Mrs Cox sat in her chair turning the pages of the cuttings album, and the years fell away until, in her mind, there was confusion as to which child now lay in the bedroom. Some of the time she knew it was Tessa, whose mother had gone to London, but now and then she felt it was Grace from so long ago. She sometimes did muddle the names of her charges with those who had gone before.
16
Alan had not returned by the morning.
Daphne, at breakfast, glanced at the paper and saw a paragraph in it about the missing child, Tessa Waring, of Oak Way, Berbridge. There was a photograph, rather blurred in reproduction. The mother, Louise Waring, a widow, worked at home as a typist, said the report.
Daphne stared at it. First she took in the fact that Louise Waring was a widow; then she absorbed the description of her as working at home.
It must be a mistake. Papers often got things wrong. She hadn’t been Alan’s secretary for very long.
More disquieting thoughts came to Daphne. Bea had said the paper was in the door and the milk on the step when she came past with her dog while Daphne was away. Bea went by at a quarter to nine every day; you could set your watch by her, and whilst Alan might forget about the milk, he always looked at the paper over breakfast.
Physical activity was the best cure for worry, Daphne knew, so she got out the Hoover and vacuumed the house with vigour, though it was perfectly clean. She made some scones for the freezer, and a fruit cake with wholemeal flour. Then it was time for lunch and Alan had still not returned.
Surely he would be home soon?
Daphne took her lunch into the sitting-room and turned the television on to watch the sports programme. If she couldn’t be active herself, at least she could look at others exercising themselves. Time passed, and Alan still did not return; nor did he telephone again.
Daphne went into his study later. There were some books on his desk, library books; she saw that they were about shock and psychological problems; rather morbid, she thought, but connected, no doubt, with that agoraphobic friend of his. In an absent-minded way, she opened a drawer of his desk. His sketch-pad was in there, and idly she glanced at it. She saw some rough drawings of a little girl in a duffle coat and ankle boots. She had a thin, rather peaky face and was, Daphne knew, the child in the newspaper photographs.
There were sketches of a woman, too: a young woman with large eyes, who resembled the child, the woman whom Daphne had seen near Alan’s car in Berbridge that day. Daphne recognised her at once.
Late in the afternoon, Mrs Cox went to look at her captive. Soon she must prepare for her baby-sitting appointment and during the evening she would dispose of her small victim.
She had best prepare her now for what must be done.
Mrs Cox fetched Tessa’s coat, which the child had placed, with her wool cap, neatly over the back of an upright chair in the living-room. She pulled back the bedclothes and began to insert one of Tessa’s arms into the sleeve.
The child stirred, blinked, and drowsily peered at the old woman.
‘Mummy—Mummy—’ she murmured.
She shouldn’t have woken. Mrs Cox frowned. Of course, she was bigger than Grace had been, all those years ago.
‘Mummy’s in hospital. We’re going to see her,’ she said. ‘Now put on your coat, like a good little girl.’
Tessa tried to wake up, but she couldn’t, properly. Mrs Cox got her into her coat, fastening one toggle, and pulled on the red woollen cap. She put Tessa’s boots on her feet, zipping them up, and placed newspaper under them to protect Mavis’s bed. Tessa moaned a little.
‘Lie still,’ Mrs Cox ordered. ‘I’ll fetch you a nice warm drink, and a biscuit.’
Children always obeyed Mrs Cox’s commands, and Tessa did now. Besides, she was dreadfully sleepy and didn’t feel a bit like getting up. It seemed to be night-time still, for the curtains were drawn and the light was on. She lay back in bed, obediently, but she felt very worried about a number of things which she couldn’t define. There was some big, bad, black worry, almost too bad to bear, she knew. She was trying to think what it was when Mrs Cox came back with two plain biscuits, and a mug of hot chocolate, normally one of Tessa’s favourite drinks, but she didn’t feel at all like drinking it now.
