Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

‘You should have seen her, sarge, tearing across the lawn, half naked, with the little lad in her arms. Gave us quite a turn, I can tell you. Just couldn’t take it in for a minute or two.’

That was PC Jacobs, his sharp, rather high-pitched tones, with just the merest hint of a Devon accent, quite unmistakable.

‘Ummm. Lucky you came along when you did.’

DS Jarvis. A more modulated, perhaps better educated voice, lower-pitched.

‘Yep. It was only a routine follow-up to her call-out. Not that we’ve ever believed a word about these mystery intruders and all that, have we, Ricky?’

‘Well, no. Probably not. But we certainly weren’t expecting anything like this, that’s for sure.’

That was PC Bickerton speaking. Higher-pitched again, but more thoughtful and measured.

‘I wonder where she was planning to take the lad.’ DS Jarvis again.

‘Or what she was going to do to him, more to the point.’ PC Jacobs.

‘Look, we don’t know that she was going to do anything to him.’ Those measured tones of PC Bickerton. ‘She told us she just found him in the stable. By chance, like. It’s possible she could be telling the truth, you know.’

‘Yeah, and pigs might fly.’ PC Jacobs.

‘She was keen enough to try to revive the boy.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything.’

‘But why would she take a child like that? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It does to me, Bickerton.’ DS Jarvis again. ‘Pretty straightforward, I’d say. She lost her own son and decided to nick somebody else’s.’

‘In that case, why didn’t she look after the child properly? Why on earth would she strip him, tie him up and leave him in a freezing stable?’

DS Jarvis’s response was swift. ‘Because she’s off her trolley, Bickerton. But then, we’d already half guessed that, hadn’t we?’

‘Yeah, probably thinks she’s the Virgin Mary. Soon be Christmas after all.’ Jacobs, laughing snidely at his own joke. Or what he presumably regarded as a joke. I could hardly believe my ears. Even DS Jarvis seemed to think the constable had gone too far.

‘That’s enough, Jacobs,’ he said.

I glanced at the pretty woman PCSO. If she realized that I was listening to every word, she gave no sign. I suspected she might be the sort you get in all walks of life who do what they are told and no more.

At that moment two paramedics carrying a small stretcher holding Luke Macintyre, now wrapped in a silver thermal blanket, went past in the hallway on their way to the front door. And within seconds a trio of blue-suited Scenes of Crime Officers walked by in the other direction.

‘I see you buggers have been trampling over everything as usual,’ said a strong male voice. ‘Now, please everyone, get the fuck out of my crime scene!’

‘We did have to ensure the safety of a small child, you arrogant bastard,’ said DS Jarvis.

Now I was listening to a row between two different sides of the police force, and it didn’t sound like friendly banter to me. I glanced at the pretty PCSO again. As if reading my mind, she turned on her heel and closed the sitting-room door.

Whatever was going on outside was now just an incomprehensible hum. In some ways, in view of what I’d overheard, this could have been regarded as something of a relief. But at least I’d learned exactly what the police attitude to me was. And I had a feeling I was going to need all the knowledge I could acquire if I was going to survive this. Knowledge is strength, Gran used to say.

Just a few minutes later the sitting-room door swung open again and in strode Jarvis with Jacobs and Bickerton at his heel. My three favourite policemen, though I thought Ricky Bickerton wasn’t too bad.

I stood up and braced myself for an onslaught. I’d used the time alone in the sitting room to sort out my thoughts as best I could and to work out what I was going to say.

But I was completely thrown by DS Jarvis’s opening remark. It was an absolute corker.

‘Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t arrest you, Mrs Anderson?’ he enquired.

I just stared at him.

‘All right, first of all, where were you on Thursday afternoon? Jarvis asked.

‘I was here. I was teaching in the morning, at Okehampton College. And I got back just after 1.30, I think. I was here for the rest of the day.’

‘Were you alone in the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what time did you leave the college?’

‘About one. It’s around half an hour’s drive.’

‘So as Luke was taken at approximately 3 p.m. on Thursday you would have had plenty of time to get to Exeter, wouldn’t you?’

My head was spinning. I could hardly believe what was happening.

‘But I didn’t go to Exeter. I didn’t abduct the boy. You can’t seriously be thinking of arresting me. I haven’t done anything.’

‘We seem to be hearing that quite a lot from you right now, Mrs Anderson,’ Jarvis continued.

‘I can’t help it that these things keep happening to me. And I can’t explain it.’

‘Right,’ said Jarvis. ‘But presumably you can tell me how you came to discover little Luke Macintyre.’

‘I’ve already told PCs Jacobs and Bickerton,’ I said.

‘Yes, and now perhaps you’ll be kind enough to tell me,’ said the detective sergeant, speaking with deliberately over-emphasized patience. ‘I am the officer in charge around here, I believe.’

I ignored the sarcasm and began to relate the whole story again, about Florrie behaving strangely and leading me to the stable, then hearing sounds from behind the woodpile, and the shock of discovering the naked child there.

‘What about before that?’ asked Jarvis.

‘What do you mean before? There was no before.’

‘There most certainly was, Mrs Anderson. The medical team have already told me, and it’s pretty damned obvious to anyone, isn’t it, in this weather, that if little Luke had been in that outbuilding for three nights, or even for one night, the boy would be dead by now.’

Jarvis paused, as if for dramatic effect.

‘But I don’t know where he was before,’ I said. ‘The first time I clapped eyes on the poor child was earlier this afternoon, just before your two constables arrived.’

‘Look, it is a medical fact that if the boy had been in that old stable for more than a few hours, and certainly if he’d been there overnight, then he could not have survived. You do accept that, do you not?’

I felt that any answer I gave could only be the wrong one. So I said nothing.

DS Jarvis had no intention of letting me off the hook. ‘Come on, Mrs Anderson. I need you to reply to my question.’

‘Yes, all right then,’ I said. ‘Of course, I accept that.’

‘In which case, Mrs Anderson, you are very lucky not to be looking at a murder charge, aren’t you?’

‘But I didn’t do—’ I began.

‘And indeed still might be looking at one, the state that poor child is in.’

‘He seemed so much better, though. Surely he is going to be all right, isn’t he?’ Rather to my surprise, I found that, for a moment anyway, I was every bit as concerned about little Luke Macintyre as I was about myself.

‘You never know with hypothermia,’ said Jarvis. ‘And this is a three-year-old child we’re talking about. There’s nothing of him. Let’s just say you would be prudent, yes prudent, to be anxious about his survival. Very anxious.’

‘Of course I’m anxious about the poor little boy’s survival,’ I said. ‘Anyone would be. Particularly a mother.’ I half choked on the word. ‘But it doesn’t mean I had anything to do with what happened to him. I deny that absolutely.’

‘Do you, Mrs Anderson?’ continued the detective sergeant. ‘In which case perhaps you have some idea who may have brought the child here and abandoned him to freeze to death in your stable. And, indeed, who may have been responsible for allegedly entering your house in the middle of the night and then trashing the place?’