Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

I invited them in, offering them both coffee.

‘The espresso machine’s on standby,’ I told Gladys.

‘Alas, we can’t,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a wedding tomorrow morning, and Bert and I have to finish preparing the church.’

I was shamefully rather pleased, even though they were doing me the most enormous favour. I didn’t feel up to polite chit-chat. And I reckoned Gladys realized that, understanding so much more about human nature than I’d given her credit for.

Anyway, I wanted to get out of the house that no longer felt like my home. And I decided that as I couldn’t phone Bella I might try to pay her a visit. She’d referred to walking home from Bodley School, which narrowed down the territory considerably. As much for something to do as anything else, I thought I would just drive around the area for a bit and see if I could spot her car.

I wrapped a silk scarf around my head and put on a pair of clear glass spectacles, which we’d once been given as part of an advertising campaign by a company promoting designer frames, as some sort of elementary disguise and protection. I thought I could at least prevent any lurking snappers getting a halfway decent shot of me, and also hopefully avoid the sort of public recognition that might lead to another incident like the one outside Heavitree Road Police Station when that rotten orange had been thrown.

I bundled Florrie into the back of Charlie Jameson’s elderly Ford, which started at the second attempt, and I trundled up the lane. Flash bulbs half blinded me as I turned left heading towards the Exeter road, past two camera-wielding young men.

The rain was freezing again. The wind bitter off the moors. The two photographers were muffled in big scarves and waterproof gear. Their faces were white and pinched and they looked freezing too. Which pleased me considerably, and was certainly about the only thing that day likely to bring me any pleasure.

I stopped at a petrol station to fill up the tank and bought a packet of boiled sweets. I was pleased that I knew my way to Bodley School as the little Ford had no sat nav.

I drove past the end of the road where I’d once lived, in the little studio flat in a big old Victorian house where Robert and I had first become lovers, and on through Exwick towards Bodley School. I turned onto the leafy street of neat little 1930s semis, very like the Shaws’ home in Okehampton, which led directly to Bodley, the street in which I’d somehow assumed Bella would be likely to live. I was hoping to see her car parked outside one of the houses.

I didn’t, so I carried on driving, ultimately turning onto the road which ran into the dreaded Bridge Estate, a place we teachers at Bodley, to our shame perhaps, had more or less regarded as a no-go area. I noticed that this road was called Riverview Avenue, and wondered if there could be a more unsuitable name. I was pretty sure I hadn’t even known the name of the road when I’d taught at Bodley all those years ago. Yet I was conscious of something niggling at me about Riverview Avenue, a significance which lurked somewhere in the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite pull forward.

Looking around me, I was aware that the River Exe could not be far away, but there was certainly no view of it. Neither did there appear to be a single tree along this ‘avenue’, which became more and more grim as I drove deeper into the Bridge Estate.

Hardly any of the little front gardens looked as if anyone ever paid them any attention. Several of the houses had broken windows. The garages, built in blocks on one side of the avenue, were covered in graffiti.

In the West Country we are spoiled when it comes to places to live and everything, I suppose, is relative. Gladys, ever full of surprises, and hardened by inner-city Liverpool, probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. But I was shocked. I hadn’t realized the Bridge Estate was as bad as this. And I wondered if it had deteriorated since my time teaching close by.

I was even more shocked to spot Bella’s Toyota Corolla on the hardstand in front of number 5 Riverview Avenue, right in the most undesirable heart of the estate. A group of rather frightening-looking young men in hoodies were lounging by the row of dilapidated garages opposite, openly smoking suspiciously large and droopy-looking cigarettes.

I coasted past and parked at what I hoped would be just the right distance to give me a decent view of the house without being spotted by anybody going in or out. It was one of the most unkempt in the road. A broken bicycle and an old mattress lay strewn across the little front garden. Two or three tubs bearing dried-out conifers were the only sign of an ill-fated, obviously long ago, attempt at any sort of gardening. The windows were filthy and it looked as if the curtains hanging inside were ragged and dirty.

I couldn’t somehow associate this at all with the woman I’d thought I was beginning to get to know, the woman who had seemed so organized and almost professionally kind, like the nurse she’d told me she’d once been, on the night of Robbie’s death. Then I had a thought. The car on the hardstand was the right make and colour, of course, but Bella might not be the only person living within walking distance of Bodley School to own such a vehicle. I peered at it more closely. I remembered noticing some time ago that the rear wing on the driver’s side of Bella’s car had been quite badly dented and the end of the bumper which wrapped partially round the wing twisted upwards at an angle. I always noticed damage to cars. Of course, she could have had it repaired. But apparently not. This vehicle had the same distinctive amendment. It had to be Bella’s car. And this had to be her house.

I reflected on my own beautiful home and the impression it must have made on Bella, something which I hadn’t given a thought to before. But then, I hadn’t expected the contrast to be quite as great. Everything in my life must have looked so perfect and enviable to Bella.

I just couldn’t quite bring myself to go and knock on the door, with its peeling yellow paint and the number slightly askew. Instead I sat there looking at the place, thankful all over again for the little old Ford which was now a bonus in more ways than one. My Lexus would have stood out like Joan Collins on a Saga holiday. The Ford fitted in perfectly. Even so, the hoodies paid me rather more attention than I would have liked. I suppose it was because I was a stranger in a strange car in what may have been a rough area but was probably also a tight community. I felt very uncomfortable, but I still sat there for about half an hour just watching, really, though I wasn’t sure for what, unless it was for further confirmation that this was Bella’s house because I still couldn’t quite believe it.

Making myself ignore the attentions of the hoodies, who walked by once or twice staring at me long and hard, I wound down the driver’s window. I could hear a dog barking, from within number 5, I was sure. Was it Flash’s bark? I couldn’t be certain, but if not then the barking dog was certainly the same sort of size as Flash.

I glanced across at the garage marked number 5. The flip-up-and-over door stood half open and, in common with most of the others in the row, did not look as if it would shut properly, let alone lock. All the same, I guessed that most of the residents garaged their cars at night if only in the belief that by putting their vehicles out of sight they would lessen temptation to would-be vandals.

Then my attention was drawn to a drumming sound above my head. To my alarm I realized that one of the hoodies was walking past nonchalantly running his fingertips along the Ford’s roof. I nearly swallowed one of my boiled sweets whole. Florrie, always a good traveller, was contentedly curled up on the back seat, but she did manage a noise vaguely resembling a growl, and I was pathetically glad of her presence even though I knew what a big softy she was.