Hilary Bonner - When the Dead Cry Out

By then becoming increasingly uneasy, Mac phoned several times more. Mostly he got the answerphone. Twice he got Richard who told him the first time that Sally didn’t want to speak to him and the second time that she was not there. She and the girls had gone to stay with some friend in Kent that Mac had never heard of, although he had to admit that wasn’t so surprising given the lack of communication between him and his daughter.

“I’ve no idea when they’ll be back,” Marshall had told him.

A thought had suddenly struck Mac. It was term-time.

“What about school?” he asked.

He was quite sure that Clara would not willingly have taken her daughters anywhere during the school term. Her choice in men had never risen to Mac’s high standards for her, but she was a good and responsible mother.

“I’ve no idea, she’s in charge of all that,” Marshall had grunted back.

Mac had asked him to tell Clara that he’d called.

“No point,” replied the other man. “She doesn’t want to know.”

Two weeks later, midway through June, Mac could stand it no longer. He packed a bag and set off for Torquay, flying from Edinburgh to Bristol where he hired a car.

And he remembered all too well the look of horror on Richard Marshall’s face when he’d opened the front door of Parkview to his father-in-law.

“She’s not here, I told you. She’s away.”

“Still?” Mac had been grim-faced. Determined.

For a moment he’d thought that Marshall was about to slam the door in his face. Richard Marshall was a big powerful man, younger too. But Mac, although of only average height and slight of build, was a tough sinewy character who during the war had been a sergeant in one of Scotland’s most elite regiments and had seen action in some of Europe’s cruelest battlegrounds. He had survived against the odds on more than one occasion and had virtually no physical fear. He simply stuck his foot in the door of the Parkview Hotel and took a pace forward.

Marshall faced up to him for just a few seconds, then stepped back. His shoulders dropped. His features crumpled.

“You’d better come in,” he said.

Mac had done so, thinking that Marshall was behaving like a typical bully, retreating at once when forcefully challenged.

Marshall led the way into the small dining room where Mac knew, from a much earlier previous visit, breakfast was served to guests. He had looked around him. It was impossible to tell how many guests, if any, were presently booked into the little hotel. But the lace-curtained room somehow did not have the well-cared-for look about it which Clara, like her mother before her, specialized in. There were flowers in the small vases on the table, but they were all wilting. It was mid-afternoon. The breakfast tables had still not been properly cleared or wiped down and the windows looked as if they could do with a good clean. Mac began to wonder just how long his daughter had been away.

Marshall had beckoned to him to sit down. Mac did so. Keeping his cool. Using his head for once. He wanted to learn from Marshall, find out what was going on. There was no point in antagonizing the man.

“Look, you may as well know,” began Marshall. “She’s left me. Taken the girls and gone off with this Aussie. I don’t even know where they are.”

Mac had been amazed. This was the last thing he had expected to hear. Clara had given no indication of any intention of leaving her wayward husband, just the opposite really, and neither had she given any indication that she had anyone else in her life. But then, he had to admit, she wouldn’t have done, would she, not to him? Nonetheless, even allowing for his daughter’s inherited stubborn streak, he couldn’t believe she could have put on such a convincing devoted-wife act to her own father had she really been involved with another man.

“Why didn’t you tell me this? Why the charade? When did she leave?”

The questions poured out of him without his being able to control them. Marshall just shrugged, made no attempt to reply.

“I’m fucking talking to you,” Mac stormed. His distress displaying itself in temper as usual. He never learned. He always regretted it later, but the more he hurt inside, the more upset he was, the more he shouted. “Why didn’t Clara tell me she was leaving you? That’s what I want to know.”

Marshall had half-smirked. “What, and give you the satisfaction?”

His words hit Mac hard. There was so much truth in them, and truth, Mac always felt, was a rare commodity with Richard Marshall. This time the other man was spot-on. Mac had told Clara he would support her, give her anything she wanted, if she left her husband. It would be just like her to leave the bloody man and not let him know. Marshall was right. She really wouldn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

Mac had stood up then and left. The worst scenario had happened. His daughter had moved on without leaving a forwarding address, and she had taken his grandchildren with her. If Richard Marshall was to be believed, he too had no idea where she had gone.

If Richard Marshall was to be believed. Mac had reflected on that as he had climbed into his hire car and started the engine. He had never believed a word Marshall had said before, and had almost invariably been proven right not to, so why was he believing the man now? And just the fact that his checks had been cleared did not necessarily establish his daughter had ever received them. She and her husband had always had a joint account, as Mac knew well. He had paid enough money into it over the years, after all.

On an impulse Mac switched the engine off and got out of the car again. For a few moments he leaned against the vehicle while he looked up and down the street, hoping that there might be some neighbours about. The street was deserted. Equally impulsively he headed for the big Victorian villa next to Parkview and rang the bell.

A tall, very thin girl in her early teens had answered.

“Hello,” he said, making his voice as gentle as possible. “I’m looking for your neighbour, Mrs. Marshall, Clara Marshall. I just wondered if you’d seen her lately.”

The girl had looked frightened and said nothing.

“It’s OK,” Mac had reassured her quickly, and followed up with a lie. “It’s just that there’s nobody in next door and I wondered if you knew when Clara might be back, or if she was away or anything?”

Still no reply.

“I’m her father. I’ve come all the way from Scotland to surprise her.”

Still no response.

Mac sighed. “It’s all right, lassie, honestly. Look, is your mother in?”

As if on cue a voice, very slightly slurred, called out from somewhere within the house.

“Who is it, Karen?”

“It’s no one, Mum. Just a man who’s come to the wrong house.”

The girl’s voice, when he eventually heard it, had surprised Mac. She looked so frightened and unsure of herself. But when she finally spoke and addressed her mother she had sounded almost as if she were the parent reassuring her child. Certainly as if she were the one in charge.

He had looked properly into her eyes then, and noticed for the first time how intelligent they were. Something was bothering the girl, though. And he suspected it was not unconnected with those slurred tones he had heard. Mac backed off at once.

“I’m sorry, lassie, I’m intruding,” he said.

“My mother isn’t well. She suffers with her nerves, you see. The doctor’s given her some very strong pills.”

The girl had sprung to her mother’s defence instinctively and at once even though she really had no need to do so. Mac liked that and thought how brave she was. Her swift response had told its own tale. He reflected briefly on what this child might have to put up with within the walls of that big old house. But he had no time for other people’s troubles. He had enough of his own. He tried again to get at least a simple question answered.