Sophie Hannah - A Game for All the Family

“You’re not in a position to know that for certain,” Luce says. He’s allowed to be sure of things; I’m not. “Your husband and daughter know your mobile phone number, yes?”

I nod.

“All right.” He writes in his notebook. “And anyone who knows it could have passed it on to someone else—there’s no way we can know who, or how many, so if we’re looking for pointers we’d better concentrate on you.”

“That’s a waste of time. These calls have nothing to do with me. Can’t you trace them?” Above my head, the ceiling creaks. I hear raised voices, and the words “brush” and “minutes.” Alex and Ellen. I thought they’d gone but obviously not. They’re arguing about what constitutes adequate cleaning of teeth. Figgy looks at me and barks. Do we need a toothbrush for him, and special dog toothpaste? I’ll have to call Olwen and ask.

“There’s someone else who’s got my mobile number,” I tell Luce. “Olwen Brawn, Figgy’s breeder. But she’s not our woman. She didn’t know me or my number until yesterday, and she has a completely different voice.”

“I’ll make a note of her anyway. As for tracing the calls—yes, we will, in the light of the death threats.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s interesting that you say the calls have nothing to do with you.”

“Not interesting,” I contradict him. “Just stating a fact.”

“You’re the one receiving the calls.”

“Yes, but they’re not intended for me. They’re intended for someone called Sandie.”

“Which isn’t your name and bears no resemblance to it.”

“Correct.”

“Anyone ever called you Sandie?”

“Yes.” I wait for him to look up in surprise. “The woman making these calls. She called me Sandie this morning, twice. No one else has ever called me Sandie because it’s not my name.”

“All right, I’ll rephrase the question. Does the name Sandie have a particular significance for you? Was it a childhood nickname, maybe? Does it strike a chord, bring anything to mind?”

“Um . . . the movie Grease ? Olivia Newton-John, John Travolta.”

“How is that film significant to you?”

“It isn’t. I like it in the way that I like lots of films. Look, if I’d had a Grease -themed fling with a man who called me Sandie, I would mention it, wouldn’t I? I can think of no reason at all why anyone would address me as Sandie apart from the actual reason, which I’ve already told you: this woman has me confused with someone else.”

“Though she knows you lived in Muswell Hill and worked in television. And from what she said about graves, she knows that your family consists of two adults and one child.”

“Yes.” I want to scream with frustration. “Can we not waste time telling each other what we already know? I’m sure you’re busy. Yes, this woman knows some things about me. I’m not denying that. And either because of those things, or in spite of them, she thinks I’m Sandie, which I’m not—scary Sandie who’s determined to destroy her. She’s clever, you see. She’s the one intent on scaring and intimidating me. She’s justifying her desire to attack with the lie that I’ve done it to her first, or Sandie has.”

DC Luce grimaces. “Odd way to scare someone,” he says.

“I disagree. I think it’s a bloody excellent way to scare someone. You’ve got your basic, always-effective death threat—‘I’ll kill you and your family’—with an added layer of fucking with the person’s head. You accuse them of doing to you precisely what you’re trying to do to them so that they’ll feel needlessly guilty, paranoid and confused as fuck, as well as mortally afraid. They’ll grow more and more convinced that they must be to blame for what’s happening to them, even though no evidence is provided. It’s quite brilliant if you think about it.”

Luce shakes his head. “Sorry. I don’t see it.”

Please crap down his trouser leg, Figgy.

I smile and say, “You might not see it, DC Luce, but I’m living it.”

“Following your logic, though, she’s not aiming this at you, she’s aiming it at Sandie. Sandie may have tried to terrorize her.”

“True, but . . . when I tell her over and over that I’m not Sandie, she flat-out contradicts me and tells me I am. So maybe I’m the intended target after all.” I’m trying to work it out as I speak. “How can she have such a strong, intimate-sounding grudge against Sandie and fail to realize I’m a different person? I don’t buy that. It’s more likely to be someone who hates me and wants to mess with my head as much as possible before . . .” I don’t want to say before what. I’d rather not think about it.

“But at the risk of blowing my own trumpet,” I continue, “ nobody hates me that much—not enough to do what this woman’s doing. Maybe she’s someone who was mildly pissed off with me, and also angry with someone called Sandie, and she had a psychotic breakdown and fused us into the same person. Schizophrenemy: when you merge two enemies in your mind to make only one.”

DC Luce looks unimpressed.

“Or maybe we’re crazy trying to find any logic in it at all,” I say. “She might be out-and-out mad for all we know. Foaming-at-the-mouth insane—in which case, tomorrow she could well ring up and call me Gertrude or Montgomery.”

Figgy springs up, in alert mode. He tries to bark and sounds hoarse. A few seconds later I hear the front door close quietly. “It’s just Alex and Ellen setting off for school, Figgs. Relax.” I keep my voice unemotional, embarrassed to be talking to a dog in front of a policeman.

“Your husband’s name is Alex,” says DC Luce.

“Yes. I know.”

“Short for Alexander?”

“Yeah.”

“Sandie’s a common short form of Alexander.”

I laugh. “Try calling Alex ‘Sandie’ and see what happens.”

“Has anybody ever—”

“No. Whoever Sandie is, it’s not Alex. Let’s fast-forward what’s coming next, shall we? Yes, Alex travels a lot for work—he’s a very-much-in-demand opera singer who sings all over the world and is away as often as he’s at home. No, he doesn’t have another woman who knows him as Sandie and who’s hatching a plan to kill him, his wife and his daughter.”

“I’d like to ask your husband if anyone has ever addressed him as Sandie,” says Luce.

“They haven’t.”

“He’s just gone out, has he? Do you know how long he’ll be?”

I groan. “The caller addressed me as Sandie. Not Alex. How often do you call a friend and then, when the friend’s spouse answers the phone, think, ‘Oh well, even though Susan’s answered, I’ll just say, “Hello, Geoff” anyway because she’s Geoff’s wife and that’s close enough.’ ”

“How long is your husband likely to be out?” Luce asks again.

Allisande Ingrey. Sandie could be short for Allisande.

“Ms. Merrison?”

Shut up for a minute. Let me try and work out what this means.

How can it mean anything? Allisande Ingrey is a fictional character. It’s another irrelevant coincidence, like Sandie being a diminutive of Alexander.

“Justine? How long is your husband—”

“Instead of scouring our lives for a cause or connection that isn’t there, how about just tracing the calls? How long will it take? I mean, could you do it this morning—could you be doing it now, instead of waiting for Alex to come back so that you can ask him pointless questions? He’ll be gone a good while, I’d imagine. He’s dropping Ellen at school, then doing dog-related errands and . . .”

I stop as the person whose morning activities I’m describing appears in the doorway. “Alex? I thought you’d taken Ellen to school. What’s wrong?” His face is tight and pale.