Page 33 of Good Bad Girl

“Then where is she?” the woman asks.

“Are you sure you don’t know one another?” Jude asks again.

“You’rethe one who knew who this girl was and where she lived. Until now, I’d never heard of anyone called Patience and I’m running out of it,” Clio snaps at him. Then she shouts at me, “Where is our mother?”

Jude speaks before I get the chance to answer. “I don’t think the kid knows where the old bag is, but she’s clearly been stealing cash from Mum’s account—”

“Stop calling me a thief!” I say, finally finding my voice. “Edith asked me to buy things she needed and that’s all I did.”

“Then why do you still have her bank card?” Jude asks.

Clio stares at the ladybug ring on my finger. “And where did you get that?”

She seems to visibly deflate, like someone has pulled all of the stuffing out of her, but Jude is oblivious as a stone.

“None of this is my fault,” I say. “The only reason I—”

“Don’t say another word,” the woman interrupts, with a look on her face that would silence a marching band. “I’ve heard enough lies.”

Jude nods. “For once I agree with you. Maybe the police will have more luck—”

“I’m sure there’s no need for that,” the woman interrupts.

“I’ve already called them. They’re on the way,” he says.

She looks as shocked as I feel. “I thought we agreednotto call them yet?”

“Of course I’ve called the police, I don’t know why we wouldn’t. Our elderly and vulnerable mother is missing. This person who I tried to help—by giving her a safe place to stayandby helping her to get a job—has repaid my kindness by stealing what looks like thousands of pounds from our mother and tricking her into changing her will. Turns out she might have kidnapped her too! We can’tnotcall the police. For all we know she might have killed her.”

“How can you say that?” I want to shout the words but they come out as a whisper.

“You’re clearly nothing but a liar, and a thief, and a very disturbed young woman—”

I don’t wait to hear the rest of his speech; the world is too full of men who like the sound of their own voices. I grab my bag and as much of the cash as I can, then I push past them both. I’m out of the attic door and down the first flight of stairs before anyone can stop me. I’ll change my name, start again, nobody will be able to find me. Maybe I’ll go home, back to Mum, try to fix things. I run down the next flight of stairs, then another. I turn the final cornerand just as I’m about to reach the outside door, I see two police officers at the bottom of the staircase blocking my path. A blond woman with a streak of pink hair appears behind them.

She smiles at me. “Hello, suspect number three.”

Edith

Edith walks toward the river with Dickens, knowing that Ladybug is probably watching them from the attic window. The girl has underestimated her, and Edith fears she may have overestimated the girl. When certain she must be out of sight, she doubles back on herself and heads for St. Paul’s, the church where the girl left her for a while yesterday. The place where Edith hid something she now needs to collect.

Edith is used to young people making judgments about her because of her advanced years. She thought Patience was different but Edith does understand. When she was a teenager, everyone over thirty looked the same age: old. And she iseightynow. Where did the years go? One of the benefits of getting older is that she is less concerned with what other people think of her. But she did want to be liked by Ladybug. Loved even, as foolish as that might have been. Maybe deep down we all want to be loved. Maybe we need to be.

“I fear I have been a fool,” Edith says beneath her breath as theycross the road, and Dickens barks. “Don’t pretend you weren’t hoodwinked by her too. I thought dogs were supposed to be good judges of character.” Dickens barks again. “Fine, you give her the benefit of the doubt if you want, but I used to be a detective.” The dog tilts his head to look up at her. “I know I wasn’t arealone, just a store detective, but the two occupations aren’t so different.” Dickens barks again. “What would you know? You’re a dog. Do you remember May, my friend at the care home?Sheunderstood. But then she was a detective too. She was also all I had for company for a while, and she taught me that sometimes you have to pretend to be who people think you are to survive. I was good at being a detective, the best, according to the regional manager, but the work made me sad. Catching people who didn’t deserve to be caught. Letting someone get away with doing something wrong is sometimes the right thing to do.”

It starts to rain and Edith wishes she’d thought to bring an umbrella. She opens the gate to the church garden and Dickens follows her inside.

“Maybe we should give Ladybug one last chance? What do you think? What a terrible thing it is to be so old, and so very lonely, and to only know one kind person in the world.”

Dickens barks again, as though he can read her thoughts.

“You’re quite right. I might only know one kindpersonbut I do know the best dog. Mustn’t grumble, mustn’t complain. Before a rainbow it must always rain. Come on, let’s get inside the church until this shower passes. Things are gloomy now but I’m sure they’ll brighten up.”

Dickens wags his tail and Edith is convinced he understood every word. She has been having regular conversations with her dog for as long as she can remember. All dogs talk, but only to people who know how to listen. He sits down when they reach the church doors and Edith has to tug on his lead a little.

“Come on, I know you don’t like religious buildings but there’snothing to be scared of,” she says. Dickens shakes his head as though disagreeing with her, but he’s probably just ridding the rain from his fur.

They sit in exactly the same church pew as yesterday, waiting for the person praying a few rows back to leave. Edith used to visit a church like this one every Sunday until she and God had a falling out. They haven’t been on speaking terms for several years now. Edith’s mother made her go to church every week. She hated it, then made her own children do the same, but only to get Clio into a good school. All the other schools where they lived were overfull and understaffed. So Edith made Clio and Jude dress up in their Sunday best and go to mass to try to make a good impression with the teachers and other parents at the Catholic school. To give them a better start in life than she’d had. A good education and better job prospects, so that they wouldn’t have to work so hard and miss out on so much. Not that Clio appreciated that or anything else she ever tried to do for her. It isn’t as though Edith wanted to get up early on a Sunday, having worked a six-day week. She stopped believing in God a long time ago. Faith and fear are too entwined to be seen as anything other than the same thing these days. But the feeling of sanctuary—whether real or imagined—is something she still finds so appealing. Throughout history, churches have been a safe place for people when they are afraid, or grieving, or need a place to hide. Just like Edith does now.

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