A Game for All the Family

by Sophie Hannah

  Gasps and exclamations exploded all over the room. ‘About time!’ said Mrs Dodd venomously.

  Sorrel went on: ‘We, Perrine’s family, have always suspected that she was a killer, though she vigorously denied it. But a mother knows when there’s something askew in the mind or heart of her child, and I have always known this about Perrine, even before she murdered Malachy Dodd. When he died, and when Jack Kirbyshire died, I knew Perrine was guilty, but I couldn’t prove it. It was only when I saw her stab David Butcher that I finally had proof.’

  ‘We all witnessed this stabbing,’ Bascom added. ‘Me, Lisette and Allisande too.’

  ‘We could have called the police straight away,’ said Sorrel, ‘but we wanted you all to be here. We’re aware that you see us as Perrine’s protectors, and, yes, we have been. We’ve imprisoned ourselves in order to keep her safe. It’s a natural impulse, to want to protect one’s family.’

  ‘Bit late for some of us to do that, isn’t it?’ muttered Mrs Dodd bitterly.

  ‘Will you pipe down?’ David Butcher’s mother turned on her, surprising everybody. ‘I think we’ve heard just about enough from you. Do you know who my son was?’

  ‘Leave it, dear,’ muttered her husband.

  But Mrs Butcher did not wish to leave it. ‘He was a former organ scholar of King’s College, Cambridge!’ she blurted out. ‘He had a glowing future ahead of him!’

  ‘And so what?’ said Mrs Dodd, her voice trembling. ‘Are you saying that means my Malachy’s life doesn’t matter?’

  ‘Let’s not do this,’ said Jack Kirbyshire’s widow. ‘Please. Let’s not play hierarchical victim games.’

  When someone says a word like ‘hierarchical’ in an everyday setting, it often has the result that everyone immediately assumes that person must be right about everything, because they know a long word. This was what happened here. The Dodds and the Butchers piped down.

  ‘What’s going to happen next?’ asked Henrietta Sennitt-Sasse, rubbing her hands together in excitement. ‘Is Perrine going to be arrested while we watch? Will she go to prison forever?’

  ‘Pas devant les enfants!’ cried out Henrietta’s mother, but to no avail.

  You might think from Henrietta’s remark that she was mean and relished the idea of long, endless prison sentences for others, but you’d be wrong. Henrietta had simply been starved of grown-up gossip all her life. This was the first interesting adult conversation she had ever been party to.

  One of the policemen stood up and said, ‘It is overwhelmingly probable that Perrine will receive a custodial sentence, yes. But it’s unlikely she’ll go to prison forever. Remember, she’s still only a child, and the law likes to try to rehabilitate such young criminals wherever possible.’

  ‘May I ask a question?’ Jack Kirbyshire’s widow rose to her feet. ‘Perrine seems to have committed three murders, but only one was witnessed. Does that mean she might be convicted of only one murder, the murder of David Butcher?’

  Mrs Dodd leapt to her feet again. ‘That can’t happen! It would be an outrage! I want her to do time for Malachy, not just for some other murder!’

  ‘There’s a good chance she will, if the information I’ve been given by Mrs Ingrey here is correct,’ said the policeman. ‘If there is no feasible way that Malachy could have fallen out of the window by accident—’

  ‘There isn’t,’ Sorrel Ingrey chipped in. ‘I’ve said this since the day he died. Malachy’s centre of gravity was too low for him to have fallen out of that window. It just wouldn’t happen.’

  ‘And it didn’t happen!’ snapped Mrs Dodd, red in the face.

  Mrs Butcher muttered something under her breath.

  ‘What was that, you snide cow?’ Mrs Dodd demanded.

  Mrs Butcher shook her head. She had decided against saying what was on her mind, but then she couldn’t resist. ‘Do you have any shame at all?’ she asked Mrs Dodd. ‘Are you even a tiny bit embarrassed about how much airtime you’re taking up today?’

  Mrs Dodd replied with a sequence of obscenities so shocking that most people in the room turned red, and Mrs Sennitt-Sasse screeched, ‘PAS DEVANT LES ENFANTS!’ louder than ever before.

