

"Well in this case, do as he says, " advised Faisal.  "If you're told to wait, do it."

Dee nodded, as Faisal handed her the keys and watched her lock up, then went through the gates and waited while she locked those to his satisfaction.

"Now keep them locked," he instructed, leaving.

Dee nodded again, feeling obscurely that she might have had some kind of escape, but not sure exactly what from, or even that she hadn't imagined that momentary shift in dynamic to feeling trapped and at the two men's disposal.  She went back to the flat and, Nathe and Frankie having long since left, made sure she was securely locked in there too, and then she rang Al. 

"Are you all right?" he asked, sensing something a little panicked in her tone.

"Yes, it's just.....I don't like it here all on my own at night.  When are you coming back tomorrow?"

"Why?  What's changed?" he asked.  "You were fine about it. Kept telling me not to worry," he pursued.

"I know, but... I haven't had to leave it all open before downstairs, for letting people in," she deflected, half truly.

"Faisal was there, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"Well, then.  Are you locked in now?"

"Mmm, yes."

"Look," he said, deciding suddenly.  "It's not fair on you, really, it's been too long without me."  Typical Al, she thought, but cheered.  "I'll drive back tonight instead of tomorrow.  They've had the pleasure long enough this end.  Two hours tops, I'll come through that door."

"Oh, good, Al!" she cried.  "I can't wait to see you!"

"Hey!" he admonished.  "You know I'm worth the wait.  Now just chill and I'll be there as soon as I can."

Relieved and no longer wanting to fend him off in favour of a little more independent time, Dee calmed down, made some food to slow cook for his return and went back to her canvas, which she was still busy on when he walked in.

"Oh!" he said, coming over to look at it.  "Another, er...?"

"Yes," she said, laughing up at him.  "Another 'Er'."

"I like your 'Ers'," he said.  "They're great.  Come and kiss me but don't get paint on the threads."

He didn't really mean it and their reunion was messily carefree, with Al emerging from her greeting with a fetching purple stripe on one cheekbone, transferred from hers.

(Continued in Serial Part 2)

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