The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [123]
2. Leave Pitlochry.
3. Go to Oban.
4. Find Mr. Donaldson’s sister.
It was a short list but each item was Herculean. After my various crimes—using a false name and address, sleeping in a place of worship—I did not dare go to the police again. As for the minister of the church, all I could picture was Mr. Waugh towering over me, shaking me with red-faced fury. I closed the notebook and put it carefully away in my bag. Would I never see my beloved keepsakes again?
All at once I remembered that the vestry had a back door. I jumped up and hurried back the way I had come. Rain had emptied the streets and I saw no one as I trotted up the hill and around to the rear of the church. Water spouted from a leaky gutter. Dodging the spray, I reached for the doorknob. It turned in my hand.
For a moment I simply stood there.
Inside I tiptoed over to the vestry door and peered into the church. When I was sure that nothing moved among the pews, I returned to use the W.C., suddenly a matter of urgency, and fill the kettle. I let the tea-bag steep for a little longer than usual and added an extra spoon of sugar. As I sat in my pew, sipping the hot, sweet liquid, I pictured the dry clothes I would put on: socks, jeans, my green sweater. Then I would wait for the rain to ease before I started hitchhiking. I got out my notebook and ticked off the first item on my list. And soon, I thought, item two would be accomplished: leave Pitlochry. I set the cup on the shelf beside a hymnal and reached down.
My hand met emptiness.
I went up and down every pew—even the ones at the front, even the ones on the other side of the nave where I had never sat—but my suitcase was gone. I checked the piles of hymnals, the window-sills, the font, the pulpit, the organ. Suddenly I noticed—despair had blinded me—that the floor was damp in places. Someone had come, at last, to wash it. I sank down in the nearest pew and buried my head in my hands. How stupid I had been not to take the case to the jeweller’s. And only to have Mr. White sneer at my watch. I pictured the stern policeman looking at my photographs.
Twenty minutes later I was standing beside a lay-by just south of the town, holding out my hand. I stopped counting after eighty-three cars. Some vehicles, I noticed, even sped up at the sight of me. Several came so close that I had to jump back to escape being splashed. I was of no more consequence to them, I thought, than the nearby litter bin. I wanted only to flee this awful place, and even that seemed impossible. Finally a red lorry pulled over a few yards ahead. The door opened and a man called out, “Where are you going?”
“Oban.”
“I can get you started. I’m on my way to York.”
I scrambled up into the warm fug of the cab and, exclaiming my thanks, settled into the threadbare seat. My companion smiled at me and I saw that, like Ross, he had a chipped tooth. He did not look like a kidnapper, or a rapist. We introduced ourselves; his name was Grant.
“Why are you going to Oban with no luggage?” he said. “You’re not running away, are you? I don’t want any trouble.”
“I’m eighteen,” I said. “I’m too old to run away.”
“But Oban’s not a day trip, even if you get a lift in a sports car.”
“My suitcase was stolen.”
“Stolen? Who would steal from a lassie like you? Did you tell the police? You should only take lifts from lorry drivers. That way you know who a person works for. We may not be the speediest vehicles on the road but we get there in the end.”
“Festina lente,” I murmured. “I’ll talk to the police when I get to Oban. They’re all connected nowadays.”
“More’s the pity.” He embarked on a story about how he’d been pulled over in Aberdeen for carrying too much weight and later, when he’d been stopped in Glasgow, the police had known about it. I did my best to listen but, despite my wet clothes, I had begun to feel as if my face might burst into flames. I pressed my palm to the cold window and then my cheek. Something twisted in my stomach. The lie I had told the man on the bus was coming true.
“Och aye,” said Grant. “The Glasgow police