Free False Charity by Veronica Heley Page A

found him in the park when I was taking Nicole’s dog for a walk. Down by the water. I startled him and he almost jumped in. I was afraid that if I left him there, he really would jump.’
    â€˜Good heavens,’ said Bea, feeling faint.
    â€˜So I brought him home – here – and found him some clothes. Got them at the charity shop, actually,’ said Maggie, gaining confidence as her story progressed. ‘I let him use the computer and he’s done all the work I was supposed to be doing while I looked after the house. He’s only a boy, you see.’
    â€˜How old is he?’ asked Piers. ‘Couldn’t Social Services look after him?’
    â€˜He’s just turned eighteen. They don’t want to know if you’re turned eighteen.’
    â€˜And you are – how old?’
    â€˜Twenty.’ The girl sniffed hard, tossed her head, well into Don’t Care mode. ‘Divorced already. Can’t cope with computers. Got fed up at home, waiting on Mummy hand and foot. She doesn’t really want me around, anyway, showing her up before her friends, because she looks so young, still. No wonder she asked Max to find something for me, just to get me out of the house!’ More angry sniffling.
    Bea pulled the girl down on to the settee and put her arm around her. ‘There, there. What on earth am I to do with you all, eh?’
    â€˜Throw us all out. Make a clean start,’ said Piers. ‘I’ll be all right, you know. It’s true I’d rented out my place for a couple of months while I was busy with some commissions out of town, but I can easily go to a hotel till Monday when my tenant leaves. I’m not short of a penny.’
    Maggie was mopping up. ‘I keep telling Oliver that he’s got a marketable skill and could walk into a job anywhere, but he says that without his A level certificates, no one will employ him.’
    â€˜He should ask the school for them.’
    â€˜He can’t. His father’s the headmaster.’
    Bea didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. She chose laughter. It didn’t sound merry, but it was better than tears. Looking up, she caught Hamilton’s eye as he looked down from his photograph, and that sobered her up. Hamilton looked – of course it was a trick of the light – anxious.
    â€˜Well,’ she said. ‘First things first. Something to eat.’
    Maggie cheered up at once. ‘Leave that to me. What would you like? Pasta? Scrambled eggs? A fry-up? No, you’d better not have fried stuff. Bad for you. I’ll do some pasta, right?’ The girl could switch from Orphan Annie to Boadicea in three seconds flat.
    Bea said, ‘After we’ve eaten we’ll have a Council of War. Piers, can you spare the time to eat with us?’
    â€˜I keep trying to tell you I’m at your disposal. I’ve got nothing on for ten days, when I’m due to paint another of the great but not so good. A politician, needless to say. At least there’s something in their faces to paint. Which reminds me, Bea; you’re getting very paintable. Care to sit for me some time?’
    â€˜In your dreams,’ said Bea. ‘I know what an old hag I look now.’
    â€˜You’re just tired,’ said Maggie, with accuracy but without compassion.
    Piers looked at Bea with eyes that took in every line on her face, and the sag under her chin. ‘You look like someone I’d like beside me in a fight. I think I could do you justice, now.’
    Bea was flattered, but that didn’t stop her worrying about more pressing matters. ‘I must go and find Oliver. We don’t want him doing anything stupid, do we? Oh, and Maggie, did I dream it, or did you come up to tell me that you’d found something which might help Coral?’
    â€˜Oh yes, that’s it. Oliver thinks he knows how they worked the false address.’
    Piers lifted both his hands in a gesture of