Secrets Read online

  ‘That’s right! You always have to belittle me, don’t you? You do it to everyone – even Dad. No wonder he wants Wanda more than you! She’s having his baby – that’s something else you haven’t noticed.’

  Wanda gasped. Mum looked at her. Her lips tightened. But she stayed totally in control.

  ‘You’re being ridiculous now, India. Go downstairs. We’ll all go downstairs and calm down and have a cup of tea. Wanda, can you organize a pot, please, and some juice for the girls.’

  Wanda bobbed back down the ladder. Mum followed her, head held high.

  ‘Wow! You really told her!’ Treasure whispered, wiping her eyes.

  ‘It’s because we’re all so het up. Your mum will understand,’ said Nan, giving me a pat.

  ‘She won’t,’ I said, starting to cry. I wished I hadn’t said it. I didn’t know what poor Wanda would do now. Or Dad.

  ‘Hey, I’m the cry-baby,’ Treasure said. ‘Don’t cry, India, you’ll set me off again.’

  ‘I can’t bear it that it’s all over. I’ll never see you again!’

  Treasure left Nan and came and put her arms round me, looking straight into my eyes.

  ‘Of course we’ll see each other. We’re best friends for ever and ever.’

  I hugged her. ‘But you’ll still have to go back to your Mum and Terry.’

  ‘No, she won’t,’ said Nan determinedly. ‘You wait and see. Trust me, India.’

  That was just it. I knew you couldn’t trust grown ups, not even kind, truthful ones like Nan.

  We went downstairs to the living room and sat down to a bizarre little tea party spread out on the red lacquer table. Mum sat in her cream armchair, asking questions about milk and sugar, rearranging the assorted biscuits on the big black glass plate into a geometric pattern. Wanda hovered in the doorway looking terrified, her hands clasped protectively over her stomach.

  Nan and Treasure sat on the sofa together. Nan kept reaching out and touching Treasure as if she was making sure she was real. Treasure sat very upright, her scar showing through her fringe, her eyes blinking hard behind her glasses. She bit into a biscuit and sprayed crumbs down her T-shirt. She caught Mum’s eye.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Treasure, brushing at the crumbs. ‘It’s your T-shirt.’

  ‘We’ll wash all the clothes and send them straight back,’ said Nan.

  ‘No, no, please! You keep them, Treasure. They look wonderful on you,’ said Mum. She kept staring at Treasure, her head on one side. Then she sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better call the police now.’

  Nan leant forward. ‘I don’t think you need to get involved. They’ll ask all sorts of awkward questions. They might well think you or your husband had something to do with it. Like you said, you could be done for harbouring.’

  ‘That’s ludicrous,’ said Mum.

  ‘Is it?’ said Nan. ‘Most people would find it hard to believe you could have a strange child living in your house for four days and not have a clue she was there.’

  Mum flinched.

  ‘It would be better for your India if she could be kept right out of it too,’ said Nan.

  ‘No, it wouldn’t! I want to talk to the police. I don’t mind a bit if I’m done for harbouring.’

  I saw it all: my impassioned speech straight to camera as I was led away by the police; my interviews with social workers and psychiatrists; my stay in a secure young offenders unit; my secret smuggled letters to Treasure. Then there’d be our joyful reunion, cameras flashing as we embraced outside the unit; my story serialized in the newspapers; my Secret Attic book piled high in Waterstone’s and Smith’s. I’d be a best-selling author before I’d even reached adolescence!

  ‘Be quiet, India. You’ve said more than enough today,’ said Mum. She looked at Nan. ‘I would certainly appreciate it enormously if India could be kept out of it – but obviously the police will question Treasure.’

  ‘I’ll just say I hid by myself,’ said Treasure. She looked straight at my Mum. ‘I won’t say a word about India if you promise something, Mrs Upton.’

  Mum looked amused. ‘Promise what? That you can have some more Moya Upton clothes?’

  Treasure looked at Mum pityingly. ‘No! I want you to promise that India and I can still see each other and stay friends.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Mum. But how can I trust her?

  Treasure and Nan said goodbye and went off to the Latimer Estate. Mum offered to drive them but Nan said they needed a little walk to talk things over.

  Mum and Wanda and I were left alone together.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, India,’ Mum said weakly. ‘I don’t think I can talk about it now. I need time to think. Wanda, will you drive India back to school, please?’

  Wanda leapt to her feet, eager to postpone an inevitable confrontation.

  ‘Come along, India,’ she said. Then she glanced out of the living-room window and stood transfixed. She pointed mutely with one long fingernail. A police car had drawn up outside.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mum. ‘How did they find out?’

  But they weren’t here because of Treasure. Dad got out of the back of the police car. One of the police officers was holding his arm. Wanda gasped. Mum sighed heavily.

  ‘Dear God, what is it now?’

  Dad led the police officers into the house. He was very red in the face, not looking at anyone, staring down at the black carpet.

  ‘What’s happened, Dad?’ I whispered.

  Mum stood up, folding her arms. She looked at the police.

  ‘Have you arrested my husband?’

  ‘No, madam, not at this present moment in time. Mr Upton is simply helping us with our enquiries. Now, sir, if we could go to your study perhaps you can show us where all the relevant papers are?’

  The accountants had discovered a large amount of money had gone missing from Major Products. It looked as if Dad was going to be charged with embezzlement.

  Nineteen

  Treasure

  NAN AND I walked back to Latimer together, hand in hand. No-one paid us any attention as we walked down Parkfield’s leafy avenues. I’d had my photo all over the newspapers and on the telly but it simply didn’t register. Cars whizzed past us on the main road. A police car even stopped for us at the zebra crossing. Nan and I nodded and smiled. No-one gave us a second look.

  Maybe it was the Moya Upton clothes. They made me look so different.

  ‘Are Mum and Terry still at your place, Nan?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re gone. This paper’s done a deal – a fifty-thousand-pound exclusive – so they’re hidden away in some hotel, with Kyle and Bethany and Gary. God, that baby grizzles so. He might be my grandchild but I can’t take to him at all.’

  ‘He’s my brother but I don’t like him either,’ I said.

  I held on tight to Nan’s hand as if I was a little kid.

  ‘He takes after his dad,’ she said. She gave my hand a squeeze. ‘You’re not going back to them, Treasure. I don’t give a damn what anyone says. I don’t care about all these silly social workers who keep telling me grandparents rarely get custody. Blow them – and blow your mum’s solicitors too. If they see my Pete as the problem then he’ll simply have to live somewhere else when he comes out the nick.’

  I stood stock still, staring up at Nan. Her blue eyes blazed at me. Her ponytail band had fallen out and her blond hair was blowing in the wind, lifting up around her head like a wild halo.

  ‘But you love Pete, Nan,’ I whispered.

  ‘I know I do. But I love you too, Treasure. As much as any of my own kids – maybe even more, though don’t you dare tell anyone that. It’s been agony, wondering if you were all right. I should have told them at the hospital how you got that cut. I should have gone straight down the Social then. I shouldn’t have packed you off on Saturday, though I just wanted to keep you out of any rows with Terry. I’ve been such a fool but I’m going to fight for you now, darling. I let that pig dribble on about his li