Sophie Hannah - A Game for All the Family

It seems to take years, but at last we’re moving across the Dart. A white-haired woman in a green raincoat points at my house as it comes into view at the top of the hill and says, “Look, Morris, up there—is that the Agatha Christie house?”

“Don’t be silly,” Morris replies.

Is he suggesting Speedwell House isn’t good enough for Agatha Christie? He can drown too.

I love my house. There’s only one thing about it that I hate: its proximity to Anne Donbavand.

Using another trick from my London taxi-grabbing, meeting-hopping days, I get out my purse and prepare the exact change for the fare, so that I can press it into Lionel’s hand on the other side and make a quick getaway while the other passengers are fumbling in their pockets for pound coins.

Finally we arrive at the jetty on the Dartmouth side. While we were sailing, I identified the best footpath to take up the hill. I’ve never sprinted uphill before, and would have said it was something I couldn’t do, but there’s no such thing. Everything’s something you can’t do until you have to do it.

Now the foothpath has run out, or else I’ve lost it. That’s more likely. I scramble up the wooded hillside, nearly slipping a few times. Flip-flops aren’t the ideal footwear for this sort of thing. If I fell now, I might land in Lionel’s boat as it fills up to set off back to the Kingswear side.

Against the odds, I arrive in one piece. The Donbavands’ tangerine-colored cottage has a wooden sign attached to its wall to the left of the front door. It must have a name, but I can’t see it. The sign has a large sticker covering its surface—the same size and shape as the one that was stuck over my house sign. This one says “ Wavebreaker .”

To hide the cottage’s true identity, so that vengeful Allisande Ingrey can’t find her sister Lisette and kill her.

It’s too crazy, but now isn’t the moment to wonder how any of this is possible.

I knock hard on the door. Nothing happens. I hear no movements from within.

Bending down, I shout through the letterbox, “Hello! Anyone home? George? Stephen?” I look in through the narrow, rectangular slit. All is still: an unoccupied house.

“Justine? Is that you?”

I cry out and jump back. The voice is so clear and close. He must be sitting in the hall beneath the letterbox. “George?”

“Yes. Hello! This is a nice surprise.”

“Are you sitting against the door?”

“Yes. It’s what I like to call ‘going out.’ The closest I get these days, I’m afraid.”

Unimaginable. Yet, on this side of the river, in this house: normal.

“Let me in, George.”

“I can’t. The door’s locked and I haven’t got a key.”

Shit.

“My mother took it. She’s no fool, my mother. She knows that if I had access to a key, the chances of her finding me here when she got home would be slim to say the least.”

“Are you alone in there?”

“Yes. Mum and Dad are at work, and Fleur’s having a trial day at a new school.”

“But not you?” My fingers are starting to ache from holding the letterbox open.

George laughs. “Don’t be silly. I can’t be trusted to be out in the world. Fleur can. She’s our mother’s creation. No mind of her own whatsoever. She’d never be so audacious as to make a friend, or—God forbid— trust someone outside the nuclear family. No danger there.”

Where did he learn to talk this way? From his mother? I wonder how many times she’s told him the story of Lisette, Allisande and Perrine Ingrey.

“George, I need to get in.”

“And I need to get out,” he says. “I can’t work out if we share a dilemma or not. I think we probably do.”

“Your windows look single glazed. I’m going to smash one.”

“Really?” He sounds thrilled. “Justine, you are exceptionally cool.”

“I’m not, George. I’m just . . . I have to get into the house.”

“Where’s Ellen? School or home?”

“What? No, you should stay here. I think your mum might be on her way back. She’s angry. She knows you came to our house.”

“She’s always angry. Or crying, or worrying. Trust me, she’ll be at work all day. She’s never back before seven. Dad gets back around five.”

“And they think it’s okay to leave you here alone all day?”

“Well, Mum knows I can’t get out. Until recently they wouldn’t have left me unattended, but a state of emergency has been declared. I told my parents that Ellen and I are engaged.”

“Yes, I . . . Right.” Is he waiting for me to congratulate him?

They can’t leave him locked in the house all day long. For how many days? What’s the plan?

Instead of breaking and entering, I should call Social Services. If I’m lucky, they’ll send someone to speak to me who doesn’t organize charity fun runs with Stephen Donbavand.

“Can you smash the living room window?” George asks. “At the back, the farthest one on what will be your right. That will upset Mum most.”

I release the letterbox and run around to the back garden. I nearly laugh when I see what’s lying on the grass: a large, mud-encrusted shovel. Stephen must have been exhausted after staying up all night digging a grave in my lawn. He came home, dropped his spade and hasn’t been able to bring himself to pick it up since.

It’s too heavy for me to lift above my head, so I swing it upward toward the glass. The window smashes instantly. George is standing on the other side, wide-eyed with what looks like joy. “Use the spade to go around the frame and push out all the jagged bits,” he advises. “That’s it.” There’s no question of me getting in before he’s out. He’s already got one foot up on the sill.

“Careful,” I say. “There might be fragments. Don’t cut yourself.”

“I’m fine. Where’s Ellen? School?” He propels himself out and lands on the grass next to me. He’s wearing dark blue jeans, red shoes and a khaki T-shirt, frayed at the neck. It looks as if it might once have had letters on it.

I think of Germander—the three letters that fell off the sign.

“I don’t know where Ellen is now,” I say. “She was at home when I left—your mother paid us a visit, so she didn’t go to school on the bus.”

“Ugh. I’m so sorry Mater inflicted herself on you.”

“I think Alex will probably have taken Ellen to school by now, but I’m not sure. She might want to wait at home for me to come back. She knew I was coming here.”

“Right. I’ll try school first, then Speedwell House,” says George. “I’d better hurry or I’ll miss Lionel’s boat. Help yourself to tea and coffee.” He laughs. “That’s funny, isn’t it? I mean, in the circumstances.”

“It is. George, wait. Would you be able to hide something and get away with it? I mean . . . does your mum search your stuff?”

“No. She wouldn’t bother. She knows I don’t have anything apart from ‘permitted items.’ ” He makes air quotes with his fingers.

I pull my mobile phone out of my bag and check to see if it’s getting a signal here. It is. I hand it to George. “Take this. There’s an envelope icon—that’s my email. Click on it and you’ll go to my inbox. You’ll find some emails Ellen sent me—click on reply and you can email her. Hide it in your room, somewhere your mum never goes, and you can email Ellen whenever you want. Do you know how to send emails?”

George nods. “Ellen showed me, on her iPod.” He turns the phone over, inspecting it from all angles. “But what about you? How will you manage without it?”

“I’ll buy another one.”

“But until you do, how will you call people?”

“I don’t want to call anyone. I don’t want anyone to be able to call me. The less time I spend communicating with other people, the better—Ellen and Alex not included.”