Cath Staincliffe - Make Believe

‘Was it a difficult break up?’ Richard asked Felicity.

‘Had he tried to see you before?’ Janine said to Phoebe.

But Phoebe didn’t reply, she seemed intent on listening to what her mother was telling Richard. ‘He made such a mistake, abandoning us. I think he knows that now. Clive and I, a love that deep – it’s not a bond you can ever break. If it hadn’t have been for the baby-’

‘Mum!’ Phoebe said. Janine saw she was trying to protect her mother.

‘Phoebe?’ Janine said, ‘Your dad, he’d not contacted you before?’

The girl, shook her head rapidly. ‘No. Well, he came round here with Sammy a few weeks ago. Some deranged plan that if we got to know him it’d change everything. Soo not a good idea,’ she said.

Something else Clive Wray had failed to mention. Did he think they were idiots, that this wouldn’t come to light, just like his trip to see Phoebe at the stadium had done?

Felicity was still waxing lyrical. ‘He’d never have left me but for that. He wants us back. He’s just in denial.’

Janine saw a spasm of irritation on the girl’s face as she swivelled round on the sofa arm and said hotly, ‘We’re second best. He picked Claire, he picked Sammy.’ Janine knew the feeling. Pete had picked Tina. How much more painful if a child had been involved then? Janine sensed the loneliness, the rejection that the girl felt. It was all so keen at that age, so cut and dried.

Phoebe jumped to her feet. ‘When Mum was ill, she,’ Phoebe hesitated, flushed, ‘she took an overdose. I had to stay at Dad’s. I was invisible. My mum had nearly died but all they could think about was Sammy. Dad didn’t want me there and she didn’t. They just wanted to live happily ever after-’ her voice was cracking.

‘It must have been hard,’ Janine said.

Phoebe blinked back tears but didn’t say anything.

‘You met Sammy?’ Richard said to Felicity.

She stared at him, Janine could see a smirk twitching at the corners of her mouth. She took a drag on the cheroot. ‘I never wished the child any harm.’

‘Mum-’ Phoebe tried again to stop her talking but Felicity was apparently determined to say her piece, ‘I just wished it hadn’t been born.’ She looked at Janine then Richard. ‘You think that’s a terrible thing to say?’

‘He’s only little,’ Phoebe looked upset. ‘It’s not his fault.’ She sat down heavily. ‘How could anyone do that?’

Felicity moved over and put a hand on Phoebe’s head. ‘I know,’ she murmured. ‘Poor Claire.’ Her tone hollow, disingenuous. She didn’t mean a word of it.

‘I’ve got hockey practice,’ Phoebe announced.

Janine looked at Richard, he’d no objection. They had got what they had come for, for now, corroboration of Clive’s relationship with Phoebe and the context for their meeting. They’d also found someone else who was worth considering, Janine thought, Felicity Wray the wronged ex-wife with an axe to grind.

‘Bunny boiler,’ Richard said as they reached the car outside the house.

‘A credible suspect?’ Janine asked.

‘Certainly got motive, revenge,’ Richard said.

‘Felicity hates Clive for destroying the marriage,’ Janine agreed.

‘But she wants him back,’ Richard said. ‘She blames Sammy for Clive leaving. Maybe seeing the child triggers that rage. She thinks with Sammy out the way, Clive’ll come back to her.’

‘Helluva grand gesture. Mind you, fond of those,’ said Janine. ‘The suicide attempt on the day Claire goes into labour.’ Janine tried to imagine herself doing something like that to queer the pitch for Tina, and failed.

Richard said, ‘Or the girl? Angry, jealous. You saw how she was shielding her mother.’

‘Phoebe does it for Felicity?’ Janine said.

‘Or for herself?’

‘Children who kill – they’re invariably very damaged. I didn’t get that impression, she was upset, maybe confused but nothing extraordinary given the situation.’

‘Living with Felicity can’t have done her much good,’ Richard said. ‘Must have messed her head up.’

Janine considered it. She couldn’t see Phoebe abducting and then killing her half-brother. But Felicity? ‘The witnesses from the park – they say there was a woman there on her own. Could it have been Felicity or Phoebe? Make that a priority tomorrow.’

He came back.

Claire’s first instinct when she heard Clive’s key in the door was to hide. To run upstairs and climb into the fitted wardrobe, like Sammy used to, or wriggle under their bed.

Instead she forced herself to stay where she was at the kitchen table, which was littered with bits of the kitchen roll she had been shredding. Tearing the sheets into smaller and smaller strips.

Did he know she had told police about his boots? Given them the flyer?

Here he was, back home, so the police must have had some answers to their questions or they’d have kept him longer, wouldn’t they?

He stood in the doorway, almost as if he needed permission to cross the threshold. His face sombre.

She raised her eyes to meet his, a bite of fury piercing the numbness that kept descending on her. His eyes told her nothing.

‘What happened?’ she said.

He cleared his throat, ‘They wanted to know where I was.’ He moved into the room, pulled off his jacket, displacing the air and sending pieces of kitchen roll fluttering on to the floor. He sat opposite her.

‘I’m, erm… Hayfield… I wasn’t at Hayfield.’ He tapped his right thumb and index finger together, nervously.

She waited, unwilling to supply questions, to ease his admission.

‘I should have told you, I know that now.’

He was having an affair! Oh God. What a fool she had been. She should have seen it coming. He’d left Felicity for Claire and now he was leaving Claire for whoever was next in line. While she had been running round the park frantic for her son, dread thickening her blood, Clive had been screwing some woman.

He swallowed, made to speak and failed. Claire picked up some shreds of paper began to roll them in her fingertips into a little ball.

‘It was… I was seeing Phoebe,’ he said.

Phoebe . The other woman is called Phoebe?

‘She was playing in the schools’ hockey tournament at the stadium.’

Claire looked at him, his wretched face. ‘Your Phoebe?’ she said.

‘I know we’d agreed to keep a distance, that with Felicity poisoning her towards us it was the only way but I felt… I thought… Now she’s that bit older.’

She felt a wave of anger crash through her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I’d promised you not to have anything to do with them, because when Sammy was gone it didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was getting Sammy back. How could I upset you more by-’

‘Upset me? Oh, for pity’s sake, Clive, I was deranged already. I couldn’t have cared less about you and your cosy father-daughter date.’

‘It wasn’t exactly like that,’ he muttered.

‘I don’t care,’ she snapped. ‘What I do care about is that you lied. To me.’ She was on her feet.

‘Of course.’ His eyes fell. ‘Look, I’m sorry I misjudged-’

‘Misjudged!’ Had he really so little idea? ‘I thought, God, I even thought…’ she still couldn’t say it.

‘What? Claire, please?’

‘I thought there could only be one reason someone would lie to the police like that.’ Tension sang in the air and his eyes filled with horror as he grasped what she meant and cried out, ‘No, you can’t possibly-’

‘I did. Thanks to you. I couldn’t trust you any more. Because of that stupid lie.’

‘You knew? But how?’ he said. So the police had not told him what she had discovered.