  ‘Ladies, please,’ said the policeman. ‘These arguments are not helping anything. To answer your question, Mrs Kirbyshire …’ – he paused to smile in a noticeable way, to reward Mrs Kirbyshire for being better behaved than Mrs Dodd and Mrs Butcher – ‘… I’m very sorry to tell you this, but if we have difficulty making any of these murder accusations stick, it’s most likely to be your Jack’s murder that Perrine gets away with. He was standing on some scaffolding when she pushed him off, and so it really is possible that he could have fallen – even though we all know he didn’t.’

  ‘As long as that evil little monster serves some years specifically for Malachy,’ said Mrs Dodd determinedly. ‘Special Malachy years. Lots of them.’

  Lisette Ingrey at this point rose to her feet and cleared her throat.

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘This isn’t right. We’re all talking as if we know she’s guilty.’

  ‘But you do!’ said the policeman with a puzzled frown. ‘You saw her stab David Butcher to death, didn’t you?’

  Lisette realised at that moment that she should not have agreed to lie. Her parents and Allisande were all glaring at her, scared she was going to say, ‘Actually, no, I didn’t see my sister stab David Butcher. I just made that up.’

  She couldn’t do that to them. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I witnessed the stabbing of David Butcher by my sister Perrine. I know, for certain, that she is guilty of that one murder. About the deaths of Malachy Dodd and Jack Kirbyshire, however, I can’t be certain. All I can say is that I strongly suspect Perrine killed them both. That’s all anyone can say.’ She turned to the policeman. ‘You can’t claim to know that Jack Kirbyshire didn’t fall,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to be an impartial officer of the law.’

  The policeman had turned bright red. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s just so rare that someone’s entire family tells me they’re a killer – I assumed it must be true.’

  ‘It is true,’ said Sorrel.

  ‘Even if it is, he shouldn’t say so!’ Lisette protested. ‘His standards of evidence should be higher. Perrine deserves a fair trial, however evil we might think she is. We might be wrong!’

  ‘You are right, miss,’ said the policeman. ‘And if everyone has finished with the breakfast buffet, I will now go upstairs and arrest young Perrine, so that we can proceed as quickly as possible to that fair trial that we all agree she should have.’

  As he left the room with Bascom and Sorrel Ingrey following behind him, Mrs Dodd called out, ‘I don’t agree she deserves a fair trial! I think she should be hung, drawn and quartered in front of a large audience.’

  ‘It’s “hanged”, you illiterate fool!’ said Mrs Butcher, and Mrs Dodd retaliated with an obscenity-strewn character assassination of Mrs Butcher. Mrs Butcher then did something that surprised everyone. She walked over to where Mrs Dodd was sitting, put her face right in front of Mrs Dodd’s and chanted defiantly, ‘You know what? You know what? You know what? I don’t care.’ (The rhythm was similar to when Eminem raps, ‘My name is … my name is … my name is … Slim Shady’.)

  All the aggression and swearing sent Mrs Sennitt-Sasse over the edge. She started to chant frantically, ‘Pas devant, pas devant, pas devant …’ as if she too were a white rapper. There was such a commotion going on that at first no one noticed when Sorrel, white-faced and shaking, reappeared in the drawing room. Bascom and the policeman followed close behind her.

  ‘Mum?’ said Allisande, rushing to her mother’s side. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Perrine,’ stammered Sorrel. ‘She’s … she’s not there! She isn’t in her room. She’s missing.’

  12

  ‘So, Mr Colley, to be sure I’ve got this right: you were woken by the sound of your dog barking excessively, and you judged the barking to be
coming from outside. You went to investigate, and found that a large hole had been dug in the lawn immediately in front of your house, and that your wife had fallen into it.’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Alex.

  Every morning has to start with a policeman. That’s the new law. Today it’s DC Euan Luce again, standing in the corner of the drawing room, holding his notebook at a forty-five-degree angle as if his ambition is to be a human lectern.

  Alex and Ellen got dressed, knowing he was coming. I’m still in pyjamas, robe and flip-flops, in accordance with my no-proper-clothes-before-lunchtime rule.

  I take a few deep breaths to quell the accelerating tide of rage that’s coursing through me. Luce has said ‘large hole’ several times and not ‘grave’, which is what I told him I’d fallen into.

