Read Online Making Marion by Beth Moran - Free Book Online

ushered her past me out of the door. Returning to her seat, she gestured for me to sit at the stool behind the counter before picking up her mug again.
    â€œHow well do you know Grace?”
    â€œGrace? Not very. I’ve only been here since Saturday.”
    â€œBut you have spoken to her?”
    â€œNothing much beyond work stuff. I might have asked her where something was kept a couple of times, or to pass on a message. That’s it.”
    â€œDid you ever see her with anyone else?”
    â€œOnly the other workers here. Jake or Valerie. Why, what’s happened? Is Grace okay?”
    â€œThat’s what we are trying to determine.”
    Brenda refused to tell me any more, but her eyes sharpened when I described what had happened to me the previous night. She asked if I knew any reason why Grace might send me that message. I thought of the way she had lingered in Jake’s shadow, remembering just how all-consuming teenage crushes can become. I didn’t want to believe that Grace would have thrown a rock through my window.But the truth is, I couldn’t believe that anyone else would have done it either. I told the policewoman about Jake, rambling on about how there was nothing going on between us, until she snapped shut her book and stood up.
    â€œLet’s take a look.”
    By the time Brenda had finished examining the window, and the note, Scarlett had found us. Brenda left and I made us both another coffee. Scarlett told me Grace had taken a rucksack and vanished. Her bed hadn’t been slept in and there was food and money missing. Scarlett had phoned Grace’s two friends, only to discover Grace had barely seen them all summer. Brenda would follow up at the nearest train and bus station, out of kindness to Scarlett, but could offer little hope of police intervention for a seventeen-year-old leaving of her own accord.
    I showed Scarlett my broken window, and the note. The creases deepened on her forehead. She shook her head. “What is going on in your head, my sweet child? What are you thinkin’?”
    â€œCould she have left because she did this, and felt bad?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Her voice, soft and gentle, cracked with pain. “I just don’t know any more.”
    I reached out and took Scarlett’s hand. She gripped on, tight. The coffee went cold.
    Â 
    It was Valerie who noticed Pettigrew was missing. My heart stopped when I realized Grace had taken a bike with broken brakes, but two hours later Brenda found it at Mansfield Station. Maybe Grace had cycled the eight miles to the station without stopping or slowing down. Scarlett crumpled at the thought of Grace reaching Mansfield safely, only to leave for some other city, knowing first-hand the kind of men who wait for lonely, vulnerable girls to ensnare in their evil webs.
    Katarina, who had been an obelisk of strength throughout the day, banged one thick fist on Scarlett’s table-top.
    â€œUnderneath all those studs and streaks she is a sensible girl, Scarlett. She is angry but not weak. She will know what it is thatshe is doing.” She bent down and put her arms around Scarlett’s shoulders. “She is not running from a wicked father. She is not you. She knows she has a good mother who loves her here. If she is in any danger she will call.”
    Saturday… Sunday… Monday… she didn’t call.
    Scarlett tucked her hurt behind a mask of glossy lipstick and large sunglasses, and got on with running her campsite. She knew very few people in the UK a train journey away, only one or two regular holiday visitors, and it took no time at all to make sure Grace wasn’t with them. She had taken her phone and her laptop with her but, thankfully, not her passport.
    Jake, grim faced, replaced my window. He offered to sleep on my sofa, but as everyone assumed that Grace had thrown the stone he let it go when I declined, sloping back, embarrassed, to his flat in the