Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

‘You’re wicked, wicked!’ shouted the young woman. ‘You’re a monster and you should be locked up. What are you doing out on the streets? You should be in jail. They should throw the fucking key away after what you’ve done. You’re a fucking monster, a fucking monster...’

And so it went on for what seemed like a very long time while I just stood in the doorway and took it. I think I was still slightly befuddled by my bedtime cocktail of drugs and alcohol. Whatever the cause, I had no way of dealing with this. Fleetingly, I even wished I hadn’t sent Robert away.

Eventually I started to function again and tried to close the front door. The second young man, carrying a notebook instead of a camera, stepped forward and looked as if he might be about to push his way into the hall.

‘Can’t we just have a word, Mrs Anderson?’ he enquired. ‘Wouldn’t you like to respond to Mrs Macintyre, give us your side of the story?’

Light dawned. Mrs Macintyre. The mother of the little boy left tied up in the stable. Of course it was Mrs Macintyre, whom I had seen on television, accompanied, apparently, by representatives of the Great British press.

I found my voice at last.

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ I said.

Then I remembered how Marti Smith had dealt with the press.

‘And I should remind you that you are on private property,’ I continued as calmly as I could manage. ‘I want you to leave. Please leave now.’

Rather to my surprise they backed off almost immediately. Well, I suppose they had got their story. And their pictures.

The young reporter asked over his shoulder if I was quite sure I didn’t want to say anything.

‘Please leave,’ I repeated.

They climbed into their car, manoeuvred a three-point turn in the yard and retreated up the lane.

I had a feeling they may have operated against the law, in more ways than one. But I knew from the Joanna Yeates case in Bristol, when the murdered young woman’s innocent landlord Christopher Jefferies was hounded unmercifully by the press after being wrongly arrested, that a significant flaw in Britain’s judicial system is that the laws of sub judice only come fully into force after a suspect has been charged.

In any case what did it matter? I wasn’t going to do anything about it, was I? I didn’t have the strength. I stood watching their tail lights disappear around the bend at the top of the lane. Then I closed and locked the door and slumped against it.

The urge to break down in tears again was almost overwhelming. But I was determined not to let myself. I really had to start fighting back, somehow. I knew what I needed to do. And the first thing was that I could not allow myself the luxury of collapsing in a heap. Not any more.

Later that morning, at the more respectable hour of 10 a.m., Gladys Ponsonby Smythe turned up. In spite of the horrors of that dawn visit I remained determined to keep my resolution to find out the whole truth about all that had happened in my life, and the importance of maintaining my strength was pretty obvious. I knew that I had to at least try to eat properly. I also needed to slow up and calm down. I wasn’t going to get anywhere rushing around like a headless chicken. If I didn’t watch it, I was going to end up in prison for a very long time for an offence I hadn’t committed. So I was in the kitchen making myself eat boiled eggs and toasted soldiers when she knocked on the door.

‘Do you realize there are photographers wielding cameras with giant lenses at the top of your drive?’ Gladys asked.

I confirmed that I did.

‘Well, they should be moved on. Do you want me to call the police?’

I shook my head, glad that she knew nothing of my dawn visit from Mrs Macintyre, accompanied by a duo of so-called journalists. I didn’t think I could have coped with Gladys’s reaction to that.

‘Apparently, if they are not actually on my property, there is nothing I can do about it,’ I said. ‘And the police don’t seem to be my biggest fans right now either. The more pressure I’m put under the better as far as they’re concerned, I reckon.’

‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ said Gladys. ‘How’s Marti Smith shaping up?’

‘She seems great,’ I said. ‘But it’s early days. I’m waiting to hear from her about what happens next.’

‘Right.’

Gladys seemed, unusually for her, unsure of exactly what to do or say.

I offered her tea or coffee, saw her glance switch to my mercifully undamaged espresso machine, and remembered that she’d never been properly inside Highrise before. Even in its reduced circumstances the old house remained impressive.

‘I’d love a cappuccino, chuck,’ she said.

‘Of course.’

She watched me make the coffee, a double espresso for me, and took a first appreciative sip of her cappuccino before speaking again.

‘I really came to see if there was anything I could do to help,’ she said. ‘Not to drink your coffee. But this is a treat, I must say.’

She took another sip. She may not have bothered with or, for all I knew, been able to afford too many of the niceties of life at home, but she appreciated them all right when abroad, it seemed. I studied her thoughtfully. There could be no more casual dismissals of the few people who were prepared to help me.

‘Well, there is something,’ I said. ‘The police still have my car and they don’t seem in any hurry to return it. Florrie’s in police kennels somewhere. I don’t even know yet what I have to do to get her back, but she’s sure to need to be collected. If you could do that, it would be really great. I miss her.’

‘Of course I can do that. In fact, just leave the whole thing to me. I’ll call the police and check out the form, then I’ll pick her up for you as soon as possible.’

Gladys looked delighted to have been asked to perform a task, and I already knew she would do it with speed and efficiency.

‘Anything else, luvvie?’ she asked. ‘Do you need any shopping done?’

I shook my head.

‘I’m all right for a bit. Not hungry anyway.’

I gestured at the empty eggshells on my plate.

‘Had to really force these down,’ I said.

Gladys took another sip of her coffee. ‘So you’ve no idea how long the police will keep your car?’

I shook my head again. ‘At least until they’ve decided whether or not they’re going to charge me, I should imagine.’

Gladys grunted. ‘Bloody fools,’ she said. ‘Well, you have to have wheels, don’t you, living out here?’

‘I suppose so,’ I said.

‘Do you have a plan?’

Marti Smith was proved right yet again. The vicar’s wife was totally practical. Far more intent on ensuring life carried on as it should than gathering in souls.

‘Not really. I suppose I thought I’d wait a day or so to see what happened, then rent a car if I need to.’

‘You don’t want to do that, chuck,’ she told me firmly. ‘Costs a fortune and you might need every penny you have if the police carry on playing their bloody stupid game.’

She glanced around the kitchen and through the windows providing sweeping views across the garden, towards and beyond the old stable which had been the purveyor of so much grief for me, then out over the moors.

‘Owning this house alone will prevent you getting legal aid,’ she continued.

I hadn’t thought about that. Money had never seemed to be a problem for Robert and me. And Robert had already seemed to indicate that he would be willing to pay my legal fees. But, of course, everyone knew that these fees could be crippling. I also realized that I actually had no idea how our family finances stood. Robert had handled everything. I did now know, however, that my husband was not a highly paid engineering executive in the oil industry, but a glorified labourer, and it was sixteen years previously that he had won the lottery, since when we had lived lavishly in an expensive house and wanted for nothing, and our son’s school fees, albeit aided by his swimming scholarship, had been a substantial and largely unexpected expense over the last few years.