Stolen Read online

  ‘Well, if you were going to do that you’d do it as soon as possible after setting off. You wouldn’t wait till you were far out to sea.’

  ‘I doubt I could swim more than eight to ten miles,’ Lotte said. ‘OK, maybe the current swept me along too, so we ought to think of harbours back along the coast from Selsey.’

  ‘Chichester harbour is the obvious place,’ David said. ‘Unfortunately that’s a vast area with thousands of boats, but maybe if you look at a map there might be a place name that jumps out at you.’

  He looked at her hard. ‘East and West Wittering, Bosham, Birdham, Itchenor. Any of them ring a bell?’

  ‘They all sound kind of familiar,’ she said, making a despairing gesture with her hands. ‘But so do New York, Sydney and Bali, and as far as I know I’ve never been to any of them.’

  ‘But they are place names in common usage. The villages around Chichester harbour are only really known by people who live in the area.’

  Lotte half smiled. ‘I’m sure it will come back to me once I’m in Simon’s place and feeling secure and relaxed. I can’t wait. I’ve got an appointment with Percival tomorrow before I leave here. I don’t like him much, so I won’t be sorry not to have to see him again. But I do hope I’ll see you!’

  David grinned and picking up her small hand, held it between his two big ones. ‘I shall be there as often as you can stand it.’

  David didn’t go straight home after saying goodbye to Lotte. Instead he went to the police station and demanded to speak to DI Bryan, determined to make him pull out all the stops on his investigations. To his surprise the detective appeared within minutes and ushered him through to an interview room.

  David decided to hold back his rant about feeling the police weren’t doing enough, at least for the time being. Instead he told Bryan what Lotte had remembered and showed him the sketch she had made.

  ‘I’ve got this gut feeling this is where she was held,’ he said, and talked the man through what Lotte had said about it. ‘I was thinking about her being fed kidneys, and thought that’s quite an odd dish for English people these days. But it’s a common German dish. I think the house is by the sea, and when I named the villages around Chichester harbour, she said she thought they sounded familiar. Don’t you think it would be a good place to start looking?’

  ‘Anything else you might like to instruct us on?’ Bryan said with heavy sarcasm.

  ‘Yes, check out the dress she was wearing when I found her,’ David suggested. ‘It was a frumpy one, and from what I’ve gathered not her usual style. You haven’t shown it to Dale or to Simon, have you?’

  ‘No, but we have checked out the dress label. It’s an American company.’

  ‘That figures,’ David said thoughtfully. ‘It looked like a dress someone from the backwoods might wear.’

  ‘Maybe it does, but she bought it in London – we checked it against clothes she bought there a couple of days after she left the cruise. She bought several items from the one shop. Unfortunately all the staff working there at the time of the purchase have now left; it’s one of those shops that has a high turnover of staff. So there was no one who would remember Lotte buying the dress and if she was with anyone else.’

  ‘Have you checked out the Americans on that cruise she worked on?’

  ‘Yes, of course, that was one of our first lines of inquiry. They flew out of Heathrow the evening of the day the ship docked at Southampton. And they didn’t return to England.’

  ‘Oh,’ said David, feeling disappointed.

  ‘We’ve checked out everyone on the cruise, including the crew,’ Bryan went on, ‘paying particular attention to those living or owning property on the south coast, and those with boats. We’ve also made extensive inquiries at boat yards, marinas, and sailing clubs all around Chichester harbour. We’ve checked out every birth in that time period, both in hospital and at home, and drawn a blank because all the babies are accounted for. We’ve had lengthy dealings with the French police too. Now, if there’s anything you think we haven’t done or tried, do tell us, because believe you me, every police officer in southern England wants to find that baby.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to suggest you weren’t doing your job,’ David said. ‘I guess Lotte’s fears about the baby are washing over on to me. And I’m scared the person who attempted to kill her before isn’t going to give up. I just hope Lotte’s friends in Brighton really have made their place secure.’