  ‘And you didn’t see anyone?’ he asks Alex. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘No, but it was dark and I didn’t look. My only concern was pulling Justine out of that … pit, and calming Figgy down. He was going bananas.’

  ‘I slept through it,’ says Ellen.

  ‘It isn’t a pit or a hole,’ I say. ‘It’s a grave. She promised me three, remember? This is the first.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ says Luce. ‘The … recess you fell into isn’t coffin-shaped.’

  It’s like being hit in the face with a sock full of stupidity.

  ‘Are you serious? Have you never attended a funeral?’

  ‘Several.’

  ‘A burial?’

  Luce’s face stiffens.

  ‘No? Then take it from me, because I have. There’s only one coffin-shaped thing at a burial, and that’s the fucking coffin.’

  ‘Justine,’ Alex murmurs.

  ‘I’m sure DC Luce has heard worse, Alex. I’ll swear if I want to – and everyone else can try not to make me want to. How about that? A game for all the family!’

  ‘All right, point about shape of graves taken,’ says Luce.

  ‘What’s happening on the call-tracing front?’ I ask him.

  ‘It’s proved more difficult than we’d anticipated. Whoever’s behind the telephone harassment has taken steps to cover their tracks. Still, it’s not all disappointing news. The last call, you think, was the one to the landline that your husband answered, correct? And the caller ended it without speaking?’

  ‘Right,’ says Alex.

  ‘That’s good, then. That’s a move in the right direction, from verbal antagonism and direct threats to silence, from longer calls to a shorter one. Let’s hope hearing your voice will have put this woman off, Mr Colley.’

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Why the hell is Alex nodding along?

  ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘The woman – and let’s stop being coy and call her by her name: Anne Donbavand – has not been put off. That’s why she came round in the middle of the night and dug a grave in my garden! Does that sound like the action of a deterred person to you?’

  ‘I think DC Luce means that it’s possible the digger was someone else,’ says Alex. ‘In which case, the caller might have been scared away by getting me instead of you, at least for the time being.’

  ‘For God’s sake, do you honestly think two separate people are—’

  ‘Ms Merrison, did you say Anne Donbavand?’ Luce interrupts.

  ‘Yes. Don’t tell me you know her.’

  ‘Wife of Steve Donbavand?’

  I sigh. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know Steve very well. We’re part of a group that organises charity fun runs every so often to raise money for good causes. I doubt very much indeed that his wife – who’s a university professor – has ever vandalised anyone else’s property or made threatening phone calls. Steve’s one of the most likeable men I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Of course he is.’ I roll my eyes. ‘Every monster needs a weak, likeable sidekick to collude with them in their tyranny.’

  ‘Please put the idea of this caller being Anne Donbavand out of your mind,’ says DC Luce firmly. ‘Take it from me: it isn’t her.’

  ‘Why? Because you’re mates with her husband? Does she speak in the way I described to you last time? Almost a lisp, but not quite?’

  ‘I’ve exchanged no more than a couple of brief hellos with her, so I couldn’t tell you. It’s more likely the caller is someone you know, holding a grudge—’

  ‘Except I’ve told you she isn’t – remember?’

  Luce looks blankly at me.

  ‘I understand why you find it hard to believe,’ I say. ‘You’ve watched the same movies I have, where a threatening figure from someone’s past rings up and says, “It’s me.” The caller always knows a guilty secret about the heroine, don’t they? It doesn’t make for a good story to have the heroine say cheerfully, “Sorry, I’ve no idea who you are. Bye!”’

  I take a deep breath. ‘I don’t know my anonymous caller, but I think I know her name: Professor Anne Donbavand. No, I’m not one hundred per cent sure. You think I’m wrong, so how about a bet?’ I suggest. ‘Five grand.’

  ‘Justine, for Christ’s sake.’ Alex covers his face with his hands.

  ‘Shut up, Dad,’ says Ellen. ‘Five grand’s too much, though. A grand.’

  DC Luce glances at his watch. ‘We need to move this dialogue on,’ he says. ‘I have to be somewhere else ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Oh, sorry to keep you,’ I say. ‘Next time I’ll try to fall into an unmarked grave when you’ve got more free time.’

