Sophie Hannah - A Game for All the Family

“I don’t think anyone would think that,” said Allisande. “Everyone likes me and Lisette. They wouldn’t punish us because Perrine murdered Malachy Dodd.”

“Oh, not that again!” said Perrine irritably. “I didn’t murder him.”

“Allisande’s right,” said Lisette. “I’ve lost count of the number of people who have said how sorry they are for me, having Perrine as a sister. I’ve had offers from teachers and pupils for me to go and live at their houses, join their families.”

“Girls, I’m so sorry,” said Sorrel. “It has to be this way. You two will be a good influence on Perrine, and I don’t want to have to worry about you at school all day. Yes, most people have been reasonable and sympathetic to you both, but remember, it only takes one person to drop a rope noose down from the branch of a tree.”

“But . . . we can still see our friends, can’t we?” said Lisette. “Mimsie can still come round for tea after school sometimes, and at weekends?”

“And Henrietta?” said Allisande.

“I’m afraid not,” said Sorrel, who looked genuinely upset. “Anyone who comes to the house might try to harm Perrine. Even if they have no desire to do so themselves, they might unwittingly be used as a pawn by someone who wants to hurt or kill her. We can’t take the risk. From now on, for the foreseeable future, it’ll just be the five of us. And . . . perhaps we will eventually move out of Speedwell House, away from Kingswear, to somewhere where no one knows the names Perrine Ingrey and Malachy Dodd.”

“No!” protested Lisette and Allisande in unison. They had both started to sob. “We don’t want to leave our friends!”

Sorrel looked at Bascom. “You see?” she said softly. “My way wouldn’t have involved cutting Lisette and Allisande off from their—”

“Darling,” Bascom said with a warning tone to his voice. “Come on. We agreed.”

“Yes,” Sorrel sighed. “We agreed.”

“So . . .” Bascom rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. “It’s going to be just the five of us for a while, and it’s going to be lots of fun! We’ll do all kinds of exciting things! We’re going to introduce some new, extra-special security measures here at home, so that no one will be able to break in and threaten us. It’ll be like playing hide and seek, but . . . for a long time, and with no one being able to find us.”

“But you and Mum both have jobs,” said Lisette.

This was true. Bascom worked as a supervisor in a timber frame factory, and Sorrel worked part-time as a receptionist for a vet in Kingswear. She would have hated to work full-time, or be a boss, whereas Bascom was ideally suited to a managerial role. He enjoyed delegating work, nurturing employees and being responsible for bringing everything together. Even when one of his workers fell into one of the machines at the timber factory and lost an arm, Bascom was pleased that he was the one sorting it all out (though there was nothing he could do about the lost arm, sadly).

“We will give up our jobs,” Bascom told his three daughters. “We’ll manage. We have some money saved up. This is why it’s so sensible to save for a rainy day.”

At that moment, the twilight sky lost all its color and turned jet black, and rain started to pour forth from above, drumming and hammering on the roof of Speedwell House. The Ingreys huddled together for comfort, but it was hard to feel safe when it seemed as if even the weather had turned against you.

6

I’m sitting in my car on Cravestock Road, a narrow one-way street of redbrick interwar semis. Less than ten meters away are Panama Row and Germander; less than twenty, my old friend the North Circular Road. I’m trying to convince myself that coming here isn’t the most senseless thing I’ve ever done.

There’s no reason to believe that my anonymous caller is Olwen Brawn, a woman I’ve never met. I know this. I also know I’m going to suspect her until I prove that she’s not the culprit.

If we speak—if her tongue doesn’t catch on her teeth and she has nothing resembling a lisp—then I’ll have made progress. I’ll have ruled her out. I should get on with it. Get out of the car and do this.

Just once more: Why, exactly?

Silently, I present my justification to the imaginary judge in my head, who is a physically implausible composite of all the judges I’ve seen in The Good Wife .

Strange things have been happening lately: the anonymous calls; the overpowering feeling I had when I first saw 8 Panama Row; the fragment of Ellen’s story I found, containing bizarre names I don’t believe my daughter would invent; George Donbavand, who either isn’t real or else was expelled for something he didn’t do and then erased from the school’s collective memory; Ellen telling me she Googled the house I’d been unable to forget, and discovered that its name was Germander.

She’s keeping something from me for sure, and she was interested enough in 8 Panama Row to try to find out more about it. Maybe those two things are linked. Maybe my reaction to Germander was triggered by something I sensed in Ellen—a powerful emotional response? It must happen occasionally that a mother picks up on her child’s unspoken feelings.

That’s why I’m here. If I want to find my threatening caller, it seems sensible to start searching in the compartment of my life labeled “Freakish Things I Can’t Explain,” rather than in “Absolutely Ordinary.” Most of the people in “Freakish Things” have voices I’ve heard more than once—the women at Beaconwood, for example. Lesley Griffiths, Kendra Squires, Ayesha Al-Ghannam, Helen Minchin and the rest. I’ve been through every female member of staff, and I’m certain it’s none of them.

Olwen Brawn, owner and resident of 8 Panama Row, is the only woman in “Freakish Things” whose name I know and whose voice I’ve never heard. That’s why I’m about to knock on her door.

Alex thinks I’m being irrational.

“Speedwell House,” I said to him over breakfast this morning. “Germander. Germander Speedwell. You really think it’s a coincidence?”

“Yes,” he said emphatically, as if he’d been waiting to say the word all his life. “Why would Olwen Brawn, resident of a random ugly house beside the North Circular, be the person making these calls?”

I don’t know. I’ve driven all this way to find out and I’m too scared to get out of the car.

I force myself, finally, by imagining the Range Rover is about to burst into flames. Then, as I walk toward 8 Panama Row, I imagine myself walking in the opposite direction—later, once this is all over, as it soon will be.

I ring Germander’s doorbell and trigger a chorus of barking. At least two dogs in the house, if not more. I hear a woman’s voice telling the dogs to calm down, not to be silly. Olwen Brawn?

If so, she’s not my telephone stalker. There’s no lisp, and her voice has a higher pitch. Too late to run away.

The door opens and I find myself face to face with a woman who looks a few years older than me—late forties. Her dark brown hair is short and spiky at the front. She’s wearing a waistless black knitted dress with black tights and bright pink sandals. Dark red lipstick. Around her legs and behind her, there’s a collection of what look like small bluish gray sheep, except sheep don’t bark or have long, pointy faces. Therefore: strange dogs, each with a ridge of curly fur protruding between its eyes. One is more neatly groomed than the others. Its long ears end in perfectly round fur pompoms, like earrings: dog-cum-topiary.

Before I have a chance to say “Sorry, wrong house,” the woman smiles and says, “He . . . eey!,” as if she’s been waiting to welcome me for hours. “You’re here for Yonder!”