I was stuffing a piece of stale bread into my mouth when my mobile rang.
“Mmm?” I answered.
“What kind of telephone manner is that, Matt?” It was the Devil. “Eating breakfast on the hoof is bad for your digestion.”
I got the mouthful down. “What do you want?”
“A bit of politeness would be nice,” he said, his voice hardening.
“You didn’t send me any notes this morning. I thought this was my day off.”
There was a hollow laugh. “Very likely. You’re busy looking out for me.”
How did he know that? He must have some kind of bug or camera in my place.
“Aren’t you?”
“Um, yeah, I am,” I said weakly. “Well, you did tell me you’d be bringing the money.”
“Yes, I did, didn’t I? But I didn’t tell you exactly when I’d be doing that, did I? Could be today, could be tomorrow. Who knows?” His tone got sharper. “If I were you, Matt, I’d keep a closer eye on your daughter than on the street. Who knows what dangers your ex-wife might inadvertently expose her to?”
The line went dead.
A wave of panic crashed over me. I grabbed my mobile, wallet and keys, pulled on my leather jacket and ran out of the house. Getting into the Volvo, I drove at speed down to Dulwich Village. I knew Caroline’s routine. She always took Lucy to the local cafe for breakfast. Then they went for a walk in the park before Lucy’s ballet class at midday. If I was lucky, they’d still be eating. I parked round the corner and walked toward the cafe.
Before I got there, I realized two things. The first was that the Devil had very successfully got me out of the house so he could make his delivery unnoticed. The second was that I was about to be engulfed in a firestorm. Caroline was very jealous of the time she spent with Lucy. She’d made it clear on numerous occasions that my presence, even accidental, was not to be tolerated. I stopped outside the newsagent’s and decided to keep my distance. I bought a copy of one of the broadsheets that I hadn’t checked on the Internet and opened it, loitering behind a lamppost twenty meters from the cafe.
Ten minutes later, Caroline and Lucy came out. My daughter was dressed in a pink anorak and skirt with white tights, while my ex-wife was wearing the torn jeans and baggy sweater that she affected at weekends-trying to look as unlike a City highflier as she could, as I’d pointed out before the divorce at the cost of a serious ear-bashing. They set off toward College Road. I followed them at what I thought was a discreet distance, the newspaper flapping in front of me like a sail buffeted by the breeze. When they turned into the park, I gave them a minute and then went in. I watched as Lucy ran ahead. She loved the boating lake and its birds. Caroline didn’t make any effort to keep up with her. She knew that Lucy was careful. But she didn’t know about the White Devil. I felt a pang of guilt. I should have found a way to tell her. Then I remembered how dangerous the bastard was.
Caroline sat down on a bench near the water and studied her paper. I moved along the line of bushes behind her with my eyes on Lucy. She was crouching down and throwing bread to the birds. The park was quite busy with couples, children, dogs, buggies. It didn’t seem like a place where the Devil could get to Lucy.
I looked to my left and watched a skinny man in his thirties limping past. His clothes were ragged and dirty, his hair unkempt. Probably a junkie who’d spent the night in the undergrowth. Turning back, I couldn’t see Lucy. Shit. Caroline was still reading her paper on the bench. I ran behind her, resisting the urge to shout my daughter’s name. The ducks and seagulls that had gathered around the bread she’d scattered made noises of outrage and flapped their wings as I went through them. Where was she?
I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“Lucy!” I yelled. “Lucy, where are you?” I looked around frantically. Caroline had got up, alarm on her face. “Lucy, come to Daddy! Lucy!” I ran to the trees that were set back from the lake. A young couple with a Labrador were walking there. “Have you seen a little girl, pink anorak and skirt?” I demanded.
They stepped back at the fervor of my tone, and then looked at each other.
“Yes,” the woman said, raising an arm. “Over there.”
“Thanks,” I gasped.
“She was with a man, yeah?” the guy said.
“What?” I started to run in the direction the woman had indicated. “What did he look like?” I shouted over my shoulder. They both shrugged.
The last tree in the row was an ancient oak, its trunk thick and gnarled.
“Lucy!” I shouted desperately. “Lucy!”
“Matt!” Caroline screamed, about fifty yards to my rear. “Where is she?”
And then Lucy stepped out from behind the oak. I almost pissed myself as the tension left me. She was walking toward me, a baseball cap I’d never seen before on her head and a small leather bag in her right hand.
“Lucy!” So close to her, my voice was too loud. It scared her, tears springing up in her eyes. “Are you all right, darling?”
“Yes, Daddy, of course I’m all right,” she said in the painstaking tone she took when she thought she’d been unjustly accused.
“Where did you get that hat?” I asked, clutching her to me. It was red, with a cartoon character on the front. Jesus. It was the Tasmanian Devil, the cartoon one with the oversize jaws that arrived in a miniature whirlwind. The crazy bastard.
“This is for you, Daddy,” she said, wriggling out of my arms and handing me the black leather man’s handbag.
“What’s going on?” Caroline said, trying to catch her breath. “What are you doing here, Matt?”
I gave her a glare to shut her up. “Where did you get the hat and the bag, sweetie?”
“Mr. White gave them to me,” she said, no trace of fear in her voice or face.
“Mr. White?” my ex-wife said, staring at Lucy. “We don’t know any Mr. White.”
“Daddy does.” My daughter pointed to the bag. “Mr. White said I was to give Daddy the bag and I could keep the cap.”
I tried to get my pounding heart under control.
“Who is this Mr.-”
I held my hand up at Caroline. “What did Mr. White look like, Lucy?”
She laughed. “Silly daddy. Mr. White’s your friend. He said so. You must know what he looks like.”
I glanced at Caroline. Her face was suffused with crimson, a sure sign that anger was about to erupt. “Just tell me what he looked like,” I said, kneeling down in front of Lucy. “So I’m sure it’s the right person.”
My daughter gave me a curious look and then laughed again. “All right, silly daddy. Mr. White’s got long black hair.” She pouted. “And a mouse.”
“What?” Caroline and I said in unison.
“I said, he’s got a mouse.” Lucy burst out in peals of laughter. “Don’t you remember the story we used to read? About the boy who wouldn’t say ‘mustache’? So he said his daddy had a mouse under his nose.”
I stood up again, ignoring the tirade that Caroline had started. Long black hair and a mustache-it sounded like the kind of disguise you could buy in any joke shop. Still, I’d get Lucy to do a drawing of him tomorrow.
“Are you even listening to me, Matt?” my ex-wife said, pushing me in the chest. “What the hell’s going on? What’s in that bag?”
I looked down at the object in my hands. The money. It had to be the money. I couldn’t open it in front of Caroline and Lucy.
“Oh, it’s…it’s some CDs I lent the guy. I…I met him in the pub and we got talking. We both like Americana.” I felt my cheeks redden. I could tell that Caroline didn’t believe me, but she wasn’t prepared to make even more of a scene in front of Lucy.