The Father's House Read online

  “Don’t look too surly,” said Dorothy. “We want to look as respectable as possible, or the hospital might not let us in. I just hope I look old enough to have a great big boy who looks sixteen even though he’s only fourteen.”

  “Perhaps you were a child bride.” Lucy put her hand to her mouth. “Sorry!” she said. “Inappropriate joke!”

  “Now let’s recap what happens in the hospital,” said David. “We walk in as casually as possible, Dorothy and Paul in front. If anyone asks we say we’re visiting a friend. There’ll be signs to Ward 14, and the room is sure to be guarded. The police won’t want to let us in, but we say we’ve come to identify the patient. If the guard’s outside the room, I’ll be the one to create a diversion.”

  The others nodded.

  “I’ll have to think about how to do that at the time,” he said. “Once we’re in the room Lucy will do the infiltrators’ secret hand signal, and if no-one responds we’ll know they’re not infiltrators.”

  For what seemed like the hundredth time, Lucy practised the gesture that Thomas had taught her.

  “Don’t make it too obvious.” David was a perfectionist. “It’s got to be subtle or they’ll say, what’s going on?”

  She tried again.

  “Good! That’s perfect,” exclaimed Dorothy. “No-one would notice it unless they’re looking out for it, and then they’d signal back and give themselves away.”

  They set off at ten to three. As they left via the back gate, a car drove up at the front.

  “Holy Mag! Sorry. Holy Bag!” exclaimed Dorothy as they hurried along the alleyway. “Maybe we only just made it!”

  As they were passing the back of Father Copse’s house, Lucy peeped in through the back gate. There was no-one in sight. She dashed in and emptied out the black bin liner behind the bush with the yellow and green spotted leaves. The leather cushion and the cashmere shawl were still there. It was only ten days since Lucy had thrown them in there, but it seemed like a thousand years.

  “They’ll not find that for a while!” she whispered triumphantly as she joined the others. “By the time they do it’ll have all been soaked through, and it’ll smell of mould. That was my hidey-hole and no-one ever found me there – except Thomas of course. He always knew where I was.”

  The hospital foyer was small and old-fashioned, and was full of people arriving for visiting time. A map had been pinned up on a board to tell everyone where to go. The children studied it carefully. ‘You are here’, it said next to a large arrow. They were to go up the central stairs, and Ward 14 was on the first floor.

  “Come along, children,” ordered Dorothy, in her newly acquired mature voice. “Follow me please, you boys. Look sharp!”

  They trooped nervously up the stairs together with the other visitors, expecting to be shouted at any minute, and trying their best to look cool, calm and collected. At the top an arrow indicated that Ward 14 was on the left. They pushed through some double doors into a long corridor bustling with nurses, orderlies, trollies, and the patients’ friends and relations. The far end was quiet and they could see a security guard outside a closed door.

  “Don’t jump back!” hissed Dorothy, as their first instinct was to do exactly that. “We’ve got to look as though we’re meant to be here.”

  “But how will we get in?” whispered David.

  “You now have to create your diversion.” She thought for a moment. “All we have to do is get him to move away from the door long enough for us to slip into the room. Let’s think.”

  They moved slowly along the corridor looking into the various rooms as though they were searching for a particular person. Patients were sitting up or lying flat with tubes coming out of their arms and noses, while their visitors perched on the edge of the bed or on the arms of the one and only chair. Paul wrinkled his nose at the smell of disinfectant and ran his fingers along the green and cream painted walls. He would have painted prettier colours than that.

  “I’ve got it!” said Dorothy quietly. “David, when we reach the guard you must suddenly rush off down the corridor whooping, as though you’re a badly-behaved boy playing a stupid game. He’s bound to move after you to tell you to be quiet, and we’ll get into the room while his back is turned.”

  David absorbed Dorothy’s instructions.

  “OK,” he said, breathing in deeply. “I just hope he’s not one of those so-called social workers, that’s all.”