Mrs Cox propped her up in the bed, put a towel over the sheet against spills, and sat there, coaxing her to eat the biscuit and drink the hot, sweet chocolate. Tessa slowly munched and sipped; it was such an effort to eat. She still felt so sleepy. Mrs Cox held the mug to her lips, coaxing, encouraging, and down went the chocolate, containing more chloral hydrate, baby sedative, and crushed nitrazepam tablets.
Still propped against the pillows, Tessa heard Mrs Cox talking.
‘I’ll tell you a story,’ she said. ‘Shut your eyes.’
But they were going to see Mummy! Tessa tried to protest, but her voice wouldn’t work, and her eyes wouldn’t stay open though she tried so hard to make them. She heard Mrs Cox speaking and tried to pay attention. She was talking about a little girl with a naughty mummy, who left her to play alone by the river. The mummy liked shopping and buying extravagant things, and new clothes, and big dinners, and meeting her friend with his boat, like your mummy meets her friend with his car, Mrs Cox said, but Tessa was hardly aware of her words. Men and ladies were often wicked, Mrs Cox said. They played rude games and neglected their children. Tessa didn’t know what that long word meant. Mrs Cox’s voice droned on, monotonously, describing a house by the river and the good, kind nanny who wanted to keep the little girl – Grace was her name, from harm. Nanny and Grace played hide-and-seek, and one day Nanny showed Grace a good place to hide, in the boat that belonged to her mother, which lived in a shed like a garage beside the river. Grace went to sleep there, Mrs Cox said, and slept happily ever after and her mother was never naughty again.
Tessa’s eyelids were closed.
‘Go to sleep, Grace,’ Mrs Cox said, but Tessa was already past hearing.
Mrs Cox assembled what she would need for the evening. Her folding umbrella, a torch – Mavis had had a large one, and Mrs Cox always kept it in working order. She put them into her big black holdall, with her knitting.
Then she sat down in the sitting-room to wait for Mr Bradley to come. She heard the two girls from the top floor go past, heels clacking on the path; dates, she supposed, since it was Saturday. That was good. The Henshaws had gone out too; she’d heard busy steps above and a door bang; they usually did go out on Saturday nights. As for Louise Waring, she was upstairs, no doubt, with her fancy man. Mrs Cox had been too absorbed by thoughts of the past to watch for steps in and out of the flat today, but he was sure to be there.
For the rest of her life, Mrs Cox thought grimly, Louise would bear the punishing knowledge that during her daughter’s last hours, she had been behaving immorally. She would go the same way as Grace’s mother in the end, Mrs Cox felt sure, and a good thing too.
Before leaving with Mr Bradley, she turned all the lights out in the basement flat.
They met no one, driving round the corner to the Bradleys’ house in Shippham Avenue. Mrs Cox peered out at the rainy evening. People wouldn’t be walking their dogs in this downpour; they’d push them outside their doors and whistle them back, she thought. This was a quiet district anyway; even along Oak Way there was seldom much traffic except when the residents were going to work or returning. Soon, all those going out for their Saturday evening’s entertainment would have left; there would be few witnesses to notice one old woman out in the rain.
It was a pity about the rain; it would make her task harder. But it would hold up the police too.
Mrs Cox had listened to the local radio which had reported the hunt for the missing child; she knew the search had moved on from the immediate area.
‘What a terrible thing about that poor little girl,’ Mrs Bradley said when Mrs Cox arrived. She was so upset that she had wanted to cancel their evening out, but her husband had pointed out that their own children would be perfectly
safe in bed, with admirable Mrs Cox, a former nanny, in charge, so what was there to fear? ‘And she lived in your house, you knew her, of course?’ Mrs Bradley went on.
‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Cox answered. ‘A nice little girl.’
They sighed over the evil ways of the world as Mrs Cox took off her coat and hung it behind the kitchen door. Then the Bradleys departed, leaving, as always on such occasions, a delicious casserole dish in the oven, and a glass of red wine on the nicely laid tray.
Mrs Cox looked at the telephone number they had left; nervous Mrs Bradley always did this and Mrs Cox approved. Mrs Bradley was still a conscientious mother, though who was to say that would last. It was not a local number. Mr Bradley had said that the host was a business friend; Mrs Cox was sure they would not turn back.
