Sophie Hannah - A Game for All the Family

I try to make out the shape of a correct and wise answer in the silence, but Figgy offers no hint as to what he’s thinking.

“I believe it does,” I mutter, aware of how defensive I sound. “Whatever Ellen says, the idea that it’s someone at Beaconwood calling and threatening me . . . sorry, but I don’t buy it. And Alex will say I’m being ridiculous, but this Sandie business—”

I break off. Figgy looks at me expectantly.

“When I was talking to Lisp Woman this morning and Ellen started to cry—that wasn’t general distress at having a stranger call us and threaten our safety. Ellen burst into tears and ran from the room immediately after hearing me say, “My name’s not Sandie.” It was the name that broke her, and someone applying it to me. Later, she accused me of hiding my true identity—of being Sandie. Somehow . . .”

I pick up my mug of tea and walk over to the window. Standing here looking out, I remember the feeling I had upstairs in Ellen’s room. Something not quite right about her window, or the view, or . . .

No, it’s not coming to me. It’s silly to hope that it ever will.

Figgy appears to be asleep. I go over the rest of my theory in my head: somehow, there’s a connection between Ellen getting so upset at the mention of Sandie, and Allisande from her story.

If she suspected me of being Allisande Ingrey, that means Allisande Ingrey is real.

Is it possible for three generations of a family, all with such unusual names, to have no online presence whatsoever? I Googled the Ingreys and found nothing. Maybe I should ask around about them—in pubs, in the post office at Kingswear. Not everyone is on Facebook or has a Twitter following, especially once you leave London. I’m the living proof. I haven’t looked at my Twitter timeline or Facebook page since giving up my job—not once. If there are messages for me, I have no interest in receiving them.

I could have shut down all my social media accounts when I left London—could have and probably should have, but doing so would have meant going to each site at least once more, and I couldn’t face that. I knew exactly what sort of messages would be waiting for me, and how many there would be, because I’d dared to disagree, publicly, with the dominant view of an issue that, in a sane world, would never have been an issue at all. I didn’t want to see all the nonsense, and still don’t. I chose instead to pretend that Twitter and Facebook had ceased to exist.

Devon must be full of people who feel the same way about the internet and shun electronic devices in favor of fresh air, horseback riding and mulch.

“But if Perrine Ingrey committed a murder, then surely I’d find something,” I say to Figgy, who has opened his eyes.

He yawns.

I go back to the table, sit down and start to click on the search results for Professor Anne Donbavand. Here’s her page from the University of Exeter’s website. No photo, but a square in the top right-hand corner containing a head-and-shoulders silhouette template. Damn. I’d like to see her face. Would I take one look at it and think, “Oh yes—definitely an unhinged harrasser”? Or the opposite: “There’s no way someone with that face would be capable of doing anything malicious”?

Professor Donbavand has three areas of expertise: the history of Mesopotamian medicine, the Babylonian language, and Akkadian grammar and textual criticism.

Wow. As someone with only two specialties—doing Nothing, and the internal politics of Lockhart Gardner, the law firm in The Good Wife —I can’t help feeling comparatively inadequate.

“It’s got to be her making the calls,” I tell Figgy. “If I had to spend my days researching ‘Cuneiform Tablets on Eye Diseases,’ I’d soon be issuing hysterical death threats too.”

I’ve looked through three pages of results and haven’t found anything about Anne Donbavand that isn’t connected to her work. If I have to read any more about the various papers she’s presented at Assyriology conferences, I’ll be tempted to bite chunks out of the kitchen table. Her email address is freely given on her university page. Should I email her?

In my head, I hear Ellen wail, “No, Mum!”

I start again with an empty search box and type in “Donbavand Exeter.” Ellen said George’s dad works there too. Yes, here we are: Dr. Stephen Donbavand, Economics Department. In format, his page is the same as his wife’s, except he’s been considerate enough to add a photo.

This could be the man I saw on Lionel’s boat. I think it is. I didn’t see his face, only the back of his head, but this looks like him. He has the absent-mustache look that some men have: not a trace of facial hair, but an oddly curved upper lip that makes you think about a mustache even though you can’t see one.

Big smile. Big blue eyes. Glasses. He looks nice. Like a big, benign duck. Approachable.

I don’t care that Ellen will scream at me later. Before I go to Beaconwood for round three of trying to get the truth out of somebody there, I’m going to send George Donbavand’s parents an email. Both of them.

I go to my Gmail account and click on the “compose” button. An empty message box appears. “Dear Professor and Dr. Donbavand,” I type. “My name is Justine Merrison. I’m the mother of Ellen Colley, who is a pupil at Beaconwood and an acquaintance of your son George.” Better not put “friend,” given what Ellen’s told me. “Acquaintance” sounds formal and distant. No one could object to acquaintanceship.

Should I refer to George’s expulsion directly? Probably better not.

“I believe there’s been a kerfuffle recently about a coat that Ellen gave to George?” I write instead. “I’m having trouble getting any sense out of the school about what’s happened, and I’d find it really useful to talk to one or both of you.” I type out my home and mobile phone numbers and sign off, congratulating myself on my maturity in not adding, “Though of course you might know both these numbers already and be using them in a campaign of daily persecution.”

I copy and paste the Donbavands’ email addresses from Exeter University’s website, press “send,” then slam my laptop shut as if that will cancel out what I’ve done.

It was the right thing to do. Going to Beaconwood again is the right thing to do.

“The more determined everybody is to keep secrets from me, the more determined I am to find out, Figgy.”

He’s chasing his tail, going round and round in dizzy-making circles.

“Who are the Ingreys, though?” I sigh. “They can’t be real. Can they? If they’re real and they’re nowhere to be found on the internet, where did Ellen get them from?”

The beauty of Beaconwood’s grounds in the bright winter light is unwelcome today. These are gardens you should only be allowed to see, breathe in, walk through when you’re happy. It’s too jarring otherwise. I look at the lush, frost-speckled trees and berry-studded bushes and all I feel is anger and frustration because I can’t enjoy them. Ellen’s misery is weighing me down: the knowledge that it’s there, inside her, and I can’t take it out and demolish it. It’s like carting a heavy rock around in a bag, with no choice about when to put it down.

I hear a child’s voice behind me. “He’s cute. Is he an Airedale?”

I turn and see a boy dressed in a Beaconwood Juniors uniform. He’s about seven or eight, with auburn hair and missing front teeth. Like many children his age whose parents do their best but lead too-busy lives, he has a clean face and a dirty neck—a grime scarf, I used to call it when Ellen was little.

Imagine being too busy to make sure your child washes properly. Oh, wait: you don’t need to imagine it, do you? You lived it.