Fatal Quest by Sally Spencer Read Free Book Online Page A

– by a sheer effort of will – forced her tears to stop.
    â€˜Dat is not my daughter,’ she said, in a voice which fell somewhere between hysterical and eerily calm.
    â€˜I know you might find it quite hard to accept …’ Woodend began.
    â€˜I feel sorry for de poor girl, but she is
not
my daughter,’ Mrs Jones said firmly.
    Woodend walked over to the sideboard on which the silver photograph frames rested. All the pictures were of the same girl, and charted her development from infant to young woman.
    Little Pearl, smiling broadly at the camera, as she took her first few tentative steps towards whoever was holding it.
    Pearl at four or five, sitting under the Christmas tree and proudly clutching a doll which was almost as big as she was.
    Pearl at nine or ten, all her attention focused on the picture she was drawing, her tongue licking the corner of her mouth as she strove to get it just right.
    In the last photograph, Pearl was dressed in gym clothes. She had a hockey stick in one hand, and her free arm was draped over the shoulder of a blonde white girl, who had her own free arm draped over Pearl’s shoulder.
    Both girls were smiling. They looked so happy. So innocent!
    Woodend shook his head sadly, and turned to face Mrs Jones again. The woman had not moved from where he’d sat her, and though her shoulders shook, she was still managing to hold in most of her sorrow.
    â€˜I’m sorry, Mrs Jones, but the girl in the photograph I showed you
is
your daughter,’ he told her. ‘There’s no doubt about it.’
    Mrs Jones struggled to her feet.
    â€˜It’s not her!’ she screamed, waving her arms wildly in the air. ‘I done told you, it’s not her.’
    â€˜I know it’s hard, but the sooner you accept the fact that she’s dead, the sooner you’ll be able to start coming to terms with it,’ Woodend said softly.
    â€˜Get out o’ my house!’ Mrs Jones demanded. ‘Get out o’ my house right now!’
    â€˜Mrs Jones—’
    â€˜I tell you – get out!’
    There was nothing he could do – no way he could refuse to go.
    Woodend walked down the corridor to the front door, with Mrs Jones at his heel.
    â€˜And don’t come back!’ the woman told him, when he was back on the street. ‘Don’t you
ever
come back.’
    When he turned, as if to walk away, she slammed the door violently on him. But he did
not
walk away immediately. Instead, he simply stood there, looking back at the house from which he’d just been ejected.
    And from the other side of the door, he thought he could hear Mrs Jones sobbing uncontrollably.

Five
    T he bus carried Woodend across the river, and when it finally deposited him on the corner of Buckton Road, he found himself in a completely different world from the one he’d left behind him in Canning Town.
    It was true that this part of London – being far enough away from the docks for the German bombers to have largely ignored it – had not suffered from the Blitz as Canning Town had, he admitted in fairness. But even if both areas had taken the same battering from the Luftwaffe – even if they’d been equally reduced to ashes – the two would never have been confused, because, as any passer-by would immediately have seen, the ashes of Buckton Road would have been of a far better
class
than those from Balaclava Street.
    Woodend wondered how Pearl Jones had managed the difficult transition – how she had felt, every single school day, about leaving the mean streets of Canning Town behind her for this leafy suburb, but then returning to those same mean streets when the final bell rang.
    Had she ever thought of running away?
    Had the red dress, perhaps, been a part of the
process
of running away?
    Just ahead of him lay his destination – a large Georgian building which might once, long ago, have been a duke’s summer palace, but