Stone Cold Red Hot - [14]

“Yes.”

She shuddered. “Poor bloke.” She closed the book. “It was brilliant that summer and then,” she flicked her eyes at me as if weighing something up, she decided to tell, “Jenny got pregnant.”

“That summer?” Not once she’d gone to Keele. “Who was the father?”

She sighed impatiently, the memories irritating even at this distance. “Maxwell, he was the sous-chef at the Bounty. She didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t part of the plan. We were so young. God, it was a nightmare. She was so confused. One minute she was talking about abortion – she reckoned she could use part of her grant to pay for it, or we’d scrape the money together and she’d pay us back once she got her grant through. Then she’d go all weepy and talk about the baby and deferring a year.” She tutted with exasperation.

“What did she do?”

“I don’t know,” she stared at me, “I never heard.” There was a bitter edge to her voice. “One minute she’s round my house every night going over it all and next thing she’s left. I rang her up, Mrs Pickering answered, said she’d gone to Keele. It was another week till Fresher’s week; I didn’t know you could go early. Then I thought maybe she’d gone to get an abortion, have a few days to deal with it. I didn’t know if she’d said anything to her parents, there wasn’t really any point unless she went ahead and kept the baby and they’d have gone barmy, her Dad was a right bigot, he’d hardly be chuffed at a mixed race grandchild. But I had to ask, I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want to drop her in it, I said something like “Has Jenny told you she’s not been feeling all that well?” Talk about euphemisms. There was a pause, I can still remember that because I felt so awkward and I thought she was going to sound off at me but all she said was ‘no, she’s been fine,’ so I assume she hadn’t told them.”

“After that I got really cross. The little shit had gone off without a goodbye or anything. It wasn’t my fault she’d got caught out but it felt like she was lumping me in with everyone else, wanting to leave us all behind. I called her all the names under the sun.”

“Then I went off to Newcastle and I was so busy that Jennifer didn’t seem all that important anymore. But I didn’t just leave it. I rang her family later that term to ask how she was getting on and to check her address – I’d written a note to the Halls of Residence at Keele but I never got a reply. Anyway her Mum said she’d left the course and they’d no idea where she was. I said maybe they should report her missing and she said ‘she’s not missing, she’s just being very silly, throwing it all away, we’ll have to wait till she comes to her senses’. She said she’d no idea why Jenny had jacked it in. I wondered if she was keeping the baby, but she didn’t want to tell them yet or maybe she was going to have it adopted and felt that the less people that knew about it the better, sort of thing. But I was worried and I still couldn’t understand why she hadn’t written to me or phoned me, or left a message. Her parents, yes – but me, we’d been best friends.”

She turned the bracelets round on her wrist, worrying at them. “I did actually go to the police you know, that first Christmas. I was back home, she wasn’t, no card had come. I’d this vision of her six months pregnant, squatting in London or something. So I smartened myself up and went to the police station. They listened for a bit but when I said the family weren’t particularly concerned they lost interest. They let me fill a form in but that was it. I didn’t know half the answers anyway, I wasn’t sure of her last address so I just put Halls of Residence Keele University, I didn’t know when she’d last been seen or what she’d been wearing – all those things.”

“And she never wrote?”

She shook her head. “I still don’t understand that. I think,” she hesitated, her assurance slipping for a moment, “I think maybe something happened to prevent her getting in touch.”

“What sort of thing?”

“An accident or…if she ended up broke in London, the options for earning money aren’t very safe, or problems with the baby…I don’t know, a breakdown?”

“You’ve mentioned London a couple of times, did she talk of going there?”

“Not particularly, Paris was our dream. London’s just where people went to escape – still do I suppose.”

The big smoke, I thought, pig enough to get lost in, stay lost in.

“If she had been hurt, if she’d died,” she spoke the unthinkable quickly,” could you find that out?”

“If that had happened, her parents would have been informed,” I pointed out.

“But what if she’d changed her name or they couldn’t identify her, something like that?”

“Then she wouldn’t be on any records that I could find. There are General Records, you know, births, deaths and marriages but they won’t record people who haven’t been identified.”

“And she might be happily married and living in Crewe,” Lisa replied.

“Could be. If I don’t get a lead I may well be able to check out the records for marriages as a way of tracing her but before that I’m talking to people who knew her and checking with the university. Can you think of anywhere else Jennifer might have gone after she left Keele, anyone she’d ask for help?”