  ‘You can rest assured of that,’ Bryan said. ‘Two of the Brighton officers were there this morning to see the installation of CCTV and to check all locks on doors and windows.’

  ‘I think that’s a polite way of telling me to keep my nose out of your business,’ David responded with a grin.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Bryan replied and smiled back. ‘I can see it from your point of view. Lotte’s a very pretty girl, it’s an intriguing case, and as you found her it’s understandable that you want to be involved. But you can help best by talking to her and prompting memories. That’s the way we are going to solve this, and hopefully discover where her baby is. I just hope we aren’t too late.’

  Chapter Seven

  Simon glanced at Lotte’s set, white face and reached out across the back seat of Adam’s car to take her hand. She hadn’t said a word since they left the hospital.

  ‘We’ve prettied up your room,’ Adam said from the driver’s seat. ‘We thought the white paint was a bit harsh, so we got some wallpaper. Though I say it myself, I made a good job of hanging it.’

  ‘But I chose it and got the curtains,’ Simon said.

  ‘You don’t need to feel you are treading on eggshells with me,’ Lotte said, her voice a little dull and slow. ‘I’m fine, just quiet because I’ve been put on some pills.’

  ‘You can be as silent as you like,’ Adam said over his shoulder. ‘We’re just glad to have you home with us again. I was wondering if you’d like me to go round to your folks sometime this weekend and get the stuff you left there before you went on the cruise. You’ll need some clothes and shoes and I think you took your personal things there too.’

  Lotte felt the stiffness of her new jeans. Simon and Adam had brought them in this morning, along with a pale blue, long-sleeved tee-shirt, a bra, and a pair of sandals for her to wear to go home in. They said the girls at Kutz had clubbed together to buy them. It hadn’t even occurred to her until then that she had nothing to wear other than pyjamas. She wondered where all the clothes and possessions she must have had while working on the cruise ship had gone.

  ‘I don’t remember taking anything to their house,’ she said. ‘Why did I? Couldn’t I have left it with you?’

  ‘You never mentioned it to us,’ Simon replied. ‘We certainly didn’t tell you that you couldn’t leave anything with us, but in the light of what we know about you and your parents now, we think you used your stuff as a way of testing the water with them.’

  Lotte sniffed. ‘Then they’ll have chucked everything out by now.’

  ‘They haven’t,’ Simon said. ‘I rang them last night to say we were bringing you back today. Your dad told me they had a suitcase of yours and asked if you needed it.’

  ‘He did?’ Lotte was very surprised. ‘You’ll be telling me next they want to visit me!’

  ‘I’d say that your dad does,’ Simon said.

  ‘Mum won’t let him,’ Lotte said bluntly. ‘And anyway, I don’t really want to see them.’

  There was an awkward silence for a moment, ended by Simon asking what she fancied for her first meal. ‘What about roast chicken?’ he suggested.

  ‘Umm,’ Lotte said. ‘With those fantastic roast potatoes you used to do!’

  ‘Fresh runner beans, new carrots and my scrumptious gravy. It will be a first-night feast,’ Simon said with laughter in his voice.

  Lotte leant back and closed her eyes. It was true that the pills she’d been prescribed made her disinclined to talk. But even without them it would be hard to chat when her mind
was stuck on the baby she’d had but couldn’t remember.

  She’d liked babies right back from when she was a small child herself. She’d been the sort of kid who was always asking if she could take neighbours’ babies for a walk. As a teenager she rushed to cuddle any baby going; she used to imagine that when she got married she’d have at least four children.

  While she’d never been present at a delivery, she knew from women who had talked about it that it was an unforgettable experience. But the birth itself wasn’t everything, there was the nine months from conception to birth, the stomach growing daily, and the baby moving inside the mother. So how could something so momentous be wiped from her mind?

  Dr Percival had said amnesia could act like nature’s safety valve, holding back memory of terrible events or trauma until such time as the patient was strong enough to deal with it. That suggested that the baby’s birth and indeed the conception and pregnancy was one long nightmare for her, something she wouldn’t want to remember.