The two children, unlike the Duncan baby next door, were dependable sleepers. Mrs Cox took the telephone off the hook so that if Mrs Bradley, or, indeed, anyone else, were to telephone, it would seem that the line was out of order.
Mrs Duncan had asked her to sit in this evening, too; the Duncans and the Bradleys were Mrs Cox’s two most regular employers, and this time the Bradleys had asked her first. She preferred going to their house, given the choice; Mrs Bradley took more trouble with the dinner she left and the children were docile.
But the Duncans, tonight, would have had to find someone else: that schoolgirl they sometimes employed, no doubt. She would have the television on loud, or even her boyfriend there to keep her company. The baby was certain to wake up, and then the girl would bring him down and play with him instead of settling him firmly back into bed. Mrs Cox had heard Mrs Duncan describe what had happened before. At all events, the schoolgirl would be busy and occupied, and wouldn’t hear if Mrs Cox made any noise as she wheeled away the large pram kept in the Duncans’ garage. It was all working out so well. Even the weather, tiresome though it was, would keep away any nosy newspaper reporters who might want to talk to Louise; there had been a few round during the day and one had rung Mrs Cox’s bell. She’d soon given him short shrift. They were ghouls.
She’d have to be quick.
Mrs Cox put on her coat and hat and picked up her zipped holdall. She let herself out of the back door and locked it, putting the key in her pocket. Then she walked round to the Duncans’ house. She did not need her torch, as the street lamp outside cast enough light for her to find her way to the garage.
The doors were not locked. This had been her one worry. Mr Bradley always locked his, but the Duncans were less particular.
Inside the garage, stacked by the wall, was a pile of logs. The Duncans had only one car, and used the space in their garage for garden equipment and clutter. The Bradleys each had a car, and a shed in the garden.
Mrs Cox put a few logs in the pram. If anyone looked in it, she would say she had been given the logs and was taking them home. She set off down the road, round the corner and into Oak Way, where she pushed the pram through the gate of number 49 and hid it behind a large bush.
There was no one in sight as she entered her own gate, next door.
Tessa was heavy. Mrs Cox had a struggle to carry her up the basement stairs. It wasn’t far to the gate, however, and again, as she peered cautiously out, she could see no one about. The houses on the other side of Oak Way, well set back from the road as they were, were dark, the curtains drawn across windows in occupied rooms. The rain poured down as, moving as fast as she could, Mrs Cox took her inert burden to the next garden. She had to wedge the pram against the brick wall of 49 Oak Way’s boundary to prevent it from tipping as she placed Tessa inside. The child was far too long for the pram, and Mrs Cox propped her up under the hood, which was raised against the rain. She replaced the logs under the hood of the pram, where they masked Tessa, and put her holdall beside Tessa’s head. Then she clipped on the pram cover.
Tessa’s weight made the pram top-heavy. Mrs Cox leaned on the handle to prevent it from tipping up as she pushed it back along the road, turned into Shippham Avenue, went past the Duncans’ house and the Bradleys’, and entered the recreation ground, safe now from observation because there was no danger of anyone else being here on a rainy night, though in summer the place was full of teenagers up to no good in the dark.
Pushing the heavy pram over the sodden ground towards the river was hard work, and Mrs Cox needed both hands for her task. During her journey with the empty pram, she had been able to hold her umbrella above her head. The rain, however, was easing.
An hour after leaving the Bradleys’ house, Mrs Cox was back there again, the pram restored to the Duncans’ garage and the logs to their heap. She felt very tired, but also elated; it was done.
There was no sound from the sleeping children upstairs.
The casserole, still in the oven, smelled most enticing. Mrs Cox gulped the wine and searched for the bottle. There were often half-full wine bottles in the Bradleys’ sideboard; she had topped up her glass before now.
Seeing brandy there, she took a small tot of that, and followed it up with more wine. Her coat and hat, hung by the boiler, were dry by the time the Bradleys came home and her wet umbrella was furled up inside her holdall. She was peacefully knitting when they entered the room.
