The Toff and the Kidnapped Child Read Free Page A

knew that it was coming from London, and was almost certainly the one she was going to meet.
    She could go along the road, the long way round, or could take a narrow alley, flanked by the wall of a house on one side, and the wall of the station yard on the other. When the school exodus at holiday times was on, the alley was forbidden and the girls had to traipse round by the road, but nothing had been said tonight, and the shortcut saved several minutes. Caroline believed that she could hear the chug-chug-chug of the train, but was not quite sure that she would reach the station first. She needed some coppers for a platform ticket, and fumbled in a small purse in the pocket of her dark blue uniform dress. At the end of the alley was the station approach, with its cobbled yard, two or three old taxis almost certainly waiting, the grimy brick walls plastered with coloured posters advertising the glories of seaside resorts. She could even see the cobbles, but a car or taxi pulled up at the end of the passage, and a man jumped out. He stood for a moment looking along the alley towards her, and she hoped that he would not come along it; if he did, she would have to squeeze past him, and she hated pressing against men.
    A young woman got out of the car and stood beside him. She was rather short, with a big bust and a very small waist; that showed clearly, because in a way she was in silhouette. She stood peering, like the man. Her hair, dropping almost to her shoulders like Diana Dors’, was very fair; it seemed to shimmer.
    They didn’t come down there.
    As Caroline drew nearer, she heard the man say in a tone of deep satisfaction: “That’s her.”
    Caroline thought: ‘I’ve never seen them before.’ The train whistled, further off than she had realised, so she had plenty of time; but these two made her feel uneasy, for some reason she could not understand. Why should they have said ‘that’s her’? She drew almost level with them, and unless they stood aside she would not be able to get out of the alley.
    The woman smiled. She had a very pale face, and no lipstick or rouge; it made her look rather like one or two of the senior girls at school who had worn make-up for the weekend, and cleaned it off for the school week.
    â€œAren’t you Caroline Kane?”
    â€œYes, that’s right,” said Caroline. The woman did not trouble her, but she did not like the man at all. He was the type against which Miss Abbott had often warned her; short, rather dark, with heavily greased hair, very dark eyes, like black olives, a jacket with very wide shoulders and trousers that were very narrow, so that the big brown shoes at the bottom of them looked absurd. He was staring at her intently.
    â€œHe’s ever so sorry, but your father couldn’t catch the train,” the woman said. “He’s very anxious to see you, though, because he has to fly to America first thing in the morning. He’s sent us to take you to see him.”
    Disappointment at the first words faded into doubt and surprise. Her father often travelled unexpectedly, and usually the first intimation Caroline had that he was overseas was a postcard from a foreign country, with just a few bright, casual words, which she had grown used to from him; he seemed to be able to say as much in a sentence as some people could say in a long letter. There was another cause for doubt: these were not the kind of people he associated with, not the kind she would have expected him to use as messengers.
    â€œIt’s an emergency trip,” the man put in.
    He had an unexpectedly soft voice, and a surprisingly pleasant smile.
    â€œAnd he won’t be back for six months,” the girl urged.
    That decided Caroline; if this were such an emergency, and if he were going to be away during the school hols, she had to see him. She had vague thoughts that she ought to send a message to the school, and ought to ask how far