  “We’ll have to take the risk. Come on, Lucy. You go in front and open the door and jump in like greased lightning, and Paul and I will follow. David will have to get in if he can.”

  The little family continued nonchalantly down the corridor, peering into the side-rooms all the way along as they approached the guard. He was standing very upright staring at the opposite wall, deep in his own thoughts. As they reached him David let out a piercing hoot and twirled around in a circle waving his arms about, and then danced madly down the corridor. The guard shouted and leaned forward to catch him. Lucy opened the door and nipped inside, followed quickly by Dorothy and Paul.

  The tenant lay very still, a mass of tubes. A policeman sat on one side of her bed, and a policewoman on the other. Lucy gave the secret hand signal. Neither officer responded to it, but they both jumped to their feet and the woman pulled a phone out of her pocket.

  “We’ve come to identify her,” said Dorothy in her deep grown-up voice, waving her hand towards the bed. The policewoman spoke into her phone and the security guard appeared in the doorway holding David by the scruff of his neck.

  “We saw it on the news.” Dorothy’s carefully mature voice disappeared and was replaced by a young girl’s anxious treble. “Lucy here knows her.”

  The police officers were immediately interested. The woman studied Lucy in her boy’s clothes and baker boy hat. No point frightening them. Hearts and minds and all that.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name is Edna and this is Bill. Are you able to help us?”

  The children relaxed slightly, and Lucy nodded.

  “What’s your name, love?” Edna asked Dorothy.

  “I’m Dorothy and this is Paul, and that over there is David.”

  “Well, Dorothy, you sit in that visitor’s chair and Paul can sit on your lap, while Lucy tells us what she knows.”

  Edna moved round the bed and sat next to Bill, so she could study the children’s faces carefully. Bill had a notebook and pencil in his hand. He looked at Lucy.

  “Are you a boy or a girl?” he asked.

  “I’m a girl. I’m in disguise.” Lucy pulled off her baker boy cap and threw it on the window sill. Her curls sprang up around her face.

  “Name?”

  “I’m Lucy.”

  “Lucy what?”

  “I don’t like my surname, I’m just Lucy. And can you please tell that man to let David go?”

  Bill nodded at the guard and he released him. The room seemed very full.

  “David can’t identify her, so he could stay outside with the guard if you think it’s too crowded in here,” said Lucy. “He might be useful out there in case one of the nutters comes.”

  “Nutters?” Edna smiled at David. “Would you prefer to stay outside with Walter?” she asked. David nodded. Walter placed a firm hand on his shoulder and steered him out of the room.

  Edna turned to Lucy. “Now love, tell us if you can identify this lady, and how.”

  Lucy stepped up to the side of the bed and looked sadly down into the pale, beautiful face.

  “She’s the tenant,” she said. “She and Paul and I escaped from the fire.”

  Bill was scribbling down her words. Light began to dawn on the officers’ faces, and Edna spoke again into her phone.

  “I think we’ve got the missing children from Mortimor Road, a girl and a boy.”

  “What’s the patient’s name?” asked Bill.

  “I just called her the tenant. She lived on the top flat and never came down. I think she was locked in. Behind bars like a lu
natic. I never saw her properly till the fire.”

  “Do you know where the owner of the house is?”

  “Yes,” Dorothy chipped in, bitterly. “We left him tied up in the secret passage behind Drax House, and we saw on the news that the police have got him now.”

  Lucy studied the tenant’s face. It reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t think who. She wanted to stroke the shining waves of dark brown hair.

  “She looks so pretty and peaceful,” she said, “but we’ve come to rescue her. Somewhere in this hospital there are infiltrators, and they want to kill her before she wakes up. David heard them talking.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Bill. “Can you explain clearly, please.”

  Before Lucy could answer, the door opened. A male nurse appeared, his sandy hair peeping out from the edge of a round green cap, and his face smooth with compassion. The faintest possible smell of cigarettes wafted in with him. In his left hand was an enamel dish containing a syringe, partly covered by a piece of white gauze. He nodded at the police officers and signalled with his right hand as he entered, but neither of them responded.

