Sophia's Dilemma Page 5

Bob squeezed the tiny, sweaty hand and pried the wretched material from her grasp again, patting it and lying it flat on her knee. Then he stood up decisively and smiled confidently down at the girl before him, offering her his hand, palm up. “Let’s go and give these Rottweiler’s their statement and then we’ll get your young man out of trouble.”

  Sophia statement to the cops was very different in the presence of Robert Robertson, than it would have been an hour earlier and everyone in the room knew it. Sophia told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but there was no conjecture, no opinion, nothing which might give them a thread to pull and incriminate Dane. The usual waffly, flowery, artsy teenager was absent from the process altogether, replaced by a woman with a robotic recall of pure fact.

  “I went to the house alone. The bus ticket is still in my blazer pocket. Dane’s stepfather attacked me and Dane appeared and pulled him off. Yes, I saw him hit the man while they were on the floor but he told me to go and I ran. Dane met up with me on the road by the bus stop. He said his stepdad’s mate pulled him off and they both beat him up.”

  “How long before he caught you up?” The female officer’s voice was deceptively soft and Bob gave Sophia a small nod and she answered as rehearsed.

  “A few minutes. I ran to the end of the street and missed the bus. A lady asked me why I was crying and I called Dad and then within less than a minute after that, Dane showed up in his car.”

  “Describe the woman you spoke to.”

  “She spoke to me. I didn’t really say anything to her. She was delivering newspapers in a pram.”

  All but thirty minutes of the subsequent few hours were accounted for. That thirty minute gap was whilst Sophia and Edgar were in the café and travelled home separately after their argument. Nobody knew where Dane was then.

  “So he could have returned to the house during that period?” the woman suggested.

  “Speculation officer,” Bob interjected. “Please don’t lead the witness. You know better than that, or at least you should!” He raised his eyebrow at her in a practiced manoeuvre and Sophia saw her cringe visibly.

  “What was the row with your father about?” The male police officer scented victory.

  “Dad told me off for betraying Dane’s trust,” Sophia ventured. “Dane said he wasn’t going back for the birth certificate and now I understand why.”

  She described everything in as much detail as she could, including the occupants of the house when she arrived, right down to the dreadful chemical smell about the place. “It was acrid.” Sophia wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never smelled anything like it.”

  The male officer wrote everything down verbatim and asked her to read it through and sign it, which she did, but only after Uncle Bob read it too and cursorily nodded his head at her. The cops seemed interested in the presence of the hairy man at the property, demanding more details than Sophia could give. “Nobody else mentioned him,” the woman said, making Sophia feel like a liar.

  “Well, he was definitely there,” she maintained. “I’ve never seen anyone that hairy before.” She masked an inappropriate snigger, not wasted on the male cop.

  “Lots of firsts for you today then, Miss Armitage.” His smile was pleasant but Bob eyed him with disdain.

  “We done?” Bob asked with authority and both officers glanced across at each other.

  Dane’s car was removed for forensic examination, which seemed to affect Sophia deeply as she lost her last contact with him. The cops thanked them politely and left, warning they would return the next day. “They probably want to search the house and garden, in case Dane hid whatever they think he killed his stepdad with. It’s unusual they didn’t just do it there and then, but I guess it’s dark and Dane’s going nowhere.”

  Bob drove Sophia to the hospital and she was glad he wasn’t charging his exorbitant lawyer fees by the hour. They found Edgar eventually, mainly through continually texting him and getting lost in the maze of corridors and misleading signs. “I sometimes wonder,” Bob interjected crossly, “if there are bored security guys watching the monitors of people going round and round in circles like snails on a wall, getting almost to the right area and then starting again at the beginning. Perhaps they run sweepstakes and tabs on different visitors.”

  It was a sobering thought, especially as the most lost and bewildered of the visitors seemed to be elderly and distressed.

