A Place of Hiding

China could be anywhere, she realised. She could be meeting with her advocate, reporting in to the police station, taking some exercise, or wandering the streets. Her brother was probably with her, though, so Deborah decided to see if she could find them. She would walk in the general direction of the police station. She’d descend towards the High Street and then follow it back along the route that would ultimately take her back up to the hotel.

Across the way from the Queen Margaret Apartments, stairs carved a path down the hill towards the harbour. Deborah made for these and dipped between tall walls and stone buildings, finally emerging into one of the older parts of the town, where a once-grand building of reddish stone stretched along one side of the street and the other side featured a series of arched entries into shops selling flowers, gifts, and fruit. The grand old building was high-windowed and dim inside, looking disused with no lights shining despite the gloom of the day. Part of it, however, was still active with what appeared to be stalls. They lay beyond a wide and worn blue door that stood open from Market Street into the cavernous interior of the building. Deborah crossed to this entrance. The unmistakable smell assailed her first: the blood and flesh of a butchery. Glass-fronted cases displayed chops and joints and minced meats, but there were very few of these stalls left in what had obviously once been a thriving meat market. Although the building with its ironwork and its decorative plaster would have interested China as a photographer, Deborah knew that the scent of dead animal would have quickly driven both the Rivers off, so she was unsurprised when she didn’t find them inside. Nonetheless, she checked round the rest of the building to make sure, tracing a route through what was a sadly abandoned warehouse of a place where once there had been dozens of thriving little businesses. In a central portion of the great hall, where the ceiling soared above her and caused her footsteps to echo eerily, a row of stalls stood shuttered and across one of them the words Sod you, Safeway had been rendered in marker pen, expressing the sentiments of at least one of the merchants who had lost his livelihood to the chain supermarket that had apparently come to the town. At the far end from the meat market, Deborah found a fruit and veg stall that was still in business, and beyond this once again was the street. She stopped to buy some hot-house lilies before leaving the building and pausing to examine the other shops outside.

Within the arches across the way, she could see not only the little businesses but also everyone making transactions within them, as there were few enough people doing so. Neither China nor Cherokee was among these customers, so Deborah pondered where else they might likely be. She saw her answer right next to the stairs she’d descended. A small grocery proclaimed itself as Channel Islands Cooperative Society Limited, which sounded like something that would appeal to the Rivers who, for all their joking about her, were still the children of their vegan mother. Deborah crossed to this shop and entered. She heard them at once because the grocery was small, albeit crowded with tall shelves that hid shoppers from the windows.

“I don’t want anything,” China was saying impatiently. “I can’t eat if I can’t eat. Could you eat if you were in my position?”

“There’s got to be something,” Cherokee replied. “Here. What about soup?”

“I hate canned soup.”

“But you used to make it for dinner.”

“My point. Would you want something that reminded you? Motel trash, Cherokee. Which is worse than trailer.”

Deborah went round the corner of the aisle and found them standing in front of a small display of Campbell’s. Cherokee was holding a tin of tomato and rice soup in one hand and a bag of lentils in the other. China had a wire basket over her arm. At the moment nothing was in it save a loaf of bread, a packet of spaghetti, and a jar of tomato sauce.

“Debs!” Cherokee’s smile was part greeting but larger part relief. “I need an ally. She’s not eating.”

“I am. ” China looked exhausted, more so than she had on the previous day, with great dark circles beneath her eyes. She’d tried to hide these with makeup but hadn’t been able to bring it off. She said, “Channel Islands Cooperative. I thought it would be health food. But...” She made a hopeless gesture that indicated the shop round them. The only fresh items that the cooperative appeared to contain were eggs, cheese, pre-pack meat, and bread. Everything else was either tinned or frozen. Disappointing for someone used to browsing through the organic food markets of California.

“Cherokee’s right,” Deborah said. “You need to eat.”

“I rest my case.” Cherokee began piling items into the wire basket without much regard for what he was choosing.