AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Teddy, can I have a word in private,’ she said, her expression dark, and she swept past Flick as if she hadn’t even seen her on her way to the office. Teddy followed her.
‘Just shut the door, will you.’
‘Okay.’ Baffled, he asked, ‘what’s up?’
‘Has Flick said anything to you?’
‘Anything to me about what? She’s been like a bear with a soreculofor days. I had to send her home yesterday.’ His puzzlement segued into concern. ‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘It’s not Flick; it’s Sabrina.’
‘Sabrina isn’t in. Where is she?’ Teddy felt his heart give a thump of worry. ‘Mamma, what’s going on?’
Marielle let out a long breath. ‘Oh, where to start.’
‘Mamma?’
‘Just listen to me, Teddy, because this is going to come out in a jumble. My purse went missing at home. I thought it could only be Sabrina who took it but I never said a word to anyone about it. But then Cilla told Flick that I’d confided in her about it. But I didn’t; I couldn’t have. My purse wasn’t even missing when I last saw her. She came round to the house to tell me how stupid I was for having someone stay in the flat but it was only later on that day when I discovered it had gone.’
Teddy went over her words in his head, putting the info in order.
‘You’re sure you didn’t have that conversation?’
Marielle humphed. ‘I’m sixty-three, Teddy, not a hundred and three. As if I’d take Cilla into my confidence about anything, for a start. I couldn’t find my purse when Sabrina and I were going out to the theatre and that was hours after Cilla had left.’
Teddy was straight on it. ‘So how did she know then? Unless…’
‘Unless she had a crystal ball and I think we can safely discount that. There is only one way she could have known.’
He knew what she was saying but he shook his head, unable to understand the motivation behind such an action. ‘Why would Cilla take it?’
‘To frame Sabrina. So she could then say she was right and Sabrina was taking me for a ride.’
Teddy screwed up his face. ‘But that would be really twisted, Mum.’
‘I’ve gone over it and over it and I can’t think of any other explanation. And sadly it’s entirely believable.’
‘Where’s Sabrina? Have you spoken to her about any of this?’
Marielle sank to a chair.
‘Oh Teddy, it gets worse. Flick, our darling Flick, worried sick about me, told Sylvie, who whisked me out for breakfast this morning to keep me out of the way while my caring, misguided friends went over to Little Moon and threw Sabrina out. I have to find her, Teddy. I feel terrible. They told her to go to the women’s refuge in Slattercove. I’m heading over there now.’
Teddy unbuttoned his white chef’s tunic and hung it up on a peg. ‘I’ll drive you,’ he said.
Flick moved quickly away from outside the office where she’d eavesdropped on their whole conversation, into the loo next door, and sat on the seat with her head in her hands. She didn’t think she had ever felt so bad in her whole life.
Few people knew the address of the women’s refuge but Marielle did because of her hospital work. It was only because they knew she was a person of trust that the manager there gave her the carefully worded discreet information that they had taken no new woman in for days.
They walked along Slattercove front and up the small side streets looking in café windows. On a horrible rainy day like this, Sabrina might have gone in to shelter and think, if she was even here. Maybe she’d holed up in one of the many boarding houses, even though signs in nearly every window saidNo Vacanciesand the hotels would surely be too expensive.
Marielle wiped her wet cheeks with the heel of her hand. She hadn’t stopped crying since she’d got in Teddy’s car. This was finding-a-needle-in-a-haystack territory.
‘What about the hospital?’ asked Teddy. He didn’t want to think it was a possibility but at least they could rule it out before they tried any other avenues.
Marielle pulled out her phone. She had Sister Tessa’s direct number. She answered after three rings. As luck would have it, she was on duty and said she’d ring down to A&E and call straight back.
Marielle sat in a bus shelter waiting while Teddy checked out a couple of cafés to ask if a lone woman of Sabrina’s description had been in. The thought of Sabrina trailing a black bin liner around not knowing where to go made Marielle’s heart feel as heavy as a rock in her chest. Then her phone rang in her hand and she almost dropped it in her eagerness to answer it.