  Dane was in a general surgical ward, but segregated in a room by himself. It would have felt luxurious if it wasn’t for the police officer outside his door and the one sitting inside by his bed. Edgar perched on an uncomfortable red plastic chair outside the room, grumbling about how the doctors and cops kept finding excuses to throw him out. Sophia was allowed in for just a few moments while Edgar shook hands with Bob and filled him in on Dane’s condition. “Three broken ribs,” he said quietly, under his breath so as not to upset Sophia, “which have pushed into one of his lungs and caused blood to pool. They’re draining it off and hope it will repair itself without major surgery. It’s possible that they can do a keyhole procedure if they need to. The concussion’s bad though. I shudder to think how he drove to our place and nobody seems to know where he went between leaving us by the bus stop and ending up back at ours, half an hour or so later. He was already there when I got home, slumped over the steering wheel. Neighbours told the cops he arrived fifteen minutes before me. I don’t think he killed the guy. My gut instinct tells me he didn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t have blamed him though,” Bob leaned in and whispered so he wasn’t overheard. “Do they think he’ll recover?”

  “They’re not saying.” Edgar sighed and laid his head back against the wall. “He keeps rambling. Kid thinks I’m his real dad, who’s been dead over seven years. I’m not sure how to help him.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” Bob watched his friend struggle with the notion, nodding once in acknowledgement of his concerns and looking through the half pulled blinds at his goddaughter inside the room. She stood by the side of the bed furthest away from the cop, unable to bear standing next to the wrist that was handcuffed to the side rail of the bed. Dane appeared to be out cold and unreachable but as Sophia stroked his face gently, he stirred and looked up at her bleary-eyed. “Soph, Soph...” he breathed. “I should have...I should have said it...” The handcuffs made a metallic clang as he attempted to reach out. It was pitiful and the two men outside the room saw the agony on the young girl’s face, finding the love of her life chained to a hospital bed.

  “She seems very smitten, our Soph,” Bob commented and Edgar nodded. “It’s looking uncomfortably familiar, I suppose.”

  Edgar threw himself forward in the seat and buried his face in his hands, keeping one eye fixed on the small figure next to her boyfriend’s bed. The police officer sidled closer towards Sophia and Edgar’s body froze in position as he readied himself to defend her. Bob stretched out an arm to calm him, but it was clear they needed to leave. Sophia bent down and laid her cheek against Dane’s. He stirred again and put his free arm around her bent shoulders. The knuckles were cut and swollen, mimicking the blue and purple shades of a rainbow as he stroked Sophia’s back with such tenderness. She moved her fingers gently along his face and whispered something in his ear before kissing him and standing up again. It was such a deeply intimate moment, the two men outside the room averted their gaze. The policeman had his arm extended towards Sophia, non-verbally telling her to leave. Dane’s eyes closed again, dragging him back to the concussed stupor which hounded and confused him. Sophia turned at the doorway and said in a loud, confident voice, “I know you didn’t do it, Dane. I’ll prove it.” She glared at the policeman and with a flick of her head, left the room, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.

  Bob drove Sophia and Edgar home in a silent contemplative journey north, before returning to his wife with the usual spring in his step and an air of being able to sort out just about anything in this life. Before getting into his car on the third
floor of the multi-storey car park building, while Edgar waged a silent war on the parking meter, Bob gave Sophia a hug and whispered in her ear, “Just you make sure you get to school tomorrow, young lady.”

  She looked up at him in amazement, having fully intended to bunk off. He waited until her surprise turned to curiosity before adding, “I think you’ve got a scholarship to organise, before the cops demand that birth certificate. Otherwise, the whole thing was a waste of time, wasn’t it?”

  Chapter Five

  Despite the ridiculously late night, Sophia was up bright and early to go to school on Friday. To her surprise, Edgar handed her the keys to his posh black SUV and told her to, “Be careful.”

  “How will you get to work?” she asked him, confused. He smiled widely and she followed him down to the garage, curious.

  In the corner of the garage under a tarpaulin, was Edgar’s bike. It sat there forever; as long as Sophia remembered. He bought the Harley Davidson eighteen years previously before Matt was born. He kept it serviced, insured and legal, but Sally detested it and after her brother was seriously injured in a motorbike accident more than a decade ago, she forbade him to ride it. “It’s the bike or me,” she said. So Edgar covered it up and left it hidden away in a corner of the garage, apart from the couple of times a year it visited the engineers behind the showroom he worked at.

