A Hidden Girl Read online

  A HIDDEN

  GIRL

  by D.K. BOHLMAN

  A Hidden Girl Copyright © 2019 D.K.Bohlman.

  Published by Bohl Publishing.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  First edition in the United Kingdom 2019.

  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-0-9934262-3-0.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of this information contained herein.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  THE HOTEL CRISTAL

  In Memory

  Dedicated to my dad Ken Bohlman.

  Even in ill health,

  he was making his usual meticulous corrections.

  Prologue

  ____________________________

  The thin, dark-haired girl opened her eyes and the air pressed in on her straight away.

  It starts again.

  She felt like she’d slept longer than usual. There was more light in the room than she was accustomed to on waking, enough to make out the outline of her alarm clock.

  She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. A thin strip of daylight illuminated a ghostly constellation of dust motes. They danced to a rhythm of endless ennui. It was hard to get up each day when every one was more or less the same.

  Peeling herself from the sheets, she walked across the worn carpet to the opposite wall, where thick laths of wood were nailed across the window recess. Between the middle two was a crack. Not big. But enough to let a slice of light through and, more importantly, enough for her to see through.

  Her spyhole onto the outside world.

  She pressed her eye to the crack. She heard the tram before she saw it, like the rumble of thunder. A multi-coloured flick-book of tram slices sped past her eyes. She read the advert on the side “Herpesz? Afta? Carbosan”. A cream for mouth ulcers: she’d seen it before. She sighed and leant her forehead against the wood. It would be good to see a new slogan on the tram. Something interesting to think about.

  Once in a while, if there was some kind of hold-up, the tram stopped in her line of sight. She could watch people, holding the straps that hung from the ceiling of the tram. They stood talking to each other, reading newspapers or speaking into mobile phones.

  She could watch TV for an hour or so each evening. But it wasn't the same as seeing real people through the crack in the wood. Like the difference between a CD and live music. Sort of similar, but wildly not.

  She watched them, wondering where they were going, where they lived, who they went home to. Who they loved and whether they had children. When they might die … which struck her as an unusual thing for someone of her age to think.

  One day recently, she saw a young mother struggling to get her pushchair down from the tram. It was raining and the mother was trying to pull a hood up on the buggy whilst getting drenched herself. Someone stepped forward to help her and she smiled at them, thanking them for their kindness. You could make out the baby’s face, asleep with almost a grin throughout the whole episode. She’d wondered how she would feel about having her own child. About having that kindness offered to her. She’d felt a strong maternal urge at that moment, an urge smothered by her own situation.

  She’d tried yelling at them, to attract attention. But the window was glazed with triple panes. No one could hear her from up here.

  Right now though, it was the second-class performance, the tram sprinting across the crack’s field of vision, the show she got most of the time.

  However, something was different. She’d heard noises upstairs the previous evening. Banging, a faint raised voice.

  And what sounded like a scream.

  It’d been hard to hear, more like a squeak, she hardly heard anything through the walls or floor. She supposed they were soundproofed somehow. But there was definitely something, however muffled, last night. Not at all like him. And what’s more, breakfast was late. It hadn’t been delivered yet and she always heard it arriving.

  The thought of breakfast made her stomach growl. Bread, jam, eggs, and coffee every morning – the menu never changed - but somehow she always looked forward to it. Partly because she was hungry by then. Probably, she thought, because it was the signal for the interminable boredom of night time to end, for the world outside to crank itself up and for her day of spying through the crack to begin.

  She turned away from the window and switched on the small gas fire on the opposite wall. He’d had it installed a few weeks after she came here. It was the only heating she had but it was adequate. There was a faint smell of gas around the fireplace. She’d noticed it yesterday too. The fire came on fine though. She’d need to mention it to him. It would be something to do.

  NOVEMBER 2018

  Barlinnie jail, Glasgow

  ____________________________

  He stopped jogging, leant against the damp bricks of the nearest wall, gasping from his run, breath misting in the air. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his brow, cooled. He flicked it off.

  Staring out beyond the wall of the exercise area was frustrating.

  The real world was so damn close. And the one person who used to keep his spirits anywhere near alive in this place was dead now. Double whammy. It screwed him up and there was nothing he could do about it, no outlet for his smouldering fury or his need for a soulmate. Or a real lover.

  He’d been thinking a lot in the last few weeks. Thinking about what might help him. In the end, there was only one thing he’d ever been able to come up with. Revenge. But what did that actually mean, what would really make him feel better about his miserable existence?

  Recently, his thoughts had settled on a new target.

  The girl.

  The one who’d dug under Glenda Muir’s deceptions and caused the whole set of events leading up to her death. Precocious little thing. She’d been too cocky in the trial as far as he was concerned. He’d taken a dislike to her clever nice-girl-next-door image. Somehow she’d overtaken Calum Neuman on his list of people to get back at. Neuman had played his own part in one of his earlier convictions, but his little girl assistant … well, she’d been the nosey little bitch who’d actually caused Glenda’s demise. Not to mention his own incarceration. And Glenda had been the only love of his life.