  DI Bryan seemed to have the idea she was held by a group of people, but without any evidence of this Lotte was more inclined to think it was just one man. Maybe it was someone she met and fell for on the ship? Perhaps she didn’t tell anyone about him because she knew they’d disapprove?

  It could be that they were happy together in isolation at first, but maybe he was the jealous, unbalanced kind, and when after a while she had expressed the need to see old friends, he got frightened she’d leave him and imprisoned her?

  On the other hand, her captor could’ve been a completely random psycho, perhaps a taxi driver at Southampton docks, who on the spur of the moment decided she was the girl he wanted and took her to some secret place.

  She knew from the police that no hospital anywhere in the UK had admitted any woman in labour who fitted her description. So whether the baby was conceived lovingly or by force, it didn’t bear dwelling on what it must have been like to deliver a first baby without medical assistance. Maybe her baby did die, perhaps that was the reason the father felt he had to kill her too, to cover up that he got her no medical help. She just wished she knew the truth, however awful it was. Surely nothing could be as bad as imagining a young baby dying of starvation and neglect; and those were the pictures which kept coming into her head.

  ‘I expect Dale and Scott will be over tonight to see you,’ Adam said over his shoulder, interrupting her reverie. ‘We really like them both. But have you remembered anything at all about them and the cruise?’

  ‘No, nothing,’ Lotte replied. ‘I’ve talked to them, laughed with them, but I still don’t actually remember them. Sometimes I think someone must have opened my brain and cut out a chunk.’

  ‘And what are your views on David Mitchell?’ Adam asked with a hint of laughter in his voice. ‘Aside from being your rescuer twice, and one of the nurses telling us he’s smitten with you. Will you be pleased if he turns up to see you?’

  ‘Yes, I like him,’ she admitted. ‘He said he was going to see DI Bryan and ask about the dress I was wearing when he found me. He seems to think it could be a good lead because it was old-fashioned and not a dress you’d find in any old high street.’

  ‘I’d like to have seen it,’ Simon said. ‘I could’ve told the police right off whether it was something you’d normally wear. Did Bryan tell you I thought you’d been captured by some barmy religious sect?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ she asked.

  ‘Your mate Dale told me about the cranky Americans who –’ Simon cut off abruptly before he let the cat out of the bag about her being raped while working on the cruise. This was something they had all agreed not to bring up until she remembered it herself.

  ‘Who what?’ Lotte asked.

  ‘Oh, they just got attached to you. But they were religious.’

  ‘I didn’t used to be religious, did I?’ Lotte asked. ‘I don’t even remember going to Sunday school.’

  ‘Well, you weren’t when you left us to join the cruise,’ Adam said, taking his eyes off the road to grin round at her. ‘You wanted to make loads of dosh, find a millionaire to marry and have a ball – all very ungodly!’

  ‘My money!’ Lotte exclaimed. ‘I should have asked the police about that.’

  ‘They did check it out. Haven’t they told you that? You did some shopping in Oxford Street, and got some money out of a cash point during the week you left the cruise, but since then your account hasn’t been touched,’ Simon said. ‘I seem to remember you said your wages would be paid into the bank here while you were away, and you hoped you’d make enough in tips never to draw any of it out.’

  ‘Did I do that?’ Lotte asked.

  ‘The police won’t tell us private stuff like that,’ Adam said. ‘But you can phone your bank and get your address changed to ours again. That way they’ll send you a statement.’

  Lotte began to feel much better as they drove into Brighton and she saw familiar sights again. It was an unusually hot day for so early in the year and the streets were full of people making the most of it. Simon began pointing out what he called ‘crimes against humanity’, which included bare-chested men with huge beer guts, fat women in boob tubes and shorts, and men wearing black socks with open-toed sandals. Lotte found herself laughing in a way she couldn’t have imagined back in the hospital. It was as if she was becoming a different person.