  “You can’t ride that, Dad. Its papers must be out of date. You don’t need the police pulling you in over it.”

  Edgar smirked. “I’ve been riding this old lady at least twice a year for the last decade. I flexed some hours or took a secret day off to ride it down town and the mechanics knew to get it done before you all came home, so I could ride it back. I rode it in between times too, whenever I could do it without being found out.”

  “Dad!” Sophia looked shocked. “And you kept it a secret?” Her tone was accusing and Edgar shook his head.

  “Don’t Soph. Nothing compares to what she did. I got fed up of losing everything to her bullying. This was my only vice throughout all those years of marriage.”

  He was offered decent amounts of money for it many times over the years and during times of hardship, Sal’s beady eyes rested on it as a source of ready cash. But there it still sat, as pristine as the day Edgar bought it from an old guy in Huntly, who looked in the mirror one day and decided his mid-life crisis was over and he looked a prat on it.

  “Does it start ok?” Sophia asked doubtfully, brushing dust off one of the smart chrome handlebars.

  Edgar produced a rucksack, from which he pulled a pair of leather trousers and a jacket. The rucksack crumpled like a skin to the ground, once the rigid contents were disgorged. “Yep, like a dream,” he said happily, fitting himself into the protective clothing over his work trousers and shirt. “Took her down for a warrant of fitness just before Christmas. Today is her lucky day. She’s coming to work with papa.”

  “You sly old dog!” Sophia exclaimed, giggling at her rejuvenated father.

  “The only reason I haven’t used this bike every day in the last ten years is because of your mother. Now I can do what I damn well like, and I mean to enjoy myself.” Edgar squeezed himself into his leathers and did up the zips. He whooped with pleasure. “I’ve lost weight since last time. I won’t need to put my legs down quite as often to breathe at traffic lights. See, there are some benefits to being ditched by the wife!” Edgar pulled the dusty helmet down from a shelf above the bike and fitted it onto his head.

  Blowing a kiss to his daughter, Edgar Armitage gave her a cheeky grin that shed years from his face, before pulling the bike out from under the tarp. He lifted it onto its stand while he opened the garage door, starting the engine with a key. It made a lovely, throaty sound as it fired up, suspiciously like it was only ridden yesterday.

  Sophia watched her forty-five-year-old father hop onto the huge machine and kick the stand backwards. Then he gunned the engine and shot out of the garage onto the street. He picked up speed as he headed for the junction and his daughter giggled as she saw him punch the air in victory, imagining the loud whoop of joy that would have taken place inside the helmet. “Go, Dad,” she smiled, feeling a new found respect for him.

  At school, Sophia immediately sought out Alex Moeras, the Year 12 Dean. She had the birth certificate, but no idea where the scholarship form was. “I think it’s in Dane’s car...which the cops have,” she told him.

  The astounded teacher slumped down in his chair as Sophia poured out the whole sorry story and he ran his hands through his bushy red hair. Then he stood up decisively. “I’m just going to print another form off,” he said with a stroppy edge to his voice. In the doorway, he stopped and looked back at the girl. “You’ll just have to fill it in.”

  Sophia didn’t make it to tutor group or art. “Scholarship forms are notoriously difficult,” she grumbled. “They make the applicant work far too hard for the possibility of a little bit of help. And it doesn’t make it any easier that it’s for someone else. I don’t know half these answers.”

  “Make it up, girl,” the teacher urged her, watching the hands of the clock tick precariously slowly and wishing morning tea would hurry up and get here. “Possibly don’t tell anyone I said that though.” He looked momentarily guilty, watching Sophia’s every scrawled word and unappealingly scratching his right buttock in nervousness.

  The teenager did her best, filling in all the answers and making a much better job of selling Dane as a recipient, than he would have dared do himself. Without the presence of modesty, she managed to make him sound as though they should be grateful for the opportunity to help him.

