Stolen by Lesley Pearse

for his drink and sipped it as he read the article. There was a little more detail in this one, for although the police still didn’t know how she came to be washed up on Selsey beach because she had lost her memory, they had found her parents. She was called Lotte Wainwright, a twenty-four-year-old hairdresser from Brighton. This picture of her was taken by a friend while they were working together on a cruise ship. Yet it seemed neither friends nor parents knew where she’d been for the past year since she left the ship. The police were appealing for anyone who had any information about her to come forward.
    ‘A bloke I was working with this morning reckoned his mate used to knock her off,’ Jim said as David finished reading.
    ‘Then I hope he went to the police,’ David said sharply. He didn’t understand why some men had to bring everything to do with women down to the lowest level. ‘He might be able to fill in a few blanks for them.’
    ‘Doubt he’ll admit to firing blanks,’ Jim said, then laughed loudly at his own joke.
    ‘I’ve got to go,’ David said, finishing off his drink. He’d had enough of Jim for one day, but he thought he might take one bit of his advice and that was to go to the hospital later and see the girl.
    It was just before six when David arrived at St Richard’s, carrying some flowers and a box of chocolates, and asked at reception which ward Lotte was in. The receptionist was a little flustered as there were lots of people asking her questions, and she said visiting didn’t start till six-thirty, but she waved her hand towards Singleton Ward on the ground floor and David assumed that meant he could wait outside the ward.
    The corridor of Singleton Ward was deserted. From behind the doors of the different ward rooms came a faint buzz of conversation, the sound of screens being pulled and trolleys wheeled, but the atmosphere was serene; clearly no medical dramas or emergencies were taking place. David walked along the corridor past the men’s ward and then the women’s where he checked the names of the patients listed outside. She wasn’t in there, so he walked on to the single rooms.
    There were names on each door except one, but he was reluctant to look through the glass panel to check if Lotte was in there as it seemed an invasion of privacy. So he walked back down the corridor looking for a nurse to ask.
    He waylaid one on her way into the men’s ward. ‘You’ll have to check with the policeman outside her door,’ she told him briefly before disappearing.
    David was puzzled then, for he hadn’t seen a policeman anywhere, but now he came to think about it, there ought to be a guard if someone had tried to drown her by throwing her from a boat.
    He was turning to go back to the unlabelled room, when he saw a man about to enter it. He wasn’t a doctor as he wasn’t wearing a white coat, and clearly not a policeman either or he would have been in uniform. It annoyed David that some other visitor could go straight in to visit her while he had to wait until six-thirty.
    He decided there was no point in hanging around waiting when she might not even want to see him anyway, especially now she had someone else there. So he’d go in, give her the flowers and chocolates, say his bit about how it was him who found her, and how glad he was that she was recovering. Then if he picked up the vibes she didn’t want him there, he’d clear off.
    He marched along to the door, but glanced through the small glass panel before walking in. To his shock the other visitor was bending menacingly over the bed. David couldn’t be certain it was Lotte in the bed, or for that matter what the man was doing to the patient, for his back was blocking the view. Yet David could see legs thrashing around under the covers and arms flailing about, which was enough for him to be absolutely certain the man was hurting whoever it was.
    David charged in, tossing the flowers and chocolates on to a chair.