  It was all about working out his first move. The question was how. How to get to her. He needed to find out a bit more about her first. Where she lived, who she loved, that kind of thing. He also needed really good prep on this and no more misses like the one with Neuman, unlucky as that was. How the hell was he to have predicted the guy’s surfboard would tip as he pulled the trigger? Anyway, this was a job for one of the old crew. He still had plenty of money. And a few favours to call in. The thing he’d needed most had been a phone, but that problem was solved. Drone drops, who’d have imagined that when he’d started his prison “career”? The biggest issue now was keeping the phone hidden.

  Alan Burton pushed himself from the wall and continued to pound around the rectangle. His renewed movement spurred him on to decide to make a call that night. To start the process. T
o get his revenge. A dish best served cold apparently. And he was bloody freezing.

  Just fucking do it.

  A funeral

  ____________________________

  Private investigator Calum Neuman stared ahead into a glade of fir trees. Thin spheres of mist clung to the trunks, a drizzle slewing across the ground.

  As the first spades of soil sprayed and clattered across his daughter’s coffin, he looked down at the burnished wooden box and dissolved into tears. Lungs tight, hard to exhale.

  Cassie, his ex-wife, was slumped against his tall frame, arms taut to her chest. Her slight figure looked down with him, raising a pale hand towards the freshly dug hole.

  ‘Bye, little one.’ The sobbing came again.

  Her grief fuelled Calum’s. He pulled her tightly into the cover of his raincoat, as the drizzle speckled their faces.

  It still made no sense to him. Sure, she’d been ill with the cystic fibrosis for a number of years now … but it’d always been pretty much under control. Until Saturday 27th October.

  He’d had a call from Cassie that evening. Ellie was bad, worse than previous episodes. The doctors were concerned.

  By the time he’d got to the hospital in Inverness, his daughter was dead. Walking into the room where she lay, peering into the eyes of those around the bed, seeing their hurt and their unspoken message for him … that was a scene driven hard into his memory, hurting forever.

  She’d been fine during the day, been to the local cinema with one of her friends, Ally. Then, after the walk home, she’d started with laboured breathing, just like when she had an occasional poorly period. An ambulance whisked her to Raigmore hospital. It didn’t take long for her to go critical. And not much longer to die.

  The doctors had seemed genuinely shocked. One of the consultant’s team, who’d seen her during a previous episode, had struggled to explain why it had happened so suddenly and so quickly.

  Calum cast a glance to his right where his old assistant Jenna stood, arms linked with Gregor, her one-time boyfriend from their home village. Tears streamed down her face. She mirrored Calum’s gaze, twisting her lips into an attempt at a comforting grimace.

  He turned his gaze back towards the coffin, feeling Cassie’s warmth seep into his side.

  So he and Cassie stood in silence, together with Jenna and Gregor, two sets of ex-lovers, reassembled by the events of ten days earlier.

  Calum half-turned into Cassie, motioning his head towards the row of cars lined up at the entrance to the cemetery. She resisted his movement, her eyes on the casket quickly disappearing under the damp earth.

  She whispered a final, throaty goodbye before giving way to Calum’s lead and walking back to the funeral car, through the group of black-clad mourners.

  Calum opened the rear door, as they moved like zombies into their seats. Peering ahead through the windscreen, all they could see was the empty space in the hearse ahead, the carpeted floor scattered with broken white carnations.

  A wake

  ____________________________

  In her house in Inverness, Cassie’s gaze drifted between the remaining faces. She couldn’t clear her eyes of their soft-focus, caused by a steady trickle of tears as she’d spoken to everyone. The worst were Ellie’s friends … young girls … all plaintive sobs and comforting huddles with each other.

  Paper cups, drained of cheap wine, had fallen flimsy onto the tired-looking sandwiches remaining on a large oval serving plate.

  People stood talking, slowly, earnestly, endlessly. It felt like a video played at half speed. They’d been here three hours, Cassie was done in now. She ran her hands through her fine blonde hair, sweeping it back from her forehead to the nape of her neck. She wanted them all to go. She needed to be alone.

  Almost.

  Calum stood talking to Cassie’s mother as the last two teenage mourners slipped out of the back door from the kitchen. Not really wanting to say goodbye, not really wanting to stay either.

  ‘I’ll clear these few things up, make us a cup of tea, eh love?’ Cassie’s mum played the role she thought was expected.

  Cassie stared at her ex-husband. She suddenly wanted to wind the clock back. Wanted to have Ellie in her arms as a baby again, Calum stooping over her, stroking her flyaway hair and cooing in that ridiculously over the top way he used to. Wishing for the past wasn’t going to help, though, was it?