  Alex Moeras read the application form, smiling as he ran a stubby finger down the page, obviously thrilled with the result. He laid it ceremoniously in front of Sophia on the desk and dropped his final bombshell. “Do you know what Dane’s signature looks like?” Sophia gaped and then looked embarrassed. The teacher continued to harangue her, “Well, have you seen him sign anything?”

  She nodded slowly, although there was no way she was sharing when, not with the Year 12 dean. Her mind wandered back to last weekend. They sat in Dane’s car waiting for the McDonald’s drive-through to hurry up and he turned to her and asked, “When we get married, what will your signature look like?”

  “I don’t know! What a weird question.” Sophia was surprised and flushed with pleasure at Dane’s assumption.

  “Just make one up,” he persisted, shoving a receipt from his wallet at her and yanking a pen from the glove box.

  “No,” she laughed. “I have no idea what it would be.”

  “Please?” He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. “I just wanna imagine.” He looked so serious she relented but deliberately did a silly one, making it into a flower.

  “That’s cute,” he laughed. “I’ll enjoy watching you do that with all our kids around you and you trying to pay for groceries.” He smiled down at the ridiculous Sophia McArdle scrawled over the paper and laid his hand on her thigh.

  “Have you got a signature?” she asked him shyly and he smiled.

  “Course.” He scrawled his underneath hers and then stared at the paper wistfully, as though contemplating a time when they really might be Mr and Mrs McArdle. In his distraction, he took his foot off the brake and almost rear-ended the car in front. He didn’t mention it again, but put the paper carefully into his top pocket.

  Sophia shut her eyes and tried to remember his strong, slanted hand. Then she looked up at the teacher and nodded firmly. He smiled. “I can’t actually see you do it, for obvious reasons. So I’ll just go and copy the birth certificate and get it verified. Then I’ll be back.”

  Returning with his pieces of paper, Alex Moeras was elated with the pretty good impression of something Dane might have produced. Smiling he dismissed Sophia with a bogus note for her art teacher and she progressed to her next class, trying not to worry about Dane.

  Edgar rang the hospital first thing but because they weren’t fami
ly, was only told Dane was ‘comfortable.’ But Robert Robertson, as Dane’s unofficial solicitor, got much further. He was kind enough to text his goddaughter. ‘I’m visiting him later. He had keyhole surgery in the night to deal with the punctured lung and came through it well. I’ll be sure to pass on your regards.’ Then he rang his friend.

  “She’s not eating again,” Edgar complained, watching one of his colleagues negotiate a plate glass window, inching an expensive Audi onto the carpeted showroom floor. “I don’t want her to get like she did when Sal left. We’ve only just started getting back to normal.”

  “Do you think history’s repeating itself?” Bob’s astute voice came down the line. Edgar nodded and then remembered Bob couldn’t see him.

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “She’s definitely got it bad for him,” Bob said, “but for what it’s worth, I like what I’ve heard about him so far. I think it’ll be ok.”

  “Like me and Sal?” Edgar said with sarcasm. “I was her ‘bad boy’ and I went to a lot of effort to turn it all around. But look at us now. I couldn’t stand it if that was my Soph in twenty years’ time.” He rubbed his hands over tired, blue eyes.

  “On the contrary,” Bob chastised him, “twenty-two years of a good marriage and two wonderful children cannot be considered a waste! I think even back then, you would have settled for less. Don’t write your whole life off, Ed. Just live what you’ve got left.”

  Edgar knew his friend was right. He would have traded it all for even two years with Sal and he got many more than that. They were good years too. Just because she ran off and did something out of character, didn’t mean the whole thing was a farce.

  Sophia went through her day, lonely and friendless, sitting by herself in all her classes. Her ex-friends, Maddie and Heather, avoided her. How strange it was, that she could be friends with someone for more than four years, only for it to fizzle into nastiness overnight for no good reason. Sophia had not been honest with them. Her mother went missing and she kept the whole thing a secret, not even telling the two people closest to her. She doubted they were her friends, frightened to admit her perfect family had suffered a massive landslide and collapsed like a deck of cards. She wondered now what they might have said, had she given them the opportunity.