  ‘Are you going to investigate what happened here last night?’ Alex asks him. ‘I mean, grave or not, someone trespassed on our property last night and spent what must have been several hours digging up our lawn.’

  ‘I have to be honest with you, Mr Colley. We’ll look into it, of course, but at that time of night, dark, no one around – we’ll be lucky if we find anything.’

  ‘Improve your odds by looking in the Donbavands’ house. There’s probably a muddy shovel on the kitchen table. Not that you’d be swayed by that. She’s a professor, so even with a muddy shovel, she must be innocent!’

  ‘Your attitude doesn’t help,’ says DC Luce.

  ‘It helps me.’

  ‘If you’re worried, go and stay with a friend for a while, but in my opinion the risk to you isn’t as great as you imagine it to be.’

  ‘And Figgy’s silver disc? What about that?’ I snap. ‘Someone had that made who wasn’t us. That person attached it to his collar. Is that another example of the anonymous caller being put off?’

  ‘As I’ve just said: why not go away for a while?’

  ‘And then what? When could we come back?’

  If we leave, the harassment will stop, and the police will stop investigating it, assuming they ever started. However long we waited before coming back, the malicious campaign would start again as soon as we crossed the threshold of Speedwell House.

  No. No way am I going to let anyone drive me out of my home.

  ‘Are you going to question Anne and Stephen Donbavand?’ I ask Luce. ‘Will you carry on trying to trace the calls?’ I make sure not to look at him as I speak. I want him to know I’ve given up on him, that I’m asking only to highlight his inadequacy.

  ‘Yes to the latter. If you really want me to talk to Steve and his wife, I will, but—’

  ‘I do. Tell them I’m not prepared to put up with their antics indefinitely. I’m going to fight back, and they won’t like any of the things I do.’

  ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.’ Luce frowns. ‘Making threats is inadvisable, and that sounded like a threat.’

  ‘Did it? Good,’ I say. ‘Your job is to make sure the Donbavands believe I really mean it.’

  Ops, who has no idea that this is how I and my family refer to him, rings me on my mobile at noon. ‘Justine? That you? I can hardly hear you.’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘Shall I ring back when you’re somewhere less noisy?’

  ‘No, please …’ I can’t say Please talk to me now. It would sound too despera
te. ‘Wait, I’ll cross the road and get away from the beach noise.’

  I’m in Torquay with Figgy, on the promenade. I did some internet research and found a sensible-sounding website that said nothing bad would happen to a puppy taken for a walk before its second set of vaccinations as long as it didn’t come into direct contact with other dogs.

  I decided to believe it. I needed – need – to be in a crowded, busy place, not hidden from the rest of the world by a screen of trees so that no one would see if something happened to me. And Figgy’s safer here than at home.

  Alex and Ellen have gone to the cinema. They also didn’t want to stay at Speedwell House, staring out of the window at the grave in the lawn.

  We can’t go on like this. Can’t get into bed every night wondering if we’ll wake up to find a second grave in our garden, then a third. Ops has no idea how much I need his help. Please, please, let him give me something I can use.

  ‘Can you hear me better now?’ I ask, once I’m across the street and tucked into a shop doorway.

  ‘Yeah, a bit. I’m afraid I’m going to be awkward.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you what you’re expecting to hear.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I’m expecting.’ I close my eyes and cover my free ear with my hand. I don’t want to be distracted by the hundreds of faces and voices. Is Torquay always this busy? It’s like central London, except here people look annoying in a completely different way.

  If Ops has found something out that helps me – really helps – I’ll ignore the reply I had from Stephen Donbavand this morning saying he’d be happy to meet my economics-boffin alter ego. I won’t go and meet him under false pretences.

  ‘All right, first off the bat,’ Ops launches in. ‘No Bascom and Sorrel Ingrey, or their kids or grandkids. All those names you gave me, the whole family – not a trace of them. So unless they’ve successfully erased all evidence of their existence – unlikely if they aren’t in witness protection … and even when the police are involved in identity concealment – there are still trails you can follow, generally, if you know where to look. I’ve been in this business thirty years, and if you want my honest opinion? You’re looking for a family that doesn’t exist. Didn’t you say you found these Ingreys in a story? I think they’re fictional.’