Хилари Боннер - Dreams of Fear

‘Oh, darling,’ said Jane. She felt her heart lurch inside her chest.

‘Oh, darling, perhaps you did.’

She hurried around the table to her daughter’s side and wrapped her arms around her, hugging her close.

At just that moment, Felix, also dressed and ready for the school run, arrived in the kitchen.

‘OK kids, if you’ve finished your breakfasts off you go and get your shoes on,’ he instructed at once. ‘I’ll be right with you.’

His voice was strained. For the first time since the horrors of the night, he looked directly at Jane. His eyes were full of pain. Or might it have been loathing? She realized that for Felix, seeing her clutching Joanna like that must have been all too reminiscent of the scene he had walked into in the early hours.

‘I... uh, I was just comforting her—’ Jane began.

‘Bit late for that,’ interrupted Felix abruptly, in the same strained tone of voice.

He glanced behind him, checking, she assumed, to see that the twins had left the room and were safely out of earshot in the hall, where their shoes and outdoor clothes were kept.

‘We can’t carry on like this, Jane,’ he said.

‘I know, I’m so sorry, I just don’t know what more to do—’

He interrupted her again.

‘I tell you what we’re going to do in the short term,’ he said. ‘We’re going to move the twins’ beds into the master bedroom. There’s enough space, just about. I will sleep there with them every night. And the door will be locked. You will sleep in the spare room until we have found a solution to this mess. That way at least I will know our children are safe. Do you agree to this?’

Jane felt a fleeting sharp stab of self-pity. She was being punished for something that was not her fault. The twins might be kept safe, but would she be? On the other hand, she had to admit that last night she had caused her darling Jo considerable distress, mentally if not physically. The little girl had made that clear only a few minutes previously. And who knows what might have happened if Felix hadn’t come running into the twins’ bedroom when he did? Certainly not Jane, that was for sure. She knew very little except that she had no choice but to go along with whatever Felix wished.

‘Of course, I agree,’ she replied. ‘But I would never hurt our children. You must know that.’

‘We’ve been through that,’ snapped Felix. ‘You are no longer in a position to even say such a thing.’

She supposed he was right. She certainly could not tell him he was wrong. Maybe, locked in the terrifying grip of the nightmare world inside her own head, she was capable of harming those she loved most in the world. Joanna and Stevie, and even Felix.

‘I don’t really know anything anymore,’ Felix continued, as he turned and headed out of the kitchen to join the twins.

In the doorway he looked back over his shoulder.

‘I’m sorry about your face, though,’ he said. ‘I won’t let that happen again, I promise you.’

‘It’s all right,’ Jane began lamely. ‘I don’t blame you. I blame myself for everything. Can we talk some more, when you get back? Please.’

‘You’ve told me all I need to know,’ said Felix.

His expression softened a little.

‘Look, Jane, you must see that none of it is real, don’t you? You must see that.’

She made no reply.

Then he was gone. She could hear him out in the hallway, joshing and jesting with Joanna and Stevie as the three of them bustled through the front door.

This was the family she loved. This was her life, the only life she had ever wanted. She couldn’t bear to think that she might lose it. That, unless she could change, move on from the unthinkable, she would lose it.

Jane sat down at the kitchen table, lowered her head into her hands, and wept.

And so began the chain of events which led, two weeks and five days later, to little Joanna Ferguson finding her mother hanged in the hallway of the family home.

A stunned Gerry Barham dialled 999 as soon as his wife told him what she had found at number eleven.

PCs Phil Lake and Morag Docherty of Devon and Cornwall Police were the first officers on the scene. Phil was a new boy, recently qualified from Hendon. Not only had he not encountered a dead body since joining the police force, he had never actually seen a dead body in the whole of his life.

But he didn’t want anyone to know that. Least of all Morag Docherty, who was not only one of the most experienced officers at his nick, but was also cool. Real cool.

Phil tried to look as if this were just another day at the office. Nonetheless he could feel his stomach heaving. He so hoped he could control it. He had heard about police officers throwing up all over crime scenes. That was not how he wanted to start his career.

In the background he could hear Docherty speaking. She’d stepped forward until she was just a couple of feet or so away from the hanging body, the position of which was such that the dead woman’s face was on the same level as their own.

Phil gulped.

‘They told us suicide, suspected suicide to be precise, which is what anyone would think at first, but you know I’m not entirely sure about this one,’ Docherty remarked thoughtfully. ‘This woman may well have previously been the victim of a violent assault by a third party, regardless of whatever happened tonight. Look at that old bruising on the side of her face. And there’s a freshly healed scar there, too.’

Phil made himself study the corpse, still hoping that he wouldn’t disgrace himself and foul the scene.

‘Yes, so there is,’ he said, trying to sound matter of fact.

‘Ummm, and do you see the way her right arm is hanging?’ Docherty enquired.

To Phil’s relief she continued before he was forced to come up with some sort of answer.

‘It’s either broken or dislocated at the shoulder, if you ask me.’

Phil struggled to concentrate and to find something intelligent to say.

‘But couldn’t that have happened even if she did throw herself off the landing?’ he queried. ‘I mean she probably swung on the rope when it tightened. Couldn’t her arm have been broken just by smashing against the wall or the bannisters?’

‘Ummm,’ murmured Docherty again. ‘You may well be right. But combined with the old bruising and the scar on her cheek... I dunno. Then there’s the matter of the children being alone in the house with their mother, certainly after her death if not before. Would she really hang herself from the bannisters of her own home, with her children there? Also, she has a husband, apparently, but no sign of him. One way and another, quite enough to get my antennae waggling.’

Phil wished he had antennae and wondered if he would ever develop any, and what it would feel like when they waggled.

Docherty was still talking.

‘Certainly not cut and dried, is it? I don’t think so, anyway. I reckon we’ve at least got a suspicious death on our hands. ‘Course, we won’t know for sure until CSI and pathology have done their stuff.’

She turned to face Phil.

‘Do you want to call it in, or shall I?’ she asked.

‘Oh, you do it,’ replied Phil.

With only the hint of a smile Docherty proceeded to do so. Phil fleetingly wished he had volunteered himself for the task, rather than deferring to the more experienced PC, as she had clearly expected him to.

It remained a good decision however. Docherty was professionally lucid as she reported what they had found at number eleven Estuary Vista Close, and relayed her suspicions that all might not be what it had at first seemed.

When she ended the call, she turned to Phil.

‘They’re going to contact CID and get back to us,’ she said.