Sophie Hannah - A Game for All the Family

I make a comedy face at her, hoping to be let off the hook. I’m too scared to tell Alex many important things. It must be the same for Olwen, with Maggie. I can’t say for sure. Olwen and I haven’t seen one another or spoken for nearly five months. Not since we took care of everything that needed to be taken care of. We agreed it was best to have no contact. I miss her nearly every day: the only person who knows. She feels the same about me; we’re not in touch, but I sense it.

One day. One day, when enough time has passed, I’ll ring her doorbell again. She’ll invite me in; we’ll talk like old friends.

“Mum? What’s up? You look like you’re about to cry.”

“I’m fine. What did Dad say, when you told him about marrying George?”

“He said I should do whatever will make me happy.”

“He’s right. You should.”

“You don’t really think that. I can tell when you’re lying.”

Christ, I hope not.

I’m lying to my daughter. I know I’m lying, though, and I’m doing it so as not to hurt her, so that’s okay. That’s good. Except . . . I ought to tell her the truth.

“The thing is, El, it’s just—” I break off and sigh as a woman in a floral dress knocks my elbow, spilling a bit of my elderflower cordial. “I’m not sure a wake is the best place to discuss this.”

“It’s not a wake .” Ellen giggles. “Don’t be such a relic, Mum. It’s a party to celebrate—ugh! You know what I mean—celebrate, or whatever, Anne’s life.”

“I worry that you and George will get married and then he’ll fall in love with someone else—romantic, sexual love—and leave you,” I blurt out. “I worry that what he loves so passionately is normal family life, as exemplified by us.” Used to be, anyway. “What if he only wants to marry you because . . .” For God’s sake, what am I saying? This is too much truth, and I can’t prove any of it anyway. What if I’m inventing problems?

Ellen isn’t fazed by it. “Because he wants to be part of our family, were you going to say? Because we’re happy and his family isn’t, or wasn’t?” She shrugs. “I don’t care why he wants it, Mum. All I know is that, right now, he does. And so do I. Sure, we’re only teenagers—we might change our minds. But think of it like this: in the old days, people often died when they were, like, twenty-five. Didn’t stop them getting married at eighteen or twenty, did it, just because they knew it might not last forever?”

“No. I suppose not.”

Ellen pats my arm as if I’m a doddery octogenarian who needs to be reassured about the modern world.

“Ellen, I need to ask you something. It’s about your story.”

She grimaces. “I want to forget about that, Mum.”

“I know, and you can, but . . . you knew, didn’t you? Who’d killed Perrine?”

“Yes. George and I worked it out. It had to be the parents: Bascom and Sorrel. Why didn’t they give Perrine any breakfast that day if she was still alive as far as they knew? There was no mention of her getting any. And the turns thing. And how could Sorrel and Bascom have made a plan about what to do after David Butcher’s murder when they’d only just found him dead? They must have been referring to the original ‘taking turns’ plan, made when they first took the girls out of school. And Sorrel talking to Perrine so harshly, accusing her of lying about the noose-tree thing. It was clear that she resented Perrine’s existence.”

Good. Great.

“So . . . you lied to me when I asked you who killed Perrine, at Olwen’s house? You pretended you didn’t have any idea?”

Ellen nods. “Sorry. George said we had to keep it secret from everyone or his mum would think he was a betrayer—the more people knew the whole story, the more danger for George and his family.”

“It’s okay. Just . . . do me a favor, Ellen: always know when you’re lying, and why. Always keep a grip on the truth in your head. It’s important. It’s how you stay sane.” Is she even listening to me? “Ellen?”

In a low voice, she says, “George says when the police found his mum’s clothes in that alleyway in London they also found . . . brain matter. Is that true?”

I nod. “That’s how they were able to issue a death certificate. What they found . . . she couldn’t still be alive. It’s impossible.” A bundle of clothing and brain in a bag: easy to carry through London at night without arousing suspicion. Not so easy to do that with a whole human body. But Olwen and I agreed we had to do something to let Stephen, Fleur and George know that Anne wasn’t coming back. It wouldn’t have been fair to let them hope for her safe return. Or fear it.

Fleur Donbavand is leaning against the wall between two large windows, talking to Lesley Griffiths and another teacher from Beaconwood whose face I know but whose name I can’t summon at the moment.

Today is the first time I’ve seen Fleur. She’s tall and pale, with delicate features and mousy-brown hair in a plait. As she listens to Lesley, who is doing all the talking, she nods and side-eyes the wall next to her, as if hoping it will open and envelop her. She looks bored, then guilty, then embarrassed—like someone who has no idea how to react to her surroundings. The contrast between her and George, who, since we arrived, has been orating masterfully and loudly on the subject of grief to anyone who will listen, is marked.

“George is sad about his mum dying, you know,” Ellen told me the other day.

“Of course he is,” I said in a tight voice.

“Even though he really did hate her. He says it’s weird—he’d never have thought he’d be sad.”

Across the room, Lesley Griffiths gives Fleur a hug, and Fleur smiles and seems to relax. I feel guilty for asking Ops to investigate Lesley’s background. I’ll never tell anyone what he found out: that in her twenties, before she got married, Lesley was a journalist who plagiarized part of an article and lost her job at a reputable newspaper. She then trained to be a teacher and hasn’t put a foot wrong since, as far as Ops could establish. Interestingly, the man who fired Lesley, Diarmid Griffiths, was the man she married four years later. They must have decided to give each other a second chance.

Some people deserve them. Some, not all.

“Justine. Ellen. I’m glad I caught you.” Stephen Donbavand is at my side.

“We won’t leave until it finishes,” Ellen tells him. “I promised George we’d stay till the end, Mum.”

Oh God. How long will that be?

“How are you, Justine?” Stephen asks me, as Ellen crosses the room to join her fiancé beside the buffet table.

What the fuck do you care?

“How am I? Fine. I ought to be asking you that question, I suppose.”

“I’m doing well, in the circumstances.”

“Fleur and George look well.” Is this how I’d be speaking to him if I hadn’t killed his wife? All I can do is hope that it is.

“They’re enjoying being back at school,” says Stephen.

“I can imagine. It’s nice for them to have some friends. A normal life,” I can’t resist adding.

“Yes, it is.”

Clever, Stephen. Can I call you Steve, now that you’ve dug a grave in my garden and I’ve caved your wife’s head in? No need for formalities anymore. Very clever indeed. Benefit, and allow George and Fleur to benefit, from their new freedom, while never acknowledging the tyranny that preceded it. Way to have the best of both worlds. Fucking coward.

“It can’t have been fun for you to have the police excavate your garden,” he says.

“No. Well, they didn’t find anything. We had the garden re-landscaped afterward.”