Ann Cleeves - The Baby-Snatcher

So that’s the strategy, she thought. Make me feel guilty, then I can’t complain about the two of you sneaking off to the club for the afternoon. She said nothing and he added defensively, ‘Well, the party’s not supposed to start until four, is it?’

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘ Four o’clock.’

‘And there’s nothing more you want me to do?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘We’ll make sure we’re back for four, then. On the dot.’

‘I should bloody well hope so!’

He shot her an amused glance, thinking she was teasing.

‘I mean it!’ she shouted, suddenly furious.

‘OK.’ He held up his hands as if she had threatened to shoot him. ‘ I told Mark to leave his car at the club so there’d be more room up here for parking.’

What do you want, she thought, a medal for consideration?

‘I’ll go, then,’ Brian said. ‘Meet him there.’

‘Fine.’ She made an effort to keep the sarcasm from her voice. She didn’t want to spoil David’s birthday. ‘Fine.’

He stood by the back door, pulling on his Berghaus jacket. It was raining again.

She turned to see Claire standing just inside the kitchen. The nanny gave no indication that she’d been listening but it gave Emma a start.

‘I thought I’d nip home for a bit of lunch,’ Claire said. ‘I’ve put on a video for the boys. They’ll be quiet for a while.’

‘Oh.’ Emma was disappointed. ‘I thought we could have some lunch together.’

‘I’d best go back.’ She gave no reason.

‘Oh,’ Emma said. ‘All right.’

‘I’ll be back in an hour.’

‘Fine,’ Emma said again. Brian was still hovering in the doorway. He opened the door and a blast of cold air came into the kitchen, before he went out and slammed it behind him. Claire put on her wellingtons and followed.

The boys’ playroom was at the top of the house. It was long and narrow and looked down the Headland towards the level crossing. Emma heard the music of the video as she climbed the stairs. It was an old one - Ivor the Engine – and the boys must have been tired because they watched in silence. David was curled up on a bean bag with his thumb in his mouth. They looked up when she walked into the room but turned their attention immediately back to the screen.

She stood by the small window. It was streaked with salt but she could see Claire and her husband walking together to the double gates. Beyond that the rain closed in, and as they moved down the track she lost sight of them. Emma wondered what the girl, usually so unwilling to speak, could have had to say to her husband.

The Headland Club had the faded grandeur of an old theatre, and it had been grand once, on the northern circuit attracting big stars and big audiences. Now it was a miracle it stayed in business.

When Brian closed the heavy door behind him the temperature only rose by a couple of degrees. The drinkers standing by the big bar were still wearing overcoats and scarves.

He had joined the club when they moved to the Coastguard House. Emma thought it was an affectation. Occasionally he liked to make a show of his working-class roots. She never thought he would actually go. He was more at home in the wine bars, and smart restaurants of Jesmond, the Newcastle suburb where he had his office. But he had taken to going there regularly on Friday nights and staggering home in the early hours of the morning. One of the lads. He was even nominated for the committee and was tempted to accept. Committee meetings were an excuse for drinking late. In the end he decided, reluctantly, to turn it down. There were other demands on his time.

The manager of the club had his pint on the bar before he reached it. Les was a small, weaselly man with a mouth uncomfortably full of crowded teeth.

‘By man!’ Brian said. ‘Can’t you turn the heating up? It’s like a morgue in here.’

‘You’re getting soft in your old age.’ Les turned away, sensing that someone on the other side of the room needed a drink.

‘I’m expecting Mark. You’ve not seen him?’

‘Not yet.’

They all recognized Mark. He’d shocked them when Brian first brought him into the club by asking for a Perrier. He’d never lived that down.

The faded posters on the noticeboard flapped in a sudden draught and Mark came in. Brian looked at him with affection and concern. He’d lost weight in the last year, but Brian had thought he was starting to come to terms with his grief. Today, though, he looked pale and drawn and there were dark rings under his eyes. At university they’d nicknamed him the Monk. It wasn’t only the shaved head, the skeletal features. He was the only one of their group who ever went near a church and he’d never, drunk much, even then. Never swore. You’d have thought he’d be the butt of their jokes but he wasn’t. If anything they’d fought for his friendship. Today he looked more like a monk than ever.

Brian thought he needed a woman. Not an intellectual like Sheena. Someone easy and comfortable who’d feed him up on the wrong sort of food and enjoy plenty of sex.

Mark leant against the bar and Brian saw that he was shaking.

‘When was the last time you had a decent meal?’ he asked, following that recent line of thought. ‘You need something to keep out the cold.’

Mark said nothing. He shook his head as if the question wasn’t worth considering.

‘What’s the matter?’ Brian demanded. ‘Has something happened?’ He had seemed so much happier lately.

Mark paused then shook his head again. Brian didn’t want to push it.

‘Mavis’ll rustle us up something.’ Brian shouted to the manager. ‘Won’t she, Les? Mavis’ll stick something in the microwave?’

‘Whisky,’ Mark said. ‘That’ll warm me up.’

‘Of course.’ Brian kept the surprise out of his voice. ‘A double Teachers when you’re ready, Les. Medicinal.’

He led his friend to the table by a radiator. It gurgled and churned like the inside of someone’s gut, but it gave out a little heat. Another couple of drinks and Mark might talk, Brian thought. Really talk. Like those long nights in the crappy students’ bedsits in Durham. What he really wanted was to put his arm round Mark’s shoulder and hold him tight. Just for comfort. But that wasn’t the sort of thing you did in a working men’s club. Unless your football team had just won the Cup.

He bought another round of drinks but Mark didn’t seem inclined to confide in him. They sat for a while making desultory conversation. About a new contract Brian was bidding for – some insurance company based in Belfast. And about one of the kids in Mark’s school who was making his life hell. Then they left and walked up the hill together to the Coastguard House, well in time for the four o’clock deadline.

The children loved Uncle Bernie from the moment he tripped over his feet on his way to the front of the room. Emma had been afraid that he wouldn’t hold their attention but though he spoke so quietly that they had to strain to hear him, he held his audience spellbound. He performed in the big living room. The chairs were cleared to the walls and the children sat on the floor. The curtains were shut because outside the weather was so chill and grey.

Most of the adults stayed in the kitchen with their glasses of wine and their pints of beer, glad of the peace, but Emma, Mark and some of the other mums stood at the back to watch. The local news had been full of stories of a child who’d been abducted from a birthday party in a burger bar in North Shields. This wasn’t the same but they knew better than to leave a stranger in charge of their little ones.

Uncle Bernie had a costume: wide check trousers and a loose jacket with a silk flower in the button hole. He asked for assistants and seemed to make a serious decision, considering the forest of hands that shot up with a frown. He chose David because it was his birthday, and Owen, because David was really too young and would need some help, and a pretty little girl with braided hair and a flowery frock.