  ‘You want one?’ her mum asked again.

  She did. But she also wanted her mother to leave her alone with Calum.

  Calum looked at her, seemingly interested in her reply.

  ‘No thanks, Mum. You’ve done enough today, really, thanks. You must be tired. Why don’t you go home and get some rest, I’ll be OK now.’

  Her mother looked torn between insisting she stay, wanting some company herself and giving in to the reality of a long, draining day.

  ‘But I don’t think you should be alone right now. I’m sure Calum would agree,’ she said, glancing at Calum.

  That was the opening she wanted and she took it.

  ‘No, really, it’s fine, Mum … I need to talk to Calum about a couple of things anyway, so I won’t be alone just yet. I’ll be ready for bed after that myself.’

  She felt her heart beating very quickly all of a sudden, nervous of the likely responses from both of them. What the hell was this all about?

  Calum leaned back against the kitchen doorframe, looking at his mother-in-law.

  ‘OK. I’ll be on my way then.’ She picked up her woollen coat.

  She walked over to her daughter and put one hand against her cheek, kissing her softly on the other one.

  ‘I’ll ring you later? Make sure you’re OK?’

  ‘No need, by the time you’re home, I’m sure I’ll be in bed. I’ll ring you in the morning, first thing, OK, Mum?’

  Her mother nodded, pursed her lips together into a faint smile and left, clutching a bag full of emptied Tupperware boxes she’d brought the sandwiches in.

  As the door clattered shut, Cassie decided she would move quickly, or else she might lose the courage. She looked at Calum, taking in his blue eyes, looking for some trace of how he might react.

  He smiled. Nervously, she thought. But not without some warmth. Maybe she could still read him like she used to.

  She took three quick paces forward, hooking her fingers into his belt loops. Was she really doing this?

  Peering at his chest. Waiting for a response, not wanting to look up at his face and see retreat.

  Be positive.

  She pulled on the belt loops, felt a momentary resistance then a relaxation as his hips bumped clumsily against her.

  Now there were warm hands sliding, tentatively, around her back, releasing her held breath.

  She dared to snatch a glance upwards. Saw enough to look again.

  ‘Look, I … can you stay? I don’t want to be on my own and, well, you know … it’s just that you …’

  Now her eyes were moistening and she needed him to help her with this, quickly, before she felt very stupid.

  He coughed and cleared his throat of his own insecurity.

  ‘Sure, I know … well, maybe it’s a good idea … I don't know.’

  She remembered he struggled to move his emotions into words and just went for broke.

  ‘Come on, upstairs, I want to curl up with you.’ Did she really say that?

  She pulled away from him, leaving one finger in a belt loop and guided him gently towards the staircase.

  After the wake …

  ____________________________

  Gregor and Jenna had left the wake early.

  Gregor felt he had to take this chance. There hadn’t been one for a while now. And, well, she had left the gathering with him when he’d suggested it.

  They’d walked down the street from Cassie’s house in the Drakies area, to where he’d parked his Fiat.

  ‘Shall I drop you back at your place then?’

  Jenna dropped her eyes a to
uch, pulled her lips into a faint wry smile.

  ‘Yep, thanks, that would be nice.’

  Gregor’s heart skipped a little as he squeezed the remote and popped the door locks open.

  Jenna had a shared flat in Inverness now, close to the University of the Highlands and Islands, where she’d started her degree last summer. It was only a few minutes’ drive. A few short minutes during which his mind would be buzzing feverishly, planning how to play out the scenario of her jumping out of his car. He would want her to stay in the car awhile and talk … or to follow her into the flat …

  As he pulled away from the kerbside, she peered out of the window. ‘So you’ll be needing to get back on the road to Plockton now then.’ A statement, not a question.

  ‘Err, well, not a big rush. Roads are clear right now. I checked the forecast. Why?’

  She kept her gaze out of the window. ‘Well, you know how the weather changes quickly on that road this time of year. Don’t want you to get stuck.’

  He fell silent for a moment. Not like Gregor. But he knew he had to get this right and it was stifling his normal chirpiness. And making him nervous.

  ‘Left just here. Only a minute down this road, on the left, number 173. It’s got a bright red door, you can’t miss it.’

  Gregor nodded, still trying to find the right words. The road tore past him and clawed at his mind, rendering him mute. He was running out of thinking time.

  ‘Here, just here Greg!’

  As he pulled to a slow stop, Jenna pushed the door open before he had a chance to turn the engine off. She slung one leg onto the pavement.

  ‘Nice to see you … thanks for the lift.’ Then she was out of the car, flinging a brief smile at him before heading onto the short path to her front door.

  Gregor looked swiftly over his shoulder and threw his door ajar, pulling himself up via a hand on the doorframe. He spoke to her across the car roof.