Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

‘What about Robert?’ Gladys asked suddenly. ‘Hasn’t he come home yet? You’re going to need as much help as you can get, and surely that’s what husbands are for. Where is the man?’

I pulled a face. ‘He came yesterday evening,’ I said. ‘Just as Marti and I arrived here. I’m afraid I told him to go away.’

‘Oh dear.’ She looked genuinely distressed for me. And I realized she expected an explanation. After all, absolutely nobody knew the truth about the rift between Robert and me.

‘We’ve been under such stress since Robbie’s death,’ I said. ‘It’s my fault really, I just want to be on my own.’

‘I see,’ she said, looking as if she did anything but see.

‘I expect it will all blow over,’ I lied. ‘But at the moment I’m pretty much on my own. I don’t even know where Robert is.’

‘I see,’ she repeated, then went again into that practical mode in which she was at her most impressive.

‘Right. First things first. Wheels will have to be down to me then. Just let me think about it and have a word round the village. I have an idea already. I’ll get back to you later today.’

She left straight away, enlivened by her new sense of purpose. One shouldn’t mock the Gladys Ponsonby Smythes of this world, I’d come to realize. She really did want to help, and when given the opportunity was extremely effective.

I made myself another double espresso after she’d left and did some more thinking.

I tried to call Sue Shaw again. I had no mobile, of course, but fortunately her number, scribbled on that petrol receipt, was pinned to the cork noticeboard on the wall in the kitchen by the house phone. I thanked the God I’d never believed in for my long-time Luddite habit. But Robbie’s girlfriend wasn’t answering her phone. Of course, her father could still have control of it.

I considered for a moment calling the landline at the Shaw family home, which I knew from my Internet search was listed on directory enquiries. But while I was still thinking about this the house phone rang and Sue’s number flashed onto the screen. I answered eagerly. Unfortunately the caller turned out to be her father.

‘I’m sorry about this, Mrs Anderson, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop calling my daughter,’ he said. ‘She was having a bad enough time dealing with the way your son died and then losing the baby before all this other stuff. I’m sorry, but I really don’t want her speaking to you. So please don’t call again.’

His manner was courteous and his voice level-pitched, but I suspected at once that it was an effort for him to maintain control.

‘I–I only wanted to talk about Robbie,’ I stumbled. ‘I know we both miss him and—’

‘It’s a bit late for that, Mrs Anderson,’ responded Michael Shaw sharply, his underlying anger quickly getting the better of him. ‘Not only did you come to my home uninvited and bully my daughter, but it seems you set the cops on me, not only over how your son died but also over the abduction of that child. Are you out of your mind?’

I mumbled something wimpish. So Jarvis and his team had conducted further inquiries as promised. At the very least it would seem that they had interviewed Michael Shaw. Only at the moment, that did not appear to be helping my case very much.

‘What the hell were you thinking of?’ Shaw continued, and he was shouting at me now. ‘Do you think I’m as barking mad as you are, is that it? Do you think I’d go around snatching innocent children in order to get some sort of perverted revenge on you and your precious son? Don’t you fret, Mrs Anderson, anything I want to do or say to you I’ll do it direct, only I’m probably too decent a bloke to give you what you really fucking well deserve. You’re quite crazy enough to have taken that child, I’m dammed sure of that, and I hope the police throw the fucking book at you. I hope they lock you up and lose the fucking key...’

Luke Macintyre’s mother had already given me much the same message in much the same language. I couldn’t listen to any more of it. In any case there was little point. I ended the call and took a deep, deep breath. I asked myself what else I could expect. Of course Michael Shaw was furious. He would be furious whether or not he was responsible in any way for Robbie’s death or Luke Macintyre’s abduction. But the latter did seem unlikely, I had to admit. And either way, it seemed clear that the Shaw family were now totally off the radar to me. I had to sort out the whole ghastly mess for myself.

Firstly there were a couple of other phone calls I wanted to make. I never had made that walk on the beach with Bella nor offered an explanation for not doing so. Not, I realized, that I would really need to do that. Bella could hardly have missed the level of media coverage my arrest had attracted. Whether or not she had tried to call me since hearing the news was unknown since the police still had my mobile phone and I hadn’t ever given her the Highrise landline number.

I remembered how kind she had been to me on the night of Robbie’s death. If anything, I had been plunged into even deeper despair by subsequent events than I had been then. And Bella, for whatever reason, had been the person who gave me some sort of comfort at the start of this dreadful nightmare I was now living. Maybe she really was the nearest thing I had to a friend. Gladys had been kind, too. More than kind. And wonderfully practical and helpful. But she didn’t hit the spot the way Bella did.

I so much wanted to call Bella. But, during our first meeting on Exmouth beach, which now seemed so very long ago, I’d plumbed her number straight into my detained mobile, and I had no other record of it. I tried directory enquiries to see if I could get a landline number for her, but I had no proper address, and a not particularly helpful operator could find no listing.

I called Dad again as I’d promised. He still sounded terribly upset, probably not least because I again turned down his offer to drive to Highrise to look after me.

I checked my watch. It was now 11 a.m. I decided that if I hadn’t heard from Gladys by two o’clock, I would get a taxi into Okehampton, go to the bank again, draw every last penny out of my joint account with Robert and hire a car regardless.

However, not long after noon I heard two vehicles pull into the yard. I opened the front door and looked out. Gladys was driving one of them. I saw that she had Florrie in the back.

She coasted to a halt, stepped out of her car into the yard and, smiling broadly, opened one of the rear doors releasing my dog. Florrie demolished the distance between us in one bound then covered me with licks. And hair, of course. None the less, I cuddled her close.

‘However did you manage to get her here so quickly?’ I asked, while thanking Gladys profusely.

The vicar’s wife tapped the side of her prominent nose. ‘Not what you know, but who you know, flower,’ she said.

Meanwhile a man I couldn’t quite place, but whose face looked vaguely familiar, stepped out of the second vehicle, a small, not very new Ford.

Gladys introduced him as Bert Jameson, churchwarden at St Andrew’s. The man shook my hand with surprising warmth, I thought, under the circumstances.

‘This is Bert’s boy’s car,’ Gladys continued. ‘’Fraid young Charlie likes to put his foot down a bit too much and he’s got himself into a spot of bother. Too many points on his licence. Off the road for six months. He and his dad say you’re welcome to borrow the car as long as you pay the extra for the insurance. Sorry it’s not quite the class of motor you’re used to.’

‘Oh, Gladys, Bert, thank you so very much,’ I said with genuine gratitude. ‘It looks like a limo to me, I can tell you.’