Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [31]
“Yesterday,” said Bertie. “I took Mummy up the street to show her that it wasn’t there. She was very cross. She said a rude word.”
“Bertie!” exclaimed Irene. “I did not say a rude word. You’re making it up.”
“But you did, Mummy,” said Bertie. “You said . . .”
“No need,” said the policeman. “None of us is perfect. Let’s proceed. I shall need to take all your details at this stage. Then we’ll enter the particulars of the car on the national stolen-cars register. And we shall make inquiries.”
“It might have been stolen before,” said Bertie suddenly. Irene spun round sharply and glared at him. Then she turned back to the policeman. “He has a very vivid imagination,” she explained. “You know how children are. They construct these vivid imaginative worlds. Melanie Klein . . .”
The policeman looked at Bertie. “You said it was already stolen?” he asked. “Who stole it? This Melanie Klein? Your Dad?”
“No,” said Bertie. “Daddy would never steal a car. He works for the Scottish Executive.”
“So,” the policeman continued. “Who stole it then?”
“Oh really!” Irene interrupted. “This is completely pointless. It was just a bit of childish fantasy. You were making things up, weren’t you, Bertie?”
Bertie shook his head. “I think it might have been that friend 64
Missing Domenica
of Mr O’Connor’s. You remember, Mummy, I told you about him. Gerry. He might have . . .”
“I think we’ve had quite enough of this,” said Irene, reaching out for Bertie’s hand. Turning to the policeman, she explained that they had to do some shopping and that if there was anything further that the police needed to know they could telephone her. Then, pushing Bertie before her, she hurried towards the exit.
“But what about that poster?” Bertie said, as they made their way out.
“Later, Bertie,” said Irene. “We’ll talk about that later.”
Outside now, and heading up the square in the direction of Valvona and Crolla, Irene pointedly refrained from meeting Bertie’s gaze. The little boy, head down, was a picture of dejection.
“I’m sorry, Mummy,” he said after a while. “Did I say something wrong?”
Irene pursed her lips. “There are times when it’s best to leave things to grown-ups, Bertie,” she said. “That was one of them.”
“But I was just telling the truth,” protested Bertie. “Do grownups not tell the truth?”
“They do,” said Irene crossly. “They certainly do. It’s just that grown-ups know how to handle the truth. You’ll learn that in due course, Bertie. You’ll learn.”
Bertie said nothing. He was thinking of the poster and the photograph on it. Who would have guessed?
21. Missing Domenica
Angus Lordie knew immediately that the letter came from Domenica. When he picked it up, there it was – a brightlycoloured Malaysian stamp portraying local flora, and beneath it the address, written out in Domenica’s characteristic script. She had learned that script at St Leonard’s School, St Andrews, all those years ago, at the feet of the redoubtable Miss Powell, a teacher who, so Domenica had once informed Angus, believed Missing Domenica
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that clarity of expression in handwriting and speech was the greatest of goods which an education could confer. “It does not matter, girls,” she had said, “if you do not have the most profound thoughts to convey – and I suspect that you don’t – as long as you convey them clearly.” Miss Powell, Domenica explained, had been a teacher of great antiquity, and had died in office, in the staff room, with much dignity. They had found her with an open exercise book on her lap with two words written, in her own handwriting, on an otherwise unsullied page – “the end”. Or so the story went – schoolgirls, put together, were notoriously prone to fancy and indeed to the exchange of wild rumour. The letter Angus now extracted from the small bundle of mail. The brown envelopes and the unsolicited advertisements which the Post Office saw fit to inflict on him, he tossed to one side; the advertisements would be recycled and would no doubt be made into fresh advertisements, endlessly