  “I’ve been instructed to give her an injection,” he said in hushed tones, hardly glancing at the children. “I wonder if you would all mind leaving the room for a moment.”

  The officers stood up and moved towards the door gesturing to the children to follow them. Paul gave an excited squeak and darted away from Dorothy. He wrapped his arms joyfully round the nurse’s leg and smiled up at its owner. Lucy drew in a deep breath. She leaned over, and struck the enamel dish out of the nurse’s hand. The syringe went flying.

  “It’s him! Stop him,” she yelled as the nurse made for the door. She reached the doorway just after him. Walter was halfway down the corridor speaking to David who was slouching at the far end near the double doors, his hoodie pulled down over his face.

  “David! It’s Thomas! Catch him,” screamed Lucy, as Thomas sidestepped Walter and started to run towards the double doors.

  David threw back his hood and dashed forward. Thomas twisted round only to find Walter bearing down on him from the other direction. He turned again towards the doors, shoving David with his left hand. David staggered for a second then took a flying leap and wrapped his arms round Thomas’s legs, bringing him to the ground. Walter knelt astride his back and had his wrists in handcuffs in two seconds.

  “Do you play rugby?” he asked David, as he rose to his feet.

  “No.”

  “Well you ought to!”

  Lucy drew David back into the room. Her teeth were chattering. He went over towards the window and sat, white-faced and shaking, on the arm of the visitor’s chair.

  Edna was on the phone again.

  “You’re not ringing for social workers are you?” asked David standing up quickly. “Because if you are, we’ll have to go.”

  “No,” said Bill. “It’s just to get someone to take the nurse away.”

  Lucy stepped over to where the syringe lay on the floor.

  “It’s full of poison,” she said. “Full of lethal injection.” She bent to pick it up, and Bill pulled her back.

  “Don’t touch it. We’ll need it for analysis and fingerprints.”

  She went to stand by Dorothy who had completely lost her air of sophistication, and was clutching onto Paul as though his and her lives depended on it.

  “Were you actually living at number 3 Mortimor Road when the fire broke out,” Edna asked Lucy, “or were you just visiting?”

  “I was living there, in the downstairs flat, with Paul and Aunt Sarah. She died just before they set the house on fire. I think she had a heart attack because she fell down the stairs and was holding her chest.”

  Bill’s pen moved rapidly.

  “Was she your only family?”

  “She wasn’t my real aunt. Paul is my family.”

  “Who are you, Lucy?”

  “I don’t know. But I do exist,” she said.

  She rummaged in the canvas bag that still hung across her chest.

  “I’m here in the record.” She produced the plastic bag with the BWD file, and laid it on the bed.

  She opened the file and turned to the births section.

  “See? There I am. And there’s Paul. Our mother is called Maria, but we don’t know who she is or where she is. Father Drax is sure to have a file showing David and Dorothy and who their mothers are. You must look in his office, not just in Drax House, but in his private residence as well. It’s right next to Drax House. If he’s like Father Copse he’ll have kept all his records near his desk at home.”

  Outside in the corridor there was a scuffling sound. Lucy dashed to the door and peeped out. Another police officer had arrived, and Walter was handing Thomas over. Lucy felt ill just looking at him. As he was marched away he turned round. His eyes pierced right through her. Evil rays, she thought. Just like the first Holy Envoy.

  “We’ve got your photo on record,” he hissed. “We’ll get you for this!”

  Peace reigned in the hospital room for a little while. Dorothy sat in the visitor’s chair with Paul on her lap, while Lucy and David perched on the wooden arms each side of her. Edna was out in the corridor talking on her phone, and Bill sat in silence with his pencil and notepad on his lap, thinking out his next line of questioning.

  A nurse came in and the children watched suspiciously for the hand signal, but there was none. She picked up the medical record at the end of the bed.