  From the moment Adam nosed his car into narrow Meeting House Lane, Lotte felt excited. She had always liked the way the flat was hidden away, even though in reality it was right in the centre of the North Lanes area with its many shops and restaurants. When she worked with Simon at Kutz it was great to get there in two minutes and to be able to pop home at lunchtime. She never understood why their landlord, who had an antiques shop beneath the flat, didn’t choose to live there, but she supposed he had some grand house somewhere else.

  ‘Who’s the gardener?’ Lotte asked as she looked up the metal spiral staircase and saw planters and tubs all along the balcony, most of them holding flowers or shrubs. The balcony had been completely bare when she’d lived here. ‘It looks fabulous!’

  ‘It’s me,’ Simon said a little sheepishly as he got out of the car and came round to open the door for her. ‘I planted a few things early last year, just to get a bit of privacy when we were sitting on the balcony sunbathing. But it became addictive, I kept going to the garden centre for more, and now I even read gardening books. I really enjoy pottering about out here in the evenings watering them and stuff. Another week and I can put in all the summer bedding plants.’

  ‘He’s made it lovely,’ Adam said, locking the car and starting on up the stairs to the front door. ‘I’m really looking forward to sitting out here with a beer on warm nights, our own little paradise.’

  Within an hour Lotte felt she was indeed in paradise. She had been very happy in the old white-painted, rather monastic spare room, but it had been transformed with pretty green and white Laura Ashley wallpaper, a white lacy blind and silky green curtains. It wasn’t only the lovely room though, it was the security of being back with the two friends she knew she could always count on.

  So many memories came flooding back as she went into the lounge and saw the big blue sofas, the vivid posters and paintings, mostly done by their artist friends, and the huge white shaggy rug on the floor. It wasn’t as minimalist as she remembered. The shelves which once held a single bust, piece of sculpture or other ornament, were now stuffed with books, CDs and a thousand and one trinkets, ornaments and bits of bric-a-brac.

  Yet all the extra stuff was a reminder of the huge circle of friends the boys had, and the raucous nights when everyone got together here. Lotte remembered many a wild night when she was too drunk to move from the sofa to her own bed, when the police called and asked them to turn the music down. She could almost hear Fallin’, that album by Alicia Keyes, playing; Simon had loved it and played it constantly for weeks.

  It was in the early evening that Lotte had a major breakthrough in mem
ory. All afternoon she had little, unimportant things from the past pop into her head – items of clothing she wore, records, and films – and Simon dated them all as belonging to the year 2000.

  The three of them were still sitting at the kitchen table, eating cheese and biscuits after their meal, when Adam mentioned the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001. Lotte didn’t know what he was talking about, but sensing from his serious tone it was a momentous, world-shattering event, she asked him to explain. Simon said he had recorded some of it on video tape and maybe watching would bring it all back.

  It was the hysteria in the voice of the television newscaster as he described the scene of first one of the towers being hit by a plane, and then the other, which opened that locked door in her mind. She could hear other hysterical voices all around her, a hubbub of noise, confusion and distress as the truth of what was happening in New York got through.

  Yet even more importantly, Lotte could see where she was at that crucial time. In a hairdressing salon on a ship!

  She recalled an American woman bursting into the salon and screaming that she couldn’t understand why the ship was still heading south, away from Miami where they’d been the previous day.

  That day had been shocking and traumatic, but Lotte was overjoyed to find herself able to relive it, for it was proof that all her other locked memories could be unlocked too.

  Detail about that period was there again in her head – she could see it, smell it, taste it. The memories might be grim, but she welcomed them.

  When Dale had talked about the salon on the ship, Lotte had imagined it rather dark and cramped, but it wasn’t; it was bright, light and airy, there was even a door open on to a balcony, and the sea beyond was turquoise and calm as a mill pond.

  There were five or six hairdressers there that morning, including herself. They’d heard about the disaster some half an hour before the American woman burst in, and although they’d all been talking about it to their clients, and some women had cancelled appointments for that day, everything was still quite calm, perhaps because they hadn’t as yet really assimilated just how bad things were.