Louise had known bad times before, but never in her life had there been a day like Saturday, stretching interminably ahead, hour after hour, each one seeming as long as a week.
They talked, in the flat. Ruth and Alan persuaded her to tell them in detail about her day in London and the meeting with her father. She spoke in jerky snatches, tracking back to Tessa every few minutes with new theories about what might have happened, but gradually she revealed the whole bleak tale. Ruth, since Alan had told her the bare outline, had been trying to think of some excuse for Freda’s conduct.
‘She must have meant to meet you as you came up the path,’ she suggested. ‘Perhaps you were one or two minutes early.’
‘She never explained anything – then, or later,’ Louise said.
‘She doesn’t find talking easy,’ Ruth said. ‘She must have been very badly hurt, Louise, at what happened – your father leaving her – so badly hurt that she couldn’t bear to mention it—even think of it—ever again. And when you were a child, children were expected to do what they were told without question or explanation. All the same, it was a shocking experience for you.’
And Louise was so vulnerable, Ruth thought. Look at her now, with this dreadful time to get through and perhaps, at the end of it, desperate tragedy. During the morning Alan went out to buy food, since at least he and Ruth must eat even if Louise couldn’t; he bought some papers, too, and they saw the reports of Tessa’s disappearance in the home news pages. There was her photograph. It seemed quite unreal that this was their Tessa, thus described. The police were about, he said; he’d seen officers on foot, and patrols in cars, in the busier streets. They’d searched the recreation ground again, in daylight, and were asking in shops if anyone had seen Tessa the previous day.
But it was raining now. If she were alive, she was probably out in the open somewhere, lying unconscious.
Ruth started to do the Telegraph crossword, reading the clues aloud; anything to try to get through the time. Now and then she thought of an answer; so did Alan, at random. Louise wouldn’t leave the flat, not even to drive about the neighbourhood, though she asked Alan to go in the afternoon, in case he might see Tessa somewhere; she would know his car, she said. If she left the flat, Tessa just might come back, and though Ruth would be there, that wouldn’t do; it had to be her mother who was at home, waiting, when she was found.
In Putney, a woman officer from the Metropolitan Police called on Louise’s father, whose name and address had been obtained from Alan.
‘Your daughter visited you yesterday,’ she stated, and James Hampton agreed that she had.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked. ‘Why do you ask? Is she in some sort of trouble?’
She’d been on his mind since she left; odd to think that the thi
n, wan young woman had been the small girl who had curled on his lap to be read to so many years ago. At first, when he left home, he’d often thought of her, but over the years he had learned to forget her, though sometimes, on her birthday, he remembered. Her mother, he knew, would take good care of her and see that she lacked for nothing. Louise had seemed anxious and edgy, yesterday, but, as Betty had said when she’d gone, she was adult and married and shouldn’t need – she meant, expect – anything from him after so long.
‘Have you not read the papers, Mr Hampton?’ the policewoman asked.
‘What papers? Is something wrong?’ James’s heart took a dive in his chest; he was going to be asked to take action, a thing he had seldom done since his flights in his bomber except for the one positive step of abandoning Freda. Surely Louise hadn’t broken the law? ‘Has there been an accident?’
‘Not to your daughter, Mr Hampton. Your granddaughter, Tessa. She’s missing,’ the officer said. ‘Disappeared on her way back from school.’
‘My granddaughter?’ James gaped, then tried to hide his amazement while the officer asked about Louise’s visit and took down a statement. James Hampton said Louise had asked about the house they had lived in when she was small and that he had told her it was not far away. The policewoman did not seem surprised when he said that he had not seen Louise since then. She asked for the other address.
After leaving the Hamptons, the policewoman reported in and received instructions to go round to Farland Road. There, she saw the au pair girl, who confirmed that a woman had called and said she was seeking a child named Louise Hampton, aged eight or nine, who’d once lived there. Her employer, out at the time, had no knowledge of any Hamptons when the girl asked her. Mrs Renton, at home this morning, confirmed this, and she and the policewoman decided that the au pair girl, with her imperfect English, must somehow have misunderstood what Louise had said.
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