  “According to this she last stirred half an hour ago,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Bill. “She half-opened her eyes and her lips moved, but that was it. Nothing since.”

  “Well, it’s progress.” The nurse felt the tenant’s pulse. She checked the various tubes and fiddled with some knobs.

  She turned to the children.

  “What are you doing here? She’s not supposed to have visitors.”

  “It’s alright,” said Bill. “They’re helping us.”

  “I’ll be back in half an hour,” said the nurse, and left the room.

  Lucy picked Paul up onto the side of the bed.

  “My goodness, you’re heavy!” she puffed. “Come and say hello to the tenant.”

  Paul looked down at the peaceful face.

  “Sleeping Beauty,” he said.

  Lucy smiled.

  “Perhaps if you give her a kiss she’ll wake up.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose, but nothing happened.

  “She said that perhaps she was my mummy.”

  “I expect she was lonely,” said Lucy, “living up there all on her own except for the lady with the red hair.”

  She lifted him down and they settled back on the chair with Dorothy. Bill was writing. Lucy could sense that Dorothy and David were getting anxious. Edna was still out in the corridor. Perhaps she was ringing for a social worker.

  It was time for them to be going. They had identified the tenant as best they could, and had saved her from disposal which was what they had really come for. Lucy stood up quietly and took her BWD file off the bed, wrapped it up in the plastic, and put it back into the canvas bag. As she slipped the bag across her chest she turned to face the others and tilted her head slightly towards the door. David nodded almost imperceptibly.

  At that moment Edna returned. She sat down by the bed, and Bill looked up at her enquiringly.

  “Right! That’s organised,” she said. “I’ve arranged for someone to come and take you all to a safe place, and you’ll be able to stay there until this is all sorted. You’ve been very helpful so far, but we’ll need to ask you lots more questions, and you’ll have to make formal statements.”

  The children stared at her.

  “We don’t want to be kept in a safe place,” said Dorothy, just about managing to keep the panic out of her voice. “We’ll only be safe looking after ourselves. We’ll answer questions if you tell us when to come, and where, but we won’t be taken away. We don’t trust anyone.”

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sp; David and Lucy nodded.

  “We only trust each other,” said David.

  “Well, I’m afraid you have no choice.”

  As she spoke there was a murmur from the bed. Both officers leaned over the tenant. Her lips were moving slightly and her eyelids fluttered. Edna pressed a bell and a nurse arrived almost immediately. While the three adults hovered over the bed the children quietly moved towards the open door.

  “Goodbye for now,” said David quietly to Walter, as they slipped past. “They don’t need us anymore.”

  “Goodbye then. Good rugby, that!”

  The children had almost reached the double doors when a voice shouted.

  “Come back! Stop them!”

  For a split second Dorothy and David paused. Walter came thundering towards them and grabbed them by the arm, just as Lucy and Paul pushed through the double doors.

  “Lucy, Paul! Come back!” called Edna from the doorway of the room. Bill emerged and tore down the corridor, through the doors, and onto the stairs.

  “Got you!” he said, as they wriggled under his grip.

  “It’s for your own safety,” said Edna as they were hauled back into the room.

  The nurse was still by the bed, and turned crossly to the children.

  “See what you’ve done? She needs peace and quiet, not some great hullabaloo. Now she’s gone back into her shell. You shouldn’t be here if you’re just going to make a nuisance of yourselves.”

  The children stood disconsolately over by the window as Walter remained firmly in the doorway, and the two police officers settled themselves back in their chairs. The nurse fussed about for a while checking equipment, and writing something on the record at the end of the bed. She gazed down into the tenant’s face.

  “Happy dreams,” she said. “I’m going off shift soon. See you tomorrow.”

  As she spoke the tenant’s lips began to move. The nurse turned back and all three adults leaped to attention once more. The children looked towards the door where Walter stood with his arms folded. There was no hope of escape now.

  “What is she saying?” whispered the nurse.